| OCR Text |
Show ACAVERXOF SILUt. JJ03T MINE OK AX ANCinNT I'EO-W.E. I'EO-W.E. A HiaUCAN-S SECRL-T. It was tho fortune of the writer a few days ago, while- on train run-nlog run-nlog between EI laoaud San Antonio, An-tonio, to meet Colonel D. R- , a well-known ami respected clluenot the former placr, ays the Houston oorrctpondpnt of tliQ St. Iuls &Ju6.iicnioera. When a ahoi t dU-tanco dU-tanco from the little torn of Warwick War-wick tho Colonel, rolullr.g to the cloud-liko forms of tlio Sierra SAntl-aso SAntl-aso Mountains, exclaimed. "Do you see those peaks? Will, It was there that I had, about thirty jean ago, anauTenturethat equal anything any-thing that Hazard ever wrote." Pressed to tell the story, he salJ "I have had such hard work in convincing con-vincing those to whom I have already al-ready related It, tnat I was not, to Ear the Irn,t of it, tho victim of a delusion. 1 rather dread thoUvk, buL assuring you tint every word Is the solemn truth. I will lit your faith In rae tolhetert. "It was In 15v late In October, If I remember rightly that I was paid a visit in my tlllctt by a man who gave his name as Miguel Romero Ro-mero TbU man,ao.miugly a Mexican Mex-ican with a good deal of Indian in him, with a cauLUus and niyiterioui air, having won my promise of le-. le-. crecy, Informed me that ho luul !& cohered In the Slern Santiagu mountains a silver mine. It hatl been worked to aomti czleut by Uit L ... ... .........i. .r ... ... VUJV. ,, iUWJgll V4 k,l WU .k mained to inako both of us millionaires million-aires a hundred times over. I refused re-fused to believe 111 his (ten. Vbcn from bis pockrt tie drew a lump of ore width even my Inexperienced tyes told mcnis rich In silver. "Ramero'a object in telling rue of his dlaooTery was to oocuio my help In working the mine, for he knew that capital was needed to U-in operations. I then toid hint thai II things were as he Allied them I would havu nodUllculty whatorir in formlug atUx.1 oompany to work It on shares, but that before I made a move about it I should have to view the mine for myself. To this he readily ujjreeJ, only stipulating ju- i .Imli 'Ujh aijscii to be blindfolded when lutroluced into the place in order Dial I might not oU unfair! tju-irj him, and on my demurring to this eoiiditlou quietly (ncketed his s,icclnien aud turned to leave (he room. "N,t ishlng to loose a possible gooil thing, 1 called him back, agree-iux agree-iux to the blnrJfuIding, but, on my side, claiming the right to take a friend with me. He was quite willing, and the mxt morning's sun found the Mexican, inyw-lf and an old friend I ha J soldiered with mo in the Mexican war named Will ., whom I had thon-ato accomimy me on Uie road to the mountains. We readied thorn about noon, and, entering a gorge, followed it fur several mile?; then, striking oir into a sort of cltft, liUt tlirough the side of one of the Luaus, wcrelialtedbyour guide, who an-nounced an-nounced that we were here to dismount dis-mount aud tie our liofMf, after which, If vo vouhl kindly allow ourcyestobebdund, he would lead us Into the mine. "After blindfolding us, Itomcro took us by the liauda, and with verbal ver-bal direction, alo, conducted us along a very narrow ravine, as I could tell from our echoing voices. then up at tup Incline for tome minutes, after which we deo. tided. At Iat we ruued, and wire direct-el direct-el to g't down on ouroU-fours-This we did, and crawled into a bole about three feet across, I mould judge, IC. leading, I going next and Itonn.ro bringing upthereir. We were In a small, low parage, H hlcli, dipping sometimes mddeuly, ofltn necessitated our duckinc our braids and wiggling along ll&t to the earth. Hut a few minutes of this sufllced to brio,; us into a larger cavity, as I ruukl till by thu air mid found, and here we were told by Romiro that we might rctoove our baLdagc. "Tearing them away wo found ourselves in a caveru some fifty by seVLiity.flve fret In in-, with a low it llinp, which lnly nllowed ofoucstanuingcrcei. Itwas lighted by a rude lantern, which Itomcro must hive brought with him, aud which thowed us pile of earth, plck-axeaofastrangeandawknardmake, plck-axeaofastrangeandawknardmake, buckili of unuimlliarliH',aLd a many as ten litimau figurts lying about. So lifelike weiu the men who, in various attltudea of despair and horror, wert scattered around that but for the gray aspect of the faces and the rigor of tho limbs, I could have sworn thty still lived. 'Aztecs,' itomcro loM me, seeing see-ing mo bending over one, but that they wire not 1 waa convinced, for several reason'. In the first place, the facial angle and the features told me that they were of Caucasian origin, ori-gin, and in the second, the buckets aud ickaxes wire ofjiron. I had no way of knowingof what complexion these dead men had been, but their dress resembled that of the ancient Egyptians, exic)t fur Uie head dress which consisted of a sort of skull cap. Their attitudes seemed to indicate Uiatthey had been su J-denl) J-denl) surprised by some fauilcata. tro) be. which only gave them time to nalize Die liopeleHnesa cf their situation. The tools, the plies of earth and the men, together with the floor and sides of the cavern, wt-roaU covered with n thin, duit-colond duit-colond film as hard as Iron, though slightly transljcent. What Its nature na-ture was I cannot tell. "Tho air of the cave" was u(Io-caUngly u(Io-caUngly hot, indeed tr hot that we were bathed in perspiration and soon became sensible of rual discomfort. discom-fort. I do not exaggerate vt he ul say Uiat Uie temperature was about 13) deg. Fahrenheit. Itomcro was very impatient for us lo flnidi our Inspection In-spection of this chambcr.froni which led a gallery about six feet in width, so n o did not linger, thinking to ex-amino ex-amino it at our lebure, but pushed on doftu tho gallery. The heat grew greater, and tho Mexican began be-gan to grow wonled. 'I t was not so when 1 camo lat week,' he said to mt. I put out my hand and touched the walls of the passage. They were so warm that I could notsustain thu contact, but I could see that Uie indications of a rich vein of sUvcr were present. "After following this gallery for nearlya hundred feet, our ppgress was Abruptly checked by a huge reek, which had evidently been sucked In or driven In by some tremendous tre-mendous force, and which completely com-pletely closed tho pajiov, ami as tightly as a cork la a bottle. This, Itomcro informed us, bad prevented him fromfurthercxp-oring the mine, but we could judge of the probable richness of it from what we had already al-ready seen, and that he thought no difficulty could be found in removing remov-ing the cock by blasting, litre he placed his hand on the rock, but recoiled re-coiled with a shriek, for the skin had been blistered la an luitan U And while k stool nonplussed, we became be-came aware that a certain dull, faint roar we had scarcely jierceived before be-fore was growing into a rumbling that j.romled to deafen us, and, accompanied ac-companied as it was by a fierce hiss-iDg hiss-iDg and boiling, was honlbly suggestive sug-gestive of a lake of liquid metal bubbling up from some unimaginable unimagin-able region. I suppose there-was no real danger of it, but It seemed to me that the boiling flood was coming Uirougu the rock, and It was certainly cer-tainly rising forthe noise grew louder loud-er every moment, while the heat Increased In-creased percvitlbly. "Will IC. here tried to call tc me, but sink down in a heap, falntiDg, and It was w Ith great diUlcully Itomcro Ito-mcro and I got him back to the antechamber. ante-chamber. 1 felt myself also becoming becom-ing faint and dlrxy- from the teat, and was Jut able to request the Mexican to take us back to the tur-face tur-face of the earth, when my linl-s failed me. I have a faint remembrance remem-brance or being dragged and pushed fjrsoniedistauce; but when at la I recovered myself I found that K. and I were lying close to where our horvea were tied, with Romero bathing bath-ing our heads with water. He must with Incrcdlulediniculty bave brought us through that underground under-ground raaago and to the place where we found ourselves. When wo recovered he took us to his house, a cabin near the foot of Uie mountains, where he bad lived, be told us. for a number of years with bis wife and live children. He did not giveany reason forhiscxile.but I su'pected that he had gotten Into trouble with the authorities In Mexico and bad tied across the border. He was a man ofsomeedu-caUon ofsomeedu-caUon and more than ordinary Intelligence, In-telligence, and accidentally discovering discover-ing an entrance Into the cavern had taken It for one of the leut mines of theAitecs. That it was a mine was beyond doubt, but as I said, It has not been worked by the ancient Mexicans, but by a race which must ha e antedated them. "The narrow postage found by Romero was a natural excavation I and not of courte therjulareo- trance to the nUie, and was probably untaown to the minora. jRomero deciared tltal when he had exi lored the cavern the week before the great bead we ha 1 found was cot there, so it was evident that the boiling Hand we had found bubbllugup was only of Intermittent occurrence. The rock which bad kept it from invading in-vading the ante-chamber had probably prob-ably been sucked Into pi ice by tho receding or the steaming Udc, pef-ha pef-ha on the very occasion when the men we had seen had b-:3. killed. Hut as to that and Hie P-12 of their etptnge preservation of course only surnitee. 'We offered to buy the utensils ' and human remains In the cavern, which would have been oflnettl-1 oflnettl-1 mable val je as archwalogical curlo-' curlo-' slUts, but tried to convince Romero I Hint it would be linpojilJu V" wotk the miKJ. JTe touId not, however, how-ever, admit the Impracticability of UJO U1IU, UUU MUCU ..;. .w le argued or persuaded. n& any attempt at-tempt to meeldlo villi an undertaking undertak-ing ualure had centuries before set ht-r veto on he became angry and declined to sell us the curiosities Me wanted. We left him deelailug he would ypt remove the dinlcultlea that blocked his uay to the enormous enor-mous wealth the mine contained. 'Alter our return to town I did not see K.for some days, but when I did we mutually confessed Uiat we were haunted by the thought of that sJI ermine to such an extent that we could not rest, though boUi had thought himself resigned tolls loss on learning or the impossibility of getting a h2d on Its treasures. V.'e agreed to go and looS HP Itomero and seo f yu could ncaich out the regular entrance to the mine, our Idea being that an exidoratlon from that tolut might be feasible. Wo learned from Romero's wife that he had gone to El Paso the day after our visit and brought home a large quanUly of i,unpowder, but had catried it oil t mine place In the mountains. The womau evidcuUy knew nothing of her husband's discovery and seemed worried over his absence. K. and I spent nearlv a week searching for Ujmero's hole and the main entrant-, but we found nclUier. and It U my opinion that tho former must have been closed by the people who mined it or by some convulsion or nature. We went again and again to see if Romero had returned home, but he never turned up; so It Is probable that he lost his life n a desperate des-perate attemi t to blast away Uie great rock, or was overtake!! by the cat and died there. For yt-ars v. and I, as long as he lived, ued to cj and look for the hole we hail crept Into blindfolded, but, neetlless to ay. we never found it. Yes, I ' told you I would taryourcreJullty, 1 but, all the same, every word I have spoken Is the exact truth." Sun ', rrandtco Cliromcle. |
