reams. The roaring,
scarcely abated, pounded in my ears. I was telling myself over and
over with a most intense earnestness: "But if I were really dead I
shouldn't be able to move." It appears that the first sense to leave a
drowning man, and the last to return, is the sense of humor.

In another ten minutes, having rid my lungs of the water that had
filled them, I felt no pain and but little fatigue. My head was dizzy,
and there was still a feeling of oppression on my chest; but otherwise
I was little the worse for wear. I twisted carefully over on my side
and took note of my surroundings.

I lay on a narrow ledge of rock at the entrance to a huge cavern. Not
two feet below rushed the stream which had carried me; it came down
through an opening in the wall at a sharp angle with tremendous
velocity, and must have hurled me like a cork from its foaming surface.
Below, it emptied into a lake which nearly filled the cavern, some
hundreds of yards in diameter. Rough boulders and narrow ledges
surrounded it on every side.

This I saw in time, but the first thing that caught my eye was no work
of nature. Fastened to the wall on the opposite side of the cavern,
casting a dim, flickering light throughout its vast space, were two
golden, flaming urns.

It was not fear, but a sort of nausea, that assailed me as I realized
that I was still in the domain of the Incas.

The ledge on which I lay was exposed to view from nearly every point of
the cavern, and the sight of those urns caused me to make a swift
decision to leave it without delay. It was wet and slippery and not
over three feet in width; I rose to my feet cautiously, having no
appetite for another ducking.

At a distance of several feet lay another ledge, broad and level, at
the farther end of which rose a massive boulder. I cleared the gap
with a leap, barely made my footing, and passed behind the boulder
through a crevice just wide enough to admit my body.

Then through a narrow lane onto another ledge, and from that I found my
way into a dark recess which gave assurance at least of temporary
safety. The sides of the cavern were a veritable maze of boulders,
sloping ledges, and narrow crevices. Nature here scarcely seemed to
have known what to do with herself.

I seated myself on a bit of projecting limestone, still wet and
shivering. I had no boots nor trousers; my feet were bruised and
swollen, and my flannel shirt and woolen underwear were but sc