b9bd780c9c95 Administrator (the red fox clan .txt) 📖

he saw that which put an eager excitement in his blood. The small room had every appearance of an ancient storeroom. He saw objects piled on the floor, objects of strange designs, cups and pitchers and vessels of various shapes. He caught one up and it was heavy. He clanked two together and the mellow, bell-like sound had the golden note.

"Solid gold," he muttered. And as something upon one of the vessels--it was a drinking goblet of ornate design--caught the light and shone back at him like imprisoned fire, "Encrusted with precious stones!"

He put the things down and looked further. There was a big chest. As his foot struck it it burst asunder and tumbled its contents to the floor.

From the disordered heap there shone forth from countless places the colorful glow of jewels. He passed to another chest, a smaller one placed as in a position of honor upon a square tablet of rock. He held his torch close and looked in; he thrust in his hand and withdrew it filled with pearls. Even he, no connoisseur like Barlow, would have staked his life on their genuineness. They were of many sizes but more large ones among them than small; their soft, rich loveliness dimmed even those of Zoraida's wearing.

"A man could carry a million dollars out of here in his hands!"

He went on. But what he held in his hand he thrust into his pocket as he went. The remembrance of Zoraida's rattlesnakes came to him abruptly.

Thus he moved with renewed caution and thus he was saved from a misadventure. For even so he almost stepped to a fall. Between two heaps of tumbled articles was a square hole, sheer and black, several feet across. He stooped over it. The air came up with a rush. At first he could see only a little way. Then he made out that the shaft went straight down only a few feet and then slanted away in a great chute like the floor down which he had already come, only so much steeper that he knew had he fallen there would have been no return possible for him. To what eventual landing place would he have plunged? For a moment or so his eyes strained in vain into the gloom. Slowly faint and then growing detail rewarded him. It was but a small section offered him because of the angling of the tunnel. But before a watch could have ticked ten times he knew into what place he would have fallen, into what regions his glance had penetrated. The light was dim down yonder but he knew that he was looking down into the gardens of the golden king of Tezcuco.

"Another way into the hidden place, and one that Zoraida herself knows nothing of," he thought. "If a man took this drop and then the slide, he'd land with the breath jolted out of him but there is shrubbery to fall on and it wouldn't kill him. But in there he'd stay! There would be no climbing back up the slippery chute."

He withdrew and looked about him again. Expecting pitfalls, he took no single step without making sure first. He crossed the chamber and upon the further side he came to a second pit and a second tunnel. This like the first was steep and smooth; this also gave him a glint of light at the further end. The light was dim; he made out that the distant mouth of the tunnel was obscured by a tangle of brush and scrub trees.

"Another underground garden?" he wondered. "Or the outside world?"

He filled his lungs with the air flowing upward. He fancied that it had a fresher, sweeter smell, that there was the wholesomeness of sunlight in it.

"It would be a joke," was his quick thought, "if there were a way out for us here while Rios watches the cañon above!"

It was then that there came to him, faint from far above, Betty's scream.

He whirled and ran. Again he heard her screams, echoing wildly. As he stumbled on there came to him the muffled sound of a rifle-shot.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW ONE RETURNS UNWILLINGLY WHITHER HE WOULD

WILLINGLY ENTER BY ANOTHER DOOR

Again and again as he ran Kendric shouted to Betty that he was coming.

Then at last, after an agony of fear and silence, he heard her call in answer. He stumbled but ran on. When he came where he could see the square of light marking the hole which led to the level where she was, he caught his first glimpse of Betty. She was standing by the opening, tense to the finger tips that were tight about the rifle. He sped up the steps and to her side. And he was treated to the sight of Ruiz Rios, lying white-faced on the floor, a hand at his shoulder and that hand dyed red. Beside him, where it had fallen, was his revolver.

"I--I shot him!" Betty gasped.

"And serves him right," cried Kendric heartily. He took the gun from her hands and strode over to Rios while, at last, Betty's face was hidden by her shaking hands. "So you're on the job, are you?"

Rios looked sick and miserable. But slowly, as he lifted his black eyes to the man standing over him the old evil fires played in them. He stirred a little and lay back.

"My shoulder is broken," he groaned.

"You're in luck to be alive," Kendric told him sternly. "What do you want here?"

"I'll bleed to death!" Quick fright sent a shiver through him. "For the love of God stop the blood for me."

Kendric could scarcely do less than look at the wound. Presently he straightened up with a grunt of disgust.

"It's only a flesh wound," he said coolly. "The bone isn't even touched and it's a clean hole. You'll last for a lot of devilment yet."

Rios sat up. He felt of his hurt with tender fingers and slowly the fear went out of his look and his old craft and hate came back.

"You've