VER a vast horseshoe of towering crags, with a drumming roar, the dark, resistless river rushed in a mass of snowy foam and broken rainbows down into the whirling caldron below.
"The Falls of Utiarity," whispered Pinto, as he guided the boat into a little bend by the bank just above where the terrible downward glide of the river began. Making fast to a tree on shore, the whole party stared across at the most beautiful waterfall on earth, as if they could never see enough of its beauty. Something seemed to give way in Will's brain, and for a long minute he felt as if he were entering a new and strange world. Dim, unearthly images seemed to float before him. He thought of the great white throne in Revelation—the mystic emerald circled by a rainbow and the pavement of a single sapphire-stone. Before him was the beautiful water, sinking into the abyss, yet flowing on forever, while a great rainbow trembled, faded, then came again through the mist and spray like a beautiful spirit walking the waters. With the terror, the rush, and the roar of the crashing waters, was a beauty not of earth that took away all fear, until he seemed to be gazing into the seventh heaven and seeing that which was unlawful for mortal man to look upon.
Only a moment, and once more he was back in the body and found himself looking confusedly into the faces of his companions, all of whom had felt something of the same uplift. Without a word, the Indian edged the canoe along the shore and into the mouth of a deep lagoon, half-hidden by overhanging trees. Beyond these it widened out and ended in a high, bare bank. Back from this stretched a narrow path, showing like a long line through the dark green of the jungle. Its surface was trodden ominously hard and smooth, as if crossed and recrossed by many bare feet.
"The Trail," said Pinto, softly.
"The Trail," echoed Professor Ditson, as they all stared along the thin line which pierced the forest and led away and across the vast basin of the Amazon and on and past the guarded heights of Peru until it reached the mines from which Spain had dug the gold which enabled her to conquer and hold half the world. Only the cruel, fierce, dogged fighters of Spain as she was four hundred years ago could have cut this path. Even then, when men thought little of life or of accomplishing the impossible, the Trail stood forth as a great achievement, every mile of which had cost the lives of men.
For a time, the adventurers stared in silence at the brown line athwart the green, the sign and seal of an empire long passed away. Then Pinto grounded the montaria at the edge of the bank, and, after all of the party had disembarked with their scanty equipment, pulled the boat, with Hen's help, back of a screen of tangled vines, marked by a slender assai-palm, until it was completely hidden from sight.
"If we are successful," remarked Professor Ditson, "we'll never see that boat again. If we are driven back along this trail, it may save our lives."
There was a silence. For the first time the boys and Jud realized that their leader definitely expected perils other than those ever present from the wild creatures that guarded the beautiful, treacherous, mysterious forests of this southern continent.
"Are the Injuns down here dangerous?" inquired Jud, at last.
"The personal habits of some of them do not commend themselves even to the most broad-minded investigators," returned the professor, precisely.
"Such as—" questioned Jud, again.
"Well," replied the scientist, slowly, "for one thing, the wild tribes of this part of the Amazon basin invariably eat any captives they make. Then—"
"That's enough," broke in Jud. "After I've been eaten I don't care what they do next. What might be the names of these gentlemen?"
"The Mayas, I think, are the tribe we shall be most likely to meet," said Professor Ditson, reflectively. "They have no fixed homes, but wander through the forest, guiding themselves by the sun, and sleep in the tree-tops like monkeys wherever they happen to be when night comes. They hunt men, red, white, or black," he went on; "yet, if Indian traditions can be depended upon, we do not need to be afraid of them so long as we keep to the Trail."
"How's that?" inquired Will, intensely interested.
"Every tribe which refers to the Trail," the scientist informed them, "speaks of a custom called the 'Truce of the Trail,' under which travelers along that road are safe from attack."
"Does that there truce," interposed Jud, "take in white men, or is it only for redskins?"
"That," returned the professor, "is not certain. Some say yes, some say no."
"The question is," murmured Jud, "what do the Mayas say?"