The Lost City by Jr. Joseph E. Badger (good summer reads TXT) 📕

of red men, where they congregated for the purpose

of catching and drying vast quantities of fish, doubtless to be

used during the winter.

 

“As a general thing they pitch their camp on the other side, over

towards the northeast; but small parties are pretty sure to rove

far and wide, coming around this way quite as often as not.”

 

“And their garb,—the weapons they bore?” asked the professor.

 

Edgecombe motioned towards those articles in which such a lively

interest had been awakened, then said that, while few of the red

men who had come beneath his near observation had been so

elaborately equipped, he had taken notice of similar weapons and

garments, with additions which he strove hard to describe with

accuracy.

 

Nearly every sentence which crossed his lips served to confirm

the marvellous truth which had so dazzlingly burst upon the

professor’s eager brain, and with a glib tongue he named each

weapon, each garment, as accurately as ever set down in ancient

history, not a little to the wide-eyed amazement of Waldo

Gillespie.

 

“Worse than those blessed ‘sour-us’ and cousins,” he confided to

his brother, in a whisper. “Reckon it’s all right, Bruno? Uncle

isn’t—eh?”

 

But uncle Phaeton paid them no attention, so deeply was he

stirred by this wondrous revelation. He felt that he was upon

the verge of a discovery which would startle the wide world as no

recent announcement had been able to do, unless—but it surely

must be correct!

 

And then, when Cooper Edgecombe finished all he could tell

concerning those queerly armed and gaudily garbed red men, the

professor let loose his tongue, telling what glorious hopes and

dazzling anticipations were now within him.

 

“For hundreds upon hundreds of years there have been wild, weird

legends about the Lost City, but that merely meant a mass of

wondrous ruins, long since overwhelmed by shifting sands,

somewhere in the heart of the great American desert, so-called.

 

“By some it was claimed that this ancient city owed its primal

existence to a fragment of the Aztecs, driven from their native

quarters in Old Mexico. By others ‘twas attributed unto one of

the fabulous ‘Lost Tribes of Israel,’ but even the most

enthusiastic never for one moment dreamed of—this!”

 

“Except yourself, uncle Phaeton,” cut in Waldo, with a subdued

grin. “This must be one of the marvels you calculated on

discovering, thanks to the flying-machine, eh?”

 

“Nay, my boy; I never let my imagination soar half so high as all

that,” quickly answered the professor. “But now—now I feel

confident that just such a discovery lies before us, and with the

dawn of a new day we will ascend and look for the glorious ‘Lost

City of the Aztecs!’ “

 

Again the savant sprang to his feet, wildly gesticulating as he

strode to and fro, striving to thus work off some of the intense

excitement which had taken full possession. And words fell

rapidly from his lips the while, only a portion of which need be

placed upon record in this connection, however.

 

“A fico for the paltry lost cities of musty tradition, now! They

may sleep beneath the sand-storms of countless years, but this—I

would gladly give one of my eyes for the certainty that its mate

might gaze upon such a wondrous spectacle as—Oh, if it might

only prove true! If I might only discover such a stupendous

treasure! Aztecs! And in the present day! Alive—armed and

garbed as of yore! Amazing! Incredible! Astounding beyond the

wildest dreams of a confirmed—”

 

With startling swiftness uncle Phaeton wheeled to confront the

exile, gripping his arm with fierce vigour, as he shrilly

demanded:

 

“Opium—are you an eater of drugs, Cooper Edgecombe?”

 

Even as the words crossed his lips, the professor realised how

preposterous they must sound, but the exile shook his head,

earnestly.

 

“I never ate drugs in that shape, sir. Even if I had been

addicted to morphine and the like, how could I indulge the

appetite here, in these gloomy, lonely wilds?”

 

“I beg your pardon, sir; most humbly I implore your forgiveness.

I have but one excuse—this wondrous—Good night! I’m going to

bed before I add to my new reputation as—a blessed idiot, no

less!”

 

CHAPTER XIV.

A MARVELLOUS VISION.

 

But the night was considerably older ere any one of that

quartette lost himself in slumber, for all had been too

thoroughly wrought up by the exciting events of the past day for

sleep to claim an easy subject.

 

By common consent, however, that one particular subject was

barred for the present, and then, sitting in a cosy group about

the glowing fire there in the cavern, the recently formed friends

talked and chatted, asking and answering questions almost past

counting.

 

Little wonder that such should be the case, so far as Cooper

Edgecombe was concerned, since he had been lost to the busy world

and its many changes for a long decade.

 

Then, too, his own dreary existence held a strange charm for the

air-voyagers, and the exile grew wonderfully cheerful and

bright-eyed as he in part depicted his struggles to sustain life

against such heavy odds, and still strove to keep alive that one

hope,—that even yet he might be able to discover a clew to his

loved and lost ones.

 

“Not alive; I have long since abandoned that faint hope. But if

I might only find something to make sure, something that I could

pray over, then bury where my heart could hover above—”

 

“You are still alive, good friend, yet you have spent long years

out here in the wilderness,” gently suggested the professor.

 

Edgecombe flinched, as one might when a rude hand touches a still

raw wound.

 

“But they, my wife, my baby girl,—they could never have lived as

I have existed. They surely must have perished; if not at once,

then when the first cruel storms of hideous winter came howling

down from the far north!”

 

“Unless they were found and rescued by—who knows, my good sir?”

forcing a cheerful smile, which, unfortunately, was only

surface-born, as the exile lifted his head with a start and a

gasping ejaculation. “Since it seems fairly well proven that

this supposedly unknown land is actually inhabited, why may your

loved ones not have been rescued?”

 

“The Indians? You mean by the Aztecs, sir?”

 

“If Aztecans they should really prove; why not?”

 

“But, surely I have heard—sacrifices?” huskily breathed the

greatly agitated man, while the professor, realising how he was

making a bad matter worse, brazenly falsified the records,

declaring that no human sacrifices had ever stained the record of

that noble, honourable, gallant race; and then changed the

subject as quickly as might be.

 

Nevertheless, there was one good effect following that talk.

Cooper Edgecombe had dreaded nothing so much as the fear of being

left behind by these, the first white people he had seen for what

seemed more than an ordinary lifetime; but now, when the

professor hinted at a longing to take a spin through ether, for

the purpose of winning a wider view, he eagerly seconded that

idea, even while realising that it would be difficult to take him

along with the rest.

 

Still, nothing was definitely settled that evening, and at a

fairly respectable hour before the turn of night, the

air-voyagers were wrapped in their blankets and soundly

slumbering.

 

Not so the exile. Sleep was far from his brain, and while he

really knew that danger could hardly menace that wondrous bit of

ingenious mechanism, he watched it throughout that long night,

ready to risk his own life in its defence should the occasion

arise.

 

Why not, since his whole future depended upon the aeromotor? By

its aid he hoped to reach civilization once more; and in spite of

the great loss which had wrecked his life, he was thrilled to the

centre by that glorious prospect. Here he was dead while

breathing; there he would at least be in touch with his fellow

men once more!

 

An early meal was prepared by the exile, and in readiness when

his trio of guests awakened to the new day; and then, while

busily discussing the really appetising viands placed before

them, the next move was fully determined upon.

 

Not a little to his secret delight, the professor heard Edgecombe

broach the subject of further explorations, and seeing that his

excitement had passed away in goodly measure during the silent

watches of the night, he talked with greater freedom.

 

“Of course we’ll keep in touch with you, here, friend, and take

no decisive move without your knowledge and consent. Our fate

shall be yours, and your fate shall be ours. Only—I would

dearly love to catch a glimpse of—If there should actually be a

Lost City in existence!”

 

“If there is, as there surely must be one of some description,

judging from the number of red men I have seen collecting here at

the lake,” observed the exile, “you certainly ought to make the

discovery with the aid of your air-ship. You can ascend at will,

of course, sir?”

 

Nothing loath, the professor spoke of his pet and its wondrous

capabilities, and then all hands left the cavern for the outer

air, to prepare for action.

 

As a further assurance, uncle Phaeton begged Edgecombe to enter

the aerostat, then skilfully caused the vessel to float upward

into clear space, sailing out over the lake even to the whirlpool

itself before turning, his passenger eagerly watching every move

and touch of hand, asking questions which proved him both shrewd

and ingenious, from a mechanical point of view.

 

Returning to their starting-point, Edgecombe sprang lightly to

earth to make way for the brothers, face ruddy and eyes aglow as

he again begged them all to keep watch for aught which might

solve the mystery yet surrounding the fate of his loved ones.

 

The promise was given, together with an earnest assurance that

they would soon return; then the parting was cut as short as

might be, all feeling that such a course was wisest and kindest,

after all.

 

For an hour or more the air-ship sped on, high in air, its

inmates viewing the various and varying landmarks beneath and

beyond them, all marvelling at the fact that such an immense

scope of country should for so long be left in its native

virginity, especially where all are so land-hungry.

 

Then, as nothing of especial interest was brought to their

notice, uncle Phaeton quite naturally reverted to that suit of

Aztecan armour, and the glorious possibilities which the words of

the exile had opened up to them as explorers.

 

Bruno listened with unfeigned interest, but not so his more

mercurial brother, who took advantage of an opening left by the

professor, to bluntly interject:

 

“What mighty good, even if you should find it all, uncle Phaeton?

You couldn’t pick it up and tote it away, to start a dime museum

with. And, as for my part,—I’ll tell you what! If we could

only find something like Aladdin’s cave, now!”

 

“Growing miserly in your old age, are you, lad?” mocked his

uncle.

 

“No; I don’t mean just that. His trees were hung with riches,

but mine should be—crammed and crowded full of plum pudding,

fruit cake, angel food, mince pies, and the like! Yes, and there

should be fountains of lemonade! And mountains of ice-cream!

And sandbars of caramels, and chocolate drops, and trilbies,

and—well, now, what’s the matter with you fellows, anyway?”

 

He spoke with boyish indignation at that laughing outbreak, but

the kindly professor quickly managed to smooth the matter over,

although not before Waldo had promised Bruno a sound thumping the

first time they set