“Then,” asked Mr. Damon, “do you mean that we can enter here, get into the cave that contains the buried city, or part of it, and find there Beecher and his friends?”
“That’s it. It is possible, and if we could it
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would save an immense lot of work, and probably be a surer way to save their lives than by digging a tunnel through the landslide to find the mouth of the cave where we first entered.”
“It’s a chance worth taking,” said Mr. Damon. “Of course it is a chance. But then everything connected with this expedition is; so one is no worse than another. As you say, we may find the entombed men more easily this way than any other.”
“I wonder,” said Tom slowly, “if, by any chance, we shall find, through this passage, the lost city we are looking for.”
“And the idol of gold,” added Ned.
“Goosal, do you know anything about this?” asked Professor Bumper. “Did you ever hear of another passage leading to the cave where you saw the ancient city?”
“No, Learned One, though I have heard stories about there being many cities, or parts of a big one, beneath the mountain, and when it was above ground there were many entrances to it.”
“That settles it!” cried the professor in English, having talked to Goosal in Spanish. “We’ll try this and see where it leads.”
They entered the stone-lined passage. In spite of the fact that it had probably been buried and concealed from light and air for centuries,
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as evidenced by the growth of the giant trees above it, the air was fresh.