26. In The Deserted Citadel
The crumbling walls and earthquake-rent towers which stood between them and the deeply blue sky attracted all eyes upwards.
Then an exclamation from Clarence, who had stumbled over something and fallen on his face, drew their looks once more down to the ground, and all stood still for some moments, transfixed with consternation. Between them and the buildings lay heaped a perfect Golgotha of human bones. It was like the valley in the vision of Ezekiel.
The ground took a slight dip at this juncture, then rose abruptly up for about seventy or eighty feet like an acutely slanting roof. Upon the crest of this slope were built the outer walls and watch-towers of these ancient ruins.
In this moat, or depression, were heaped and scattered mounds of grinning skulls, gaping ribs, detached arm and leg bones, shoulder-blades, and the smaller phalanges, which proved at the first glance that these dry frames were human remains. They were lying singly at places, in other parts heaped confusedly together in piles, just as they must have fallen. From the space they occupied there must have been thousands left here to rot, or to be devoured by birds, beasts, and insects.
It was an ominous and an awful sight, which might well have made the bravest shrink back from those grim and crumbling walls. A large and solitary vulture sat on one of the upper keeps, and seemed to be the only watcher left in this deserted fort. He perched motionless and sharply silhouetted against the rarefied space, like an embodiment of spent disaster.
Ned was the first to recover his presence of mind. Stooping down, he picked up a skull and looked at it critically. It was dry and powdery, with the combined effects of sun-bleaching and time. Holding it up in his hands, he said--
"The fellow who owned this, once upon a time, has forgotten his pains and troubles for many years--perhaps centuries. He must have been a big fellow when he carried it, with a solid brain-pan, although it has now grown thin and brittle as the finest porcelain."
"A big fight has taken place here," remarked Cocoeni, holding out the rusty head of a broken spear which he had picked up, and looking at its shape curiously.
The splintered shaft was like tinder, and crumbled between his finger and thumb like powder; the design of the iron was ancient and strange.
"That vulture appears to be the only resident at present inside the fort," said Fred. "Suppose we have a shot at him, and try the effect, eh?"
"No," replied Ned. "Keep your ammunition for worthier foes; we may need all our cartridges by-and-by. Meantime let us try to achieve what these fellows have evidently failed to do--get over the walls as quietly as possible, and discover what is behind. Keep your weapons ready for instant use, and your eyes and ears open, boys. Now, forward, in your best scaling order."
They ran swiftly through the crunching bones, and up the steep sides of the cliffs. A rugged kind of hewn stairway led them up to a massive square-shaped portal, which was gateless and more than half demolished. The huge stones of the posts were bulging out, and the top bending over. As they dashed inside, the vulture rose with a hoarse scream and sailed lazily away.
Inside they discovered a large courtyard, heaped with fallen masonry. Great blocks of ten and twenty feet long lay in every direction, with gaps in the walls above them, from which they had been dislodged.
"By George, but they built for time here, when they were at it!" cried Clarence, looking round him with admiration.
"Yes," replied Ned. "The builders of this place knew something about the pyramids."
It was all of the massive, square, and Egyptian style of architecture: walls with heavy abutments at the bases; oblong narrow slits for windows and embrasures; wide spaces which had originally been covered with paintings, now only showing in undecipherable patches; massive upright slabs for pillars, with enormous flat lintels.
At intervals on the tops of the outer walls which enclosed this court were placed watch-towers, of forty and sixty feet in height. The thickness of the portal through which they had passed was twenty feet at the base and about ten at the top, as nearly as they were able to calculate from below.
An open gateway within the most massive of the buildings attracted their attention, but before venturing to explore its dark cavity, Ned formed his company into a close square; then, bidding them wait and watch, he ran over to the wall on the other side, and, climbing it by some steps, he stood on the esplanade with about five feet of wall in front of him.
Then as he looked over he uttered a cry that quickly brought Fred, Clarence, and Cocoeni to his side.
They were overlooking a vast desert that spread far as the eye could take in, as bare and tawny as the great Sahara.
This wall had been built upon a giddy precipice, without a break or a ledge. As they stretched over they could have dropped a stone without striking anything until it reached the bottom, four thousand feet at least from where they stood.
The air was bracing, and would have been cool, only for the intense waves of heat that were wafted up from the burning sands.
"Here terminates our journey, I expect, Ned?" said Fred, in mildly interrogative tones.
Ned had pulled out his field-glass, and was scanning the far-distant horizon through it, therefore he did not answer at once. It was a splendid instrument, and of exceptionally far-reaching power of lens.
"Tell me, Fred and Clarence, what you see over there?" he asked, handing the glass to his companions. "Look carefully before you speak, and let Cocoeni have a peep as well first, before you open your mouths."
When Fred had looked through it for some moments he handed the glass to Clarence, who in his turn gave it to Cocoeni in silence. Then the three friends glanced at each other dubiously.
"Well, Cocoeni, you say first what you saw."
"What white man calls mirage, and black man calls devil-land," replied Cocoeni, grimly.
"Well, but describe this mirage."
"I saw trees and water and big houses same as this here, all shimmering in the air."
"Yes; but they were only in one part of the horizon--to east and west there was nothing but sand."
"That is so, baas."
"And what did you see, Clarence?"
"Oh, something the same as Cocoeni. There appeared to be a large lake in one part, with trees and houses on its margin."
"And you, Fred?"
"Oh, I saw the lake, or sea, with the other deceptions," replied Fred. "But I have seen the same sort of thing in Australia."
"I bet you didn't, Fred, see exactly the same sort of thing out there!" cried Ned, excitedly. "Now, you know, the nature of mirages is that they will show up on all sides when they show at all. Look again, and see if that lake has altered its position, or if it is repeated anywhere else than in the one direction."
After another careful survey, the boys owned, somewhat regretfully, that their leader was right. The mirage--if it was a mirage--was stationary, and localised to one part only.
"It is no deceptive phenomenon," said Ned, decidedly, as he replaced his glass in its case. "That is a real lake, and those are substantial buildings, and bona fide trees, or I am a Boer, which is about the last kind of beast I'd like to be."
"Then, I suppose, that means you intend to risk the desert?" answered Clarence.
"Yes; if we can get down to it. I reckon we can cross that strip of sand in two or three days at most, and we have water enough to carry us over it."
"But, supposing it is a real lake, that doesn't say it is a fresh-water one," replied Fred.
"The buildings and trees are vouchers for that. Now let us examine this present hill. Before we do so, however, we'll climb one of those towers, and find out what is to be seen from there."
Ned crossed the court, where his followers were still standing in square, and entered the doorway of the centre tower on the other wall.
The stairs were still standing, and firm underfoot; therefore they were soon on the upper platform or roof.
Here they could see down the pass which they had come, also two other approaches or chasms in the mountain. They had likewise glimpses of high bare centre peaks that reached above the lower ridges. It was a sterile prospect. Not a tree broke the hard outlines of the ruddy rocks. They lay baking and bald under the bright, hot rays of the tropical sun.
A large flat-roofed building filled out the centre of this fortification. It was smaller at the top than the bottom, for the sides sloped outwards as they descended; yet a broad parapet surmounted the top for several feet, projecting from its sides. The roof was completely covered over, while the walls were pierced with windows and loopholes. On the farther side of this building they were able to see other walls and towers stretching along to a considerable distance.
"This has been a stronghold to keep invaders from the inhabitants of yonder lake-watered land; and as far as I can see, the necessity for keeping it garrisoned has passed away. That heap of bones we saw must be the remains of some demolished race of invaders. I think we may venture with all safety inside this building. There does not seem to be even a jackal about."
Saying these words, Ned led the way down, and, marshalling his force in double line, he advanced with revolvers in his hands towards the portal.
The walls were of immense thickness, and made quite a long passage, through which they passed silently.
Before them opened an apartment, so spacious that the entire company, with their luggage, only occupied an isolated portion of it. It had accommodation space for at least five thousand people.
Above their heads the roof rose, misty and indistinct in the feeble light that pervaded this vast hall. The atmosphere felt cold after the heat outside, so that it chilled them and made them shiver. Lighted only by those narrow windows and slits, which were placed high up the thick walls, a mystic shadow, like the forest gloom, added to the vastness. They seemed within a mammoth cavern.
The floor was slabbed with stones, and destitute of furniture, while a thick layer of dust and fine sand deadened the sounds of their footsteps. For a time no one dare utter a word, so profoundly had that gloomy vastness and deathly silence impressed them.
At last Ned spoke, and at the hollow sound of his voice they all started; it seemed as if the words had been instantly carried away, to be repeated faintly in the roof.
"I wonder what they used this place for? Look at those figures on the walls."
The walls, which they could now see more plainly than at first, were covered with strange designs of figures and animals--men, with the heads of birds and beasts; warriors in chariots, on horseback, and on foot; captives being driven along. All the pastimes and pursuits of the builders were here portrayed in colours, in which black, red, yellow, and blue predominated. These were faded with age, yet, with but few exceptions, in perfect condition as far as the outlines were concerned.
There were no openings along the entire sides, nor, with the exception of the passage by which they had entered, were there any other portals. But at the far end they could see daylight shining through a number of dislodged slabs, which partly blocked up what appeared to be a much longer passage than that behind them.
As they grew accustomed to the faint light they were able to make out two smaller doorways on each side of the centre passage. Ned strode boldly, followed by his comrades, to the aperture nearest him.
Inside they found a small chamber; at least, it looked so after the hall. Yet it was twenty feet wide by nearly thirty long.
It was lighted from the outer side, and at the end was a small doorway, on entering which they found themselves at the foot of a staircase, which led upwards, as they naturally supposed, to other chambers and to the roof. For the present they deferred the further investigation of this stair, and tried the other door of the hall.
A similar apartment waited them here, with a ceiling of the same height, namely, about eighteen feet.
But at the end they found themselves confronted by a flight of steps leading downwards. It was wide enough for four men to walk abreast, and in good condition. Also, although darker than the hall, yet it was fairly well lighted by slits in the wall.
"Ah, this is the road I want to take!" said Ned. "Come along with your traps, boys."
They were very soon below the surface of the ground, and traversing broadly cut steps that led them at a downward angle straight towards the face of the precipice overlooking the desert.
They knew when they had reached within six feet from the rock front, from the turn they took, also by the increased light. This, with sufficient fresh air to keep the tunnel sweet, had been made by perforating loop-holes in the solid rocks.
Ninety-eight steps they counted, as they went downward, of a foot and a half each in depth. Then suddenly the stairs terminated, while the passage widened out until it formed another great hall underground, of about two-thirds the size of the apartment over their heads.
They stood and looked about them with increased astonishment.