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"It is only about two and a half inches thick," Harry said as he drew one of the fragments out. And, holding the candle to the hole, he went on: "And there is another slab underneath. That settles it. We are at the top of one of these vaults. The question is, is it empty? I am afraid it is. This stone has evidently been broken up and fitted in again with wonderful care." |
"Why should it be fitted in carefully if they emptied the chamber?" |
"That I can't tell you, Dias, and it is of no use trying to guess now. First of all, we will get the rest of the stone up. It won't be difficult, for now that we have made a start we can use our crowbars. José, run up and tell my brother to come down. We shall want him to help with the crowbar; and besides, he would, of course, wish to be here, now that we are on the point of making a discovery one way or the other." |
In a minute Bertie came down with José, and Donna Maria followed. "José tells me you have broken a hole in one of the stones," Bertie exclaimed as he ran up. |
"We have got a bit out of a broken stone, Bertie. This stone had been broken before, and evidently not by accident. It is only half the thickness of the others, and, as you can see, there is another slab underneath." |
"Who can have broken it, Harry?" |
"That question we cannot decide, but I should say probably the Incas. We agreed that it was very possible they discovered the hidden treasures of the Chimoos. They must have learned, as the Spaniards did, how cleverly these places were hidden, and it must have been as evident to them as it is to us, that if there was a hiding-place here, this must be the spot." |
When one or two more pieces of the stone had been got out by the aid of crowbars, the rest was removed without the least difficulty. Another slab two feet square was exposed. In the middle of this was a copper ring, and the slab fitted, into a stone casing about eighteen inches wide. As soon as this casing was cleared, Dias and José took their places on one side, the two brothers on the other. A crowbar was thrust through the ring, and all of them, taking hold of the ends, lifted with all their strength. At first the stone did not move, but at the second effort it lifted suddenly. It was the same thickness as the one they had broken, and, on being moved, was easily handled. The torches were thrust down, and all peered eagerly into the vault. So far as they could see it was empty. |
"Shall I jump down, senor?' |
"No, the air may be bad, José. Run up and bring down a short length of rope, twenty feet will be ample. Now, let your torch drop down, Dias. If it burns, it will be safe for us to go down; if not, we must keep on dropping blazing brands into it till they burn." |
As, however, the torch burnt brightly, Harry lay down, and, saying, "Hold my legs, Bertie!" looked down into the vault. Eighteen inches below the surface, the hole widened out suddenly. A minute later Harry's head appeared above the surface again. |
"It is empty," he said in as cheerful a voice as he could manage. "Of course it is a disappointment," he went on, "but I felt certain that it would be so directly we found the stone was cracked. The only hope was that the first finders of the treasure afterwards used the place for the same purpose. That they thought it possible they might do so is clear by the care with which they fitted the stones together." |
None of the others spoke. The disappointment was a heavy one. Bertie broke the silence by saying; "Well, better luck next time. They may have found out this place, but there may be others which they did not find." |
"Quite so, Bertie. Now we have got up one stone, It will be comparatively easy work getting up the others. We will take up every stone to the end, and then work back till we get to a place where there is not more than a couple of feet between the bottom of the stone and the top of the rock." |
At this moment José ran into the room with the rope. Harry took it, and dropped one end until it nearly touched the floor below. "Hold on," he said, "and I will slip down first." Half a minute later he stood at the bottom of the chamber, beside the torch, which was still burning. |
"It is only about three feet across at the bottom," he said; "the wall by the passage goes straight up, on the other side it is the bare rock, so it is almost wedge-shaped. It is twenty feet long, and five feet high up to its roof, that makes it nearly seven to the upper part of the mouth." The vault was absolutely empty. He moved about for a minute and then said: "Gold has been stored here. There are particles of gold at the bottom, and there is gold-dust in the cracks of the broken face of the rock. Now I will come up again. Hold the rope tight; I will climb about a yard, and then I can get my fingers on the ledge." |
He was soon up. "Now, do any of you want to go down?" Dias and José shook their heads; and Bertie grumbled, "I don't want to look at the beastly hole; it has been trouble enough to get at it." |
"Well, I think we will not do any more to-day, Dias. It has rather taken the heart out of one. Still, we could not expect to hit upon the treasure for the first time. We will go up and talk it over, and when we have smoked a pipe or two we shall be more inclined to take a cheerful view of the matter. We won't talk about it till we have got to the end of our second pipe." |
The tobacco did its usual work, and it was with quite a cheerful voice that Bertie broke the silence: "The Incas must have been pretty sharp fellows to find that hole, Harry?" |
"Well, very likely they heard that the Chimoos had treasure there. Indeed they must have known, because, you see, not one of the other stones is broken, so they evidently knew where that chamber was situated." |
"Yes, I suppose that was it. Well, we are in fine working order now, and we sha'n't be very long getting the other stones up." |
"Not very long this side anyhow, Bertie. We shall want some short blocks of wood to put under the stones as we raise them. I expect they are all five inches thick, and they must be a very big weight. Evidently it is going to be a longish job. As we have been a fortnight without fresh meat, Dias had better go off and buy half a dozen sheep. We won't have dead meat this time. He can bring them slung over the mules, and we can kill them as we want them." |
"We have not had fresh meat, but we have not done badly, Harry; we have generally had a good many eggs and some pigeons, and José has brought us in fish from that pool. But they have dwindled down lately. He only brought in a couple of fish yesterday evening." |
"Well, the pigeons are getting scarcer too, Bertie. We have killed a good many, but the rest are getting very shy, and I think most of them must have gone off and settled in new places on the face of the rocks above the ravine. While Dias is away, we will try and lay in a stock of sea-fish. We can swim out and sit on the rocks during the day, and lay our lines at night. We have worked very hard for a fortnight, and we deserve a holiday." |
Dias, when he was spoken to, said he would start at once with four mules for Huacha. "It is not above fifteen miles," he said, "and I can get there this evening. I should think that I could buy the sheep there; if not, I must go on to Huaura. Each mule will bring two sheep. Of course I could drive them, but that would seem more singular." |
"You had certainly better take the mules, Dias. Tie the sheep carefully on them, so that they will not be hurt." |
"I will take eight of the leather bags, senor. The sheep are not large, and I will sling one on each side of the mules." |
"Yes, it would be as well, while you are about it, to bring eight. You may as well get some more coffee. We drink a lot of that, and like it strong. If your wife thinks we shall want more sugar, or anything else, by all means get some." |
As soon as Dias started, the lines were got ready. They cut a couple of saplings to serve as rods, and José, digging among the rocks, found plenty of worms, beetles, and grubs for bait. In addition, they took a cake or two of maize, to break up and throw in to attract the fish. |
"We had better swim out in our flannel shirts and trousers," Harry said. "They will soon dry, and they will keep off the sun. If we were to sit there without them, we should get blistered from head to foot." |
"Shall we fish outside the rocks, or inside, Harry?" |
"We will try both; but I think we are likelier to catch most inside. I should think a back-water like that would attract them." |
They met with equal success on both sides of the rocks, and by evening had caught over forty fish, at least half of which weighed over four pounds. Then they set the long lines, each carrying forty hooks, and returned to the castle with as many fish as they could possibly carry. Maria was delighted with the addition to her larder, and she and José set to work at once to clean and split them. In the morning they were hung in strings from the broad window. Maria said they would get the benefit of the heat from the walls, and any air there might be would be able to pass round them. |
By means of the night-lines they caught almost as many fish as they had done with their rods, and that day they had the satisfaction of bringing in more than they could carry in one journey. |
"We have got plenty now to keep us going for another three weeks," Harry said, "and we can always replenish our stock when we choose." |
Dias returned at sunset carrying one sheep over his shoulders. |
"I have left the others out there, senor; I don't think there is any fear of their straying. There is no fresh grass anywhere except near the stream, and moreover, being strange to the valley, they will naturally keep near the mules." |
Another month passed in continuous labour. The stones had all been taken up in the basement they had first visited, but no other chamber had been found. The parallel chamber had given them much trouble at starting, as no stone had been found showing any cracks upon it, and they had had to blast one stone to pieces before they could begin to cut up the others. No chamber whatever had been discovered until they were within six feet of the farther end. Then one was found, but it showed no signs whatever of having ever been used. "So far so bad," Harry said when the supper had been eaten almost in silence; "but that is no reason why we should be disheartened. If the Incas buried a treasure they may have thought it prudent to choose some other spot than that used by the old people." |
"But where could it be, Harry? You agreed that there was not sufficient depth between the floors for any place of concealment." |
"That is so, Bertie, of course. I have been thinking of it a lot during the past few days, when the chances of our finding a treasure under the basement were nearly extinguished. There are still the side walls." |
"The side walls!" Bertie repeated. "Surely they are built against the rock?" |
"Yes, but we don't know how straight the wall of rock is. You see, they did not build against it at all in the basement, but above that the side walls begin. The rock must have been irregular, and as the walls were built the space behind may have been filled in or may not. When they came to build they may have found that there was a cavern or caverns in the rock -- nothing is more likely -- and they may have left some sort of entrance to these caverns, either as a place of refuge to the garrison if the place were taken, or as a hiding-place. They might have thought it more secure for this purpose than the underground chamber, which was their general hiding-place. At any rate it is possible, and to-morrow I vote that we have a thorough inspection of the walls of the storeroom below this. That would be the most likely place, for near the sea-level the chances of finding caverns would be much greater than higher up." |
Bertie's face brightened as Harry proceeded. |
"It certainly seems possible, Harry. Of course the other place seemed so much more likely to us that we have never given the side walls a thought. We may find something there after all. I do hope we may, old boy. I cannot believe that after things have gone altogether so well with us, and we have been twice so near finding treasure, that we should fail after all. Which side shall we begin on?" |
"We will have a look at them before we decide, Bertie. We have not really examined them since the first day; I really forget what stores we found in the two side-rooms." |
An examination in the morning showed that the passage near the entrance to the rock on the left-hand side had been used for fuel, that on the other side was filled at the upper end with skins for some distance, and spears and sheaves of arrows were piled against the outer wall along the rest of the distance. |
"Which do you think is the most likely hiding-place?" |
"I should say the right-hand passage. The other with the fire-wood in it might be visited every day, but the spears and arrows would only be wanted in case of any attacks upon the castle, or to arm a large force going out to give battle there. They would naturally put anything they wanted to hide in the passage less likely to be visited." |
"That does seem probable," Bertie agreed; "therefore, hurrah for the right-hand side!" |
"I still think, senor," Dias said, "that there must be treasure concealed somewhere. I should not think a guard would have been placed here, and remained here so many years still keeping watch, as we find they did at that big loophole on the top floor, unless there was something to watch." |
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