Part 17 (1/2)

Before he could get any further the pair threw themselves upon him and bore him to the ground; and while Phil gripped the unfortunate man by the throat to prevent him from crying out and raising an alarm, d.i.c.k whipped out the rope which he had been carrying beneath his habit, and trussed up the worthy senor so securely that he could move neither hand nor foot. Then they gagged him very effectively by thrusting the hilt of one of his own daggers between his teeth and securing it there.

”Now, hark ye, friend Cervantes,” admonished Phil, ”it is unfortunate for you that you have penetrated our disguises, since it will necessitate your remaining as you are until the morning, when no doubt someone will arrive to release you. We need certain weapons, and we propose to help ourselves to them; but you need not fear that you are about to be robbed; we will pay you generously for whatever we take.

Now, d.i.c.k,” he continued, turning to Chichester, ”pick your weapons, and let us begone, we have none too much time before daylight. I recommend for your choice, a good sword, a musket, a brace of pistols, with a good supply of ammunition for each, a stout dagger, a bow, arrows, and a good strong machete for general purposes. That, I think, will be quite as much as it will be advisable for us to c.u.mber ourselves with.”

”So do I,” agreed d.i.c.k, dryly. ”For my own part I am not at all sure that we could not dispense with the musket, which is a heavy, c.u.mbersome thing to carry, and we may never need it. Still, I suppose we may as well take one apiece; we can always throw them away if we find them too troublesome. But how do you propose to pay the man, Phil? You know that we have no money.”

”True,” a.s.sented Phil; ”but we have still the two emerald eyes of the idol which we found in that cave where we slew the monstrous beast: we will give him one of those in payment; and handsome payment it will be, too.”

”Ay, that it will,” agreed d.i.c.k. ”I had entirely forgotten about those emeralds. Give him one of them, by all means; we can then help ourselves, with a clear conscience, to the best the shop affords.”

Swiftly, yet with the greatest care, the two Englishmen selected the weapons which they required, together with as much ammunition as they considered it wise to c.u.mber themselves with; after which Phil extracted from a pocket in his puma-skin tunic one of the emeralds which he had mentioned, and holding it close to the eyes of the prostrate armourer, said:

”You see that, my friend? It is an emerald; and its value is about one hundred times that of what we have taken from you. Nevertheless, I am going to leave it with you for payment. See, there it is.” And he placed the stone on the floor where Cervantes could see it. ”And now, listen to me,” continued Phil. ”You probably have it in your mind to go to the authorities to-morrow, as soon as you are released, and inform them of this visit of ours to you. Isn't that so? Yes, I can see by the expression of your eyes that I have guessed aright. Well, friend, be advised by me: Don't do it. Remember that we have escaped from the Inquisition; and if the Head of that inst.i.tution should learn that we have been here, he will certainly hold you responsible for our escape from the town; and it will be useless for you to say that you could not help yourself, that we surprised and overpowered you, and helped ourselves to some of your property; he will simply reply that you ought not to have allowed yourself to be surprised and overpowered, that you knew two prisoners had escaped, and that you should have had wit enough to have seen through our disguise and given the alarm before we had time or opportunity to overpower you. And I suppose I need not remind you of what your fate will be in that case. Therefore, think well over the matter, and do nothing that you may afterward regret. You should be easily able to concoct a story to account for your present plight that should satisfy those who may find you in the morning, without referring to us. And now we will leave you. Farewell!”

Therewith the two friends extinguished the lamps, and, taking the candle, retired from the shop, quietly closing the door behind them.

The light of the candle enabled them easily to unfasten the outer door; and, this done, they blew out the light, silently opened the door, and cautiously peered out into the street. It was silent and deserted, therefore, without further ado, they tiptoed down the steps, closing the door behind them as they went, and, keeping within the shadows as much as possible, hastened in the direction which would take them out of the city. An hour later they were clear of Cuzco, and using the stars as their guide, were speeding along a fairly good road which led in a south-easterly direction, intending to strike off to the eastward in search of the river some twenty or thirty miles farther on, since they suspected that the high road would be the last place where their pursuers would be likely to look for them. But about ten o'clock the next morning--having encountered meanwhile only a troop of some thirty loaded llamas with their attendant drivers, whom, having sighted them at a distance, they easily avoided by concealing themselves until the whole had pa.s.sed--they unexpectedly came upon the river again where a bend brought it close to the road; they therefore deserted the latter at this point, and, although the going was by no means so easy, thenceforward followed the river until at length they reached its source high up among the Andes of Carabaya.

And now ensued a period of incredible hards.h.i.+p and suffering for the adventurous pair; for they were now among the most lofty of those stupendous peaks which run in an almost unbroken chain from one end of the continent to the other, from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the north to within little more than one hundred miles from the Strait of Magellan in the south; and their way lay over boundless snowfields, across enormous glaciers gashed with unfathomable creva.s.ses, up and down stupendous precipices, and along narrow, ice-clad ledges, where a single false step must have hurled them to death thousands of feet below. To journey amid such surroundings was of course bad enough in itself; but the hards.h.i.+p of it was increased tenfold for the two Englishmen, from the fact that they came new to it and without experience, after months of life in the torrid lowlands had thinned their blood and rendered them peculiarly sensitive to the piercing cold of those high alt.i.tudes, which was further intensified by the icy winds which seemed to rage continuously about the peaks and come howling at them through the ravines. Add to this the difficulty of obtaining food--for there was no life among those mountain solitudes, save an occasional llama or guanaco, so wild as to be scarcely approachable, and a condor or two soaring aloft at such a height as to be scarcely distinguishable to the unaided eye--and the impossibility of making a fire, and the reader will be able to form some faint idea of what Phil and d.i.c.k were called upon to endure while making that awful pa.s.sage over the mountains.

Fortunately for them, it lasted only five days; had it been prolonged to six they must inevitably have perished. Fortunately, also, for them, they had acquired from the Indians a knowledge of the wonderful, almost miraculous, virtue that lay in the coca leaf--with a bountiful supply of which they had been careful to provide themselves--otherwise even their indomitable hardihood and courage must have succ.u.mbed to the frightful toil, privation, and exposure which they were obliged to undergo. A detailed description of that five days' journey over the mountains would of itself suffice to fill a book, for it would be a record of continuous adventure and hairbreadth escapes from avalanches that were constantly threatening to overwhelm them; of treacherous snow-bridges that crumbled away beneath their feet; of furious, icy winds that, seeming to be imbued with demoniac intelligence and malignity, always a.s.sailed them in some especially perilous situation, and sought to buffet them from their precarious hold; and of long hours of intolerable suffering when, during the hours of darkness, they were compelled to camp on some snow-patch and build themselves a snow-hut as a partial protection from the howling, marrow-piercing, snow-laden gale. Such a narrative, however, exciting as it might be in its earlier pages, would soon grow wearisome from the rapidity with which one adventure would tread upon the heels of another, and can therefore only be hinted at here. Suffice it to say that early in the afternoon of the fourth day, upon surmounting the crest of a long ridge of ice-encased rock, at a moment when the demon of the mountain had temporarily withdrawn himself elsewhere, and the atmosphere was for a brief s.p.a.ce calm and clear, the two weary and exhausted adventurers caught a brief but entrancing glimpse of a long green valley stretching away ahead of them between the two mountain ranges, with an island-dotted lake in the far distance, and Sorata's dominating ice-clad peak piercing the blue sky to the left of it. At last, at last, their goal was in sight; and incontinently they flung themselves down, gasping, upon the iron-hard rock, and gazed entranced upon the glorious vision--thrice glorious to them after all that they had suffered--until another great snow-cloud evolved itself out of nothing and swooped down upon them in a final effort at destruction.

The gale and snowstorm lasted less than an hour, however, and when at length the atmosphere again cleared the two friends, who had been crouching under the sheltering lee of a great shoulder of rock, rose to their feet and again looked forth toward the land of promise. A vast snowfield, corrugated by the wind as the sand of the seash.o.r.e is by the rippling advance of the tide, but otherwise smooth of surface, and gently sloping downward, offered them an easy road for the first two miles of their descent; and, weary though they were, they traversed it in half an hour. Then came an almost perpendicular descent of some five hundred feet to another snowfield, where, in a deep recess that might almost have been termed a cave in a great spur of rock, they camped comfortably for the night and enjoyed the sweetest rest that they had known for many a long day.

When they arose on the following morning, rested and refreshed by their long night's sheltered sleep, but weak and famished with hunger which even their coca leaves could now but partially relieve, nature was again kind to them, for the air was still and so crystalline clear that they were able to determine accurately their road for many miles ahead; while, most welcome sight of all, in a little sheltered valley, some six miles away, on a small patch of green, they perceived a flock of some twenty vicuna grazing. Here, at last was food for them once more, if they could but reach within bowshot without alarming the animals; and to this task they bent all their energies, with such success that three hours later they were gorging themselves to repletion on the raw flesh of one of the animals, being still without the materials wherewith to kindle a fire. But this marked the end of their troubles; for before the night again closed down upon them they had not only pa.s.sed below the snow-line, but were also fortunate enough to encounter an Indian who was herding a flock of llama; and upon Phil addressing the man in his own language--of which, it will be remembered, Stukely had acquired a knowledge in some extraordinary and quite incomprehensible manner--the fellow received them with open arms, conducted them to his hut, fed them as they had not been fed since they had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, and not only lodged them for the night, but gave them minute instructions how they were to proceed during the following day. Four days later they arrived at the northern extremity of the Sacred Lake.

They reached its margin at the precise moment that the sun sank beyond the long line of lofty, rugged, snow-clad peaks that ran parallel to the lake on its western side. The evening was perfectly calm and cloudless, save in the west, where an agglomeration of delicate rosy-purple streaks and patches of vapour lay softly upon a clear background of palest blue-green sky, forming the picture of a fairy archipelago of thickly cl.u.s.tering islands, intersected by a bewildering maze of channels winding hither and thither, with the thin sickle of the young moon, gleaming softly silver-white, hanging just above the whole. It was one of those skies that set the imaginative dreamer's fancy free to wander afar into the realms of fairyland and to picture all sorts of strange, unreal happenings; the sort of sky that probably suggested to the simple mind of the Indian the poetic idea that when gazing upon it he was vouchsafed a vision of the Isles of the Blessed where dwell the souls of the departed in everlasting bliss; and for full five minutes after the two Englishmen had halted by the margin of the lake, the smooth, unruffled surface of which repeated the picture as in a mirror, they stood gazing, entranced, upon the loveliness of the scene that lay spread out before them.

In front of them and almost at their feet lay the placid waters of the lake, bordered with reeds and rushes just where they happened to stand, its gla.s.sy, mirrorlike surface faithfully reproducing every soft, delicate tint of the overarching sky, the bank of rosy clouds in the west, the cold, pure blue of the snow-capped sierras on their right, the ruddy blush of the peaks on their left--upon the summits of which the last rays of the vanished sun still lingered, to change to purest white even as they gazed--and every clump of sombre olive vegetation between.

To the right and left of them, a few miles apart, two streams, having their sources in the neighbouring mountains, discharged into the lake; and so perfectly still was the air that the murmur of their waters came faint but clear to the ears of the two comrades who had travelled so many hundreds of miles with that scene as their goal. To right and left of them the sh.o.r.es of the lake swept away in many a curve and bay and indentation clear to the horizon, and far beyond it; and in the whole of that fair landscape never a sign of life, human or animal! Yet, stay; what was that dark film, like a tiny cloud, that came sweeping down toward them from far up the lake? d.i.c.k, the practical, was the first to catch sight of it, for Phil was standing like one in a trance gazing at the scene with a retrospective look in his eyes that seemed to say his thoughts were far away. As d.i.c.k watched the approaching cloud-like film it resolved itself into a flock of wild ducks, making, as it seemed, directly for the patch of rushes near which the two were standing, and, with the momentous question of supper looming large in his mind, Chichester plucked his companion by the sleeve, pointed to the approaching wild ducks, and suggested the propriety of immediately seeking some hiding-place until the birds had settled.

”A murrain on you and your ducks, d.i.c.k!” exclaimed Stukely, in a tone half-pettish, half-playful; ”you have jolted me out of a reverie in which I was endeavouring to account for the extraordinary feeling that sometime in the past I have beheld this very scene, even as I behold it now. Of course I know that it is only a fancy; I know that I have never before stood on the soil which my feet are pressing at this moment; yet, believe me or not, as you please, all this”--he waved his right hand before him to right and left--”is absolutely familiar to me, as familiar as though I had lived here all my life! Nothing is changed, except that the clumps of bush seem to have approached a little closer to the margin of the lake, and--yes, you see that low bluff yonder? Well, when I last looked upon it--oh, well! never mind; you are laughing at me, and I have no right to be surprised that you should do so; but, all the same, I know exactly where we are now; I know that there are islands out there on the lake, beyond the horizon, and I know which of them it is that we must visit--I shall recognise it instantly when I see it; remember my words. And now, come along, and let us see whether we can get one or two of those ducks; they seem to be making for the reeds yonder.”

The pair crept down to the margin of the patch of reeds, and concealed themselves therein; and scarcely had they done so when the flock came sweeping along with a great rush of wings, wheeled, and finally settled, with loud quacks--probably of satisfaction that their day's work was over, and that they were once more back in their haven of rest. Then the two muskets--which the wanderers had tenaciously retained throughout their perilous journey across the mountains--barked out their death message simultaneously, and the flock rose again with loud squawks of alarm, leaving a round dozen of their number, either dead or badly wounded, behind them. Ten minutes later, as the brief twilight was rapidly deepening into night, the nude figures of the two Englishmen scrambled out of the water, each bearing his quota of dead wild duck, and, laying their spoils upon the ground, nonchalantly proceeded to resume the quaint garments of skins that now const.i.tuted their only clothing.

Long into the night sat the pair, crouching over their camp fire, for though the days were hot the nights were bitterly cold, even in that valley between the two ranges of mountains; and while d.i.c.k gazed abstractedly aloft into the velvet blackness at the innumerable stars that glittered above him through the frosty atmosphere, Phil spoke of the strange dreams--which he persisted, half-jestingly and half in earnest, in regarding as memories--that visited him so frequently, of curious scenes that he had witnessed and remarkable deeds that he had done in the far past, either in imagination or reality, he could not possibly say which. And while he talked and d.i.c.k listened, vacillating between amus.e.m.e.nt and conviction, some twenty stalwart figures, thin and aquiline of feature, copper-hued of skin, and strangely clothed, came creeping up out of the darkness until they reached a clump of bush within earshot of the pair, where they lurked, waiting patiently until the audacious intruders upon their most sacred territory should resign themselves to sleep--and to a captivity which, as planned by the chief figure of the group, was to be of but brief duration, ending in a death of unspeakable horror.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

HOW THEY FOUND AN ENORMOUS TREASURE, AND TOOK IT HOME.

It was past midnight, and the camp fire, which d.i.c.k had bountifully replenished with stout branches from the neighbouring clump of bush, the last thing before stretching himself out to sleep, had dwindled to a ma.s.s of dull red smouldering embers, when the white-clad figure of an elderly man, copper-hued, bald-headed, and clean shaven, approached with stealthy footsteps the rec.u.mbent bodies of the two slumbering Englishmen. Bending over first one and then the other, he held a saturated cloth toward their nostrils in such a manner that the sleepers were permitted to inhale, for about a minute each, the faint, fragrant fumes that emanated from it; then, abandoning all further caution, he withdrew from the fire a half-consumed branch and waved it in the air until the smouldering stump was fanned afresh into flame; when, the torch having served its purpose as a signal, he flung it back upon the almost extinguished fire. A couple of minutes later those to whom this man had signalled approached the camp fire, and while two parties of four each raised the rec.u.mbent and now unconscious figures of the Englishmen to their shoulders, the remainder carefully gathered together and took possession of the weapons and other belongings of their prisoners, after which, at a signal from their leader the entire party moved off, marching inland away from the lake. Relieving each other at frequent intervals, for they found their unconscious burdens heavy-- especially those who were told off to carry d.i.c.k--the party marched a distance of nearly eight miles, until, in a sequestered valley among the hills, they reached the ruins of what had evidently at one time been a city of considerable importance, built equally on both sides of an ice-cold mountain stream. Most of the buildings were in ruins; many, indeed, had been razed almost to their foundations--possibly to provide material for the maintenance in repair of those that remained intact, but there were sufficient of the latter to afford accommodation for fully three thousand people, and all of these were inhabited. Many of the inhabited buildings were of considerable size, but, with one solitary exception, architectural grace and beauty were conspicuously absent, the buildings being, with the exception mentioned, constructed of large blocks of stone so perfectly worked that the joints of the masonry were scarcely perceptible, but without ornament or adornment of any kind whatever, and roughly roofed with thatch. The exception was in the case of the temple, which, like so many in ancient Peru, was dedicated to the Sun. This structure was erected upon the summit of a low mound, scarcely important enough in height to be termed a hill, yet high enough to allow the building to dominate all the rest of the town, and was built of a beautiful white, fine-grained stone, very much resembling alabaster. Also, in startling contrast to all the other buildings in the town, it was admirably proportioned, and elaborately ornamented with bold mouldings, cornices, and other architectural ornaments which, although somewhat barbaric in design, were nevertheless exceedingly effective. But its chief glory lay in the pair of immense bronze doors of its main entrance, the entire surface of which was most exquisitely engraved with a series of pictures representing the ceremonial of sun wors.h.i.+p. The building stood upon an immense quadrangular base of ma.s.sive masonry, the sides of which were worked into steps; and some idea of the age of the structure could be gained from the fact that immediately opposite the main entrance the steps were worn away to a depth of nearly three inches by the innumerable mult.i.tudes of wors.h.i.+ppers who had pa.s.sed up and down them. The pavement of the interior was of marble of various colours, worked into an elaborate pattern; and beneath this pavement there were chambers for the confinement of prisoners, and other and more sinister purposes.

It was in one of these subterranean chambers that our friends Phil and d.i.c.k recovered consciousness on the morning following their arrival at the sh.o.r.e of the Sacred Lake; and their amazement at awaking to find themselves bound hand and foot on the cold stone floor of a dimly lighted dungeon, whereas they had fallen asleep in the open, may be readily imagined. Their first and most natural impression was that they had again fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; but they were disabused of this idea when, an hour or two later, four stalwart copper-hued, sharp-featured men, with long, straight black hair, clean shaven, clad in white, sleeveless tunics, with sandals on their feet, and each armed with a short, broad-bladed sword of copper, entered the cell, leaving two coa.r.s.e earthenware basins liberally filled with what looked like stiff porridge, and two jars containing water. Placing these upon the floor, two of the four proceeded to unbind the hands of the prisoners, while the other two drew their copper swords and stationed themselves at the door of the cell, with the evident purpose of frustrating any attempt at escape which the prisoners might be ill-advised enough to make. Then Phil, inspired by that knowledge which he had so mysteriously acquired, at once recognised that he and his companion had fallen into the hands of a body of aboriginal Peruvians, and his face cleared.

”We are all right, d.i.c.k,” he exclaimed, joyously; ”these fellows are evidently a surviving remnant of the original inhabitants of the country, of whose existence Vilcamapata told me, and whose language I speak. It will only be necessary for me to tell them who we are, and they will free us at once.” But when he addressed first one and then another of the quartette, they paid no attention whatever to what he said, contenting themselves with signing to the prisoners to eat and drink. Instead of obeying, however, Phil continued to talk to them, alternately explaining, ordering, and finally threatening the men; and it was not until, some twenty minutes later, when they proceeded to bind the hands of both behind their backs again, that Stukely realised, too late, that the quartette were evidently deaf and dumb. Thus Phil missed his breakfast that morning, while d.i.c.k, the practical one of the two, secured his, having fully availed himself of the opportunity afforded by his unbound hands to eat and drink.

In this eminently unsatisfactory and comfortless fas.h.i.+on the hapless prisoners pa.s.sed the ensuing ten days, seeing n.o.body but the four deaf mutes, who twice daily brought them food and water, and stood over them while they ate and drank, afterward securely binding them again; although this seemed to be an altogether unnecessary act of cruelty; since so strongly constructed was their place of confinement--even the door being a ma.s.sive slab of stone--that, had they been entirely unbound, they could not possibly have forced their way out.

At length, however, on the twelfth day of their captivity, some two hours after their morning meal had been served to them, they were quite unexpectedly visited by their four deaf-and-dumb jailers, who, having unbound their ankles, signed to them that they were to leave the noisome hole where they had hitherto been confined; and when the pair pa.s.sed through the stone door they found themselves in a long pa.s.sage, where they were immediately surrounded by an escort of a dozen soldiers armed with sword, spear, and s.h.i.+eld, all of bronze, and wearing breastplates and helmets of polished bronze, the latter adorned with the tail feathers of some bird that gleamed with a brilliant metallic golden l.u.s.tre. Hemmed in by these, the prisoners were marched along the pa.s.sage until they reached a flight of stone steps which the party ascended, finding themselves, at the top, in a long, s.p.a.cious, lofty corridor, lighted at intervals by circular openings high up under the flat stone ceiling. Along this corridor also the prisoners were marched until they reached a doorway closed by two bronze doors, at which the officer of the party first knocked, and immediately afterwards thrust open, revealing a room in which were congregated some thirty men attired in a garb that Phil at least instantly recognised to be priestly. By these the pair were at once taken over from the armed guard; who thereupon retired and were no more seen. At one end of the room stood a table upon which lay heaped a quant.i.ty of flowers, and two stalwart priests having taken possession of each of the prisoners, the latter were led to the table, and the flowers, which had been arranged in the form of two long festoons, were thrown round their necks, crossed over their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pa.s.sed round their waists, and finally tied in front, with the long ends drooping almost to their feet. They were evidently being decked as the victims of some sort of sacrifice!