"Did you hear that, Tom?" asked Ned, in a hoarse whisper.
"Surely," was the cautious answer. "Keep still, and I'll try for a shot."
"Better be quick," advised Ned in a tense voice. "The chap who did that yelling seems to be in trouble!"
And as Ned's voice trailed off into a whisper, again came the cry, this time in frenzied pain.
"El tigre! El tigre!" Then there was a jumble of words.
"It's over this way!" and this time Ned shouted, seeing no need for low voices since the other was so loud.
Tom looked to where Ned had parted the bushes alongside a jungle path. Through the opening the young inventor saw, in a little glade, that which caused him to take a firmer grip on his electric rifle, and also a firmer grip on his nerves.
Directly in front of him and Ned, and not more than a hundred yards away, was a great tawny and spotted jaguar—the "tigre" or tiger of Central America. The beast, with lashing tail, stood over an Indian upon whom it seemed to have sprung from some lair, beating the unfortunate man to the ground. Nor had he fallen scatheless, for there was blood on the green leaves about him, and it was not the blood of the spotted beast.
"Oh, Tom, can you—can you——" and Ned faltered.
The young inventor understood the unspoken question.
"I think I can make a shot of it without hitting the man," he answered, never turning his head. "It's a question, though, if the beast won't claw him in the death struggle. It won't last long, however, if the electric bullet goes to the right place, and I've got to take the chance."
Cautiously Tom brought his weapon to bear. Quiet as Ned and he had been after the discovery, the jaguar seemed to feel that something was wrong. Intent on his prey, for a time he had stood over it, gloating. Now the brute glanced uneasily from side to side, its tail nervously twitching, and it seemed trying to gain, by a sniffing of the air, some information as to the direction in which danger lay, for Tom and Ned had stooped low, concealing themselves by a screen of leaves.
The Indian, after his first frenzied outburst of fear, now lay quiet, as though fearing to move, moaning in pain.
Suddenly the jaguar, attracted either by some slight movement on the part of Ned or Tom, or perhaps by having winded them, turned his head quickly and gazed with cruel eyes straight at the spot where the two young men stood behind the bushes.
"He's seen us," whispered Ned.
"Yes," assented Tom. "And it's a perfect shot. Hope I don't miss!"
It was not like Tom Swift to miss, nor did he on this occasion. There was a slight report from the electric rifle—a report not unlike the crackle of the wireless—and the powerful projectile sped true to its mark.
Straight through the throat and chest under the uplifted jaw of the jaguar it went—through heart and lungs. Then with a great coughing, sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, now never to fall.
"You did it, Tom! You did it!" cried Ned, springing up from where he had been kneeling to give his chum a better chance to shoot. "You did it, and saved the man's life!" And Ned would have rushed out toward the still twitching body.
"Just a minute!" interposed Tom. "Those beasts sometimes have as many lives as a cat. I'll give it one more for luck." Another electric projectile through the head of the jaguar produced no further effect than to move the body slightly, and this proved conclusively that there was no life left. It was safe to approach, which Tom and Ned did.
Their first thought, after a glance at the jaguar, was for the Indian. It needed but a brief examination to show that he was not badly hurt. The jaguar had leaped on him from a low tree as he passed under it, as the boys learned afterward, and had crushed the man to earth by the weight of the spotted body more than by a stroke of the paw.
The American jaguar is not so formidable a beast as the native name of tiger would cause one to suppose, though they are sufficiently dangerous, and this one had rather badly clawed the Indian. Fortunately the scratches were on the fleshy parts of the arms and shoulders, where, though painful, they were not necessarily serious.
"But if you hadn't shot just when you did, Tom, it would have been all up with him," commented Ned.
"Oh, well, I guess you'd have hit him if I hadn't," returned the young inventor. "But let's see what we can do for this chap."
The man sat up wonderingly—hardly able to believe that he had been saved from the dreaded "tigre." His wounds were bleeding rather freely, and as Tom and Ned carried with them a first-aid kit they now brought it into use. The wounds were bound up, the man was given water to drink and then, as he was able to walk, Tom and Ned offered to help him wherever he wanted to go.
"Blessed if I can tell whether he's one of our Indians or whether he belongs to the Beecher crowd," remarked Tom.
"Senor Beecher," said the Indian, adding, in Spanish, that he lived in the vicinity and had only lately been engaged by the young professor who hoped to discover the idol of gold before Tom's scientific friend could do so.
Tom and Ned knew a little Spanish, and with that, and simple but expressive signs on the part of the Indian, they learned his story. He had his palm-thatched hut not far from the Beecher camp, in a small Indian village, and he, with others, had been hired on the arrival of the Beecher party to help with the excavations. These, for some reason, were delayed.
"Delayed because they daren't use the map they stole from us," commented Ned.
"Maybe," agreed Tom.
The Indian, whose name, it developed, was Tal, as nearly as Tom and Ned could master it, had left camp to go to visit his wife and child in the jungle hut, intending to return to the Beecher camp at night. But as he passed through the forest the jaguar had dropped on him, bearing him to earth.
"But you saved my life, Senor," he said to Tom, dropping on one knee and trying to kiss Tom's hand, which our hero avoided. "And now my life is yours," added the Indian.
"Well, you'd better get home with it and take care of it," said Tom. "I'll have Professor Bumper come over and dress your scratches in a better and more careful way. The bandages we put on are only temporary."
"My wife she make a poultice of leaves—they cure me," said the Indian.
"I guess that will be the best way," observed Ned. "These natives can doctor themselves for some things, better than we can."
"Well, we'll take him home," suggested Tom. "He might keel over from loss of blood. Come on," he added to Tal, indicating his object.
It was not far to the native's hut from the place where the jaguar had been killed, and there Tom and Ned underwent another demonstration of affection as soon as those of Tal's immediate family and the other natives understood what had happened.
"I hate this business!" complained Tom, after having been knelt to by the Indian's wife and child, who called him the "preserver" and other endearing titles of the same kind. "Come on, let's hike back."
But Indian hospitality, especially after a life has been saved, is not so simple as all that.
"My life—my house—all that I own is yours," said Tal in deep gratitude. "Take everything," and he waved his hand to indicate all the possessions in his humble hut.
"Thanks," answered Tom, "but I guess you need all you have. That's a fine specimen of blow gun though," he added, seeing one hanging on the wall. "I wouldn't mind having one like that. If you get well enough to make me one, Tal, and some arrows to go with it, I'd like it for a curiosity to hang in my room at home."
"The Senor shall have a dozen," promised the Indian.
"Look, Ned," went on Tom, pointing to the native weapon. "I never saw one just like this. They use small arrows or darts, tipped with wild cotton, instead of feathers."
"These the arrows," explained Tal's wife, bringing a bundle from a corner of the one-room hut. As she held them out her husband gave a cry of fear.
"Poisoned arrows! Poisoned arrows!" he exclaimed. "One scratch and the senors are dead men. Put them away!"
In fear the Indian wife prepared to obey, but as she did so Tom Swift caught sight of the package and uttered a strange cry.
"Thundering hoptoads, Ned!" he exclaimed. "The poisoned arrows are wrapped in the piece of oiled silk that was around the professor's missing map!"
Fascinated, Tom and Ned gazed at the package the Indian woman held out to them. Undoubtedly it was oiled silk on the outside, and through the almost transparent covering could be seen the small arrows, or darts, used in the blow gun.
"Where did you get that?" asked Tom, pointing to the bundle and gazing sternly at Tal.
"What is the matter, Senor?" asked the Indian in turn. "Is it that you are afraid of the poisoned arrows? Be assured they will not harm you unless you are scratched by them."
Tom and Ned found it difficult to comprehend all the rapid Spanish spoken by their host, but they managed to understand some, and his eloquent gestures made up the rest.
"We're not afraid," Tom said, noting that the oiled skin well covered the dangerous darts. "But where did you get that?"
"I picked it up, after another Indian had thrown it away. He got it in your camp, Senor. I will not lie to you. I did not steal. Valdez went to your camp to steal—he is a bad Indian—and he brought back this wrapping. It contained something he thought was gold, but it was not, so he——"
"Quick! Yes! Tell us!" demanded Tom eagerly. "What did he do with the professor's map that was in the oiled silk? Where is it?"
"Oh, Senors!" exclaimed the Indian woman, thinking perhaps her husband was about to be dealt harshly with when she heard Tom's excited voice. "Tal do no harm!"
"No, he did no harm," went on Tom, in a reassuring tone. "But he can do a whole lot of good if he tells us what became of the map that was in this oiled silk. Where is it?" he asked again.
"Valdez burn it up," answered Tal.
"What, burned the professor's map?" cried Ned.
"If that was in this yellow cloth—yes," answered the injured man. "Valdez he is bad. He say to me he is going to your camp to see what he can take. How he got this I know not, but he come back one morning with the yellow package. I see him, but he make me promise not to tell. But you save my life I tell you everything.
"Valdez open the package; but it is not gold, though he think so because it is yellow, and the man with no hair on his head keep it in his pocket close, so close," and Tal hugged himself to indicate what he meant.
"That's Professor Bumper," explained Ned.
"How did Valdez get the map out of the professor's coat?" asked Tom.
"Valdez he very much smart. When man with no hair on his head take coat off for a minute to eat breakfast Valdez take yellow thing out of pocket."
"The Indian must have sneaked into camp when we were eating," said Tom. "Those from Beecher's party and our workers look all alike to us. We wouldn't know one from the other, and one of our rival's might slip in."
"One evidently did, if this is really the piece of oiled silk that was around the professor's map," said Ned.
"It certainly is the same," declared the young inventor. "See, there is his name," and he stretched out his hand to point.
"Don't touch!" cried Tal. "Poisoned arrows snake poison—very dead-like and quick."
"Don't worry, I won't touch," said Tom grimly. "But go on. You say Valdez sneaked into our camp, took the oiled-silk package from the coat pocket of Professor Bumper and went back to his own camp with it, thinking it was gold."
"Yes," answered Tal, though it is doubtful if he understood all that Tom said, as it was half Spanish and half English. But the Indian knew a little English, too. "Valdez, when he find no gold is very mad. Only papers in the yellow silk-papers with queer marks on. Valdez think it maybe a charm to work evil, so he burn them up—all up!"
"Burned that rare map!" gasped Tom.
"All in fire," went on Tal, indicating by his hands the play of flames. "Valdez throw away yellow silk, and I take for my arrows so rain not wash off poison. I give to you, if you like, with blow gun."
"No, thank you," answered Tom, in disappointed tones. "The oiled silk is of no use without the map, and that's gone. Whew! but this is tough!" he said to his chum. "As long as it was only stolen there was a chance to get it back, but if it's burned, the jig is up."
"It looks so," agreed Ned. "We'd better get back and tell the professor. It he can't get along without the map it's time he started a movement toward getting another. So it wasn't Beecher, after all, who got it."
"Evidently not," assented Tom. "But I believe him capable of it."
"You haven't much use for him," remarked Ned.
"Huh!" was all the answer given by his chum.
"I am sorry, Senors," went on Tal, "but I could not stop Valdez, and the burning of the papers——"
"No, you could not help it," interrupted the young inventor. "But it just happens that it brings bad luck to us. You see, Tal, the papers in this yellow covering, told of an old buried city that the bald-headed professor—the-man-with-no-hair-on-his-head—is very anxious to discover. It is somewhere under the ground," and he waved to the jungle all about them, pointing earthwards.
"Paper Valdez burn tell of lost city?" asked Tal, his face lighting up.
"Yes. But now, of course, we can't tell where to dig for it."
The Indian turned to his wife and talked rapidly with her in their own dialect. She, too, seemed greatly excited, making quick gestures. Finally she ran out of the hut.
"Where is she going?" asked Tom suspiciously.
"To get her grandfather. He very old Indian. He know story of buried cities under trees. Very old story—what you call legend, maybe. But Goosal know. He tell same as his grandfather told him. You wait. Goosal come, and you listen."
"Good, Ned!" suddenly cried Tom. "Maybe, we'll get on the track of lost Kurzon after all, through some ancient Indian legend. Maybe we won't need the map!"
"It hardly seems possible," said Ned slowly. "What can these Indians know of buried cities that were out of existence before Columbus came here? Why, they haven't any written history."
"No, and that may be just the reason they are more likely to be right," returned Tom. "Legends handed down from one grandfather to another go back a good many hundred years. If they were written they might be destroyed as the professor's map was. Somehow or other, though I can't tell why, I begin to see daylight ahead of us."
"I wish I did," remarked Ned.
"Here comes Goosal I think," murmured Tom, and he pointed to an Indian, bent with the weight of years, who, led by Tal's wife, was slowly approaching the hut.
"Now Goosal can tell you," said Tal, evidently pleased that he had, in a measure, solved the problem caused by the burning of the professor's map. "Goosal very old Indian. He know old stories—legends—very old."
"Well, if he can tell us how to find the buried city of Kurzon and the—the things in it," said Tom, "he's all right!"
The aged Indian proceeded slowly toward the hut where the impatient youths awaited him.
"I know what you seek in the buried city," remarked Tal.
"Do you?" cried Tom, wondering if some one had indiscreetly spoken of the idol of gold.
"Yes you want pieces of rock, with strange writings on them, old weapons, broken pots. I know. I have helped white men before."
"Yes, those are the things we want," agreed Tom, with a glance at his chum. "That is—some of them. But does your wife's grandfather talk our language?"
"No, but I can tell you what he says."
By this time the old man, led by "Mrs. Tal"—as the young men called the wife of the Indian they had helped—entered the hut. He seemed nervous and shy, and glanced from Tom and Ned to his grandson-in-law, as the latter talked rapidly in the Indian dialect. Then Goosal made answer, but what it was all about the boys could not tell.
"Goosal say," translated Tal, "that he know a story of a very old city away down under ground."
"Tell us about it!" urged Tom eagerly.
But a difficulty very soon developed. Tal's intentions were good, but he was not equal to the task of translating. Nor was the understanding of Tom and Ned of Spanish quite up to the mark.
"Say, this is too much for me!" exclaimed Tom. "We are losing the most valuable part of this by not understanding what Goosal says, and what Tal translates."
"What can we do?" asked Ned.
"Get the professor here as soon as possible. He can manage this dialect, and he'll get the information at first hand. If Goosal can tell where to begin excavating for the city he ought to tell the professor, not us."
"That's right," agreed Ned. "We'll bring the professor here as soon as we can."
Accordingly they stopped the somewhat difficult task of listening to the translated story and told Tal, as well as they could, that they would bring the "man-with-no-hair-on-his-head" to listen to the tale.
This seemed to suit the Indians, all of whom in the small colony appeared to be very grateful to Tom and Ned for having saved the life of Tal.
"That was a good shot you made when you bowled over the jaguar," said Ned, as the two young explorers started back to their camp.
"Better than I realized, if it leads to the discovery of Kurzon and the idol of gold," remarked Tom.
"And to think we should come across the oiled-silk holding the poisoned arrows!" went on Ned. "That's the strangest part of the whole affair. If it hadn't been that you shot the jaguar this never would have come about."
That Professor Bumper was astonished, and Mr. Damon likewise, when they heard the story of Tom and Ned, is stating it mildly.
"Come on!" exclaimed the scientist, as Tom finished, "we must see this Goosal at once. If my map is destroyed, and it seems to be, this old Indian may be our only hope. Where did he say the buried city was, Tom?"
"Oh, somewhere in this vicinity, as nearly as I could make out. But you'd better talk with him yourself. We didn't say anything about the idol of gold."
"That's right. It's just as well to let the natives think we are only after ordinary relics."
"Bless my insurance policy!" gasped Mr. Damon. "It does not seem possible that we are on the right track."
"Well, I think we are, from what little information Goosal gave us," remarked Tom. "This buried city of his must be a wonderful place."
"It is, if it is what I take it to be," agreed the professor. "I told you I would bring you to a land of wonders, Tom Swift, and they have hardly begun yet. Come, I am anxious to talk to Goosal."
In order that the Indians in the Bumper camp might not hear rumors of the new plan to locate the hidden city, and, at the same time, to keep rumors from spreading to the camp of the rivals, the scientist and his friends started a new shaft, and put a shift of men at work on it.
"We'll pretend we are on the right track, and very busy," said Tom. "That will fool Beecher."
"Are you glad to know he did not take your map Professor Bumper?" asked Mr. Damon.
"Well, yes. It is hard to believe such things of a fellow scientist."
"If he didn't take it he wanted to," said Tom. "And he has done, or will do, things as unsportsmanlike."
"Oh, you are hardly fair, perhaps, Tom," commented Ned.
"Um!" was all the answer he received.
With the Indians in camp busy on the excavation work, and having ascertained that similar work was going on in the Beecher outfit, Professor Bumper, with Mr. Damon and the young men, set off to visit the Indian village and listen to Goosal's story. They passed the place where Tom had slain the jaguar, but nothing was left but the bones; the ants, vultures and jungle animals having picked them clean in the night.
On the arrival of Tom and his friends at the Indian's hut, Goosal told, in language which Professor Bumper could understand, the ancient legend of the buried city as he had had it from his grandfather.
"But is that all you know about it, Goosal?" asked the savant.
"No, Learned One. It is true most of what I have told you was told to me by my father and his father's father. But I—I myself—with these eyes, have looked upon the lost city."
"You have!" cried the professor, this time in English. "Where? When? Take us to it! How do you get here?"
"Through the cavern of the dead," was the answer when the questions were modified.
"Bless my diamond ring!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, when Professor Bumper translated the reply. "What does he mean?"
And then, after some talk, this information came out. Years before, when Goosal was a young man, he had been taken by his grandfather on a journey through the jungle. They stopped one day at the foot of a high mountain, and, clearing away the brush and stones at a certain place, an entrance to a great cavern was revealed. This, it appeared, was the Indian burial ground, and had been used for generations.
Goosal, though in fear and trembling, was lead through it, and came to another cavern, vaster than the first. And there he saw strange and wonderful sights, for it was the remains of a buried city, that had once been the home of a great and powerful tribe unlike the Indians—the ancient Mayas it would seem.
"Can you take us to this cavern?" asked the professor.
"Yes," answered Goosal. "I will lead to it those who saved the life of Tal—them and their friends. I will take you to the lost city!"
"Good!" cried Mr. Damon, when this had been translated. "Now let Beecher try to play any more tricks on us! Ho! for the cavern and the lost city of Kurzon."
"And the idol of gold," said Tom Swift to himself. "I hope we can get it ahead of Beecher. Perhaps if I can help in that—Oh, well, here's hoping, that's all!" and a little smile curved his lips.
Greatly excited by the strange news, but maintaining as calm an air outwardly as possible, so as not to excite the Indians, Tom and his friends returned to camp to prepare for their trip. Goosal had said the cavern lay distant more than a two-days' journey into the jungle.
"Now," remarked Tom, once they were back again in their camp, "we must go about this trip to the cavern in a way that will cause no suspicion over there as to what our object is," and he nodded in the direction of the quarters of his rival.
"Do you mean to go off quietly?" asked Ned.
"Yes. And to keep the work going on here, at these shafts," put in the scientist, "so that if any of their spies happen to come here they will think we still believe the buried city to be just below us. To that end we must keep the Indians digging, though I am convinced now that it is useless."
Accordingly preparations were made for an expedition into the jungle under the leadership of Goosal. Tal had not sufficiently recovered from the jaguar wounds to go with the party, but the old man, in spite of his years, was hale and hearty and capable of withstanding hardships.
One of the most intelligent of the Indians was put in charge of the digging gangs as foreman, and told to keep them at work, and not to let them stray. Tolpec, whose brother Tom had tried to save, proved a treasure. He agreed to remain behind and look after the interests of his friends, and see that none of their baggage or stores were taken.
"Well, I guess we're as ready as we ever shall be," remarked Tom, as the cavalcade made ready to start. Mules carried the supplies that were to be taken into the jungle, and others of the sturdy animals were to be ridden by the travelers. The trail was not an easy one, Goosal warned them.
Tom and his friends found it even worse than they had expected, for all their experience in jungle and mountain traveling. In places it was necessary to dismount and lead the mules along, sometimes pushing and dragging them. More than once the trail fairly hung on the edge of some almost bottomless gorge, and again it wound its way between great walls of rock, so poised that they appeared about to topple over and crush the travelers. But they kept on with dogged patience, through many hardships.
To add to their troubles they seemed to have entered the abode of the fiercest mosquitoes encountered since coming to Honduras. At times it was necessary to ride along with hats covered with mosquito netting, and hands encased in gloves.
They had taken plenty of condensed food with them, and they did not suffer in this respect. Game, too, was plentiful and the electric rifles of Tom and Ned added to the larder.
One night, after a somewhat sound sleep induced by hard travel on the trail that day, Tom awoke to hear some one or something moving about among their goods, which included their provisions.
"Who's there?" asked the young inventor sharply, as he reached for his electric rifle.
There was no answer, but a rattling of the pans.
"Speak, or I'll fire!" Tom warned, adding this in such Spanish as he could muster, for he thought it might be one of the Indians. No reply came, and then, seeing by the light of the stars a dark form moving in front of the tent occupied by himself and Ned, Tom fired.
There was a combined grunt and squeal of pain, then a savage growl, and Ned yelled:
"What's the matter, Tom?" for he had been awakened, and heard the crackle of the electrical discharge.
"I don't know," Tom answered. "But I shot something—or somebody!"
"Maybe some of Beecher's crowd," ventured his chum. But when they got their electric torches, and focused them on the inert, black object, it was found to be a bear which had come to nose about the camp for dainty morsels.
Bruin was quite dead, and as he was in prime condition there was a feast of bear meat at the following dinner. The white travelers found it rather too strong for their palates, but the Indians reveled in it.
It was shortly after noon the next day, when Goosal, after remarking that a storm seemed brewing, announced that they would be at the entrance to the cavern in another hour.
"Good!" cried Professor Bumper. "At last we are near the buried city."
"Don't be too sure," advised Mr. Damon, "We may be disappointed. Though I hope not for your sake, my dear Professor."
Goosal now took the lead, and the old Indian, traveling on foot, for he said he could better look for the old landmark that way than on the back of a mule, walked slowly along a rough cliff.
"Here, somewhere, is the entrance to the cavern," said the aged man. "It was many years ago that I was here—many years. But it seems as though yesterday. It is little changed."
Indeed little did change in that land of wonders. Only nature caused what alterations there were. The hand of man had long been absent.
Slowly Goosal walked along the rocky trail, on one side a sheer rock, towering a hundred feet or more toward the sky. On the other side a deep gash leading to a great fertile valley below.
Suddenly the old man paused, and looked about him as though uncertain. Then, more slowly still, he put out his hand and pulled at some bushes that grew on a ledge of the rock. They came away, having no depth of earth, and a small opening was disclosed.
"It is here," said Goosal quietly. "The entrance to the cavern that leads to the burial place of the dead, and the city that is dead also. It is here."
He stood aside while the others hurried forward. It took but a few minutes to prove that he was right—at least as to the existence of the cavern—for the four men were soon peering into the opening.
"Come on!" cried Tom, impetuously.
"Wait a moment," suggested the professor, "Sometimes the air in these places is foul. We must test it." But a torch one of the Indians threw in burned with a steady glow. That test was conclusive at least. They made ready to enter.
Torches of a light bark, that glowed with a steady flame and little smoke, had been provided, as well as a good supply of electric dry-battery lamps, and the way into the cavern was thus well lighted. At first the Indians were afraid to enter, but a word or two from Goosal reassured them, and they followed Professor Bumper, Tom, and the others into the cavern.
For several hundred feet there was nothing remarkable about the cave. It was like any other cavern of the mountains, though wonderful for the number of crystal formations on the roof and walls—formations that sparkled like a million diamonds in the flickering lights.
"Talk about a wonderland!" cried Tom. "This is fairyland!"
A moment later, as Goosal walked on beside the professor and Tom, the aged Indian came to a pause, and, pointing ahead, murmured:
"The city of the dead!"
They saw the niches cut in the rock walls, niches that held the countless bones of those who had died many, many years before. It was a vast Indian grave.
"Doubtless a wealth of material of historic interest here," said Professor Bumper, flashing his torch on the skeletons. "But it will keep. Where is the city you spoke of, Goosal?"
"Farther on, Senor. Follow me."
Past the stone graves they went, deeper and deeper into the great cave. Their footsteps echoed and re-echoed. Suddenly Tom, who with Ned had gone a little ahead, came to a sudden halt and said:
"Well, this may be a burial place sure enough, but I think I see something alive all right—if it isn't a ghost."
He pointed ahead. Surely those were lights flickering and moving about, and, yes, there were men carrying them. The Bumper party came to a surprised halt. The other lights advanced, and then, to the great astonishment of Professor Bumper and his friends, there confronted them in the cave several scientists of Professor Beecher's party and a score or more of Indians. Professor Hylop, who was known to Professor Bumper, stepped forward and asked sharply:
"What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same thing," was the retort.
"You might, but you would not be answered," came sharply. "We have a right here, having discovered this cavern, and we claim it under a concession of the Honduras Government. I shall have to ask you to withdraw."
"Do you mean leave here?" asked Mr Damon.
"That is it, exactly. We first discovered this cave. We have been conducting explorations in it for several days, and we wish no outsiders."
"Are you speaking for Professor Beecher?" asked Tom.
"I am. But he is here in the cave, and will speak for himself if you desire it. But I represent him, and I order you to leave. If you do not go peaceably we will use force. We have plenty of it," and he glanced back at the Indians grouped behind him—scowling savage Indians.
"We have no wish to intrude," observed Professor Bumper, "and I fully recognize the right of prior discovery. But one member of our party (he did not say which one) was in this cave many years ago. He led us to it."
"Ours is a government concession!" exclaimed Professor Hylop harshly. "We want no intruders! Go!" and he pointed toward the direction whence Tom's party had come.
"Drive them out!" he ordered the Indians in Spanish, and with muttered threats the dark-skinned men advanced toward Tom and the others.
"You need not use force," said Professor Bumper.
He and Professor Hylop had quarreled bitterly years before on some scientific matter, and the matter was afterward found to be wrong. Perhaps this made him vindictive.
Tom stepped forward and started to protest, but Professor Bumper interposed.
"I guess there is no help for it but to go. It seems to be theirs by right of discovery and government concession," he said, in disappointed tone. "Come friends"; and dejectedly they retraced their steps.
Followed by the threatening Indians, the Bumper party made its way back to the entrance. They had hoped for great things, but if the cavern gave access to the buried city—the ancient city of Kurzon on the chief altar of which stood the golden idol, Quitzel—it looked as though they were never to enter it.
"We'll have to get our Indians and drive those fellows out!" declared Tom. "I'm not going to be beaten this way—and by Beecher!"
"It is galling," declared Professor Bumper. "Still he has right on his side, and I must give in to priority, as I would expect him to. It is the unwritten law."
"Then we've failed!" cried Tom bitterly.
"Not yet," said Professor Bumper. "If I can not unearth that buried city I may find another in this wonderland. I shall not give up."
"Hark! What's that noise?" asked Tom, as they approached the entrance to the cave.
"Sounds like a great wind blowing," commented Ned.
It was. As they stood in the entrance they looked out to find a fierce storm raging. The wind was sweeping down the rocky trail, the rain was falling in veritable bucketfuls from the overhanging cliff, and deafening thunder and blinding lightning roared and flashed.
"Surely you would not drive us out in this storm," said Professor Bumper to his former rival.
"You can not stay in the cave! You must get out!" was the answer, as a louder crash of thunder than usual seemed to shake the very mountain.
For an instant Tom and his friends paused at the entrance to the wonderful cavern, and looked at the raging storm. It seemed madness to venture out into it, yet they had been driven from the cave by those who had every right of discovery to say who, and who should not, partake of its hospitality.
"We can't go out into that blow!" cried Ned. "It's enough to loosen the very mountains!"
"Let's stay here and defy them!" murmured Tom. "If the—if what we seek—is here we have as good a right to it as they have."
"We must go out," said Professor Bumper simply. "I recognize the right of my rival to dispossess us."
"He may have the right, but it isn't human," said Mr. Damon. "Bless my overshoes! If Beecher himself were here he wouldn't have the heart to send us out in this storm."
"I would not give him the satisfaction of appealing to him," remarked Professor Bumper. "Come, we will go out. We have our ponchos, and we are not fair-weather explorers. If we can't get to the lost city one way we will another. Come my friends."
And despite the downpour, the deafening thunder and the lightning that seemed ready to sear one's eyes, he walked out of the cave entrance, followed by Tom and the others.
"Come on!" cried Tom, in a voice he tried to render confident, as they went out into the terrible storm. "We'll beat 'em yet!"
The rain fell harder than ever. Small torrents were now rushing down the trail, and it was only a question of a few minutes before the place where they stood would be a raging river, so quickly does the rain collect in the mountains and speed toward the valleys.
"We must take to the forest!" cried Tom. "There'll be some shelter there, and I don't like the way the geography of this place is behaving. There may be a landslide at any moment."
As he spoke he motioned upward through the mist of the rain to the sloping side of the mountain towering above them. Loose stones were beginning to roll down, accompanied by patches of earth loosened by the water. Some of the patches carried with them bunches of grass and small bushes.
"Yes, it will be best to move into the jungle," said the professor. "Goosal, you had better take the lead."
It was wonderful to see how well the aged Indian bore up in spite of his years, and walked on ahead. They had left their mules tethered some distance back, in a sheltering clump of trees, and they hoped the animals would be safe.
The guide found a place where they could leave the trail, though going down a dangerous slope, and take to the forest. As carefully as possible they descended this, the rain continuing to fall, the wind to blow, the lightning to sizzle all about them and the thunder to boom in their ears.
They went on until they were beneath the shelter of the thick jungle growth of trees, which kept off some of the pelting drops.
"This is better!" exclaimed Ned, shaking his poncho and getting rid of some of the water that had settled on it.
"Bless my overcoat!" cried Mr. Damon. "We seem to have gotten out of the frying pan into the fire!"
"How?" asked Tom. "We are partly sheltered here, though had we stayed in the cave in spite of——"
A deafening crash interrupted him, and following the flash one of the giant trees of the forest was seen to blaze up and then topple over.
"Struck by lightning!" yelled Ned.
"Yes; and it may happen to us!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "We were safer from the lightning in the open. Maybe——"
Again came an interruption, but this time a different one. The very ground beneath their feet seemed to be shaking and trembling.
"What is it?" gasped Ned, while Goosal fell on his knees and began fervently to pray.
"It's an earthquake!" yelled Tom Swift.
As he spoke there came another sound—the sound of a mass of earth in motion. It came from the direction of the mountain trail they had just left. They looked toward it and their horror-stricken eyes saw the whole side of the mountain sliding down.
Slowly at first the earth slid down, but constantly gathering force and speed. In the face of this new disaster the rain seemed to have ceased and the thunder and lightning to be less severe. It was as though one force of nature gave way to the other.
"Look! Look!" gasped Ned.
In silence, which was broken now only by a low and ominous rumble, more menacing than had been the awful fury of the elements, the travelers looked.
Suddenly there was a quicker movement of seemingly one whole section of the mountain. Great rocks and trees, carried down by the appalling force of the landslide were slipping over the trail, obliterating it as though it had never existed.
"There goes the entrance to the cavern!" cried Ned, and as the others looked to where he pointed they saw the hole in the side of the mountain—the mouth of the cave that led to the lost city of Kurzon—completely covered by thousands of tons of earth and stones.
"That's the end of them!" exclaimed Tom, as the rumble of the earthquake died away.
"Of——" Ned stopped, his eyes staring.
"Of Professor Beecher's party. They're entombed alive!"