Part 15

On both sides there was evident uneasiness; and when Anitoo, in a tone that sounded disagreeably like a command, told the explorers that they could not continue their tour of the cave unattended by them, things seemed to come to a climax. Miranda expostulated, the others grumbled and talked of resistance. But Anitoo was inflexible, insisting, all the while, that there was nothing unfriendly in his attitude. He reminded them that they could not possibly find their way out of the cave without his guidance. Miranda jumped at this hint of a rescue, but was again unable to extract a definite promise from Anitoo.

"We will first show the Senores some of the wonders of the Guatavita kingdom," said the smiling Indian.

"We don't want to see any more," said Miranda emphatically. "We have seen enough."

"No! No!" continued Anitoo. "Whoever comes so far as this must see our queen before he goes away."

"A queen! A kingdom in a cave! But that is impossible!"

"I like his offer," interposed Leighton, who understood enough to catch the meaning of this strange proposal. "Anitoo seems honest. We have lost our way. If he has a queen and a kingdom to show us, they may be worth seeing. We can be no worse off, certainly, for seeing them."

"Once in the land of goblins and fairies," remarked Una, "queens and kingdoms are a matter of course."

"It is some idle mummery, I suppose," added Leighton; "we are too near civilization for anything else. All the same, these lanterns--or whatever you call them--that they carry, are worth knowing more about."

"What are they?"

"I would give a good deal to know."

"Well, Senor," said Anitoo impatiently, "you will come with us?"

Without waiting for Miranda, who seemed reluctant to place himself in the Indian's power more than he could help, Leighton bowed assent.

"And this Senor Arthur?" inquired Anitoo.

"He has gone," replied Miranda promptly. "He will not come again."

"Perhaps," said Anitoo vaguely.

At his signal the Indians lifted the curved trumpets to their lips, the drums were beaten and, to the same curious spirited music that had heralded their approach--half march, half dance--they moved off, the explorers in their midst, down the path flanked by the forest of stalactites, to the great entrance chamber whence, after finishing their hasty meal, the "picknickers" had first started on their journey of discovery.

The friendly bearing of Anitoo and the other cavemen did not fail to impress the explorers favorably, dispelling whatever suspicions they might have had in the beginning, and giving them a taste of real enjoyment in their adventure. All had this feeling of security except Miranda and Herran. The two South Americans, however, were less easily moved. Instead of sharing Una's and Mrs. Quayle's admiration of the picturesque appearance of their guides, they grumbled something to the effect that it was a lot of meaningless foolery. This skeptical attitude grew to open disapproval when, having reached the central rock where they had taken their meal in the main cavern, the Indians, instead of proceeding toward the entrance to the tunnel that had been so mysteriously lost, kept on in the opposite direction. This meant that they were now to explore an entirely new, unknown region; and the possibilities that awaited them, with such uncommunicative guides, in the gloomy depths that stretched before them, stirred up something of a mutinous spirit in the two South Americans. But their protests were futile. Without halting his rhythmic march, Anitoo smiled courteously at their objections, merely repeating his intention of taking them to "the queen." As this was all he would say, they were compelled to make the best of the vague indication of the course they were following. The others continued to enjoy the oddity of the adventure. The enlivening strains of music, the gala costumes of the Indians--all seemed part of a curious carnival the purpose of which was unknown to them. The novelty was kept up by the strange scenes through which they were passing; it reached its climax at the further wall of the great central chamber.

So far, the natural features of the cave had absorbed their attention; now they were confronted with a series of Titanic specimens of human architecture as amazing in design as they were unexpected. It is misleading, perhaps, to describe this architecture as the product of human genius, because in line, material, and general plan it followed closely the pattern and the workmanship of the cave itself. Man had here adopted the half finished designs of nature and completed them in a way that carried out his own ends. Thus, the gradually widening trail followed by Anitoo and his band of musicians made toward a great archway that swept upward in a glistening half circle of white stone. In the center of this rounded arch, twenty-five feet from the ground, gleamed a huge round tablet upon whose smooth white surface could be distinguished a series of engraved characters. These characters, outlined in gold, were immediately recognized by General Herran as similar in design to the picture-writing, presumably of Chibcha origin, that covered a rocky promontory rising above one of the foothills skirting the Bogota tableland.

The mighty portal to which this tablet formed the keystone, was only partially the work of man. Here the elemental forces that originally hollowed out the great central chamber through which the explorers had passed, had encountered a granitic rock effectually resisting their ravages. Hence, the narrowing of the passage-way to the diameter of the half-circle described by the white arch, and hence the opportunity that had been seized by an aboriginal race of men to complete and embellish what nature had so nobly planned. The sides of the arch rose in majestic columns, shaped and smoothed to the semblance of such pillars as those used in the massive temples of ancient Egypt; and, still bearing out this similarity, each of these pillars stood at the head of a long row that stretched away indefinitely in the darkness beyond. The curve of the arch overhead had also followed the simplest of lines, but with so glowing a symmetry that the beholder yielded to the conviction that here, whether of Nature's design or Man's, he stood on the threshold of a realm wherein were garnered treasures of art and science unique in the world's history. Besides the golden characters engraved on the keystone of this gigantic portal there was but one attempt at sculptural adornment. This was the rudely carved head of a condor, made to curve downward from the central tablet of the arch, as if the sleepless duty had been given to this winged monarch of the Andes of inspecting all who passed beneath its lofty eyrie.

Before this imposing structure the explorers paused in astonishment. Anitoo smiled, somewhat disdainfully, and signed to them to enter. This they were loath to do until they could learn more definitely whither the cavemen were leading them.

"Senores," remonstrated Anitoo, "when you were lost in this cave, I came to your rescue. Now, you must follow me."

"That is very good," said Miranda irritably. "We have enough of this cave. We want to go out."

"Follow me," persisted Anitoo.

"You take us out?"

"I take you to the queen," he retorted.

"Why we go to your queen? We make nothing with your queen."

"Ah, but perhaps she make something with you."

"Caramba! What she make with me?"

"You will see."

The explorers looked at each other helplessly. One thing was evident--the Indians had no intention of parting with them. But they could not tell whether they were hostile or friendly. They were not treated as captives; but they felt that any attempt to escape would be quickly frustrated. They were too far outnumbered by the cavemen to make resistance possible. Leighton therefore decided that there was nothing for it but submission. Upon this the Indians gave a grunt of satisfaction, and Anitoo signaled to advance, pointing upward to the Sign of the Condor.

But the signal came too late.

Out of the darkness, from the portion of the cave they had just left, rose a yell of defiance, followed by a flight of arrows and a volley of pistol shots. Running towards them, but still a good distance off, they could see a huddle of figures, dimly lighted by a few torches of wood, interspersed with lanterns similar to those used by the explorers. There was no time to make out who the enemy was. Evidently they planned to carry things before them by the swiftness of their attack, hoping to catch the cavemen off their guard. They went at it pell-mell, discharging their missiles as they ran--but with deadly enough aim nevertheless. One Indian of Anitoo's party fell, struck down by an arrow. His comrades, enraged by this, formed a close line of battle around him, taking, as they did so, from the folds of their togas certain innocent looking objects, apparently long metal tubes, which they pointed at their assailants. The explorers failed to recognize these implements at first; then, as the Indians put them to their mouths, they realized that they were nothing more nor less than blowpipes, weapons used to-day only by the most primitive races. But the cavemen handled these weapons skillfully, pouring a goodly shower of darts into the turbulent throng advancing to meet them. As the hail of arrows and shooting of pistols continued, however, it was evident that the damage inflicted by the blowpipes was not enough to check the approach of the enemy, who exceeded the cavemen in numbers and were anxious to engage them at close quarters. This Anitoo determined to prevent. Shouting to his men, he urged them to retreat within the archway before which they were fighting, a command they refused to obey, infuriated as they were by the loss of several of their number. Their assailants, steadily pressing on, were soon near enough to give the cavemen the desired opportunity. Blowguns, bows and arrows were cast aside, and they jumped into a hand-to-hand fight, with short pikes and such weapons as chance provided.

It was then that the explorers seemed to reach the utmost limit of their misfortunes. Except for Andrew's pocket-knife and the revolvers of Herran and Miranda, they were without weapons, and thus practically defenseless in the thick of a combat that at every moment gained in intensity. They were bewildered by the flashing lights of the torches, and kept getting in the way of Anitoo's men at the most inopportune times. Naturally, General Herran, as the only one among them who had been in actual military service, did his best to keep the others in some sort of order; but his protests and commands, unintelligible to all but Miranda, went for very little. In vain he looked for some sheltered corner into which he could withdraw his little party; but the fierce fighting all around them shut off any such easy way of escape. There seemed to be nothing to do but stay where they were--and be shot, as Mrs. Quayle hysterically put it. And the shooting certainly increased enough in volume every moment to warrant that lady's dismal view of the matter.

But Herran, although fighting in caves was quite out of his line, was not the kind of soldier to give up in despair--even with two women on his hands and three men who were quite as inexperienced and helpless in warfare as the women. The fiasco of Panama still rankled in his soul, and he resolved this time to let as few of the enemy escape him as possible. It was a serious business, but--at least he had a revolver, and he intended to use it.

Plunging ahead of the others into the thick of the mob that faced him, he shot right and left, and--according to Miranda, who watched the affair delightedly--every shot found its mark. This was all very well, and cheering enough to the explorers. It looked, indeed, for the moment, as if the tide of battle was about to be turned in their favor by the Hero of Panama. But then, all of a sudden, as was bound to happen, the General's cartridges gave out, leaving him an animated sort of target in the midst of the men he had been attacking with such ferocity. There were cries of dismay from those who had been watching his brave exploit, a roar of rage from Miranda, who rushed forward, revolver in hand, to defend his old comrade. But Miranda was too late. A burly caveman, one of those who had borne the brunt of Herran's onslaught, seeing the latter's plight, whirled aloft a huge club that he carried and brought it down with fatal effect upon the General's head. It was a Homeric blow, and the fall of the hero under it, sung in epic verse, would be described as the crashing to earth of a monarch of the forest, a bull, a lion, or something equally majestic and thunderous.

But the victor in this deadly encounter had no time to enjoy his triumph. Miranda, not able to ward off the terrible blow that he saw descending upon his friend, at least succeeded in inflicting mortal punishment upon the offending caveman who, before he could raise his club to his shoulder again, received the full contents of the Doctor's revolver.

It was the first--and probably the last--time that Miranda could count himself a conqueror on the field of battle. His exultation, however, was short-lived. Not only had he to bewail the loss of Herran, a good friend and a brave leader, but the odds in the combat before him were going so unmistakably against Anitoo and his men, the fighting had become so widespread and desperate, that the safety of the explorers seemed, every moment, more and more a matter for miracles. As nothing further could be done with an empty revolver, Miranda shrugged his shoulders, threw away his now harmless weapon and, turning hastily to his companions, ordered them to put out their torches, fall flat upon their faces where they stood, and to stay motionless in that position until the fortunes of the battle were decided. This they all did, some with an almost inconceivable promptness--and to any one who might be looking on it must have appeared that the enemy had over-thrown this little group of people before them with one well directed discharge of their weapons.

In the kind of warfare that now was raging, Anitoo's cavemen, on account of their lack of numbers and deficient training, were unquestionably getting the worst of it. Their white togas, and the flashing lights that they wore, made their escape difficult; obviously it would have fared badly for them if they had been left to fight their battle out alone. But Anitoo was taking no unnecessary chances. Fearing for his own men from the very first, he had dispatched a messenger into that unknown region of the cave lying beyond the Condor Gate. There was more, indeed, than the fate of his own men at stake. He knew that the majority of the enemy were of his own race, and that with them were associated two or three men from the outside world whose presence there, under such circumstances, proved the existence of a formidable conspiracy against that subterranean realm, of which he had spoken vaguely to the explorers, and to which he belonged. The cavemen he had with him, although brave enough, were undisciplined and without military experience. They could make but a poor defense against an attack directed by leaders trained in the rough school of the guerilla. All this Anitoo knew, and the reinforcements for which he had sent arrived barely in time to save his little party from being completely wiped out. But, fortunately for him, they did arrive in time. With a confused din of war cries and trumpetings, a flash of mysterious torches, waving of banners, brandishing of pipes and blowguns, a body of men, suddenly appearing out of the dim recesses of the cave, rushed, several hundred strong, upon the encircling throng of invaders. The result was decisive. The rebels, with victory almost in their grasp, were quickly surrounded, many of them killed, while the few who failed to make their escape were taken prisoners.

Among the latter was one who had played a leading part in the attack. He was unarmed, his clothes were torn, an ugly thrust from a pike had slashed across his face. But his bearing was undaunted; the dejection of the vanquished was lacking in the composure with which he regarded Anitoo, before whom his captors led him.

"Well?" he asked scornfully.

"I expected you, Don Raoul," said Anitoo.

The other laughed contemptuously.

"Why are you here?" demanded Anitoo.

"That is a long story. For one thing, your people are tired of living like bats in the dark. With the help of Rafael Segurra, your one great man, I promised to free them."

"Instead, Segurra is killed and you are a prisoner."

"Ah! your muddle-headed rabble have killed him, have they? But, where are my American friends?" he asked abruptly.

"They are here. One of them, I think, was killed. But he was a Bogotano."

"I don't see them."

For the first time Anitoo showed amazement. He called to his men, he looked in every possible and impossible place. The explorers were nowhere to be seen. Their disappearance, moreover, was complicated by the fact that after the retreat of Anitoo's men, the great portal under the Sign of the Condor had been closed. By this means the outer region of the cave had been shut off, thus preventing the escape of any of the combatants in that direction. As the Americans were not now in sight, it seemed probable that they were on the other side of the stone gateway--although there was a faint possibility that they had sought safety in the unexplored portion of the cave whither Anitoo had been leading them. Either way, their disappearance was certain, nor could Anitoo find out anything definite about them from his men. A few, indeed, remembered seeing them during the fight, and recalled Herran's charge, his subsequent fall, and the swift vengeance brought upon his assailant by Miranda. One man declared that they had all been killed; but as this was quite improbable, and as the statement was uncorroborated, it was promptly put aside as unworthy of belief. The whole thing was very vague. As a matter of fact, every one had been too absorbed in the defeat of Segurra and his men to look after the explorers. Doubtless the latter, it was said, had succeeded in retreating into the darkness of the outer cave. In doing this, it is true, they ran the chance of falling into the hands of Segurra's men--in which case they would have been recaptured by Anitoo.

One strange feature of their disappearance was that the body of Herran had apparently vanished with them. Anitoo remembered the exact spot where the explorers had been stationed during the battle and, consequently, where Herran had fallen. But now, neither living nor dead explorers could be found. It seemed incredible that these people, two of them women, would have hampered themselves in their flight with the body of a dead man. And yet, there was the evidence of eyewitnesses to the killing of Herran; there was the spot where he had fallen--and as the body was not there now, it was practically certain that the explorers had carried it away with them. In this case they could not have gone very far. As Anitoo was particularly anxious for their capture, and believing that they had returned to the outer cave, where they were in danger of being attacked by what was left of Segurra's men, he sent most of his troops after them, remaining behind with Raoul and a few others until their return.

"It was to get those strangers and bring them to our queen," he said, "that I came out here."

"Well, you have lost them," sneered Raoul. "But you have me. Why not take me to your queen?"

The two men looked at each other in silence. A faint smile lighted Anitoo's usually immobile features.

"Yes," he said; "at last you will reach the place you have plotted against for so many months. But it will do you no good."

"Don't be too sure of that," growled Raoul. "I want to see your queen----"

"You shall see her. But what can you do? Your friend, Segurra, the first traitor to the Land of the Condor, is dead. Your men are defeated----"

"Not all!" shouted Raoul. "Look around you!"

With those who knew him Anitoo enjoyed a reputation for astuteness that had led to his being chosen for the command of the diminutive army considered necessary for the defense of the Land of the Condor. He was valiant, absolutely trustworthy. But he was accustomed to deal only with simple problems, with people of comparatively guileless natures. Treachery was out of the domain of his experience. And now he was to pay dearly for the lack of prudence that had allowed him to send away, on an indefinite mission, the troops he should have kept to guard his prisoner.

Startled by Raoul's exultant cry Anitoo seized a pike from one of the two men who had stayed with him. If he had fallen into an ambush he would at least make a brave fight to free himself. But resistance from the first was hopeless. The slight eminence on which he stood with Raoul was surrounded by a score or more men who had crept up on him, their lights extinguished, and protected by the impenetrable darkness of the cave. As Anitoo and his two followers still carried the mysterious torches that had excited the wonder of the explorers, they offered an excellent mark to their concealed antagonists. And now the latter, dimly visible on the outer edge of the circle of light cast by these torches, jumped to their feet and, with weapons poised, made a rush for their victims.

"So! Now for your queen!" yelled Raoul.

Anitoo made a desperate lunge with his pike at the man beside him. But the latter was too quick for him. Dodging the blow, Raoul managed to wrest the pike from his grasp. There was a tigerish struggle between the two men, shouts of fury and triumph from those looking on. Then, overpowered by the number of his assailants, and mortally wounded, Anitoo fell to the ground. He had been so certain of the defeat of his antagonists that this sudden turn in his fortunes filled him, even at the approach of death, with the gloomiest forebodings.

"Ah! my poor queen--lost!" he gasped with his last breath.

Raoul snatched the torch from the dead man's tunic and waved it above his head.

"You will be free men now," he cried, "not miserable bats in a cave!"

Those of his hearers who understood his words, spoken in Spanish, repeated them to the others in their own language. There was wild cheering, in which the two followers of Anitoo joined--amazed at their leader's fate--and then a rush for the great gateway. But this impulsive movement of his men did not agree with Raoul's hastily conceived plan of conquest. Delighted by his easily won victory, coming to him in the very hour of defeat, he had no mind to leave Anitoo's hostile troops in his rear--especially as he heard them approaching from the outer cave, and could even catch the first glimmer of their torches.

"Stop!" he commanded. "We need these men. Better to have them friends than enemies. They will come with us. Some of you warn them--tell them what has happened."

His followers, halted in their eager flight, looked at Raoul in amazement. Then, hurriedly repeating to each other what he had said, they suddenly broke into another cheer, while two of their number, in obedience to Raoul's orders, ran towards the approaching troops.