CHAPTER NINE.
THE SCULPTURED ROCKS.
"Bravo! Dick, old chap," exclaimed Earle, turning to his friend, withone hand outstretched in offered help while the other grasped a smokingpistol--"well fought! Are you hurt at all?"
"N-o, I think not," replied Dick, a little doubtfully, as with the helpof the other's proffered hand he scrambled to his feet. "That fellow,there"--pointing to the body of the ape that had hurled him to theground--"pretty nearly knocked the wind out of me, while the other didhis level best to dash my brains out, and I've barked my knuckles ratherbadly against his chin; but otherwise I think I'm all right, thanks.And you?"
"I?" returned Earle. "Oh, I'm as right as rain. Say, Dick, that wassomething like a scrap at the last. What? Guess if it hadn't been forold King Cole, we'd have been in rather a tight place. Look at thebeggar. Ugh! he is not pleasant to look at when he's real riled, is he?He has brought off his kill all right, and I guess we'd better leavehim to it a bit. I believe I don't particularly want to interfere withhim just now. Let's draw off a bit and have a look at one of those deadbrutes out yonder. I rather want to examine one; for I guess this is anentirely new species of monkey."
"They look to me very much like gorillas," remarked Dick.
"They do," agreed Earle. "But, all the same, they are not gorillas.There are no gorillas on this continent, so far as is known. Thegorilla is, I believe, peculiar to Africa. And these creatures, thoughthey certainly somewhat resemble gorillas in a general way, have certainpoints of difference, the most important of which is the shape of theskull, while another is their much greater bulk. I have shot severalgorillas; but I never saw one to come near any of these brutes in pointof size. By the way, where is the one you stopped with a broken leg?We may as well put him out of his misery."
The creature in question was nowhere to be seen; but they eventually gotupon his trail and followed him up to the border of the forest, intowhich he had evidently retreated; and they came to the conclusion that,as he had contrived to get thus far, they would leave him alone and givehim a chance to recover. Then they found one of the dead apes, andEarle subjected the carcass to a long and exhaustive examination, makingcopious notes and discoursing learnedly meanwhile, though it is to befeared that his remarks and explanations left Dick but little the wiser.It was close upon sunset when at length they returned to the camp,where they were shortly afterward joined by King Cole, once more calmand in his right mind.
They took the precaution to surround the camp with a circle of firesthat night, to ward off a possible attack, posting a sentinel at eachfire for the double purpose of keeping it going and maintaining a watch.
The belt of forest which the explorers entered on the following dayproved to be of no very great extent, the passage through it occupyingbut a day and a half. Emerging from it, the party crossed a splendidsavannah, abounding in game, chiefly of the antelope variety, and largebirds somewhat resembling bustard, the tameness of which seemed toindicate that man was practically unknown to them, while it enabled themto replenish their larder with the utmost ease. This savannah extendedfor a distance of about ten miles, and terminated among the foothills ofa range of mountains of very moderate height stretching right athwartthe path of the explorers. Among those foothills the party pitchedtheir camp at the end of the day's journey.
The next day's march conducted them into country the character of whichwas different from any hitherto traversed by them. It was exceedinglyrugged and broken, treeless, the soil covered with a short, rich grass,which would have rendered it ideal as grazing country, dotted here andthere with small clumps of bush, some of which were fruit-bearing, whileat frequent intervals great outcrops of metamorphic rock were met with,which time and weather had in many cases wrought into extraordinaryshapes.
It was near noon when the party entered a narrow ravine bordered oneither side by vertical sandstone cliffs of about a hundred feet high,and here they came to a halt and pitched their camp; for no sooner hadthey fairly entered the ravine than they found themselves confronted bya splendid example of those extraordinary sculptured rocks which haveexcited the wonder and admiration of the few travellers in South Americawho have been fortunate enough to find them.
In the present case the sculptured rock consisted of a stretch ofsandstone cliff about two hundred and fifty feet in length by about ahundred feet in height, practically vertical, the entire surface ofwhich was covered with panels presenting a series of pictures portrayingwhat appeared to be a genealogical record of certain customs andceremonies, mostly of a religious character, of some gone and forgottenrace of people. The work was executed in fairly high relief, and thedrawing of the figures, of which there were thousands on the entiresculptured surface, evidenced artistic ability of a truly remarkablecharacter, including a considerable knowledge of perspective. Thepanels portraying religious ceremonies indicated that the sun and firewere, or symbolised, the principal deities worshipped; and there wasabundant evidence that human sacrifice was common. All this was, ofcourse, absorbingly interesting to Earle, as was the light which thesculptures threw upon the personal appearance and costumes of the peopleportrayed. If the artist--or artists, for there must have beenthousands of them to have produced such a magnificent and colossal pieceof work--could be believed, the departed race boasted some exceptionallyfine examples of male and female beauty, while the costumes bore morethan a casual resemblance to those pictured on the ancient monuments ofEgypt. Earle announced with finality that he intended to remain in campon the spot, not only until he had minutely and exhaustively examinedthe sculptures, but also until he had photographed them as a whole andsome separately. That probably meant at least a week's sojourn wherethey then were.
The proposed arrangement suited Dick Cavendish admirably, for theprolonged halt appealed to him as something very much in the nature of aholiday, especially when Earle declared that he would need no assistancein his photographic operations, so that Dick would be free to amusehimself in any way he pleased. Dick was rapidly becoming as keen anaturalist, in a way, as Earle; once or twice, during the morning'smarch, he had observed some particularly gorgeous butterflies flittingabout, and he promised himself that he would spend at least a portion ofhis sojourn in the ravine in an endeavour to secure a few specimens.There was one duty, however, which he at once recognised must fall uponhim, which was the supply of the camp with meat, and accordingly, uponthe conclusion of the mid-day meal, when Earle started to get hisphotographic gear ready for the campaign among the sculptures, Dick tookhis rifle and, accompanied by two of the Indians, proceeded up theravine in search of game. The country rapidly became wilder and morepicturesque as they went, to such an extent indeed that Dick quicklymade up his mind to pay it another and more leisurely visit; and afterabout an hour's tramp, which carried him into a labyrinth of rocks, hegot a splendid shot at a creature strongly resembling a bighorn, whichhe neatly bowled over and with it triumphantly returned to camp.
On the fourth morning of the party's sojourn in the ravine, Dick,accompanied as usual by two Indians, set out, immediately afterbreakfast, in search of meat for the day. Game was not particularlyplentiful in that region, but the lad preferred to take his chance offinding something in his accustomed haunts, rather than tramp all theway back to the savannah, and accordingly he proceeded, as usual, rightup the ravine, until he arrived at a point where a branch route led offtoward the left. Hitherto he had not tried his luck in that particulardirection, but he decided to do so now; and after about half an hour'stramp, upon surmounting the crest of a ridge, he found himself lookingdown into a small circular basin, surrounded by rocky cliffs, the bottomof which was a smooth, grassy plain, in which, as luck would have it,several antelopes were grazing. The nearest of these, a fine fat buckto all appearance, was at least a thousand yards away, which was muchtoo long a shot for Dick to risk; and he therefore set out to stalk theanimal, leaving the Indians where they were to follow as soon as thebuck should fall.
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sp; There were clumps of bush growing quite close up to the base of theencircling cliffs, offering admirable cover for stalking, as well as acertain amount of shelter from the sun's scorching rays, and of theseDick gladly availed himself, ultimately succeeding in bringing down thebuck with a three-hundred yard shot. Then, while waiting for theIndians to come and break up the quarry, the young man flung himselfdown in the shadow of a clump of bush to rest.
Stretched there at length in the cool, lush grass, with the great wallof sandstone cliff towering before him, it gradually dawned upon Dickthat the enormous mass of rock upon which he was gazing must be thatupon the opposite face of which were those wonderful sculptured pictureswhich Earle was doubtless at that moment busily engaged inphotographing, and the thought caused him to regard the cliff with someinterest. There were no sculptures upon it, but as Dick allowed hisgaze to wander over the face of the cliff his quick eye detected a sortof crack some twenty feet above the surface of the ground, out of which,as he lay regarding it, there came fluttering one of those splendidbutterflies, a specimen or two of which he was so eager to obtain; andhe at once made up his mind that as soon as the Indians had broken upthe buck and carried it away, he would explore that crack, which lookedwide enough to allow him to squeeze his body through, and access towhich seemed possible by way of a number of narrow ridges andprojections in the face of the rock. Accordingly, as soon as theIndians had done their work and departed--Dick having informed them thathe proposed to remain in the basin for a while and examine itthoroughly--he slung his rifle over his shoulder and started to climbthe rock, reaching the crack with but little difficulty.
He found that the aperture was considerably larger than it had appearedto be when viewed from below and squeezed through it with ease, to findhimself in the mouth of what looked like a cave, the dimensions ofwhich, however, it was not possible to ascertain, for within a couple ofyards of the entrance he found himself in darkness. But he saw enoughto stimulate his curiosity and determine him to see more; and with thisobject he descended to the plain and, hunting about among the bushes,soon secured a sufficiency of dry twigs and branches to serve astorches. With these and a bit of dry moss he returned to the aperturein the face of the cliff, where, before entering, he ignited the mosswith the aid of a powerful burning-glass which he habitually carriedabout in his pocket, and then, blowing the moss into flame, kindled oneof his torches.
At first sight the cave appeared to be of very circumscribed dimensions,being only just high enough for Dick to stand upright in it, while hecould touch both its sides at the same moment with his outstretchedhands. But it extended back toward the heart of the cliff, and as thelad cautiously groped his way inward the crack gradually widened untilat length he found himself traversing a spacious tunnel, piercingsteadily deeper and deeper into the heart of the cliff. Determined nowto see the full extent of the cave, and beginning to wonder whetherperchance it pierced right through the rock, Dick pushed steadily on,oblivious of the fact that his stock of torches was rapidly diminishing;and when at length this fact was forced upon his attention by thenecessity to kindle the last torch, it was far too late for him to thinkof returning, and feeling by this time convinced that there must surelybe another outlet at no great distance, he set his teeth and pushed on,hoping to reach that other outlet before his last torch should beconsumed. But the hope was vain, for in less than ten minutes Dickfound himself in profound darkness, with still no indication of anyother outlet than that by which he had entered.
Thus far the lad had gone without any difficulty; the tunnel-likepassage which he had traversed for a distance of, as he estimated,nearly a mile, had been without pitfalls or complications of any kind,and he believed it would be possible for him to return by the way he hadcome without difficulty, even in the dark. He halted to consider thematter, debating within himself whether he should risk everything bypushing on, or whether he should go groping his way back over that longstretch of rough, rocky road in the darkness. There could be noquestion as to which was the more prudent of the two plans; but therewas a vein of obstinacy in Cavendish's character; he hated to confesshimself beaten, and a light draught of warm air coming from thedirection toward which he had been heading decided him to take the morerisky course of pressing onward.
Accordingly, he resumed his course, holding his rifle horizontallybefore him to guard himself against the chance of collision with unseenobstacles, while he carefully felt the ground before him with one footbefore throwing his weight upon it. Proceeding thus cautiously, inabout a quarter of an hour he became aware of a faint glimmer ofgreenish light on the walls of the tunnel on either hand, and a fewminutes later emerged into what appeared to be a great chamber, orcavern, the interior of which was just sufficiently illuminated by thelight entering through another tunnel on its opposite side, to revealthe fact that the vertical walls of the chamber were, like the cliffwhich was occupying Earle's attention, covered with sculptures from thefloor upward as high as the light had power to reach. But it wasaltogether too feeble to reveal anything of the details of thesculptures, and with a mere glance about him Dick crossed the floor ofthe cavern--mechanically noting as he did so, that it was smooth andlevel--and passed into the opposite tunnel, entering which, he at oncebecame aware that his journey was practically ended, for at a distanceof but a few yards there appeared before him an irregular opening, intowhich, through a thick, screen of shimmering foliage, the light of daywas streaming. A minute later, and he was once more in the open air,forcing his way through a tangle of bushes which effectually masked theopening from which he had just emerged.
Dick's first act, after forcing a passage for himself through the screenof bushes, was to look about him, when he found, not very greatly to hissurprise, that he was within a short half-mile of the camp, the tunnelthrough which he had journeyed piercing the great mass of sandstone fromone side to the other. Then, knowing that Earle would wish to examinethe sculptured chamber, he sought some means of identifying the positionof the opening, and soon found it in a peculiarly shaped projection inthe face of the rock almost immediately above. This done, he made thebest of his way to Earle, who was busy with his camera, and informed theAmerican of his morning's adventure.
As Dick had anticipated, Earle manifested the utmost interest in thestory of the cavern with sculptured walls, going even to the length ofannouncing his determination to visit it immediately after lunch. Dickaccordingly proceeded to the camp and, summoning four of the Indians,instructed them to prepare a goodly supply of torches for the occasion.
When, some two hours later, the friends, accompanied by a couple ofIndians--one to hold a pair of blazing torches aloft, and the other tocarry the reserve supply--stood in the cavern and glanced about them,they at once became aware that they had stumbled upon a very remarkableand interesting monument. For the cavern, a great circular chamber,measuring forty-three paces in diameter--was, beyond all doubt, anancient temple, as was made clearly manifest by the character of thesculptures on the walls. These depicted a number of different religiousceremonies, intermingled with subjects which seemed to be allegorical,but apart from the exceedingly curious scenes depicted, the mostremarkable circumstance connected with the sculptures was that they wereof a totally different character from those on the cliff outside, beingmuch more crude in design and execution, and apparently of far earlierdate. The fact, however, above all others, which stamped the cavern asa temple, was the presence of a hideously carved life-size idol,enshrined in a most elaborately carved niche, with a great block ofstone before it which had evidently served as an altar.
The idol was a nude male figure, squatted cross-legged on a bench in theniche, its only decoration being a necklace with pendant attached. Thisornament escaped the notice of the observers until they came to studythe detail of the sculptured niche, when the glint of metal and a sheenof green rays attracted their attention and caused them to inspect itclosely. The inspection ended in Earle taking possession of the thing,and subsequent examina
tion revealed the fact that the chain was wroughtout of pure gold, while the pendant consisted of a lozenge-shaped plateof gold nearly a quarter of an inch thick, chased all over both surfaceswith strangely shaped markings or characters surrounding a greatemerald. It was an unique ornament, if only from the barbaric characterof its design and execution, while the emerald rendered it valuable, andEarle at once placed it round his own neck for safe keeping, voluntarilyproposing to pay Dick its intrinsic value upon their return tocivilisation, as his share in the profits of the discovery. He wouldfain have photographed the interior of the cavern but was reluctantlyforced to forgo the gratification of this desire, from inability toproduce artificial light of the necessary actinic value. But, tocompensate for this disappointment, he spent no less than three days inthe cavern, making sketches and voluminous notes.
At length, Earle having completed his photographs of the cliff, andprovided against future disappointment by developing and fixing hisnegatives on the spot, the party moved on up the ravine, and came outupon the lower slopes of the mountain range toward which they had beensteadfastly travelling from the moment when they first entered the greatswamp. Two evenings later, greatly fatigued by a long day's march, theyencamped near the head of a rocky pass, the steep sides of which wereshaggy with bush and trees, among which a number of small monkeysgambolled and chattered incessantly until darkness fell, staring downcuriously from the branches at the intruders upon their domain.
The place looked as solitary as though it had never before been troddenby the foot of man, but watch-fires were lighted and sentinels postedabout the camp as usual; and in due time the party retired to rest withthat feeling of perfect security which the observance of every properprecaution, coupled with a conviction of perfect immunity from danger,is wont to inspire.
Excessive fatigue, aided doubtless by the cooler air of the mountains,caused the leaders at least to sleep heavily until the early hours ofthe following morning, when they were suddenly awakened by a savagesnarl from King Cole, ending in a doleful moan, and they started up ontheir pallets, instinctively groping for their weapons, only to findthemselves instantly thrust back again and their limbs pinioned by anoverwhelming crowd of assailants, so many in number that the tent waspacked with them. Before they fully comprehended what had happened, or,still less, realised the completeness of the disaster which had befallenthem, they were so effectually bound with raw-hide thongs that theycould scarcely move a finger, and in that condition were dragged forthinto the open air, over the dead and mangled body of poor King Cole, tofind the camp in the possession of a band of some eighty stalwart andferocious-looking Indians, with every one of their followers, save four,like themselves, bound hand and foot. The four exceptions were theunfortunate sentinels, the corpses of whom, transfixed by spears, couldbe seen lying close to the smouldering watch-fires.
The captors wasted no time in any attempt to rummage the contents of thecamp; on the contrary, they took each prisoner, and while half-a-dozenhemmed him in and threatened him with instant death upon the points oftheir spears, a seventh cast loose the thongs that bound him. Then,still threatening him, they indicated certain portions of the campequipment and signed to him to pick it up and carry it, thusdistributing the entire contents among the eleven survivors, Dick andEarle being each assigned a load like the other captives. The onlyexception made was in the matter of the firearms, which the captorsseemed to recognise as weapons of some sort, and distributed amongthemselves; though from the carelessness with which they were handled,it seemed doubtful whether the method of using them was understood.This done, the leader of the marauders gave the word to march, and theentire party of captors and captives set off up the pass, each prisonerstill surrounded by half a dozen Indians with spears held ever ready tostrike upon the least provocation; thus it was impossible for any ofthem to hold converse with the others, the whites, in particular, beingkept as far apart as possible, Dick being stationed with the head of thecolumn, while Earle was compelled to march with the rearguard.
Luckily, as it at first seemed, for the captives, their march was not along one; for upon surmounting the crest of the pass they foundthemselves only a short two miles from a native village, the inhabitantsof which no sooner perceived the approach of the party than they turnedout and greeted it with songs and dances of rejoicing, the fervour ofwhich became almost frantic when, a little later, the presence of thetwo white men became known. The language of the strangers was utterlyincomprehensible to Dick and Earle, and so jealously was every movementof the two watched that they found it impossible to communicate withInaguy; but after observing their captors for some time, while theyseemed to be explaining matters to the villagers, Earle gradually gotthe impression that the strangers had somehow obtained knowledge of thepresence of the explorers in the country and had been watching them forperhaps a day or two, waiting for a favourable opportunity to fall uponthe camp and take it by surprise.
Upon their arrival at the village the entire plunder of the camp wasdeposited in a large hut which was hastily prepared for its reception,and this done, the prisoners were once more securely bound anddistributed among the huts of the village, one prisoner to a hut, theowner of which, with the several members of his family, was heldresponsible for his safe keeping.
The ensuing three days were spent by the captives in this village,during which nothing of moment happened except that they were kept insuch rigorous confinement that none was permitted to obtain even amomentary glimpse of another, otherwise they had not much to complainabout, being kindly treated, according to savage ideas of kindness. Butalthough, during those three days, the inhabitants of the village seemedto go about their business pretty much as usual, there appeared to be anundercurrent of subdued excitement, coupled with a condition of eagerexpectancy, which was plain to both Earle and Dick, and which somehowproduced in both a considerable amount of apprehension as to theirultimate fate.
Then, well on toward evening of the third day, a runner, hot, tired, anddusty, wearing every appearance of having travelled far and fast,arrived in the village, evidently bearing an important message orcommunication of some sort; for within a few minutes of his arrival theentire population of the village became imbued with a spirit of thewildest rejoicing and excitement, which lasted far into the night; andearly on the following morning the prisoners were brought forth, loadedup with the baggage belonging to the explorers and, surrounded by anarmed guard of sixty men, they set out upon a forward march, accompaniedby the entire populace of the village, who beguiled the tedium of thejourney by continually singing what seemed to be songs of a highlyjubilant character.