His imagination running riot with thoughts of what the creature could be, he sped off again, crawling like a madman. He had to find a hiding place and darn quick.
Head down, he cannoned straight into something hard. He dropped onto his stomach, half stunned, and tried to see what he'd come up against. He was still on the path, so he guessed it was where the dust mite had gone. He'd reached the cavern wall — and before him was a carved entrance in the face of the rock with a clearly defined lintel perhaps fifty or so feet above.
He cried out with relief, daring to let himself think that he'd found a safe haven. He began to crawl again, keeping close to the ground, scraping his knees and calves and knocking his knuckles raw on rubble as he went. He didn't stop until he realized he hadn't heard the sound for several seconds. All was calm and still. Was he safe?
He sank down onto the ground and curled up in a ball, unable to suppress a severe fit of the shakes. To top it off, he got a serious case of the hiccups, each one making his body spasm as it came. After a few minutes he stretched out and, still hiccupping, rolled onto his side. He drew several deep and tremulous breaths as he slowly relaxed his rigid fingers from around the light orb in his hand.
He cleared his throat and mumbled. "Yes, yes, yes, hic! ", ashamed of his post-traumatic panic attack, then sat up to look around. He was in an enclosed area with two rows of large columns on either side of him, all carved from the same brownish stone of the cavern outside. His eyes opened in astonishment.
"What the hic? "
Elliott was leading the boys inland. In places the undergrowth was so thick she had to use her machete to cut a way through. Following her in single file, the boys helped each other by making sure that the rubbery branches of the tall succulent plants and the lower fronds of the trees didn't swing back into the face of the person behind. It was airless, and the boys were soon dripping with perspiration and missing the open spaces and light winds of the beach.
Despite this, Will's spirits were high. He was pleased that they seemed to be working together as a team again. He hoped that any differences he'd had with Chester were firmly in the past and his friendship with him would revert to how it had been before. And above all else, he was so grateful that Elliott had stepped straight into Drake's shoes as their new leader. He had little doubt she was capable of the role.
Will heard sounds along the way, rasping animal calls and hollow rattling noises. He eagerly tried to locate the source of these, peering all around and up above at the branches of the gigantic trees, but could make out nothing. He would have given anything to stop and conduct a proper search. He was in a primordial jungle, which could be filled with all sorts of fantastic creatures.
The path took them into a clearing, where Will stole glances at the lush vegetation, hoping to catch the merest glimpse of one of these animals. Then, as he peered through the flora, a pair emerged. Will did a double take — he wasn't sure if they were birds or reptiles, but they resembled small, freshly plucked bantam chickens, with stubby necks and mean little beaks. Like two old women complaining to each other, they communicated using both the rasping and rattling sounds Will had been hearing. They turned and scurried back into the brush, flapping stunted wings from which a few mangy patches of fur — or feathers — sprouted. So much for the exotic creatures he'd been dreaming of!
Elliott led them onto a track, and they continued along until Will heard Chester's voice up ahead.
"The sea," he said.
They gathered around Elliott, crouching down in the bushes. A strip of beach stretched before them and they could hear the sound of waves again.
Cal spoke up. "It looks exactly like our beach. You're not telling me we just came full circle?" he quizzed Elliott indignantly, shaking the sweat from his face.
"This is not the same beach," she informed him coldly.
"But where do we go now?" he asked, frowning as he craned his neck to peer along the foreshore.
She stuck a finger out to sea, out over the rolling waves.
"Well, we're on an island and the only…" Will began.
"…way on and off is the causeway," Elliott finished his sentence for him. "And I'll bet you that at this very moment the Blackheads are sniffing around the remains of our campfire."
An uneasy silence descended over the group until Chester spoke in a small voice.
"So, are we going to swim for it?"
40
He staggered to his feet, blinking with surprise. He was spellbound by the space around him, his insatiable thirst for knowledge dismissing all other concerns. In that instant, his hiccups ceased, and Dr. Burrows, Intrepid Explorer, was back on duty. His fear of the unidentified beast, and all thoughts of his hysterical rush to escape it, were brushed aside.
"Bingo!" he cried.
He'd stumbled upon some sort of edifice, carved into the bedrock of the cavern itself. If he'd been in search of evidence of the ancient race, he'd certainly found it now. He crept forward, his light revealing row upon row of stone seats, many shattered by fallen debris. He was making his way to the front, in the direction the seats were facing, when he happened to look up.
The ceiling high above him was smooth and generally intact, except for a few sections where it had crumbled in. As he shone his orb around, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of something that reflected the light.
"Extraordinary!" he exclaimed, holding his orb higher, its rays only just traveling the distance to a dully glinting circle that was at least fifty feet in diameter.
"Higher… have to get higher," he told himself, clambering onto the seat of the nearest of the stone benches, and then up onto the narrow back of the bench itself.
As he moved his light slowly around, teetering precariously, the design became clearer to him. The circle was dull gold or bronze in color and could have been applied by some kind of gilding or possibly even painted on. He spoke out loud as he scrutinized it.
"Let's see, you're a hollow circle with… with… what's that in the middle? Looks like…" He squinted and pushed the orb toward the ceiling as far as his arm would permit, until it was supported by just his fingertips.
In the very center of the circle, also cast in the metallic medium, was a solid disk. Jagged lines that resembled stylized, angular rays extended from its circumference.
"Aha! It's obvious what you're meant to represent… you're the sun! " Dr. Burrows pronounced, and then furrowed his brow. "So what have we got here — a subterranean race engaged in surface worship? A people harking back to a time when they were up above on the crust?"
Something more caught his eye. Simple renderings of humanoid figures were depicted walking around the inside of the larger circle — men, evenly spaced, as if treading in a whopping giant great hamster wheel.
"Hey, what are you chaps doing there? You and the sun are in the wrong places!" he observed, frowning even more deeply as he shifted his light toward the solid disk in the center again. "I don't know who made you, but you're all the wrong way around!"
Despite the topsy-turvy nature of the picture, it wasn't lost on Dr. Burrows that any representation of the earth as a sphere, dating back to the time of the Phoenicians, meant whoever had put it there was incredibly enlightened by what he'd seen.
"So much for symbolism!" he said, and sniffed dismissively as he resumed his way forward. He passed the front row of seats, and his light beam touched upon what lay before them. He caught his breath as he saw a raised dais, on which rested a solid block of stone. As he came closer to it, he estimated the block was some forty feet from side to side and about five in height.