CHAPTER XX

THE CITY OF GOLD

“Well, I guess this is the end of it,” remarked Ned ruefully, as they stood contemplating the roaring stream by the gleam of their electric flash lamps.  “We can’t go on to the city of gold unless we swim that river, and—­”

“And none of us is going to try that!” interrupted Tom sharply.  “The strongest swimmer in the world couldn’t make a yard against that current.  He’d be carried down, no one knows where.”

“Bless my bathing suit, yes!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.  “But what are we to do?  Can’t we make a raft, or get a boat, or something like that?”

“Hab t’ be a mighty pow’ful boat t’ git across dat ribber ob Jordan,” spoke Eradicate solemnly.

“That’s right,” agreed Ned.  “But say, Tom, don’t you think we could go back, get a lot of trees, wood and stuff and make some sort of a bridge?  It isn’t so very wide—­not more than thirty or forty feet.  We ought to be able to bridge it.”

“I’m afraid not,” and Tom shook his head.  “In the first place any trees that would be long enough are away at the far edge of the big plain, and we’d have a hard job getting them to the temple, to say nothing of lugging them down the tunnel.  Then, too, we don’t know much about building a bridge, and with no one on the other side to help us, we’d have our hands full.  One slip and we might be all drowned.  No, I guess we’ve got to go back,” and Tom spoke regretfully.  “It’s hard luck, but we’ve got to give up and go back.”

“Den I’s pow’ful glad I got ma golden image when I did, dat’s suah!” exclaimed Eradicate.  “Ef we doan’t git no mo’ I’ll hab one.  But I’ll sell it and whack up wid yo’ all, Massa Tom.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Rad!” exclaimed the young inventor.  “That image is yours, and I’m sorry we can’t get more of them.”

He turned aside, and after another glance at the black underground river which flowed along so relentlessly he prepared to retrace his steps along the tunnel.

“Say, look here!” suddenly exclaimed Ned.  “I’m not so sure, after all that we’ve got to turn back.  I think we can go on to the city of gold, after all.”

“How do you mean?” asked Tom quickly.  “Do you think we can bring the balloon down here and float across?”

“Bless my watch chain!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, “but that would be a way.  I wonder—­”

“No, I don’t mean that way at all,” went on Ned.  “But it seems to me as if this river isn’t a natural one—­I mean that it flows along banks of smooth stone, just as if they were cut for it, a canal you know.”

“That’s right,” said Tom, as he looked at the edge of the channel of the underground stream.  “These stones are cut as cleanly as the rest of the tunnel.  Whoever built that must have made a regular channel for this river to flow in.  And it’s square on the other side, too,” he added, flashing his lamp across.