BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume
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gently sloping upward, the path lead them out into a vast clearing, girdled on all sides by great trees. The moon shone bright as day; and across the grass ran an indistinct track. Following this, they found a great flight of steps leading upward under the boughs of mighty trees—pine, and oak, and hemlock, throwing their giant branches across, and almost shutting out the moonlight sky. The staircase was crumbled and old, but wonderfully built of great blocks of stone. Jack could not restrain his admiration at this Titanic work.
“How did they do it?” he said to Dolores, as they painfully climbed up the superb stair; “they must have known a lot about engineering, those Toltecs. To swing these blocks into their places must have taken derricks and complicated machinery. A wonderful work; a wonderful race. How Philip would enjoy this!”
“I think Señor Felipe would rather be where he is—in Tlatonac,” replied Dolores, wearily. “I would I were in the Casa Maraquando.”
“Cheer up, my heart! We will be there in a few days. Will I carry you, cara?”
“Dios, no! You are already laden!”
“But you are as light as a feather.”
“Eh, Juanito. You would not find that after carrying me for an hour or so. No; I am still able to walk. I am stronger than you think.”
They steadily climbed up the staircase, and at length entered the narrow gorge described by Cocom. Here Jack made the girl sit down and drink some wine, which did her so much good that in a few minutes she declared herself ready to resume the journey. Thus fortified, they entered the gorge, and, cautiously following its windings, at length emerged suddenly into a circular space. So unexpectedly did they enter that, as passages opened out in all directions, they could not tell by which way they had come. This pit—for it was little else, hewn out of the rock—was fifty or sixty feet in depth, and must have represented years of toil. On all sides, innumerable passages darted out like rays, and it was this thought that caused Jack to exclaim—
“It is like the opal, Dolores. This space is the stone, those passages the rays; so it serves a double purpose—to mislead the runaway, and yet be a symbol of the Chalchuih Tlatonac.”
Fortune favoured the fugitives, for the moon, directly overhead, sent down her full glory into the pit. Had they arrived later, they would probably have had to wait till dawn, as the blackness would have been too intense to permit them to find the true outlet. But the moonlight, by happy chance, was so strong that, after carefully examining the sides of several entrances, Jack at length hit on the sign. A huge crimson blot, with scarlet rays, blazed on a passage to the right.
“Here we are, Dolores,” cried Duval, joyfully, “this is the right way; but we must be careful, and not risk a snare; one can never tell what these infernal Indians are up to.”
With great caution they entered the tunnel indicated by the sign, and feeling every step before them, for the whole place was intensely dark, moved onward at a snail’s pace. The tunnel wound hither and thither, until they felt quite bewildered. For a time the passage was level, but after a series of turnings it began to slope gently downwards, and so continued to the entrance.
“I hope to Heaven there are no branch tunnels,” said Jack, anxiously, “we could easily go off the main track in this gloom.”
“I am sure there are no side tunnels,” replied Dolores, decisively; “even the priests could not find their way through this place otherwise than with one way. If there were other tunnels, they would lose themselves, and that they would not care to risk.”
“Well, let us move on. At all events, the tunnel is getting straighter,” remarked Jack, hopefully. “I wish Cocom had given us a torch.”
“What is that yonder?” cried Dolores, pressing his arm. “A gleam of light.”
“Bueno! It is the exit. Come, Dolores, and say no word, lest, when we emerge on to the platform, there should be Indians waiting there. Remember our vow of silence.”
Encouraged by this sign of deliverance, they hurried rapidly forward, quite certain that the ground was safe, and in a few minutes stepped out of the tunnel’s mouth on to a mighty platform, half way down the mountain. Jack cast a swift glance to right and left, but the area of masonry was quite bare. They were the only human beings thereon. He turned to speak to Dolores, and found her staring motionless at the magnificent scene before her.
The platform, Jack guessed, was fully a quarter of a mile in length, and enormously wide. It had first been hewn out of the living rock, and then faced with masonry, flagged with stones. Here was adopted the same device for misleading strangers as had been done in the court of the gods, at the entrance from Totatzine. The whole face of the cliff, at the back of the terrace, was perforated with tunnels, and now that they had moved to the verge of the platform neither of them could tell which tunnel they had come out of. Saving one, all those passages led to death and destruction. Only one was safe, and that the tunnel distinguished by the opal sign. No one, ignorant of that sign, could have escaped death.
“I don’t wonder Totatzine remains hidden,” said Jack, thoughtfully. “The whole of that path is a mass of danger and snares. Now, however, we shall have a clearer way.”
Turning towards the east, they beheld a vast stair-case sloping downward to a broad road, at the sides of which were giant images of the gods. In the pale moonlight they looked like demons, so frightful were their aspects. In long lines, like pillars, they stretched away eastward, into the forests, ending in dim obscurity. On either side, dense foliage; away in the distance, a sea of green trees. There was nothing but trackless woods and this great road, piercing into the emerald profundity like a wedge. Behind, arose tall red cliffs, crowned with ancient trees, tunnelled with black cavities. From thence spread out the platform with its huge blocks of stone, its walls covered with hieroglyphics, statues of fierce gods, and vast piles of truncated towers. Below, the forests, the roadway, the staircase.
“What a terrible place, Dolores,” said Jack, drawing a long breath. “It is like the abode of demons. Come! it is now after midnight, and the moon will soon be setting. While we have the light, let us try to reach the end of yonder avenue.”
“One moment, Juan,” replied Dolores, drawing forth something from her bosom. “While Cocom was with you, I went up to the shrine of Huitzilopochtli and took in—this.”
Between her fingers, in the pale moonlight, it flashed faintly with weak sparks of many coloured fire. Jack bounded forward.
“The Harlequin Opal!” he exclaimed, delighted. “You have taken the Harlequin Opal.”
Chapter IX.
The Fugitives
The sun goes down, the twilight wanes,
With reddened spurs and hanging reins,
We urge our steeds across the plains.
For you and I are flying far,
From those who would our loving mar,
And prison you with bolt and bar.
Sigh not, dear one, look not so white,
My castle stands on yonder height,
We’ll reach it e’er the morning’s light.
The future’s joy this night is born,
I wed thee in the early morn,
And laugh my rivals twain to scorn.
It was fifty miles from Totatzine to the coast. Dolores being a woman, and weak, Jack, owing to illness, not being quite so strong as usual, they found it difficult to do more on an average than two miles an hour. To make up for slow walking they stretched out their pedestrianism to twelve hours between dawn and eve, thus reaching the sea-shore in two days. They arrived at the cave spoken of by Cocom, which was a harbour of