We had not proceeded far along the passageway when it became evident that our enemies were waiting for us.
The first indication was the different character of the air. It seemed closer, and not to have any movement. The thought at once leapt into our minds that very likely the entrance by the water-hole had been blocked.
As time passed and we worked our way up the rather steep incline, there could be no doubt about the situation. The thought was a terrifying one, and we pressed on, eager to know the worst.
When finally we stood at the end of the tunnel there was not a ray of light from above. Wedged midway of the stair, reposed two of the cuneiform stones that had first attracted my attention. Apparently quantities of sand had been shoveled into the hole, for much of the fine stuff had trickled on down the steps almost to our feet.
Use of dynamite in that narrow way was, of course, out of the question; imprisoned in the tunnel, we could not possibly live through the blast. Hardy, therefore, set to work promptly to dislodge the stone. This was dangerous for the reason that it was literally suspended over him as he labored and if suddenly released it meant an avalanch that would be certain to destroy him who stood beneath.
The problem was cleverly solved by Hardy, who ascertained the location of the "key" strain. He proceeded by inserting immediately above this spot one foot of the golden statue we had lugged with us. Surely it was sacrilege to use that triumph of the goldsmith’s art as a crowbar!
But the statue nevertheless was effective as an instrument, as Hardy attached a rope around the bust which projected to within ten feet of the tunnel; and from this point of comparative safety the men put their full weight on the rope. There followed a moment of intense strain, the golden figure, of none too stiff an alloy, appeared to bend—and then it came, a perfect welter of flying sand and debris that left us gasping.
In a few minutes this cleared, and we could see Hardy grinning at us through the blessed daylight that poured down that stairway once more.
"Who'll be the first to greet de Silva?" he demanded.
I recall heretofore setting forth a number of reasons why we decided to attempt our escape via the water hole tunnel. It is my belief, on more mature reflection, that with all my care I have failed to state the most important one: that of the sheer desire of the majority of our party—a desire that had been fed by the continued hounding de Silva had given us—to meet him and fight it out.
At any rate, the manner in which Hardy answered his own question by leaping up the stairway, afforded every evidence of how he felt about it.
We followed closely. But nothing in the line ahead of me seemed to occur, and to our astonishment, on gaining the surface, there was no one to meet us. Soon we found the explanation, for not far distant lay the bodies of a white man and an Indian. They were locked together in death, while a rod farther on was the body of another Indian. He had been shot in the back. Scattered about in the sand, evidently where the running man had dropped them when hit, were numbers of brilliant gems. They were gems of the Ataruipe!
In frank wonder, we gazed upon that indisputable proof that at least some of the members of the de Silva party, unbeknown to us, had got past the fatal stile and explored a portion of the caverns. But where was de Silva? And what had become of the rest of his crowd?
Our interest in this matter soon gave way to that far more important problem as to the direction in which we were to move, In the apparel of the dead Spaniard Zangaree discovered a compass, and while this seemed almost heaven-sent, yet it did not tell us the way we had come.
A final effort was made to dislodge from the debris the beautiful statue which we had used as a lever, but it was solidly buried and we soon gave over the attempt. Then, with little further discussion, we shoved off, following the trail of the many feet that led to the east from where we had found the gems in the sand.
We had not gone far when it became evident that those ahead of us were struggling with the transportation of heavy objects, which it was thought might prove to be golden statues. The correctness of this surmise was later borne out in a dreadful manner, for about four o'clock in the afternoon we came upon one of the beautiful objects. It lay in the sand and only a few yards away were three more dead men. Again two of them were Indians and the third a white, the features of all three being horribly slashed with the knives that had been used in the fighting.
Night overtook us still on the trail of the de Silva party, which now, judging from the foot-marks, consisted of about six men. We slept well, and at dawn pressed on.
The unexpected happened—and it came as a glorious surprise—for by ten in the morning we sighted signs of vegetation, and an hour later were nearing the exact point of our departure into the desert the week before.
This quick return drove home forcibly that near-tragedy of our four days’ wandering in a desert which, after all, was comparatively small in extent.
Once enabled to shield ourselves beneath the trees from the sun’s powerful rays, Hardy appeared willing to permit us to loaf a bit, and so it was that we whites had an opportunity to take stock of ourselves. Poor Van Dusee was thin to the point of emaciation, and I verily believe the man was wasting away as much from disappointment as from hardship. Anderson, brilliant-eyed and lean, was the same enthusiast, while the imperturbable Hardy seemed not to have altered a whit: he was the identical, brick-red, level-eyed, well-fleshed individual that we had first encountered in a cafe in Rio de Janiero in January. As for myself, I must have looked bad, as my arm, had given me constant pain.
By this time we felt that de Silva deemed our party to have been buried alive in the Caverns of the Ataruipe, for he had not taken the slightest pains to conceal his trail. Thus it was that the tables, in fact, had turned. We were now pursuing de Silva!
No one of us voiced that thought, but that it was in the minds of each there could be no doubt. Personally, I know that I did not care to analyse my own attitude toward the cowardly Spaniard. I did not dare to! But what remained unnecessary to phrase in words was that if de Silva did escape with his booty to Rio de Janiero, no one of our party would have any opportunity to visit again the wonderland of the Ataruipe. And this, especially to Hardy (for entirely mundane reasons) and to Van Dusee (for the purely esthetic) was unthinkable.
We pushed on, encountering fresh signs of the expedition ahead of us which evidently, owing to the heavy treasure its members carried, was making slower progress than we were. Very shortly we came through our hard-won channel in the bamboos, and from then on we kept sharp lookout for de Silva.
On our third morning in that interminable brushwood tract, while Anderson was building a breakfast fire for which Zangaree and the Indians were collecting dry wood, Van Dusee, who had strolled on a bit, called back to us quietly:
