Part 14 (2/2)
”Don't know; it feels like leather; tough as rats I've been working at it for two hours, but it won't give”
”Well, you knohat that means Dumb brutes don't tie ais impossible But listen!”
There was a sound--the swift patter of feet; they were approaching
Then suddenly a for, but I felt a pressure againstodor, indescribable, entered s pulled back and forth, and soon htened away froround near my head, and then silence
There ca the brute! He's cut my wrist Are your hands free, Paul?”
”Yes”
”Then bind this up; it's bleeding badly What was that for?”
”I have an idea,” I answered as I tore a strip froht Then I searched on the ground beside o, Hal! here's sorub But what the deuce is it? By Jove, it's dried fish!+ Nohere in the name of--”
But asted no more time in talk, for ere half starved The stuff was not bad; to us who had been fasting for so like thirty-six hours--for our idea of tieous banquet And close by there was a basin full of water
”Pretty decent sort of beggars, I say,” came Harry's voice in the darkness ”But who are they?”
”Ask Felipe,” I answered, for by this time I ell convinced of the nature and identity of our captors ”As I said, dus, nor feed them on dried fish Of course it's incredible, but a ”
”But, Paul! You mean--”
”Exactly We are in the hands of the Incas of Huanuco--or rather their descendants”
”But that was four hundred years ago!”
”Your history is perfect, like Desiree's geography,” said I dryly
”But what then? They have merely chosen to live under the world instead of on it; a rather wise decision, a cynic ht say--not to mention the small circumstance that they are prisoners
”My dear Hal, never allow yourself to be surprised at anything; it is a weakness Here we are in total darkness, buried in the Andes, surrounded by hairy, degenerate brutes that are probably allowing us to eat in order that we may be in condition to be eaten, with no possibility of ever again beholding the sunshi+ne; and what is the thought that rises to the surface of my mind? Merely this: that I most earnestly desire and crave a Carbajal perfecto and a match”
”Paul, you say--eat--”
”Most probably they are cannibals The Lord knows they must have some sort of mild amusement in this fearful hole Of course, the idea is distasteful; before they cut us up they'll have to knock us down”
”That's a darned silly joke,” said Harry with some heat