Tom switched on power, aiming the unit at one towering mass. A hum came from the machine as the matted growth began to disappear as if by magic.
Suddenly Bud clawed off his mask.
“Jumpin” jets! It’s a building!”
Tom nodded, his own eyes blazing with excitement. His hunch, prompted by memories of
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the city of gold, had turned out to be correct!
As more and more of the wall surface came into view, the boys were astounded by its richness. It was made of gleaming white alabaster, inlaid with blue lapis lazuli and carnelian, and carved with fantastic figures of gods and demons. Tom switched off the de-organic-izer.
“There must be a whole group of palaces and temples under here!” Bud exclaimed.
“Right,” Tom agreed. “This spot must have been engulfed by a flood centuries ago when the underground river bored that channel up into the valley.
Bud, unless I miss my guess, this is the lost civilization of Vishnapur!”
“But I thought Shankaru was the site of-” Bud paused. “Say! Do you mean this place and Shankaru were part of the same civilization?”
“The wall carvings look similar, although what’s left at Shankaru didn’t seem as rich as all this,” Tom said. “Shankaru may have been built later-and there may be inscriptions in the ruins telling about this place. If Mortlake deciphered them, that could have been what he wanted to tell me.”
“Wow! I’ll bet you’re right!” Bud burst out. “And maybe someone wanted to stop him from-”
“Hold it!” Tom cocked his head. “Do you hear that noise?”
Bud listened for a moment. “I sure do.”
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The faint rumbling sound grew louder.
“Good night 1” Tom muttered. “I wonder if anything’s happened to the inlet plug.” He turned to the watchers on shore and shouted, “Move the lights to bear on the center of the lake!”
The men leaped into action. Without waiting, Tom revved the tractor engine and began steering the spectromarine selector down the slope toward the center of the lake bed. The machine’s own worklight beam stabbed the darkness ahead.
“What’re you going to do, skipper?” Bud asked.
“This mass of weeds may have dragged the wires loose from the electrogel,”
Tom replied. “II we don’t reconnect them in a hurry, the whole lake basin could flood again!”
Both boys were tense as the tractor rumbled forward. “Wish we could see a little farther,” Bud said. “Doesn’t look as if much water has seeped in yet, but-”
He broke off with a cry as the platform suddenly tilted forward. A second later the whole machine toppled down into the weeds. The boys could feel it sinking under their feet!
“We’ve hit a drop-off!” Tom shouted. “These plants must be afloat in water already!”
His last words were choked off by the rising flood. The boys struggled wildly, far from shore, in the tangled poisonous plant growth!
CHAPTER XVIII
HIDDEN LAIR
“PUT on your oxygen mask, Bud!” Tom yelled. He hastily adjusted his own before any of the deadly water could enter his mouth or nostrils.
In a moment the glare of the floodlights swept the center of the lake. Tom could see Bud floundering desperately in the morass.
Though both boys could swim like seals in open water, this ability would help them little until the lake level rose. For the time being they must fight to stay afloat in a seething stew of vegetation that was more like quicksand.
The matted weeds entangled their limbs like a net. Tom clawed out right and left and kicked his legs to keep from sinking, but every stroke increased his feeling of helplessness. Twice he saw Bud’s head go under; then reappear moments later, with a look of sheer panic distorting Bud’s face.
Suddenly Tom heard the whir of the Sea
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Hound’s rotor. A cone of light from the sky was moving out over the lake, with twin red and green running lights above. Then the craft’s outline could be seen through the darkness.
“Thank goodness!” Tom muttered.
With rescue near, the boys struggled with new vigor to stay afloat. Soon a ladder was dropped from the Sea Hound. Tom motioned Bud to go first, then followed him up the swaying rungs.
“Th-thanks, pals!” Bud’s teeth were chattering as two pairs of hands pulled him aboard.
Tom came next. He saw Chow’s and Prince Jahan’s faces in a blur, as a wave of exhaustion almost overcame the young inventor.
“Brand my water wings, you two sure picked a miser’ble place to go swimmin’,” Chow clucked.
Doc Simpson draped blankets around Tom and Bud, while Chow hurried off to make hot cocoa. Jahan hovered near as Doc checked the boys’ conditions.
Hank Sterling looked around anxiously from the controls. “Are they all right?”
“They seem okay, but a bit woozy,” Doc said.
Tom remarked ruefully, “Guess I was crazy to drive the organ where I did, but I was hoping I could fix the plug before it was too late.”
Inwardly Tom felt heartsick at the ruin of their work. The whole lake would have to be drained again, and salvaging the spectromarine selector might prove a grueling job in itself.
Bud tried to cheer him. “That lost civilization HIDDEN LAIR 157
we found makes up for a lot. I’ll bet those buildings are full of treasures!”
Jahan and Doc grew round-eyed with excitement upon hearing of the fabulous discovery. Suddenly Hank cried, “Skipper! Look!”
Tom rushed to the pilot’s window, followed by the others. Hank pointed down to the left. A glinting metallic figure could be made out just beyond the fringe of brilliance from the floodlights. It was scuttling up the weedy slopes of the lake bed toward the northwestern shore.
“I spotted it just as I was turning the ship around!” Hank said. He zoomed the craft downward, swiveling its search beam. The creature zigzagged frantically, but Hank pinned it squarely in the Sea Hound’s yellow glare.
“It’s the monster!” Bud gasped.
The scaly thing glanced up for a moment, and the watchers in the seacopter caught the reflected glint of two round bright eyes. Then it darted forward, scrabbling on all fours.
Tom swung around toward the pudgy cook, who was just bringing mugs of hot cocoa. “Get me some dry dungarees, Chow-pronto!”
“Me, too!” Bud shouted.
The cook hurried off and came back in a few moments with clothes, sweat socks, and canvas deck shoes from a supply locker. The boys had already shucked their blankets and were stripping off their wet garments.
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Meanwhile, Hank had swooped still lower. The fleeing creature was now scarcely a hundred yards from the Sea Hound. The ship’s beam revealed a cavelike hole in the rock face bordering the shore. The monster scrambled toward it. Hank’s cry drew Tom’s attention just as the creature scuttled into the opening.
“Set her down right here on the shore!” Tom ordered. As Hank obeyed, he finished dressing and took a quick gulp of cocoa.
“What’re you aimin’ to do, boss?” Chow asked.
“Go after that so-called monster.”
“Are you crazy?” Doc broke in, aghast. “That thing’s big enough to kill a man!”
“I think it is a man,” Tom retorted. As the others gasped in astonishment, he went on, “It sure looked human the way it moved-and that getup could be a fancy diving suit. I have a hunch that ghoul sabotaged the lake plug!”
“If you’re right, skipper, the guy may be a maniac-a killer,” Hank pointed out.
“Yes, and that’s why I’m going in alone.”
“Now hold on, boss!” Chow burst out. “Brand my stewpot, you ain’t goin’
nowhere without-”
“You heard me, Chow,” Tom said firmly.
“I forbid you to go after that creature alone!” Jahan exclaimed. “As Crown Prince of-”
Tom held up one hand, “I’m the skipper of this outfit, so let’s have no mutinies, please.” He
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softened his words with a grin. “Your safety is the responsibility of Swift Enterprises.”
“Come on. Let’s get going,” Bud said.
Tom gave him a comradely poke in the ribs. “Okay, fly-boy, you tag along.
The rest of you stay here.”
Hank knew better than to argue. He reached for a small portable repelatron.
“At least take this, skipper. If monster-man gets rough, you can pin him with a repulsion beam.”
“Good idea. I have a hunch that hole is a tunnel-maybe a long one. Give us an hour. If we’re not back by then, you’re in charge.”
“Roger!”
After anxious handshakes all around, the two boys armed themselves with powerful flashlights and climbed out of the seacopter. They scrambled down the rocky shore and entered the hole.
“It’s a tunnel, all right,” Bud murmured, aiming his beam ahead. The dank, earth-walled passage sloped upward into pitch-darkness.
At first the boys were forced to proceed single file, but the tunnel gradually widened. Tom aimed his light at a trail of damp tracks. They were webbed and clawlike.