Doubloons-and the Girl Part 38

"But let's hurry now, Ruth," he went on hastily to cover their mutual confusion. "Follow close in my steps and don't keep more than two or three feet behind me at any time."

They set off on the unknown path whose end meant to them either deliverance or death. The chances were against them, but their hearts were high and their courage steadfast.

They had need of all their fort.i.tude, for they had not advanced forty paces before danger menaced them.

Drew holding his torch high so as to throw its light as far ahead as possible, stepped on what seemed to be a crooked stick in the path.

Instantly the stick sprang to life, and a powerful, slimy coil wound itself around the man's leg as high as the knee.

His first impulse was to spring back. His next was to grind down with crushing force on the squirming thing beneath his heel. The second impulse conquered the first and he stood like a statue while a cold sweat broke out all over his body.

For he had realized by the feel that it was the reptile's head that was beneath his heel and must be kept there at all costs until the life was crushed out of it.

Gradually the writhings grew feebler, until at last the coils relaxed and fell in a heap about his foot.

"What is it Allen?" asked Ruth in alarm at his sudden stop and rigid pose. "Do you see anything?"

"There's no danger," he a.s.sured her, though his voice was not quite steady. "I must have stepped on a lizard or something like that, and it gave me a start."

He kicked the mangled reptile out of the path, but not before Ruth's horrified glance had seen that it was no lizard but something far more deadly.

Here was a new terror added to the others. For all they knew there might be a colony of the reptiles in the cave. And in that semi-tropical region, the chances were vastly in favor of their being poisonous. At all events it behooved them to advance with redoubled caution.

They kept a wary lookout for anything that looked like a crooked stick after that, and their progress, already slow, became still slower as they went on.

Before long they came to a place where the cave seemed to divide into three separate pa.s.sageways. Two of them had nothing to distinguish them from each other, but in the third they distinguished a faint light in the distance.

"The blessed light!" exclaimed Ruth fervently.

"I guess that's the path to take, all right," exulted Drew. "In all probability that light comes from the outlet of the cave. Hurrah for us, Ruth!"

Ruth echoed his enthusiasm, and they accelerated their pace. The hope that they had cherished seemed now about to become certainty.

But the way was rougher now, and at one place they had to make a long detour. But they made no complaint. As long as no impa.s.sable barrier of rock loomed up before them they could feel that they were getting nearer and nearer to freedom and life.

But before long both became conscious of a steadily-growing heat in the air of the cave. The perspiration flowed from them in streams. At first they were inclined to attribute this to their strenuous exertions and the mental strain under which they were laboring.

"Strange it should be so frightfully hot," remarked Drew, as he stopped for a moment to wipe his brow.

"It's no wonder," responded Ruth. "It's hot enough on this island even when you're in the outer air, and it would naturally be worse still in this confined place."

"But we didn't feel that way ten minutes ago," objected Drew.

"We've done a good deal of walking since then," said Ruth, though rather doubtfully. "But let's get along, Allen. I'm just crazy to get to the outlet."

They were about to resume their journey, when a great flame of fire leaped to the very roof of the cave about a hundred yards in front of them.

They stopped abruptly, and in the smoky light of the torch both of their faces were white as chalk, as they faced each other with a question in their eyes.

"Fire!" gasped the man.

"Yes," a.s.sented Ruth quietly but bitterly. "What we thought was daylight is nothing other than fire."

"Shall we keep on?" debated Allen.

"We're so close that we might as well," advised Ruth. "Perhaps we may be able to get around it somehow."

They went forward, though with excessive care, and a moment later stood on the brink of the most awe-inspiring spectacle they had ever witnessed.

In a deep pit perhaps six hundred feet in circ.u.mference was a lake of liquid fire! The molten lava twisted and writhed as though a thousand serpents were coiling and uncoiling. A vapor rose from the fiery ma.s.s that glowed with a hideous radiance in all the colors of the spectrum.

At intervals, huge geysers of living flame spurted up from the surface to a height of many feet and fell back in a glistening of molten gold and coruscating diamonds.

It was a scene that if it could have been viewed with safety would have drawn tourists in thousands from every corner of the globe.

But to the two spectators the thought that they were looking on one of the marvels of the world brought nothing but desolation and despair.

"This must be the source of the lava flow when the whale's hump is in eruption," said Drew in a toneless voice.

"I suppose so," said Ruth in a voice that for dreariness was a replica of his own. "Do you think it's possible for us to get around it in any way, Allen?"

"Not a chance in the world," answered Drew. "You can see that the pa.s.sage we followed ends at the brink of the crater. From there on, there's just a wall of solid rock. The only thing left for us to do is to get back to the place where the cave split into three parts."

They retraced their steps with hearts that grew heavier at every step.

The pa.s.sage that had seemed most promising had yielded nothing but bitter disappointment. Only two other chances remained, and who could tell that they led anywhere but to death?

At the juncture of the pa.s.sageways, they hesitated for a moment only.

There was absolutely nothing to indicate that they should take one of the remaining two paths rather than the other. Impenetrable blackness covered both.

"Which shall it be, Ruth?" asked Drew.

"You do the choosing, Allen," Ruth responded.

At a venture he took the one leading to the left, but had not proceeded more than a hundred feet when he stopped abruptly on the very brink of a chasm that spanned the entire width of the pa.s.sage-way. There was no ledge however narrow to furnish a foothold along its sides. Once more they were absolutely blocked.

Drew checked a groan and Ruth stifled something suspiciously like a sob. The tension under which they were was fast reaching the breaking point.

"Never mind," said Drew, stoutly recovering himself. "There's luck in odd numbers and the third time we win."

"First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game,"

responded Ruth with an attempt at heartiness.

Again they went back and took the only way remaining. Upon the ending of that pa.s.sage their life or death depended.

But as they advanced steadily and no barrier interfered, their spirits rose. Then suddenly they cried aloud in their joy, for on turning a sharp bend in the path a rush of air almost extinguished the torch that Drew was carrying.

A hundred feet ahead was an opening thickly covered with bushes, but large enough to admit of forcing a pa.s.sage!

Ruth dropped her load of surplus torches. Drew, grasping her arm, hurried her along. He forced the bushes apart and pushed her through.

Then he followed. They heard a wild shout and the next minute Ruth was sobbing in her father's arms, while Tyke--hardy grizzled old Tyke--had thrown his arms around Allen in a bear's hug and was blubbering like a baby.