The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents

“How, my bright young reporter,” cried Frank, “did you ever, when you were at school, swing over a ditch on a rope?”

“Lots of times,” replied Billy wonderingly; “but – ”

“That’s what we are going to do here – that is, if the chain is not too weak from age to bear us,” replied Frank.

“Do you really mean that?” demanded Harry.

“I certainly do,” rejoined Frank.

“Listen!” suddenly cried Billy, “did you fellows hear something?”

They all three paused and listened intently.

From far down in the dark pit that gaped at their feet there came a sound that seemed like a long drawn-out sigh.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RAVINE OF THE WHITE SNAKES

The sound was not repeated; but, perhaps it was because the long spell in the darkness had got on their nerves, or possibly there was some sort of uncanny influence in the air of the long deserted place; but on at least two of the party, namely Harry and Billy, the chasm had a most depressing effect. Not so with Frank. Difficulties only increased his determination to conquer them.

“Come,” said the boy leader briskly, “if we are going to jump out of our skins and get nervous at every noise we hear we won’t get very far with our exploration. Probably there is a subterranean stream at the bottom of that pit. I have often read of underground rivers.”

“It’s funny we didn’t hear the stones splash then,” objected Billy; but to himself.

The chain, which was very heavy and solid, was looped to the wall by a hook, as if the last person who had used it had carefully adjusted it in place before leaving.

“Now for a test,” cried Frank, detaching it and dragging it back a few feet from the edge of the chasm. Under his direction all three boys seized hold of it and pulled and tugged with all their might. Their united efforts and weights had no effect on it. The chain was as solid as the day it was put there by a forgotten race centuries before.

“I will go first,” announced Frank, when the boys had completed their test of the chain and there seemed no reason to doubt it was perfectly capable of bearing their united weight.

There was some protest from Harry at the idea of his brother risking his life in making the first practical test of the chain. Frank however ridiculed his fears.

“There’s absolutely no danger,” he exclaimed, “if there were I would be the last person on earth to tackle it needlessly. We have come this far and I simply won’t give the search up just now for a little swing across a space which, if we didn’t know how deep it was, would seem like a joke. Besides, think of the thousands that must have used this chain bridge safely in the dead ages.”

His arguments carried weight and finally Harry and Billy consented to let him be the first to cross. Billy claimed the right to come last as he was the lightest.

Frank extinguished his candle after admonishing the boys to hold theirs high so that he would be able to see to make a fair landing on the further side. This done he gripped the chain firmly, ran back a few steps and then, with his foot in the lower link, swung easily across the chasm and alighted on the other side with as little effort as a man swinging on a trapeze.

“Easy as falling off a log!” he cried from the ledge opposite on which he now stood. “Come on, Harry, it’s your turn.”

Harry made the swing as successfully as had his brother and the chain was now swung back to Billy. The reporter was frankly nervous and a repetition of the long sigh that they heard from the chasm some minutes before didn’t tend to make him less so.

“It sounds like something or somebody waking up from a long sleep,” he shuddered.

The young reporter could not have described the sound better if he had cast about for a definition of the emanation from the ravine for an hour. That was exactly what the noise did sound like. The first sigh of somebody, “or something,” as Billy said, stretching himself as his eyes open after a long deep slumber.

“Come on, Billy, don’t be all night,” shouted Frank, as the young reporter hesitated and fumbled with the chain that Harry had swung back to him.

“Well, I suppose I’ve got to do it sometime, and it might as well be now,” decided Billy suddenly, making up his mind like a boy about to plunge into his cold tub on a winter morning. As he spoke he gave the necessary run back to gain impetus and started on the swing.

Frank and Harry, standing on the opposite ledge, ready to catch him as he landed, heard the boy scream in mortal terror as he shot over the center of the black gulf.

“Frank! Harry! Save me!” he shrieked.

At the same moment before the boys’ horrified eyes a long, wicked white head, with sightless slits for eyes, shot up out of the black mouth of the pit and darted at Billy.

As it did so Frank’s revolver spat out its whole magazine of ten high-powered cartridges. Harry, his arms about Billy, who would otherwise certainly have toppled back into the abyss in his terror, saw the wicked wedge-shaped head vanish instantly as the bullets hummed about it like a loosened hive of bees.

There came upward from the noisome pit a sound of dry scraping, something like the rustle of silk on some rough surface, and the boys’ nostrils were filled with an indescribable odor, something like musk, that was familiar to at least two of them.

“Snakes,” cried Frank and Harry simultaneously.

“A snake,” corrected Frank, shuddering at the recollection of the loathsome white head and the dry scraping sound that had followed its disappearance, “a giant snake that has lain torpid here for who knows how long.”

“But a white snake,” objected Harry. As for Billy, he was not yet sufficiently recovered from his terror to say anything but leaned ashy and sickened against the rock wall.

“Most probably a boa constrictor or an anaconda,” replied Frank, “that from its long years of life in the dark has lost its pigmentary attributes. A plant, you know, kept in the dark will become white and animals that have been discovered in other caves have also been albinos. This snake, as I figure it out, is one of the descendants of a possibly vast number kept here by the Toltecs to guard their mines from would-be invaders. I can think of no other solution, unless it had something to do with their mystical religion.”

“A mighty good thing you were so handy with your revolver,” cried Harry, “eh, Billy?”

“Don’t,” remonstrated the young reporter in a shaken voice, “I can feel the awful sensation yet. I could almost feel its cold coils about me.”

Far down in the pit there came again that scraping sound, like silk drawn over a rough surface. This time all the boys exchanged glances of horror and antipathy.

“Bah!” exclaimed Frank, “think of the horror of falling into that pit into possibly a mass of those creatures.”

“I have it,” cried Harry suddenly, “they must – supposing there are several of them – have been lying torpid. I suppose it was our shower of stones, Frank, that aroused them.”

“I think that is entirely likely,” replied Frank, “but, say, boys, look at this,” he held his candle up to a mass of carvings on the wall. They represented men in the grasp of serpents with birds’ heads and other unfortunates having their lives trampled out by huge quesals. One row of drawings like an Egyptian frieze actually showed a man, presumably, from the fact that he wore only a loin cloth, a slave, being dragged from a chain, which was evidently the one by which they had just crossed, by a huge serpent.

Gazing upon the sacrifice was a group of bearded men in tall cone-shaped hats.

“Priests,” said Frank, “but see here, boys,” he pointed excitedly to a row of dancing quesals below the hieroglyphics they had just examined. The boys gazed and their eyes grew round.

The single eye of each of the ridiculously solemn birds, who were shown in profile, each with one leg drawn up in exactly the same manner as if they were executing a solemn dance of some kind, was formed of a blazing red stone. In the gleaming glow of the boys’ candles they flashed fire like the orb of the living bird.

“Rubies,” cried Harry.

“I certainly believe that they are,” replied Frank, taking out his pocket axe and hacking at the rock surrounding one of the blazing crimson stones.

“Why, they must be worth $5,000 a piece,” gasped Billy.

“Say $10,000 and you’ll be nearer the truth,” replied Frank, as his efforts with the axe met success and one of the fiery, beaming stones dropped into his hand, “feel the weight of it.”

There were ten of the dancing quesals, and the ruby in the eyes of each was of exactly the same size. One by one the boys prised them out and then gazed wonderingly at them.

“Why, that’s $100,000,” gasped Harry.