"Maybe if we got them the gold in the form of a bribe so they wouldn't inflict this Red Death — "
"That would mean the success of the Hidalgo revolt, and hundreds of people killed, Renny!"
"That's right," Renny muttered soberly.
For sleeping quarters, they were allotted a many-room house not a great distance from the gleaming golden pyramid.
They turned in early. The night gave promise of not being as chilly as they had expected it to be up here in the mountains.
Chapter 13. DEATH STALKS
The following day was devoted to nothing more glorious than killing time. Exhibiting little tricks soon palled. So Doc and Renny set out to explore the Valley of the Vanished.
They found it as much a prison as a fortress. The narrowest of paths chiseled into the sheer gorge side was the only route out, afoot. And by air, nothing except a seaplane could land. No dirigible could withstand those terrific air currents.
The sides of the valley were in cultivation, growing vegetables and many milpa patches. There was cotton, and domesticated, long-haired goats, for clothing. Jungle growth was rank everywhere else.
"They're pretty well fixed," Doc remarked. "Not fancy. But you couldn't want more."
Strolling back to the little city beside the golden pyramid, Doc and Renny encountered the attractive Princess Monja Obviously, she had maneuvered this meeting. She was, it could plainly be seen, greatly taken with the handsome Doc. This embarrassed Doc no little. He had long ago made up his mind that women were to play no part in his career. Anyway, his was not a nature to easily lend itself to domestication. So he answered Princess Monja's eager patter in monosyllables, and carefully avoided being led into discussions about how pretty American girls were in comparison to, well — Monja, for instance.
It was not an easy course to take. Monja was one of the most ravishing young women Doc had ever encountered.
Back at the city, they could not help but notice a subtle change in the attitude of many of the Mayans. Even those who were not of the red-fingered sect now looked at Doc and his friends with unfriendly eyes.
The red-fingered warriors were mingling with the populace, doing a lot of taking.
Doc chanced to overhear one of these conversations. It told him what was happening. The red-fingered men were poisoning the minds of the other Mayans against the whites. Doc and his men, the warriors claimed, were pale-skinned devils that had ridden here like worms in the innards of the great blue bird that landed on the water. And so, as worms, they should be destroyed.
It was clever work on the part of the red-fingered ones. Doc went away thoughtful.
That night, Doc and his five friends turned in early again, largely because the Mayans seemed to go to roost with the chickens. Whether it was the hardness of the stone benches that served these golden-skinned folk for beds, or because of nervous excitement over their position here in the Valley of the Vanished, they didn't sleep well.
Long Tom, occupying a large room with Johnny and Ham, stuck it out on his stone slab exactly one hour. Then insomnia got the best of him. He yanked on his trousers and took a stroll in the moonlight that penetrated faintly to the floor of the great chasm of which the valley was a part.
For no particular reason, Long Tom's footsteps took him toward the pyramid. The thing fascinated him — so rich was the ore of which it was built that it was literally a mound of gold. What a fabulous value it must have!
Long Tom hoped looking at such wealth would make him sleepy.
It didn't. It cost him dearly.
For while he was having his first eye-filling look at the golden pyramid with the stream of water running steadily out of its top, a man sprang onto his back. A vile hand clapped over Long Tom's mouth.
Long Tom might look none too healthy, but under his sallow hide were some very ropy, powerful muscles. He couldn't have stood the gaff with Doc's bunch without them. He could probably whip ninety-nine out of every hundred men you meet on the street, and not shown fatigue in doing it.
He angled both fists around, drove them behind him. He hit nobody. He bit the unclean fingers that held his mouth. The lingers jerked away. Long Tom started a yell. A hand, thoroughly protected by cloth this time, stoppered his jaws.
Other attackers rushed in. They were bounding dervishes in the moon glow. The red-fingered warriors!
Long Tom kicked mightily backward. He peeled a shin. He and his assailants toppled among round rocks and soft dirt.
One of Long Tom's clawlike hands found a rock. He popped it against a skull — knew by the feel of the blow that one of the red-fingered fiends was through with this world.
Sheer weight of numbers mashed Long Tom out before he could do more damage. He was securely bound at wrist and ankle with stout cotton cords, then drawn into a helpless knot as his wrists and ankles were tied in a single wad.
A red-fingered Mayan who had kept well away from the fight, now came up. Long Tom recognized Morning Breeze, chief of the fighting men.
Morning Breeze clucked a command in the Mayan tongue, which Long Tom did not understand.
Lifting Long Torn, they bore him around to the rear of the pyramid. They shoved through a high growth of brush, coming then to a circular flooring of stone blocks. In the center of this gaped a sinister, black, round aperture.
Long Tom was left in doubt as to what this was for only a moment.
Morning Breeze picked up a pebble, smirked evilly at Long Torn, then tossed the rock into the round opening.
One second dragged, another! The pebble must have fallen two hundred feet! There was a loud clatter as it struck a rock bottom. Then out of the ghastly hole came a bedlam of hissings and grisly, slithering noises!
The hole was a sacrificial well! Long Tom recalled reading how the ancient Mayans had tossed human offerings into such wells. And the hissings and slitherings were snakes! Poisonous, beyond a doubt. There must be hundreds of them in the well bottom!
Morning Breeze callously gave a command.
Long Tom suffered unutterable tortures as he was lifted and tossed bodily into the awful black opening.
Morning Breeze listened. A moment later came a horrible thump from the well bottom. The poisonous serpents hissed and slithered.
Morning Breeze and his evil followers turned away, highly pleased.
Unknown to Long Tom when he left the sleeping quarters, Ham had not been sleeping soundly. One eye drowsily open, Ham had watched Long Tom pull on his trousers and go out.
Ham drowsed a while after that. But Long Tom's departure had done something to what little desire he had for sleep, so it was not long before Ham also got up and pulled on his trousers. Thanks to the balmy night, no more clothing was needed.
Ham took his sword cane along, although for no particular reason. He just liked the feel of it in his hands.
Outside, he saw no sign of Long Tom. But a little use of his keen brain told Ham where the electrical wizard would be likely to stroll; the most fascinating spot in the Valley of the Vanished, if one disregarded the really entrancing Mayan girls. The golden pyramid, of course! Long Tom, like the rest of Doc's men, would not be wooing a Mayan damsel at this hour. They were not interested in women, these supreme adventurers.
Ham ambled toward the pyramid, breathing in deeply of the lambent night air. He heard no sound, certainly nothing to alarm him. He clipped the gaudy flower off a tropical vine with a jaunty swing of his cane.
A split second later, Ham was buried under an avalanche of red-fingered men!
No gallant of old ever bared his steel quicker than Ham unsheathed his sword cane. He got it out in time to skewer two of the devils who piled atop him!
Outnumbered hopelessly, Ham was bound and gagged.