Frank Richard - The Adventures of Captain Horn

When Miss Markham emerged from the rude tent the next morning, and came out into the bright light of day, the first thing she saw was her brother Ralph, who looked as if he had been sweeping a chimney or cleaning out an ash-hole.

“What on earth has happened to you!” she cried. “How did you get yourself so covered with dirt and ashes?”

“I got up ever so long ago,” he replied, “and as the captain is asleep over there, and there was nobody to talk to, I thought I would go and try to find the back of his head” — pointing to the stone face above them. “But he hasn’t any. He is a sham.”

“What do you mean?” asked his sister.

“You see, Edna,” said the boy, “I thought I would try if I could find any more faces, and so I got a bit of stone, and scratched away some of the burnt vines that had not fallen, and there I found an open place in the rock on this side of the face. Step this way, and you can see it. It’s like a narrow doorway. I went and looked into it, and saw that it led back of the big face, and I went in to see what was there.”

“You should never have done that, Ralph,” cried his sister. “There might have been snakes in that place, or precipices, or nobody knows what. What could you expect to see in the dark?”

“It wasn’t so dark as you might think,” said he. “After my eyes got used to the place I could see very well. But there was nothing to see — just walls on each side. There was more of the passageway ahead of me, but I began to think of snakes myself, and as I did not have a club or anything to kill them with, I concluded I wouldn’t go any farther. It isn’t so very dirty in there. Most of this I got on myself scraping down the burnt vines. Here comes the captain. He doesn’t generally oversleep himself like this. If he will go with me, we will explore that crack.”

When Captain Horn heard of the passage into the rock, he was much more interested than Ralph had expected him to be, and, without loss of time, he lighted a lantern and, with the boy behind him, set out to investigate it. But before entering the cleft, the captain stationed Maka at a place where he could view all the approaches to the plateau, and told him if he saw any snakes or other dangerous things approaching, to run to the opening and call him. Now, snakes were among the few things that Maka was not afraid of, and so long as he thought these were the enemies to be watched, he would make a most efficient sentinel.

When Captain Horn had cautiously advanced a couple of yards into the interior of the rock, he stopped, raised his lantern, and looked about him. The passage was about two feet wide, the floor somewhat lower than the ground outside, and the roof but a few feet above his head. It was plainly the work of man, and not a natural crevice in the rocks. Then the captain put the lantern behind him, and stared into the gloom ahead of them. As Ralph had said, it was not so dark as might have been expected. In fact, about twenty feet forward there was a dim light on the right-hand wall.

The captain, still followed by Ralph, now moved on until they came to this lighted place, and found it was an open doorway. Both heads together, they peeped in, and saw it was an opening like a doorway into a chamber about fifteen feet square and with very high walls. They scarcely needed the lantern to examine it, for a jagged opening in the roof let in a good deal of light.

Passing into this chamber, keeping a good watch out for pitfalls as he moved on, and forgetting, in his excitement, that he might go so far that he could not hear Maka, should he call, the captain saw to the right another open doorway, on the other side of which was another chamber, about the size of the one they had first entered. One side of this was a good deal broken away, and through a fracture three or four feet wide the light entered freely, as if from the open air. But when the two explorers peered through the ragged aperture, they did not look into the open air, but into another chamber, very much larger than the others, with high, irregular walls, but with scarcely any roof, almost the whole of the upper part being open to the sky.

A mass of broken rocks on the floor of this apartment showed that the roof had fallen in. The captain entered it and carefully examined it. A portion of the floor was level and unobstructed by rocks, and in the walls there was not the slightest sign of a doorway, except the one by which he had entered from the adjoining chamber.

“Hurrah!” cried Ralph. “Here is a suite of rooms. Isn’t this grand? You and I can have that first one, Maka can sleep in the hall to keep out burglars, and Edna and Mrs. Cliff can have the middle room, and this open place here can be their garden, where they can take tea and sew. These rocks will make splendid tables and chairs.”

The captain stood, breathing hard, a sense of relief coming over him like the warmth of fire. He had thought of what Ralph had said before the boy had spoken. Here was safety from wild beasts — here was immunity from the only danger he could imagine to those under his charge. It might be days yet before the mate returned, — he knew the probable difficulties of obtaining a vessel, even when a port should be reached, — but they would be safe here from the attacks of ferocious animals, principally to be feared in the night. They might well be thankful for such a good place as this in which to await the arrival of succor, if succor came before their water gave out. There were biscuits, salt meat, tea, and other things enough to supply their wants for perhaps a week longer, provided the three sailors did not return, but the supply of water, although they were very economical of it, must give out in a day or two. “But,” thought the captain, “Rynders may be back before that, and, on the other hand, a family of jaguars might scent us out to-night.”

“You are right, my boy,” said he, speaking to Ralph. “Here is a suite of rooms, and we will occupy them just as you have said. They are dry and airy, and it will be far better for us to sleep here than out of doors.”

As they returned, Ralph was full of talk about the grand find. But the captain made no answers to his remarks — his mind was busy contriving some means of barricading the narrow entrance at night.

When breakfast was over, and the entrance to the rocks had been made cleaner and easier by the efforts of Maka and Ralph, the ladies were conducted to the suite of rooms which Ralph had described in such glowing terms. Both were filled with curiosity to see these apartments, especially Miss Markham, who was fairly well read in the history of South America, and who had already imagined that the vast mass of rock by which they had camped might be in reality a temple of the ancient Peruvians, to which the stone face was a sacred sentinel. But when the three apartments had been thoroughly explored she was disappointed.

“There is not a sign or architectural adornment, or anything that seems to have the least religious significance, or significance of any sort,” she said. “These are nothing but three stone rooms, with their roofs more or less broken in. They do not even suggest dungeons.”

As for Mrs. Cliff, she did not hesitate to say that she should prefer to sleep in the open air.

“It would be dreadful,” she said, “to awaken in the night and think of those great stone walls about me.”

Even Ralph remarked that, on second thought, he believed he would rather sleep out of doors, for he liked to look up and see the stars before he went to sleep.

At first the captain was a little annoyed to find that this place of safety, the discovery of which had given him such satisfaction and relief, was looked upon with such disfavor by those who needed it so very much, but then the thought came to him, “Why should they care about a place of safety, when they have no idea of danger?” He did not now hesitate to settle the matter in the most straightforward and honest way. Having a place of refuge to offer, the time had come to speak of the danger. And so, standing in the larger apartment, and addressing his party, he told them of the fate he feared had overtaken the three sailors, and how anxious he had been lest the same fate should come upon some one or all of them.