Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/227

Rh dead priests now stacked like cordwood in the upper chambers, gave light for weird sacrifices.

The four white men watched the magic of the moonlight slowly shifting downward over the face of the Madre d'Oro and a sense of awe and desecration stole over then. Then the moon sailed on and the rift darkened. They switched on again one of the electric torches.

"It's a'most a pity to tech it," said Harvey with a sigh. "Sure is bewtiful."

"It's a pity to waste it," Larkin came back. "It'll be more beyewtiful w'en that gold is stacked up in twenty-dollar gold pieces. Beats the mint, don't it? 'Ow do we git at it, Stone?"

They built a fire out of the wood they had brought, piling it carefully, to get the most service from the sticks in the way of flame and, conserving one torch, started work with drill and hammer. The quartz was easy to handle, the drill sank into it evenly and readily, and they laughed and jested as they went at it, Harvey and Stone taking turns at the sledge while Healy held the torch for their better guidance.

The size of the open space that made up this central cavern they could not determine, neither could they tell whether it was natural or partly artificial. The sound of their voices went echoing up and around and the strokes of the hammer on the steel returned sharply. They put in six charges along the foot and six more in the face of the hanging wall, capped and fused their dynamite and then, before they lit the fuses, decided to have a drink of water.