Читать книгу A West Point Treasure; Or, Mark Mallory's Strange Find онлайн

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“Bless my soul!” gasped Indian. “There might be a trapdoor!”

That grewsome and ghastly suggestion caused so much terror that it stopped all further progress for a minute at least, and when finally they did go on, it was with still more frightened and thumping hearts.

They took two or three more steps ahead; and then suddenly Mark, who was a trifle in the lead, sprang back with a cry.

“What is it?” gasped the rest.

“There’s something there,” he said. “Something, I don’t know what. I touched it!”

They stood in a huddled group, straining their eyes to pierce the darkness. It was horrible to know that something was there, and not to know what. One might imagine anything.

“It’s a Megatherium,” whispered Dewey, irrepressible even here.

In the suspense that followed the frightened crowd made out that Mark was leaning forward to explore with one hand.

And then suddenly, with a cry of real horror this time, he forced them back hastily.

“It’s alive!” he cried.

They were about ready to drop dead with terror by that time, or to scatter and run for their lives. Every one of them was wishing he had never thought of entering this grewsome, black place, with its awful mysteries, its possibilities of fierce beasts or still more fierce and lawless men, or ghosts and goblins, or Heaven only knew what else. Most men do not believe in ghosts or goblins until they get into just some situation like this.