Part 13

"I won't take your old pills," was the spirited reply. "They nearly did for poor Mr. Andrew. I think they may kill him yet. There is nothing the matter with me. I want to get out of this cave--and I'm going to this very minute."

Never in the annals of her long career as housekeeper and self-effacing lady's companion had Mrs. Quayle been known to give way to such open defiance of any one belonging to the opposite sex. And, as if to show that she meant every word she said, she brushed past the astonished doctor and strode ahead of the others along the path leading down the corridor. To no one was her behavior more astonishing than to Leighton, in whom the reserve of the scientist was sorely strained by this sudden show of daring from a creature whose timidity was proverbial. As leader of the expedition, and obeying also the skeptical bent of his nature, the savant felt that his own dignity was involved.

"Mrs. Quayle is perfectly right," he announced coolly; "we must lose no more time in these trifles. What if her jewelry does show a disposition to dance? A woman's jewelry is always ridiculous--and Mrs. Quayle's has always been a puzzle besides."

But the rest of the party soon found that Mrs. Quayle was not an easy leader to follow. Where before she kept them back by her ineffectual efforts to get over the various obstacles encountered in their explorations, and had needed their help at almost every step, she now set them a pace that atoned for her former lagging. Whether this amazing activity was due to a sudden attack of fever, as Doctor Miranda maintained, or whether it came from a frantic desire to escape from a region that filled her with superstitious terrors, Mrs. Quayle showed no sign of giving up what she proposed to do, whatever that might be. On the contrary, as the far end of the corridor grew more distinct she sped along faster than ever. Her rebellious jewelry fluttered and twitched and danced more vigorously, until it fairly stood out before her, straining and pulling her along, breathless and hysterical, as if drawn by some irresistible force.

"I can't stop it! I can't stop it!" she gasped.

To which Miranda, puffing along in her wake, replied with dramatic emphasis: "This little woman must be stop!"

But this was not easy, even for a doctor with unlimited experience in quinine. The smooth, tapering surfaces of the stalactites, standing on guard in long rows down one side of the corridor, glinted derisively as the explorers rushed past them frantically trying to curb the frenzy that had seized this perfectly harmless woman who was now leading them on to a goal that might have all kinds of disaster in store for them. As they drew nearer the end of the corridor, the expected opening that was to deliver them from their subterranean prison was not visible, at least to the hasty glance that could be spared from the absorbing pursuit of Mrs. Quayle. Nevertheless, the awkward rapidity with which they were hurrying on to their fate was to be rewarded, apparently, by the discovery of something that was different, at any rate, from the wilderness of rocks that hitherto had baffled them in this gloomy underworld--and it was not General Herran's mountain of gold and emeralds, either.

Something made by man, and not by nature, was here. This was unmistakably revealed in an odd sort of structure towards which they were hurrying. At last they were confronted, they believed, by the clew to the mysterious beings who inhabited the place, whose presence had been indicated by the footprints, by the man in the toga, seen, or imagined, by Andrew, and vaguely suggested by the weird disappearance of the entrance to the tunnel through which they had hoped to make their escape. Here all these things that had filled them with alternate anxiety and curiosity were to be explained. Unfortunately, Mrs. Quayle's impatience to get on gave them no opportunity to reconnoitre, at a safe distance, the object they were approaching. Leighton especially, accustomed to the careful methods of science, would have preferred a more deliberate and cautious mode of travel to the brainless hurry into which his housekeeper had plunged them. As it was, the object looming before them, so far as they could snatch time to make it out, resembled a huge stone windlass. Even the cylindrical drum and the long curved handle hanging at the side of one of the tall uprights were of stone. Certainly, a windlass like this--if it was a windlass--had never been seen before. It could not be the work of modern times--it was much too clumsy for that. And of stone! Perhaps it belonged to the Stone Age. It was conceivable--and the notion stirred the depths of the savant's soul with delight--that here, in this subterranean chamber of the Andes, they were about to stumble upon an archæological find that would revolutionize the current theories as to primitive man and his development. But--was it a windlass? The two uprights carrying the long horizontal drum at the top, instead of in the middle, were some ten or fifteen feet high. With such an abnormal height, and such singular construction, the THING might be intended to serve as a gallows quite as reasonably as a windlass. Whoever would have believed that they had the gallows in the Stone Age! There, sure enough, was the rope dangling most suggestively from the crosspiece--or drum, whichever it might be. But then, a rope was the conventional adornment, whether for gallows or windlass. As they came within fifty yards of it, the THING looked unquestionably more and more like a gallows, less like a windlass. It stood within ten feet of the wall, through a long, wide aperture in which one end of the rope disappeared. The other end, attached to what appeared to be a great oblong stone, lay coiled upon the ground.

Not until she had almost reached it did Mrs. Quayle realize the oddity of the structure towards which she had been racing. Then its resemblance to a gallows suddenly flashed upon her. With a gurgle of horror she threw herself upon the ground, unable, apparently, so long as she remained upon her feet, to contend against the invisible influence that forced her to run fairly into the arms of this terrifying object. Prostrate between two rocks lying across the path, her wild flight came to an end. Here her companions gathered around her--Miranda, puffing and panting from his exertions, determined to allay the violent attack of fever that he still believed was the cause of the lady's unaccountable paroxysms; Leighton, torn between the psychological interest of the case and the archæological puzzle awaiting solution; Andrew, his huge hands waving about in helpless dismay, muttering incoherent advice to any one who would listen, and Una, anxious to soothe an agitation that, she conceived, was due merely to a case of nerves.

"She will be all right--soon she will be all right," declared Miranda, intent on his professional duties as he knelt on the ground beside Mrs. Quayle. With which comforting assurance he seized one of her hands, and with his other hand tried to force open her mouth.

"I am all right," she shrieked, tearing herself out of his clutches. "There's nothing the matter with me. Something is pulling me to that terrible thing over there. It seems to be my jewelry. My necklace is cutting my head off. This brooch!--oh! it's awful! What shall I do? What is the matter?"

"It is very simple," declared Leighton sternly. "Take off your jewelry if it bothers you. I don't see why you should be wearing it, anyway."

Mrs. Quayle clutched wildly at her necklace and brooch, loath to part with them and evidently regarding the people gathered around her as little better than a lot of brigands who had lured her here to rob her of her treasures. Every one else heartily agreed with Leighton's proposal.

"Caramba! That is true!" shouted Miranda delightedly. "This necklace, it choke her too much. I take him off of her."

Before Mrs. Quayle could protest further, Miranda seized her by the throat, hauling at the massive necklace in an effort to find the clasp that held it in place. The task proved difficult and promised to develop features that savored more of surgery than anything else. The trouble was not so much from the defensive tactics employed by Mrs. Quayle--who contrived to elude Miranda's grasp with surprising agility--as it was with the necklace itself. Never was a simple piece of jewelry more rebellious. It slipped through the doctor's fingers and jumped about and tugged at its victim's neck in the most baffling and erratic manner. But Miranda, growing more eager and determined, triumphed at last. Holding the snakelike coil in both hands as in an iron vise, he tore the chain apart with a masterly jerk.

And then an odd thing happened. Bounding to his feet, elated with his success, and holding the necklace towards his companions as if it were a hard-won trophy, Miranda suddenly spun around like a top, his arms shot straight out in front of him, and in this posture, before any one knew what he was about, he fairly raced towards the ominous apparatus at the end of the corridor and hurled himself on the oblong stone beneath it.

XIV

THE BLACK MAGNET

For once Doctor Miranda had nothing to say. To the eager queries of those about him he returned a grimace and a scowl of rage. Then he asked savagely for Mrs. Quayle.

"There is her neckalace," he said indignantly, letting go his hold on that extraordinary piece of jewelry and scrambling to his feet with as much dignity as was left to him.

"Will you tell me what all this means?" demanded Leighton sternly.

"How I know?" retorted Miranda, glaring venomously at him. "I pull the neckalace from the neck, and it fly from me. When I follow, it fly more fast--and it get stronger and it fly harder every time until it touch the rock. Then it stop and not come loose."

Sure enough, on the greenish-black rock over which they were bending, the necklace was spread out to its full length. With a quick jerk, Leighton dislodged one of the ends from its resting place. Letting it go, it returned to its original position with the sharp snap of a steel spring.

"A magnet! The most amazing magnet ever heard of!" exclaimed Leighton.

"A magnet that pull gold!" scoffed Miranda. "That is the foolishness!"

But Leighton was right. Each time the necklace was pulled away it was drawn back to the rock by a strong, invisible force. Repeated trials brought the same result. Leighton's curiosity was excited as it had never been before; but his most careful examination of the strange phenomenon failed to detect anything more than the fact that the substance exerting this unknown force was not stone but something more nearly akin to metal. It was neither so heavy nor so hard as iron. To the touch its surface faintly resembled the adhesive softness of velvet, although a blow from a stone, causing a clear, ringing sound, left not the slightest mark upon it. In the main, this block of metal--or whatever it might be called--was a deep black, tinged with a variegated shade of green that played over it according to the angle at which the ray from a light held above it was reflected. Dark lines of green followed the indentations traversing its surface. Cylindrical in shape, it weighed, according to Leighton's estimate, at least a ton. Imbedded in a deep groove around its center was a rope, measuring two inches in diameter, of pliable fiber, resembling the long lianas that festoon the trees of a tropical forest. This rope lay in a seamanlike coil on the ground, with the further end attached to the transverse beam of the scaffolding overhead.

"It is a magnet, nothing else," reiterated Leighton; "a magnet of a kind utterly unknown to science. All we can say is that this black metal has an affinity for gold--unless it turns out that Mrs. Quayle's jewelry is merely iron gilded over."

This doubt as to the genuineness of the housekeeper's treasures was promptly denied, however, by Una, who guaranteed their sterling quality.

"Let us test the rest of her jewelry," proposed Leighton.

To this further demand on her property Mrs. Quayle, wedged in between two rocks on the path where they had left her, too terrified to move, offered only a feeble protest. It mattered little to her, in her present condition, if her bracelets and brooch followed the necklace to their doom. One by one they were, accordingly, removed by Una, who, probably because she was less excitable than Miranda--and because, too, she had profited by his untoward experience in the same undertaking--was able to handle these pieces of jewelry without mishap. The force with which they were pulled towards the Black Magnet, however, and the tenacity with which they stuck to it, gave ample evidence that they answered to the same influence that still held the necklace.

"That is enough," said Leighton triumphantly. "The thing is proved. This is a gold magnet. If we lived in the Middle Ages we would call it the Philosopher's Stone. The theory that such a substance exists has attracted scientists who were more given to dreaming than practical observation. In this age we have neither looked for it nor believed in the possibility of its existence. And here it is!"

"What it make here?" demanded Miranda. "Tied by a rope to the machine--some one use it."

The inference, logical enough, certainly, increased Leighton's excitement. That the magnet was known and used by the inhabitants of the cave--if there were inhabitants--was evident. Under certain conditions a bar of metal that could attract gold with such force as that displayed by the Black Magnet would be of untold value. Here, where there were no evidences of mining operations, and attached to this primitive machine, it was difficult to explain what it was actually used for.

Leighton, more and more mystified, determined that the best way to solve the puzzle was to operate the machine in the manner indicated by its structure. It was not, as he pointed out--but as they in their first excitement imagined--a gallows. Instead, it was a winch, built in the most simple and archaic fashion; and as the Black Magnet was attached to it, the evident purpose was to hoist that huge body from the ground. Before testing this theory, Mrs. Quayle, who had recovered from her collapse sufficiently to join the others, insisted that her jewelry should be released from the magnet. Suspicious of the intentions of some of her companions, she was determined to regain possession of her treasures at once. But, as it was apparently impossible to wear her jewelry with comfort, or even safety, in the immediate vicinity of the Black Magnet, necklace, brooch and bracelets were removed to a distant corner of the corridor and there placed beneath a pile of stones. This done, the four men started to work the two long handles of the winch. At first these were turned with difficulty, the resistance proving, at least to Leighton's satisfaction, that the machine had not been used for a long time. Gradually, however, the coil of liana was transferred from the ground to the transverse beam overhead until it pulled taut with the magnet beneath.

Then came the real trial of strength. The magnet wouldn't budge. Miranda puffed and grumbled over the task, declaring it impossible. The rest stopped and rubbed their arms ruefully. But Leighton was inexorable. Encouraging the others, and keeping them at it, by dint of increased exertion--to which Una brought additional assistance--the great Black Magnet was finally dragged from its moorings and held suspended just above the ground. It formed a perfect cylinder, about four feet long by a foot and a half in diameter, and must have weighed, they estimated, considerably over a ton--ten tons, vowed Miranda. On a winch of modern design this weight would not have been difficult to lift. But the hoisting apparatus they were using lacked the ordinary adjustments for counterbalancing such weights; hence, the muscular force needed proved no small matter.

"It take twenty men to lift this magnet," growled Miranda.

"Twenty men could do it more easily than four men and a woman, undoubtedly," replied Leighton. "But four can do it."

And he was right. Inch by inch the magnet rose from the ground--for what ultimate purpose was not very clear, any more than that it was thought necessary by Leighton, in order to discover the use to which this strange bar of metal had been put, first to test the appliance obviously intended to bring it into action. It reached a height of one foot from the ground, then two, then three feet; then it stopped. There were groans and smothered imprecations, and it looked very much as if the huge bar of metal would come crashing down to the ground again. But the men, urged on by Leighton, did not give in. And then--there was a grating noise, as if some hidden mechanism in the scaffolding had been set free. After which a strange thing happened. The transverse beam at the top of the windlass detached itself from one of the uprights supporting it and, using the other upright as a fulcrum, slowly swung to the wall of the cave, where it rested in a socket, bringing the magnet that was suspended from it, directly over a shelf-like projection beneath.

"Keep on! Keep on!" cried Leighton encouragingly. "Now we will see."

Thoroughly aroused, the others redoubled their exertions. The magnet remained stationary for a few seconds, the liana supporting it tightening with every revolution of the drumhead at which the men were laboring. Then it slowly disappeared downward, the liana uncoiling itself, thus reversing the movement that before had carried it upward. There was a gradual increase in the momentum of its descent, followed by the splashing sound caused by the impact of a heavy body upon the surface of a pool of water; after which the liana was paid out until it reached its full length--when it suddenly slackened and came to a full stop.

"There, Mrs. Quayle, is your water," announced Leighton.

"Water!" sneeringly echoed a voice from the darkness behind them. "Say, rather, there is the secret of Guatavita!"

"Raoul Arthur!" exclaimed the others.

Letting go the handle of the windlass, they rushed to the spot where the Black Magnet had vanished. There, at one side of the rocky projection, stood Raoul, pale and haggard, the light in his lamp extinguished.

"I suspected this," he said, as if his sudden reappearance among them were the most natural thing in the world. "I knew from the direction of the path that it led back to the lake. I have been trying to reach this place for years. Oh, yes! I had heard something about it before--I don't deny that. But, of course, I expected to stay by you. So, when you started to leave the cave I came back, expecting to rejoin you. As I was examining the machine I was attacked by two men, thrown to the ground and left unconscious. I came to myself a few minutes ago--in time to congratulate you, it seems, upon solving the mystery of the cave."

"That is strange," said Leighton coldly. "You left us, without a word, at a time when you were needed. The attack that you say was made upon you we should have heard. But--we have heard nothing."

"Believe me, or not, as you like; it is true," was the sullen reply.

"Why do you say we have the secret of Guatavita?"

"Look!"

Raoul pointed to the projection in the wall behind which the Black Magnet had disappeared. It was not a shelf, as they had at first supposed, but the opening of a shaft, or well, that slanted downward at an angle that in the course of fifty feet, or less, would reach considerably beyond the vertical line of the cave's wall. In shape this shaft was oblong, slightly larger in length and in breadth than the Black Magnet. It was evidently of artificial origin, its four walls being perfectly smooth and without irregularities of line. Even by one who had not seen the magnet descend into this shaft, its intended use as a sort of runway for raising and lowering heavy bodies would be quickly recognized. But where it led to was another matter. One thing was easily discovered: where it reached a point some twenty feet below the level of the cave's floor the shaft was filled with water. Beyond this, of course, nothing could be made out. It was to the bottom of the pool thus indicated that the magnet had plunged.

"It is a well hewn out of the rock by Indians--or perhaps by Spaniards digging for gold," said Leighton.

"I believe that we are the first white people who have ever stood in this place," said Raoul; then added, "unless David Meudon was here three years ago."

"But what is it about?" demanded Miranda impatiently. "What for is the magnet, and this well, and this machine?"

"Pull up the magnet and see for yourself," was the laconic reply.

"Caramba! That will be impossible," protested the doctor, not relishing the prospect of another turn at the machine.

"It is the logical thing to do," agreed Leighton.

The rest shared Miranda's aversion to another bout at the winch; but Leighton, backed by Raoul Arthur, finally persuaded them that their only hope of escape from the cave depended on keeping at this puzzle until they had solved it, and that the first step in this direction was to hoist the Black Magnet from its watery resting place at the bottom of the shaft. Reluctantly obeying the command, they again seized the long handle of the windlass. This time it was fortunate they had Raoul to help them, since the resistance offered by the magnet, which now had to be hauled up an inclined plane by means of a rope nearly one hundred feet in length, was considerably greater than before. The windlass creaked and trembled as revolution after revolution of the drumhead slowly brought the great black bar of metal nearer to the surface. They could hear the far off swirl of the water as the ascending liana vibrated through it. Minutes that seemed to lengthen into hours passed without appreciable result. Then, at last, they heard the water rising as the magnet reached the mouth of the shaft. There was an additional strain on the liana, followed by the noise of a commotion in the subterranean pool as the liquid streams poured back from the emerging body.

But still the end to their work was not in sight. With every turn of the handle the weight of the body at which they were pulling seemed to increase. Mrs. Quayle, sole spectator of what was happening, watched the opening of the well with dismal apprehension, convinced that some dreadful transformation had taken place in its hidden depths. When the top of the magnet finally rose into view she shrieked hysterically. To her notion the great black body had an uncanny look; it had turned into a devil, for aught she knew, filled with evil designs against them. Anything that was supernaturally horrible, she believed, could happen in this cave--and there was enough in her recent experiences, indeed, to give some color to her belief.

But, devil or djinn, the water dripped and splashed in sparkling runlets from the shining body of the Black Magnet that had gained in luster since its submersion in the well. It seemed more alive than before, more capable of exerting the mysterious force that had played such pranks with Mrs. Quayle's jewelry. As it cleared the top of the well the arm of the windlass to which it was hung, as if obeying some invisible signal, detached itself from the socket in the wall and slowly swung back into its original position between the two uprights of the machine. Here, as before, a reverse motion took place. The Black Magnet was poised for a moment in the air. It then descended to the ground, resting, finally, in the same spot where the explorers first discovered it.