CHAPTER XVIITrapped
WhenDon had raised his shout of discovery Captain Sturdy, Professor Bruce and Phalos had rushed in the direction of the rock that reared itself near the top of the rugged slope.
At times it was obscured by other boulders, and they had difficulty in getting their bearings, but they kept steadily getting nearer, and at last they stood before it.
With a trembling hand Zeta Phalos drew from his pocket the precious copy of the inscription. He and the professor bent over it, eagerly comparing point to point the indications on it, while the captain waited impatiently.
At last the two straightened up with delight in their eyes.
“No doubt about it!” exclaimed the professor. “It answers every requirement. Now to find a way in.”
A feverish search was made, and finally a crevice was discovered into which a man might worm himself behind the towering rock.
The captain turned about and shouted:
“Come along, Don! Come along, Teddy!”
He thought he heard them respond, although it was only an echo. Then, dropping on hands and knees, he worked his way through the opening.
The others, who were smaller and slenderer, followed the captain’s example, and all three were presently on the other side of the rock and in a narrow passage.
They straightened up and brushed off their clothes, expecting every instant to see the boys following them.
But no other form darkened the opening, and the captain grew impatient.
“Hurry up, boys!” he shouted.
The words had scarcely left his lips when there was a tremendous crash, and the delicately balanced upper rock came down, filling the entire opening and leaving them in utter darkness.
The roar was deafening in that confined space, and beat upon their eardrums until it seemed as though they would burst. And a cloud of dust arose that was suffocating.
The captain, inured to dangers and to quick thinking, was the first to realize what had happened.
“Trapped!” he roared. “Trapped! Penned in like so many rats!”
He rushed against the heavy stone andheaved against it with all the strength of his powerful shoulders. But strain as he would, he could not make it budge. And as he remembered its giant size, he realized that it must weigh scores of tons. He might as well have tried to move a mountain.
As this conviction came to him, he desisted from his efforts and came slowly towards his companions.
“Lucky that the boys are not in here with us,” he remarked, his habitual calmness returning to him. “They, at least, have their chance. It is singular, too,” he mused. “Don, especially, is usually right up to the front at a time like this. Didn’t you think they were following us?”
“I thought I heard them answer you when you called to them,” replied the professor. “But, after all, that may have been only the echo of your voice.”
“Possibly,” rejoined the captain. “But, at any rate, they must be right outside now. We must communicate with them and get them to go to Ismillah and Abdul for help. With our united efforts, we may be able to make an exit.”
He approached the rock, called out as loudly as he could and hammered on the rock with the butt of his rifle. But no response came, and, at last, sorely puzzled, he abandoned the attempt.
“Well,” Professor Bruce said grimly, “theold Pharaoh has sprung the trap. His dead hand has reached out through forty centuries and tricked us.”
“What do you mean?” asked the captain.
“What I say,” was the reply. “You don’t suppose that it was mere accident that caused that stone to fall just at this minute, do you?”
“The long arm of coincidence—”
“Nothing of the kind,” interrupted the professor. “That rock was balanced so perfectly that it would fall when a hidden spring was pressed. And we pressed that spring when we stepped on one of the blocks in this paved passage. Those old fellows were marvels when it came to bits of infernal ingenuity like that.”
“It is probable,” observed Phalos.
“The very fact that there was an opening there should have warned us,” admitted the captain. “Why should entrance have been so easy? Simply to lure us in, so that we could be punished for our presumption. ‘Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.’ Well, we’ve walked in all right, and if the spider knows anything where he is, I’ll bet he is grinning at us this moment.”
He communed with himself a moment in bitter self-reproach, while Phalos and Professor Bruce, both silently, tried to work out some plan of procedure.
“Well,” the captain resumed at last, with a return of his old nonchalant manner, “there’sno use crying over spilt milk. We’re here, and that’s all there is about it. We’re all grown men, and we’re all of us able to face the truth. I believe I’m betraying no confidence,” he added with grim humor, “when I say that we’re in a very serious situation. But we’ve all been in others quite as serious and emerged with a whole skin, and perhaps history will repeat itself.”
“I’m thankful, at least, that the boys are not with us,” remarked the professor.
“Amen to that,” said Phalos. “To a large extent, we at least have lived our lives. They have theirs before them.”
“And there are other bits of silver linings to our clouds,” resumed the captain. “In the first place, we have pretty good proof that no one else has preceded us. So if we find the tomb at all, we’ll find it unrifled.
“Then, again, I had the luck to shove our bag of provisions through the hole before I crawled in myself,” he continued. “There are several extra canteens of water there too, besides those we have strapped to us. So we have enough with care to last us for a week or so, if we have to stay here that long.”
“That’s good,” observed the professor. “And, as we can’t go back, we’d better go forward at once.”
“Yes, let’s be getting along,” the captain said, picking up the bag of provisions andslinging it over his shoulder, while in the other hand he carried his rifle. “As Amos says, we can’t go back, and so we’ll make a virtue of necessity and go forward. That, after all, is what we came for.”
They went on carefully, picking their steps along a paved passage, so narrow that they had to go single file.
The path sloped steadily downward, so that they knew they were going into the bowels of the earth. The air was heavy and dank, and yet there was at times the faintest perceptible stirring of the air that showed there must be some communication with the outer world. The reflection gave them new courage, and they quickened their steps, the captain using his flashlight as a guide.
After they had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile and were beginning to wonder whether the passage was interminable, they suddenly came into a large room walled in on all sides with stone, on which were painted scenes of Egyptian life.
The captain flashed his light around the room and a cry of consternation came from the lips of all.
The scene revealed was one of the wildest confusion. Lids had been torn from coffins and lay splintered upon the floor. Mummy wrappings were tossed here and there, helter skelter. On the floor over in one corner, laya mummy, with the head torn from the shoulders and lying several feet away from the body.
The old Egyptian threw up his hands.
“Too late! Too late!” he moaned, and tore his hair. “The tomb has been rifled!”