The Man of Bronze by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Kenneth Robeson
ISBN: 9780553154061
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1964-10-14T05:00:00+00:00

QUITE suddenly, it had appeared before them—the Valley of the Vanished!

A widening in the strange, devilish chasm formed it. The valley had roughly the shape of an egg. The floor was sloping, of such a steepness that to land a wheel-equipped plane on it would be an impossibility.

There was only one spot of comparative levelness, and that was no greater than an acre or two in area.

It was on this level spot that the eyes of Doc and his five men instantly focused. They stared, unbelieving.

“Good Heaven!” gasped Johnny, the archaeologist.

From the little flat towered a pyramid! It adhered in a general way to the architecture of the Egyptian type of pyramids, but there were differences.

For one thing, the sides, instead of drawing inward in a series of steplike shelves, were smoothed as glass from top to bottom. Only in the front was there a flight of steps. Not more than twenty feet wide was this flight, and the steps were less high and deep than those in an American home. The stairway was like a ribbon up the glittering, sleek side of the pyramid.

The top of the structure was flat, and on this stood a sort of temple, a flat stone roof supported by square, wondrously carved pillars. Except for the pillars, this was open at the sides, permitting glimpses of fantastically wrought idols of stone.

Strangest of all, perhaps, was the color of the pyramid. Of a grayish-brownstone, yet it glowed all over with a strange yellow, metallic aurora of tiny lights caught and cast back.

“Priceless!” murmured Johnny, the archaeologist.

“You said it!” grunted Renny, the engineer.

“From a historical standpoint, I mean!” corrected Johnny.

“I meant from a pocketbook standpoint!” Renny snorted. “If I ever saw quartz absolutely full of wire gold, I see it now. I’ll bet the stone that pyramid is made of would mill fifty thousand dollars to the ton in free gold!”

“Forget the gold!” snapped Johnny. “Don’t you realize you’re looking at a rare sample of ancient Mayan architecture? Something any archaeologist would give both hands and a leg to inspect!”

As the plane dived closer, another thing about the pyramid became noticeable. This was a sizable volume of water which poured steadily down the pyramid side, coursing in a deep trough inlaid near the steps.

This water came out of the pyramid top by some artesian effect. Continuing away from the structure, it fed a long, narrow lake. This body of water in turn emptied into the stream that ran down the chasm up which Doc and his friends had flown.

Upon the sides of the egg-shaped valley, not far from the pyramid, stood rows of impressive stone houses. These were lavishly carved, strange of architecture. It was as though the flyers had slipped back into an age before history.

There were people—many of them. They were garbed weirdly.

Doc dropped the plane pontoons on the narrow lake surface.

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