Part 11 (2/2)
He began by laying before them his views as to the steps necessary to be taken in order to carry out successfully the desire of the people to beco them to cause several different kinds of infor out to them the necessity for free communication with the outside world, and the consequent establishular postal and transport service between the valley and two or three points on the railway syste before he had finished all that he had to say it was perfectly evident to the young Inca that the members of the Council--or at least some of them--were entirely out of sympathy with many of his views and ideas, and that he would have to contend with a vast anorance and prejudice To indicate a few out of ly manifested itself, Harry had co an ar it with the most modern and efficient weapons and equiply objected, arguing that the State already possessed an aruard, horse and foot, which, in their opinion, ought to be amply sufficient to reconquer the country in view of the fact that Pizarro's army numbered less than two hundred men when he captured Atahuallpa and thus achieved the conquest of Peru
And, as to the iether opposed to the proposal for many reasons, the chief of which were the difficulty and delay attendant upon the procuring of them and of their introduction into the country, and the further delay involved in training the troops to use the troops were armed were such as they had always been accustohly skilled Such a radical change as was proposed must of necessity involve an enormous delay, and for their part they were unable to see any advantage in the proposal They looked with equal disfavour upon the proposal to establish a postal and transport service, arguing that there was no need for anything of the kind, the funda the settle of the City of the Sun being that its inhabitants and the resources of the valley itself would be amply sufficient to achieve the reconquest of the country It was not until Harry had very nearly lost his te with these men that he learned that not one of there knowledge of the outside world had been derived froed to make short and hasty journeys outside the confines of the encircling hly grasped this fact he gave them to understand, as politely as possible, that none of the about, and for that reason he would feel himself co his own plans in accordance with the knowledge which he had acquired during a residence of several years in the biggest, busiest, and best-informed city in the world; and that henceforth he would ask of the more than loyal wholehearted obedience to his commands He finally dismissed them with instructions to establish immediately a service of postal runners between the valley and the town of Juliaca on the Santa Rosa, Puno, Arequipa, and Mollendo railith further instructions to arrange for the establishent at Juliaca, whose sole business it should be to see that all letters for Europe and other parts of the world were duly stamped and posted upon receipt by hiht be addressed This done, Esob su him all the coin that he happened to have in his possession, delivered to hiold bar--by this ti--and directed hi the railway as far as possible in order to save ti the bar Then he suddenly bethought hi Ari letter to Mr John Firland with Harry on board the _Rimac_, In this letter he told Firht it necessary for hiements whereby Firmin was to undertake certain business transactions from time to time, and to supply immediately certain necessaries, for the due delivery of which Harry gave his friend the most minute instructions This coard as a very excellent and satisfactory day's work
And now the young Englishan to find his time very fully occupied, so h to enable him to accomplish the half of what he wished to do There was, for instance, the learning of the Quichua language Harry had not been domiciled in his palace twenty-four hours before it had become patent to him that this was the first task which he e whatever of Spanish, and the inconvenience and loss of tih an interpreter were far too great to be passively endured And, since he could do very little else as satisfactorily as he would wish until he had e, he devoted four hours of every day--two in the --to its study
Then he soon learned that, exclusive of the inhabitants of the Valley of the Sun, there were some three hundred and fifty thousand Indians scattered up and down the country, at least one in every ten of who ht into the valley, housed, fed, disciplined, in preparation for the time when arms should be put into their hands; also--as ed that the families of these men, and all dependent upon them, should suffer neither loss nor inconvenience fro of the able-bodied into the valley Then the arrangements and preparations for the i connected hich had, of course, to be done entirely without the knowledge of the authorities--involved a tremendous amount of hard and intricate work It is therefore not to be wondered at that during the first six le hour for amusement
But the moment was at hand when Harry was to enjoy some sport of a quite unique character; and the way in which it caarden, gazing out over the lake, with his faithful henchman Arima close at hand, an idea suddenly occurred to hi, he re this , Arima Are there any balsas near at hand? Because, if so, you shall fetch e in a glorious swim”
”A swim, Lord, in the deep water of the lake?” ejaculated Arima in horror-stricken accents ”Nay, that is impossible”
”Impossible!” repeated Harry ”And why, pray?”
”Because of the e into the lake we should almost certainly be devoured”
”Indeed!” answered Harry ”So there are monsters in the lake, are there? I was not aware of that And what are those 'ators, or voracious fish, or what are they? I should hardly have supposed that the water of the lake arators to flourish in it”
”Nay, Lord,” answered Ariators in soh to be able to distinguish between them and the monsters which haunt our lake Nor are they fish; or if they be, they are quite unlike any other fish that these eyes of mine have ever beheld We call them 'monsters'
because our forefathers did so, and because we have no other na size and malevolence”
”Ah!” commented Harry ”Well, what are these creatures--theseare they? Have you ever seen them?”
”Yes, Lord,” was the answer ”I have seen them no less than three times at close quarters, and alith the sa e of the lake on a balsa, one of my companions had the misfortune to fall into the water Ere the balsa could be stopped and paddled back to where the , two of the monsters appeared and tore hiator lies chiefly in the shape of the head, which, however, is longer in proportion and ator
Also, our monsters have smooth skins, nearly black in colour, and instead of feet and legs they have fins The tail also is differently shaped fro wide and flat at the end”
”By Jove!” exclaimed Harry in astonish creatures indeed; and fins in place of legs and feet!
I'll be shot if I can place theenerally see h it is on record that on one occasion,obviously young ones,” answered Arily interesting,” commented Harry ”I should dearly like to see the creatures myself Do they often show themselves?”
”Very rarely, Lord, save in the case of such accidents as those of which I have told you,” answered Arima ”Yet,” he continued, ”if my Lord desires to see the ed If the carcass of an animal were deposited upon yonder rock,”--the Indian pointed to a rock showing slightly above the water's surface about a mile from the shore--”and another were cast into the water quite near it, the monsters would doubtless be attracted to the place; and if e and safe balsa, he would see them when they crawl up on the rock to reach the carcass exposed there”
”Ah!” ejaculated Harry; ”you think so? Then let the ed for to-morrow, Arima I confess that your description of the creatures has powerfully excited my curiosity, and made me very anxious to see the Inca's curiosity was fully gratified, and with so to spare
Oh, those eneral knowledge of natural history, but these creatures--monsters truly--were entirely new to him In no natural history had he ever seen a representation of anything like theular and terrifying as was their appearance, it was not altogether unfamiliar He believed he had seen theh he could not for thefrom the snout to the tip of the tail, with a head shaped midway between that of a pike and a crocodile, with enor eyes, with a s off to a dirty whitish-grey beneath, with a long tail broad and flat at its extres and feet, the ht a book on antediluvian animals after a--
Of course, that was it, Esob decided, as his thoughts took so read soazine article upon extinct animals, and one of the pictures portrayed these identicaltheht about it the less roo the lake in the Valley of the Sun were actually survivors--most probably the only ones--of the antediluvian plesiosaurus How they got there was aproblem, yet it seemed by no means a difficult one to solve
The conclusion at which Esob speedily arrived--rightly or wrongly-- was that upon the subsidence of the waters of the Deluge a pair of plesiosauri had found thereat basin of the valley, where, the conditions presu exceptionally favourable, they had not only survived but had actually contrived to perpetuate their species to a very li with the probably only three or four specimens at the utmost, was doubtless that the waters were too circumscribed in extent, and too unproductive in the matter of fish, to support more than that number
The problem of how they careat i that really mattered was, in Esob's opinion, that their presence in the lake constituted a horrible danger to those ere obliged to traffic upon its waters, and they must be destroyed They er than was absolutely necessary Why, when one caht not already have fallen victie voracity of those creatures? What hope for his life would a man have if he chanced to fall off his balsa at a moment when one of those monsters happened to be close at hand? Positively none Esob shuddered as he reflected that, ignorant as he had hitherto been of the presence of the plesiosauri in the lake, it had only been by a series of fortuitous circumstances--or was it the intervention of a merciful Providence?--that he had been fro in the lake, ay, and actually swi out to the distant rock, as he had several tily tempted to do
Yes, those implacably ferocious monstersto be settled was, hoas the work of destruction to be accomplished?