CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FLOWER OF FLAME.
Ben Stubbs and Billy had stood straining their eyes after the _GoldenEagle_, when the air-craft flew from Plateau Camp, for as long as theycould detect against the dark sky, the darker shadow of its outline;then they turned to the camp-fire and Ben Stubbs, whistling loudly,almost defiantly, set about the task of getting supper. Both occupantsof the camp felt singularly disinclined for talk and it was not untilafter supper was finished and Ben’s pipe fairly going, that eitheruttered more than a few perfunctory words.
By that time the storm, into which the _Golden Eagle_ had soared on whatproved a fatal voyage, was upon them. It came with the same sharp puffof wind and far-off flash of lightning that had first alarmed the boys.
“I’m going to double-lash that tent,” remarked Ben Stubbs, briefly,after he had washed the tin plates. “This is goin’ to be a hummer and nomistake.”
As for Billy the apprehension he felt would not put itself into words.As the storm increased, though, and he helped Ben Stubbs to what the oldsailor called “double-gasket” the waterproof tent, his heart sank.
“If the boys could not make a landing?—What then?” It was an unbearablethought and, as often as it came to him, and, try as he would the youngreporter could not dispossess himself of it—there came with it apremonition of disaster. Though Ben didn’t mention it the same thoughtwas chasing itself through his mind. At last he could contain himself nolonger and remarked:
“Now, mate, all’s snugged down and ship-shape and I reckon we’d betterturn in and get what sleep we can,” he looked at the alarm-clock thathung on the tent pole.
“Eight bells,” he said, “I wonder how it’s going with them boys?” Thatwas all, but the note of anxiety in his voice showed that the hardenedold salt was as badly worried about what was transpiring on the _GoldenEagle_ as Billy himself.
“I guess they will be all right, don’t you, Ben?” anxiously asked Billy,quite willing to catch at even a straw of hope.
For answer Ben pulled the tent flap aside and looked out into the blacknight.
“Wall,” he replied slowly, after he had cast his eye up at the sky,which was ribboned with blue, serpent-like streaks of lightning,—“wall,I’ve seen dirtier nights; but not many. I don’t know much about airwessels;” he went on deliberately, “but my opinion, Mister Barnes, isthat this ain’t no kind of weather to be navigating on sea or land.”
Not a word more could Billy get out of him and he could find no comfortin what the old tar had said.
It was snug enough in the tent, with the lamp hung to the ridge-pole andBen’s pipe going, but outside the storm was evidently waxing in fury. Asthe thunder crashed and roared its echo was flung against the steepcliff—on the summit of which lay the Toltec treasure valley—with thenoise of a battery of heavy guns. It was deafening and to Billy, who hadnever before experienced a tropic thunderstorm, it was terrifying. Hesaid nothing, however, but sat nursing his knee on the edge of his cotwhile outside the uproar grew every minute more angry and menacing.
As for Ben Stubbs his conduct was singular. He sat, pipe in mouth, withhis head on one side, as though listening intently for something—forwhat Billy had no idea—and as Ben didn’t seem in a talkative mood hedidn’t ask him.
Suddenly there came a lull in the storm and the old sailor ran to theflap of the tent. Outside he threw himself on the ground, holding oneear close to it. He was up in a second and back in the tent.
Billy looked at him wonderingly. The grizzled veteran of the sea andmountain looked worried.
“What’s the matter, Ben?” demanded Billy, struck by the singular aspectof Ben’s countenance.
“Matter?” replied the sailor, “matter enough. This is only a Dutchman’shurricane to what’s in the wind. Listen! Do you hear that?”
He held up a finger to command attention.
Billy listened and to his ears there was borne, in a lull of the storm,a sound like the far-off whining of thousands of tortured animals. Itwas like nothing he had ever heard before.
Suddenly he jumped to his feet with an alarmed yell.
“There’s something under my cot!” he cried.
“It’s shaking it!” he shouted the next minute.
“There ain’t nothing under yer cot but the solid earth, mate,” repliedthe sailor gravely, “and it’s that what you feels a’ shaking. It’s theterremoto and it’s going to be a bad ’un.”
“The terremoto?”
“Yes; the earthquake,” was Ben’s reply.
“Now, mate,” went on Ben Stubbs gravely, “the main thing ter do in ercase like this, is ter keep yer head. Keep cool and we’ll come out allright.”
As he spoke there came a violent convulsion that almost threw Billy offhis feet,—at the same moment a terrific puff of wind ripped out the tentpegs in spite of all Ben’s “double-gasketing” and the two occupants ofit were struggling in its folds, while beneath them the earth shook andabove the sky seemed to open and pour out a dreadful flood of livingfire.
To Billy it seemed that his last hour had come. To make matters worsethe oil had spilled out of the lamp as the tent collapsed and caughtfire. The reporter, struggling desperately for release, realized thisand shouted aloud,—not from any good he thought it might do, but frommere instinct. He could actually—or so it seemed to him—feel the flamesat his legs when suddenly something ripped open the canvas thatenveloped his head, and he felt the blessed air.
It was Ben Stubbs’ knife that had saved him.
“Close call that, mate,” commented the imperturbable Ben, as if he hadjust warned his companion not to step in front of a street-car, orsomething like that.
There was no time to answer. There came a deafening crash of thunder andanother violent shaking of the earth. In the light of the blazing tent,which lit up the scene like a bonfire, they could see great treescrashing down and the forms of terrified wild animals rushing throughthem in a wild hope of escaping the fury of the earthquake and thestorm. None of the fleeing wild beasts seemed to have the slightest fearof the men or even to notice them. Terror of the aroused forces ofnature had overcome all their aversion to their human enemies.
“It’s a shame ter see all that good game going to waste,” was Ben’s onlycomment on the terrific scene that was taking place about them.
Billy looked at him in surprise. Was this man made of steel or iron? Heseemed as impassive as either. From his companion’s calm demeanor Billycaught renewed courage and thought to himself, with a sort of desperatepride:
“Well if he can stand it I can.”
“How long is this likely to last?” Billy asked in a trembling voice ofBen, as the earth fairly heaved under the convulsions that now seemed tobe rending its very crust.
“No telling, mate;” shouted Ben, with his mouth at Billy’s ear, “it maylast an hour or a day—or not more’n five minutes more. Holy Moses——!”
The abrupt exclamation was called forth by an extraordinary sight.
From the Treasure Cliff, as the boys had christened it—there suddenlyshot upward a tall pillar of flame, which died down again as abruptly. Asulphurous reek filled the air at the same moment.
Ben seized Billy by the arm with a grip that pained.
“Come on; run for your life—” he shouted—“the whole blame mountain’sgoing.”
“Where are we to go?” gasped Billy, who shrank from the idea of theforest; where trees were crashing down every minute.
“Come on, I tell you, don’t stop to ax questions,” shouted Ben plainlyexcited, and Billy knew,—even in the turmoil in which his feelings thenwere,—that the peril must be serious indeed that would excite thecool-headed ex-prospector.
“That’s only the beginning,” shouted Ben as they ran, “if we stay hereten minutes longer our lives won’t be worth an old chew of terbacey.”
As he spoke he fairly dragged Billy along with him. Their way lay downthe steep h
ill, and they stumbled and slipped, and fell down andscrambled up again like men fleeing from a remorseless enemy.
To Billy it all seemed like a hideous dream. Suddenly the whole scenewas illumined by a fresh out-gush of flame from the summit of thetreasure cliff. The amazing pillar of fire shot straight up for a heightof fully fifty feet and blossomed out, whitely, as its summit into theresemblance of a huge fiery chrysanthemum. Even in his terror Billycould not help admiring, awestricken, the awful, majestic beauty of thesight. It was plain enough now to him what had happened,—the earthquakehad opened up some hidden seam in the mountain, possibly that bottomlesspit of the White Snakes and this pillar of fire was gushing upward fromthe bowels of the earth.
Ben, far from being struck with the overpowering majesty of thespectacle, seemed to regard it merely as a fresh cause for apprehension.By this time they were stumbling along through the forest; but thebrilliant light of the volcanic flame behind them, made their way aslight as day. Right across their way lay a huge fallen tree with a trunkfully forty feet in diameter. Ben uttered a cry of joy as he saw it.
“Quick, Billy, in under it!” he exclaimed, at the same time dragging thereporter to the ground and fairly pushing him under the massive trunk,as if he were afraid Billy would not obey quickly enough.
There was a low growl as he did so and a spotted form slunk away. It wasa jaguar that had sought the same shelter as themselves; but such wasthe savage beast’s terror that it made no attempt to attack them andmerely crouched, with its ears back and lashing tail, gazing at themfrom the other end of the trunk. After a few minutes it slunk off intothe brightly illuminated jungle and they lost sight of it.
“That’s a wise beast,” remarked Ben, “purty near as wise as we are.Nothing like getting a roof over your head when there’s trouble of thekind that’s a comin’ around.”
As he spoke there was a tiny patter on the leaves all about them.
“Rain!” exclaimed Billy with some glee, recollecting the old New Englandidea that when rain breaks the worst of a thunderstorm is over.
“Rain,” scornfully snorted Ben, “it’s the kind of rain you couldn’t keepoff with an umbrella, son.”
Billy looked at him puzzled.
“It’s what you might call a rocky rain,” explained Ben. “Hark!”
The light patter that Billy had heard rapidly increased to a rattlingsound as if some giant were throwing gravel over the jungle. In a fewminutes huge stones began to fall all about them and the blazingmountain to emit a roar like a thousand blast furnaces.
“Now do you see why we got under this tree?” demanded Ben, as thestones, thrown up from the mouth of the blazing pit, fell all aboutthem, but, of course, did not harm them in their snug shelter.
Billy merely nodded, he was past speaking; but, with all his own alarm,and that was not a little, his mind still reverted to the boys. Couldthey ride out this awful night in safety?
How long they lay there, crouching low and listening to the terriblestony downpour about them Billy never knew, but it seemed a veritableeternity. From time to time wild beasts would creep under the sameshelter with them without taking any more notice of the two men than ifthey had been of their own kind. This in itself—so unnatural wasit—added to Billy’s alarm.
Suddenly, however, Ben uttered an exclamation.
“Don’t it appear to you, Billy, that she’s dying down at the top?” heasked, pointing to the great flowering pillar of flame. Billy looked,and for several minutes they both gazed at the volcanic blast furnace insilence. Then they uttered a glad cry.
There was no doubt about it,—the flame was dying down.
The incessant rain of stones too had ceased and the storm had resolveditself into frequent flashes and low growls of distant thunder. Billygave a whoop of joy.
“Don’t holler till yer out of the wood, mate,” admonished Ben, “and weain’t out of this yet, by a long shot.”
“But the worst is over, isn’t it?” asked Billy.
“Sure, the worst of the storm is; but we’ve got to get some place out ofhere, and there are two things we don’t want to run into,—one isRogero’s army and the other is Injuns.”
“That’s so,” assented Billy, “have you any plan?”
“Wall,” drawled Ben, “the source of the San Juan River ought to be rightaround to the south of here some place, and I figure that by travelingin that direction we are bound to hit it,—if nothing hits us in themeantime. Then we can get a canoe somehow, and drift down to Greytown.”
“You’re the doctor,” remarked Billy, whose cheerfulness was fastreturning.
A few hours later a dawn,—as soft and bright as if the events they hadpassed through had been a nightmare,—broke over the valley at theirfeet. It was hard for Billy to realize that the hours of horror they hadgone through had been real;—but the huge stones that lay all about andthe uprooted and lightning blasted trees that strewed the jungle gavebut too vivid evidence that it all had been real. Suddenly a thoughtstruck him.
The pillar of fire. It issued from the treasure cliff, and,—as nearly ashe could judge,—from a spot right above the White Serpent’s Abyss! Heturned to Ben with an anxious look on his face.
“Ben,” he said, “do you think that the passage is blocked?”
“What passage?” asked the practical Ben, who was looking over hisrevolver to make sure that it was in working order.
“Why _the_ passage—the passage to the Toltec mines.”
Ben whistled.
“Son,” he replied, “there ain’t no more chance of that there passagebeing there to-day than there is that this yer gun wouldn’t blow mybrains out if I pointed it at my head and pulled the trigger.”
This was bad news; as Billy knew that the boys had meant to come backwith a properly equipped expedition and make a thorough investigation ofthe Toltec Valley. He recollected too Ben Stubbs’ bar gold that wascached there.
“Why, Ben, you’ve lost a fortune if that’s true,” he exclaimedpetulantly, “and you don’t seem to worry over it? You’ve lost your bargold.”
“Hev I,” rejoined Ben in a quiet voice that made Billy’s cheeks crimson,“well, youngster, I’ve got my life and I’m thankful for one mercy at atime.”
After that there was no more talk from Billy of the lost treasure.
They struck out to the South at once and about noon, after passingthrough terrible evidences of the ravages of the storm, and theearthquake, reached the banks of a muddy stream that reeked of malariaand disease. Ben, after a brief period of reconnoitering, announced thatit was the San Juan River in his opinion, and that anyhow whateverwatercourse it was it would bring them to the coast. Luck was with themfor, after an hour or so of casting about, they found a rough nativecanoe drawn up on the bank. Not far from it, crushed beneath a mightytree that had fallen in the earthquake, lay the figure of the Indian towhom it had belonged.
“Poor fellow,” said Stubbs, “I guess he’s beyond minding if we do borrowhis property.”
A few minutes later they were on board the rough dug-out, which Benhandled as skilfully as a canoe, and on their way to the coast. Notbefore, however, Ben had cut two sticks of wood from a low growingumbrella tree, with his ever handy knife, and, lashing them togetherwith a bit of creeper, formed a rude cross,—which he placed in theground at the dead Indian’s head.
“Now that’s all ship-shape;” he exclaimed as after viewing his handiworkwith satisfaction he stepped cautiously into the cranky native craft andshoved off into the rapid current.