Prisoners of Chance

A slight radiance found passage through the coarsely woven curtain, proving sufficient, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, to reveal, rude steps excavated from the earth, leading down into lower darkness. Pausing merely to assure myself that the meeting between Naladi and Madame was outwardly courteous, while De Noyan seemed shamed into silence by the presence of his wife, I began the descent, quickly finding myself in an apartment, rounded in outline, not greatly dissimilar to that other from which I had been so lately rescued. This, however, was smaller, the floor littered with various articles, the nature of which I found it difficult to determine in such dim light. Nor did I pause for close inspection, but, so soon as search revealed an opening into a narrow passageway beyond, I pressed forward amid dense gloom, feeling my way, fearful lest I meet some pitfall. It was a low, contracted gallery, so extremely irregular in excavation that I sometimes stood erect, unable to reach the roof with extended fingers, yet a moment later was compelled to creep on hands and knees in order to progress at all. Had it led through solid rock I should have accepted this as evidence of natural origin, but sides, floor, and roof were of earth, while every few feet, rendering progress uncertain and perilous, were huge posts of wood, usually roughly hewn tree trunks, each topped by a flat piece of stone, supporting the sagging roof.

Altogether it was a surprising excavation, exhibiting some degree of engineering skill on the part of these savages. I wondered whether the conception originated within the brain of their alien Queen, or was another of the unique inheritances of their race. Perhaps I may be permitted to add here some information which reached me later, that abundant evidences of the existence of similar passages have been noted elsewhere in the old homes of this people beside the Mississippi. While at Petite Rocher River, I met lately a Jesuit, who had travelled widely and read many books, and he gravely assured me that in the vast cities of the Aztecs, far to the south in Mexico, their temples and palaces were connected by means of such long, secret, covered ways. Hence I incline to the belief that this excavation was largely the labor of slaves; for these Nahuacs had many such, some of negro, others of Indian blood, and that the earth thus removed had been utilized in constructing those mounds above, the entire method of building merely a tradition from the past.

Let that be as it may, here the tunnel extended stretching its snake-like course before me. Along it I carefully felt a passage, nervously gripping the knife hilt, and vainly seeking to distinguish definite outlines amid the darkness. My groping feet encountered numerous obstructions along the path--here a pile of loosened earth over which I plunged headlong, or a flat stone dropped by the rotting away of its supporting prop, or some sharp declivity, as though softer earth had yielded to rude implements; yet it became evident from the start that the tunnel level rapidly descended, boring deeper and deeper into the bosom of the earth. Finally, my fingers came into contact with small fragments of rock strewing the side walls, and I comprehended I must already be beneath the base of that rounded mound upon the summit of which the house of Naladi stood. What worried me most was to what end this tunnel was made. Such vast labor had surely never been performed without adequate purpose. Besides, completed, the passage was well cared for. I met frequently in my blind groping with evidences of comparatively recent labor. Yet for what purpose was it designed? Where did it lead? To my bewildered judgment the general trend appeared northward; but that would carry it directly across the broadest portion of the upper basin. To have an unconcealed entrance in the centre of that unprotected, open plain would be foreign to savage nature; while to imagine that such a tunnel as this, from which a vast amount of earth had been borne upon the backs of workmen, could extend below the full extent of that valley, was beyond conception. Besides, the air was light and pure, as sweet to inhale as if it blew directly upon me from the open sky; itself proof positive that some opening could not be far distant.