Part 14 (1/2)
Howpriests are there, do you say?”
”They nuuana ”We have already taken it upon ourselves to send to U him to come to our assistance; but it will be soer can reach hiuard We therefore thought it well to come to my Lord and ask him to hasten with us to the temple, there to use his authority to save the lives of those who o the fire ordeal”
”Of course,” assented Harry, as he scrambled into his clothes ”But ill happen if those ars refuse to obey me, eh?”
”Refuse to obey you, Lord?” repeated the Villac Vmu in shocked tones
”Nay, they will certainly not do that They have revolted now ht to believe that the innovations against which they rebel are in accordance with the orders of our Lord the Inca
You have but to personally assure them that such is the case, and they will instantly return to their allegiance”
”Very well,” answered Harry, as he threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders to protect hiht air ”Now I a”
E the alh the palace gates into the main road, and made a dash for the temple by the nearest possible route, which happened to be through several dark, narrow, deserted side streets, in which not a soul was stirring; the little crowd of hurrying figures consequently passed on its way and soon reached the tele person
Somewhat to Esob's surprise the temple proved to be in absolute darkness, when the party arrived before the walls; but Xaxaguana explained this by infor monarch that the revolted priests were all asse, and that he had deemed it a wise precaution not to attempt to enter on that side, lest they should meet with resistance before the Inca could find an opportunity to make his presence known As they drew in under the te so closed by means of which he proposed to effect an entrance, and he sent forward a scout to reconnoitre His anxiety, however, proved to be unfounded, for the scout presently returned with the infor quiet on that side of the building The party therefore moved forward onceconducted along a corridor, unlighted save by the smoky flare of the torches carried by his escort Contrary to the young ruler's expectations, the building, even now that he was inside it, rerave; but this was explained by the stateathered together in the rock-hewn baseed in putting their more faithful brethren to the dreadful ”ordeal by fire” Accordingly, when Xaxaguana unlocked a ate let into a wall, and invited Harry to descend with hiress, the young h a door which the priest unlocked when they had reached the foot of the flight of stone steps and traversed so rock
The rooh it hted by a handsome lamp suspended from the roof
”If my Lord will condescend to wait here a o and see exactly what is happening, and return to report,” reuana as he stood aside to allow Harry to pass hi round to the High Priest
”Surely we have not a moment of time to waste Would it not be--”
But, even as he was speaking, the Villac V the door behind hih the thunderous reverberation of which in the hollow vault Harry thought he caught the sound of a sharp click With a muttered ejaculation, expressive of annoyance, he sprang to the door and endeavoured to open it; but it was fast, and, as he listened, he heard the sounds of hastily retreating footsteps in the passage outside And in that same moment the truth flashed upon him that, for some inscrutable reason, he was trapped and a prisoner!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
UMU TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
The first rays of the next e of the sierra which he with a enerally of a ed bout of dissipation--or, alternatively, has been drugged--arose froed his throbbing and buzzing head into a large basin of cold water, preparatory to dressing Once, twice, thrice did he plunge head, neck, and hands into the cooling liquid, with but little satisfactory result, for the relief which he sought, and confidently expected to derive, froroaned as he sank upon a seat and tightly gripped his throbbing temples in his hands Never before in his life had he felt so ill, so utterly cheap and used-up, as he did at that moment In addition to the violent headache fro, his blood felt like fire in his veins, his skin was dry and rough; he was so giddy that he could scarcely stand The truth was that he had been drugged with such brutal severity on the preceding night, by Xaxaguana's e out of the way at the moment of his master's seizure, that it had been due ain awakened After a few minutes' rest he felt so much better that he was able to dress, and afterwardsof the monsters in the lake, it had been Esob's habit to rise early in the arden, embark on a balsa, from which, after Arima had paddled it a few hundred yards froether And now, according to custom, the faithful Indian hurried away to awaken hisdip
But upon entering the sleeping chamber he of course found it untenanted, and for a ht occurred to hi awakened at his usual hour, had risen and gone down into the garden alone A single glance out of the ever, at the length of the shadows cast by the various objects lighted by the sun outside, sufficed to satisfy him that habit had triumphed over even the influence of the narcotic which had been administered to him, and that he was certainly not more than a few e, he flung his glances quickly about the roons that it had been invaded during the night by a number of people, and that his master had arisen and dressed in haste Quick to take the alarm where Esob was concerned, he at once hurried out, and, without waiting to find any of the palace officials to whom to report his discovery, proceeded forthwith to question as ain he only found matter for further alarm and apprehension; for not only did the whole service of the building appear to be in a state of coanisation, but it at once becaitated, and h each and all professed theht upon the mystery of the Inca's inexplicable disappearance, he felt instinctively that they were all lying to hith that no information was to be obtained frorounds,his way, in the first instance, down to the shore of the lake, for the purpose of satisfying himself beyond all possibility of question whether or not there was any foundation for his first surmise, that Esob had risen early and left the palace without waiting for himoored in its proper place; also the cutter was at her usual s There was therefore no possibility that the Inca had taken it into his head to go for a solitary earlysail Satisfied upon this point, the Indian next made his way round to the front of the palace, and here at once the evidences of a visit of a large party of people to the palace, soht, once more presented themselves, the latest--that is to say the top that quite a crowd of people had hurried fro down the broad path leading to the entrance gates of the garden and thence into the main road Moreover, the ”spoor” remained undisturbed in the road for a distance sufficient to indicate the general direction in which the party had gone, although it was lost in the ordinary signs of traffic within a few yards of the gates Having ascertained thus much, Arima returned to the spot where the footprints first showed outside the palace doors, and, going down upon his hands and knees, patiently set hithem But before he had had time to achieve any result in this direction one of the palace officials appeared and, angrily de there, ordered hi, by way of reply to Ariitated representations, that the Inca had left the palace during the early hours of the , with a party of companions, to hunt the vicuna The Indian at once knew this to be a falsehood, for the hunting grounds layparties never drea thither otherwise than on horseback, and Arima was prepared to swear that none of the party had been mounted Moreover he was convinced that hishis favourite servant behind had he been bound upon a hunting expedition The official, however, was curt and peremptory in his manner, and Arima soon understood that he must obey his orders or suffer arrest He therefore returned to the Inca's rooms and proceeded to put them in order, as was his duty But the very curtness and peremptoriness of the official's manner to him, as well as the improbable story which he had told, only had the effect of strengthening and confir the suspicions in the faithful fellow'sInca to this hest officials of the palace had thus far not disdained to be extremely civil to him
But the question in Arima's mind nohat precisely was it that had happened to his young one? For even thus far no gli of the hideous truth had reached the Indian's mind His suspicions and apprehensions were all as yet chaotic and for that Esob's life was in danger But as he proceeded with his business, seeking fro headache and the other extre acutely, it gradually began to dawn upon him, as his mental faculties slowly shook off their stupor, that every one of those sy upon the administration of an overdose of a decoctionhere and there in the valley, and which was sometimes used as an anaesthetic by the local physicians He was fully aware of the tremendous potency of the extracted juices of this plant, as also of its tastelessness, and the consequent ease hich it could be adnised clearly that if anyone had wished to adht it could easily have been done
The question which next arose in his mind naturally hy should anyone desire to adht to him? But his mental powers had by this ti to enable him quickly to trace a connection--however obscure as yet--between this act and the extraordinary fact of hisWhen once the faithful fellow had reached the length of connecting the two circu the terrible possibilities that lurked in such a sinister combination of circuht, for at the sanificance of certain apparently trivial ree suddenly dawned upon him Could it be that these nificance which he now attached to the upon hishis that were actually of no moment whatever? He could not tell; his brain was still in too muddled a condition for him to feel that he could trust it But there was one sensible thing that he could do, he told hio to Umu and lay the whole matter before him
Umu was a shrewd sensiblein thoseto chase each other through his bewildered brain Besides, Umu was the Inca'sout of the palace by the garden entrance--lest perchance he should be seen and stopped if he atteed at once into the most unfrequented paths, and so betook himself, by a circuitous route, to the lake shore, where he at once got aboard the balsa, and, paddling the primitive craft some half a mile beyond the royal demesne, beached her in a secluded spot, and thencewas by this time so well advanced that the hour for the first meal of the day was past, and it became a moot point with Arima whether to seek Uuard He decided, however, upon trying the house first, and it ell that he did; for, although Umu was not at home, neither, it seehter, had an iht be found, and Ariirl's ear half a dozen sentences of his so that she was about to seek her father, and that he (Arima) must on no account whatever attempt to stir from the house until her return, unless, of course, her father shouldbestowed that injunction, Maia, wild- eyed and white-lipped, rushed into the street and hurried on her way; for she, too, had heard words said, to which at the ht of as hinted at by Arinificance
As it happened, she had not to go very far, for she had not left the house ht of her father, ood mile distant
Fortunately for her he reined up to exchange a few passing words with an acquaintance, and that afforded her the opportunity to overtake and stop him She did not dare, however, to ht her out in search of her father until the two friends had parted, when she briefly explained that Aried him to hasten back to the house without delay, at the sa him sufficient of what had passed between herself and the Inca's henchravity of the situation; for he dug his heels into his charger's ribs and dashed off at a gallop
When Maia arrived back at the house, she found Arima in the midst of the relation of his story to her father, and, quite as a matter of course, sat down to listen The Indian had, in the interim between her departure and Uether and properly arrange his thoughts, and he related his narrative with due regard to sequence of events, beginning with such apparently casual words and trivial occurrences as had conificance in the light ofon to describe his sensations upon awaking thatin detail everything he had done, and the thoughts and suspicions that had occurred to him subsequent to his discovery of his reed Uht his story to a conclusion, ”the whole thing seems reasonably clear, up to a certain point I have not a shadow of doubt that certain disaffected persons have adopted the extre the person of our Lord the Inca; and they caused you, ht not interfere with their plans The question whichhave to decide is: who are those persons, and what is their object in seizing the Inca? They reat power and influence, otherwise they would never dare--”