Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders Part 29

"But what about the rescue work?" asked Mr. Damon.

"I am not forgetting Professor Beecher and his friends," answered the scientist.

"Perhaps this may be a better means of rescuing them than by digging them out, which will take a week at least," observed Tom.

"This a better way?" asked Ned, pointing to the tunnel.

"That's it," confirmed the savant. "If you will notice it extends back in the direction of the cave from which we were driven. Now if there is a buried city beneath all this jungle, this mountain of earth and stones, the acc.u.mulation of centuries, it is probably on the bottom of some vast cavern. It is my opinion that we were only in one end of that cavern, and this may be the entrance to another end of it."

"Then," asked Mr. Damon, "do you mean that we can enter here, get into the cave that contains the buried city, or part of it, and find there Beecher and his friends?"

"That's it. It is possible, and if we could it would save an immense lot of work, and probably be a surer way to save their lives than by digging a tunnel through the landslide to find the mouth of the cave where we first entered."

"It's a chance worth taking," said Mr. Damon. "Of course it is a chance. But then everything connected with this expedition is; so one is no worse than another. As you say, we may find the entombed men more easily this way than any other."

"I wonder," said Tom slowly, "if, by any chance, we shall find, through this pa.s.sage, the lost city we are looking for."

"And the idol of gold," added Ned.

"Goosal, do you know anything about this?" asked Professor b.u.mper.

"Did you ever hear of another pa.s.sage leading to the cave where you saw the ancient city?"

"No, Learned One, though I have heard stories about there being many cities, or parts of a big one, beneath the mountain, and when it was above ground there were many entrances to it."

"That settles it!" cried the professor in English, having talked to Goosal in Spanish. "We'll try this and see where it leads."

They entered the stone-lined pa.s.sage. In spite of the fact that it had probably been buried and concealed from light and air for centuries, as evidenced by the growth of the giant trees above it, the air was fresh.

"And this is one reason," said Tom, in commenting on this fact, "why I believe it leads to some vast cavern which is connected in some fas.h.i.+on with the outer air. Well, perhaps we shall soon make a discovery."

Eagerly and anxiously the little party pressed forward by the light of the pocket electric lamps. They were obsessed by two thoughts--what they might find and the necessity for aiding in the rescue of their rivals.

On and on they went, the darkness illuminated only by the torches they carried. But they noticed that the air was still fresh, and that a gentle wind blew toward them. The pa.s.sage was undoubtedly artificial, a tunnel made by the hands of men now long crumbled into dust. It had a slightly upward slope, and this, Professor b.u.mper said, indicated that it was bored upward and perhaps into the very heart of the mountain somewhere in the interior of which was the Beecher party.

Just how far they went they did not know, but it must have been more than two miles. Yet they did not tire, for the way was smooth.

Suddenly Tom, who, with Professor b.u.mper, was in the lead, uttered a cry, as he held his torch above his head and flashed it about in a circle.

"We're blocked!" he exclaimed. "We're up against a stone wall!"

It was but too true. Confronting them, and extending from side to side across the pa.s.sage and from roof to floor, was a great rough stone.

Immense and solid it seemed when they pushed on it in vain.

"Nothing short of dynamite will move that," said Ned in despair. "This is a blind lead. We'll have to go back."

"But there must be something on the other side of that stone," cried Tom. "See, it is pierced with holes, and through them comes a current of air. If we could only move the stone!"

"I believe it is an ancient door," remarked Professor b.u.mper.

Eagerly and frantically they tried to move it by their combined weight.

The stone did not give the fraction of the breadth of a hair.

"We'll have to go back and get some of your big tunnel blasting powder, Tom," suggested Ned.

As he spoke old Goosal glided forward. He had remained behind them in the pa.s.sage while they were trying to move the rock. Now he said something in Spanish.

"What does he mean?" asked Ned.

"He asks that he be allowed to try," translated Professor b.u.mper.

"Sometimes, he says, there is a secret way of opening stone doors in these underground caves. Let him try."

Goosal seemed to be running his fingers lightly over the outer edge of the door. He was muttering to himself in his Indian tongue.

Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and, as he did so, there was a noise from the door itself. It was a grinding, sc.r.a.ping sound, a rumble as though rocks were being rolled one against the other.

Then the astonished eyes of the adventurers saw the great stone door revolve on its axis and swing to one side, leaving a pa.s.sage open through which they could pa.s.s. Goosal had discovered the hidden mechanism.

What lay before them?

CHAPTER XXV

THE IDOL OF GOLD

"Forward! cried Tom Swift.

"Where?" asked Mr Damon, hanging back for an instant. "Bless my compa.s.s, Tom! do you know where you're going?"

"I haven't the least idea, but it must lead to something, or the ancients who made this revolving stone door wouldn't have taken such care to block the pa.s.sage."

"Ask Goosal if he knows anything about it," suggested Mr. Damon to the professor.

"He says he never was here before," translated the savant, "but years ago, when he went into the hidden city by the cave we left yesterday, he saw doors like this which opened this way."

"Then we're on the right track!" cried Tom. "If this is the same kind of door, it must lead to the same place. Ho for Kurzon and the idol of gold!"

As they pa.s.sed through the stone door, Tom and Professor b.u.mper tried to get some idea of the mechanism by which it worked. But they found this impossible, it being hidden within the stone itself or in the adjoining walls. But, in order that it might not close of itself and entomb them, the portal was blocked open with stones found in the pa.s.sage.

"It's always well to have a line of retreat open," said Tom. "There's no telling what may lie beyond us."

For a time there seemed to be nothing more than the same pa.s.sage along which they had come. Then the pa.s.sage suddenly widened, like the large end of a square funnel. Upward and outward the stone walls swept, and they saw dimly before them, in the light of their torches, a vast cavern, seemingly formed by the falling in of mountains, which, in toppling over, had met overhead in a sort of rough arch, thus protecting, in a great measure, that which lay beneath them.

Goosal, who had brought with him some of the fiber bark torches, set a bundle of them aflame. As they flared up, a wondrous sight was revealed to Tom Swift and his friends.

Stretching out before them, as though they stood at the end of an elevated street and gazed down on it, was a city--a large city, with streets, houses, open squares, temples, statues, fountains, dry for centuries--a buried and forgotten city--a city in ruins--a city of the dead, now dry as dust, but still a city, or, rather, the strangely preserved remains of one.