CHAPTER XIX.
THE BOYS ARE TRAPPED.
The numbing sense that comes with an overwhelming disaster tied thetongues of all three boys in this crisis. They stood stupidly gazing atthe chain which formed their only hope of escape. It dangledtantalizingly just out of reach, even if it would not have meant deathin the white snakes’ coils to have attempted to reach it.
White-faced and despairing, they stood there in their tracks for severalminutes. Was this to be the end? Were they to die here in these unknownunderground passageways? It was a situation to turn to ice-water theblood of the strongest, most determined man. No wonder that in the faceof this greatest crisis of their lives the three boys were strickentongue-tied with horror and apprehension.
It was Frank who spoke at last. His voice assumed a desperatecheerfulness he was in reality far from feeling.
“Come on, boys,” he cried, “cheer up. While there’s life there’s hope.As we can’t turn back now the only thing for us to do is to push on aslong as we have strength to do so.”
“I suppose so,” miserably replied Harry, “I wish to goodness I’d neverthrown that rock at the quesal’s eye,” he added in a sort of comicdespair.
Under Frank’s confident manner, however, their spirits rallied a littleand, extinguishing all the candles but one,—that carried by Frank,—theypushed on after him down the new tunnel that lay in front of them. Totheir surprise this took a heavy upward slant, and then abruptly doubledback toward the direction they had already traversed. This fact kindleda spark of hope in Frank’s heart which he did not dare to communicate tothe other boys, however, for fear of having later to dash the newlyawakened hopes.
It seemed reasonable to suppose that if the passage led upward it wouldat least be likely to bring them out into daylight and fresh air, andthese two things meant much to the boys, who were as much exhausted bythe bad atmosphere and depressing surroundings of the darkness as byfatigue and the terrible shock they had just undergone.
So Frank, with a stouter heart, plodded steadily along up the path whichstill rose steeply in front of them. He looked at his compass and foundthat they were now traveling almost due east or in an exactly oppositedirection to that they had taken when they entered the tunnel. A wildidea flashed across Frank’s mind at this discovery that served tofurther cheer him. Might it not be possible that the path led straightthrough the mountain? He looked at his watch. It was not yet twelve.They had then been traveling about six hours. Of the exact speed oftheir progress of course he could make no estimate, but he judged thatthey had made on an average a little over a mile and a half an hour,allowing for delays. It was possible, too, that the passage had takenwindings and deviations which in the darkness they had not perceived.
Suddenly something occurred that brightened the lagging spirits of evenHarry and Billy. All three of the boys felt distinctly a cool refreshingdraught of air. At first none of them dared to speak of it, for the samereason that Frank had not wanted to express his theory that they werebound through the mountain; but, after a few minutes, the firstrefreshing draught became a strong steady breeze.
“Hurray,” broke from the throats of all three, a poor cracked cheer itwas from their exhausted frames—but it was a cheer; and after that theypressed on with more vigor and cheerfulness. Another ten minutes’ marchand a soft greenish light began to flood the tunnel. Still further on itgrew light enough to extinguish the candles. Their hearts beating withthe hope of speedy escape from the horrors of the underground passage,the little band pressed briskly forward.
Their spirits were due to receive an abrupt check, however. As theypushed hurriedly on the passage made an abrupt turn and they saw at oncefrom whence the light that had gladdened their hearts had proceeded. Itstreamed down from the opening of an abandoned shaft that led up aboutthirty feet to a round top fringed with hanging creepers and tropicalgrowth. The circular top of the shaft revealed to the boys’ eyes a roundstrip of blue sky.
And that was the bitter end of their high hopes of escape from thetunnel.
With fresh despair lying heavy on them the boys examined the walls ofthe shaft to see if there were not some steps cut there or mountingrounds driven by those who must once have used it, but in whatevermanner the ancient Toltecs got in and out of their passage from whateversort of territory lay at the top of the shaft, they had left no trace ofit. The walls were as smooth as a sheet of paper.
“Well,” exclaimed Frank, after the examination was concluded, “we havebeen in some tight places; but I don’t think we were ever in a neaterfix than this seems to be.”
“There’s one chance,” cried Harry, “and only one—it’s just possible thatthere may be people, civilized people——”
“Or Indians,” put in Billy, “what difference does it make who or whatthey are——”
“As I was about to say,” went on Harry, not noticing the half hystericalinterruption of the overwrought boy, “it’s just possible that if thereis anyone in the neighborhood of the top of this shaft that we might beable to attract their attention by shouting.”
“A good idea, Harry,” replied Frank. It was at once put into execution.The boys shouted at the pitch of their tired voices for a good hour andthen desisted from sheer inability to produce another sound. There wasno result. Once a bird hopped onto a creeper at the mouth of the shaftand peeped inquisitively down, but that was the only fruit of theirefforts. The boys looked blankly at each other. They were three as bravelads as ever stood together facing hardship and adventure, but who shallblame Billy Barnes if tears did well up in his eyes and topple over, andtrickle down his cheeks as, his head in his hands, he sank despairinglyon the rock floor at the bottom of the shaft?
The bright blue sky above, the cheerful green of the waving creepers andplants that fringed the mouth of their prison all combined to make theirdisappointment harder to bear. Each boy felt that if death was to comeit would be easier almost to face it in the dark tunnel they had leftbehind them than here, almost within grasp of life and all they heldmost dear.
“We’d better take an inventory,” remarked the practical Frank at length,“and see just how long we can last out. When we reach the end we’ve gotone desperate chance——”
His listeners looked up from their despairing attitudes inquiringly.
“We can retrace our steps and try to leap the chasm.”
“A twelve foot jump at least,” exclaimed Harry.
“You’ve done better than that at home many times,” rejoined Frankbravely, “and so have I, and so has Billy, I’ll bet.”
“It’s one thing to do a broad jump at school on the flat ground andanother to try it over a chasm full of white serpents,” moaned Harry.
The inventory taken, the boys found that they had the following articleson which to sustain life till they were rescued or till death claimedthem—the latter seeming the inevitable contingency.
Three canteens of water—minus about a pint each drunk on the journey.
Four packages each of soup tablets and erbe wurst.
A pocketful apiece of pilot bread.
And that was all. To make matters worse the soup tablets needed water tomake them edible and although the boys had an aluminum saucepan withthem they realized that in a pinch it is more easy to subsist withoutfood than without water. Their supply of water—the chiefconsideration—was lamentably small for the situation.
“Maybe we could eat the tablets dry and let them dissolve in ourmouths,” suggested Billy, “I’m so ravenously hungry that I’ve got to eatsomething.”
The idea was hailed as a good one and the boys made a meal at about 2.30that afternoon off dry soup tablets—two apiece—and one-half round eachof their precious pilot bread.
“Tastes like soap more than soup to me,” remarked Billy with a wry face,and then suddenly stopped short, the boy had forgotten for a moment thatthe “soap” might stand between them and starvation. But the soapyqualities of the tab
lets were not their worst property. The enterprisingmanufacturers who made them had seasoned them liberally with salt andpepper, also presumably in compressed form, with the result that half anhour after their meal had concluded the boys were seized with furiouspangs of thirst.
They held out as long as they could, knowing the importance ofhusbanding their water supply, but at last their sufferings became sounbearable that Billy seized his canteen with the remark:
“If I am to die I’m not going to deny myself a drink of water;” anddrained a quarter of its contents at one gulp almost. Frank and Harryboth possessed plenty of self-control, but the sight of Billy’sassuagement of his thirst was more than they could bear, andsimultaneously each of them seized his canteen and throwing back hishead let the grateful stream trickle down their parched throats.
“I could hear it sizzle,” exclaimed Harry, putting his canteen asidewith a sigh of satisfaction.
That night the boys bravely fought off all temptation to touch any moreof their precious water, but when the sun got up and the parching heatof the day penetrated even into the shaft they could bear it no longer.They took their canteens and drank and when they set them down fromtheir lips they contained only a few drops each. As for food they stillhad some left, but they scarcely dared to eat it fearing to increase themaddening torture of thirst. As the day wore on they sat round thebottom of the shaft in a sort of hopeless apathy.
Their tongues were swollen till they could hardly speak, their eyes werecaked with dust and red-rimmed, their lips blackened and parched bytheir sufferings. They were indeed a different looking group to the trimChester Exploration Expedition that had set out so light-heartedly theday before. From time to time they fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustionfrom which they awakened unrefreshed. Strange visions of cool flashingbrooks, green orchards and crystal lakes shot through their minds. Thefirst stages of the delirium that precedes death by hunger and thirstwere upon them and they realized it. Long before night came and thecoolness relieved their sufferings to a slight extent they had emptiedthe last drops of water in their canteens. They had even resorted to theexpedient of staggering back along the tunnel, to where the walls beganto grow damp, and licking off the grateful moisture with their tongues.Infinitesimal as the relief was, still it furnished some alleviation oftheir sufferings.
At daybreak the next day, Harry and Billy were comatose. They lay withtheir eyes closed at the bottom of the shaft uncaring of their fate.This is the merciful anodyne that nature sometimes brings to those shedooms to die in the cruelest way imaginable. Frank alone held outagainst the deadly torpor he felt creeping over him.
“While there’s life there’s hope,” he kept whispering through hiscracked lips, but he knew that in his heart hope had died and there wasnothing to wait for but death.
An idea suddenly struck him. Perhaps some day, long after they weredead, somebody would stumble on them. He would leave a record of theirnames and how they met their fate. Feverishly, with half palsied hands,he searched through his pockets for a pencil and a scrap of paper. Hedrew out a handful of odds and ends from his pocket, and sorted throughthem for a stub of pencil. As he did so his waterproof matchbox fellfrom the collection and rolled slowly to his feet. He gazed at itstupidly. The idea flashed into his mind, that they would give a lot offire now for water and here was the means of fire so carefully protectedagainst the element that would give them life. He laughed mirthlessly,but suddenly staggered to his feet, a last hope animating him—
“Fire!”
Across the boy’s reeling brain there shot an idea, as he stared at thematchbox.
If a column of smoke were seen from the shaft mouth it might bring aid.What a fool he was not to have thought of that before. Hastily he torehis shirt into strips and with his blackened, blood-stained handsscraped together some litter that had fallen from the brush above intothe shaft.
With trembling hands he lighted it. It caught and blazed brightly up,too brightly in fact. Frank saw that there would have to be more smoke,if his beacon was to be visible. He crawled over to where Harry andBilly lay and ripped their shirts from their backs. The two boys lookedat him stupidly, but neither spoke—they were too far gone for that.
As Frank piled the heavy material he had acquired on the blaze, a columnof thick blue smoke rolled heavenward out of the shaft mouth. It wastheir last chance. Nerved by this new kindled hope, Frank gazed at thefire with his rapidly, dimming eyes till it died out into a pile of grayashes.
Would there be an answer?
How long he sat there Frank never knew. It was long after the ashes hadgrown cold, however. With a last flicker of consciousness he looked athis watch. Four o’clock. What were they doing at home in New York, whatwere they thinking at the hacienda? he wondered vaguely.
It was hard to die like this, with the blue sky so near. He gazed up atthe shaft mouth as if to take a last farewell of the outer world.
The next minute the exhausted boy leaped to his feet and instantly fellback swooning with a loud cry of joy. Their signal had been seen.
Peering over the top of the shaft, was a wild, brown face fringed withlong matted hair and beard, but the eyes were kindly and Frank had readtheir message of rescue.