“I never thought I should be so pleased to see a road before,” said Dinah. “The road out of the valley! The road to Somewhere at last!”
“Look,” said Lucy-Ann, “it winds up from quite a long way down. We can’t see where it goes to from here, because it’s hidden round that bend.”
“You can see the pass, the Windy Pass, from here, though,” said Jack, pointing. “See where this mountain and the next almost touch? That’s where the pass must be — fairly high up and awfully narrow. I bet we’ll have to go through it in single file.”
“No, we won’t,” said Philip scornfully. “It’s bound to be wide enough to take a cart. It only looks narrow because we’re far off.”
“Come on, let’s get down to the road,” said Dinah, and began to climb down to it. They were about twenty feet above it.
“I say, isn’t it overgrown with grass and weeds!” said Jack, astonished. “That shows how little it has been used lately. Queer, isn’t it? You’d think the people would put their only road out of the valley into some sort of order.”
“It’s jolly peculiar, I think,” said Philip. “Come on — we can at least see it’s a road, even if it is overgrown with weeds.”
They walked along the road for some way. It wound upwards always, following long curves in and out on the slopes of the mountain. At last the children could clearly see where the Windy Pass must be, a narrow passage between the two mountains, theirs and the next.
It was cold so high up and the wind was very strong. If the children had not been warm with climbing they would have shivered. As it was, they were all as warm as toast.
“Now — round this next corner — and I bet we shall see the pass!” cried Jack. “Then hurrah for the way out of this mysterious valley!”
They rounded the corner. Yes — there lay the pass — or what must once have been the pass. But it was a pass no longer.
Something had happened. The narrow way between the high mountains was blocked high with great rocks and black boulders. It was impassable.
At first the four children didn’t quite take it in. They stood and stared in wonder.
“What’s happened there?” said Jack at last. “It looks like an earthquake or something. Did you ever see such a terrible mess?”
“Great holes have been blown in the rocky walls on either side of the pass,” said Philip. “Look, even high up there are holes like craters.”
They stared in silence, and then Jack turned to the others. “Do you know what I think has happened?” he said. “Well, when enemies were here, fighting, they bombed the pass — and blocked it. All that devastation has been caused by bombs — I’m sure it has.”
“Yes, I think you’re right, Jack,” said Philip. “It’s just what it looks like. Aeroplanes must have flown just over the pass, and dropped scores of bombs down on the narrow road there. It’s absolutely impassable.”
“Do you mean — we can’t get out?” asked Lucy-Ann in a trembling voice. Philip nodded.
“Afraid so,” he said. “Nobody could get over that steep, high, dangerous wall of blown-up rocks. This explains why people haven’t come along to live in this valley yet. I suppose most of those living here were killed, and the rest escaped over the pass. Then it was blown up and nobody could come back. Those men in the plane, Juan and the rest, must have got wind of some treasure hidden in the valley, and thought they would try to enter the place by plane. About the only way to enter it, too.”
Lucy-Ann sat down and cried. “I’m so disappointed,” she wailed. “I thought we were going to escape from this horrid, lonely valley, I really did. But now we’re still prisoners here — and n-n-n-nobody can come in to rescue us!”
The others sat down by Lucy-Ann, feeling rather desperate too. They stared hopelessly at the blocked pass. What a terrible blow! Just as they had so hoped they would be able to escape, and get to Julius, and tell him about the treasure.
“Let’s have something to eat,” suggested Dinah. “We’ll feel better then. No wonder we feel a bit dumpy now.”
“Humpy dumpy,” said Kiki at once. That made them laugh.
“Idiot!” said Philip. “You don’t care about a blocked-up pass, do you, Kiki? You could fly over. It’s a pity we can’t tie a message to your leg and send you over to Julius for help.”
“Oooh — couldn’t we do that?” said Lucy-Ann at once.
“No, silly! For one thing, Kiki would probably tear the message off her leg,” said Jack, “and for another she’d never know who to go and look for. She’s a clever bird, but not as clever as that.”
They felt a lot better after their meal. They ate it with their backs to the blocked pass. Nobody could bear to look at it.
“I suppose we’ll have to go back to our cave,” said Dinah at last. “Doesn’t seem anything else to do, really.”
“No, I suppose there isn’t,” said Jack rather gloomily. “What a sell, isn’t it?”
They had a good long rest. The sun was very fierce, but the wind was so strong that they were never too hot. In fact, Lucy-Ann went to a rock that sheltered her from the wind, because she felt too cool.
They started back after their rest. They were not nearly so cheerful and talkative as when they had set out that morning. The thought of having to stay in the lonely valley, after having such high hopes of escaping, was very damping to all of them.
Lucy-Ann looked so miserable that Jack tried to think of something to cheer her up. He thought of something really startling.
“Cheer up, Lucy-Ann,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find the treasure now, to make up for our disappointment.”
Lucy-Ann stopped and stared at him, thrilled. “Really?” she said. “Oh, Jack — yes, let’s look for the treasure ourselves now!”
Everyone stopped and thought about it for a few exciting moments. “Well, why not?” said Philip. “We can’t get word about it to Julius, because we can’t get over the pass. Those men have gone, and Otto is gone too. There’s only us left. We might as well hunt for the treasure. It would be something exciting to do, to pass away the time.”
“How simply gorgeous!” cried Dinah. “Just what I’ve always wanted to do — hunt for treasure. When shall we start? Tomorrow?”
“I say — suppose we really found it!” said Philip, looking thrilled. “Should we get a share of it, I wonder?”
“What a good thing Otto gave you the map, Freckles!” said Dinah to Jack. She always called him Freckles when she felt in a very good humour. “Let’s have a look at it.”
Jack took it out of his pocket. He unfolded the sheet of paper and spread it out. Otto had marked it with compass directions, just as he had marked the map showing the way to the pass.
“See the things he has drawn or printed,” said Jack. “See this queer-shaped rock — it’s shaped like a man in a cloak, with a ball-like head. If we saw that rock, we’d know it was a signpost to the treasure.”
“And what’s this — a bent tree?” asked Dinah. “Yes, but how are we to know where to look for them? We can’t go wandering all over the mountainside looking for queer-shaped rocks and bent trees and things.”
“Of course not,” said Jack. “We’d have to begin properly, from the beginning — and the beginning is the waterfall we know. Otto drew a path from where the cowshed is to the waterfall, see — well, we can start right at the waterfall, without bothering about that path. Then, from the top of the fall we must look for that bent tree, and walk to there. Then from the bent tree we look for this — let’s see, what did he say that was? — oh yes, it’s a stretch of smooth black rock — well, when we get there, we look next for a spring of water — and from there we look out for that queer-shaped rock. Then somewhere about there is the treasure.”
“Golly!” said Lucy-Ann, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. “Let’s get back to the waterfall and start straight away. Come on!”
Jack folded up the map and looked round at the three excited faces. He grinned. “The treasure won’t be much use to us, cooped up in this valley as we are,” he said. “But it will be something really thrilling to do.”
They set off once again, their minds busy with treasure-hunting. If only they could find what those men had been looking for and had not found! What would Bill say? He would wish to goodness he had been with them. He always said they fell into adventure after adventure.