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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romance of Golden Star ..., by George
+Chetwynd Griffith, Illustrated by Alfred Pearse
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Romance of Golden Star ...
+
+
+Author: George Chetwynd Griffith
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 23, 2006  [eBook #20173]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Wilelmina Maillière and the Project Gutenberg Online
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+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Some punctuation has been changed to meet contemporary standards.
+
+      Printer's errors: see the list of corrections at the end of the
+      text.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
+
+by
+
+GEORGE [CHETWYND] GRIFFITH[-JONES]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Reprint Edition 1978 by Arno Press Inc.
+Reprinted from a copy in The Library of the University of California,
+Riverside
+Editorial Supervision: Marie Stareck
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Hail, Son of the Sun!
+
+_Page 78._
+
+THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR.
+
+_Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
+
+by
+
+GEORGE GRIFFITH
+
+Author of
+'The Angel of the Revolution,'
+'Olga Romanoff,' 'The Outlaws
+of the Air,' 'Valdar the Oft-Born,'
+'Briton or Boer?' Etc., Etc.
+
+Illustrated by Alfred Pearse
+
+
+
+
+_'To that Son of the Sacred Race
+who for Honour and Faith and
+Love shall take the hand of a
+pure virgin of his own holy blood
+and with her pass fearless through
+the Gate of Death into the shadows
+which lie beyond shall be given the
+glory of casting out the Oppressor
+and raising the Rainbow Banner
+once more above the Golden Throne
+of the Incas. On that Throne he
+shall sit and wield power and mete
+out justice and mercy to the Children
+of the Sun when the gloom
+that is falling upon the Land of
+the Four Regions shall have passed
+away in the dawn of a brighter
+age.'_
+
+--THE PROPHECY CONTAINED
+IN THE ANCIENT LEGEND
+OF VILCAROYA-INCA AND
+GOLDEN STAR, HIS SISTER-BRIDE.
+
+
+London: F. V. White & Co....
+14 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. 1897
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+                                                         PAGE
+
+HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY                                      1
+
+A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT                                 16
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BACK THROUGH THE SHADOWS                                   32
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD                                      47
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+IN THE HALL OF GOLD                                        66
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SISTER STARS                                           86
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HOW DJAMA DID HIS WORK                                    105
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WAKING OF GOLDEN STAR                                 124
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI                            145
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW THE SOUL OF GOLDEN STAR CAME BACK                     168
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA                                    188
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE RODADERO                                           209
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HOW WE TOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN                           230
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+QUEEN AND CROWN                                           250
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HOW DJAMA PAID HIS DEBT                                   262
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RE-KINDLING OF THE SACRED FIRE                        271
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+BY
+
+ALFRED PEARSE
+
+                                                             PAGE
+
+'HAIL, SON OF THE SUN!'                           _Frontispiece_
+
+'AM I ONLY DREAMING THAT THE DEATH-SLEEP IS OVER?'             26
+
+THE DAGGER-POINT DROPPED TILL IT WAS WITHIN AN INCH
+OF GOLDEN STAR'S BREAST                                       119
+
+THEY THRUST HIM IN WITH HIS ARMS STILL BOUND                  205
+
+IT HAD SMITTEN HIM TO THE HEART                               228
+
+NOW THE MOMENT FOR THE GIVING OF THE SIGN HAD COME            280
+
+
+
+
+The Romance of Golden Star
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+I
+
+HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY
+
+
+'Ah, what a thing it would be for us if his Inca Highness were really
+only asleep, as he looks to be! Just think what he could tell us--how
+easily he could re-create that lost wonderland of his for us, what
+riddles he could answer, what lies he could contradict. And then think
+of all the lost treasures that he could show us the way to. Upon my
+word, if Mephistopheles were to walk into this room just now, I think I
+should be tempted to make a bargain with him. Do you know, Djama, I
+believe I would give half the remainder of my own life, whatever that
+may be, to learn the secrets that were once locked up in that withered,
+desiccated brain of his.'
+
+The speaker was one of two men who were standing in a large room,
+half-study, half-museum, in a big, old-fashioned house in Maida Vale.
+Wherever the science of archaeology was studied, Professor Martin Lamson
+was known as the highest living authority on the subject of the
+antiquities of South America. He had just returned from a year's
+relic-hunting in Peru and Bolivia, and was enjoying the luxury of
+unpacking his treasures with the almost boyish delight which, under such
+circumstances, comes only to the true enthusiast. His companion was a
+somewhat slenderly-built man, of medium height, whose clear, olive skin,
+straight, black hair, and deep blue-black eyes betrayed a not very
+remote Eastern origin.
+
+Dr Laurens Djama was a physiologist, whose rapidly-acquired fame--he was
+barely thirty-two--would have been considered sounder by his
+professional brethren if it had not been, as they thought, impaired by
+excursions into by-ways of science which were believed to lead him
+perilously near to the borders of occultism. Five years before he had
+pulled the professor through a very bad attack of the calentura in
+Panama, where they met by the merest traveller's chance, and since then
+they had been fast friends.
+
+They were standing over a long packing-case, some seven feet in length
+and two and a-half in breadth, in which lay, at full length, wrapped in
+grave-clothes that had once been gaily coloured, but which were now
+faded and grey with the grave-dust, the figure of a man with hands
+crossed over the breast, dead to all appearances, and yet so gruesomely
+lifelike that it seemed hard to believe that the broad, muscular chest
+over which the crossed hands lay was not actually heaving and falling
+with the breath of life.
+
+The face had been uncovered. It was that of a man still in the early
+prime of life. The dull brown hair was long and thick, the features
+somewhat aquiline, and stamped even in death with an almost royal
+dignity. The skin was of a pale bronze, though darkened by the hues of
+death. Yet every detail of the face was so perfect and so life-like
+that, as the professor had said, it seemed to be rather the face of a
+man in a deep sleep than that of an Inca prince who must have been dead
+and buried for over three hundred years. The closed eyes, though
+somewhat sunken in their sockets, were the eyes of sleep rather than of
+death, and the lids seemed to lie so lightly over them that it looked as
+though one awakening touch would raise them.
+
+'It is beyond all question the most perfect specimen of a mummy that I
+have seen,' said the doctor, stooping down and drawing his thin, nervous
+fingers very lightly over the dried skin of the right cheek. 'On my
+honour, I simply can't believe that His Highness, as you call him, ever
+really went to the other world by any of the orthodox routes. If you
+could imagine an absolute suspension of all the vital functions induced
+by the influence of something--some drug or hypnotic process unknown to
+modern science, brought into action on a human being in the very prime
+of his vital strength--then, so far as I can see, the results of that
+influence would be exactly what you see here.'
+
+'But surely that can't be anything but a dream. How could it be possible
+to bring all the vital functions to a dead stop like that, and yet keep
+them in such a state that it might be possible--for that's what I
+suppose you are driving at--to start them into activity again, just as
+one might wind up a clock that had been stopped for a few weeks and set
+it going?'
+
+'My dear fellow, the borderland between life and death is so utterly
+unknown to the very best of us that there is no telling what frightful
+possibilities there may be lying hidden under the shadows that hang over
+it. You know as well as I do that there are perfectly well authenticated
+instances on record of Hindoo Fakirs who have allowed themselves to be
+placed in a state of suspended animation and had their tongues turned
+back into their throats, their mouths and noses covered with clay, and
+have been buried in graves that have been filled up and had sentries
+watching day and night over them for as long a period as six weeks, and
+then have been dug up and restored to perfect health and strength again
+in a few hours. Now, if life can be suspended for six weeks and then
+restored to an organism which, from all physiological standpoints, must
+be regarded as inanimate, why not for six years or six hundred years,
+for the matter of that? Given once the possibility, which we may assume
+as proved, of a restoration to life after total suspension of animation,
+then it only becomes a question of preservation of tissue for more or
+less indefinite periods. Granted that tissue can be so preserved, then,
+given the other possibility already proved, and--well, we will talk
+about the other possibility afterwards. Now, tell me, don't you, as an
+archaeologist, see anything peculiar about this Inca prince of yours?'
+
+The professor had been looking keenly at his friend during the delivery
+of this curious physiological lecture. He seemed as though he were
+trying to read the thoughts that were chasing each other through his
+brain behind the impenetrable mask of that smooth, broad forehead of
+his. He looked into his eyes, but saw nothing there save a cold, steady
+light that he had often seen before when the doctor was discussing
+subjects that interested him deeply. As for his face, it was utterly
+impassive--the face of a dispassionate scientist quietly discussing the
+possible solution of a problem that had been laid before him. Whether
+his friend was really driving at some unheard-of and unearthly solution
+of the problem which he himself had raised, or whether he was merely
+discussing the possible issue of some abstract question in physiology,
+he was utterly unable to discover, and so he thought it best to confine
+himself to the matter in hand, without hazarding any risky guesses that
+might possibly result in his own confusion. So he answered as quietly as
+he could:
+
+'Yes, I must confess that there are two perhaps very important points of
+difference between this and any other Peruvian mummy that I have ever
+seen or heard of.'
+
+'Ah, I thought so,' said Djama, half closing his eyes and allowing just
+the ghost of a smile to flit across his lips. 'I thought I knew enough
+about archaeology and the science of mummies in general to expect you to
+say that. Now, just for the gratification of my own vanity, I should
+like to try and anticipate what you are going to say; and if I'm wrong,
+well, of course, I shall only be too happy to be contradicted.'
+
+'Very well,' laughed the professor; 'say on!'
+
+'Well, in the first place, I believe I'm right in saying that all
+Peruvian mummies that have so far been discovered have been found in a
+sitting posture, with the legs drawn close up to the body by means of
+bindings and burial-clothes, so that the chin rested between the knees,
+while the arms were brought round the legs and folded over them. Then,
+again, these mummies have always been found in an upright position,
+while you found this one lying down.'
+
+'Quite so, quite so!' said the professor. 'In fact, I may say that no
+one save myself has ever discovered such a mummy as this among all the
+thousands that have been taken out of Peruvian burying-places. And now,
+what is your other point?'
+
+'Simply this,' said Djama, kneeling down beside the case, and laying his
+hands over the abdomen of the recumbent figure. 'In the case of all
+mummies, whether Egyptian or Peruvian, it was the invariable practice of
+the embalmers to take out the intestines and fill the abdominal cavity
+with preservative herbs and spices. Now, this has not been done in this
+case. Look here.'
+
+And deftly and swiftly he moved the dusty, half-decayed coverings from
+the body of the mummy, while the professor looked on half-wondering and
+half-frightened for the safety of his treasure.
+
+'That has not been done here. You see the man's body is as perfect as it
+was on the day he died--to use a conventional term. Now, am I not
+right?'
+
+'Yes, yes; perfectly right,' answered the professor, who felt himself
+fast losing his grip of the conversation which had taken so strange a
+turn. 'But what has all this got to do with the most unique mummy that
+ever was brought from South America? Surely, in the name of all that's
+sacred, you don't mean--'
+
+'My dear fellow, never mind what I mean for the present,' replied Djama,
+with another of his half smiles. 'If I mean anything at all, the meaning
+will keep, and if I don't it doesn't matter. Now, do you mind telling me
+exactly how and where you came across this extraordinary specimen
+of--well, for want of a better term--we will say, Inca embalming?'
+
+'Yes, willingly,' said the professor, glad to get back again on to the
+familiar ground of his own experiences. 'I found it almost by accident
+in a little valley about four days' ride to the westward of Cuzco. I was
+on my way to Abancay across the Apurimac. My mule had fallen lame, and
+so I got belated. Night came on, and somehow we got off the track
+crossing one of the Punas--those elevated tablelands, you know, up among
+the mountains--and when the mule could go no farther we camped, and the
+next morning I found myself in an almost circular valley, completely
+walled in by enormous mountains, save for the narrow, crooked gorge
+through which we had stumbled by the purest accident. The bottom of this
+valley was filled by a little lake, and while I was exploring the shores
+of this I saw, hidden underneath an overhanging ledge of rock, a couple
+of courses of that wonderful mortarless masonry which the Incas alone
+seemed to know how to build. I had no sooner seen it than all desire of
+getting to Abancay or anywhere else had left me. I made my arriero turn
+the animals loose for the day, and then I sent him back to a village we
+had passed through the day before to buy more provisions and bring them
+to me.
+
+'As soon as he had got out of sight I set to work to get some of the
+stones out and see what there was behind them. I knew there must be
+something, for the Incas never wasted labour. It was hard work, for the
+stones were fitted together as perfectly as the pieces of a Chinese
+puzzle; but at last I got one out and then the rest was easy. Behind the
+stones I found a little chamber hollowed out of the rock, perfectly
+clean and dry, and on the floor of this I found, without any other
+covering than what you see there, the mummy of His Highness lying on
+what had once been a bed of soft Vicuna skins, as perfect and as
+lifelike as though he had only crept in there twelve hours before, and
+had laid down for a good night's rest.
+
+'You may imagine how delighted I was at such a find. I hardly knew how
+to contain myself until my man came back. I put the stones back into
+their places as well as I could, and when Patricio returned the next day
+I had the animals saddled up, and started off in a hurry to Cuzco. There
+I had this case made, bought two extra mules, brought them to the
+valley, packed up my mummy, took it back to Cuzco, and from there to the
+railway terminus at Sicuani and took it down by train to Arequipa, where
+I left it in safe keeping until I had finished the rest of my
+exploration. Then I went back, took it down to Mollendo, got it on board
+the steamer, and here it is.'
+
+'And you didn't find any traces of other treasure-places, I suppose, in
+the valley?' said Djama, who had listened with the most perfect
+attention to the professor's story.
+
+'No, I didn't, though I must confess that one side of the cave in which
+I found this was walled up with the same kind of masonry as there was in
+front of it; but, to tell you the truth, the Peruvian Government has
+such insane ideas about treasure-hunting; and the life of a man who is
+believed to have discovered anything worth stealing is worth so little
+in the wilder districts of the interior, that I was afraid of losing the
+treasure I had got, perhaps for the sake of a few little gold ornaments
+which I might have dug out of the hill, and so I decided to be content
+with what I'd found.'
+
+'H'm!' said the doctor. 'Well, you may have been wise under the
+circumstances; I daresay you were. But we can see about that afterwards.
+Meanwhile there is something else to be talked about.'
+
+He stopped suddenly, took a quick turn or two up and down the room, with
+his hands clasped behind him and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he
+went to the door, opened it, looked out, shut it and locked it, and then
+came back again and sat down without a word in his chair, staring
+steadily at the impassive face of the mummy in the packing-case.
+
+'Why, what's the matter, doctor?' said the professor, a trifle sharply.
+'You don't suppose I am afraid of anyone coming to steal my treasure, do
+you?'
+
+'My dear fellow,' said Djama, looking him straight in the eyes, and
+speaking very slowly, as though his mind was doing something else
+besides shaping the thoughts to which he was giving utterance, 'I don't
+for a moment suppose that there are thieves about, or that, if there
+were, any burglar with a competent knowledge of his profession would
+think of stealing your mummy, priceless as it may prove to be. I locked
+the door because I don't want to be interrupted. I want to talk to you
+about a very important matter.'
+
+'And that is?'
+
+'Mephistopheles.'
+
+'WHAT?'
+
+'Gently, my friend, gently, don't get excited yet. You will want all
+your nerves soon, I can assure you. Yes, I am quite serious. You know
+that in the good old days, when people still believed in His Majesty of
+Darkness, such a speech as the one you remember making a short time ago
+was quite enough to call up one of his agents, armed with full powers to
+make contracts and do all necessary business.'
+
+'Look here, Laurens, if you go on talking like that, I shall begin to
+think you have gone out of your mind.'
+
+'My dear fellow, to be quite candid with you, I don't care two pins what
+you think on that subject. I have been called mad too many times for
+that. Now, suppose, just for argument's sake, that I were
+Mephistopheles, and staked my diabolic reputation on the statement that
+in that thing you possess a possible key to those lost treasures of the
+Incas, which ten generations of men have hunted for in vain, what kind
+of a bargain would you be inclined to make with me on the strength of
+it? Half the rest of your life, I think you said, and as that wouldn't
+be very much good to me, suppose we say the half of any treasures we
+may discover by the help of our silent friend there? Eh?--will that suit
+you?'
+
+'Are you really serious, Djama, or are you only dreaming another of
+these wild scientific dreams of yours?' exclaimed the professor, taking
+a couple of quick strides towards him. 'What connection can there
+possibly be between a mummy, about four centuries years old, and the
+lost treasures of the Incas?'
+
+'This man was an Inca, wasn't he?' said the doctor, abruptly, 'and one
+of the highest rank, too, from what you have said. He lived just about
+the time of the Conquest, didn't he--the time when the priests stripped
+their temples, and the nobles emptied their palaces of their treasures
+to save them from the Spaniards? Is it not likely that he would know
+where, at anyrate, a great part of them was buried? Nay, may he not even
+have known the localities of the lost mines that the Incas got their
+hundredweights of gold from, and of the emerald mines which no one has
+ever been able to find? Why, Lamson, if these dead lips could speak, I
+believe they could make you and me millionaires in an hour. And why
+shouldn't they speak?'
+
+'Don't talk like that, Djama, for Heaven's sake! It is too serious a
+thing to joke about,' said the professor, with a half-frightened glance
+in his set and shining eyes. 'I should have thought you, of all men,
+knew enough of the facts of life and death not to talk such nonsense as
+that.'
+
+'Nonsense!' said the physiologist, interrupting him almost angrily; 'may
+I not know enough of the facts of life and death, as you call them, to
+know that that is _not_ nonsense? But there, it's no use arguing about
+things like this. Will you allow this mummy of yours to be made the
+subject of--well, we will say, an experiment in physiology?'
+
+'What! the finest and most unique huaca that was ever brought to
+Europe--'
+
+'It would only be made finer still by the experiment, even if it failed.
+I know what you are going to say, and I will give you my word of honour,
+and, if you like, I'll pledge you my professional reputation, that not a
+hair of its head shall be injured. Let me take it to my laboratory, and
+I promise you solemnly that in a week you shall have it back, not as it
+is now, but either the body of your Inca, as perfect as it was the day
+he died, or--'
+
+He stopped, and looked hard at his friend, as if wondering what the
+effects of his next words would be upon him.
+
+'Or what?' asked the professor, almost in a whisper.
+
+'Your Inca prince, roused from his three-hundred-year sleep, and able
+to answer your questions and guide us to his lost mines and treasure
+houses.'
+
+'Are you in earnest, Djama?' the professor whispered, catching him by
+the arm and looking round at the mummy as though he half thought that
+the silent witness in the packing-case might be listening to the words
+which, if it could have heard, would have had such a terrible
+significance for it. 'Do you really mean to say in sober earnest that
+there is the remotest chance of your science being able to work such a
+miracle as that?'
+
+'A chance, yes,' replied Djama, steadily. 'It is not a certainty, of
+course, but I believe it to be possible. Will you let me try?'
+
+'Yes, you shall try,' answered the professor in a voice nothing like as
+steady as his. 'If any other man but you had even hinted at such a
+thing, I would have seen him--well, in a lunatic asylum first. But
+there, I will trust my Inca to you. It seems a fearful thing even to
+attempt, and yet, after all, if it fails there will be no harm done, and
+if it succeeds--ah, yes, if it succeeds--it will mean--'
+
+'Endless fame for you, my friend, as the recreator of a lost society,
+and for both of us wealth, perhaps beyond counting. But stop a
+moment--granted success, how shall we talk with our Inca _revenant_?
+Have I not heard you say that the Aymaru dialect of the Quichua tongue
+is lost as completely as the Inca treasures?'
+
+'Not quite, though I believe I am now the only white man on earth who
+understands it.'
+
+'Good! then let me get to work at once, and in a week--well, in a week
+we shall see.'
+
+
+II
+
+A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT
+
+Laurens Djama dined with the professor that night, and the small hours
+were growing large before they ended the long talk of which their
+strange bargain, and the still stranger experiment which was to result
+from it, formed the subject. The next day the packing-case containing
+the mummy was transferred to Djama's laboratory, and then for a whole
+week neither the professor nor any of his friends or acquaintances had
+either sight or speech of him.
+
+Every caller at his house in Brondesbury Park was politely but firmly
+denied admittance on professional grounds, and three letters and two
+telegrams which the professor had sent to him, after being himself
+denied admittance, remained unanswered.
+
+At last, on the Thursday following the Friday on which the mummy had
+been sent to the laboratory, the professor received a telegram telling
+him to come at once to the doctor. Three minutes after he had read it he
+was in a hansom and on his way to Kilburn, wondering what it was that he
+was to be brought face to face with during the next half hour.
+
+This time there was no denial. The door opened as he went up the steps,
+and the servant handed him a note. He tore it open and read,--
+
+     '_Come round to the laboratory and make a new acquaintance who will
+     yet be an old one._'
+
+His heart stood still, and he caught his breath sharply as he read the
+words which told him that the unearthly experiment for which he had
+furnished the subject had been successful.
+
+The doctor's laboratory stood apart from the house in the long, narrow
+garden at the back, and as he approached the door he stopped for a
+moment, and an almost irresistible impulse to go away and have nothing
+more to do with the unholy work in hand took possession of him. Then the
+love of his science and the longing to hear the marvels which could only
+be heard from the lips that had been silent for centuries overcame his
+fears, and he went up to the door and knocked softly.
+
+It was opened by a haggard, wild-eyed man, whom he scarcely recognised
+as his old friend. Djama did not speak; he simply caught hold of the
+sleeve of his coat with a nervous, trembling grasp, drew him in, shut
+the door, and led him to a corner of the room where there was a little
+camp bed, curtained all round with thin, transparent muslin, through
+which he could see the shape of a man lying under the sheets.
+
+Djama pulled the curtain aside, and said in a hoarse whisper,--
+
+'Look, it has been hard work, and terrible work, too, but I have
+succeeded. Do you see, he is breathing!'
+
+The professor stared wide-eyed at the white pillow on which lay the head
+of what, a week before, had been his mummy. Now it was the head of a
+living man; the pale bronze of the skin was clear and moist with the dew
+of life; the lips were no longer brown and dry, but faintly red and
+slightly parted, and the counterpane, which was pulled close up under
+the chin, was slowly rising and falling with the regular rhythm of a
+sleeper's breathing. He looked from the face of him who had been dead
+and was alive again to the face of the man whose daring science and
+perfect skill had wrought the unholy miracle, and then he shrank back
+from the bedside, pulling Djama with him, and whispering,--
+
+'Good God, it is even more awful than it is wonderful! How did you do
+it?'
+
+'That is my secret,' whispered Djama, his dry lips shaping themselves
+into a ghastly smile, 'and for all the treasures that that man ever saw,
+I wouldn't tell it to a living soul, or do such hideous work again. I
+tell you I have seen life and death fighting together for two days and
+nights in this room--not, mind you, as they fight on a deathbed, but the
+other way, and I would rather see a thousand men die than one more come
+back out, of death into life. You see, he is sleeping now. He opened his
+eyes just before daybreak this morning--that's nearly ten hours ago--but
+if I lived ten thousand years I should never forget that one look he
+gave me before he shut them again. Since then he has slept, and I stood
+by that bed testing his pulse and his breathing for eight hours before I
+wired you. Then I knew he would live, and so I sent for you.'
+
+The professor looked at his friend with an involuntary and unconquerable
+aversion rising in his heart against him; an aversion that was half
+fear, half horror, and then he remembered that he himself had a share in
+the fearful work which had been done--a work that could not now be
+undone without murder.
+
+With another backward look at the bed, he said, in a whisper that was
+almost a smothered groan,--
+
+'When will he wake?'
+
+Before Djama could reply, the question was answered by a faint rustle,
+and a low, long-drawn sigh from the bed. They looked and saw the Inca's
+face turned towards them, and two fever-bright eyes shining through the
+curtains.
+
+'He is awake already, two hours sooner than I expected,' said Djama, in
+a voice that he strove vainly to keep steady. 'Come, now, you are the
+only man on earth who can talk to him. Let us see if he has come back to
+reason as well as to life.'
+
+'Yes, I will try,' said the professor, faintly. He took a couple of
+trembling steps. Then the lights in the room began to dance, the
+whitewashed walls reeled round him, and he pitched forward and fell
+unconscious by the side of the bed.
+
+When he came to himself he was lying on the floor of the laboratory, out
+of sight of the bed, behind a great cupboard, glass-doored and filled
+with bottles. Djama was kneeling beside him. A strong smell of ammonia
+dominated the other smells peculiar to a laboratory, and his brow was
+wet with the spirit that Djama was gently rubbing on it with his hand.
+
+'What have I been doing?' he said, as, with the other's assistance, he
+got up into a sitting position and looked stupidly about him. 'It isn't
+true, that is it, I really saw--Good God no, it can't be; it's too
+horrible. I must have dreamt it.'
+
+'Nonsense, my dear fellow, nonsense! I should have thought you would
+have had better nerves than that. Come, take a nip of this, and pull
+yourself together. There is nothing so very horrible about it for you.
+Now, if you had had the actual work to do--'
+
+'Then it _is_ true! You really have brought him back to life again? That
+was him I saw lying on the bed?' He looked up at Djama as he spoke with
+a half-inquiring, half-frightened glance. His voice was weak and
+unsteady, like the voice of a man who has been stunned by some terrible
+shock, and is still dazed with the fear and wonder of it.
+
+'Yes, of course it was,' said Djama; 'but I can tell you, I should have
+hesitated before I introduced you so suddenly, if I hadn't thought that
+the nerves of an old traveller like you would have been a good deal
+stronger than they seem to be. It's a very good job that His Highness
+was only about half conscious himself when you collapsed, or you might
+have given him a shock that would have killed him again.'
+
+'Again?' said the professor, echoing the last word as he got up slowly
+to his feet. 'That sounds queer, doesn't it, to talk of killing a man
+_again_? I am more sorry than I can say that I was weak enough to let my
+feelings overcome me in such a ridiculous fashion. However, I am all
+right now. Give me another drain of that brandy of yours, and then let
+us talk. Is he still awake?'
+
+'No, he dozed off again almost immediately, and you have been here about
+ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Do you think you can stand another
+look at him?'
+
+'Oh, certainly,' said the professor, who, as a matter of fact, felt a
+trifle ashamed of himself and his weakness, and was anxious to do
+something that would restore his credit. He followed the doctor out into
+the laboratory again, and stood with him for some moments without
+speaking by the Inca's bedside. He was sleeping very quietly, and his
+breathing seemed to be stronger and deeper than it had been. He had
+slightly shifted his position, and was lying now half turned on his
+right side, with his right cheek on the pillow.
+
+'You see he has moved,' whispered Djama. 'That shows that muscular
+control has been re-established. We shall have him walking about in a
+day or so. Ah! he is dreaming, and of something pleasant, too. Look at
+his lips moving into a smile. Poor fellow, just fancy a man dreaming of
+things that happened three hundred years ago, and waking up to find
+himself in another world. I'll be bound he is dreaming about his wife or
+sweetheart, and we shall have to tell him, or rather you will, that she
+has been a mummy for three centuries. Look now, his lips are moving; I
+believe he is going to say something. See if you can hear what it is?'
+
+The professor stooped down and held his ear so close that he could feel
+on his cheek the gentle fanning of the breath that had been still for
+three centuries. Then the Inca's lips moved again, and a soft sighing
+sound came from them, and in the midst of it he caught the words,--
+
+'_Cori-Coyllur, Nustallipa, Nusta mi!_'
+
+Then there came a long, gentle sigh. The Inca's lips became still again,
+shaped into a very sweet and almost womanly smile, as though his vision
+had passed and left him in a happy, dreamless slumber.
+
+'What did he say?' whispered Djama. 'Were you able to understand it?'
+
+'Yes,' said the professor, 'yes, and you were right about the subject of
+his dream. Come away, in case we wake him, and I will tell you.'
+
+They went to the other end of the laboratory, and the professor went on,
+still speaking in a low, half-whisper,--
+
+'Poor fellow, I am afraid we have incurred a terribly heavy debt to him.
+What he said meant, "Golden Star, my princess, my darling!" So you see
+you were right, but poor Golden Star has been dead three hundred years
+and more--that is, at least, if his Golden Star is the same as the
+heroine of the tradition.'
+
+'What tradition?' asked Djama.
+
+'It's too long a story to tell you now, but if she is the same, then our
+Inca's name is Vilcaroya, and he is the hero of the strangest story,
+and, thanks to you, the strangest fate that the wildest romancer could
+imagine. However, the story must keep, for I wouldn't spoil it by
+cutting it short. The principal question now is--what are we going to do
+with him? We can't keep him here, of course?'
+
+'No, certainly not,' replied Djama, with knitted brows and faintly
+smiling lips. 'His Highness must be cared for in accordance with his
+rank and our expectations. I shall have him taken into the house and
+properly nursed.'
+
+'But what about your sister? You will frighten her to death if you take
+in a living patient that has been dead for three hundred years.'
+
+'Not if we manage it properly; there will be no need to tell Ruth the
+story yet, at anyrate. I'll tell her that I am going to receive a
+patient who is suffering from a mysterious disease unknown to medical
+science. I'll say I picked him up in the Oriental Home in Whitechapel,
+and have brought him here to study him, and you and I must smuggle him
+into the house and put him to bed some time when she is out of the way.
+Then I'll instal her as nurse; in fact, she will do that for herself;
+and as there is no chance of her learning anything from him, we can
+break the truth to her by degrees, and when His Highness is well enough
+to travel we'll all be off to Peru and come back millionaires, if you
+can only persuade him to tell you the secret of his treasure-houses.'
+
+That night the doctor and the professor took turns in watching by the
+bedside of their strange patient, whose slumber became lighter and
+lighter until, towards midnight, he got so restless and apparently
+uneasy that Djama considered that the time had come to wake him and see
+if he was able to take any nourishment. So he set the professor to work,
+warming some chicken broth over a spirit lamp, and mixing a little
+champagne and soda-water in one glass and brandy and water in another.
+Meanwhile, he filled a hypodermic syringe with colourless fluid out of a
+little stoppered bottle, and then turned the sheet down and injected the
+contents of the syringe under the smooth, bronze skin of the Inca's
+shoulder. He moved slightly at the prick of the needle, then he drew
+two or three deep breaths, and suddenly sat up in bed and stared about
+him with wide open eyes, full, as they well might be, of inquiring
+wonder.
+
+The professor, who had turned at the sound of the hurried breathing, saw
+him as he raised himself, and heard him say in the clear and somewhat
+high-pitched tone of a dweller among the mountains,--
+
+'Has the morning dawned again for the Children of the Sun? Am I truly
+awake, or am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over? Where is
+Golden Star, and where am I? Tell me--you who have doubtless brought me
+back to the life we forsook together--was it last night or how many
+nights or moons ago?'
+
+The words came slowly at first, like those of a man still on the
+borderland between sleep and waking; but each one was spoken more
+clearly and decisively than the one before it, and the last sentence was
+uttered in the strong, steady tones of a man in full possession of his
+faculties.
+
+'Come here, Lamson,' said Djama, a trifle nervously; 'bring the soup
+with you, and some brandy, though I don't think he needs it. Do you
+understand what he said?'
+
+[Illustration: "Am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over?"
+
+_To face page 26._]
+
+'Yes,' replied the professor, coming to the bedside with a cup of soup
+in one hand and a glass of brandy and water in the ether. Both hands
+trembled as he set the cup and the glass down on a little table. He
+looked at the Inca like a man looking at a re-embodied spirit, and said
+to him in Quichua,--
+
+'I am not he who has brought you back to life, but my friend here, who
+is a great and skilled physician, and master of the arts of life and
+death. You are in his house, and safe, for we are friends, and have
+nursed you back to health and waking life after your long sleep.'
+
+'But Golden Star,' said the Inca, interrupting him with a flash of
+impatience in his eyes. 'Where is she--my bride who went with me into
+the shades of death? Have you not brought her, too, back to life?'
+
+The professor stared in silence at the strange speaker of these strange
+words, which told him so plainly that the old legend of the death-bridal
+of Vilcaroya-Inca and Golden Star was now no legend at all, but a true
+story which had come down almost unchanged from generation to
+generation. Then an infinite pity filled his heart for this lonely
+wanderer from another age, whose friends and kindred had been dead for
+centuries, and whose very nation was now only a shadowy name on a
+half-forgotten page of history.
+
+'What does he say?' said Djama, breaking in upon his reverie. 'I suppose
+he wants to know where he is, and what has become of that sweetheart of
+his he was dreaming about?'
+
+'Yes,' replied the professor; 'but you won't understand properly until I
+have told you the story. Poor fellow! I suppose we shall have to tell
+him the ghastly truth. Good Heavens! fancy telling a man that his wife
+has been dead for three hundred years or more! Look here, Djama, this
+business can't stop here, you know. What a fool I was, after all, not to
+see if there wasn't another chamber beside the one I found him in! Of
+course there must be, and I have no doubt she is lying there at this
+present moment. We shall have to go and find her, and you must restore
+her as you have done him. Phew! where is it all going to end, I wonder!'
+
+'And suppose we can't find her, or suppose I fail, even if I can bring
+myself to undertake that horrible work all over again?' said Djama,
+looking almost fearfully at the Inca, who was still sitting up in the
+bed glancing mutely from one to the other, as though waiting for an
+answer to his question. Then, keeping his voice as steady as he could,
+the professor told him the story of his resuscitation, addressing him by
+his own name and ending by asking him if he remembered when he and
+Golden Star had devoted themselves to die together, as the tradition
+said they had done.
+
+'Yes, I remember!' said Vilcaroya, with brightening eyes and faintly
+flushing cheeks. 'How could I forget it? It was when the bearded
+strangers from the north had come and taken the usurper Atahuallpa
+prisoner in the midst of his conquering host at Cajamarca. It was after
+the Inca Huascar had been slain by stealth with a traitor's knife. It
+was on the night of the feast of Raymi, when our Father the Sun had left
+the Sacred Fleece unkindled, and when was fulfilled the prophecy that
+the night should fall over the land of the Children of the Sun. Now,
+tell me, you who speak the language of my people, how long have I been
+sleeping?'
+
+Instead of replying directly, he offered the Inca the cup of broth, and
+asked him first to take the nourishment that he must need so greatly
+after his long fast, telling him that it was needful to prevent him
+losing his new-found strength again. When he had eaten and drunk a
+little, then he would tell him what he could.
+
+He took the broth and a little bread obediently, and while he was eating
+and drinking, the professor translated what he had said to the doctor.
+When he had finished, Djama looked at the Inca, sitting there taking
+food and drink like any other human being, and with evident relish, too,
+and said,--
+
+'That happened in 1532--three hundred and sixty-five years ago! It
+sounds utterly incredible, doesn't it, and yet there he is, eating and
+drinking and talking with us just like any other man. I can hardly
+believe the work of my own hands, and I am beginning to half wish I had
+never begun it. Just imagine the awful loneliness to which we shall have
+condemned this poor fellow, supposing we can't find his Golden Star and
+restore her to him! Still perhaps you had better tell him the truth at
+once. I think he can stand it. He has been a long time coming round, but
+I don't think there is much the matter with him now.'
+
+Then the professor told Vilcaroya the, to him, so terrible truth, that
+of all men in the world he was the most lonely, separated as he was from
+all that he had known and loved by an impassable gulf of nearly four
+long centuries--that his well-loved Golden Star was but a memory known
+to few, a name in a vague tradition; that the resting-place, even of her
+mummy, was unknown, and that all that the darkest prophecy could have
+foretold had in very truth fallen upon the land of the Incas and the
+Children of the Sun.
+
+Vilcaroya heard him to the end in silence; then, raising his hands to
+his forehead, he bowed his head and said,--
+
+'It is the will of our Father, foretold by the lips of his priests, but
+other things were foretold which shall be fulfilled as well as these.
+Golden Star is not dead; she only sleeps as I did. If I have awakened,
+why shall not she? I know where she lies--where Anda-Huillac swore to me
+they would lay her. Come, let us go! I will take you to the place, and
+you shall restore her to me, warm and living and loving as she was when
+I kissed her good-bye in the Sanctuary of the Sun, and I will give you
+treasures of gold and silver and jewels such as you have never dreamed
+of in exchange for her.'
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF VILCAROYA
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BACK THROUGH THE SHADOWS
+
+
+As the time passes between dreaming and waking, so for me did the long
+years pass, flowing like a smooth and silent stream seen from afar, out
+of the darkness that fell so slowly and so sweetly over my eyes that
+night when I sank into the death-trance beside Golden Star, my beloved,
+in the bridal chamber that they made for us in the Temple of the Sun,
+into the light that shone into them when they opened upon a scene so
+different, and saw a white, haggard face bending over me, and two black,
+burning eyes looking into them.
+
+Then I closed them again and slept, and when I woke again there were two
+faces looking at me, both white and full of fear and wonder, and I saw
+two beings who seemed very strange to me, such as I had never seen among
+the Children of the Sun, standing by the couch on which I lay, and one
+of them fell down as though sore stricken, and I tried to think what
+this could mean, and, thinking, fell asleep again.
+
+Then I dreamt a long, sweet dream of the days that I now know were far
+past, when I, Vilcaroya, son of the great Huayna-Capac, lived in the
+Land of the Four Regions, a prince among princes, a warrior and a child
+of the Sacred Race, whose blood had flowed unmixed through many
+generations from the divine fountain of life and light, our Father the
+Sun. I dreamt of Golden Star, and the days when I loved her in timid
+silence, for she was the fairest of all our race, and so, as it seemed
+to me, destined to no less a lot than the motherhood of a long line of
+Incas, in whom should live and grow to ever greater splendour the
+glories of the race that owned no earthly origin.
+
+I called her in my dream, but she made no answer. I saw her lying by my
+side in that well-remembered chamber, with the shadowy forms of the
+priests standing about us as I had seen them long before; but, alas! she
+lay still with closed eyes and lips which seemed to have forgotten how
+sweetly they once could smile. I whispered her name, mingled with many a
+loving word, into her ear, and still she moved not. I put my arms about
+her and kissed her, and instantly I shrank back shivering with a fear
+unspeakable, for the form that should have been so warm and soft and
+yielding, was chilled and pulseless and rigid, as though some foul magic
+had changed it into stone, and the lips that should have given me back
+kiss for kiss were still and cold and senseless.
+
+Then I saw, as it seemed with half-closed eyes, that dear shape of hers
+being borne away from me, while I, longing to snatch her from the hands
+of those who were robbing me of her, yet lay helpless on the couch,
+without strength to move or speak, until all grew dim around me, and I
+felt myself raised by invisible hands, and borne far away through the
+darkness--and so my dream melted away into the night of sleep.
+
+Then, yet again, I woke and saw the two strange men that I had seen
+before, and one came and spoke to me kindly in my own tongue, and called
+me by my own name, and gave me food and drink, and told me in a few, but
+to me terrible, words that the dreams I had dreamed were dreams
+indeed--dreams of a time that was long gone by, of things that had
+passed away, perchance for ever, and men and women whose names were only
+memories.
+
+Thus did I come from the evening of one age into the morning of another,
+falling asleep in the prime of my strength and manhood, and waking again
+even as I had fallen asleep--though those who had closed my eyes had
+been dead for many generations, and the name of our ancient race was
+but a bitter memory to the sons and daughters of my own land amidst the
+mountains.
+
+Then I went forth into the wondrous new world into which I had awakened,
+the world which you who read this hold so common, and which I found
+crowded with wonders so many and marvellous that if it had not been for
+the loving care of her who guided my first footsteps on my new journey,
+as she might have guided those of a little child, my re-awakening reason
+must soon have been quenched in the night of madness.
+
+Many and strange as were the things that happened to me during the first
+days and months of my awakening, there is little need that I should now
+write of them at any length. Yet something I must say of them in order
+that the still stranger things of which I shall have to tell may be the
+better understood.
+
+And first I must tell of her whose gentle hand led me from weakness to
+strength, and guided my unwonted footsteps through the mazes of that new
+wonderland in which I had awakened, and from whose lips I learnt the
+first words that I spoke of the strong and stately English speech in
+which I am striving so lamely and imperfectly to write down the story of
+my new life.
+
+This was Ruth, the sister of Djama, whose smile was the first ray of
+sunshine that shone into my second life, and whose laugh was so sweet
+and gladsome, that when it first sounded in my ears, like an echo from
+the dear dead past, I named her forthwith Cusi-Coyllur, which in English
+means Joyful Star--after that royal maiden of my own race who loved the
+handsome rebel Ollantay, and, refusing all others, waited for him in the
+House of the Virgins of the Sun until he came in triumph to claim her.
+She came with us to the south, rejecting all contrary counsel and
+braving the labours of the long, toilsome journey, so that she might be
+the first woman to welcome Golden Star back into the world of life.
+
+Yet what words can I find in this new speech that I have yet but half
+learnt to tell fitly of her beauty and sweet graciousness, and of all
+the magic which made her seem in my eyes like an angel that had come
+down from the Mansions of the Sun to greet me in a world in which I was
+a stranger? Better that you who may read what I write should learn to
+know her for yourself through the sweetness and grace of her own words
+and deeds, as I shall strive, however unworthily, to tell of them. So,
+then, let it be.
+
+But there is another of whom I must say something before I go on to tell
+of my return to my own land--now, alas! mine no longer--and that is
+Francis Hartness, a captain among the warriors of the English, and a
+friend of him who was called the professor, because of his learning--he
+who had helped Djama to bring me back into the world of living men.
+
+He was a man of about thirty years, tall of stature and strong of limb,
+brief of speech and straight of tongue, with eyes as blue as the skies
+which shine on Yucay, and hair and beard golden and bright as the rays
+which flow from the smile of our Father the Sun. Him we met by chance
+one evening in the square of the town which is called Panama, named,
+they told me, after that older city, whence the conquerors of my people
+sailed to ravish the realms of Huayna-Capac. There was peace in his own
+land and all the neighbouring countries, and so he was journeying to the
+region which is now called South America, where the descendants of the
+Spaniards are nearly always fighting among themselves over the spoils of
+my people, to see what work he could find to keep his sword from
+rusting.
+
+As he was greatly skilled in that strange, new warfare of flame and
+thunder and far-smiting bolts, which had but begun to be when our Father
+the Sun hid his face from the eyes of his children, I took counsel with
+Joyful Star--who was ever my wisest as well as my most faithful guide
+in all things--and we together told him my story as we went south, and
+after that I had asked him if he would help me in the task which I was
+going to essay, which was nothing less than the taking back of the land
+of my fathers, and the raising of the children of my people to the
+ancient glories of that state which I alone of living men remembered. To
+this, after some shrewd questioning, he consented--for it was a
+desperate venture, such as his brave heart loved--and when he had given
+me his hand on it, and promised, after the simple fashion of his nation,
+to be true to me in peace and war, I told him of the means that I could
+employ to gain my end, and how I would use that lust of gold which had
+led to the ruin of my people, so that it should conquer the children of
+their conquerors and give me back the empire that had been my father's.
+
+At Panama we took ship again and travelled swiftly and straightly south,
+driven by that wondrous power which had come into the world to serve men
+like a tireless giant since I had fallen asleep; and day after day on
+the southward voyage I walked alone up and down the deck, or stood
+gazing, rapt in thought, at the desert foreshore along which the steamer
+was running, and at the great masses of the dark brown barren mountains,
+as they towered range beyond range till they overtopped the clouds
+themselves and stood serene and sharply outlined against the blue
+background of the upper sky.
+
+Behind those mighty, rock-built ramparts lay the well-loved,
+well-remembered land over which my fathers had ruled in the days of
+peace, before the stranger and the oppressor had come. On the other side
+of them I knew that I was now fated to find only the poor fragments of
+the great cities and stately pleasure-houses that I had known in all
+their strength and beauty--only the silent and deserted ruins of the
+mighty fortresses which had guarded the confines of our lost empire, and
+were the portals through which the Children of the Sun had marched to
+unvarying conquest.
+
+I thought, too, of the broad, green, level plain of Cajamarca,
+surrounded by its guardian ramparts of terraced hills; of the long,
+verdant valley of Cuzco with its hundred towns and villages nestling
+amidst the foliage which shaded their streets and squares, and looking
+out over the level fields of the valley and the countless tiers of
+terraces that rose green and gold with maize, or glowing with flowers,
+to the summits of the hills; and of that earthly paradise of Yucay,
+wherein the Gardens of the Sun, the golden shrines of my ancient faith,
+and the wondrous pleasure-palaces of many generations of Incas had
+glowed in almost heavenly beauty, embosomed in green and gold and
+scarlet in the midst of inaccessible mountains which themselves were
+overtopped by the mighty peaks of eternal snow that I had so often seen
+glimmering white and ghostly in the moonlight, like guardian spirits
+round an enchanted realm, on many a night of delicious revelry now far
+past and lost in the swift flood of the years that had rolled by since
+then.
+
+It was to the poor remnants of all these glories that I was
+returning--returning to find, as they had told me, the homes of my
+ancestors laid waste and the descendants of my people the slaves of
+strangers. The desolation which it had taken centuries to accomplish
+would be to me but the swift, magical change of a day and a night and a
+morning.
+
+Think, you who read, of the dread and the horror of it! I had seen the
+last day of the stately empire of my fathers the Incas! I had fallen
+asleep and I had awakened, and now, on the morrow of my sleep, I was
+coming back to the silent and ghastly ruins which the slow, pitiless
+work of the years and centuries had left behind it!
+
+But over the gulf of these same centuries the hand of my Father the Sun
+was swiftly stretched out to help and uphold me, for no sooner did I
+again tread that soil which had once been sacred to Him, than my
+fainting heart grew strong with the memory of that ancient prophecy
+which I had come to fulfil, and of which this new life of mine was of
+itself a part fulfilment. If one part, and that not the least, had
+already been made good, then why not the rest?
+
+Far away behind those towering tiers of mountains lay Golden Star in
+that resting-place to which she had been borne with me, sleeping soundly
+in the impassive embrace of their mighty arms; and within the
+safe-keeping of those arms lay, too, that uncounted treasure, that vast
+legacy which the long-dead leaders of my people had bequeathed to me for
+the sacred purpose of restoring those glories which all men, save
+myself, believed to be but a dream of the distant past, that
+incomparable inheritance of which I was the sole lawful heir on earth,
+and which I was coming to share with Golden Star when I had once more
+raised the Rainbow Banner above the restored throne of the divine Manco.
+
+As I thought of all this, the blood that had lain stagnant through the
+long years of my magical death-sleep began to pulse like living fire
+through my veins. My new life with all its marvels became glorified into
+a waking vision of new conquests and re-won empire. The past was a dream
+both sweet and bitter in its vivid memories, but still a dream that had
+been dreamt and was done with. The present and the future were
+realities, golden and glorious with a hope justified by the miracle that
+had made them possible. I had learnt enough of the new age in which I
+had awakened to know that the lust of gold which had brought the
+conqueror and the oppressor into the land of the Children of the Sun
+burnt every whit as fiercely in the hearts of the men who were living
+now as it had done in theirs, and that lust, as I had told Hartness and
+the others, should now work for me and for the redemption of my people
+so that that which had been their ruin should yet prove their salvation.
+
+Thus, through the long sunny days and cool, starlit nights did I,
+Vilcaroya, last of the Incas, muse and dream until I once more stood in
+the Land of the Four Regions, hale and strong, and burning with the
+ardour of my sacred mission, ready to dare and do all things, and to use
+without ruth or scruple that dread power which would so soon lie within
+my hands to fulfil my oath and Golden Star's, and to accomplish the work
+that I had come through the shadows of death to do.
+
+So I came back to the shores of that well-loved land of mine which, by
+the reckoning of the new time into which I had come, had been for more
+than three hundred years the sport and prey of the generations of
+strangers and oppressors who had followed those first conquerors of the
+Children of the Sun, whose coming had sounded the hour of doom and ruin
+through the length and breadth of that glorious land of green plains and
+verdant valleys, of terraced hills and towering mountains, which had
+once been our empire and our home.
+
+From the mean coast town of wooden houses where the railway begins we
+travelled ever upward over great, grey, sloping deserts, and by rugged
+ravines with steep, broken walls of red earth and ragged rock; through
+range after range of mountains that were all strange and hateful to me,
+until we swung round the shoulder of a great crag-crowned mountain, and
+I saw across a vast plain, into which range after range of lesser hills
+sloped down, the crystal-white peaks of the snow-mountains towering far
+beyond the clouds into the blue sky above them.
+
+Then I knew that I was coming nearer to the land that had once been
+mine, and ere many hours had passed we stopped in a great city which
+still bore its old name of Arequipa, the Place of Rest, which my own
+ancestors had given to it. It was no longer the place of palaces and
+pleasure-houses, of flowery gardens and leafy woods that I had seen it,
+but above it still gleamed the white snow-fields and shining peaks of
+Charchani and Pichu-Pichu, and between the two great white ranges still
+towered the vast, black, snow-crowned cone of Misti, the smoke-mountain,
+rising sheer in its lonely grandeur twelve thousand feet above the
+sloping plain on which the city lay.
+
+As I looked at it again for the first time after so many years, I asked
+the professor, as we all called him, if, since I had been asleep, the
+mountain had been rent asunder again as it had been in the olden times,
+long before the Spaniards came to seek gold and blood in the Land of the
+Four Regions. He was very learned in such matters, even as Djama, his
+friend, was learned in secrets of life and death, and when he told me
+that the fires within it had slept for more years than men could
+remember, I was glad. Yet I said nothing of my inward joy, for had I
+told them all that I knew about the valley of black sand and yellow rock
+that was hidden behind the far-off wall of snow which shone so whitely
+against the blue of the midway heaven, it might have been many a long
+day before we had again set out on our journey towards the place that
+was the goal at once of my hopes and fears.
+
+We stayed seven days in Arequipa, making our last preparations for the
+work that lay before us and then we went on again by train to Sicuani,
+in the valley of the Vilcanota. Then from Sicuani we journeyed on by
+road, riding on mules through a land that was lovely even in my eyes,
+though its loveliness was to me only the beauty of ruin and decay, for
+this was the heart and centre of that vanished empire whose glories no
+living eyes but mine had ever seen.
+
+I saw wildernesses where there had been gardens, and gaunt, treeless
+mountains lying bare to the glare of the sun. Lakes that had shone
+encircled with gardens now spread out dull and stagnant over the
+neglected fields. A few ragged fragments of grey clay walls still rose
+from the green plain of Cacha, where I had last seen, in all its glory
+of gold and rainbow colours, the holy Temple of Viracocha; and the great
+guardian fortress of Piquillacta, which I had seen stretching its
+impregnable length and rearing its unscalable height from mountain to
+mountain across the entrance to the once lovely valley of Cuzco, lay, a
+huge ragged mass of towering ruins, splendid even in decay.
+
+As we passed through the one half-choked portal that still lay open, I
+thought, with heavy heart and bowed-down head, of the great fortress as
+I had seen it in the glory of its pride and strength, of the gallant
+warriors that had defended it, and the gay processions that I had seen
+winding in and out of its stately gates, making its hoary walls ring
+with songs and laughter, and, farther on, as we rode along the valley on
+that sad and yet eager three days' march of ours, I saw, on the
+hill-spurs about me, the black and ragged ruins of the fair cities and
+stately temples and palaces that I had seen crowded with happy throngs,
+bright with gold and colours, and so fair and strong that no man could
+have dreamed of the ruin the oppressor had brought upon them.
+
+And so, journeying amidst all these sad memories through a land which,
+for me, was peopled with the ghosts of my long-dead friends and kindred,
+we came out at length on the broad, green Plain of the Oracle, and there
+before me, still nestling under her guardian hills, lay, glimmering
+white and grey under the slanting sun-rays, all that was left of what
+had once been Cuzco, the City of the Sun and the home of his children.
+Then, as I lifted my eyes and gazed upon it through the rising mist of
+my tears, I bowed my bared head towards it and swore, in the sadness and
+silence of my desolate heart, that, to the full extent of the power
+which I believed was soon to be mine, I would take life for life and
+blood for blood, and I would give sorrow for sorrow and shame for shame,
+until I had paid to the full the debt which the long years of plunder
+and cruelty and oppression had heaped up against those who, from
+generation to generation, had brought this shame and ruin on the once
+bright home of the Children of the Sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD
+
+
+I shall not weary you who perchance may some day read this story of mine
+by dwelling on the sorrow and shame that filled me as I entered the
+foul, unlovely streets, and saw the filthy refuse in the squares of the
+city that I remembered so pure and bright and beautiful; nor yet by
+telling of the feelings that possessed me when I saw the poor remains of
+our desecrated temples, the places where our vanished palaces had stood,
+and the dismantled ruins of that mighty fortress of Sacsahuaman, which I
+had last seen standing palace-crowned and throned in all its grandeur
+high up above the city.
+
+All this and more you who read must picture for yourselves, for I have
+greater things to tell of than the poor sorrows of a wanderer who had
+left his own age and his own kindred far behind him, and who had come
+back into a strange world to find his country a wilderness, and the
+children of his people the slaves of strangers.
+
+It had been settled amongst us that, for the purpose for which we had
+come, it would be necessary to hire a house that should be at once
+commodious for our work, sufficiently removed from the city for privacy,
+and capable of defence against intruders if need be. The professor,
+being already known in Cuzco as a man of science and seeker after
+antiquities, and possessing, moreover, a special permit from the
+Government in Lima to travel and dwell in the interior, and make such
+searches as he thought fit, undertook the business of finding such a
+house. He made many journeys in quest of what he sought, and on these
+journeys Djama always accompanied him, since he had to see that the
+house chosen contained a chamber suitable for that precious work which
+he had undertaken to do in return for the share of treasure that I was
+to give to him.
+
+And while these two were absent I at times wandered about the city with
+Joyful Star and Francis Hartness, who, it was plain to see, already
+looked with eyes of love and longing on her beauty, as in good truth I
+myself could have done had I dared, and could I have forgotten that
+older love of mine who still lay cold in her death-sleep in the cave by
+the lake yonder, over the mountains to the westward, whither I had
+already cast so many longing glances. But at other times I left them to
+go upon my own ways, for I had work on hand which, for the present, did
+not concern them.
+
+I had by this time met and conversed with many of my people in their own
+language, which was that of the labouring classes of my own times, and
+from them I had learned that at a village called San Sebastian, through
+which we had passed, about two leagues to the south of the city, there
+still dwelt many families of Ayllos--that is to say, the descendants of
+those of the old noble Inca lineage, who had been permitted by their
+conquerors to settle here. So one morning I went to visit an old
+Indian--as they now called all our people--named Ullullo, with whom I
+had made acquaintance, and at his house I dressed myself in the native
+fashion--in an old shirt and short trousers, with sandals on my feet,
+and a broad-brimmed, fringed hat on my head, and covered myself with a
+faded poncho, and together we went on foot to San Sebastian, I looking
+no different from the rest of the Indians who were passing to and fro
+upon the road.
+
+I had already seen, while riding through the village, that the people
+were different to those of all other villages that we had come through
+on the way. They were taller of stature, prouder of carriage, and
+fairer of face. The blood showed red in their cheeks through the light
+brown of their skin, and these signs had told me that if any remnant of
+the pure Inca race was left these must be they; and I was soon to have
+proof that it was so, although the children of those who had lived in
+palaces were now dwelling in huts of mud and reeds.
+
+Ullullo led me first to the house of a man named Tupac Rayca, who was
+chief among the Indians of the town. He was great-grandson of that
+ill-fated Tupac-Amaru, who, as you know, had revolted many years before
+against the oppressors of his race, and for this, after being forced to
+watch the torture and murder of his wife in the square of Cuzco, had
+himself been torn limb from limb by horses.
+
+We found him alone in a bare room in one of the better houses of the
+village. As he stood up to salute us it needed but a glance to tell me
+that in his veins at least the ancient blood of our race flowed well
+nigh as purely as it did in my own. Had it not been for the meanness of
+his clothing and the dull, brooding look on his noble features--the
+stamp of generations of oppression--I could have pictured him with the
+yellow Llautu[A] on his brow, the golden image of the Sun on his
+girdled tunic, and the rainbow banner in his hand, standing amongst the
+guards of the great Huayna-Capac himself.
+
+I asked Ullullo to leave us alone for a little while, and when he had
+gone I stepped forward, and, drawing myself up to my full height, I
+looked him in the eyes, and said in the tongue that was spoken only by
+those of the divine Inca race,--
+
+'Tell me, Tupac-Rayca, does a remnant of the Children of the Sun still
+dwell in the Land of the Four Regions, and are they still faithful to
+the traditions of their race, and the faith of their ancestors?'
+
+As the words left my lips he staggered back a pace or two with his hands
+clasped to his forehead, staring at me from under them as though--as in
+very truth I was--some spirit of the past stood re-embodied before him.
+Then, coming forward again and scanning me eagerly from head to foot, he
+whispered in the same tongue--by the Lord of Light how those familiar
+accents thrilled my ears as I heard them again after so long!
+
+'Who are you--a stranger--that comes in the image of those long dead, to
+ask me such a question in the tongue that may only be spoken when none
+save those of the Blood are present?'
+
+'One who is of the Blood himself!' I answered, taking a stride towards
+him, and stretching out my hand. 'Fear not, Tupac-Rayca, son of him that
+suffered, I am a friend, and have come from afar to work as a friend
+with you and others of the Blood that may still be left in the land,
+with a great and holy purpose of which you shall know ere long.'
+
+He grasped my hand and bowed over it in silence for a while. Then he
+stepped back and looked at me again, murmuring,--
+
+'Can it be so? Has the divine Manco come back from the Mansions of the
+Sun to save the remnant of his children, or has Vilcaroya broken the
+bonds of his death-sleep and come to fulfil the oath he swore with
+Golden Star before the altar in the Sanctuary? I know all the Children
+of the Blood that are left in the land, and I have never seen your face
+before, yet you are of the Blood. Who are you--Lord?'
+
+The last word seemed forced from his lips by some power other than his
+own will, and it sounded most pleasant to me, for it told me that,
+without knowing my name, and seeing me only as a stranger, he had
+recognised the stamp of my divine ancestry, and this promised well for
+the progress of the work I had in hand. I answered him kindly, and yet
+as one speaking to another who is scarce his equal, and said,--
+
+'My name matters not now or here, Tupac, for we are but two, and I
+might lie to you, and you would have no proof of my truth or falsehood.
+But if you will do as I bid you, to-night you shall know and all shall
+be made plain and with ample proof. Are you willing to give me your
+aid?'
+
+He picked up a rude hoe that stood in a corner of the room, and laying
+it across his shoulder after the manner of one who bears a burden, bowed
+his head and answered,--
+
+'The Son of the Sun has but to speak, and I and all his slaves will
+obey.'
+
+What he had done was an act of homage, which, in the olden time, was
+paid only to him who wore the imperial Llautu, and proved to me how
+faithfully the old traditions had been preserved in secret.
+
+'That is well said, Tupac,' I replied, speaking now as a sovereign might
+speak to a faithful subject, 'and in the days to come fear not that I
+shall forget this, your first act of unasked-for homage. Now, hear me.
+Are there twenty men of the Blood in this village--men who are faithful
+and can be trusted even to the death?'
+
+'There are five hundred here, Lord, and as many thousands within the
+valley, whose blood has flowed pure from the olden times, unpolluted by
+a single stain of Spanish dirt. What would you with them?'
+
+'I asked not for hundreds or thousands,' I said, right glad at heart to
+hear such good tidings. 'For the present I need but a score, so do you
+choose me twenty of the noblest blood and the best judgment, and an hour
+before midnight let them be with you on the plain behind the
+Sacsahuaman. Let them come well provided with torches or candles, and
+tools, levers, and hammers and spades. Tell them what has passed between
+us, but nothing of the guesses that you may have made in your own mind
+while we have been talking, and leave the rest to me. Can you do that?'
+
+'It shall be done, Lord,' he answered, still bending before me with the
+shaft of the hoe across his shoulders, 'and we will wait and toil in
+patience till the Son of the Sun shall please to reveal himself to the
+eyes of his servants.'
+
+'Nor shall you have to wait long,' I said. 'Now put that off your back
+and take my hand again, for we are not Inca and servant yet, only two
+men of the Blood, and brothers of a fallen race who are joined together
+to perform a holy work. Now farewell, Tupac, till to-night. Choose your
+companions well, and fear not but that your services and your
+faithfulness shall have their due reward.'
+
+He put his hand humbly and tremblingly into mine, bowing low over it,
+and so I left him, standing there with bent head, not daring to look up
+until the door closed behind me. Then Ullullo and I went back into the
+city, and as we crossed the great square on our way to Ullullo's house,
+I saw my four English friends standing among the market people by the
+fountain in the centre. We passed close to them, and I heard my name
+spoken by Joyful Star to her brother, who answered her and said,--
+
+'I daresay we shall find he is making friends again with some of these
+filthy Indian compatriots of his.'
+
+I hated him from that moment for his bitter words, and swore in my heart
+that some day he should pay for them, for I loved my people, and pitied
+them in their misery and degradation. I stopped beside them, and my
+heart was beating hard as I listened for what Joyful Star would say, and
+I have remembered her words, even as I have remembered his. She looked
+at him with the light of anger in her eyes and said,--
+
+'For shame, Laurens! I couldn't have believed that you would have said
+such a thing. If you belonged to a race that had been enslaved and
+plundered by these brutes of Spaniards and Peruvians for three centuries
+and a half, do you think you would be any better than these poor
+fellows? And, besides, whatever they are, they are Vilcaroya's people,
+and he is our friend.'
+
+I could have fallen on the stones and kissed her feet for those sweet
+words of hers, and I moved away quickly for fear I should betray myself,
+and went with a swelling heart and mingled tears of love and anger in my
+eyes to old Ullullo's house, where I changed my clothes again, and then,
+as it was nearly dinner time, which, as you know, is in the evening in
+Spanish countries, I went back to the house where we were lodging,
+wondering what they would think if they could have understood the words
+that had passed between Tupac-Rayca and myself.
+
+When I met them again I saw that they would willingly have learned what
+had become of me during the day, but I answered their inquiries by
+telling them nothing more and yet a great deal less than the truth, and
+saying that I had spent the day revisiting old scenes, and learning what
+I could of the present condition of my people. This satisfied them
+outwardly at least, though I saw a look in Djama's eyes which told me
+that he suspected more of the truth than it suited my purpose to tell
+him.
+
+Then our conversation turned to the matter of procuring a house, such as
+I have spoken of, and the professor told me that he had heard of a
+hacienda, well built and solid, and standing in its own domain, about
+three leagues across the valley to the westward, on a secluded little
+plain among the hills, which would serve our purpose excellently; but
+the owner of it wished to sell it, and 'with the stupidity of these
+Peruvians,' as he said, would not hire it out to us but would only sell
+it, and the price was twenty thousand soles, or dollars of Peru, which
+was two thousand pounds in English money.
+
+'It is a great pity,' said the professor, when he had finished telling
+me about it, 'for it doesn't seem as though there was another house in
+the neighbourhood of Cuzco that would suit our purpose, and this one
+would do perfectly.'
+
+'Of course, if the fellow won't let it there's no use thinking any more
+about the matter, for two thousand pounds is entirely out of the
+question. It seems to me that the expedition will be quite expensive
+enough without the luxury of buying houses at fancy prices.'
+
+It was Djama who spoke. No one else at our table could have spoken like
+that. I heard him in silence, for I could not trust myself to speak for
+the anger that was rising within me. I saw Joyful Star raise her eyelids
+and look at him with a swift glance that meant much; but she, too, said
+nothing; and then, looking at me, he spoke again and said,--
+
+'Of course, if His Highness'--for so he always spoke of me when no
+strangers were present--'would just unlock one of those treasure-houses
+of his, the matter would be easy enough, but I suppose that's outside
+the contract.'
+
+I still kept silence, knowing as I did what the night was to bring
+forth. But Francis Hartness answered for me, and said,--
+
+'I don't think you can quite put it that way, Djama, if you'll excuse me
+saying so. If I am not mistaken, it has been clearly understood that the
+first treasure-house to be unlocked is the one that holds Vilcaroya's
+greatest treasure--his wife--and what you say seems to suggest--'
+
+'It is enough!' I said, unconsciously speaking in my growing anger in
+the same imperious tone that I had used but a few hours before to Tupac.
+'Let the house be bought. I will charge myself with the cost, and I will
+be the debtor of my friends no longer.'
+
+They stared at me as I spoke, for hitherto I had spoken to them as a
+child rather than as a man; as an inferior, rather than as an equal. I
+saw a smile that was not pleasant to look upon pass swiftly over Djama's
+mouth, but he kept silence, and the professor said to me,--
+
+'Are you really in earnest, Vilcaroya? You know, according to our
+bargain, we have no claim on you until our part of the work is done.
+None of us have any desire to learn your secrets.'
+
+'I am not talking of secrets,' I said, breaking into his speech, 'and
+one of my race does not speak to make a liar of himself. What I say I
+can do and will, for I wish the work to begin at once. Do you think I
+have not waited long enough for my beloved, my sister and my wife?'
+
+'Your what!' cried Joyful Star, rising suddenly from her seat, and
+staring at me with fixed and wide-opened eyes. 'Your sister! Oh,
+Vilcaroya, surely this is not true!' and as she said this I saw her
+cheeks grow pale and her lips tremble.
+
+'Yes,' I answered, 'it is true. Why should I lie to my new sister and
+friend, Joyful Star? Golden Star was the daughter of my father, the
+great Huayna-Capac, though our mothers were not the same.'
+
+I had no time to finish my speech, for with a look of unutterable horror
+in her eyes, which pierced me to the heart and seemed to sever it in
+twain, she cried,--
+
+'Oh, no, no! that is too horrible! I don't want to hear any more. I will
+go back to England to-morrow. Laurens, come to my room; I want to speak
+to you at once.'
+
+So saying, she went to the door and opened it and went out, followed by
+her brother, who looked at me as he passed me with a look which I never
+forgot or forgave, for it was like the words that I had heard him say to
+her in the square.
+
+'What is this?' I said to the professor when the door had closed behind
+them. 'What have I said or done that Joyful Star should look with
+horror upon me and say such cruel words?'
+
+I saw him exchange glances full of meaning with the English soldier
+before he answered me; and then, leaning his arms on the table in front
+of him, he said, in that quiet, calm voice of his,--
+
+'My dear Vilcaroya, it is a very strange thing, and, as far as Miss
+Djama is concerned, perhaps, a very great pity that this has never come
+out before, for without knowing it you have given her a shock that may
+have very painful consequences. No, don't interrupt me now, for the
+sooner I can make you understand the meaning of your words to her the
+better. It is this way: we know, of course, that in your day and among
+your people sister-marriage was held to be the most sacred of all
+marriages. We know that from such a marriage only might spring the
+wearer of the imperial Borla, but to us the idea is so unutterably
+horrible and revolting that of all the crimes that could be committed by
+one of our race that would be the most fearful. It cannot even be
+discussed amongst us, and yet you, in the most perfect innocence, have
+spoken of it in the presence--Good Heavens, Hartness! what is to be
+done? Do you think Miss Djama was really in earnest when she talked of
+going back to England to-morrow? It is impossible--it would ruin
+everything!'
+
+I kept silence, for my sorrow and wonder were too great for words, but I
+listened eagerly for what Francis Hartness would say in reply.
+
+'She was in earnest when she spoke,' he said, as quietly as the
+professor had spoken; 'but, if the doctor has as much sense as I give
+him credit for, she will have seen the thing in a different light by
+this time. Of course, she has read Prescott, and she really knows as
+much about the marriage customs of the ancient Incas as we do. In fact,
+to tell you the truth'--and as he said this I saw him frown, and an
+angry light came into his eyes that I had never seen in them before--'I
+really can hardly understand how, knowing that as she does know it, she
+can have been as horrified as she certainly was. She knows perfectly
+well that Vilcaroya has come at a single step, as it were, from his age
+into ours, and so must have brought all the ideas and beliefs of his
+time and his people with him. Depend upon it, a little reflection will
+very soon show her that, horrible and all as the idea must naturally
+have appeared to her at the first shock of hearing it, from Vilcaroya's
+point of view there is nothing in it but what is perfectly natural and
+proper. Now, to my mind, the matter is much more sad and serious for
+Vilcaroya himself than for anyone else.'
+
+As he said this he turned from the professor to me and went on,
+addressing me in a tone so frank and kindly that ever afterwards I
+looked upon him as my friend and my brother,--
+
+'It's not a pleasant thing for me to say, and it must, of course, be a
+very painful one for you to hear; still, it has got to be said some time
+or other, and, unless I am wrong in what I think of you, I believe you
+are man enough to hear it and to agree with me that it had better be
+said now than later on, when the saying of it might be tenfold more
+painful both to you and us.'
+
+'Say on,' I said shortly. 'Your tongue is straight and your eyes look
+into mine as those of a friend should look. I am listening.'
+
+'I would wish for no better friend than you, Vilcaroya, after that, for
+I know what you mean. Now, what I have to say is this. We know, of
+course, that you look upon yourself as doubly married to this love of
+yours, who is dead and, like you, may yet be alive again. You are bound
+to her, not only by a marriage which, in the time that it took place,
+was perfectly lawful and natural, but also by the oath that you took
+together. But you have come back to the world in another age and among
+another people, and now that form of marriage is looked upon by all
+civilised humanity, not only as unlawful, but, as the professor has just
+said, unnatural and horrible beyond conception.
+
+'Therefore, if Golden Star is restored to life, for you to love her,
+save as a brother, or for you to consummate the union which, as you have
+told us, began and ended before the altar of the Sun, would be to make
+not only yourself, but your--your sister, Golden Star, as well, looked
+upon with horror and loathing by every civilised man and woman who knew
+your story. I am speaking strongly, because it is necessary.
+
+'You might succeed in all your aims, you might realise every ambition of
+your life, and yet I tell you it is Heaven's own truth, that if you took
+Golden Star to sit beside you on the throne of the Incas as your wife
+and queen, you would place her upon a pinnacle of infamy which men would
+spit upon and women turn their backs on. The reward of all your labours,
+the price of all your treasures, no matter how great they might be,
+would be nothing but a curse that would fall heavily on you, but a
+thousand times more heavily on the woman whom you have loved best in all
+the world.'
+
+He stopped, and they both sat and looked at me in silence, awaiting for
+me to answer him. As for me, I felt my spirit wandering over a bare
+wilderness where all was dark.
+
+I knew that he had spoken truth, strange as the truth seemed to me, for
+no man could have heard his voice and seen the steady light in his
+eyes, without knowing that he was a true man, and so spoke the truth.
+The moments passed, and I could still find no words to say. Then the
+silence was broken by the opening of the door, and Djama came in and
+said,--
+
+'My sister wishes you to excuse her coming back to the table. Of course,
+I have explained matters to her, and I think she now sees them in a
+different light, but for some reason or other she seems strangely
+shaken. You know how extremely sensitive she is, and so, as her doctor,
+as well as her brother, I have sent her to bed. She wasn't really fit to
+come back after what has happened, and a night's rest will be the best
+thing in the world for her. I suppose you two have explained things to
+His Highness as well, eh?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, rising from my seat. 'It has been explained to me. I do
+not understand all now, but I must think, and think alone, so I will
+go.'
+
+Then I went to Francis Hartness and held out my hand to him and said,
+after the fashion of the English,--
+
+'Good-night, Captain Hartness. You have wounded me sorely with your
+words, yet you have spoken them as only a friend could speak them. From
+now till the day of my death or yours, Vilcaroya Inca is your friend,
+and all his people are your servants.'
+
+Then I took my hand from his, and bowing farewell to the others, walked
+swiftly out of the room and got my cloak, and went out into the city to
+think in silence by myself over the strange and terrible things that I
+had heard, and to calm my spirit before I went to do the work which, in
+a few hours, would be awaiting me on the hills behind the Sacsahuaman.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] The yellow Llautu, or fringed turban of wool, worn on the brows, was
+the distinguishing mark of the sacred Inca race. The scarlet was worn
+only by the reigning Inca--'Son of the Sun.' Its fringe, called the
+'borla,' was mingled with threads of gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+IN THE HALL OF GOLD
+
+
+I went first to Ullullo's house and changed my clothing, so that I might
+the more easily lose myself among the hundreds of Indians about the
+streets of the city, for something told me that Djama might make an
+attempt to discover the meaning of what I had said about the house by
+following me and learning, if possible, the secret of my movements; for
+he must have known that, being without money as I was, save for the few
+dollars that the professor had lent me, it would not be possible for me
+to do as I had said, unless one, at least, of the hiding-places of the
+old treasures was within easy reach so that I could take sufficient gold
+out of it by the next day to fulfil my promise.
+
+When I changed my clothes I put a dagger into my belt, and a revolver,
+which Francis Hartness had already taught me how to use, into a case
+slung at my hip, and hidden by my jacket and the long folds of my
+poncho. Then I went back into the great square, and across it up the
+street in which we had our lodgings. As I passed the house I saw Djama
+standing in the archway leading into the courtyard, smoking a cigar. I
+turned and looked him in the face as I went by, slouching and trailing
+my sandalled feet after the fashion of the natives. He looked at me, but
+I saw no recognition in his eyes. Then as I walked on there came a
+thought to me.
+
+I hurried to Ullullo's house once more and brought him back with me,
+telling him on the way what I wanted him to do for me. When we reached
+the house again we saw Djama standing in the courtyard, and Ullullo,
+doing as I had bid him, went in to him, and told him in Spanish, which I
+could not speak, that if he would give him ten dollars he should learn
+the secret of my goings and comings, and where I was to find the gold
+with which to pay for the hacienda. Djama instantly promised him the
+money, as I thought he would, and Ullullo told him to be at the end of
+the street which is now called El Triunfo at eleven o'clock that night.
+He was to come alone, for if anyone came with him he would learn
+nothing. As you will soon see, I had two objects to serve in doing this.
+
+When Ullullo came back and told me that Djama would be there, I bade
+him wait for me at the same place and hour, and then I went away alone
+out of the city and up a path which led towards the mountains to the
+north. There, alone and in silence, I communed with my own soul, at
+first in sorrow, yet slowly becoming more and more peaceful in heart,
+even as one who is told that he is to die on a certain day first rages
+against his doom and then learns to contemplate with calmness that which
+there is no hope of escaping. The words of the professor and Francis
+Hartness had shown me that in the world to which I had returned my
+sister Golden Star could now never be my wife and queen, and the more I
+pondered on what they had said, the more plainly it appeared to me that
+this was the truth, however bitter it might seem.
+
+Yet there was something else in my heart, although at that time I did
+not dare even to let my inmost thoughts dwell upon it, which in some way
+dulled the pain of the blow that had fallen upon me, and reconciled me
+to the parting which in one sense must now be eternal. The longer I
+pondered the more deeply did that look of horror which I had seen in the
+eyes of Joyful Star burn into my soul, and the more clearly did the
+words that she had spoken ring in my ears. She had said that it was
+horrible and that it was impossible, and she was to me as one of those
+bright angels who, according to our ancient faith, awaited the heroes
+and sages of our race in the Mansions of the Sun--a being so far above
+me that I could look upon her only as a mortal might look from afar upon
+a daughter of the Celestials.
+
+Thus, musing in silence and solitude on the wild mountain-side, now
+looking back into my distant past, and now hazarding a glance into the
+fast-approaching future, the hours slipped by quickly for me, and I
+heard the bells of the churches--bells which they had told me had been
+cast out of the copper and gold and silver that our conquerors had taken
+from our temples and palaces--chiming the half-hour before eleven.
+
+So I turned back to the city, and made haste to the place where Djama
+and Ullullo would be waiting for me. I found them there talking
+together, and without discovering myself to Djama, I told Ullullo in
+Quichua to follow me with the Englishman. Then I went on swiftly along
+the rivulet of Tullamayo, past the terrace of Rocca Inca, and along the
+smooth, dark wall of what had once been the Yachahuasi, or College of
+the Youths, and so out of the city and the gorge of the little river
+Rodadero. Then, with the two still following me a few yards behind, I
+climbed the lower terraces of the Colcompata, or the Granaries, where
+the divine Manco built his first palace, and then on up the hillside to
+the Tiupunco, or Gate of Sand, which led through the fragments of what
+had once been the outer wall of the great fortress, and so on to the
+little level pampa of the Rodadero, which was my meeting-place with
+Tupac.
+
+Now as I went I began to sing one of our ancient songs, which was the
+signal that I had agreed upon with Tupac, and presently, one after
+another, silent, stealthy forms crept out from the angles of the great
+zig-zag wall and came towards me. One of them, taller than the rest,
+threw an iron bar that he was carrying across his shoulders, and came
+and stood before me with bowed-down head, waiting for me to speak. I
+knew that it was Tupac, and I said to him,--
+
+'Are the Children of the Sun ready to do the bidding of his Son?'
+
+'They are, Lord!' he replied. 'Here are twenty who have sworn by the
+heart of the divine Manco to do all things lawful and unlawful, even to
+the death, at the bidding of him who shall prove himself to be the true
+heir of the royal Llautu.'
+
+'It is good,' I said, 'and the proof shall soon be given. Now, take the
+stranger yonder; do him no harm, but bind his eyes so that he cannot
+see, and tie his hands behind him. Then follow me.'
+
+Instantly the stealthy forms closed around Djama. Not a word was spoken
+save his startled, angry exclamation, which was soon stifled, and then
+they brought him along after me, I going first and Tupac following close
+behind me. Like a string of shadows we moved across the plain past the
+great carved rock which is still called the Inca's Seat, and over the
+ridge of the Sliding Stones and down into the valley beyond, which is
+thickly strewn with great rock-masses carved into seats, and altars, and
+baths, and chambers, of which no man knows the origin, and which were
+ancient when Manco-Capac and Mama-Occlu first came into the land.
+
+The greatest of these is a high white rock carved all over into steps
+and seats and altars and basins, which are said to have been made to
+catch the blood of the living sacrifices that were offered up here by a
+race of men whose name has been forgotten. It is called in our language
+the Sayacusca, or Tired Stone, for an old tradition says that ages ago
+it was brought from the mountains by the toil of ten thousand men, and
+when it reached its present place it rolled over and killed three
+hundred of them, and could never be moved again upon its journey.
+
+On the south side of this there is a great cleft from the top to the
+bottom, and up the sides of this cleft are the two halves of a stairway,
+which was carved there before some earthquake rent the stone in twain,
+and under this is a deep dark pool of water. At the entrance to the
+cleft I stopped and beckoned to the others to come round me. Then I told
+them that they were about to see that which no man then alive on earth
+had ever seen, and made all swear by the Glory of the Sun that each and
+every one of them would slay without pity him who revealed anything seen
+or heard that night, even though he were his own brother, or his own
+father, or his own son. As for Djama, they held him there bound and
+blindfolded amongst them, and when he tried to speak they stopped his
+mouth at my bidding, for I had told them that I would be answerable for
+him, since I had brought him here for my own purposes.
+
+Then I made two of the men stretch a cord tightly across the mouth of
+the cleft close down to the ground, and to the middle of this I tied
+another cord, and stretched it out straight twelve foot-lengths from the
+centre, and here I bade them clear away the bushes, and dig. Then axe
+and hoe and spade went to work. In that clear air, and under that
+cloudless sky, the stars gave light enough to work by, and soon a space
+had been cleared, and a round hole about three feet across was being dug
+down through the loose, rocky soil.
+
+When it was about half the depth of a man the spades struck on the solid
+rock below, and could go no farther. When Tupac told me of this, I, who
+had been standing by the cleft, looking--full of strange thoughts--down
+into the dark pool of water, called the man who had been digging out of
+the hole, and, taking an iron bar from Tupac, I dropped into it.
+
+I sought about the bottom with my hands for a few moments till I found
+the outline of a squared stone that had been let into the rock. In the
+centre of this I found a hole, out of which I picked the dirt with my
+dagger. Then, putting the end of my iron bar into it, I pulled, and the
+stone turned over on a hinge, leaving an opening half its size. Down
+this I thrust my arm, and found a chain of copper which hung down into a
+deep well below. I pulled this with all my strength until something gave
+way at the bottom, then I drew the chain up, and cast my iron bar under
+it across the hole. As I did this, I heard the deep, smothered roar of
+waters rushing away far below me into the bowels of the earth.
+
+Then I got out of the hole and went back to the cleft. I lit a candle
+and looked down at the pool. It was no longer stagnant now, but seething
+and eddying like a whirlpool. I beckoned to Tupac, who was standing a
+little way behind me, and as he came and looked over my shoulder I
+pointed down into the dark gulf, out of which the bottom was rapidly
+falling, and said,--
+
+'See, the waters are opening the way by which the Son of the Sun shall
+go into his kingdom. Watch now, and listen!'
+
+'Son of the Sun and Lord of the Four Regions, it is true!' he whispered
+as the waters eddied round faster and faster, and gurgled and rattled
+down into some unknown abyss. Soon they vanished altogether, leaving
+only a dark, black, and seemingly fathomless cavern in the place where
+they had been. I waited until the sound of the last gurgle had died away
+in the depths, and then I turned to Tupac and said,--
+
+'The way is open. Tell Ullullo to bring the lantern and light it. There
+must be no other light. You and the rest follow me, and let two strong
+men bring the stranger.'
+
+He did as I bade him, and when I had lit the lantern I cast its rays
+about the gulf beneath me till I found the continuation of the broken
+stairway above, and then picking my way carefully down the dank, slimy
+steps, I led the way into the heart of the rock, the rest following,
+guided by the spreading ray of light in front of me.'
+
+I counted fifty steps, and then stopped and turned sharply to the right.
+The fiftieth step ended against a wall of rock, still dripping with the
+water that was running down from the arched roof of the chamber. I
+measured ten spans with my hand from the wall where the steps ended,
+and made a mark with my dagger on the rock. Then from the floor I
+measured eight spans in a line across the mark. Where the eighth span
+ended I made another mark, and with the help of my lantern I found a
+silver socket let into the rock. It was a plate with a hole in the
+centre large enough to admit the iron bar which I had brought for the
+purpose. I put it in, and whispering to Tupac to help me, we gripped the
+bar, and after two or three hard pulls felt it coming towards us.
+
+A great slab of rock, which fitted into the wall with all the perfection
+that our old Inca masons could give it, turned on a central hinge,
+leaving a space that two men could have walked through abreast.
+
+'Go in,' I said to Tupac, 'and let all follow you.'
+
+He obeyed, and standing by the opening with a ray of my lantern shooting
+across it, I watched them file past one by one until all had gone in.
+Then I followed, and as I crossed the threshold set my shoulder against
+the edge of the slab and pushed it back into its place.
+
+Now I covered my lantern with my poncho and cried aloud in the
+darkness,--
+
+'Let the torches be got ready, but let no light be struck till that
+which is to be revealed may be seen.'
+
+A low murmur answered me, and then, still keeping my lantern hidden, I
+felt my way along the wall, treading softly as a mountain lion
+approaching its prey, until I had counted forty paces. The fortieth
+brought me to a doorway, through which I turned. Five paces more brought
+me to another turning, ten more to the end of the passage, and then I
+uncovered my light and found myself in a little square chamber hewn out
+of the rock and surrounded with stone chests covered with lids of
+copper.
+
+In the centre of the chamber stood a smaller one, all of metal. I set my
+lantern down on one of the others so that the light fell across this
+one; then I raised the lid, and there before me lay, perfect as they had
+been on the day when Anda-Huillac, last High Priest of the Sun, had laid
+them there, the imperial robes and insignia that had last been worn by
+the ill-fated Huascar, son of the great Huayna-Capac.
+
+Quickly throwing off the mean garments that I wore, I dressed myself in
+them. Then, binding the golden sandals on my feet, and clasping the long
+mantle emblazoned in gold and jewels with the symbols of the Sun and his
+sister-wife the Moon across my shoulders, I wound the scarlet Llautu
+around my head, with the crimson fringe of the Borla interlaced with
+gold falling upon my brow, and then, closing the chest, I took up my
+lantern and went back along the passages I had traversed.
+
+In the middle of the last one I put my lantern down with the glass
+against the wall, and feeling my way into the doorway, which opened on
+to the chamber in which the others were awaiting me, I cried, in a voice
+that echoed strangely through the great chamber,--
+
+'Let the torches be kindled, and let the Children of the Sun look upon
+their Lord!'
+
+I heard a shuffling of feet and a whispering of many voices. Then lights
+were struck, and I stepped back quickly into the shadow of the doorway.
+I saw the glow of light grow into a glare that was flashed back in a
+thousand many-coloured rays from the walls of the chamber. I heard a
+deep, low cry of wonder, and then I strode out into the midst and
+said,--
+
+'I am he who went into the shadows at the bidding of our Father the Sun,
+and by his will I have returned to bring deliverance to his children!'
+
+For one moment of affrighted amazement they stared wide-eyed at me
+standing there before them, as though Huayna-Capac himself had returned
+from the Mansions of the Sun to resume his sceptre and his crown. Then,
+with one accord, they sank on their knees before me, holding their
+torches above their bent heads and murmuring,--
+
+'Hail, Son of the Sun and deliverer of his children, who hast come to
+bring the daylight back to the long-darkened Land of the Four Regions!'
+
+I looked at them and saw Djama standing erect, still bound and
+blindfold, in the midst of them. I went through the kneeling forms to
+him, and taking the bandage from his eyes stepped back, and while he was
+blinking at the light of the torches, said to him in English,--
+
+'Look about you, Laurens Djama, and tell me if you believe now that I,
+the friend of the filthy Indians whom you despise, can do that which I
+have said?'
+
+He was still half dazzled by the glare of the torches and the thousand
+rays of many colours that were flashing about him. Wherever his
+wondering glance fell it saw great golden plates covering the walls,
+thick-set with jewels, and in front of him, piled up against the end
+wall of the chamber, a shining heap of gold bars in the shape of a
+pyramid reaching to the roof of the chamber, and on either side of this,
+half way up, was a great image of the Sun, like to that which in the
+olden times stood above the altar in the sanctuary of the great temple
+of Cuzco, each with its centre fashioned as a human face, with great
+flashing diamonds for eyes, with lips of rubies, and long pendants of
+emeralds hanging from the ears, and all round a hundred curving rays of
+gold edged and lined with jewels.
+
+He stared about him, open-eyed and open-mouthed with amazement. Then his
+eyes fell on me, and he started forward and stared me in the face for a
+moment. Then he gasped,--
+
+'Vilcaroya, is it you, or am I dreaming? Where have you brought me to?'
+
+'To one of the treasure-houses that you so longed to see,' I said, 'so
+that you might see and believe that I told you no idle tale, and that I
+can perform my promise if you can perform yours.'
+
+Then I turned my back on him and went to the foot of the pyramid, and,
+taking my place in front of it, I said to those who still knelt before
+me in silence,--
+
+'Let those of his children who are faithful to their Father the Sun rise
+and come without falsehood in their hearts, and say if they now believe
+that that which was foretold long ago, when the darkness fell over the
+land, has in very truth come to pass.'
+
+They rose from their knees and came towards me in a half circle,
+carrying their torches. They stopped about five paces from me, looking
+at me through a little space with wondering eyes full of worship. Then
+they bowed their heads again, and Tupac came from the midst of them,
+and, casting himself prone at my feet, yet not daring even to touch my
+sandals, said in a broken voice,--
+
+'Son of the Sun, heir of heaven and lord of earth, we have seen thy
+wisdom and thy majesty. None but one of thy royal line--nay, none but
+thee, oh, Vilcaroya, son of Huayna-Capac, and brother of Huascar, last
+of the Incas, could have known the secret that thou hast brought with
+thee from the past into the present. We are thy children and thy slaves,
+and all the men of the Blood that are left in the Land of the Four
+Regions shall hail thee lord as we do, and own no other master save
+thee, Vilcaroya Inca, from now until the hour when their father, the
+Lord of Life, shall call them back to the Mansions of the Sun. We are
+thine, and we will serve thee, ourselves and our wives and our children,
+as our fathers served thy father in the days when there was yet peace
+and happiness in the land.'
+
+'And if ye are but faithful,' I said, 'and if the Lord, my father, who
+rules the day, and his sister, my mother, who rules the night, shall
+give me strength and wisdom to use the power that is mine, I will give
+you back peace and happiness, and the stranger and the oppressor shall
+be driven from the land, and the homes of the Children of the Sun shall
+again be full of light. Rise now, Tupac, and let ten of the men give
+their torches to the others and make ready to do my bidding.'
+
+He rose, and it was done. Then I called Djama to me and said,--
+
+'What you have seen here to-night is a dream. When your eyes open again
+on the outer world, remember what I have said. Your hand has brought me
+from the grave to the throne, and you must obey me as these do. Let me
+but know that you have spoken one word, even to Joyful Star herself,
+concerning what you have seen here to-night, and I will show you how an
+Inca deals with one who dares to disobey him. Keep silence and have
+patience, and perform that which you have promised, and you shall go
+back to your own land loaded with gold and jewels. Fail, and the
+fragments of your body shall be sent north and south and east and west
+throughout the Land of the Four Regions, and your name shall be one of
+shame in the ears of my people for ever.'
+
+For a moment he looked me in the eyes, and I saw his lips moving as
+though he was striving to shape some answer to my words. Then his face
+grew grey, and his knees shook as he stood. Then I called to Tupac, and
+bade him bind his eyes again and lead him away, and as soon as his sight
+was taken from him I bade the ten men who had given up their torches
+take off their ponchos and fill them with as many of the golden bars as
+each one could carry, and when this was done, I ordered all the torches
+save one to be extinguished. This one I took, and went with it into the
+passage where I had left my lantern. Then I dashed it against the wall
+and vanished into the darkness.
+
+I took my lantern, and hiding the light carefully, went back to the
+little chamber, where I took off my robes and sandals and the imperial
+Llautu, and put them back into the chest. Then I put on my mean attire
+again and went back into the Hall of Gold. Signing to the others to
+follow me, I turned the stone door on its pivot again, and watched them
+file past me as before. Then, going out last, I closed the portal after
+me and lighted them up the steps with my lantern.
+
+When we all once more stood in the open air by the cleft I went to the
+hole and released the chain. Instantly the roar of waters broke out
+again, and I bade them fill the hole up and put turf over it, and
+trample it down and scatter the bushes over it; and that being done, we
+took our way back again across the plain towards the fortress, still
+leading Djama blindfold in our midst.
+
+We took him by the gate of Viracocha into the fortress, across its upper
+part, where the three crosses stood, and down on to the zigzag road
+which leads into the eastern part of the city, and there we unbound his
+eyes, and I bade him go to the house and make ready to receive me early
+in the morning, telling our friends that I should arrive with some
+packages of Indian merchandise and metals from one of my mines, for, as
+I should have told you before, I had come to Cuzco in the character of
+an owner of mines who had lived long in Europe and had returned to
+supervise the working of my property.
+
+I and Tupac and his companions then went back into the hills, and
+without entering the city made our way by twos and threes into the
+village of San Sebastian. We met at Tupac's house, and there I explained
+to them as much of my plans and purposes as I thought fit for them to
+know, and showed them that the time was not yet come for them to make
+use of the treasures that I would share with them. But to each man I
+gave two pounds' weight of gold to be left in Tupac's care till it could
+be taken into the cities of the south and there changed for silver
+coins. Then I had a list made of their names, and promised them, after
+reminding them of their oaths, that when I once more sat on the throne
+of the divine Manco, their fidelity should be well remembered.
+
+The next morning we loaded the gold in bales of the coca-leaf, great
+quantities of which are taken every day into Cuzco, upon four mules, and
+these I sent to our house while I went back with Ullullo and put on my
+English clothing. Then I followed, and found that the bags of coca had
+already arrived. They were carried up to my own room, and there, in the
+presence of Djama and Joyful Star, the professor and Francis Hartness, I
+took out the gold ingots and built them up in a pyramid before them.
+
+I could see from their amazement that, whether from fear or faith, Djama
+had obeyed me, and said nothing of what he had seen during the night. As
+for me, I said but little. I gave them the gold, and that day the
+professor and Djama, acting as my agents, sold it to some of the
+merchants of Cuzco as the product of my mines. The price was more than
+twice as much as was needed for the hacienda, so with the rest I
+discharged my debt and made myself once more a free man.
+
+There is no need for me to dwell upon our dealings with the owner of the
+hacienda, and therefore it will suffice for me to say, before ten days
+more had passed the purchase-money had been paid, we had taken up our
+abode there, and installed Joyful Star as housewife, with faithful
+servants chosen by myself from among the Children of the Blood. Djama,
+who had been strangely silent and reserved with all of us since the
+lesson I had taught him in the Hall of Gold, had taken possession of the
+chamber which was devoted to his uses, and had put all his apparatus in
+order for the great work that was to be done there.
+
+So on the fourteenth day, such was the power of my gold and of my
+longings, all things were ready, and at daybreak on the fifteenth day we
+rode at the head of our little mule train out of the courtyard of the
+hacienda on our way to the resting-place of Golden Star.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SISTER STARS
+
+
+For five long days we travelled slowly and toilfully on our way from the
+valley of Cuzco to that other where Golden Star lay sleeping beside the
+lake. Over high plains and pleasant valleys, through deep, dark gorges
+and ravines, to whose lowest depths the sun but seldom reaches, and then
+but for an hour or two, along narrow pathways cut into the living rock
+on the mountain side, with precipices on one hand falling thousands of
+feet into the dark abysses, where the torrents roared and foamed, and on
+the other the great rock-walls of the mountain soaring up into the sky
+yet more thousands of feet above us.
+
+I saw the mighty crests of Saljantai and Umantai rising snow-crowned
+from earth to heaven, unchanged in their eternal grandeur since the
+long-distant day on which I had last beheld them. I rode with saddened
+heart past the ruins of Lima Tambo, remembering how fair and stately a
+city it had been in the days before the plunderer and the oppressor
+came. We toiled slowly over the great, sharp-ridged range which parts
+the waters of the Vilcamayo from those of the Apurimac--the 'Great
+Speaker'--then, descending again by the gorge of the river which is now
+called the Rio de la Banca, we came to the long bridge which swings in
+mid-air from rock to rock across the chasm through which the Great
+Speaker rolls his swift, roaring flood.
+
+Its cables were loosened and its floorway broken, for, like all things
+else in the land, the Spaniards had suffered it to fall well nigh to
+ruin; and, as I led Joyful Star across it by the hand, I thought of what
+it had been in the olden times, when not a rope or a stick was suffered
+to be out of place, and when the Son of the Sun had been borne across it
+in his golden travelling litter, with long processions of his adoring
+people going before and behind him, strewing his way with flowers, and
+waking the echoes of these gloomy gorges with the melody of their songs
+and laughter.
+
+From here we journeyed on, ever facing the setting sun, for two days
+more, still winding higher and higher up into the mountains, until at
+length, on the third evening, I, riding alone many yards in front of
+the others, found the sign that I was looking for--a rock with three
+seats carved on the top of it--and turned my mule from the track and
+rode over the rough, stony ground up the side of the mountain until what
+looked from the road a single rock-built peak opened into two. I
+beckoned to the others to follow me, and when they came up I said to the
+professor,--
+
+'Do you know where you are now? Have you ever been here before?'
+
+He looked about him and shook his head, saying,--
+
+'This may have been the place where we got off the road when my mule
+gave out, but I don't recognise it. Do you mean that we are near the
+valley?'
+
+'Yes,' I said. 'Do you not remember seeing yonder two peaks from the
+shore of the lake near where you found me?'
+
+He looked at them for a moment, and then said,--
+
+'Yes, I remember them; but they don't look the same, and I don't believe
+I could find my way back into the valley from here to save my life. It's
+very strange how I can have forgotten it so completely.'
+
+I smiled as he said this, knowing that I had brought them purposely many
+miles out of the way by which he had found the valley by accident, for
+I had no desire that the way should be known to any but myself and those
+I had chosen from among the remnant of the Children of the Blood. Then I
+bade them follow me again, and once more rode on alone ahead, for, as
+you may well believe, I was too full of my own thoughts and hopes and
+fears to be in any mood for conversation, even with Joyful Star herself.
+They, too, talked but little, and as we rode on in the deepening gloom
+amid the solemn silence and the gaunt grandeur of the mountains, their
+words became fewer and fewer, till at length thought took the place of
+speech, and the silence was broken by no sound save the patter of the
+mules' feet and the rattle of stones under their iron-shod hoofs.
+
+Hour after hour I led them on, turning from valley to valley on the road
+that was visible only to my own eyes, and ever rising higher and higher
+towards the twin peaks that now stood out dark and sharp against the
+starry sky. At last, when our watches were nearly marking ten o'clock, I
+stopped before a cliff covered with bushes and creeping grasses, and
+calling Tupac to me, I bade him seek for an opening under these.
+
+He groped about among the bushes for a while, and then suddenly, with a
+short cry of surprise, he vanished, as it seemed, through the face of
+the rock itself. I dismounted and followed him, and found him standing
+behind the bushes, facing a square doorway cut in the rock and lined
+with masonry. Behind it, and closing it completely, was a great slab of
+dressed stone. Down the sides of the doorway were two square pillars of
+stone, and in the middle of one, to the left hand, three little lines
+had been cut about a finger's breadth apart, but so faintly that only
+one who knew they were there could find them.
+
+I stretched a string across from the middle one of these to the
+right-hand pillar, and where the string ended in the centre of the
+pillar I felt with my finger-tips and found a little circle about as big
+round as an English two-shilling piece. Tupac had in his hand the iron
+rod that I had used on the Rodadero. I took it from him, and, pressing
+the end against the circle, told him to push with me, and, to his
+wonder, the rod sank, seemingly, into the solid stone, forcing out a
+bolt which had been fitted so cunningly into the pillar that the end of
+it looked no more than a circle traced on the face of it.
+
+When we had pushed the rod in about six inches I bade Tupac help me to
+pull it round towards the door. The pillar turned on a central hinge as
+we did so, and the great stone slab swung back by its own weight, which
+we had thus released, opening the entrance to a tunnel high enough for a
+man to walk through erect. This tunnel sloped somewhat sharply upwards,
+and looking up it I could see, shining in the clear sky beyond the upper
+entrance, the stars that I knew were reflected in the still waters of
+the little lake by which Golden Star was sleeping the sleep out of which
+we had come to wake her.
+
+As the passage was not large enough for the mules to go through with
+their burdens, I bade my men unload them and carry their loads through
+into the valley. Then we followed, leading our own animals by the
+bridle, and after us the cargo-mules were driven through. The load of
+one of them was a long, narrow case of wood like that in which the
+professor had taken my own dead body to London, but this was thickly and
+softly padded inside with wool, and lined with white linen, and at one
+end was a little pillow of the softest down, on which the head of Golden
+Star would soon be resting.
+
+As soon as we were all standing outside the upper mouth of the tunnel I
+looked at Joyful Star and said,--
+
+'Is not this a fitting resting-place even for the daughter of kings? Are
+not the stars bright in the heavens and on the bosom of the lake? Are
+not the mountains great, and strong, and silent? Do they not guard her
+couch well, and does not the snowy peak of Umantai yonder point the
+straight way to the Mansions of the Sun, where the soul of Golden Star
+is even now waiting for the arts of your brother to call it back to
+earth as he called mine?'
+
+'Yes,' she said, looking about her, first at the stars and then at the
+vast shapes of the mountains which loomed huge and dim on every side.
+'Yes, Vilcaroya, it is a good place for sleep, but--is not the world
+beyond a good place to wake in? Have _you_ not found it so?'
+
+I caught the gleam of her eyes in the starlight as she looked towards me
+saying this, and, by the glory of the Sun, had we stood alone where we
+were, I might have forgotten all save the knowledge that I was the
+lawful lord of all this land, and that she was there in the midst of it
+with me. For the instant I had gone back to my old life, with all its
+old-world thoughts and customs, and then, before I could answer her, my
+dreaming soul was called back to the present by the cold, quiet voice of
+her brother saying,--
+
+'I don't think that very many would find the world an unpleasant place
+to wake in, either for the first or second time, if they could also wake
+up lord of illimitable treasures as Vilcaroya here has done. But come,
+Your Highness, and you, professor, it is getting late. Don't you think
+it is time to be thinking about camping?'
+
+The matter-of-fact words scattered my dreams in an instant, and I woke
+from them into the present. I bade Tupac have the animals tethered and
+fed, and the tents we had brought with us pitched in the most sheltered
+place he could find; and while they were doing this, and Djama and the
+others were busy seeing that the work was done to their satisfaction, I
+went to Ruth and said--my words, which I strove so hard to keep steady,
+trembling with I know not how many mingled passions,--
+
+'Will Joyful Star come with me and see the place where her sister and
+mine is lying, waiting to come forth and greet her?'
+
+'Your sister, Vilcaroya?' she said, turning her face up to me so that
+the starlight shone upon its fairness and lost itself in the lustrous
+depths of her eyes. 'Do you mean your sister only--not--your--'
+
+'No,' I said, 'not my wife, for I have thought upon your words and
+pondered them deeply; and though they wounded me sorely at first, yet
+now I see that they were wise and just, like all the other words that
+Joyful Star has spoken to me. I have learned that lesson, like many
+others which you have taught me. That bridal of ours is already to me a
+dream of the long-lost past, the vision of a time that is dead and a
+people that is no more. When Golden Star wakes, if she ever does, I will
+greet her as a sister and a friend, as one of my own people who has
+come back to me out of my own times, and she shall help me in the work
+that I swore with her to do--but that is all; and I will find others of
+the Blood who shall sit upon the restored throne of my ancestors, and be
+the parents of the generations of Incas that shall come after me.'
+
+'What do you mean, Vilcaroya?' she said, in a voice that was half angry
+and half fearful. 'Do you mean--no, I cannot say it--for I am sure you
+do not mean that.'
+
+'How could that be?' I answered, guessing her meaning. 'Is it not _you_
+who have taught me the ways and thoughts of the world into which I have
+come back? No, what I mean is that I am not the only one now alive in
+whose veins the old blood of the Incas flows. Tupac, yonder, is the son
+of the son of the son of that Tupac-Amaru who died torn asunder in the
+square of Cuzco, because he had dared to raise the Rainbow Banner in the
+Land of the Four Regions, and called the Children of the Sun to revolt
+against their oppressors. He, more blessed than I who am his lord, has
+both wife and child, and if the prophecy is to be fulfiled, and I am to
+reign in the City of the Sun, then I will take his firstborn and
+instruct him in all the lore of our people and the duties of their
+ruler, and if he proves worthy he shall wear the Llautu after me.'
+
+She looked up at me again as I ceased speaking, just one swift, bright
+glance that seemed to pierce to the most secret depths of my soul, and
+read the unuttered thoughts that were hidden there, thoughts which I did
+not dare to speak even to myself in the loneliest hour of my musings.
+Then she looked down again, and side by side we walked in silence round
+the shore of the lake until I stopped in front of a great black cliff
+that jutted out from the mountain side and hung impending over the dark,
+still waters of the lake. I pointed into the black shadows in which its
+base was hidden, and said,--
+
+'There lies Golden Star, and there I lay beside her through all the long
+years that were to pass from the night when I pledged my troth with her
+before the Altar of the Sun until this night when I stand with you,
+Joyful Star, a new being in a new world, before her resting-place.'
+
+'Is it really true?' she said, stopping as she spoke, and staring
+straight before her into the darkness. 'Is it really true that you, who
+are standing alive and strong here beside me, lay there under that great
+rock for all those years, while ten generations of men and women were
+born, and lived and died, and the whole world changed again and again?
+And is the Golden Star lying in there now really the Golden Star you
+have told me so much of, and I have thought about until she seems to me
+more like some living friend that I have known and loved, than a dead
+body that has been in the grave for more than three hundred years? Is it
+really true, Vilcaroya, or have we all only been dreaming some wild
+dream, like that Frankenstein story that I was telling you the other
+day?'
+
+As she spoke she laid her hand for a moment upon my arm, as though to
+satisfy herself that I was really made of human flesh and blood, and not
+a phantom standing beside her in the starlit darkness.
+
+Scarce knowing what I did, I laid my own hand, warm and strong and firm,
+upon hers. For an instant I felt it tremble beneath mine. I would have
+given all the boundless wealth that I knew was mine for the courage to
+close upon it a grasp that it could not have escaped if it would. My
+heart seemed to swell as though it would burst in my breast, my tingling
+blood ran fire, and wild words rose choking to my lips. Then her hand
+slipped away from under mine. Once more I saw her eyes shine in the
+starlight, and then I knew that I had learned the last and greatest
+lesson that Joyful Star could teach me.
+
+I knew now why to think of Golden Star as my wife and my queen, filled
+me with the same untold horror which I had heard that night thrill in
+the tones of her who stood beside me, for now I--the son of a lost race
+and a long-past age--loved this daughter of the new time. For good or
+evil, for hope or despair, I was hers until I went again, and for the
+last time, into the shadows through which I had already passed, and
+then--yes, there he was, this tall, stalwart, golden-haired son of her
+own race and her own time, whose eyes I had seen looking love into hers!
+
+He was coming towards us round the lake with his long, easy, swinging
+strides, this man who was already my friend, and who would one day be
+the captain of my armies. For one blind moment of madness I thought how
+completely I had him and the others in my power; of the lonely, unknown
+valley where we stood; of the men who were already my slaves, and who
+looked upon me as a god. I thought, too, of the dark, deep waters of the
+lake, and the secrets that they held for me alone. How well they could
+hide others for me, too! What if Golden Star never awoke? Would she not
+be as well lying there in the peace of her endless sleep as coming back
+into the world, perhaps to love in vain and to suffer as I was doomed to
+suffer?
+
+The shadowy forms of the mountains began to waver and reel around me;
+the stars danced up and down in the sky, and a red mist seemed to swim
+before my eyes. Then, through the hoarse, dull murmur that was sounding
+in my ears, I heard the sweet, low voice of Joyful Star saying,--
+
+'Ah, Captain Hartness, I suppose you have been wondering what had become
+of us! I am afraid I have been neglecting my household duties, and you
+have been attending to them for me, but really I could not resist coming
+here with Vilcaroya. Look, that is where Golden Star is lying, in a cave
+under that great rock down there where those dark shadows are. Doesn't
+it look cold and lonely and eerie?'
+
+'Yes,' he answered, with a laugh that did not sound to me like his own.
+'But I don't suppose that matters very much now to Her Highness any more
+than it did to Vilcaroya. But, to descend to less romantic matters, I
+have come to tell you that the affairs of our temporary household are
+already in order, supper is ready, and we are all ravenously hungry, and
+I suppose you are about the same. This mountain air puts an edge on
+one's appetite like a razor's.'
+
+'Supper--yes, I had forgotten all about it, thinking of poor Golden Star
+lying there all alone in the darkness. Of course, I am desperately
+hungry, now that you remind me of it. Come, Vilcaroya, I am sure you are
+hungry too. Another night alone won't matter much to poor Golden Star
+after all these years. You can dream of her to-night, as I suppose we
+all shall, and to-morrow we shall see her. Oh, how I wonder what she
+will be really like!'
+
+As Joyful Star said this in a voice that was half sad and half merry,
+she turned away towards Francis Hartness, and I followed her with some
+light words on my lips and many heavy thoughts in my heart, and we
+walked together to the tents, talking of the things that were to be done
+on the morrow.
+
+The next morning I was afoot before the stars had begun to pale in the
+coming dawn. I had not slept for two hours together through the night,
+yet, waking and sleeping, many dreams had come to me. I had been back to
+the past among my people, living again that strange old life, with all
+its light and colour and gaiety, which was now every day becoming more
+and more like a vision that had been told to me by some other dreamer.
+
+I had talked with Golden Star, seeking to teach her the lesson that my
+dear instructress of the new time had taught me, and had awakened half
+mad with the perplexities of my divided love--the love of the past that
+was dead and of the present that was alive. I had seen my sister-bride
+come forth out of her tomb to greet me, clothed in her bridal robes,
+with the dust of the grave in her hair and on her face. I had clasped
+her in my longing arms and kissed the dust from her lips, and while I
+yet held her in my embrace her form had grown cold and stiff again.
+Then, in the agony of my sorrow, I had strained her to my breast, and,
+under the pressure of my arms, she had crumbled in my grasp and fallen,
+a little heap of grey bones and dusty garments, at my feet.
+
+Once more I had awakened with my gasping cry of horror still sounding in
+my ears, and then, not daring to seek sleep again, I had risen and gone
+out to watch for the rest of the night before her grave under the rock.
+There they found me when they came from the camp at daybreak. I went
+back with them, and our hasty morning meal was eaten and drunk almost in
+silence, for we were all too busy with our thoughts to have leisure for
+conversation, and my friends, knowing how much that day's work must mean
+to me, respected my unspoken feelings, and left me to the silent company
+of my own hopes and fears.
+
+Breakfast over, we took our lanterns and tools and went to the rock,
+followed by Tupac and two of my men carrying the coffin-like case in
+which Golden Star's body was to be laid. Under the rock was a long heap
+of loose stones which the professor had wisely piled up in front of the
+upright courses of masonry through which he had broken into my
+resting-place. He scanned them eagerly to see if they had been
+disturbed since his visit, and told us that they had not. Then I bade
+Tupac and the men clear them away, which they speedily did, laying bare
+the courses of stone behind them, still standing as the professor had
+re-built them after taking out my body.
+
+A few minutes' more work opened a passage large enough for a man to walk
+in, stooping. As if by a common instinct they all stepped aside and
+looked at me. I saw what they meant, and, turning the light of my
+lantern into the entrance, I walked back, a living man, into the grave
+where I had lain dead while ten generations of men had lived and died. I
+saw the place where I had lain, for a few mouldering scraps and shreds
+of cloth and furs still lay where my bed had been. Then I flashed my
+lantern round the walls of the cavern, and on the side along which my
+own couch had been spread by Anda-Huillac and his brother priests I
+found what they had told me to seek while I was preparing to fulfil the
+oath that I had sworn with Golden Star.
+
+It was a wedge of stone fitted in to a crevice in the wall and left
+rough and jagged at its outer end, so that one who did not know its true
+purpose would have taken it to be nothing more than a natural projection
+in the rough side of the cavern.
+
+With a mallet that I had brought with me I struck the end of the wedge
+softly above and below until it was loosened in its socket. Then,
+standing to one side, I struck it harder. It dropped from its place, and
+the same instant a part of the cavern wall swayed outwards and fell with
+a rumbling crash across the floor.
+
+For a moment I stood breathless and motionless on the threshold of
+Golden Star's grave. Then, with trembling hands, I turned the light of
+my lantern into the inner chamber, and as the dust that the falling
+stone had raised fell slowly back to the ground I saw through the
+particles dancing in the lantern rays the dim outline of a human form
+lying on a couch of skins.
+
+Still, not daring to set a foot within that sacred place, I stood in the
+doorway and let the light fall full upon the figure. A glance showed me
+that so far all was well. No profaning hand had disturbed the peace and
+sanctity of her long slumber. She lay there as perfect in form and
+feature as she had lain beside me that night in the little chamber in
+the Sanctuary of the Sun.
+
+Then I thought of Joyful Star. Hers should be the first eyes after mine
+to look upon that dead loveliness. So I turned and went out to where
+they were all standing round the outer entrance, and, taking no notice
+of the others, replying nothing to their half-whispered questions, I
+went to Ruth and, holding out my hand for her, said,--
+
+'Come, Joyful Star, and see the sister that the Lord of Life made long
+ago in the image that you now wear.'
+
+She said nothing, but, with a look of wondering question, put her hand
+into mine and I turned to lead her to the entrance.
+
+Djama, with a sudden exclamation, took a step forward as though he would
+stop her, but Francis Hartness put his hand on his shoulder, saying,--
+
+'I think you had better let them go alone. There is no fear for your
+sister with all of us here so near; and if what Vilcaroya says is true,
+why should she not see her first?'
+
+Djama drew back, though with no very good grace, and I went into the
+inner chamber, helping Ruth over the fallen stones. Then I flashed my
+light on Golden Star's face and said,--
+
+'Did I not tell you truly that the Lord of Life made her in the same
+image as yours?'
+
+I heard her utter a little gasping cry of wonder, and then I saw her
+slip forward on to her knees beside Golden Star's pillow, and as the
+light fell upon the two faces--the living and the dead--the likeness
+between them was so perfect, save for the golden gleam of Joyful Star's
+hair and the lustrous blackness of the tresses that framed my dead
+love's face, that they seemed to me as sisters, one watching over the
+slumbers of the other.
+
+'It is more than wonderful, and it is surely more than chance!' said
+Joyful Star, in a tone that was almost a whisper, and turning towards me
+her white face and the eyes into which the loving tears of pity were
+already springing. 'Why did you not tell me of this before, Vilcaroya?'
+
+'Because,' I said, 'the arts of the priests might not have done for her
+what they did for me, and I might have found here that which your eyes
+should never have looked upon. But now--is she not beautiful, even as
+you are?'
+
+The bright blood came swiftly back into her cheeks as I said this, and,
+without answering me she stooped, and with gentle hands put back the
+tresses from Golden Star's forehead, and, bending over her, laid her
+warm, sweet lips on the cold, smooth brow that I had last seen crowned
+with the marriage-garland in our bridal chamber in the Sanctuary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HOW DJAMA DID HIS WORK
+
+
+I can tell you but little of what followed the taking of the body of
+Golden Star back to the hacienda, for neither I nor any of the others,
+save only Djama himself, witnessed the secret mysteries of his strange
+and fearful art. I could tell you of their wonder when, after I had
+bidden Tupac bring the case into the cavern and he and I and Joyful Star
+had gently and reverently raised her from her couch and laid her in it,
+we carried her out into the daylight. How they stood around the open
+case and looked, half in wonder and half in fear, from her dead, cold
+face to the living likeness that was bending over it. How they praised
+her beauty and marvelled at the forgotten arts that had preserved so
+perfect a likeness of life in one who for more than three centuries and
+a half had neither drawn breath nor known a thrill of feeling.
+
+I could tell you, too, with what loving and anxious care that precious
+burden was borne over plain and valley and mountain in a litter that we
+had brought with us for the purpose, and how at last we laid her in all
+her calm, unconscious loveliness on the great table which stood in the
+middle of the chamber in which Djama was to do his work. But here my
+story must cease for the time, for Djama made it an unalterable
+condition that he should do the work that only he could do in absolute
+solitude. Only thus, he said, would he, or could he, perform the task
+upon whose issue the completion of Golden Star's life on earth, if it
+was ever to be completed, depended.
+
+He told us plainly that a single interruption should be fatal to her and
+all our hopes. He would not even permit his sister to enter the room
+until he should call for her. I was bitterly loath to yield--to leave
+her who had been so dear to me powerless and unconscious in the hands of
+a man whom I had already learned to hate, although not only did I owe my
+own new life to him, but on him alone rested all my hopes of seeing
+Golden Star once more restored to life and health, and the beauty that
+had been peerless ages before Joyful Star had reached the perfection of
+her young womanhood.
+
+How did I know what unholy arts he might use to rekindle the
+long-quenched life-flame in that fair shape of hers? How could I do
+more than guess vaguely and fearfully at the awful mysteries that might
+be enacted in the silence and solitude of that fast-closed chamber in
+which, day and night, he would remain alone with her, the living with
+the dead, like the potter with his clay, until it should please him to
+use the dreadful power that was his, and call her back from death to
+life, perhaps--and oh! how horrible the thought was to me!--to be the
+slave of the man who, by his unearthly art, had made himself the master
+of her new life.
+
+Yet, think of it, brood over it as I would, there was no help for it.
+He, and he alone, could exert the power that would loose the bonds of
+death in which she lay enchained. Unless he had his will she would
+remain as she was, perhaps until the Last Day came, and the Lord of Life
+called all his children, living and dead, back to the Mansions of the
+Sun; and so we yielded, since there was nothing else to be done.
+
+On the evening of the day that we returned to the hacienda, he busied
+himself making the last preparations for his work. Then he came out of
+the room and locked the door, and, after eating his dinner almost in
+silence, went to bed, taking the key with him, and telling us that on no
+account must he be awakened. All that night and the next day and the
+next night we neither saw nor heard anything of him; but on the morning
+of the second day, the door of his bedroom was open and his bed was
+empty, but the door of the room in which Golden Star lay was still fast
+shut and locked.
+
+How the time passed I cannot tell you. Joyful Star, seemingly more
+self-possessed than any of us, took up her household duties, and went
+about them with a quick, quiet industry that surprised and shamed us.
+But we three men wandered about aimlessly, now alone and now together,
+communing with our own thoughts or talking with each other always of the
+same thing--of what was going on in that chamber, where, as we knew from
+the faint sounds that every now and then came through the closed door,
+the master of the arts of life and death was performing his awful task.
+
+The first day and night came and went, then the second, and still the
+door remained closed, and Djama gave no sign. But the professor sought
+to comfort me and soothe our impatience by telling me how long the same
+work had lasted before I was recalled to life. I had sought also to
+distract my thoughts by talking with him and Francis Hartness of all
+that was to be done for the deliverance of my people, and the
+realisation of my dreams of empire when Djama's task should be over.
+
+But it was useless, for fear and suspense kept my mind bound as though
+with invisible chains, and, do what I would, my thoughts went back and
+back again to dwell upon the unknown secrets of that closed and silent
+room. Then I tried to draw Joyful Star into conversation about the
+thoughts which I knew were filling both our hearts; but though she
+listened to me she would say nothing herself, and I soon saw that with
+her the subject was forbidden, and the work not to be talked of till, in
+success or failure, it was ended.
+
+For the first two nights no sleep came to my eyes, but the third night
+my weariness was too much for me, and scarcely had my aching head fallen
+on the pillow than slumber, filled with broken dreams and visions of
+things unutterably horrible, came upon me. In the midst of one of
+them--I know not what it was, save that no human words could paint the
+horror of it--I woke up with a cold, damp hand upon my shoulder, and
+heard Djama's voice, hoarse and trembling, saying to me,--
+
+'Get up and dress, Vilcaroya; I have something for you to see and to
+hear. Make haste, for there is not much time to be lost.'
+
+I looked up, and saw him standing by my bed with a light in his hand,
+ghastly pale, and staring at me with black, burning eyes, which seemed,
+as they looked into mine, to take my will a prisoner, and draw my very
+soul towards him.
+
+'What is it?' I said, in the broken words of one just roused from sleep.
+'Is it over--have you succeeded? Is she alive? Have you come to take me
+to her?'
+
+'The work is not done yet,' he said. 'I have come for you to see it
+finished. Make haste, I tell you, if you want to see what you have been
+waiting so long for.'
+
+I needed no second bidding. I sprang out of bed, and dressed myself with
+swift, though trembling, hands. Then I thrust my feet into a pair of
+soft slippers, such as Djama himself wore, and then I followed him from
+the room out on to the balcony that was built round the house over the
+inner courtyard. We went down into the court and into the dining-room,
+and through that down a long, narrow passage out of which opened the
+room that had held all our hope and fear and wonder for so long.
+
+He unlocked the door, and motioned to me to go in. He followed me, and
+locked the door behind us. I looked about the room, which was dimly lit
+by two shaded lamps. The table on which we had laid Golden Star was
+empty. Many strangely-shaped things, that I knew not the use of were
+scattered about. The air was hot and moist, and filled with a faint,
+sweet odour. At the opposite end from the door, which was covered by a
+screen, I saw in one corner a bath--from which white, steamy fumes were
+rising--and in the other stood a little, narrow, curtained bed, such as
+I had first awakened in.
+
+Djama caught me by the arm, and half led, half dragged me to the
+bedside. Then with his other hand he parted the curtains and pointed to
+the pillow. I felt his burning eyes fixed upon me as I looked and saw
+the sweet fair face of Golden Star lying in the midst of her dusky
+tresses, which lay spread out on the pillow, cleansed from the dust of
+the grave, and soft and shimmering as silk.
+
+I started forward, and, with my face close to hers, scanned every
+feature, and listened, but in vain, for the soft sound of her breathing.
+Her skin was clear and moist; I could see the thin, blue veins in her
+eyelids, and the moisture on her lips. I laid my hand gently on her
+cheek. It was soft and smooth, but still cold as death.
+
+Then a fierce, unreasoning anger came into my heart. I sprang back and
+seized Djama by the shoulders, and, looking with fierce, hot eyes into
+his, I whispered hoarsely,--
+
+'Have you brought me here to mock me? She is not alive--she is but a
+fair image of death. Tell me that you have failed and I will strangle
+you, liar and cheat that you are!'
+
+He looked back steadily into my eyes and smiled, and said, in a voice
+that had not the slightest tremor of fear,--
+
+'If I fail you may strangle me, and welcome; but I have not failed yet,
+Vilcaroya. It is for _you_ to say now whether Golden Star is to awake or
+not.'
+
+'What do you mean?' I said, letting go my grip on his shoulders, and
+recoiling a pace from him.
+
+'You shall hear what I mean,' he said. 'But you must hear patiently and
+quietly, and think well on what I say, for in your answer to what I ask
+you will also answer the question whether Golden Star is to awake to
+life and health, or to be put back in that case yonder and buried, to
+rot away into corruption like any other corpse.'
+
+'Say on, I am listening,' I said. My lips were dry, and the grip of a
+deadly fear seemed to be clutching at my heart and draining the last
+drop of blood from it.
+
+'Listen well, then,' he said. He paused for a moment as though to
+collect his thoughts, and make words ready to express them. Then he went
+on. 'You see, I have undone the work that your priests did three hundred
+and sixty years ago. Your Golden Star is now neither dead nor alive. She
+is lying on the narrow borderland that divides life from death, and for
+an hour from the time I left this room she will remain there--if I
+choose. At the end of that time she will pass beyond the border, and no
+earthly power, not even mine, could call her back. But at any time
+before the hour has expired I can complete the work that I have begun. I
+can bring the breath back to her body; I can set the blood flowing
+through her veins. You shall see her eyes open and her lips smile, and
+you shall hear her speak to you as though she had only awakened out of
+sleep. This I can do, and I will, if you will do what I am going to ask
+you.'
+
+'What is it?' I whispered. 'Tell me quickly that I may know. You are
+master here. I can only listen and obey.'
+
+He smiled as I said this, a smile that it was not good for an honest man
+to look upon, and went on, speaking now rapidly and earnestly,--
+
+'When I did this work for you, I did it as a student and a man of
+science, who was making the greatest experiment of his life. I believed
+that I had solved one, at least, of the secrets of life and death. I
+watched and noted every change that came over you. I marked every
+symptom and measured every step of your return from death into life, but
+I did all this as a student inquiring into the mysteries of Nature, as
+an observer watching the working out of a great problem, and with no
+more feeling than if I had been dissecting a corpse. But this time it
+has been different. I began this work with the cold and passionless
+deliberation of one who toils only to learn and to succeed. But
+afterwards--come here and look at her, and you will understand me
+better. She is a woman, and she is beautiful, and here, for two days and
+two nights, she has lain under my hands and my eyes. I have given her
+beauty back to her, and if that beauty is to live it must be mine. Do
+you understand me, Vilcaroya?'
+
+What could I say, what could I do to answer this man whom I hated, and
+yet who held the power of life and death for Golden Star in his hands?
+The vague fear that had smitten me when he began to speak had taken its
+worst shape now. I looked at him with hate and horror staring out of my
+eyes. Again and again I tried to speak, but my lips only moved and
+trembled without making any word. But he read my thoughts, and smiled
+that evil smile of his again and said, in a low voice which seemed to
+have the echo of a laugh in it,--
+
+'I see you hate me, as I have often thought you did, and that is why I
+have brought you here to tell you this. That is why I would not complete
+my work till you had sworn, as you yet shall do if you would see Golden
+Star alive again, that what I have brought back out of the grave shall
+be mine and mine only.'
+
+These last words of his let loose my anger and unchained my tongue. I
+gripped him by the arm, and in a whisper that had a strange hissing
+sound, I said,--
+
+'But that is _not_ all! What do you think your life would be worth if
+you left her to die? Have you forgotten what I said to you in the cave
+beneath the Rodadero? Do you not know that this very night I could have
+you carried, gagged and bound, over the mountains and back to the grave
+that we took Golden Star out of? Do you not know that I could lay you
+there with food and drink beside you that you could not touch, and a
+lamp whose light would show them to you, and then wall up the entrance
+again, and leave you there to think of your fate till you went mad and
+died of hunger and thirst? Do you not know that I could chain you to a
+rock and light a fire about you, and watch you burn limb by limb till
+you shrieked your life out in lingering agony? Would this be better than
+going back to your own land loaded with treasure that would make you
+richer than you have ever dreamed of being? Now, _I_ have spoken, and it
+is for you to answer me.'
+
+Before I had done speaking he had taken a chair and seated himself
+astride it, with his arms resting on the back and his chin on his arms,
+and was looking at me with white, set face, and steady, dark, shining
+eyes. When I had finished there was a little silence between us, and
+then he spoke, and the first time I ever felt fear in either of my lives
+was when I heard those cold, cruel, carefully-measured words of his,--
+
+'That is well said, Vilcaroya. I am glad you have spoken plainly, for
+now we understand each other; but I don't think you quite realise the
+difference between your power and mine. You have, or think you have, the
+brute force, the strength of numbers, and the slavish devotion of your
+people on your side, and you threaten to use that power to put me to a
+lingering and torturing death unless I withdraw my demands and do as you
+wish me. In that, however, you are quite wrong. I am as much the master
+of my own life as I was once of yours, and still am of Golden Star's.
+Without moving hand or foot I could kill myself as I sit here before
+you, so your threats of torture are nothing more than empty words. It is
+only a matter of simple life or death. If I live, Golden Star will live.
+If I die, she will never draw the breath of life--but what I have said,
+I have said. She shall only live as my promised wife, bound to me by the
+most sacred oath that you can swear. You cannot consummate your own
+marriage with her, because in the modern world that is impossible. You
+are refusing simply because, for some reason or other, you dislike me
+personally, but I don't propose that that shall stand in my way. As for
+your treasures, their value has utterly changed for me. A week ago, I
+frankly confess that I would have sold my soul, if I thought I had one,
+for them. Now, without her, they would only make the world a golden
+mockery to me, for I tell you, Vilcaroya, that I, who have never loved
+living woman yet, love that beautiful shape of inanimate flesh as that
+old sculptor we have told you of loved his statue. Every hour that I
+have been alone in this room with her this strange love of mine has
+grown. First it was only scientific curiosity, then physical admiration,
+then something else. I don't know what it is, for it is beyond the reach
+of my analysis, but I know enough of it to call it love, and I tell you
+it is such love as only a man of my nature and pursuits is capable of.
+Unsatisfied, it would consume me and kill me, and I would rather die
+quickly than slowly. Now--once more--shall Golden Star and I live or
+die?'
+
+How was I to answer such a speech as this? I heard him in silence to the
+end, my eyes held fast by his, and my spirit sinking as though beaten
+down by the pitiless force of those cold words of his. And in the
+meantime a great truth had been dawning in my mind. Force had ceased to
+rule in this new world, and intellect had taken its throne. I was the
+inferior of this man, whose trained mind was the heir of the generations
+that had toiled and fought while I had slept. I was little better than a
+savage before him, and I knew it, and he knew it, and, bitter as the
+thought was to me, yet it was only the truth. I was conquered, and a new
+gleam in his eyes told me that he had read my thoughts before I had
+spoken them.
+
+Then, while I stood hesitating before him, his white, hard-set face
+softened, and his lips melted into a smile that was almost as sweet as a
+woman's. It was that that saved me, for it reminded me of Ruth, and the
+recollection of her told me that I loved even as Djama did. The very
+thought of her put new blood into my heart. The words of yielding and
+submission died unuttered on my lips. I raised my head, which I had
+bowed down in dejection, and looked at him steadily again. Then I said
+slowly, and in the voice of a man who does not speak twice,--
+
+'I have thought, and I will speak for the last time. I will swear by the
+sacred glory of the Lord of Light that Golden Star shall be yours, upon
+two conditions.'
+
+'Conditions!' said he, bringing his dark brows down till they made a
+straight black line over his eyes. 'What are they?'
+
+[Illustration: The dagger-point dropped till it was within an inch of
+Golden Star's breast.
+
+_To face page 119._]
+
+'These,' I said. 'You love and I love. First, then, you must win the
+love of Golden Star, and, secondly, you must give me your sister, Joyful
+Star, if I can win her love.'
+
+'My sister Ruth to _you_! Is that your earnest, Vilcaroya, or are you
+only trying my patience?'
+
+The bitter, coldly-spoken words cut into my soul as the lash of a whip
+cuts into the flesh. I could have slain him as he sat there sneering at
+me, but it was a time for words, not deeds; and so, mastering my anger
+as best I could, I took two swift strides to Golden Star's bedside, and,
+snatching my dagger out of the sheath of the belt which I had put on
+when I had dressed, I turned and faced him, and said,--
+
+'I am not jesting. As you love I love, and by the glory and majesty of
+my Father the Sun I tell you if you do not say yes I will do with this
+dagger what all your art will never repair, and then, if I must do that,
+I will kill you too; and before to-morrow night has passed Joyful Star
+shall be with me where none can find her. Now, what is your answer--yes,
+or no?'
+
+He looked at me and then at the dagger hanging in my hand, point
+downwards, over the breast of Golden Star. Then his eyes fell upon the
+still loveliness of her face. He knew that if he moved the dagger would
+fall. His face, flushed a moment before, grew grey and pale again at the
+sound of my words, and then I saw that he had not lied to me when he
+said that his life would be worthless without her. Twice, thrice, his
+lips moved without shaping a word. Then the words came. They were dry
+and broken and trembling, for in the strength of my own love I had now
+conquered my conqueror, and he said,--
+
+'Yes, since it must be so. My sister for your sister. Well, I suppose
+it's a fair exchange. We hate each other, you and I, but that's an
+accident of fate. Take away your dagger. I know when I am beaten, and I
+am beaten now. Will you swear that oath of yours again?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'and you?'
+
+I still kept the dagger within a span of Golden Star's heart, for I
+still had but little trust in his faith. He rose from his chair,
+throwing it over as he did so, and stood up and faced me, saying,--
+
+'There is no need for oaths either from you or me. We have both too much
+to lose to break faith. Put up your dagger and come away, and in ten
+minutes from now you shall hear Golden Star draw the first breath of her
+new life, and see her eyes open and look at you. That would be worth
+more than any oath I could swear, wouldn't it?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'but that is not all or enough. If you broke faith with
+me after that, I should have to shed blood--my sister's and yours. Now I
+need only make her life impossible. I will stop here. Go you and wake
+your sister and bring her here. Then we will say more.'
+
+'Bring Ruth here!' he cried, staring at me as though he wished, as no
+doubt he did, that the fierce light in his eyes could blast and wither
+me where I stood. 'Bring her here to see what no human eyes but mine
+have ever seen. Bring her here to listen to what you have said--and if
+her, why not Lamson and Hartness as well?'
+
+'You may bring all, if you please,' I said, 'but Joyful Star must come,
+no matter what she hears or sees. I have spoken--now go, or Golden Star
+shall never wake again.'
+
+He took a half pace towards me, with clenched hands and set teeth,
+crouching like a mountain lion about to spring on its prey. The dagger
+point dropped till it was only an inch from Golden Star's breast. If he
+had made another step I would have driven it home. He read in my eyes
+that I would do so, and he stopped. Then he hissed a curse at me through
+his clenched teeth, and turned and walked away towards the door. As he
+reached it he looked back, and saw me still standing there with the
+dagger ready to do the work that could never be undone. I saw his lips
+move, but heard no sound.
+
+Then he unlocked the door, went out, and locked it after him, leaving me
+there alone with my dead sister-love, whose new life, with all its
+possibilities of love and happiness, or hate and misery, I had thrown
+into the balance of Fate in the game that I was playing against him to
+win that other love which had now become tenfold more dear to me.
+
+When he had gone I took his chair and put it by the side of the bed and
+sat down, still holding my bare dagger in my hand and looking on Golden
+Star's dead loveliness, wondering what it would be like when the
+sunshine of her new life should shine upon it, and on whom her first
+glance would fall, or whose name be the first that her lips would speak,
+and as I sat and watched and waited it seemed to me as though the ghosts
+of those long dead were taking shape and ranging themselves about the
+bed of her re-awakening as they had done about the bed of her falling
+asleep and mine.
+
+I saw Anda-Huillac and his brother priests of the Sun standing about me,
+gazing at me and at her with sad and dreamy eyes, like phantoms of the
+past looking upon the realities of the present. Then the shape of
+Anda-Huillac seemed to glide towards me. His ghostly eyes looked into
+mine, and a smile of pity and reproach moved his pale lips. I felt a
+cold, soft hand laid upon mine, my grasp relaxed and the dagger fell
+ringing to the floor.
+
+The sound awoke me, and my vision vanished. How long it had lasted, or
+whether it was a vision of sleep or waking, I know not, but I was awake
+now for I heard the door creek on its hinges. I picked the dagger up
+again and started to my feet, and, still guarding Golden Star's bed, I
+turned and faced Djama as he came in, followed by the professor and
+Francis Hartness, with Joyful Star between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WAKING OF GOLDEN STAR
+
+
+'There is your royal, would-be lover, Ruth! Come, if you don't believe
+me, you can hear from his own lips that upon you, and you alone, depends
+Golden Star's return to life. Is not that so, Your Highness?'
+
+It was Djama who said this, and as he said it, he caught Joyful Star by
+the hand and half led, half dragged her towards me from between the
+other two. But before he had come half the length of the room, Francis
+Hartness had overtaken him in a few swift strides. I saw his hand fall
+heavily on his shoulder, and with his other hand he took Ruth's out of
+his. His blue eyes were nearly black with anger, and his bronzed face
+was grey and set and pale with the passion that his strong will was
+holding back, and his voice was low and clear, and vibrating like the
+sound of a distant bell when he spoke and said,--
+
+'I can't stand that, Djama. Are you forgetting that your sister is a
+woman, and that you have brought her into the presence of the dead?'
+
+'You must be mad, Laurens!' said Joyful Star, before her brother could
+reply. 'Surely this dreadful work of yours has turned your brain.
+Vilcaroya, what does all this mean? Is Golden Star dead or alive? Ah,
+how beautiful she is now! No, surely she cannot be dead!'
+
+She had broken away from both her brother and Francis Hartness, and as
+she said the last words she was leaning over Golden Star's pillow,
+softly stroking her hair; and then she stooped lower and kissed her
+forehead. Then the others came up to the bedside, Francis Hartness and
+Djama in front, and the professor standing silent and wondering behind
+them.
+
+'If Djama won't speak, will you, Vilcaroya?' said Hartness, looking at
+me with eyes that were still angry. 'What is that dagger in your hand
+for, and what is the meaning of this story that he has been telling me?'
+
+'The meaning is of life or death,' I said. 'Laurens Djama will not give
+Golden Star's life back to her if I will not swear to give her to him
+when she lives again, and I have sworn that he shall not restore her to
+life unless he swears to give Joyful Star to me, for I love her, and
+will have neither life nor empire without her.'
+
+As I listened to my own voice saying these bold words, it seemed to me
+as though another were speaking, for, even in that hot moment of passion
+and desperate resolve, I could scarce believe them mine. For the
+instant, I thought Hartness would have struck me down where I stood, nor
+could I have used my dagger against him, for he was a man and I loved
+him, though I saw now that we both loved the same woman. But before
+either of us could move, Ruth had risen erect and come between us, her
+cheeks burning with shame and her eyes aglow with anger.
+
+'What!' she said, 'Laurens give me to you, Vilcaroya! Don't you know yet
+that no one can give an English girl away except herself, and that she
+only gives herself to the man she chooses of her own free will? Do you
+think I am a slave or a human chattel to be bartered away like that?
+Nonsense! And you, Captain Hartness, don't look so fiercely at
+Vilcaroya. Remember that he is your friend and mine, or has been, and
+has not the same ideas as we have. If he had--'
+
+'He has,' I said, breaking in upon her speech, 'since Joyful Star has
+spoken. He is not her lover but her slave, and she has shamed him. I
+will eat the words that should never have been spoken. Let Golden Star
+live! I will keep my oath and ask nothing in return.'
+
+So the savage within me was tamed, and I, who but a few minutes before
+had been ready to take two lives at the prompting of a single word,
+dropped my dagger and stood with bowed head, humble as a chidden child
+before her whose lightest word was then my most sacred law. I raised my
+eyes and looked at her to see if my words had pleased her. As our eyes
+met she gave me a glance that I would have died to win from her, and
+then, pushing me and Francis Hartness gently aside, yet with a force
+that neither of us could have resisted, she took her brother by the arm
+and, leading him to the bedside with one hand, she laid the other on
+Golden Star's brow, and said,--
+
+'Laurens, can you really bring her back to life?'
+
+'Yes,' he answered, and I could see that he did not dare to raise his
+eyes to hers, 'but--'
+
+'But you will only do it for a price, you think. For shame! Is that the
+way you would use this terrible power that you possess? Is my brother so
+mean a creature as that? You love her, you say, even as she lies there,
+neither dead nor alive? Well, when she lives, she will be worthy of any
+man's love, but only of a man's, Laurens, and you would not be a man,
+with all your learning and power, if you insisted on so mean an
+advantage as your skill gives you. Do you mean to tell me that you can
+look on such a beauty as that, knowing that you can restore it to life,
+and yet ask a price before you will do it? Come, Laurens, that is not
+like your old self. Use your power with the same generosity that it has
+been given to you, and then win Golden Star like a man if you can.'
+
+Where my strength had been vanquished, her sweet wisdom conquered. The
+man who had laughed at my threats, and told me without a quiver in his
+voice how he could, and would, slay himself rather than I should do what
+he knew I could do, stood humbled and abashed before the righteous and
+yet gently-spoken reproach of her who was pleading for the life of a
+sister woman.
+
+I saw Djama's hands meet behind his back, and his fingers begin to twine
+about each other. I saw him look from Ruth to Golden Star, from the
+living woman who was his sister to her lifeless counterpart. Then came
+over him one of those swift changes of mood which we had so often seen
+before. All the cold cruelty of his long-chained-up passion vanished.
+His face, from being stone, became flesh again. The fierce glitter, as
+of a sword's point, died out of his eyes, and they grew warm and soft
+again, and his voice was almost as sweet and gentle as Ruth's, and
+strangely like it, too, as he answered her and said,--
+
+'You are right, Ruth. I was not myself. I was a brute, unworthy either
+of love or power. Let her die! Good God, I would die myself a thousand
+times rather than do that! I must have been out of my senses even to
+think of such a crime for a moment, but if you were a man and had lived
+through what I have lived through for the last two days and nights, you
+would understand me, and perhaps forgive me. Yes, she shall live. How
+could I ever have thought of letting her die!'
+
+Then he rose from his half-stooping posture over the bed, and came to
+where I stood at the foot, and, with his hand outstretched and a smile
+on his lips, said,--
+
+'You have heard what I have just said, Vilcaroya. You have withdrawn
+your conditions; now I will take back mine. It is no use for you and me
+to be enemies. We have had our fight, and I confess myself beaten. Now
+let us try to be friends for Ruth's sake and Golden Star's, and I
+promise you that to-morrow morning you shall be telling her the story of
+your resurrection and her own.'
+
+For a moment I stared at him in, speechless wonder, striving to
+understand how it could be that those eyes, which had, but a short time
+before, been glaring hate at me, could now be looking so kindly and
+frankly into mine; and how those lips, which had just been sneering so
+coldly and cruelly alike at my love and my hate, could shape such
+friendly and honest-sounding words. Then I looked at Ruth, asking her
+with my eyes what she would have me do, and in instant obedience to what
+I saw took Djama's hand in mine and said,--
+
+'So be it! The evil in our hearts has spoken, now let the good that is
+there speak, and let us be friends; and, when Golden Star awakes, with
+my lips she shall bless you and her who has made peace between us where
+there was strife.'
+
+'Miss Ruth, you really must allow me to congratulate you on your success
+as a peacemaker,' said the professor, speaking now for the first time
+since he had come into the room, and coming forward to where Joyful Star
+still stood by the bedside. 'It would have been ten thousand pities if
+this--ah--this little affair had ended any other way, for all of the
+exquisitely perfect subjects--'
+
+'_Subjects_, professor?' said Ruth, interrupting him with a laugh. 'Do
+you venture to call Golden Star a subject, just as you do those awful
+things in your dissecting-rooms? Look at her--a _subject_ indeed! Don't
+call her that again in my hearing, please!'
+
+'Oh, ah, of course, I beg your pardon a thousand times, and Her
+Highness's too. Really, I spoke quite thoughtlessly and most
+improperly.' he answered, laughing at her mock displeasure, 'And now,
+Djama, since we have had two declarations of love and a peacemaking,
+don't you think it would be cruel to keep Her Highness waiting any
+longer on the threshold of her new life? Come, Hartness, you and I have
+no more business here at present. Don't you think we had better go and
+wait somewhere else for the working of the miracle?'
+
+'Just what I was going to say,' replied Hartness, who had gone away a
+little distance from the bed while we were talking, and had been
+standing by the table, seeming to examine the strange instruments that
+were scattered about it. 'Of course the doctor will wish to finish his
+work alone.'
+
+'May not Vilcaroya and I stay, Laurens?' asked Joyful Star, looking at
+him with appealing eyes. 'You know it will be much better for her to see
+another woman by her when she awakes, and then she will recognise
+Vilcaroya, and that will tell her that she is among friends.'
+
+But Djama shook his head and said,--
+
+'No, Ruth, not yet. There is something else to be done before
+that--something, well, something that only a medical man ought to see or
+do, and you really must leave me to do it alone. You forget, it is not
+merely a matter of waking. She is not alive yet; but if you will leave
+me alone for about half-an-hour, I promise you that I will call you and
+Vilcaroya back before she actually wakes.'
+
+'Very well,' she said, moving away from the bedside. 'I don't want to
+pry into your mysteries.' Then she turned to me, and said, with a faint
+smile on her lips, 'Vilcaroya, come into the dining-room, I have
+something to say to you.'
+
+She went down the room after the professor and Francis Hartness, and I
+followed her with beating heart and anxious thoughts, wondering what new
+lesson it was she was about to teach me.
+
+Djama closed and locked the door after us. She led the way to the
+dining-room, where there was a light burning. It was empty, for the
+others, hearing what she had said to me, had gone out into the
+courtyard. Then she turned and faced me with her back to the light; but
+in spite of that I could see that her eyes were bright, and her fair
+face flushed as she said to me in a low voice that trembled a little,--
+
+'Vilcaroya, I am going to forget everything that was said in the room
+yonder, and--and you must forget it too. It was no time or place for
+such things to be said, and you and Laurens were not yourselves when you
+said them. If you do not forget them, we cannot be friends any more. You
+understand me, don't you?'
+
+Gentle and sweetly spoken as the words were, they fell upon my heart
+like snow upon a fainting flame; yet I felt that, like all her words,
+they were true and just. I crossed my hands on my breast with one of my
+old-world gestures, and, standing so before her with bowed head, I
+said,--
+
+'The will of Joyful Star is my law. Let what I spoke in my madness be
+forgotten as you have said. Who am I that I should say such things?--a
+poor savage that has wandered from his own world into hers, where he is
+a stranger!'
+
+'No, not a savage, Vilcaroya. You must never say that word again. How
+could Golden Star's brother be a savage? How could I--but there, we have
+said enough for the present. We have other things to think of now.'
+
+With that she turned away and sat down in a long, low chair, resting her
+cheek upon her hand, and looking out of one of the windows at the
+stars, while I went and stood before another to look at the same stars
+that she was looking at, and so we waited in silence until the door
+opened, and we heard Djama's voice telling us that the long-expected
+moment of Golden Star's awakening had come at last.
+
+As Joyful Star went to the door I stood aside and waited for her to pass
+me and go out first. As she went by our eyes met for a moment, and I saw
+that hers were bright with tears. My heart leapt at the sight, and then
+fell still again and well nigh fainting. What had she said to me but a
+few minutes before? How dare I dream that those sweet tears could be for
+me?
+
+I followed her and Djama into the room, but half-way between the door
+and the bed I stopped, not daring to go on, held back by some impulse I
+could not name. I saw her lean over the pillow for a moment in silence
+that for me was breathless. Then came a soft, sweet sound, and then a
+little cry. Was it her's or Golden Star's?
+
+Djama beckoned to me. I went with swift, silent steps to the foot of the
+little bed, and saw Golden Star's eyes wide open and looking wonderingly
+up into Ruth's face, and her red lips smiling at her. The miracle had
+been completed. She had awakened her with a kiss.
+
+'Come and give her your welcome back to life, Vilcaroya,' she whispered,
+rising and turning her fair face with its wet cheeks and smiling lips
+towards me. I went and stood over the pillow, and laid my trembling lips
+on Golden Star's brow, and then I said, in the words that had been the
+first of my own new life,--
+
+'_Cori-Coyllur Nustallipa, Nusta mi!_'
+
+She looked at me, but there was no more recognition in her gaze than in
+that of a newborn child, nor was there any answering smile upon her
+lips. Unheeding this for the moment, I went on and said, still speaking
+very gently and softly in our own tongue,--
+
+'Thou art thrice welcome back from the shades of night into the bright
+presence of our Father the Sun, oh, Golden Star! Dost thou not remember
+me, Vilcaroya, thy brother, who went into the darkness with thee long
+ago, and has been permitted to return before thee that he might greet
+thee and bid thee welcome?'
+
+Her eyes wandered from my face to Joyful Star's, and then she smiled
+again, but no answering words came from her parted lips. Now, as we
+looked from one another to her, a great fear came into all our hearts,
+and Ruth gave it voice.
+
+'Laurens,' she whispered, laying her hands upon his arm, 'what is the
+matter? Vilcaroya spoke at once, didn't he? Why doesn't she speak? Oh,
+surely it can't be that she is--that she has come back to life without
+memory or--or her reason? What is it?'
+
+I waited for Djama's answer as a man might wait for words that were to
+tell him whether he was to live or die. He put us both gently away from
+the bed, and then, laying his hand on Golden Star's brow, he looked long
+and steadfastly into her eyes. It seemed to me as though Ruth and I
+could hear each other's hearts beating and counting off the seconds
+until he raised his head again and said in the slow, even tones of the
+man of science who, for the time, had overcome and banished the lover,--
+
+'Memory, perhaps, even probably; but reason, no. These are not the eyes
+of an imbecile or an idiot, but they _are_ the eyes of a child. It is
+possible that when she fully recovers we may find her mind a perfect
+blank--a virgin page on which the story of her new life will have to be
+written.'
+
+'Thank God for that!' she murmured, and I, too, echoed her words in my
+heart, though I did not know then how much she meant by them.
+
+Then once more she turned and went to Golden Star's pillow, laying her
+hand upon her brow again, and looking fondly for a moment on the silent
+and yet eloquent face that was looking up at her. Then she said to her
+brother,--
+
+'But is she well now? I mean, is her physical life certain? Will she
+live and grow well and strong again?'
+
+'Yes,' he answered. 'I have done everything that it is in my power to
+do. I have fulfilled my promise to His Highness. The rest is, as it was
+with him, merely a matter of care and nourishment and nursing.'
+
+'Then,' she said, with a swift, subtle change coming over her manner,
+'the care and the nursing must be mine, and you two must say good-bye to
+her for the present, until I have nursed her back to health. Of course
+you may see her when necessary, as her doctor, but only as her doctor,
+mind. And you, Vilcaroya, must possess yourself with what patience you
+can until my part of the work is done as well. Now, go away, both of
+you. I am mistress here for the present. Laurens, you go and get ready
+the nourishment that you think she should take, and come back in
+half-an-hour, and tell me how it is to be taken.'
+
+It was easy for us to see the deep yet kindly meaning of her
+lightly-spoken words, for in them she had told us that Golden Star was
+now once more a living woman. No longer a mummy, or a corpse, or a
+'subject,' as the professor had called her--no longer an inanimate thing
+that had neither sex nor claim to human rights--but a sister woman of
+her own kind whose wants could only be supplied by her. So we obeyed
+her, and went away, leaving her there to perform the most sacred task
+save one that a loving woman could perform.
+
+Djama went to prepare the food that Golden Star would soon need, and I
+went in search of the professor and Francis Hartness, and told them all
+that had happened, and then, when the professor had gone to bed to
+finish his broken night's rest, I and he who was my rival in love, and
+who was to be my brother-in-arms, went out from the courtyard into the
+_patio_ which lay in front of the house, sloping down towards the
+entrance of the little valley in which the hacienda lay, and there,
+walking to and fro side by side, we talked long and earnestly of many
+things upon the doing of which my heart was set, and which might now be
+freely entered upon, seeing that the first object of our journey was
+already achieved.
+
+Our talk, as you may well believe, was of war and not of love, though it
+would be hard to say which of the two at that hour most filled our
+secret thoughts; but, as I have told you, this English soldier was a
+true man, and I trusted him, knowing well that though, when the imperial
+Llautu once more encircled my brows, I might find courage to seek openly
+the love of her into whose eyes I had already seen him look with love,
+yet no falsehood or hatred could ever come between us. So I told him
+freely of the treasures that I had only to take from their hiding-places
+to make them mine, and spoke once more of the use that I would make of
+them, and took his advice as to the best method of that use.
+
+This he was well able to give me, for I soon found that since he had
+resolved to throw in his lot with us, he had applied himself diligently
+to the task of studying the work that was to be ours, and seeking the
+best and readiest means of doing it. In Lima and Arequipa he had bought
+books and papers from which he had learned, as far as could be learned,
+the resources and power of the government of Peru, the number of its
+soldiers and their stations, the names and characters of the men who
+made the government, and of those who were opposed to them, seeking, as
+he told me was now ever the case in the countries of South America, to
+overturn the government and to take for themselves the honours and the
+profits of rule.
+
+He told me--which events soon proved to be the truth--that not many
+months would pass by before civil war once more broke out. The President
+and the ministers, who were the tools of his tyranny, had oppressed the
+people with grievous burdens till they could endure them no longer, and
+already people in the towns of the interior were refusing to pay taxes,
+and were arming themselves in secret and meeting in bands among the
+mountains to practise themselves with their weapons, and make ready for
+the war which was so soon to come.
+
+All this, as he soon showed me, was happening as though the Fates which
+rule the world had especially prepared it for my coming. The people had
+no leader save a man who had been himself a tyrant before, and none
+trusted him, but looked to him only to serve their own ends. Those who
+had the power were hated, and those who sought to seize it were
+distrusted.
+
+But better than all was the utter, and, as far as all men, save
+ourselves, could see, the hopeless poverty of the country. Long years of
+plundering had emptied the treasury. Commerce was leaving the shores,
+and industries were languishing throughout the land. No man trusted his
+neighbour, for nearly all were in debt, and none could get paid, and my
+own people, the slaves of the children of the Spaniards, and the sport
+of their blind and brutal jesting, had borne their heavy burdens till
+their backs were sore, sore as their patient hearts were, and they would
+bear them no longer.
+
+From the country which is called Ecuador, and which in my other life had
+been Quito, the kingdom of Atahuallpa, to the southern confines of
+Bolivia, which had once been part of the Land of the Four Regions, the
+dominions of my own father, all were ready to throw down their
+long-borne burdens and turn and rend their oppressors and those whose
+fathers had robbed them of the land that had once been theirs.
+
+I well remember the very words in which Francis Hartness told me all
+this at much greater length than I have set it down here; and this is
+what he said when, as the stars were paling in the sky above us and the
+eastern mountains were beginning to stand out sharply against the
+growing light of the coming dawn, our long talk drew to its close,--
+
+'In short, Vilcaroya, if I were given to that sort of thing, I could
+believe that the very Fates themselves had conspired to prepare the way
+for you. You have come back to the world and to your own country at the
+very moment that these miserable wretches are getting ready to tear each
+other to pieces. The government is as hopeless as it is impossible, and
+the popular party, as they call themselves, have neither a leader that
+they can trust, nor money to buy weapons and pay their soldiers with.
+The treasury is empty, for, so to speak, almost the last dollar had been
+stolen. The native troops have had no regular pay for months, and I
+believe they would desert to a regiment if they once believed that you
+are what you are, and that you possess, as you do, the means of paying
+them well and honestly for their help.
+
+'And, after all, I don't know that even I, as a soldier, could call it
+desertion under such circumstances. You are of their own blood, the son
+of one of their ancient kings. These people, these Peruvians, are only
+mongrel descendants of those who have plundered and oppressed them for
+centuries. They owe them no allegiance that is worth the name; but you
+they would hail, not only as their lawful king, but almost as a god--as,
+indeed, they could well be pardoned for doing, seeing what a marvellous
+fate yours has been.
+
+'The only thing to do at present, and the only thing in which I see any
+difficulty, is to get into communication with them in such a way that
+they shall come to know you without the authorities knowing anything
+about you or your treasures. If that could be done, I think all the rest
+would be easy, and then I believe that the moment you raised the flag of
+the old Incas, they would flock to it in thousands, and after that it
+would only be a matter of military management and leadership.'
+
+'And if I will charge myself with that, my friend,' I said, as he paused
+for a moment; 'if I will promise you that before six more suns have
+risen and set, the news of my coming shall be spread far and wide
+through the land, and yet in such a manner that none but the faithful,
+the Children of the Blood themselves, shall know anything that could
+work us harm, will you give me the help of your skill and your knowledge
+of the arts of this new warfare which is so strange to me? Will you lead
+my armies to battle against the oppressors of my people? Will you help
+me to free this land of my fathers from the yoke of its tyrants, and be
+the war-chieftain of my people, and stand by my throne in the days when
+the Rainbow Banner shall once more float over the battlements of the
+Sacsahuaman and the City of the Sun? If you will, you shall have riches
+and power and all that the heart of man can desire.'
+
+'Not all, I am afraid, Vilcaroya!' he said, interrupting me with a laugh
+that had but little mirth in it. 'Not all; but that would not be in your
+hands to give. Never mind, it is the fortune of war, or perhaps I should
+rather say of love. But for the rest, yes. I believe your cause is a
+just and righteous one, and what I can do to help it I will. Henceforth
+we are brothers-in-arms, even though we may perhaps be rivals in love.
+There, you have my hand upon it, and with it the word of an Englishman
+who never broke his word yet to man or woman.'
+
+How shall I tell you of the great joy with which those brave,
+honest-spoken words of his filled me? He, the man whom I had feared
+most, even as I had learned to love him most, was the first to bid me
+hope--and hope I did now, in spite of all things. So, saying nothing,
+for my heart was too full for speech, I put my hand in his, and there,
+as the dawn brightened over the mountains, we clasped hands in silence
+and sealed our compact, and when the sun rose swiftly over the now
+glittering peaks, I let go his hand and bowed myself before it, greeting
+it as the bringer of a new day which was to end the long night that had
+fallen over my land and my people when the light of my last life was
+quenched in the darkness of my death-sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI
+
+
+We saw nothing of Golden Star the next day, nor yet for many days
+afterwards, for, in spite of our impatience, Ruth would not permit us to
+do so. What her brother had said had speedily proved itself to be true.
+She had come back to life a child-woman. Her body was that of a girl of
+seventeen years--which was her age when she and I had drunk the draught
+of the death-sleep together--and the kindly Powers that had presided
+over her birth had shaped her in a mould of almost perfect womanly
+beauty, yet, as Djama had said, her mind was a virgin page, from which
+the story of her past life had been utterly erased, and on whose blank
+whiteness the story of her new life had yet to be written.
+
+Now, on the writing of the first words of this story, as Joyful Star
+told us in her sweetly-serious way the night that she had sunk into her
+first natural slumber, everything might depend.
+
+'It is a task,' she had said that night, 'which I fear terribly to enter
+upon, and yet I know that I am the only one here who ought to undertake
+it. She will need weeks and months of most careful watching, and the
+sympathy that only another woman, and one who loves her as I have
+already learned to do, could give her. No woman ever had such a task
+before, and very few have had so good a work to do. There is something,
+too'--and here I remember how subtle a change came into her voice as she
+said this--'there is something in this wonderful resemblance between us
+which tells me that this is my duty, and I am going to devote myself
+absolutely to it during every hour of her waking life until she is able
+to do without my care. I must watch her and care for her as a mother
+does for her child, and you must let me do it alone as long as I wish
+to, just as we had to let Laurens do _his_ work alone. Don't you think I
+am right, professor?'
+
+'Yes,' he answered, 'perfectly right, Miss Ruth. I am sure everybody
+will agree with me that Her Highness could not be in better hands than
+yours. Indeed, as you say, yours are the only hands in which she could
+possibly be trusted with safety to her newly-awakening reason at such an
+extraordinary juncture in her life.'
+
+To this we all agreed willingly enough, and so Joyful Star had the big
+room cleared out and installed herself there with all the comforts and
+luxuries that the inexhaustible wealth which was now at my command could
+provide her with, so that Golden Star should find her new world as
+beautiful as might be. Meanwhile the professor, with a trusty guide that
+I had provided him with from among my own people, plunged afresh into
+his beloved studies with such ardour that he seemed to have almost
+forgotten all else that had brought us to Peru.
+
+Francis Hartness had gone with Tupac--who, in the sight of the
+Spaniards, was only his Indian servant and guide--on a mission of
+importance to the South, where the first rumblings of the coming
+war-storm were already making themselves heard. As for Djama, who, as
+you know, had no more interest in the work that now lay before Francis
+Hartness and myself than the professor had, he went about for some days
+gloomy and silent, and seemingly ill at ease, like a man who for a time
+has lost his interest in life; and at last--it was on the twentieth day
+after Golden Star had awakened--he came to me when I was alone in my
+room and said abruptly,--
+
+'Vilcaroya, do you think I have fairly earned my reward for what I have
+done?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, looking into his eyes and reading, though he knew it
+not, the thoughts that were moving in his mind. 'You have done all that
+you promised to do, but we have yet said nothing of the price. How much
+do you ask for?'
+
+'As much as I can get!' he said, with a laugh that pleased me but
+little. 'But, of course, I know the work that you yourself have come
+here to do, and I see that it will be expensive, so you will find me
+reasonable.'
+
+'And you, I hope, will not find me ungenerous. Do you remember what you
+saw in the Hall of Gold?' As I said this, his self-command left him for
+an instant. I saw his hands close, and his lips tremble, and the fierce
+fire of the gold-lust spring into his eyes as he replied,--
+
+'Yes; how could I forget it?'
+
+'And do you remember, too,' I said, 'the words that you heard me speak
+when I stood before the pyramid?'
+
+'Yes,' he replied, with a faint flush coming into his pale cheeks. 'It
+is not likely that I should forget them either. Why do you ask?'
+
+'Because,' I said, speaking slowly as a man who weighs his words well,
+'saving only the sacred emblems of the Sun, which it is not lawful for
+me to give away, all that you saw there shall belong to you and to him
+who made it possible for you to do what you have done. You will share it
+as you please--that is no care of mine--but I have conditions to make
+for my own sake and that of my people.'
+
+'What are they?' and as he spoke the flush died out of his cheeks again.
+
+'That you shall both swear solemnly to me that, come what may, no man
+shall ever know from you where the gold came from, and that, moreover,
+you shall never utter any word of my story or Golden Star's where mortal
+ears can hear it, nor give any sign or word to any man or woman that
+shall lead him or her to guess that I am what I am, or that my work here
+is what it is. Swear that oath to me and you shall take your gold and go
+in peace. Break it, and the fate that I told you of shall be yours. Are
+you content?'
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'and more than content; and I swear to you most
+solemnly, on my own honour and by all that I hold sacred, that I will
+keep your secrets absolutely.'
+
+'No, not here,' I said, breaking into his speech; 'and more, it is not
+only your oath that I want. There must be witnesses, for this is too
+great a thing to do lightly. To-morrow night we will go back to the Hall
+of Gold, and there you shall swear your oaths and they shall be
+witnessed.'
+
+'Very well,' he said. 'Whenever and wherever you like. But now,
+Vilcaroya, I have something else to say to you. Personally, you know, I
+have no further interests in Peru, saving one only. Your next few years
+will be stormy ones, and though I believe that, with the power you have
+behind you, you will win in the end, yet you know as well as I do that
+you will have to run all the risks of a war that may be a very savage
+one before you succeed. You may restore the throne of the Incas, and
+reign upon it, or you may be killed in the first battle. You will pardon
+me speaking so plainly, won't you?'
+
+I bowed my head in silence and he went on.
+
+'In view of this, then, I am going to propose that when we leave Peru--I
+mean my sister and the professor and myself--you will allow Ruth to take
+Golden Star to England with her, say, for three years or so, in order
+that her education may be carried on to the best advantage. I will
+promise you solemnly that during that time I will not speak a word of
+love to her, or attempt to be anything else to her than I am to Ruth,
+and then if you succeed in your aims, as I hope you will, we will come
+back and be Your Majesty's guests for a time, and after that we shall
+see what more the kindly Fates may have in store for you and me.'
+
+No man ever heard more fairly spoken or reasonable-sounding words than
+these were, and yet all the while I listened to them I knew that they
+were but used to hide the real thoughts of him who was speaking them.
+Yet what could I answer him? Did they not seem to point out the best of
+all courses that could be followed for the welfare of Golden Star and
+the comfort of her whose gentle hand was leading her nearer every day to
+the fulfilment of the promise of her new life? So, for want of anything
+better in my mind, I answered,--
+
+'Your words are unwelcome to me, for so long a parting would be a great
+sorrow to me; yet they are wise, and that which is most pleasant is not
+always the best to be done.'
+
+'Very well,' he said, 'I quite understand you, so we won't say anything
+more about it until then. I suppose I may tell the professor about what
+we are to do to-morrow night?'
+
+'Yes,' I said; 'there will be no harm in that, since a share of the gold
+belongs to him as well.'
+
+'And Hartness?'
+
+'He knows already, for I have told him not only of the treasures in the
+Hall of Gold, but of many others that will be used in the work that he
+has sworn to do with me.'
+
+Later on that day when the mid-day heat had cooled a little, I was
+walking alone in the garden of the hacienda, thinking deeply of what
+Djama had said and striving to find some plan of my own that would be
+as good and yet not make the parting that I dreaded needful. I turned,
+paying but little heed to my way, into a winding pathway shaded with
+trees and bordered with grass and flowers. I was looking down upon the
+ground, as was my wont, when I heard footsteps near me and looked up. I
+had turned the bend in the path, and there, but a few paces from me,
+stood Golden Star and Ruth. I started and made a motion as though I
+would turn back, but Ruth immediately beckoned to me smilingly, and
+said,--
+
+'Come and let me introduce you to your sister, Vilcaroya. I think it's
+time you began to be friends again. Don't you think she is looking
+wonderfully well and strong, and--and beautiful?'
+
+You may think, but I cannot tell you, of all the feelings that rose up
+within me as I obeyed her invitation. It was the first time that I had
+seen Golden Star since the night she had awakened. Nay, was it not the
+first time I had seen her as a truly living woman since the night of our
+bridal in the Sanctuary?
+
+She was dressed in garments made after the fashion of Ruth's own, of
+light grey soft stuff, and on the glorious wealth of her hair was a
+broad-brimmed straw hat such as Ruth wore. Indeed, to look at them both,
+standing there side by side, they could but have been taken for two
+twin sisters--daughters of the Day and Night--as my loving fancy called
+them afterwards--rather than the daughters of different peoples, and
+children of far-parted generations, whose hands, as they clasped,
+bridged the gulf between one age of the world and another.
+
+As I approached, Golden Star's eyes looked at me with the simple wonder
+that shines out of the eyes of a little child, and like a little child
+she smiled at me, and then she looked at Ruth, and made a soft low sound
+that was almost like the cooing of a child.
+
+'She is pleased to see you, Vilcaroya,' said Ruth, taking hold of my
+hand and hers, 'but of course she can't say so yet. Now, let me teach
+her to shake hands with you.'
+
+Then she put into mine the soft, warm little hand that I had last
+clasped when we went hand in hand to the couch of our long sleep. I
+pressed it gently, looking at her through the tears that rose into my
+eyes, then I raised it to my lips and kissed it, and she smiled, and
+made the little soft sound again, and then Ruth put her arm around her
+waist and said,--
+
+'Come, now, you are acquainted, and she likes you. This will be a most
+valuable lesson for her. Now, let us have a walk, and you tell me the
+news, if there is any.'
+
+'Most willingly,' I said, 'for I have much news to tell.'
+
+So we turned back along the path into the quietest part of the garden, I
+walking by Ruth's side. And I told her of all that had passed between
+her brother and me in the morning, and of what was to be done on the
+following night. She was looking very serious when I had finished, and I
+could see that many unspoken thoughts were working in her mind, and when
+I had done she looked up at me and said,--
+
+'Laurens's plan seems a very good one at first sight, but of course we
+cannot decide upon anything until we have thought a good deal more about
+it, and talked it well over amongst ourselves. But, at anyrate, it would
+be several weeks yet before I would even think of going away with Golden
+Star, so there is plenty of time for that. But to-morrow night--Listen,
+Vilcaroya, may I ask a very great favour of you?'
+
+'Joyful Star can ask no favour of me,' I said. 'She can speak, and I can
+hear and obey.'
+
+'Nonsense, Vilcaroya! I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' she answered
+with pretty petulance. 'Now, suppose I was to ask you to let me see this
+wonderful treasure-house of yours and promise faithfully not to tell
+anyone about it--would you let me?'
+
+'It is not the best that I can show you,' I answered gladly, 'but if
+you desire to see it, it is yours and all that it contains. I can give
+your brother and the professor other gold, and I will show you a greater
+treasure-house than this under the Fortress itself.'
+
+'Well,' she laughed, 'I won't say now that I won't have it, because the
+sight of all that gold might be too much for me, but I should dearly
+love to come and see it, and I think I might venture to bring Golden
+Star too. She's quite well and strong now, and if we are careful of her,
+it can't do her any harm, and it may do her good. Shall I bring her?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'why not?'
+
+At this moment we saw Djama come walking down the path towards us, and
+at the sight of him there came to me, like the stab of a dagger of ice,
+the sudden memory that, at the moment I was speaking of my
+treasure-house under the Sacsahuaman, I had heard a gentle rustle behind
+some bushes close by the path, and a sound like that of a stealthy
+tread.
+
+As Djama came near to us I saw the love-light flash into his eyes, and a
+swift flush rise into his sallow cheeks. He held out his hand and
+quickened his pace, smiling as sweetly as a woman the while. I was
+facing him a little in advance, and I heard behind me a sharp, low,
+shuddering cry of terror that shook my heart as I turned to learn its
+cause. Golden Star had thrown her arms round Ruth's neck, and was
+clinging to her, trembling with fear, and looking sideways at Djama with
+eyes fixed and wide open with terror.
+
+You have seen how little children will go smiling and fearless into the
+arms of one stranger and shrink in hate and terror from another. Their
+sight is keener than it is in after years, when the dust of the world's
+conflict has dulled it, and they can see plainly the good and the evil
+that is hidden behind the mask of the face. So it was with that
+child-soul of Golden Star's. Though I was now to her as strange as
+Djama, yet she had seen in me only the friend and brother who loved her
+and wished her well, and whose heart was clean in her sight; but in
+Djama she had seen at a single glance the evil that had only been
+revealed to me after many weeks of watching.
+
+Though I hated him for the fear that he had caused her, yet I was glad
+also, for now I saw that the answer to his proposal would be easier than
+I had thought for. As for him, his face darkened and his black brows
+came together, and the love-light in his eyes changed to a glare of
+anger; but this was only for an instant. It passed more quickly than the
+thunder-clouds melt round the crest of Illampu. He stopped, and stood
+with his head slightly bent and his hands spread, palms outward, in the
+posture of one who asks pardon, and said, in a voice that had no trace
+of anger,--
+
+'Forgive me, Ruth! I am afraid I have startled our patient--or perhaps I
+should rather say yours now. It was something more than stupid of me to
+come upon you suddenly like this, without any warning. Of all people in
+the world, I ought to have known better than that. But I suppose seeing
+Vilcaroya already here made me forget myself. Did she start like that
+when he came?'
+
+'No,' replied Ruth, still standing with her arm where she had thrown it
+around Golden Star's shoulders, and stroking her hair with the other.
+'She--she saw him farther off than you, and I took her towards him, so I
+suppose the shock was not so great. But please go away, both of you,
+now. You see she is terribly frightened, and she is trembling as though
+someone had struck her. I must take her into the house and get her quiet
+again, or the consequences may be serious.'
+
+Djama turned away without a word, his face darkening again as he did so,
+and with one backward glance at Golden Star, who had now raised her head
+from Ruth's breast, and was staring after us with fixed, wide-open eyes,
+I turned and walked away beside him, neither of us speaking a word, for
+we were both too busy with our own thoughts.
+
+That night Francis Hartness and Tupac returned from their journey to the
+South, and as the professor was also in the house I told them of what I
+wished done on the following night, and bade Tupac make all preparation.
+The next day we all started in the cool of the morning to go to the
+Rodadero as though for a picnic, as the people of Cuzco often do, so
+that there might be no suspicion of our true object. We all rode upon
+horses, saving Golden Star, who was carried in a hammock litter, that I
+had had made for her, and Tupac, and six of our people who came with us
+as bearers and servants.
+
+We spent the day wandering about among the huge ruins of the
+Sacsahuaman, and exploring the wonders of the carved rocks and
+underground passages and altar-places, which have been the marvel of
+every traveller to the hills about Cuzco, and all that I knew of the
+upper works I told my companions, and showed them as well as I could
+what the mighty fastness had been in the days of its pride and unbroken
+strength.
+
+Then, when the brief twilight came, I bade one of our men take the
+beasts into a chamber among the rocks that I had shown him, and where
+plenty of fodder had been stored a few days before. After this we waited
+a little longer till night fell, and then I bade Tupac do what I had
+bidden him the day before. His voice rose shrill and plaintive in the
+silence, chanting a song that you may have heard the Indians singing in
+Peru when returning from their labours, and presently, from among the
+rocks on the plain, and from the shadowy lines of the Fortress, many
+silent figures stole out and went towards the valley in which the
+Sayacusca stands.
+
+Then I told my companions that all, save those of the Blood, must have
+their eyes bandaged, as Djama's had been before, and when they had
+submitted willingly to this, knowing that no harm would come to them, we
+led them to the Sayacusca, I leading Ruth by the hand, and following the
+bearers of Golden Star's litter, and there the way to the Hall of Gold
+was opened as before, and we entered it, followed by a long line of the
+Children of the Blood.
+
+But I made no halt here, nor did I let my companions even see the
+treasure that was to be divided between Djama and the professor
+according to my promise, for I had greater marvels in store for them.
+So, lantern in hand, I led the way through a winding gallery behind the
+pyramid of gold of which I told you before. At the end of this was a
+door, formed by a revolving stone similar to that at the entrance to the
+hall. This Tupac and another opened under my directions, and we entered
+a long, straight passage behind it. At the end was a broad flight of
+stone steps, and at the top were two low bronze doors bolted into
+pillars on either side. The doors had no hinges, but they turned with
+the pillars, and no one who did not know this, or how the pillars
+turned, could open them. But this secret was one of many others that I
+had brought with me from the past, and in a few moments the doors were
+standing open before us.
+
+We passed in, and I closed them behind us. Two of my men had come laden
+with great candles and torches, and these I had lighted and placed in
+golden sconces which stood out from the walls in the great hall into
+which we had passed through the bronze doors. When this had been done, I
+beckoned to Tupac, and went silently with him to the other end of the
+hall, where, on a throne of gold under a canopy of silver, sat a silent
+figure clad in the imperial robes, and with a mask of beaten gold over
+its face, according to the ancient custom. It was the effigy of the
+great Yupanqui, father of Huayna-Capac, which had been seated here since
+his death, as an emblem of the unbroken sovereignty of his race, giving
+place in turn to his son and grandson on the days that they were
+crowned, and being replaced when the ceremony was over.
+
+Now, with Tupac's help I carried the effigy into a little chamber behind
+the throne, and there quickly removed my upper clothing and dressed
+myself as I had done before in the Hall of Gold, and took my place on
+the throne. Then I bade Tupac lead Joyful Star, with her eyes still
+bandaged, to me. When he had placed her before me, I made a sign to him,
+and the bandage fell from her eyes. She turned white as death, and
+staggered back a pace, with her hands clasped to her temples, and there
+she stood, staring wide-eyed at me and all the splendours about her.
+
+Wherever her gaze wandered it saw nothing but gold and silver and gems
+and rich-dyed hangings of silk and wool, whose brilliant hues no time
+could dim. The roof and the upper halves of the walls were covered with
+plates of burnished silver. Around the walls, half-way between the floor
+and the ceiling, ran a great cornice or ledge of gold, on which stood
+the golden chairs in which were seated the mummies of the twenty Incas
+which I had last seen in the Sanctuary of the Sun, looking down through
+the eye-holes in their golden masks.
+
+From the cornice to the floor hung the bright-hued hangings, and against
+these were ranged along the floor on either side threescore seats of
+silver, and the floor was paved with diamond-shaped blocks of gold and
+silver set alternately. Behind the throne on which I sat rose from the
+floor to roof a sloping wall of golden ingots, and on either hand stood
+a great golden vase, heaped high with unset gems, emeralds and diamonds,
+pearls and sapphires and rubies, precious almost beyond price; and on
+the roof above my throne a great, golden image of the Sun, encircled by
+spreading rays of gems, glowed and sparkled in the light of the candles
+and torches.
+
+At last Ruth's wandering gaze became steady and rested upon my face, and
+I looked back into her eyes, making no sign until she should speak, and
+sitting motionless as the effigy whose place I had taken.
+
+'Where am I?' she said at last in a low, faint voice, like one awakening
+from a dream. 'And who are you? Surely you cannot be--and yet, yes, you
+are Vilcaroya! What has happened?'
+
+'Nothing more than the granting of Joyful Star's request, save that
+through the treasure-house which she asked to see I have brought her to
+a better one. Does it please her?'
+
+'Is it real, Vilcaroya?' she whispered. 'Is all this really gold and
+silver, and are these real diamonds and rubies and emeralds, or am I
+only dreaming? Does it please me? What a question! I have never even
+dreamed of anything like it. Where are we, Vilcaroya?'
+
+'In the throne-room of the Incas, beneath what was once their palace and
+fortress on the hill of Sacsahuaman,' I answered, 'and this is the
+throne of the great Yupanqui, the greatest earthly king and conqueror of
+my race. I sat here and crowned myself Inca in the presence of
+Anda-Huillac and the priests and nobles of the Land of the Four Regions
+on the day before the night when I drank the death-draught with Golden
+Star.'
+
+'Ah, yes, where is she?' she cried, looking round only to see that all
+the rest had vanished, and that she and I were alone in the great hall.
+'What have they done with her, and where are Laurens and the others?'
+she cried, looking fearfully and almost mistrustingly at me. 'What have
+you done with them, Vilcaroya?'
+
+'They are safe,' I said. 'Tupac and his men have care of them, and they
+will come back when I bid him bring them. But I have need of your
+presence here alone before I do that,' I went on, rising from my seat as
+I spoke. 'Has Joyful Star ever sat on a throne?'
+
+'No,' she stammered, staring at me with wonder in her eyes. 'You know I
+haven't. Why should you ask?'
+
+'Then sit on mine,' I said, 'for I have something to say to you which I
+can best say and you can best hear if we change places. Nay, I will take
+no denial,' I said, drawing her by the hand up the steps in front of the
+throne, 'for it is not only your--your friend who is asking, but a
+crowned king in his own palace, who is lord of life and death over all
+who enter it.'
+
+Half frightened and half wondering, she submitted to my will and allowed
+me to seat her in the chair which no woman had ever sat in before. Then
+I took her hand, and, dropping on one knee on the upper step, I said,--
+
+'Joyful Star has taken one queen from me, and she alone can give me
+another to fill her place. She is sitting where the great Yupanqui sat
+when he ruled all the land from north to south, and from the eastern
+mountains to the sea, and ere long I too shall reign, sole and
+undisputed lord, over a realm wider even than that. Many things have
+been done that Joyful Star knows not of since I came back to my country
+and my people. Through all the Land of the Four Regions the word has
+gone forth, with the swiftness of thought, that the Son of the Sun has
+returned, and that the heir of the divine Manco has come to deliver his
+children from bondage.[B]
+
+'Everywhere the tidings have been received with joy, and the people are
+longing to return to the allegiance of their fathers, and tread their
+oppressors under foot. Before many days civil war will be raging
+throughout the lands of the south, and I have but to set flowing that
+golden stream, one of whose many sources is here, and say, "Here is gold
+and silver in plenty for all who will fight under the Rainbow Banner,"
+and I shall have armies and fleets to do what I will with, and the sway
+of my sceptre shall reach from north to south and sea to sea.
+
+'This I shall do because of my oath; but I have brought Joyful Star here
+to tell her, in the most sacred place that is left in the Land of the
+Four Regions, that I shall also do it so that she, if she will, may be
+queen where I am king, and sit beside me on my throne, and make my
+empire a paradise by the brightness and the sweetness of her presence. I
+cannot forget, as she bade me do--for the words that I said in the heat
+of my passion are true--for I love you, Joyful Star, and all that I
+have or shall ever have on earth will be worthless to me unless you take
+it as a gift from my hands. Nay, do not speak, for now I seek no answer,
+whether good or evil. I have brought you here that I, as a king, might
+kneel at the feet of her whom I would win for my queen, and from now
+until I sit in the sight of all the world on the throne of the Four
+Regions no other words of love shall pass my lips. So you shall have
+many days to ponder what I have said, and to ask your own heart whether
+it will say "yes" or "no" to me when I stretch out my hand from my
+throne and ask you to come and sit beside me and rule my people with
+me.'
+
+Before she could answer, I stood up and clapped my hands, and Tupac with
+six others, dressed now in the forbidden costume of their ancestors,
+entered the hall from the ante-chamber, into which they had taken the
+others, and came towards me, bearing wands across their shoulders in
+token of homage, and with heads downbent, not daring to look upon my
+majesty till I bade them. I drew Joyful Star from the throne by the
+hand, and seating myself in it, said in the ancient tongue,--
+
+'Let the Children of the Blood enter into the presence of their father
+and their lord, and let the strangers be brought in, and the other
+maiden, all with eyes bandaged, and let seats of silver be placed to
+the right and left of the throne, one for each of the virgins of the Sun
+to sit upon. Are all things else ready, Tupac-Rayca?'
+
+'Yes, lord,' he answered, stepping out in front of the others and
+falling on his knees, 'and the Children of the Blood are waiting to see
+the glory of thy presence and hear the words of wisdom and hope from thy
+lips.'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] The Inca Indians of the Sierra region possess the same extraordinary
+faculty of transmitting intelligence without apparent material means
+that the Hindoos and the Arabs have. Thus, during the last revolution in
+Peru, the fall of Lima was known to the Indians of Bolivia on the
+southern shore of Lake Titicaca three days after it happened, though the
+telegraph wires were cut and all ordinary communications suspended.
+Without the telegraph this would be quite impossible by any means known
+to Europeans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW THE SOUL OF GOLDEN STAR CAME BACK
+
+
+When the two chairs had been brought in and placed according to my
+orders, I rose from my throne and led Joyful Star to the one on my left
+hand and placed her in it, still silent with the wonder and perplexity
+of what she had seen and heard since her eyes were opened. Then, seating
+myself again, I bade Tupac summon the Children of the Blood to take
+their places, and presently he ushered them in from the chambers that
+opened out of the great hall on either hand at the other end.
+
+There were threescore of them, the heads of the families of Ayllos,
+whose blood was the purest and whose descent was most direct from the
+old nobility of my own days. Each of them, too, under the outward husk
+of his forlorn and degraded state, had preserved unsullied the ancient
+faith and traditions of the sacred race, and, against all appearances,
+had steadfastly hoped for the fulfilment of the promises that had been
+given in the olden times. More than this, too--each had treasured, as a
+miser hoards his gold, the ever-growing legacy of hate which the
+oppression and contempt of the Spaniards and their meaner descendants
+had heaped up from generation to generation against the long-awaited day
+of vengeance which, as but two or three in that strange company alone
+knew, was now so near at hand.
+
+Ever since I had revealed myself to them in the Hall of Gold they had
+been working for the end in view with the swift, subtle arts known only
+to those of their race, and already, from Quito in the north to Santiago
+in the south, tidings had gone forth that the day of deliverance was
+approaching, and that ere long the Rainbow Banner would be raised by the
+hands of him for whom the Children of the Sun had waited.
+
+Each of the fathers of the people was dressed, as Tupac was, in the
+long-forbidden garb of the ancient nobility, and each as he entered
+stopped in the centre of the hall and paid his homage before he went to
+his seat. Then, when all were seated, I ordered that the strangers
+should be brought in, and they were led into the midst of the silent
+assembly, with their eyes still bandaged. Over Golden Star's head a veil
+had been thrown, hiding her face, for it was my purpose that it should
+not be seen for the present, and how strangely this purpose worked you
+shall soon see.
+
+As she came up the middle of the hall, following Tupac, who was leading
+her as obedient as a little child, I descended from the throne and went
+to meet her, and led her to the seat on my right hand and placed her in
+it. Francis Hartness, the professor and Djama I left standing in the
+middle of the hall, each with one of Tupac's chosen guards beside him.
+When Golden Star was seated, I stood up in front of the throne and said
+to those assembled, speaking in the ancient tongue,--
+
+'Sons of the Blood and fathers of the Oppressed, you know already how
+the promise that was made by our Father the Sun, through the lips of his
+high priest, in the days when first the oppressors came, has been in
+part most faithfully and marvellously fulfilled. I, Vilcaroya--son of
+Huayna-Capac, son of the great Yupanqui Inca, before whose throne-seat I
+am now standing alive in your presence--am he of whom it was said that
+one who should pass from life to life through the shadows of death
+should grasp the sceptre of the divine Manco, and restore the ancient
+glory of the Children of the Sun. And with me, as you know, there was
+another, at whose call and for love of whom I dared the ordeal of the
+death-sleep and swore the oath which I have returned to the world of
+living men to fulfil. I have already given you some proof that I am what
+I say I am, for I have revealed to you secrets which were buried in the
+grave with me and in those faithful hearts which have been pulseless now
+for many generations.
+
+'But now, that all things may be made plain to you, and that no doubts
+may remain in your hearts to hinder the working of our sacred purpose, I
+have brought here before you witnesses of the wonders that have been
+worked--even those who wrought them themselves, that their own lips may
+tell you the story; and with them I have brought yet another witness
+who, though she cannot speak to you in our ancient tongue, of which our
+Father, for his own wise purposes, has deprived her during her long
+sleep, will yet in her own person and even with silent lips be witness
+enough that I have not lied to you. Now let the eyes of the strangers be
+uncovered and their mouths opened that they may see and speak.'
+
+Even as the words left my lips they were obeyed, and at the same time I
+stretched out my right hand and raised the veil from the head of Golden
+Star, and unloosed the bandage from her eyes.
+
+A deep murmur of wonder ran round the hall; a sharp cry of amazement
+broke from Djama's lips, and the two others stared blankly about them.
+Then I raised my left hand to command silence, and, still speaking the
+ancient speech and pointing with my right hand to Golden Star, said,--
+
+'This, O Fathers of the People, is she who drank the death-draught with
+me. This is Cory-Coyllur, daughter of Huayna-Capac, and sister of the
+long-ago murdered Huascar, and my sister, too, since her great father
+was mine also. With her, as the tradition was told to you, I plighted
+the marriage-troth before the altar in the Sanctuary of the Sun, and of
+that troth I would speak to you now. Such marriage is no longer lawful
+in the world to which we have returned, and in token of this our Father
+the Sun has sent this other likeness of Golden Star, who sits upon my
+left hand, to tell me that it may not be; and to make the message surer,
+it has pleased him also to put into my heart a love for her differing
+from, though not greater than that which I have borne for Golden Star,
+and if my Father who has given me this love shall also look with
+kindness upon my longing, then Joyful Star, as I have named her, shall
+be my Coya[C] and my queen, and Golden Star shall be her sister and
+mine, and I doubt not that in his own good time our Father will send her
+a fitting mate, that her heart may not be empty nor her life lonely.'
+
+As I said these last words I saw the eyes of all who were sitting in the
+chairs turn, as if moved by one impulse, and rest on Francis Hartness,
+standing strong and stately in the midst of the little group in the
+middle of the hall, overtopping the others by nearly a span, and crowned
+with his curling golden hair; and as I, too, looked at him, a new
+thought came into my mind, and I spoke aloud again and said,--
+
+'Yes, Brothers of the Blood, I read your thought. The stranger from the
+land which is the greatest of all lands in the world of to-day, is a
+true Son of the Sun, though not of our blood, for his heart is clean and
+his tongue is straight and his arm strong, and perchance it may please
+our Father to bring about that which he has put into our hearts.'
+
+At this another murmur ran round the hall, and every head was bowed in
+assent.
+
+Now all this time the three Englishmen had been standing patiently in
+the midst of the hall, looking about them at its splendours, and waiting
+till I should speak to them, for the professor knew enough of the
+Quichua tongue to follow what I had been saying, and had told the others
+that I was speaking of them. Now I spoke to them in English, and told
+them what I had brought them to the throne-room for, and then I had
+chairs placed for them at top of the hall, to my left hand.
+
+When they had taken their places, I asked the professor to speak in
+Spanish to those assembled, and tell them whether or not the story of my
+return to life was true, and whether or not Golden Star had been found
+where Anda-Huillac and the priests had placed her, and had been, like
+me, restored to life by the arts of Djama his friend. This he did in
+few, straight words, and after him Djama rose at my bidding and told
+them also what he had done. When he had finished I took the Llautu from
+my head and raised it above me with outstretched arms and said in a loud
+voice,--
+
+'If you, O Children of the Blood and Sons of the Ancient Race, believe
+now that I am in truth Vilcaroya, son of Huayna-Capac, and lawful heir
+of the divine Manco, from whom all the Incas of our race draw their
+royal blood, then take me for your lord as my father was the lord of
+your fathers; or if any shall have yet doubt in his heart, let him
+speak now or for ever be silent.'
+
+Then with one accord they rose from their seats and came before me and
+prostrated themselves on the shining pavement of the throne-room, and
+began to chant, in a low, soft tone, the Song of Homage with which of
+old the new-crowned Incas had been hailed, generation after generation,
+Sons of the Sun and lords of life and death throughout the Land of the
+Four Regions.
+
+And now a wondrous thing happened. As I stood there facing the prostrate
+throng, lowering the Llautu on to my head, I heard a low, sharp cry
+beside me on my right hand. I turned half round, and there I saw Golden
+Star staring at me with eyes burning with the light that shone through
+them from her new-awakened soul.
+
+Her hands were clasped to her temples, pushing back her thick, bright
+hair from her forehead. Her face was flushed, and her half-open lips
+were working as though they were striving to shape some long-forgotten
+words. At the instant that the Llautu touched my brows, she rose to her
+feet. Then a cry burst from her lips and went ringing down the hall, and
+the next moment she had thrown herself forward and I had caught her in
+my arms.
+
+As I did so our eyes met, and our hearts looked at each other through
+them. In that one burning glance the mists of the long years were
+melted, all things else were forgotten, and for the moment we stood
+alone--the children of a long-dead generation--in the solitude that our
+strange fate had made about us. Then her lips moved, not dumbly this
+time, and in a voice that woke, who shall say how many memories in my
+heart, she said,--
+
+'Have they awakened us, my lord? Tell me how long we have slept, my
+Vilcaroya. It seems long to me, and I have had strange, dim dreams, and
+thought I was not one, but two, and that one of myselves was your sister
+and the other was your Coya and queen. It was strange, was it not, to
+dream like that?'
+
+'Not so strange but that it may be true, O my sister, Golden Star,' I
+said, my wonder for the moment overcome by a new hope that uprose within
+me at her words. 'Stranger things than that have happened since we fell
+asleep together in the distant days that are no more. See, Nusta mi,
+here is your other self, the living shape of that sister-soul of yours,
+who has watched over you and cared for you and loved you since you drew
+the first breath of your new life. She cannot speak our tongue, for she
+is the daughter of another age than ours, but she has taught me hers and
+I will speak for you.'
+
+As I said this I took her hands from where they rested on my shoulders,
+and led her to the seat of Joyful Star, who was standing in front of it,
+with one hand on the arm of her chair and the other one clasped to her
+heart, her face white with fear and her eyes wide with wonder.
+
+'What has happened, Vilcaroya?' she said, in a voice so low that it was
+almost a whisper. 'Has her memory come back, and does she believe
+herself to be your--your wife?'
+
+As she forced the last word from her hesitating lips I saw the hot blood
+flow into her cheeks, and a new light that shot like a dart of fire into
+my heart leapt into her eyes.
+
+'No,' I said, with a smile that was quickly answered by one that came
+unawares to her lips. 'She calls herself my sister and me her lord, and
+says that she has dreamed that she is not one but two, and that her
+other sister-self is Vilcaroya's wife and queen. Now, if that dream may
+be the truth, tell her so!'
+
+And with that I took her hand gently from where it rested on the chair
+and laid Golden Star's in it.
+
+'But--I cannot speak your language, and she wouldn't understand me,' she
+said softly, with one swift glance at me and another longer look at
+Golden Star's smiling face, so wondrous like her own.
+
+'There is another speech than that of the tongue,' I answered, 'which
+all men understand.'
+
+'Yes!' she said, and then she drew Golden Star gently to her and kissed
+her.
+
+All this while the Ayllos had remained silent and prostrate before the
+throne, none daring to raise their heads till I bade them, and the three
+Englishmen sat still, hearing what I had said to Joyful Star and her
+answer to it, and yet neither speaking nor rising from their seats, each
+full of his own thoughts and not willing to betray his feelings by any
+rash word that he might speak in the wonder of the moment. But now I
+turned with my heart full of joy and new hope, and said in a voice in
+which my gladness seemed to sing like a bird in the morning sky,--
+
+'Rise up, Brothers of the Blood, and look upon your lord and rejoice
+with him, for our Father the Sun has looked kindly upon him and filled
+all his life with light. He has given back memory and speech to Golden
+Star, his daughter, and put it into the heart of Joyful Star, her other
+sister-self, to love her and to make plain that which might else have
+been dark.'
+
+Then they all rose to their feet and saluted me and paid their homage to
+Golden Star and Joyful Star as well, and then I waved them to their
+seats, and when they had gone I led Golden Star back to her chair, and
+then I called Djama to me, and when he came and stood before me I
+said,--
+
+'You have seen what has happened, and you have heard the words that have
+been said. You see now that there is no need for Golden Star to go to
+England. Therefore it remains but for you and for your friend to take
+the treasure that is yours, and for us to say farewell.'
+
+'And Ruth?' he asked. 'You know, of course, that that will mean farewell
+to her also.'
+
+I could see that he was ill at ease, and that his words were not the
+words that his true thoughts would have spoken. As I looked at him I saw
+that his eyes shifted and wandered from my gaze, and I said coldly,--
+
+'Much has happened since we last spoke of this. It will be for Joyful
+Star herself to say whether she will bid me farewell or not. Is she not
+free to go or stay where she pleases? Say, now, when I shall command the
+treasure to be taken out of the Hall of Gold for you, and where you wish
+it to be placed.'
+
+'I must ask you to give me time to think about that and talk it over
+with the professor,' he said, 'for we have no means of taking such an
+immense amount of gold to the coast and getting it on board ship without
+suspicion.'
+
+'Go, then,' I said, 'and speak with him, but remember that it must be
+done quickly, for ere many days are past there will be war in the land,
+and neither your lives nor your gold will be safe.'
+
+'I will take good care of that,' he said in a tone whose strangeness
+told me more than his words, and with that he turned away and sat down
+beside the professor, with the thoughts that were within his heart still
+unspoken. As soon as he had gone back to his seat I called Francis
+Hartness to me and set him beside me on the right hand of the throne,
+and then I told who he was and showed that he was well skilled in those
+new arts of warfare which had taken the place of our ancient methods,
+and how he had promised to use his knowledge for me and lead my armies
+into battle, hazarding his own life on the chance of our success; and
+when I had said this I named him leader of all those who should range
+themselves under the Rainbow Banner when the day of battle came, and
+bade all present obey his orders and enforce obedience to them, even as
+though his commands were my own.
+
+Then I bade Francis Hartness himself speak all that was in his mind
+freely and without fear of betrayal concerning the war that was soon to
+be waged between the rival factions of our oppressors and the means that
+were to be used to turn their strife to our own account, and this he
+did, speaking in fluent Spanish and in short, clear sentences, as a man
+of action and a soldier should speak.
+
+He told how he had made himself acquainted with the forces on both
+sides, and how, with the help of Tupac, he had sounded the feelings of
+those by whom the fighting would have to be done, and had found them
+willing to leave the service of the schemers who sought to make
+themselves tyrants over the land, and fight for those whose purpose it
+was to restore the ancient rule and give liberty to all to use their
+lives as they thought best and to win for themselves as many of the
+gifts of the All-Father as they were able to do. He told, too, how he
+had sent many messages over the lightning-wires to his own country,
+bidding friends like himself in war to come out as quickly as might be
+to find the fortune that awaited them, yet saying nothing of war but
+only of gold that was to be had for the taking.
+
+When he had finished, I bade Tupac summon all who were present to the
+foot of the throne, and then I spoke to them of the plans that I had
+made with Francis Hartness in all their details, and showed them how
+each, according to his opportunities, could give his help in carrying
+them out, and then, as by this time the night was far spent and there
+was yet work of another sort to do, I sent them back to their seats, and
+calling Ruth and Golden Star to me, I bade them follow me, and led the
+way down the hall and through one of the passages at the end until I
+brought them to a chamber which Tupac and his comrades had already
+prepared for them by my orders, and here I left them to take their rest
+together, promising to return in the morning.
+
+When I got back into the throne-room Djama asked me whither I had taken
+his sister, and I told him what I had done, saying that the hour was now
+too late for us to return to our home on the other side of the valley,
+and that, moreover, it was needful for us to go back to the Hall of Gold
+to make a proper count of the treasure and to let him and the professor
+swear their oaths of secrecy in the presence of the fathers of my
+people.
+
+Then I left him, looking much more ill at ease than such tidings should
+have made him feel, and told Tupac in the ancient tongue to take three
+of his companions and go and do that which it was now time to do. So he
+went and chose his men and departed through the bronze doors by which we
+had entered the hall. After that I named a guard to remain all night in
+the hall, and bade the rest go and put on their everyday clothing, and
+I, too, went back into the chamber behind the throne and changed my
+imperial garments for the others that I had put off.
+
+Then I ordered the torches and candles to be extinguished, all saving a
+few that were left for the guards, and then the eyes of Djama and the
+professor were bandaged afresh, though those of Francis Hartness--he
+being now one of us and devoted to our cause--were left open; and when
+this was done the lanterns were lit and I led the way into the
+ante-chamber of the throne-room, where the bronze doors still stood open
+as Tupac had left them.
+
+I stood by them till the last man had passed out, then I went through
+and closed them. Then I followed the rest and again placed myself at
+their head. But when we reached the end of the straight passage, instead
+of turning the revolving pillar which closed the entrance of the
+winding passage leading to the Hall of Gold, I sought about with my
+lantern on the floor until I found three marks in the shape of a
+triangle in one corner of a great square slab of stone, and, taking a
+long staff which one of the men carried, I placed the end on the
+triangle and calling two others to help me, we bore downwards with all
+our weight, and when we had thrust awhile on the staff the corner of the
+slab sank into the floor and it turned on a diagonal axis until it stood
+upright, leaving a three-cornered space large enough for a man's body to
+pass through easily. Then I made a sign to one of the Ayllos and said,--
+
+'Anahuac, take your lantern down there and light the way down the
+steps.'
+
+'Truly there are no secrets in the land hidden from the eyes of our
+Lord!' he said, glancing round in wonder at the rest, and then he
+lowered himself with his lantern into the hole and disappeared.
+
+Then I bade the rest follow him one by one, and so all went down, I
+going last with Francis Hartness, who helped me to put the stone back
+into its place.
+
+Our way now led along a rough-hewn gallery that sloped gently upwards
+for some twelve hundred paces, and at the end of it there was a little
+chamber measuring some twenty feet each way and having no apparent
+outlet, but in the middle of one of the walls there was another of the
+cunningly-constructed revolving stones which our ancient masons ever
+used to bar their secret ways, and this three of our men, working as I
+told them, turned on its hinge, and through the opening that was thus
+made we passed out in single file to a little rock-walled valley over
+which the stars were shining.
+
+The door was closed behind us, and dust and dirt were rubbed over the
+thin lines which marked where it fitted into the rock, and then we
+extinguished our lanterns and passed out of the valley on to the pampa.
+
+The place where we had come out was about a thousand paces from the
+walls of the Sacsahuaman. We halted on the plain and I gave my last
+orders to the Ayllos. Then we set out in the direction of the Fortress,
+and as we went one by one my followers disappeared silently into the
+half darkness about us till at last only four of them were left, two
+leading Djama and two the professor.
+
+I had been talking of many things with Francis Hartness on the way, and
+showing him how in the olden times we had made use of the secret
+passages such as those he had already seen, and when we saw that we had
+come out by a way different to that which we had entered, he asked me
+the reason of it, and I answered him in a low voice and said,--
+
+'Because the other way is closed. Have patience a little while and you
+shall see why.'
+
+Then we went on our way in silence until we came to the edge of the
+valley in which the Sayacusca stands. Here I halted and whispered a few
+words to the men who were leading Djama and the professor. They slipped
+off their ponchos and threw them over the heads of their prisoners, for
+such the two were now to be for the present. I heard a muffled cry from
+Djama, and I went to him and put my hand on his shoulder and said in a
+whisper,--
+
+'Keep quiet and lie down. These men have knives and will use them at my
+bidding.'
+
+Then they pulled him and the professor down, and they lay quiet, knowing
+that their lives were in my hands, and I lay down on the edge of the
+valley, signing to Francis Hartness to come and lie beside me. Then I
+pointed into the valley and bade him watch. Presently, in the dim light,
+we made out figures moving about the rock, and caught every now and then
+the glint of the star-rays along thin lines of polished metal.
+
+'Rifle barrels!' he whispered. 'What are they doing here? I didn't know
+that your men had any weapons yet.'
+
+'No,' I said, 'those are in the hands of soldiers from Cuzco. The time
+has come sooner than I thought for, and yet not too soon. You will see
+the first blow struck for the freedom of my people before to-morrow's
+sun rises.'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The queen-consort of the Inca, as distinguished from the many others
+whom the ancient laws allowed him to marry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA
+
+
+'Wait now for a little while with patience,' I said, laying my hand on
+his shoulder, 'and you shall see a strange thing, a thing that shall
+show you how strong the old traditions are still in the land of the
+Incas. Lie here and do not let yourself be seen till I send a messenger
+for you. It will not be very long.'
+
+He nodded and I rose quietly to my feet and went round the hollow until
+I got the great stone between me and the place where the soldiers were
+standing, and then I went down on my hands and knees and crept quietly
+towards it and climbed up a flight of steps carved in it. This took me
+to the top of the cleft in which is the broken stairway. I climbed down
+this and dropped softly into the hole at the bottom. It was dry now, for
+Tupac had done that which I had bidden him in the throne-room. I felt
+my way down the steps till I came to the wall at the bottom. Then I
+whispered his name, and he answered out of the darkness in the old
+language,--
+
+'I am here, Lord, and all that has been ordered is done.'
+
+I crept towards him along the wall, measuring my way along it with my
+outstretched arms till I knew that I had come to the revolving stone
+which closed the way into the hall. He was standing against it, and one
+of the others was with him. I felt over the door till I found the silver
+socket, and then we opened the door as before with the bar which Tupac
+had brought. Then I went down through the hall and lighted a lantern and
+went into the little chamber where, as before, I changed my clothing for
+the imperial robes, and set the Llautu on my head; but I kept on my belt
+under my cloak, and put two revolvers in it in case I should need them,
+and when I went back into the hall Tupac and the others were lighting
+candles and putting them in the holders round the walls as I had bidden
+them. When this was done I said to him,--
+
+'Go now and bring the others down, first the soldiers with their
+officer, by whose side you must keep closely, and see that your knife
+is ready. Then let Ainu bring the Men of the Blood, and the strangers
+quickly after them, and bid Anahuac and Ainu close the door when the
+last man has entered.'
+
+He bowed his head, and the two went out and left me sitting there on a
+seat built up of blocks of gold before the pyramid, waiting to play my
+part in the scene that was to follow, and strike the first blow in the
+battle that I had come to fight. Presently I heard the rattle of arms
+and the sound of footsteps coming along the passage. I took one of the
+revolvers out of my belt and held it ready under my cloak, and sat still
+and rigid as the effigy of Yupanqui, looking straight before me at the
+entrance at the other end.
+
+Tupac came in first, and close behind him was a Spanish officer with a
+drawn sword in his hand. After him came the soldiers, two and two, with
+their rifles and bayonets. The officer stopped and stared about him,
+blinking with eyes half dazzled by the sudden light and the glitter of
+the gold and jewels which he saw wherever he looked. The same instant I
+saw the gleam of steel in Tupac's hand close to his yellow throat. Then
+he said to him in Spanish,--
+
+'Put up your sword, senor, and come with me and beg your life from the
+Son of the Sun who sits yonder on his throne.'
+
+The Spaniard uttered a loud cry of amazement as his eyes fell upon me,
+for so far he had not seen me, having been too much taken up by the
+splendours of the hall. Then he turned and called to his soldiers, but
+while the cry was still in his throat, Tupac's arm went round his neck
+and the knife-point touched his skin. Then he bade two of the soldiers
+take the sword out of his hand and hold him fast, which they did,
+greatly to his wonder, for he did not know that the betrayer was already
+betrayed. As soon as he was safe, Tupac told the other soldiers to take
+their places along the walls, and they did so in silence, yet wondering
+greatly at all they saw. There were four-and-twenty of them, not
+counting the two who held the officer, all men of Indian blood whom the
+Spaniards[D] had made rather slaves than soldiers to fight their petty
+quarrels for them for little pay and scanty food.
+
+After them came Anahuac and Ainu and the rest of the Men of the Blood,
+bringing with them Djama and the professor blindfolded, and Francis
+Hartness with his eyes unbound. All this time I had neither moved nor
+made a sound, and the soldiers were looking at me almost in terror,
+wondering whether I was truly a man or one of the dead Incas with living
+eyes in his head. As for the Spanish officer, being a coward, as many of
+his sort are, he was already white with fear, and his knees were shaking
+as he stood between the two soldiers who held him. When all had entered,
+Anahuac came and prostrated himself before me and said,--
+
+'The commands of the Son of the Sun are obeyed. All are here, and the
+door is shut.'
+
+Before I answered him, I called Francis Hartness to me and said,--
+
+'Come here and stand by me, my friend, for I shall need your counsel.'
+
+He came and stood by me on my right hand, saying as he looked still
+wonderingly at me,--
+
+'This means treachery, I suppose, and after that, tragedy. Is that why
+you left Ruth and Golden Star in the Fortress? I am afraid you had only
+too much reason to, but I hope, for Ruth's sake, you will do justice
+with as much mercy as you can.'
+
+'You shall see,' I answered. 'But if it were not for her you would see
+justice without mercy.'
+
+Then I bade Anahuac rise, and told him and Tupac to unbind the eyes of
+Djama and the professor and bring them before me.
+
+As Djama's eyes opened to the light, he stared about him in silence for
+a moment. His face was very pale, and his lips were twitching and
+trembling. The professor, too, looked about him, also wondering greatly
+at what he saw; but neither of them spoke till they had been led forward
+and stood before me. Then, while Djama still kept silence, the
+professor, looking from me to Hartness, said in a voice that had much
+wonder, but no fear or sign of guilt, in it,--
+
+'What is this? What does all this mean? What are all these soldiers here
+for, Vilcaroya? I thought it was so important that all this should be
+kept secret? Surely no one has betrayed you already? But no, that can't
+be. Hartness, what does it all mean?'
+
+'It means--first,' I said, speaking very slowly, and not in a loud
+voice, 'that you have been brought here with Laurens Djama to take the
+oath which you agreed to take--never to reveal the secrets of the things
+that you have learned. I ask your pardon for the rude way in which my
+people have brought you, but it was necessary.'
+
+Then I turned to Djama, who was standing silent and motionless, with
+clenched teeth and set face, like one who knows that he stands near his
+doom and has no hope of mercy, and said,--
+
+'Now, Laurens Djama, are you ready to do as you promised to do when I
+told you that I would give you the half of this gold for what you have
+done for me and Golden Star? Are you ready to swear the oath here, in
+the presence of these witnesses, that you swore to me then?'
+
+He drew himself up and looked at me boldly--for he was a brave man
+although his heart was black--and said to me with a hard, harsh laugh in
+his voice,--
+
+'You have been too clever for me, and so I suppose you have the right to
+mock me. There is no need to go on with this farce. The sight of your
+treasures gave me the gold-fever, I suppose, and it drove me mad, as it
+has driven many others mad, and I betrayed you. There is no use saying
+any more. I see that I have been betrayed too, and that my life is in
+your hands, so I need only say that I keep the right of taking it myself
+in my own way.'
+
+'There is no need for that yet,' I said, 'and others are concerned in
+this besides you.'
+
+Then I turned from him to Francis Hartness and said,--
+
+'I cannot speak the Spanish speech, and I would not if I could. Do you
+therefore speak to the Spaniard yonder, and bid him say how he came to
+be here with his soldiers. Tell him, too, that if he lies, or refuses to
+speak, he shall be buried in the gold he came to steal until the weight
+of it crushes his life out. But say to him that if he speaks the truth
+and holds nothing back and does as I shall bid him, he shall have his
+life, and afterwards as much gold as three men can carry.'
+
+So then Francis Hartness turned to the trembling Spaniard and questioned
+him, and he confessed freely as soon as he knew he was not to be killed,
+and told how Djama had gone to the Governor of Cuzco and told him of my
+coming and of a great treasure that he would show him, and of others
+that I knew the secret of and might be made to reveal, and how he had
+bargained that half of all that was found should be his and the other
+half the Governor's, if he would help him to carry it to the coast in
+safety and put it on a steamer. The Spaniard told also how the Governor,
+who was his own father, had only half believed this story, and had
+bidden him bring a company of soldiers to the appointed place and see if
+there was any truth in Djama's story, and, if he found there was, to
+take Djama and all of us prisoners and carry us back to Cuzco, and put
+us into the prison until he could question us the next day.
+
+When he had finished, Djama laughed again and said,--
+
+'There's the honour of a Peruvian! Serve me right for being such a fool
+as to trust to it!'
+
+But I bade him sternly to hold his peace till he should be told to
+speak, and then, when Francis Hartness had told me in English what the
+Spaniard had said, I bade Tupac and Anahuac stand forward and tell of
+their share in what had been done, so that all might understand. They
+told their story in Quichua, and when I translated it into English to
+Francis Hartness I made few words of it, of which the meaning was
+this,--
+
+Ever since Tupac and his comrades had recognised me as their lord, and
+sworn their faith to me, they, and others whom they trusted, had
+industriously spread abroad the news of my coming--though telling
+nothing that would make a traitor able to betray us--and, in proof of
+their story, little wedges of gold, stamped with the ancient symbol of
+the Sun, had been passed from hand to hand as earnest of my promise that
+I would use the hidden treasures of the Incas for the benefit of my
+people, and make money of gold where now there was only silver and
+copper.
+
+By this time, not only had the golden wedges gone far and wide through
+the land, but nearly all the soldiers of the pure Indian blood had been
+won over to my cause, for, as I have said, and as everyone in the
+country knows, these soldiers are treated with great hardness by their
+Spanish masters, who often pay them nothing for many weeks or months
+together, and give them scanty food and hard usage, and cast them into
+prison or flog them and shoot them if they think to do anything to get
+justice. Moreover, there are always factions of men they call
+politicians scheming for power and setting the soldiers fighting against
+one another and against their countrymen for no benefit to themselves.
+So what Francis Hartness had told me on the night that Golden Star had
+come back to life had already begun to come true. More than half the
+garrison of Cuzco had already been won over, and only waited for the
+signal which should bid the whole Indian population of the valley to
+rise and seize the arms and ammunition in the city, and make the
+officers and the Governor and all the officials prisoners.
+
+Anahuac's daughter was a servant in the Governor's house, and this girl
+understood Spanish, though she pretended only to know Quichua and the
+dialect of the people, and she had been set to watch,[E] and Tupac's
+eldest son had also been secretly watching all the comings and goings of
+Djama since we came to Cuzco. In this way his visit to the Governor had
+been made known to me, and then one of the soldiers in the company that
+had been ordered to go with the Governor's son to the Rodadero had told
+Tupac of the order, and I had arranged with him how the surprise was to
+be carried out, and this, as you have seen, had been done with complete
+success.
+
+When I had finished telling this to Hartness I turned to the professor
+and said to him kindly,--
+
+'There has been nothing said that brings any share of the guilt of this
+treason to you, so now, if you will promise me on your faith and honour
+as an Englishman to keep my secrets and obey such commands as I shall
+put upon you for your own safety and that of all of us, you shall go
+free, and you shall have the choice of going back to England or to any
+other country until the war is over, or of staying here under my
+protection until you can go away safely with the treasure which shall
+be yours. But if you go now you cannot take it with you, for in a few
+days from now there will be war throughout the whole land, and it would
+be impossible to take so much treasure to the coast. Now, what do you
+say?'
+
+He thought for a moment and then said,--
+
+'I am not a man of war, as you know Vilcaroya, but I hope I am a man of
+honour. I have never breathed a syllable that could have given anyone an
+inkling of your secret, and I promise you solemnly that I never will.
+What Djama has done distresses me even more than it amazes me. I would
+have staked my life on his honesty, and if you will release him and let
+him come with me--'
+
+'No, no, my friend!' I said, quickly and sternly. 'What you would ask is
+impossible. His aims were deeper and his sin was blacker than it has
+been shown to be here. He did not betray us for gold alone, for he knew
+that I would keep my promise and give him more than he could want. He
+would have given me to my enemies to be killed--it might have been by
+tortures, to make me say where my treasures were hidden--so that he
+might have had Golden Star at his mercy.'
+
+'It was your own fault, curse you! Why did you not give her to me?'
+Djama cried suddenly, breaking loose from the two who held his arms and
+putting his hand to his pistol pocket. The next instant my own revolver
+was out from under my cloak and levelled at his heart.
+
+'Another motion and I will kill you,' I said, 'though so quick a death
+would be too good for you. Tie his hands behind his back and hold him
+faster this time. Give me his pistol.'
+
+Before I had done speaking they had seized him again in spite of his
+struggles, and paying no heed to his cries and imprecations--for by this
+time his long-pent-up passion had broken loose and made him almost mad,
+and when they had given me his pistol I said to him,--
+
+'I told you that Golden Star should be yours if you could win her as an
+honest man. But you sought to steal her as you would have stolen my
+gold. That is enough; keep silence now, or you shall be gagged.'
+
+Then I held out my hand to the professor and said,--
+
+'I will accept your promise, for you are an honest man. There is my
+hand. Now we will be friends as before, and I will answer for your
+safety. Will you go or stay with us?'
+
+'I will stay,' he said, 'for my studies are not completed yet, and
+besides, I am anxious to see what the Inca empire will be like when it
+is restored.'
+
+'I am glad that you say so,' I replied, 'for you are welcome, and you
+shall make your home here always if you will.'
+
+Then I bade them stand the Spanish officer in the professor's place
+beside Djama, and, turning to Francis Hartness, said,--
+
+'These men are worthy of death, for they would have delivered us to
+death, but I cannot kill Djama since Joyful Star might hate me for it,
+and if I do not kill him it would not be justice to kill the Spaniard.
+What shall I do?'
+
+'I see nothing for it,' he said, after thinking awhile, 'but shutting
+them up safely until we have got this business over, and then sending
+them out of the country and forbidding them to come back under pain of
+death. There are plenty of places that they would be perfectly safe in.'
+
+'That is well thought of, my friend,' I said, 'and it shall be done.
+They came for gold and they shall have it. They shall live in it, and
+see gold, and nothing but gold, till the sight of it is hateful to them.
+They shall have a prison of gold, and eat and drink from gold, and sleep
+and walk and sit on gold. Yes, truly, they shall have enough of gold
+before they see the light of day again. Now tell the Spaniard what I
+have said.'
+
+He did so, and at first the wretch's eyes glittered and then grew dim
+when the true meaning of his doom came upon him, for it meant he knew
+not how long an imprisonment with a man who had betrayed his friends,
+and whom, as he had confessed, he would himself have betrayed; and he
+thought, too, that I had only promised him his life and the gold to make
+him speak, and that now I would keep him prisoner and perhaps kill him
+in the end. So he fell on his knees, like the craven that he was, and
+begged for mercy, and told Hartness of my promise, and with Hartness's
+lips I told him only that he must have patience and wait until it was my
+pleasure to do what I had said.
+
+After this I called Tupac and Anahuac and told them what I wished done,
+and they took a score of their men and forthwith began to build, in a
+corner of the hall beside the throne, a chamber measuring some ten feet
+each way, of the oblong blocks of gold which were piled up in the
+pyramid, and while they were doing this I called the soldiers before me
+and told them, speaking in their own dialect, that if they were faithful
+to me until the end of the war, each man should have one ounce weight of
+gold paid to him every month, and one ounce more for each of his
+comrades that he could persuade to join us, and for this night's work I
+would give them each a wedge of gold of the weight of two ounces, which
+was more money than all that they had earned in their lives before; and
+when I had promised this they went on their knees and swore faith to me
+and destruction to their hated Spanish masters.
+
+Then I told them how Francis Hartness would lead them to battle and to
+victory as he had led the soldiers of his own nation, and after that he
+spoke to them in Spanish, and told them what to tell their comrades and
+what was to be done with the arms and ammunition when the signal for the
+rising was given.
+
+All this while Djama and the Spaniard were kept standing watching the
+building of their golden prison-cell. The men worked swiftly, and the
+many hands made the toil light, and they built the walls up very thick
+and strong, fitting the golden bricks closely into each other, and
+making the walls smooth and without hand or foot-hold, so that neither
+could any of the bricks be got out, nor the walls be climbed. The cell
+was divided into two by another wall, and when the walls were finished
+they were about ten feet high, and there was an opening into each cell
+in front, large enough for a man to crawl in on his hands and knees.
+
+When all was ready I said to Djama,--
+
+'There is your house of gold. Go and dwell in it till it shall be safe
+for me to release you. Every day, as I have said, you shall eat and
+drink from plates and cups of gold, and you shall dream of gold until
+this gold-fever of yours is cured.'
+
+'Until I have gone gold-mad, you mean!' he cried, snarling at me like an
+angry dog. 'It is just such a vengeance as a half-civilised savage would
+have thought of. You know as well as I do that I shall go mad in there
+unless I kill myself first.'
+
+'You have your choice!' I said. 'I will make your punishment no lighter.
+If you think to pull the walls down they will fall on you and crush you,
+and you will be buried in gold, and if I am told that you have tried to
+break out, I will put chains of gold on you, so heavy that you shall not
+be able to drag them across your cell; but if you are peaceful and
+patient, all your wants shall be attended to by those that I shall
+appoint, and you shall have everything but liberty and the light of day.
+Now, go in.'
+
+'I won't!' he cried with a curse that ended in a scream. 'I shall go mad
+in there, I tell you, and that is a thousand times worse than death to
+me. I won't! Damn you, I won't!'
+
+'Then you shall be thrust in,' I said.
+
+I made a sign to those who held him, and they, seeing what I meant, took
+him by the body and the legs, and carried him, feet foremost, kicking
+and struggling, towards the hole. Then they thrust him in with his arms
+still bound. But when he was half-way through, I bade one of them loose
+the cords a little, so that he could free himself afterwards. The
+Spaniard made no resistance, and when he was bidden crept, trembling
+like a hound that has been flogged, into his cell, and when they were
+both in I ordered the openings to be built up.
+
+[Illustration: They thrust him in with his arms still bound.
+
+_To face page 205._]
+
+Francis Hartness and the professor had gone away to the other end of the
+hall, not liking to see this, and yet knowing that it would be useless
+to seek to persuade me to more mercy.
+
+'Our work here is done now,' I said, going to them, 'and it would be
+well for us to go back to the fortress and sleep, for the morning is
+near and there will be much work to do before long.'
+
+'I don't think I shall sleep much after what I have seen to-night,' said
+Hartness, 'and if I did sleep I think I should dream of that golden
+prison and those two poor wretches hungering and thirsting for daylight
+and liberty, with the means of buying any luxury the world could give
+them within reach of their hands.'
+
+'Yes,' said the professor, 'it is a curious situation, isn't it?--quite
+apart from the personal interest it has for us. Now, in England or
+America, a room built with walls and floor of solid gold would be a
+luxury that only a millionaire could afford, and he would probably be
+thought a fool for building it, and yet here it is only a prison in
+which a man might well starve to death. Come, let us get away from here.
+I really don't want to hear any more of Djama's ravings than I can help.
+Good heavens! who ever would have thought that a man of his culture and
+learning and strength of mind could possibly have made such a blackguard
+of himself!'
+
+'Well,' said Hartness, with a dry sort of laugh, 'you see he was the
+victim of the two passions that have done most to drive men mad or make
+scoundrels of them since the world began--the love of woman and the lust
+for gold. I don't pretend to understand it myself, because he had gold
+enough promised to him, and there is no telling but that he might have
+won the woman; but there, you never can tell how far any man is mad or
+sane until he's tried.'
+
+'But there was something else, my friend,' I said. 'There was, as you
+say, lust of gold and love of woman; but there was also hate. Why, I
+know not; but though I owe my new life to that man, I have hated him and
+he has hated me since we learnt to know each other as living men. You
+know, too, how, as I told you, Golden Star shrank from him as though he
+had been a poisonous reptile, and yet why should I hate him and yet love
+her who is of the same flesh and blood as he is?'
+
+'I would rather discuss the problem in the open air or at the hacienda
+than here,' said the professor, 'and even then I don't suppose we should
+get much nearer to a solution, for these things are mysteries and mostly
+past finding out. Yet it may be that you and he, the sons of different
+centuries, may actually have embodied in you the differences and the
+antipathies of the two ages and the two races to which you belong. There
+is no telling. But come, let us get out of here, please. I really can't
+stand this any longer.'
+
+'Nor I,' said Hartness. 'For goodness' sake let us go! This is a good
+deal more trying to the nerves than a cavalry charge or a smart
+skirmish.'
+
+'Very well,' I said, 'we will go.'
+
+Then I called to Tupac and bade him tell the soldiers and the rest that
+the night's work was over and it was time to go. We gave each of the
+soldiers his wedge of gold, as I had promised them; and once more I made
+them swear that each would kill any of the others who thought to betray
+us. Then Tupac and Anahuac went and opened the stone door, and we
+returned from the Hall of Gold to the upper earth, leaving Djama and his
+fellow traitor still raving and crying within the walls of their golden
+prison.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] The Inca naturally does not distinguish between the modern Peruvians
+and their Spanish ancestors.
+
+[E] This is quite a common thing in Peru, and the Indian women make
+exceedingly clever spies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE RODADERO
+
+
+Francis Hartness and I came last out of the passage, and I asked him to
+lead the soldiers out of the hollow and across the plain to the wall of
+the Sacsahuaman, where I would join them, and as soon as they had gone
+out of the hollow and were lost to sight I went to the hole among the
+bushes where the hidden stone was and released the chain and let the
+water flow back into its old place, till the entrance to the Hall of
+Gold was only the same dark, stagnant pool that any wanderer might find
+at the bottom of the cloven stairway.
+
+Then I strewed the earth over the hole, and piled the stones and
+brushwood round and over it as before, and went away to join the others.
+I found them standing in a group in one of the angles of the great
+fortress, and there I spoke to the soldiers again, and told them how
+much depended, both for themselves and for the country, on their
+fidelity, promising them peace and prosperity and freedom if they were
+faithful, and a speedy death if they betrayed me.
+
+After this I told them what story they should tell when they went back
+to the city--how their Indian guide had led them into the entrance to a
+cavern in the mountain, their officer going first and he following, and
+how, when these two were going on with a single light, some two or three
+yards ahead of them a great slab of stone had suddenly fallen down
+between them, closing the passage, and how water had risen up and filled
+the passage at its lower end, forcing them to run back out of it for
+fear of being drowned; and I further gave them permission to bring any
+who disbelieved them to the mouth of the cleft under the Sayacusca and
+show them the water that they would find at the bottom of it, but to
+take good care to send me warning of anyone going there.
+
+This they promised to do, and still full of wonder, and yet pleased with
+the gold they had got and the promises I had made to them, they made a
+loyal farewell, and marched down through the Gate of Sand, and went back
+to the city to tell their story and do the work that I had bidden them
+do.
+
+When they had gone I sent some of my men to see that none of them turned
+back, and dismissed the rest to their homes, saving only Tupac, Anahuac,
+and Ainu and three others who could be trusted in all things; and with
+these we went back into the underground chambers of the fortress by the
+way that we had left them.
+
+When we got back to the throne-room I sent all but Tupac away to remove
+the beasts from the stables and take them to the hacienda, so that the
+next night, under cover of the darkness, they could return and bring us
+food and drink and clothing and other things that we needed, for now
+that matters had gone so far it would not be safe for us to live at the
+hacienda or be seen in any place known to the Spaniards until the time
+was ripe for the striking of the first blow.
+
+When they were gone we ate and drank a little of what we had brought
+with us in the morning, and then lay down, either to sleep or to think
+of the strange things that had happened and of what was now quickly
+coming to pass.
+
+As for me, no sleep came to my eyes, for I knew that when Joyful Star
+awoke I should have to tell her at least something of what her brother
+had done and of what had happened to him, and a grievous task it was,
+you may be sure, when I came to the doing of it, as I did not many hours
+afterwards.
+
+The first thing she asked me when she found that Djama was not with us
+was what had become of him, and then, knowing that sooner or later the
+bitter truth had to be told, I told her as gently as I was able, and
+hiding from her all that I could without lying to her. My words struck
+her dumb with horror and amazement, and if it had not been that Francis
+Hartness and the professor were there, and told her that they had seen
+and heard with their own eyes and ears the truth of all that I said, I
+do not think she would have believed me. But when at last she could no
+longer doubt the story of her brother's crime and treachery, she came to
+me and laid her hand upon my arm, and looked up at me with tearful eyes
+and said,--
+
+'But you will not kill him, Vilcaroya, for my sake, will you? He is my
+brother, you know, after all, though he has made me almost ashamed to
+say so. You must protect yourself, of course, and your people from
+treachery, but you will not kill him, will you?'
+
+'He is alive now,' I said, 'because he is Joyful Star's brother, not
+because I think he is worthy to live, for he would have betrayed one
+life that he gave back, and stained the other with infamy. But I have
+given my word, and he shall live, and when he can do no more harm I will
+pardon him, and he shall go back to his own country in safety. More than
+that I cannot promise even to you.'
+
+'It is all that I can ask for,' she said, 'and more than he could expect
+after what he has done. But, oh! why should he have brought such a shame
+as this upon us?'
+
+'Upon himself only,' I said. It would not be possible for such a thing
+as shame to touch you.'
+
+She looked up at me again and smiled through her tears, as if my words
+had pleased her well, and that smile of hers was more to me than even
+her tears. Then she went back to the little chamber where she had slept,
+and presently returned leading Golden Star by the hand, and then we all
+sat down in the silver seats and talked of the wonderful things that had
+happened, and I told Golden Star all the story of my own return to life,
+and hers, and what I knew of the changes that had happened in the world
+since she and I had said our last words to each other in the Sanctuary
+of the Sun; and then I set her talking with the others, translating for
+her and for them as well as I could, and she, knowing nothing of what
+had happened in the night, and being glad that Evil Eyes, as she called
+Djama in our own speech, had gone away for a long time, was as happy as
+a child amongst us, and soon even Ruth became more cheerful and began to
+try and make her say words of English and repeat her name and the
+professor's and Francis Hartness's after her, for she already loved her
+dearly, and, even in the midst of her own sorrow, she was rejoiced that
+the soul which had slept had been so happily re-awakened in her.
+
+After this, Francis Hartness and I began to talk our plans over again,
+and to discuss the chances of the revolt in Cuzco, and I showed him how,
+with the help of my people, I would the next day cut off all
+communication between the valley and the rest of the country until our
+work was finished there, for I was determined that the first part of the
+empire of my fathers' that I would re-take should be the City of the Sun
+itself and the region that it commanded, since I knew that my people
+still looked upon it as the most sacred spot on earth, and would fight
+better to take it than any other place. And in this plan Francis
+Hartness, looking at the matter as a soldier, also agreed with me.
+
+We thought it best that none of us should show ourselves in the open
+that day, for we knew not what the effect of the soldiers' story and
+their return without their officer might be in Cuzco, for if it had
+become widely known, it would certainly bring many people up to the
+Rodadero to behold the scene of so strange an occurrence. So we spent
+the day in conversation, and, which was more interesting to my
+companions, in exploring the maze of chambers and passages and winding
+galleries which the labour of many thousands of men had wrought out of
+the solid rock in the days of my ancestors, for you must know that in
+those days the fortress of the Sacsahuaman was crowned with a great
+palace, which was the strongest place in all the Land of the Four
+Regions, and so here were stored very great treasures, not only of gold
+and silver and precious stones, but also weapons and armour and most
+finely-woven cloths of the purest wool of the Vicuna, which is softer
+than silk, brilliantly dyed and embroidered with gems and threads of
+gold, and the imperial robes that had been worn by twenty generations of
+Incas, many sets of each, since nothing that had belonged to one Inca
+might ever be used by another after his death.
+
+Among these were found many sets of the royal robes of the Coyas or
+queen-wives of the Incas, and I took Golden Star aside and told her to
+take two of these and to clothe herself in one and Joyful Star in the
+other, so that we might see our two Inca princesses side by side as
+they might have looked in the days of the past, and she fell in with my
+humour, laughing and clapping her hands like a delighted child.
+
+So she took the robes and led Joyful Star away with her to their own
+chamber, talking to her in her soft, musical speech, though she knew she
+could not understand her, and yet making so many pretty signs and
+eloquent gestures that Ruth, forgetting her sorrow for the time,
+comprehended her, and entered into the spirit of the play, and soon they
+came back to us into the throne-room, clad exactly alike, and so
+perfectly resembling each other, save for the contrast of the blue eyes
+and the brown, and the bright hair and the dark, that they could have
+been taken for nothing save twin daughters of the Sun and the fairest of
+his children; and Tupac and the two men that I had kept in the fortress
+to attend to our wants fell on their knees before them as they passed,
+as though they would have worshipped them.
+
+It was at this time, and while we were passing the hours in this
+fashion, that Golden Star did something that gave me great joy and a
+bright hope for the future. I had been telling her of the wonderful
+country that I had returned to life in, and of the marvellous things
+that I had seen there, and this, she knew already, was the country of
+Francis Hartness. So, as he came from such a wonderful land, she
+thought, in the innocence of her old-world simplicity, that he was one
+of a new race of beings that came on to the earth since our days, and
+when I told her he was but human like ourselves, though very strong and
+learned and skilled in many things that we knew nothing of, she said to
+me, just as a sister might say to a brother from whom she had no
+secrets,--
+
+'He is rather, in my eyes, like a son of our Father who has come to
+earth from the Mansions of the Sun; yet I am very glad that he is not,
+and that he is a man such as you are, my brother, and when Joyful Star
+has taught me the speech of her people I will talk with him, and then I
+think life will be better for me, for even now, though I cannot
+understand his words, his voice sounds like music to me, and when he
+looks at me he makes me try to remember something that was in my other
+life, and I have forgotten. What is it, I wonder?'
+
+I looked down into her eyes and saw the untroubled serenity of her soul
+reflected in them. There was no flush on her cheeks, and her lips were
+smiling as they could not have smiled had she known how I could have
+answered that question for her. I stooped and kissed her brow and
+said,--
+
+'I might guess what it is, Golden Star, but I could not tell you. Yet I
+pray that our Father the Sun may put it into the heart of my friend to
+teach you what I see now you can only learn from him.'
+
+More than this I would not tell her, though she questioned me sharply.
+But the next time that Francis Hartness spoke to her through my lips she
+looked up at him, and a little flush came to her cheeks, and a smile to
+her lips, and I saw his eyes brighten, and the colour deepen ever so
+little under the bronze of his skin.
+
+Then I looked at Joyful Star and saw something shining in her eyes too,
+and as she caught my glance she smiled ever so little and said, when I
+had finished speaking for him,--
+
+'Vilcaroya is an excellent interpreter, I've no doubt; but don't you
+think, Captain Hartness, it would be very much more interesting if you
+could talk directly with Her Highness? You know I'm teaching Golden Star
+English, and Vilcaroya is teaching you Quichua--now, I wonder which of
+you will be able to talk to the other first?'
+
+He pulled his moustache and laughed, looking at Golden Star the while,
+and said,--
+
+'Well, Her Highness has the advantage of the easier language and the
+freshest, and I daresay the brightest intellect, but probably for all
+that we shall begin with some delightful jargon of both languages, and
+leave them to sort themselves out as we go on. Still, as you say, it
+will be more interesting than talking through an interpreter.'
+
+'And I hope,' she said, with more meaning in her voice than in her
+words, 'that you will both of you find it as pleasant as it will be
+interesting.'
+
+'Who knows!' he said, catching her meaning and laughing again. 'She is
+most wonderfully like you, Miss Ruth, isn't she?'
+
+'Yes, but--but I am not without hope that you may some day compare us a
+little, just a little, to my disadvantage.'
+
+What Francis Hartness would have said to this I cannot say, though I do
+not think he was displeased by Joyful Star's words, and yet his face
+grew very serious as she spoke. But just then Tupac came and told me
+that Anahuac and Ainu had returned with the beasts, and were now waiting
+outside the bronze doors. From this we learnt that it was already night,
+though, truth to tell, the time had passed so quickly for us that I for
+one thought that it was little more than late afternoon.
+
+Now, as I have said, I was the only one who knew the secret of the
+bronze doors, and so I went back with Tupac and opened them, and, when
+the men had entered, closed them again.
+
+There were twelve of them beside Ainu and Anahuac, and all were laden
+with food and drink and clothing, and our arms and ammunition, two
+repeating rifles and two revolvers for each of us. When the men had laid
+their burdens down, I called Anahuac to me, and asked him if he had any
+news. He bowed himself before me, and then, standing in front of me as I
+sat in one of the seats, he said,--
+
+'Yes, Lord. If the ears of the Son of the Sun are open, his servant will
+fill them with tidings of some moment.'
+
+'Say on,' I said, 'and meanwhile let a meal be prepared for us, for we
+are hungry.'
+
+This I said to Tupac, and Golden Star, hearing it, smiled, and took
+Ruth's hand and led her to the boxes, making signs that they should
+perform the housewife's duties together. Then Anahuac began, and said,--
+
+'The ears of the Children of the Blood have not been closed, nor have
+their eyes slept throughout the Holy City and the Valley of the Sun, and
+they have seen and heard much, and the courage of their hearts has risen
+high, and they are longing for the word of their Lord to break the yoke
+that is upon their necks.
+
+'When the soldiers returned last night and told the story that my Lord
+had put into their mouths, there was great wonder among all the other
+soldiers, and many saw in it a sign that the Son of the Sun is mighty,
+and can do that which he promises. But among the masters who are set
+over the soldiers there was great anger, and they sought, but without
+avail, to keep the news from being made public in the city; but the Men
+of the Blood took care that this should not be so, and to-day all Cuzco
+has been talking of the strange fate of the Coronel Prada, the son of
+Don Antonio Prada, the governor. But Don Antonio himself had gone the
+day before to a hacienda near Oropesa, and messengers have been sent to
+him to tell him the story, and this evening he rode back with all haste
+to the city.
+
+'He has ordered that to-night sentries shall be posted at all the
+approaches to the Rodadero and round the Sayacusca, so that none may
+come or go without his knowledge, and to-morrow he will come himself
+with many officers and two hundred soldiers, and the thing they call
+dynamite, that he may rend the Sayacusca in pieces, and find, as he
+thinks, the place where his son has been hidden.'
+
+'And the soldiers--what of them?' I asked. 'Will they be for us or
+against us?'
+
+'There will be many in the service of my Lord, and if it shall be
+possible there shall be more of these than of the others, for those who
+were in the Hall of Gold last night have been busy in the hope of my
+Lord's further bounty, and many have been tempted with the promise of
+gold and freedom; but still there will be many that may not be trusted,
+and all the officers of the Governor will be Spaniards.'
+
+'And therefore enemies,' I said, when he had finished his story, and
+stood waiting for me to speak.
+
+I told Francis Hartness at once what Anahuac had said, and we debated
+for a short time on what we should do. Then I called Tupac, and he came
+and stood beside Anahuac, and I said to them,--
+
+'These things have happened well for us, and now we must act quickly, so
+that we may take the best advantage of them. When you go hence, take
+with you twenty strips of the scarlet fringe in token of my authority,
+and give these to twenty of the best of the Men of the Blood, and let
+them go with all speed and silence through the towns and villages of the
+valley, and say that the Son of the Sun has come, and is about to
+stretch forth his hand and take that which was his again. Further, let
+every entrance to the valley be closed. Let the bridge over the Great
+Speaker be cut with all speed that may be. Let none pass in or out of
+the gateway of Piquillacta, and let all the mountain paths be broken
+down or blocked, so that none may know what is happening in the valley,
+nor any news be carried hence into the country.
+
+'Let every hacienda, whose master is a Spaniard, be given to the flames,
+but let no one else be injured. Let none of the strangers be hurt, and
+let their goods be sacred. Let all of the sentries who will not serve us
+be disarmed or slain silently by the others, and this before midnight,
+and let those who are for us--who shall come with the Governor
+to-morrow--make ready to do quickly that which shall be commanded them.
+The password for those who are with us will be "Vilcaroya." The rest I
+will do with my own hands and the help of my friend. I have spoken--let
+me be obeyed quickly!'
+
+Then they bent low before me and went to make ready to do what I had
+bidden them.
+
+It was then about eight o'clock at night, and after we had had our
+evening meal we waited until it was nearly eleven, making perfect our
+plans, and then, when Ruth and Golden Star had gone to rest without
+knowing of the work which we had in hand--for we had kept it from them
+lest they should be anxious for us--Francis Hartness and I armed
+ourselves, after I had disguised him as well as I could to make him look
+like an Indian, and we said good-night to the professor and left the
+fortress by the same way that we had left it the night before.
+
+As soon as we got out into the open air we made our way stealthily back
+towards the Rodadero, until I caught sight of a sentry standing near one
+of the carved stones.
+
+'I will go and see whether this is a friend or a foe,' I whispered.
+'Wait here and cover him with your rifle, but do not fire unless you
+hear me whistle.'
+
+'Very well,' he said; 'but take care of yourself, for those Mannlicher
+bullets make a very ugly wound.'
+
+I waved my hand to him in reply, and went away towards the sentry,
+keeping a good lookout for others who might be about. I had in my belt a
+long, heavy-bladed knife, and this I loosened in the sheath as I came
+near to him. I got within earshot of him unseen, and then, rising to my
+feet behind him, I said in a low voice, but loud enough for him to
+hear,--
+
+'Vilcaroya--friend or foe?'
+
+'_Halta! quien va?_'
+
+The words in the hated Spanish speech told me that he was a foe. As he
+faced about, bringing his rifle to the ready, I drew my knife and,
+before he could take aim, sent it whistling through the air with such
+force and so true an aim that it took him in the windpipe and half
+buried its blade in his neck. That was one of the tricks of our old
+warfare which, with many others, I had taken good care not to forget.
+
+He dropped his rifle and clasped his hands to his throat and fell
+without a sound. I crept swiftly forward, pulled the knife out of his
+throat and drove it into his heart. Then I quickly took off his
+cartridge-belt and long coat and cap, and put them on. After that I took
+his rifle and stood in his place for a little while, so that the others
+might see me, and then walked back to where I had left Hartness. When he
+saw me coming, his rifle-barrel moved till it covered me, and he said in
+English,--
+
+'Is that you, Vilcaroya?'
+
+'Yes,' I said. 'The sentry was an enemy, and I have killed him. Now I am
+going to take you prisoner, as though I were the sentry, and so we can
+go together and find the officer who commands the sentries, and take him
+prisoner or kill him.'
+
+'All right,' he said with a laugh. 'I surrender. This isn't quite what
+we call civilised warfare, but I suppose it can't be helped.'
+
+We went back together to the place where the sentry that I had killed
+had stood, and then we saw two or three others coming in towards the
+place, no doubt to see why the other sentry should have left his post. I
+took Hartness's rifle out of his hand, and, catching him by the arm, led
+him to meet the nearest of them, as though I had taken a prisoner.
+Within ten paces of them I halted, and said,--
+
+'Is it Vilcaroya or Prada?'
+
+'Vilcaroya to a friend, Prada to an enemy,' he answered, in the dialect
+in which I had addressed him.
+
+'Then we are friends,' I said, taking off the peaked cap that had
+belonged to the other sentry, and showing him the long, straight, brown
+hair that betokened my race. 'I am he who has come back from the days
+that are dead--Vilcaroya, the son of Huayna-Capac.'
+
+'And I am thy servant, Lord,' he said, bringing his rifle-butt down
+between his feet, and bending his head over the muzzle. 'I am one of
+those who saw the glory of my Lord in the Hall of Gold last night.'
+
+'Then thou art one of the faithful,' I said, 'for none have betrayed the
+secret or earned the swift death that would have been theirs had they
+done so. Now tell me, how many of those who are on guard here to-night
+may be trusted?'
+
+'There are twenty of us here, Lord, not counting the officer in
+command.'
+
+'Nay,' I said, interrupting him, 'there are but nineteen, for he who
+wore this coat and carried this rifle was an enemy, and I have killed
+him, as I would have killed thee hadst thou been an enemy. Now, of these
+nineteen, how many may I trust?'
+
+'There are but five who may not be trusted, not counting the officer,
+and he is a Spaniard, and must be killed.'
+
+'That is good,' I said, for the tone in which he had said these last
+words had pleased me well. 'Now this man with me is my faithful friend,
+and one who will fight well for me and my people. Go on the other side
+of him, and we will take him as a prisoner to the officer. Then thou
+shalt see how Vilcaroya deals with his enemies.'
+
+He bent his head in assent, and took his place beside Hartness, and as
+we marched away Hartness said to me,--
+
+'I don't think I shall have much to teach you in strategy, Vilcaroya,
+but I must say that I would rather have a stand-up fight than this kind
+of thing.'
+
+'It is not like what you have told me of the warfare of the English,' I
+said, 'yet if it has to be it must be. Let us get it over.'
+
+So we marched him between us across the plain, and when we got between
+the wall of the fortress and the carved stone that they called the
+Inca's Seat, we saw the officer who was in command of the sentries
+walking, with two soldiers beside him, from post to post, seeing that
+the sentries were awake and keeping proper watch. We went to meet him,
+and halted ten paces from him at his command. I had told the sentry to
+reply for me, and he answered the officer's hail and said,--
+
+'Vilcaroya!--a prisoner.'
+
+[Illustration: It had smitten him to the heart.
+
+_To face page 228._]
+
+As the first words left his lips the two soldiers repeated the password
+and made with their rifles the movement that is called the salute. My
+knife was already in my hand, and as the officer gave a command in
+Spanish, it flashed once in the starlight and the next instant was
+buried to the hilt in his breast. He fell, as the sentry had done,
+without a cry, for it had smitten him to the heart, dead as though he
+had been struck by a lightning bolt. The others stared at his fallen
+body, dumb with amazement, and I heard Hartness utter a sound that might
+have been one either of horror or of wonder; but I had no time to take
+heed of this, so I instantly ordered the two soldiers to take the
+officer's uniform off his body, and then I said to Hartness,--
+
+'Now, you can speak Spanish and I cannot. Take this Spaniard's uniform
+and his weapons, and make yourself the officer of the guard, and then
+you shall help me to set a trap that the Governor shall find it a hard
+matter to escape from.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HOW WE TOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN
+
+
+Although Hartness was a much taller and broader man than the Spaniard,
+his long, loose overcoat fitted him well enough for the occasion, and
+when he had put on his shako, and wrapped his scarf about his neck so as
+to hide his fair beard, he was disguised enough to pass in the darkness
+for one of the enemy. We now took the two soldiers who had been with the
+officer and visited all the posts. We found four of the sentries who
+could not return the password and were therefore enemies. These we
+disarmed and bound instead of killing them, for I could see that what I
+had done had pleased my friend but little, though he saw that in such a
+desperate venture as ours it was necessary to use desperate measures.
+
+When we had gone the rounds and made sure of all, we buried the two dead
+men, and took our prisoners into one of the caves under the carved
+stones. Then I posted my men so as to guard all the approaches from the
+city to the Rodadero, and after that I went with Hartness to the hidden
+hole by the Sayacusca, and showed him how the way to the Hall of Gold
+was opened. I did this so that the secret might be in good and safe
+hands if I should fall in battle, and so that he should be able to
+properly protect the welfare of Ruth and Golden Star, and fulfil my
+promises to himself and the professor.
+
+When I had turned the stone and showed him the chain, I pulled it up and
+supported it as I had done before, only this time I used the carbine
+which had belonged to the sentry I had killed, and to the stock of this
+I fastened a long rope which Tupac had hidden there by my orders. This
+rope I stretched out along the ground, hiding it as well as I could, in
+a straight line away from the Sayacusca. The end I led into the entrance
+of one of the many passages or tunnels which ran under the carved
+stones. By the time I had done this the water had all flowed away, and
+Hartness said to me,--
+
+'Are you going to leave the entrance to your treasure-house open like
+that for His Excellency to walk into to-morrow?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'but it is only half open. Unless the door below is open
+too there is no way out or in save this and the channel through which
+the waters flow, so that His Excellency will not find much down there.'
+
+'I see,' he said, 'a trap, and not one that I should care to see a
+friend of mine walk into. But you don't mean to drown them all like rats
+in a hole, do you?'
+
+'I cannot tell that yet,' I said. 'If we can take them alive we may do
+so, but unless they yield to us they shall yield to the water. Now,
+everything is ready, and we have only to wait. Come and sleep for a
+little and I will keep watch, and then I will sleep and you shall watch.
+It will not be daylight for six hours yet, and we can do nothing more
+till then.'
+
+We went to the cavern in which I had hidden the end of the rope, and he
+lay down on the soft, clean sand, and, soldier-like, was fast asleep
+almost as soon as he had lain down. I left him there, and made the round
+of the guards and spoke with the men, telling them as much as it was
+necessary for them to know of my plans for the next day, and allowed
+half of them to take two or three hours' rest, with their arms ready at
+hand, while the others watched, and then I went back to Hartness and
+told him to wake me in three hours, and soon was fast asleep in his
+place. He came and woke me at daylight and told me that everything was
+still quiet and that the sentries were all in their places.
+
+Then, when we had breakfasted on the food that we had brought with us
+from the fortress, we called in all the sentries save the two by the
+Gate of Sand, and hid them among the stones and bushes, all within an
+easy rifle-shot of the entrance to the water-cavern. I bade the two I
+had left by the gate tell the Governor that all was well, and, when he
+had ridden by, to mix with the soldiers and tell those who were for me
+to separate from the others as soon as they heard my signal-cry, and
+then to wait for the English captain.
+
+For nearly an hour we sat and watched for the coming of the enemy, and
+then at last we saw a troop of horse come up out of the valley round the
+end of the fortress. After them came some officers on horseback, with
+the Governor riding at their head, and then another troop of horse, in
+all about three hundred men. The first troop, led by the Governor and
+his officers, came on towards the Sayacusca, and the others halted and
+spread themselves out along the ridge that runs round it. When they saw
+the empty hole and the steps leading down into the darkness, they all
+crowded round, peering down into it. Then two lanterns were lighted and
+some of them went down.
+
+They had all dismounted from their horses and were indulging their
+curiosity without suspicion. I waited till they were nearly all in my
+trap, and then came the moment to close it. My long, wailing cry rang
+out loud and shrill through the hollow, and was taken up by my men in
+hiding, and in an instant all was confusion. I heard my name shouted
+from one to the other, and saw more than half of the troopers in the
+hollow leave their ranks and gallop away towards the plain. Then I took
+aim at a trooper who was watching the officer's horses, and fired. The
+bullet struck his horse, and it reared up and threw him, and then fell
+and lay kicking on the ground. At this all the others took fright and
+broke loose and galloped away in all directions. At the same instant the
+rifles of my men began cracking all round, and saddle after saddle was
+emptied as the bullets found their marks.
+
+'I'm going to catch one of those horses,' said Hartness suddenly to me,
+'then I'll ride out and bring those other fellows up and show them what
+to do. That'll be more in my line than this sort of work. Good-bye; you
+will see or hear of me again before long.'
+
+The next moment he was gone, and I had not fired many more shots before
+I saw him, mounted on one of the officers' horses, galloping through the
+hollow towards the ridge. All this time none of my men had shown
+themselves, and the constant stream of shots coming from all sides of
+them had thrown the Governor's troops into utter confusion. The officers
+were shouting orders which no one listened to, the horses were galloping
+wildly about, rearing and plunging with the pain of their wounds, and
+many of the soldiers had already taken to flight, believing, in their
+panic, that the hollow was full of hidden enemies.
+
+We kept up the fire from our hiding-places until we heard shouts and
+cheers coming from the ridge, and I looked and saw Hartness with a drawn
+sword in his hand, leading a body of some hundred and fifty troopers
+down into the hollow.
+
+Now I saw that we should be able to end the battle quickly, so I sent up
+my signal-cry again and called for my own men to come out. Then I pulled
+the rope and released the chain, and ran out towards my men, shouting to
+them to close round the entrance to the water-cavern and shoot all who
+tried to get out. Some three or four sought to escape and were shot, and
+then the rest, seeing my men running at them with the bayonet, and the
+other troopers coming up, led by a stranger, lost heart, and crowded
+back into the cleft, firing their revolvers wildly as they went.
+
+The next moment we heard cries of terror coming up out of the darkness,
+mingled with the rushing of water, and the Governor, followed by about
+six of his officers, came leaping up the steps to find a line of
+bayonets drawn up across the mouth. With the waters surging up behind
+them, and the bayonets in front of them, there was nothing for them but
+surrender or death.
+
+Hartness, who had now dismounted, ordered the men to fall back a pace,
+and, as they did so, he went through the line with his sword in one hand
+and a revolver in the other, and said to the Governor,--
+
+'Senor, will you yield or go back down yonder?'
+
+'We must yield,' said the Governor, 'since there is no choice. But who
+are you, and what are you, an Englishman, doing here in arms against the
+Government?'
+
+'Who I am matters nothing just now,' he replied, 'and as for your
+Government, it no longer exists. That must be enough for you. Now,
+senores, give up your swords and revolvers quietly and no harm shall
+come to you. You, Senor Prada, give your sword to this caballero here,
+who is the Inca Vilcaroya and lawful ruler of this country.'
+
+The Governor turned and stared at me, dumb with amazement at these
+strange words, and all the others stared too, for, like him, they had
+no doubt heard the legend of my strange fate. He drew his sword, and as
+he did so I covered him with my revolver, and extended my hand to take
+it. He held the hilt out to me with a trembling hand. I took it in
+silence, and then I turned from him and said to my men,--
+
+'Bring these Spaniards out and bind them safely, then follow me to the
+Seat of the Incas.'
+
+When they saw that the victory was with us, and that the Governor
+himself was our prisoner, together with many of the chief of his
+officers, those of the soldiers who had not been for me when they came
+were glad enough now to secure themselves by shouting my name and
+obeying my orders, and when I moved away towards the seat, they followed
+me, laughing and cheering, well pleased to see their hated masters
+prisoners in their midst.
+
+The great carved rock which is called the Inca's Seat is, as I have
+already said, a great rounded mass of stone rising up from the plain of
+the Rodadero, and carved into many seats. On the top there are three
+broad seats, the middle one higher than all the rest, and it was here
+that my forefathers had sat to watch the building of the great fortress,
+and sometimes to give audience to their people.
+
+Now I sat on it, and the soldiers drew themselves up round the rock,
+with the prisoners in the midst of them, and I spoke to them, and told
+them freely of the strange things that had happened to me, and how I had
+come back to the Land of the Four Regions to drive out their oppressors
+and restore the just and gentle rule of my ancestors. Then I had the
+Governor brought up and stood before me, and bade Francis Hartness come
+and sit on my right hand and speak to him for me, and by his lips I told
+him that unless the city was surrendered to me before evening he and all
+his officers should die, and all the houses of the Spaniards in the city
+should be given to the flames and no pity shown to any man, woman or
+child of them, for as they had treated my people so I had sworn to treat
+them unless they yielded.
+
+You may think how troubled he was at hearing such words as these, since
+he knew from what he had seen that there was conspiracy and treachery
+among his own men, and he had no knowledge of how far this had gone, or
+which of his men he could trust, and so this man, who but a few hours
+before had been master of the whole valley, and had looked upon the
+Indios, as he called them, as little better than slaves, now answered me
+humbly enough and prayed me not to murder him when he was helpless in my
+power. And to this I answered him that the blood of my people had been
+crying out for many generations against his people, and that this was
+the day not of mercy but of vengeance, and that I would do as I had said
+unless the city were delivered to me.
+
+Then I descended from the seat and mounted the Governor's horse, and
+after I had sent a company of twelve men to ride quickly down to the
+city and go through all the streets, shouting my name as a signal to
+tell my people that all was well, and that the moment for them to rise
+against their oppressors had come, I took my place beside Hartness at
+the head of our little army, and with our prisoners well guarded close
+behind us we set out on our way back to Cuzco.
+
+As we approached the city we heard the sound of the church-bells being
+rung wildly, and looking down, we could see the streets and squares full
+of people, and as we got nearer still we heard the cracking of rifles
+and the shouts and cries of men in conflict.
+
+'There is either a fight or a riot going on down there,' said Hartness
+to me, 'and if many of the soldiers remain faithful to the Government
+there'll be some bloodshed before to-night. Have you any idea how many
+there are?'
+
+'There were more than two thousand soldiers in the city yesterday,' I
+said, 'and out of these more than half have already taken my gold and
+sworn faith to me. Of the rest many are wavering, and when they see we
+have taken the Governor prisoner I think they will come over.'
+
+'Very likely,' he said; 'but how about those machine-guns in the
+barracks? There are three Gatlings and two Maxims, and if they keep
+those and work them properly they'll just sweep the streets and squares
+clear, you know.'
+
+'I have promised fifty pounds' weight of gold for each of them,' I said;
+'and, more than that, there should be no ammunition for them by this
+time if what the sentries told us is true.'
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'if we can get hold of that, or even the best part of
+it, I don't think there will be much danger. However, as everything
+depends on that, I think we had better go straight to the Cuartel first.
+If we have that we have Cuzco.'
+
+We entered the city by the street of El Triunfo, and made our way
+straight to the great Plaza. As we rode along three abreast we were
+greeted by joyful cries from the crowds of Indians who parted to leave a
+way for us through the midst of them. Tupac and his comrades had done
+their work well, and all night the people had been thronging into the
+city from the surrounding country. All the shops and houses of the
+Spaniards were already shut up, and although none knew the truth of what
+was happening, all thought that the revolution had already broken out in
+Cuzco and so had made themselves as safe as they could.
+
+A little way from the entrance to the great square we came upon Tupac at
+the head of some two hundred of the men of San Sebastian, armed with
+knives and guns and pistols of all sorts which they had taken during the
+night from the towns and villages around, where they had been doing the
+work I had bidden them do. He told me that there were more than a
+thousand soldiers in the city waiting only for me to show myself to kill
+their officers and come over to us, and that the others would fight
+without heart, if they fought at all, now that the Governor was
+taken--for half of the people of Cuzco were for the Government and half
+for the Revolution, and so the city would be divided against itself and
+all would be confusion as soon as the fighting began.
+
+He also told me that the official who is called the Sub-Prefect had
+brought out two of the machine-guns and had planted them at each end of
+the terrace in front of the cathedral, and made a proclamation that
+unless everyone left the streets within an hour he would have them
+cleared with bullets.
+
+When I told this to Hartness he said,--
+
+'Then we must have those two guns first. Tell Tupac to break his men up
+into little bands of about half-a-dozen each and send them round into
+all the streets leading to the square, and tell everyone that isn't
+armed to keep out of the way if they don't want to get hurt. Then you
+ride on with the prisoners and a guard of fifty men, and let them be
+ready to shoot sharply. Tell them to aim at the knees and not to empty
+their magazines too fast. I'll look after the guns. They won't fire on
+you for fear of killing the Governor and the rest. Now, forward!'
+
+I did as he said. Tupac's men broke up and disappeared as though by
+magic. I took the reins of the horse on which the Governor was bound and
+bade half-a-dozen of my men to do the same with the others. Then two and
+two we trotted into the square, Tupac running along by my horse's head.
+It was covered with groups of people all talking and looking and
+pointing about them, and on the terrace before the cathedral there were
+two companies of soldiers, one at each end, drawn up behind a
+machine-gun.
+
+As soon as the people saw me ride in with the Governor bound beside me a
+great shout went up and many came running towards me, but I waved them
+back and shouted to them to leave the square and guard all the streets
+leading into it. I did this so that those who understood me, and were
+therefore friends, might escape out of harm's way before the guns began
+to fire.
+
+Then I drew my revolver and put it to the Governor's head and bade Tupac
+tell him to order the men away from the guns, and that if a shot was
+fired he should be the first to die.
+
+So, as there was no help for it, he did so, and called to the officers
+to come down and speak with him, but instead of obeying they shouted
+some orders to their men and I saw them making ready to fire the guns,
+for, as we found out afterwards, they were men who would have joined the
+revolution when it broke out.
+
+But before the guns could be trained on us Hartness's troop swung round
+into the square. The twenty foot soldiers sent a volley along the
+terrace, firing low as he had told them, and killing and wounding nearly
+half of the men at the guns. Then there came a rattling volley from the
+cavalry and another from my own men, and then, with a great shout and a
+clattering of hoofs, Hartness leapt his horse up the steps at the end
+of the terrace, where the street slopes up nearly level with it at the
+back by the cathedral, and charged down on the rear of the enemy just as
+the gun was swung round.
+
+As he did this I led my men round to the other end of the terrace, where
+I saw that the men had begun fighting among themselves, and thus I knew
+that some of them were our friends and were seeking to prevent the
+others from training the gun on us. I halted, and ordered thirty of my
+men to dismount and take the gun, which they did with very little
+trouble, for the others, seeing how they were outnumbered, either threw
+down their arms and ran away, or surrendered. Two of the officers were
+killed and another one taken prisoner.
+
+Meanwhile Hartness had cleared the other end of the terrace, and taken
+the other gun after killing nearly every man who had defended it. But
+scarcely had this been done than we heard the rattle of drums and the
+sound of bugles, and saw two columns of men marching at the double out
+of the Plaza Del Cabildo, where the barracks are, and the other past the
+Church of the Jesuits, which is at the other end of the square.
+
+'Are those friends or enemies, or both?' Hartness asked me, when he had
+ordered the two guns to be trained, one on each of the columns, and sat
+down behind one of them himself.
+
+'If there are friends among them,' I said, 'they know what to do, and
+when they have done it you can fire.'
+
+Even as I spoke the two columns seemed to break up. Scores of men broke
+out of the ranks, shouting my name and cheering, and these all ran
+together towards the fountain in the middle of the square. The rest
+stopped in wonder and confusion, their officers shouting furiously at
+them, and ordering them to fire on the deserters. Some obeyed, others,
+when they saw the guns trained on them, ran away and hid themselves in
+doorways, and then Hartness gave the order to fire.
+
+Instantly every sound was drowned by the terrible voices of the
+machine-guns. Hartness glanced once along the barrel of his, and then
+sent a torrent of bullets full into the middle of the broken column that
+had come down from the Plaza Del Cabildo. Then he moved it a little from
+side to side, and then stopped. When the smoke had drifted away I saw
+that there was not a living being in that corner of the square, only
+huddled heaps of corpses and bodies of animals. Then he turned the gun
+on the other corner into which the other gun was firing, and soon not a
+man or an animal was left alive there also.
+
+When the firing ceased there were none left in the square but those who
+had declared for us. Hartness immediately formed these into two columns.
+He led one of them, with one gun at the head, into the street past the
+Church of the Jesuits, and I led the other with the second gun into the
+other street leading to the Cuartel, and up these two streets we fought
+our way into the Plaza Del Cabildo, in which we could hear more fighting
+already going on.
+
+When we at last gained the square we found a furious fight going on in
+front of the Cuartel between one body of men who were defending the
+building and another that was attacking it, but which of these were
+friends or foes we did not know until Tupac, heedless of the flying
+bullets, ran out shouting in Quichua that Vilcaroya had come. Shouts and
+cheers from the Cuartel soon told us that our friends had got possession
+of it, and after the city was won I learned that when the two columns
+had started, leaving a third drawn up in the square before the Cuartel,
+those who were for us, remembering what I had said about the gold that I
+would give for the machine-guns and the ammunition, had broken their
+ranks and made a rush for the doors to secure the three guns which were
+in the courtyard, and so the fight had begun, they seeking to hold the
+Cuartel against the others until help came.
+
+As soon as I knew which were our enemies, by their bullets coming
+singing about our ears, I had the gun trained on them, and gave the word
+to fire. But no sooner had it begun to rain its tempest of death than we
+heard the other one speak from the other end of the square, and such a
+storm of bullets swept across the Plaza that before many moments had
+passed there was not a man or beast left alive in it.
+
+Then, when the firing ceased again, those who had held the Cuartel, and
+had taken shelter in it as soon as the machine-guns began to play, threw
+open the doors to us and came out to welcome us, and Francis Hartness
+and I clasped hands as victors, and for the time being, at least,
+masters of the ancient City of the Sun, for with the Cuartel we had
+taken all the arms and ammunition stored up in Cuzco, including the
+three Gatling guns and the two Maxims; and more than this, the whole of
+the native population of the valley was in our favour.
+
+The fighting was now over, save for conflicts that were going on in
+different parts of the city between the Spaniards and the Indians, and I
+at once had the Governor brought before me in the Cuartel and told him
+by the lips of Hartness to write a proclamation surrendering the city to
+us and ordering all the officials to come in and make their submission
+before sundown, threatening fire and sack to every Spanish house if it
+was not done. This he did, knowing well what would befall him if he
+refused. At the same time Hartness made a proclamation in my name in
+English and Spanish promising perfect freedom and security to all
+foreign merchants in the region that was under our command.
+
+It was then about mid-day, and when I had given Francis Hartness full
+authority to act in my name as Governor of the city, which, speaking
+fluent Spanish as he did, he could do better than I, I took a guard of
+fifty men and went with Tupac back to the Rodadero, and took ten of the
+men into the Hall of Gold and bade them carry out as much as they could,
+so that I might keep my promise to the soldiers who had been faithful to
+me, and while they were doing this I went with Tupac to Djama's cell and
+found him wailing and crying like a little child, and beating his hands
+on the golden wall of his prison and praying most piteously for a sight
+of the daylight and a breath of the fresh air of heaven.
+
+The Spaniard, when he heard us coming, began to shriek and scream, and I
+bade Tupac tell him that I would gag him for a day and a night if he did
+not cease his cries. But to Djama I told what had happened, and how
+Cuzco was already mine, and promised I would let him out for a little
+while the next day if he would keep silence for half-an-hour, and
+hearing this, he ceased his cries, and I went on to the throne-room to
+take the news of our victory to Ruth and Golden Star.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+QUEEN AND CROWN
+
+
+I found them in the midst of an English lesson which Golden Star was
+taking, sitting, still clad in her Inca costume, between the professor
+and Joyful Star, who also was dressed in the same fashion. They all
+three rose to meet me as I entered the throne-room, and Ruth coming
+forward with both hands outstretched, as she had never done before,
+said,--
+
+'What have you been doing all this time, Vilcaroya, and why are you
+looking so worn and haggard? Have--have you been fighting? And why have
+you come back here alone?'
+
+'Yes,' I answered, taking her hands into mine, and feeling all my blood
+turn to flame as their gentle pressure thrilled along my nerves. 'Yes,
+we have been fighting, and the Lord of Light has fought upon our side,
+for we have gained the victory, and the city is ours.'
+
+'Thank God for that!' she said; 'and that no harm has come to you--or to
+Captain Hartness.'
+
+'What! do you mean to say you have taken Cuzco already?' cried the
+professor. 'How on earth did you manage that so quickly?'
+
+'Because,' I replied, 'as I told you, my father the Sun fought on my
+side and turned the hearts of his children towards me, and so Francis
+Hartness led them to speedy victory, and the hearts of our enemies
+fainted within them, and they have yielded. Now I have come to tell you
+how it happened, and to take Joyful Star back to the city, where she
+shall be hailed as queen.'
+
+Then I sat down with them and told them all, from the taking of the
+Governor and his officers prisoners by the Sayacusca to the capture of
+the Cuartel and the making of Francis Hartness Governor of Cuzco. After
+that I went and put on the imperial robes, which I had now a double
+right to wear, and led them through the gates of bronze into the Hall of
+Gold.
+
+Now, in the joy of my triumph, and the greeting that Ruth had given me,
+I had forgotten to bid her keep silence while going through the hall,
+and when she saw the two cells in the corner built up with blocks of
+gold she stopped and said,--
+
+'Those were not here the other night. What have you had them built up
+like that for?'
+
+And before I could answer, Djama's voice, shrill and trembling, rose out
+of the cell, crying,--
+
+'Ruth, Ruth, I am here! This is my prison. It is a grave of gold. Curse
+the gold! Save me, save me, Ruth, for I am going mad--and I am your
+brother!'
+
+She stopped and took hold of my arm with both her hands, and looked up
+at me. Her face was very pale and her lips were trembling. Yet though
+her voice was low, it was firm as she said to me,--
+
+'I have no brother who is a liar and a traitor to his friends; but,
+Vilcaroya, I had a brother once who was very good and kind to me, and
+for the sake of his goodness and kindness I ask you to treat this--this
+prisoner of yours more gently.'
+
+'Joyful Star can ask nothing to-day that I could refuse,' I said. 'He
+shall be taken out forthwith and lodged with all comfort, though I must
+keep him safely.'
+
+'No, no, not till I am gone!' she whispered, taking Golden Star by the
+arm and leading her towards the passage. But, softly as she had spoken,
+Djama heard her, and in his rage and despair at her words he cried,--
+
+'You--you won't see me! But you will go with your lover, your Indian
+master, who owes his life to me! You will sell yourself for his gold and
+be his wife. Oh, my God!--my sister!'
+
+And then he raved in the madness that came upon him, and his voice rang
+horridly out of his cell and echoed shrilly through the hall and the
+passages about it. I could feel no anger against a man who was helpless
+and my prisoner, so I followed Ruth without speaking; and when we stood
+once more in the sunlight she turned to me with a bright flush on her
+cheeks and great tears in her eyes, and said very softly and sweetly,--
+
+'He is mad, poor Laurens! he must be. That terrible gold has turned his
+brain, or he could never speak to me like that. You will not treat him
+more harshly for it, Vilcaroya, will you, for you know, after all, he
+is--I mean he was my brother, and I loved him very much--once?'
+
+'Yes, he is mad,' I said; 'and yet the lips of madness may speak truth,
+for what am I but what he said?'
+
+'Have you forgotten what you asked me, or what I answered when I kissed
+Golden Star in the throne-room, that you can speak like that?' she said,
+with one swift glance that told me I had not asked in vain.
+
+What more she might have said I know not, but she had said enough to
+set my heart dancing and my blood thrilling with a joy greater than I
+had found in the speedy conquest of the city of my fathers, and just
+then Tupac came to me and said that a sufficient quantity of gold had
+been taken out, and that all was ready to return to the city. Then I
+told him what he was to do with Djama and his fellow-prisoner, and
+ordered Golden Star's litter and the horse for Ruth which we had brought
+with us to be made ready, and also a mule for the professor, and when
+Tupac had returned we set out along the road that leads to the Gate of
+Sand, I riding in the midst of the troop, and Ruth on my left hand and
+Golden Star in her litter on the right.
+
+As we approached the streets, great crowds of my delivered people
+thronged out to welcome us, and when they saw me riding on my black
+horse, dressed in the imperial robes and with the Llautu on my brow,
+they set up a shout of joy and welcome that went ringing along the
+streets and through the squares and all over the city, and so I rode on
+through the bareheaded throngs, who bowed themselves almost to the earth
+before me.
+
+As we were crossing the great Plaza, Ruth looked about her with bright
+cheeks and shining eyes and said to me,--
+
+'Is it not all like a dream, Vilcaroya? Only a few weeks ago you came
+here poor and unknown, and now you are a king come back to your own
+again. Is it not wonderful?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, looking into her eyes with more courage than before; 'but
+something more wonderful even than that has befallen me. Is it not so,
+my queen?'
+
+'Your queen is not crowned yet, your Majesty!' she said, looking down,
+and yet not frowning, as I half feared she would.
+
+'No,' I answered, 'nor shall she be till my work is done, and the whole
+land that was my fathers' is mine to give her, and then all that power
+and gold and love can give her shall be hers.'
+
+'Give me the last and I shall ask no more,' she said softly, chasing
+with that first sweet confession from my heart the last lingering doubt
+of the great blessing that my Father the Sun had bestowed upon me.
+
+Thus we came to the front of the Cuartel, where all the troops were
+already drawn up to do us honour, and Hartness came out to greet us. He
+stopped for an instant, and his cheeks paled a little as he saw Ruth
+riding at my side, already dressed as she would be when she was my
+queen. But then the goodness of his honest heart spoke from his lips,
+and he said, as he held out his hand to me,--
+
+'Welcome, your Majesty! Majesties, I might almost say, I suppose! The
+city is ours and everything is quiet. Some of the officials have come in
+and submitted; others I have had to put under arrest, and runners are
+coming in every minute from the other towns in the valley to say that
+our plans have been carried out perfectly. The rest of our work won't be
+as easy as this has been, but we've made a very good beginning, and, at
+anyrate, I think I can congratulate your Majesty on having made your two
+most important captures.
+
+He looked at Ruth as he said this, and though her fair face flushed
+brightly and her eyes fell, yet she spoke steadily enough when she
+answered him, saying,--
+
+'You can hardly call me one of the spoils of war, I think, Captain
+Hartness, though I confess that I have surrendered at discretion. Now
+give me your hand and help me down, and don't look so disconsolate, for
+you are not nearly as unfortunate as you think. There is an Inca
+princess for you also, a real one, too. I have been teaching Golden Star
+to say your name, and, do you know, she makes it sound just like music
+with that sweet voice of hers. See, here she is, and you shall hear her
+say it.'
+
+I had dismounted meanwhile, and taken Golden Star from her litter, and
+when the people saw her, her name ran swiftly from lip to lip, and a
+great shout of delight rose up from thousands of throats to welcome her
+back to life and the home of her long-dead fathers. Then I took her hand
+and Hartness's, and put hers in his, and said to him,--
+
+'My friend, what I have taken I can in some measure give back to you.
+Here is Joyful Star's sister-soul and living likeness. I have seen her
+newly-awakened soul look out of her eyes with love upon you, as in good
+truth it well might, for you are a true son of the Sun, though not of
+our blood. In the days to come you may learn to love her too, and then
+all will be well.'
+
+'Yes,' said Ruth, coming to his side, 'and better than it could have
+been in any other way. The very Fates themselves seemed to have arranged
+all this, so it is not for mortals to rebel, Captain Hartness.'
+
+He looked at her almost sadly for a moment, and then he laughed a little
+and said,--
+
+'I should be more or less than mortal if I did, Miss Ruth. But mind, if
+I am faithless, remember it is you who have done the most to make me
+so.'
+
+As he said this he took Golden Star's little hand in his own and kissed
+it. As she felt the touch of his lips a new light sprang into her eyes
+and shone and danced there, and she said to me,--
+
+'Why does the Son of the Great People do that, and what have you said to
+him about me, my brother?'
+
+'He has kissed your hand in loving greeting,' I answered, 'and what I
+have said he will no doubt tell you better some day when you can speak
+together.'
+
+The bright blood in her cheeks told me that she had understood me, and
+she turned her head away, but she did not take her hand from Hartness's,
+and so I gave my hand to Ruth and led her into the Cuartel, and Hartness
+and Golden Star followed us hand in hand amidst the cheers of the
+soldiers and the joyful shouts of the people.
+
+That night there were such rejoicings in Cuzco as the City of the Sun
+had not seen since the Spaniards came into the land. I distributed the
+gold among the soldiers as I had promised, giving to each man a piece of
+about two ounces in weight, and they, who had never possessed, even if
+they had ever seen, gold before, kissed it and fondled it in their
+delight, and swore that they would fight for me as long as one of them
+was left alive; and then I spoke to them and told them that they had but
+to be faithful and brave, and their English leader would lead them to
+victory after victory, until the whole land should be ours.
+
+Later on I sent Tupac with many men up to the fortress, and they
+brought down the Golden Throne and the symbols of the Sun and great
+quantities of gold and jewels, and they set the throne in the midst of
+the terrace in front of the cathedral, with silver seats on either side
+of it, on the spot where in the olden time stood the Palace of
+Viracocha; and on the front of the cathedral, over the great doors, they
+fixed the symbols of the Sun, and high above all, between the two
+bell-towers, they placed a great flagstaff.
+
+Before daybreak the next morning the square was thronged with people,
+save for an open space which the soldiers kept before my throne. I took
+my place amidst an utter silence. Ruth and Golden Star sat on my right
+and on my left, and Francis Hartness, with a drawn sword in his hand,
+stood by my throne to the right, and on the terrace behind me, and on
+either side, stood the Men of the Blood, dressed in their ancient and
+long-forbidden costumes, with which I had furnished them out of the
+stores in the secret chambers of the fortress.
+
+No word was spoken and no sound was heard over the whole city, and all
+eyes were turned to the swiftly brightening eastern sky.
+
+The blue changed to silver and the silver to crimson and gold. Then the
+sun, the glorious image of the Lord of Life, uprose in all his sudden
+splendour, and as his rays fell on the great golden jewel-rayed circle
+on the cathedral front, the Rainbow Banner ran swiftly up to the head of
+the flagstaff, and I, rising from my throne, bared my head and, turning
+my face to the rising sun, bowed myself before it, and at the same
+instant every head in the vast assembly was uncovered, and all, save the
+soldiers, fell on their knees and stretched out their hands to heaven in
+silent joy and thankfulness.
+
+Then I lifted up my voice and spoke the ancient Invocation to the Sun
+which generation after generation of my fathers had spoken from the same
+spot at the beginning of the feast of Raymi, and when I had ended this
+the Children of the Blood lifted up their voices after me and sang the
+long-silenced and yet never-forgotten hymn to the Sun, and then,
+standing before the kneeling multitude, I replaced the Llautu on my brow
+and proclaimed myself Inca and supreme Lord of the Land of the Four
+Regions in the name of my long-dead fathers, whose divine right to
+lordship had been preserved in me.
+
+And so I, Vilcaroya, son of Huayna-Capac, first fulfilled the prophecy
+that had been spoken in the Days of Darkness, and so did I come, as had
+been said, from one life into another through the shadow of death and
+the silence of the grave, with her whose love, now changed, though no
+less dear, had nerved me to face the ordeal of the strangest fate that
+had ever befallen one born in mortal shape.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HOW DJAMA PAID HIS DEBT
+
+
+It is one of the mysteries of this lower life of ours that men, meaning
+to do good in all honesty of heart, may yet do evil in the doing of it,
+and it was thus with me in the hour of my first triumph and rejoicing.
+
+I had pondered long and deeply over the strange treachery of Djama, and
+I had talked of it with Francis Hartness and the professor until I had
+come to see that he was in truth sorely afflicted with that madness
+which is born of the lust of gold, which, as they told me, is a disease
+of the soul that makes timid men rash and mild ones fierce and cunning,
+and may even turn the gentleness of woman into the pitiless rage of
+beasts of prey.
+
+It was through thinking of this that I came to see that I was by no
+means blameless myself for his madness and the treachery that had come
+from it.
+
+In my own days and among my own people gold was held precious only for
+its beauty and its usefulness. We had not learned the art of making it
+into money and buying men's soul and bodies with it, but I had already
+lived enough of my new life to see that now, save for the few, gold was
+all and honour nothing; and knowing this, I should also have known what
+I was doing when I showed Djama the treasures in the Hall of Gold. The
+sight of them had made him mad, and, as my hand had shown them to him,
+the blame of what he had done in his madness was in part mine.
+
+All this I remembered in the hour when my soul was filled with joy and
+my heart warm with love, and I thought how great a pleasure I should
+give to her who had given me the better part of my own joy if I looked
+upon Djama with pity and forgiveness and did an act of mercy as the
+first deed of my new reign.
+
+So, when the ceremonial of my crowning was over, I bade Tupac take some
+of my body-guard and bring him before me from the place where he had
+been lodged after his release from his golden cell, and at the same time
+I quieted the fears of Joyful Star by telling her what was in my heart
+concerning him.
+
+They brought him unbound, but well guarded by soldiers with bayonets on
+their rifles, up the broad avenue which the parted throng had made
+across the square in front of my throne.
+
+I saw him stare wildly about him as he came near, gazing at the splendid
+sun-lit pageant like a man in a dream, or one just awakened into another
+world, as I had been after my long death-sleep. But when he came near,
+and saw me sitting in my royal state with Joyful Star on my right and
+Golden Star on my left, both robed as princesses of the Ancient Blood,
+his face grew dark with passion, and his eyes, losing their wonder,
+gazed in fixed and furious hate at me--the man who was going to give him
+his life, and much more that he had coveted besides.
+
+They placed him between two soldiers before me at the foot of the
+terrace steps above which my throne had been set, and I was about to
+speak and greet him kindly, when his anger already got the better of
+him, and, with a mocking smile on his lips, he said in a loud, rough
+voice that was most unlike his own quiet, even tones,--
+
+'Well, your Majesty, as I suppose you think yourself for the present, I
+expected something like this--to be brought out into the midst of your
+fellow-savages and sentenced like a felon before my own sister and the
+woman who, like yourself, owes her life to me!'
+
+Then he laughed one of his strange, joyless laughs, and went on before I
+could reply,--
+
+'Well, I suppose I mustn't grumble. You have won, and to the victor go
+the spoils. Now that you have apparently bought the girl who was once my
+sister with your gold, and I have given you your own sister-wife back,
+you will be able to try an interesting experiment in your old form of
+matrimony--'
+
+I saw Joyful Star shrink back in her seat and turn her head away from
+him with a little cry as he said these evil words, and they angered me
+so, that--forgetting they were spoken by a man who stood helpless before
+me--I cried,--
+
+'Silence, liar and speaker of evil! or your next words shall be the last
+that human ears shall hear you speak. Are you still mad, or have you
+forgotten that you were once a man?'
+
+He smiled such a smile as you may have seen on the lips of one who has
+died in agony, and said with a swift change in his voice,--
+
+'I beg your Majesty's pardon, and--and the ladies' too. It was a most
+ungentlemanly thing to say, and one should not forget one's manners on
+the threshold of the next world--if there is one. But come, your
+Majesty, you are wasting your valuable time, and keeping all these
+interesting savages of yours waiting. You'll find I shall take it
+quietly enough. What do you propose that it shall be--something with
+boiling oil or red-hot pincers in it?'
+
+I knew that a man who could speak thus, believing that he was about to
+die, must be in a pitiful plight, and so I answered him sternly, and yet
+without anger,--
+
+'Laurens Djama, I have not brought you here to jest with you, nor yet,
+as you think, to condemn you to die, though your life is justly forfeit
+to me and my people, whom you would have betrayed again to their
+oppressors. Now, listen! You brought me back from death to life, and for
+my life I will give you yours, and for Golden Star's I will pay you the
+price agreed on and something more. It was by my foolish act that the
+madness of the gold-hunger came upon you, and for that I will give you
+your freedom; but not now, for that would not be safe for me or my
+people, since you have betrayed us once, and, knowing what you do, might
+do so again. You shall be taken hence to a pleasant and fertile valley,
+where you shall have all freedom, save permission to leave it until this
+war is over and I am undisputed lord of the land of my fathers. Then you
+shall take the wealth that shall be yours and go to your own country,
+or wherever you please, so long as you do not remain in mine, for here
+there is no place for you, since my people do not forgive as easily as I
+do. Now I have spoken; if there is anything more that you can ask, and I
+can give with safety, ask it.'
+
+Most men who had sinned as he had done would have very willingly taken
+such forgiveness, and Laurens Djama might have taken it but for a
+seemingly small thing. While I was speaking to him his eyes had wandered
+from mine and were looking into Golden Star's. As I ceased I felt her
+hands clasping my arm, and heard her voice say tremblingly in our own
+tongue,--
+
+'Save me, my lord and brother, save me! Evil Eyes is looking into my
+heart and turning it cold!'
+
+This Djama saw, though he did not understand her words, and the sight
+brought the madness into his blood again. He shouted with a voice like
+the cry of a wild beast in pain,--
+
+'Curse you! I will have neither life nor liberty from you, but I'll have
+your life for mine, and that will pay me better!'
+
+As the last word left his lips he made a movement so quick that my eyes
+could not follow it. The next instant he had wrenched the rifle from
+the hands of the soldier on his right hand and levelled it at me. Even
+as he did so Joyful Star flung herself with a scream upon my breast and
+Hartness sprang forward from behind my throne-seat.
+
+The rifle flashed. I heard a hissing sound close to my ear and a deep
+groan and the fall of a body behind me. In the same moment Djama was
+seized and flung to the ground, where he lay quite still and silent. I
+rose to my feet, clasping Joyful Star for the first time in my arms, and
+looked round. Hartness stood beside me unharmed, but old Ullullo, the
+first friend that I had made in my new life among my own people, lay
+dead behind my throne with a bullet through his forehead.
+
+I had not forgotten that old training which taught an Inca warrior to
+look on near-approaching death with unmoved eyes and unshaken heart, and
+this was only such a hazard as I had taken a score of times before. I
+bade Hartness lead Ruth and Golden Star into the temple behind us, so
+that they should not see what was about to be done. Then I took my place
+on the throne again and ordered Djama to be raised and stood on his
+feet.
+
+He rose of himself, very pale but calm and strong in his own evil
+strength, fearing nothing, as became a man for whom death had no
+terrors and, it might be, few secrets. We looked each other in the eyes
+in silence, and in the midst of an utter stillness that had fallen on
+the vast throng, until Hartness came back. Then I said,--
+
+'That is enough, Laurens Djama. Choose now what death you will die, but,
+for your own sake and Joyful Star's, choose a quick one.'
+
+Although my voice was as the voice of doom to him, yet he did not quail
+even then, for if his heart was black it was very strong, and fear had
+never entered into it. He drew himself up to the full height of his
+stature and, looking me full in the eyes, he said as quietly as I had
+ever heard him speak,--
+
+'That choice is always mine, whether you give it to me or not. You have
+threatened me with death before and I have told you that you could not
+kill me. Now watch and see if I spoke the truth.'
+
+Then, with a soldier holding each of his arms and two others grasping
+his shoulders, he drew a quick, deep, gasping breath. The blood rushed
+into his face till its pallor became purple. The next instant it became
+deathly white again. His jaw dropped, his eyes grew fixed and blindly
+staring, and then his shape seemed to shrink together like an empty bag,
+and he sank down between those who were holding him.
+
+They pulled him upright again, and his head dropped forward on his
+breast. He was dead--dead as though the Llapa itself had struck him--and
+so Laurens Djama, master of the arts of life and death, passed out of
+the world of living men by the act of his own will, though not of his
+own hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RE-KINDLING OF THE SACRED FIRE
+
+
+Now this story of mine is nearly done, for there are but few things left
+for me to tell. It is not for me to write of all the battles that we
+fought after the City of the Sun and the region about it fell into our
+hands, for to do that is a task better fitted to the hands of him who
+led my ever-growing hosts to victory after victory until the whole land
+that had been my fathers' was mine from north to south and from the
+great rivers of the east to the Sea of the Setting Sun, which you now
+call the Pacific Ocean.
+
+It is enough for me to say that I used my gold without stint, and that
+it did all and more than the work I had been told it would do. As we
+marched southward and westward to the sea, army after army left those
+who were fighting between themselves for the ruins of the land and,
+having no real quarrel of their own, ranged themselves under the Rainbow
+Banner and fought with me for freedom and the ancient faith of their
+long-dead fathers, and how city after city welcomed me as I came to give
+it peace and wealth instead of strife and misery.
+
+My unforgotten story and the marvel of my coming back from the days of
+our old-time glories had sped like the leaps of the lightning from
+mountain to mountain and valley to valley, and every man in whose veins
+flowed even the smallest drop of the Sacred Blood threw aside the broken
+fragments of the oppressor's yoke and came to give me his service.
+
+From other countries, too, and from far over the sea, there came men to
+fight for me, men whom Hartness had called from afar by speaking to them
+over the lightning-wires, and they brought ships with them, armed with
+flame and thunder, which the promise of my gold had purchased, and these
+took all the seaports for me, while my ever-growing armies were taking
+the cities of the inland valleys--all of which those who would learn may
+read in the great book which Francis Hartness and the professor, who
+with Joyful Star have helped out these lame words of mine, are writing
+together to tell how the ancient empire of the Incas rose at my call
+and the bidding of my gold--which I doubt not was far stronger than
+I--out of the degradation into which the oppressors had cast it, and has
+even now begun to prosper again with more than its former glory.
+
+But, as I have said, these things are not for me to tell, since I have
+neither the skill nor the knowledge to do so. What I have set down here
+is only the story of my own awakening out of the death-sleep into which
+the arts of the priests of the Sun had cast me with Golden Star, and of
+her return to join me in my new life. I have told of that and of all
+that befell us afterwards, and now there remains only the telling of
+that which fulfilled our strange fates and completed our happiness in
+the new world into which those fates had brought us.
+
+Many weeks passed and grew into months before the oppressors were
+finally subdued and I found myself undisputed lord of all the land, and,
+as I had promised Joyful Star, all this had to come to pass before I
+would ask her to put her hand into mine and take her place beside me as
+my Coya and queen on the throne of Huayna-Capac.
+
+But at length there was peace in the land and we returned from Lima, the
+capital of the Spaniards, where I had been proclaimed and acknowledged
+Inca and Emperor of my ancient domains, to the City of the Sun, which
+many loving and willing hands had cleansed of the abominations of its
+new idolatries and made in some measure fit to receive us, to crown our
+new lives with such happiness as, with the help and blessing of the
+Unnameable, we might be able to bestow upon each other.
+
+The treasures of gold and silver and ornaments of jewels, the rich
+hangings and the sacred and precious emblems had been brought from the
+Hall of Gold and the throne-room beneath the Sacsahuaman and set up in
+the chief temple of the Spaniards, which stands in the place where the
+holy Temple of the Sun once stood and is in great part built of the
+self-same stones.[F]
+
+It was the eve of the Feast of Raymi, or the Coming of the Sun, which in
+the olden time we counted as the beginning of the year, and I had
+determined that this day should witness the restoration of the old order
+and the beginning of my own true happiness--so that night Golden Star
+and I, as became the son and daughter of the Royal Race and Sacred
+Blood, watched and prayed according to the ancient rites--she in a
+chamber of what had once been the House of the Virgins of Sun, and I in
+the purified temple--from the setting of the sun until the first waning
+of the stars in the coming dawn.
+
+Very early in the morning she was brought to me in the temple by
+Tupac-Rayca--whom I had in virtue of his pure blood and noble decent,
+consecrated Villac-Umu or High Priest of the Sun, and who had in turn
+invested such others of the Blood as he thought worthy with the
+subordinate dignities of the holy office. He and his attendants were
+arrayed in the ancient priestly robes and adorned with the sacred
+emblems of their rank, and Golden Star was attired as a royal Virgin of
+the Sun, in garments of white edged with scarlet and decked with
+ornaments of pure gold.
+
+Then we prayed together before the newly-set-up altar, which stood over
+against the eastern window of the Sanctuary, and when that duty was
+ended, and while the growing light was yet dim, there came to us Joyful
+Star, also arrayed as a princess of the Blood, and Francis Hartness,
+whom my thankful people had already named Viracocha, after one of our
+golden-haired hero-gods of the olden time.
+
+After them came all those of the Sacred Race that were left in the
+land--men and matrons, youths and maidens--all dressed in the
+long-forbidden garb of their forefathers, and ranged themselves in two
+silent, orderly ranks down the sides of the Sanctuary, waiting with
+patient eagerness for that which they had been bidden here to see.
+
+Above the altar hung the great golden Emblem of the Sun, upon which the
+radiant glance of the Lord of Light would first fall through the
+circular window in the eastern wall, and on it was a pyramid of wood
+anointed with scented oils; for here was soon to be re-kindled--if our
+Lord the Sun should smile on the new fortunes of his long-suffering
+children--without the aid of human hands, that sacred fire first lit by
+Manco Capac and Mama Occlu, son and daughter of the Sun, and which had
+burnt unquenched through all the ages that had passed from the founding
+to the fall of our ancient empire. Beside it lay a cone-shaped vessel of
+burnished gold, in the depths of which the Sacred Fleece awaited the
+touch that was to change it into flame.
+
+When all were assembled, Tupac-Rayca mounted the steps of the altar,
+and, facing the silent throng, began to speak in the ancient and
+unforgotten tongue and said,--
+
+'Children of the Sun, sons and daughters of those whose ancestors in the
+unremembered days received the divine command to create the empire over
+which they ruled with ever-growing glory until, by the inscrutable
+decrees of the Unnameable, the destroyer and oppressor were permitted to
+come into the land, listen with open ears and thankful hearts to the
+words which our Father shall put into my mouth to say to you!'
+
+All bowed their heads and crossed their hands over their breasts as he
+spoke, and after a little silence he went on,--
+
+'The last of the Villac-Umus who stood where I am standing told your
+fathers and mine of the near-approaching night of gloom and desolation
+that was about to fall upon the Land of the Four Regions. For what sins
+of his children our Father permitted that night to eclipse the bright
+day of their empire we know not, nor is it lawful for us to inquire. Let
+it be enough for us to believe that, grievous as the doom was, it could
+not have been anything save the inflexible justice of the Unnameable.'
+
+Again they bowed their heads, and there was silence for a little space
+until he went on, speaking this time in a gladder voice,--
+
+'But, stern as that justice was, it was yet not untempered with mercy,
+for with the words of doom there came from our Father, by the lips of
+his minister, the holy Anda-Huillac, those words of hope and promise
+which from that day to this have been handed down in secret, yet
+unforgotten, from father to son and from mother to daughter, and which
+now for the first time since then may be spoken openly in the land:--
+
+     '"_To that Son of the Sacred Race who, for honour and faith and
+     love, shall take the hand of a pure virgin of his own holy blood
+     and with her pass fearless through the gate of death into the
+     shadows which lie beyond, shall be given the glory of casting down
+     the oppressor and raising the Rainbow Banner once more above the
+     Golden Throne of the Incas. On that throne he shall sit, and wield
+     power and mete out justice and mercy to the Children of the Sun
+     when the gloom that is now falling upon the Land of the Four
+     Regions shall have passed away in the dawn of a brighter age._"
+
+'Sons and daughters of the long-dead, turn your eyes and see how the
+eastern skies are swiftly brightening with first rays of that
+long-looked-for dawn. This is the morning of our deliverance, for our
+deliverers stand here before us, and with your own eyes you may look
+upon those who, in the strength of their love and faith, dared the doom
+to win the promise, for here in the living flesh stands that Vilcaroya,
+son of the great Huayna-Capac, and there beside him is Golden Star, that
+virgin of the Royal Race who of her own will joined hands with him in
+the wedlock of death, and whose pure soul has dwelt with his in the
+Mansions of the Sun while ten generations of men have lived and died
+awaiting their return to the land.
+
+'To us, more blessed, it has been given to see that which our fathers
+waited for in vain. To us our Lord Vilcaroya and our Lady Golden Star
+have come back from the shadows of death into the light of life and
+glory of victory. Already you have seen the oppressor pay the price of
+life for life, and blood for blood, and shame for shame. You have seen
+our Lord seated on the golden throne of the Divine Manco with the
+Rainbow Banner waving high above him, and now the moment has come for
+you to see the fulfilling of what yet remains of the promise
+unfulfilled. Behold the visible presence of our Father comes near to
+smile once more on his children long left in darkness!'
+
+While he was speaking these last words the light in the eastern sky had
+brightened fast until a sunray leapt over the lower rim of the window
+and shone on the painted ceiling of the Sanctuary. At a sign from
+Tupac-Rayca, Golden Star took up the vessel in which lay the Sacred
+Fleece, and, standing in the middle of the altar on the highest step,
+held it poised in her hands above her head, with her pale, fair face and
+shining eyes upturned towards the window.
+
+Foot by foot the light crept along the roof, broadening and brightening
+as it went, till it touched the western wall. Then, ever followed by the
+anxious eyes of the silent throng, it descended until the great Symbol
+of the Sun flashed and flamed in its radiance. Still lower it sank and
+the burnished vessel that Golden Star held to receive them caught the
+gathering rays and glowed as though filled with liquid fire.
+
+[Illustration: Now the moment for the giving of the Sign had come.
+
+_To face page 280._]
+
+Now the moment for the giving of the Sign had come. A faint wreath of
+pale blue smoke curled upwards from the Sacred Fleece. It grew darker
+and denser, and then a little tongue of flame leapt out from the midst
+of it. At the same instant Tupac seized the vessel and held it upturned
+over the pyramid of wood upon the altar. The burning fleece fell down
+upon the anointed wood, a long shaft of fire shot upward, and, as the
+descending sunrays fell over the face and bosom of Golden Star, the
+voice of Tupac rang out in an exultant chant through the silence,
+saying,--
+
+'Rejoice, Children of the Sun, rejoice! for your Father has once more
+looked in kindness and blessing upon you, and with the radiant glance of
+his eyes he has re-kindled the long-quenched fire which henceforth shall
+burn upon his altar as long as his visible presence shall make bright
+the heavens and beautiful the earth!'
+
+As he ceased, Golden Star's voice rose up clear and sweet, singing the
+first words of the Hymn to the Sun--as I alone of all that throng had
+heard her sing them in the days that were no more. Then the Children of
+the Blood raised their voices too, and out of the fulness of their
+thankful hearts poured forth their first tribute of praise and
+thanksgiving to Him who had broken the yoke of the oppressor and given
+back light and joy and peace to the long-darkened Land of the Four
+Regions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Hymn to the Sun was ended and the Children of the Blood had
+received the blessing of Tupac, there was yet one more ceremony to be
+performed before the rejoicings of the Feast of Raymi began. There is
+little need for me to tell you what it was. In love as in war I had
+striven and conquered, and now the dearest of my rewards, dearer far
+than wealth or empire, was to be made mine by the free gift of her who
+was herself that which she gave.
+
+Two of the priests brought forth the marriage-font and placed it in
+front of the altar, and Joyful Star stood on the one side of it and I on
+the other and we joined hands across it.
+
+It was a double vessel of gold, formed of two twin cups, and between
+them there was a hole stopped by a golden plug, to which a little chain
+was fastened. The cup on my side was filled with blood-red wine and that
+towards Joyful Star with pure water, crystal clear.
+
+Tupac took our hands in his and parted them, saying as he did so,--
+
+'To meet and to part is the lot of man and woman upon earth, yet when
+two true souls meet and two faithful hearts are joined even death can
+part them but in seeming, for in the bright halls of the Mansions of the
+Sun they shall dwell for ever in the blessed presence of our Father!'
+
+So saying, he joined our hands again, and drawing out the golden plug,
+he pointed to the mingling fluids and went on, speaking now to each of
+us in turn,--
+
+'Here, Vilcaroya Inca, and you, Joyful Star, daughter of a conquering
+race and well-beloved of our Lord, see the emblem of the union between
+you! As the strong red wine colours and strengthens the pure water, so,
+Joyful Star, shall the stronger nature of thy chosen husband colour and
+strengthen thine, and, as the pure water tempers and purifies the wine,
+so, Vilcaroya Inca, shall the gentler and purer nature of her who is
+henceforth thy wife and queen by the rites of our ancient law, soften
+and purify thine according to the will and purpose of the Unnameable,
+who to this end sent man and woman upon earth that together they might
+possess and enjoy it, each helping the other, man making the world
+fruitful and beautiful by his labour, and woman sweetening his toil by
+the reward of her love and her constancy.'
+
+Then he raised his hands above our heads as we bowed them together over
+the emblem of our mingling lives, and said again,--
+
+'Son and daughter, man and wife, who have met from afar, and who in this
+solemn act have sworn in the all-pervading presence of the Unnameable to
+lead each other from this your meeting-place to the dim border of the
+shadow-land which lies between this world and the threshold of the
+Mansions of the Sun, may the blessing of our Father clothe your brows
+with honour and fill your hearts with everlasting love and trust, and
+may He guide your feet to walk in pleasant places from now even to the
+end!'
+
+As he ceased our hands parted, only to meet again a moment later after
+we had stepped aside to yield up our places at the marriage-font to
+Francis Hartness and Golden Star.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[F] This is not quite correct, although a natural mistake on the part of
+the Inca. It is not the Cathedral of Cuzco, but the Church of Santo
+Domingo, which stands on the site of the ancient Temple of the Sun. It
+is by far the finest church in Cuzco. The Cathedral faces the great
+square.
+
+
+
+
+_Coiston and Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh_
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+List of corrections:
+
+   "Anahauc" corrected into "Anahuac"
+
+     page 206 and bid Anahauc and Ainu close the door
+     page 208 Anahauc came and prostrated himself
+
+   "ont" corrected into "out"
+
+     page 298 mete ont justice and mercy
+
+   "Ullulo" corrected into "Ullullo"
+
+     page 288:  Ullulo, the first friend
+
+
+
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