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

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Probably the wisest course for them would have been precipitate flight. To be trapped in there by desperate men would be terrible indeed! But curiosity urged them on. This was a glorious mystery—a mystery worth solving. It was almost a fairy tale; an enchanted princess alone was needed.

Now, whether they would have been bold enough to stay and look about them, had it not been for one occurrence, it is impossible to say. Texas, glancing curiously about him, caught sight of a familiar object on a bench to one side, and he leaped forward and seized it. He stared at it hastily and gave a cry of joy.

It was a revolver! A forty-four calibre, and it was loaded, too!

No power on earth could have moved Texas then; he had a gun; he was at home after that, and he feared neither man nor devil.

“Let ’em come!” he cried. “I’m a-goin’ to look.”

He strode forward, Mark at his side, and the rest following, peering into every nook and cranny.

One thing seemed certain. There was no one about. The cave had all sorts of passageways and corners, but hunt as they would they saw not a soul, heard not a sound. The place was like a tomb. It was just as silent and weird and uncanny, and moreover just as moldy and dusty as the tomb is supposed to be.