Francis hesitated.
“What is happening to Leoncia?” Torres demanded slyly. “I saw her run back. May she not be in danger by herself?”
Letting Torres live and dragging the old man by the arm, Francis waded back to the chamber of the idols, followed by Torres. Here, at sight of him, Leoncia screamed her horror again.
“It’s only Torres,” Francis reassured her. “He gave me a devil of a fright myself when I first saw him. But he’s real flesh. He’ll bleed if a knife is stuck into him.—Come, old man! We don’t want to drown here like rats in a trap. This is not all of the Maya mysteries. Read the tale of the knots and get us out of this!”
“The way is not out but in,” the priest quavered.
“And we’re not particular so long as we get away. But how can we get in?”
“From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl,” was the answer.
Francis was struck by a sudden grotesque and terrible thought.
“Torres,” he said, “there is a key or something inside that stone lady’s mouth there. You’re the nearest. Stick your hand in and get it.”
Leoncia gasped with horror as she divined Francis’ vengeance. Of this Torres took no notice, and gaily waded toward the goddess, saying: “Only too glad to be of service.”
And then Francis’ sense of fair play betrayed him.
“Stop!” he commanded harshly, himself wading to the idol’s side.
And Torres, at first looking on in puzzlement, saw what he had escaped. Several times Francis fired his pistol into the stone mouth, while the old priest moaned “Sacrilege!” Next, wrapping his coat around his arm and hand, he groped into the mouth and pulled out the wounded viper by the tail. With quick swings in the air he beat its head to a jelly against the goddess’ side.
Wrapping his hand and arm against the possibility of a second snake, Francis thrust his hand into the mouth and drew forth a piece of worked gold of the shape and size of the hole in Hzatzl’s ear. The old man pointed to the ear, and Francis inserted the key.
“Like a nickle-in-the-slot machine,” he remarked, as the key disappeared from sight. “Now what’s going to happen? Let’s watch for the water to drain suddenly away.”
But the great stream continued to spout unabated out of the hole. With an exclamation, Torres pointed to the wall, an apparently solid portion of which was slowly rising.
“The way out,” said Torres.
“In, as the old man said,” Francis corrected. “Well, anyway, let’s start.”
All were through and well along the narrow passage beyond, when the old Maya, crying, “My son!” turned and ran back.
The section of wall was already descending into its original place, and the priest had to crouch low in order to pass it. A moment later, it stopped in its old position. So accurately was it contrived and fitted that it immediately shut off the stream of water which had been flowing out of the idol room.
Outside, save for a small river of water that flowed out of the base of the cliff, there were no signs of what was vexing the interior of the mountain. Henry and Ricardo, arriving, noted the stream, and Henry observed:
“That’s something new. There wasn’t any stream of water here when I left.”
A minute later he was saying, as he looked at a fresh slide of rock: “This was the entrance to the cave. Now there is no entrance. I wonder where the others are.”
As if in answer, out of the mountain, borne by the spouting stream, shot the body of a man. Henry and Ricardo pounced upon it and dragged it clear. Recognizing it for the priest, Henry laid him face downward, squatted astride of him, and proceeded to give him the first aid for the drowned.
Not for ten minutes did the old man betray signs of life, and not until after another ten minutes did he open his eyes and look wildly about.
“Where are they?” Henry asked.
The old priest muttered in Maya, until Henry shook more thorough consciousness into him.
“Gone——all gone,” he gasped in Spanish.
“Who?” Henry demanded, shook memory into the resuscitated one, and demanded again.
“My son; Chia slew him. Chia slew my son, as she slew them all.”
“Who are the rest?”
Followed more shakings and repetitions of the question.
“The rich young Gringo who befriended my son, the enemy of the rich young Gringo whom men call Torres, and the young woman of the Solanos who was the cause of all that happened. I warned you. She should not have come. Women are always a curse in the affairs of men. By her presence, Chia, who is likewise a woman, was made angry. The tongue of Chia is a viperine. By her tongue Chia struck and slew my son, and the mountain vomited the ocean upon us there in the heart of the mountain, and all are dead, slain by Chia. Woe is me! I have angered the gods. Woe is me! Woe is me! And woe upon all who would seek the sacred treasure to filch it from the gods of Maya!”
CHAPTER XVI
Midway between the out-bursting stream of water and the rock-slide, Henry and Ricardo stood in hurried debate. Beside them, crouched on the ground, moaned and prayed the last priest of the Mayas. From him, by numerous shakings that served to clear his addled old head, Henry had managed to extract a rather vague account of what had occurred inside the mountain.
“Only his son was bitten and fell into that hole,” Henry reasoned hopefully.
“That’s right,” Ricardo concurred. “He never saw any damage, beyond a wetting, happen to the rest of them.”
“And they may be, right now, high up above the floor in some chamber,” Henry went on. “Now, if we could attack the slide, we might open up the cave and drain the water off. If they’re alive they can last for many days, for lack of water is what kills quickly, and they’ve certainly more water than they know what to do with. They can get along without food for a long time. But what gets me is how Torres got inside with them.”
“Wonder if he wasn’t responsible for that attack of the Caroos upon us,” Ricardo suggested.
But Henry scouted the idea.
