Entering Escombe's tent, which was dimly lighted by a hanging lamp turned low, Arima noiselessly moved aside and silently, with outstretched hand, indicated to his two companions the form of the sleeping lad, who lay stretched at length upon his camp bed, breathing the long, deep breath of profound slumber. Nodding silently, one of the two withdrew from a pouch which hung suspended from his belt a soft cloth and a small phial. Extracting the stopper from the latter, he emptied the contents of the phial upon the cloth, which he then very gradually approached to the nostrils of the sleeper until it was within an inch of them. He held the cloth thus for about five minutes, allowing the fumes of the liquid to enter the sleeper's nostrils, while his companion very gently laid his fingers upon the pulse of Escombe's right hand, which happened to be lying outside the coverlet. At length the second Indian—he who held Harry's wrist—nodded to the first, saying, in a low voice, in the ancient Quichua language: "It is enough; nothing will now awaken him,"—whereupon the holder of the cloth returned it and the phial to his pouch and stepped back from the side of the bed. Then, turning to Arima, he said, in the same language:

"Say you, Arima, that this youth always wears the collar upon his person, night and day?"

"Even so, Lord," answered Arima. "At least," he modified his statement, "so I surmise; for I have never seen the jewel save the once whereof I told you, and again on that same night when I stole into his tent while he slept, and found that he was wearing it then. Whereupon I hastened to you with my momentous news."

"You have done well, friend," answered the first speaker. "Should all prove to be as you say, you shall be richly rewarded. And now,"—he caught his breath with sudden excitement—"to settle the question." Then, turning to his companion, he said:

"Approach, brother, and look with me. It is meet that we should both gaze upon the sacred emblem—if so it should prove—at the self-same moment." He signed to Arima, who turned up the flame of the lamp, whereupon the two Inca priests—for such the strangers actually were— bent over Escombe's sleeping figure, one on each side of the bed, and while one drew down the coverlet the other unbuttoned the lad's sleeping jacket, exposing to view the jewel which he had fished up from Lake Chinchaycocha, and which, for safety, he always wore round his neck.

Eagerly the two priests bent down and scrutinised the magnificent ornament as it lay upon the gently heaving breast of the sleeper; and as their eyes hungrily took in the several peculiarities of the jewel a thrill of excitement visibly swept over them. Finally, he who appeared to be the elder of the two said to the other:

"There can scarcely be a doubt that Arima's surmise is correct; nevertheless, brother, pass your hand beneath the young man's shoulder and raise him slightly that I may remove the collar and examine it."

The priest addressed at once obeyed the request of the other, who thereupon gently passed the ornament over the sleeper's head and, taking it immediately beneath the lamp, proceeded to examine every part of it with the closest scrutiny, his companion allowing Escombe's limp body to subside back on the pillow before he, too, joined in the inspection. Every link, almost every mark of the chisel, was subjected to the most careful examination, and apparently certain of the engraved marks were recognised as bearing a definite meaning; for on more than one occasion the elder of the two priests pointed to such a mark, saying, "Behold, Motahuana, here is, unmistakably, the secret sign," while the other would nod his head solemnly and respond, "Even so, Tiahuana; I see it." Finally he who had been addressed by the other as Tiahuana turned the jewel over in his hand and examined the back of it. His gaze instantly fell upon the cabalistic characters engraved upon the backs of the emeralds, which had puzzled Escombe, and, laying the jewel gently down upon the bed, he prostrated himself before it, Motahuana immediately following his example, as also did Arima.

For a space of some three or four minutes the trio appeared to be absorbed in some act of silent devotion, then Tiahuana rose to his feet and fixed his gaze on the jewel which lay upon the coverlet of Escombe's bed. Meditatively his eyes rested upon the great emerald pendant with its engraved representation of a human face, and from thence they wandered to the calm features of the sleeping lad. Suddenly he started, and his gaze became alert, almost startled. He bent down and scrutinised the engraved features intently, then quickly diverted his gaze to those on the pillow. Was it some trick of light, he asked himself, or were the two sets of features identical?

"Look, Motahuana, look!" he whispered in tense accents; "see you the resemblance? I have but observed it this instant. Nay, man, you can scarcely see it from where you stand, for that side of his face is in shadow. Come to this side of the couch—or, stay, I will move the lamp."

He did so, holding the lamp so that its light fell full upon the sleeper's face, while with the other hand he rearranged the collar so that the pendant lay upright upon Escombe's breast. In this position, and in the stronger light, the likeness was even more startlingly striking than before, and for two long minutes the aged pair bent intently over the object of their scrutiny with an ever-growing expression of wonder and awe upon their attenuated features.

"Well, brother," at length demanded Tiahuana, somewhat sharply, "see you what I mean, or is it merely my fancy—a figment of my over-heated imagination?"

"Nay, Lord," answered Motahuana in an awestruck whisper, "it is no figment, no fancy; the likeness is wonderful, marvellous, perfect; the features are identical, curve for curve and line for line, save that those engraved on the emerald bear the impress of a few more years of life. That, however, is immaterial, and in no wise affects the fact that in this sleeping youth we behold the reincarnation of him who first wore the sacred jewel, the lord and father of our people, Manco Capac!"

"Even so; you say truly, Motahuana," agreed Tiahuana in tones of exultation. "The revelation is complete and indisputable past all doubt; the mighty Manco Capac has returned to earth from his home among the stars, and soon now shall Peru resume its former glorious position as the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. It is true that the great Manco returns to us in the guise of a young Englishman, for which circumstance I was scarcely prepared; but what of that? It is better so; for England is to-day the wisest and most mighty nation on the face of the earth, and doubtless the Inca brings with with him a rich store of the knowledge of England. Come, there is no occasion for further delay; let us be going, for we must be far hence and beyond the reach of pursuit ere our father the Sun awakens his children and discloses the fact of our Lord's disappearance. Go thou, Arima, and summon hither the litter bearers and the others."

In a perfect ecstasy of pride and delight that it should have fallen to his lot to become the humble instrument whereby had been made known to his people the glorious fact of the great Inca's reincarnation in the person of Escombe—as he never for a moment doubted was the case—Arima hurried out to where the remainder of the party lay patiently in ambush, briefly announced to them that all was well, and bade them follow him in perfect silence to the tent in which Harry still lay plunged in a deathlike yet quite harmless sleep. The litter—a light but strong structure, framed of bamboos and covered with vicuna cloth, so arranged that it could be completely closed—was carried right into the tent, the covering thrown back, and Escombe was lifted, on his mattress and still covered with the bedclothes, off the little iron camp bedstead and carefully placed in the litter, the jewel was replaced about his neck, the pillow under his head was comfortably arranged by Arima, the litter was closed, and then a little procession, consisting of the litter and its four bearers, with the eight other men who acted as reliefs, headed by the two priests, filed silently out into the darkness, leaving Arima, with six men, armed to the teeth with bows and arrows—the latter tipped with copper—lances of hardwood sharpened by fire, and short swords, the copper blades of which were hardened and tempered almost to the consistency of steel by a process known only to the Peruvians themselves. The duty of these men was to collect together and pack, under Arima's supervision, the whole of Escombe's private and personal belongings; and this they did with such expedition that, in less than half an hour from the involuntary departure of its owner, the tent was almost entirely stripped of its contents and left deserted.

Under the anaesthetic influence of the vapour which he had unconsciously inhaled, Escombe continued to sleep soundly until close upon midday, by which time the effect had almost entirely passed off, and he began to awake very gradually to the consciousness that something very much out of the ordinary course of things was happening. The first thing to impress itself upon his slowly awakening senses was the fact that the bed upon which he was lying was in motion, a gentle, easy, rhythmic, swaying motion, unlike any movement that he had ever before experienced. Yet the bed seemed to be the same as that upon which he had retired to rest upon the preceding night, so far as he could judge; the mattress had the old familiar feel, and—yes, certainly, he was still under the shelter of the bedclothes, and his head still rested upon the familiar pillow—he could feel the lumps in it where the flock filling had become matted together. But why the mysterious motion? Could it be that he was experiencing for the first time the effects of a Peruvian earthquake? Slowly and reluctantly he opened his eyes, and saw that his bed was indeed the same, yet with a certain difference, the precise nature of which he was at first unable to define. But presently he saw that the bed or couch upon which he was lying was closely encompassed by a soft blanket-like cloth, tightly strained over a light bamboo framework, forming a sort of canopy. And the motion? He was by this time sufficiently awake to understand that it was real; nor was it due to earthquake, as he had at first been inclined to think it might be; no, it was the regular, rhythmic movement of men marching and keeping step; he was being carried!

With a rush his senses came fully back to him, and he started up into a sitting posture. It was high time for him to get to the bottom of this mystery, he told himself. He saw that midway in their length the side curtains which enclosed him were divided and overlapped, and, stretching out his hand, he wrenched them apart, at the same time, in his forgetfulness, calling loudly for Arima.

In an instant the Indian was by the side of the litter and peering in through the opening between the parted curtains, to his masters intense astonishment.

"You called, Senor—my Lord, I mean?" exclaimed the man submissively.

"I did!" answered Escombe incisively. "What has happened, Arima? Where have you been? Where am I? Why am I being carried off in this outrageous manner? Answer me quickly."

"My Lord," answered the Indian deprecatingly, "I implore you not to be disturbed or alarmed in the least. We are all your slaves, and are prepared to lay down our lives in your service. No harm is intended you; but it is necessary that you accompany us to the place whither we are going. Here is my Lord Tiahuana. He will perhaps explain further."

Meanwhile, during this brief colloquy, the cortege had come to a halt, and now the elder of the two priests presented himself as Arima retired, and, with a profound obeisance, said:

"Let my Lord pardon his servants, and let not his anger be kindled against them. What we have done has been done of necessity and because there seemed to be no other way. But my Lord need have no fear that evil is meditated against him; on the contrary, a position of great power and glory will be his at the end of his journey; and meanwhile every possible provision has been made for the comfort and wellbeing of my Lord during his passage through the mountains."

"But—but—I don't understand," stammered Harry. "Who are you, why do you address me as Lord, and what do you mean by talking about a passage through the mountains? There is a ridiculous mistake."

"Nay, Lord, be assured that there is no mistake," answered Tiahuana impressively. "The matter has been most carefully investigated, and the fact has been conclusively established that my Lord is he whom we want. The jewel which my Lord even now wears about his neck proves it. Further than that—"

"The jewel that I am wearing about my neck—this thing?" exclaimed Harry, drawing it forth. "Why, man, I fished this up from the bottom of Lake Chinchaycocha, and am simply wearing it because it appeared valuable and I did not wish to lose it."

"Even so, Lord," answered Tiahuana soothingly, and with even increased reverence, if that were possible. "The circumstance that my Lord drew the collar of the great Manco Capac from the depths of Chinchaycocha is but an added proof—if such were needed—that my Lord is he whom we have believed him to be, and that no mistake has been made."

"But, my good man, I tell you that a mistake has been made—a very stupid mistake—which I must insist that you rectify at once," exclaimed Escombe, who was beginning to grow a trifle exasperated at what he inwardly termed the fellow's stupid persistence. "Look here," he continued, "I don't in the least know whom you suppose me to be, but I will tell you who I am. My name is Escombe—Henry Escombe. I am an Englishman, and I only came to Peru—"

"My Lord," interposed Tiahuana with deep humility, yet with a certain inflection of firmness in his voice, "all that you would say is perfectly well known to us your servants; it has been told to us by the man Arima. But nothing can alter the fact that my Lord is the man referred to in the prophecy pronounced by the great High Priest Titucocha on the awful night when the Inca Atahuallpa was strangled by the Spaniards in the great square of Caxamalca. From that moment the ancient Peruvian people have looked for the coming of my lord to free them from the yoke of the foreign oppressor, to give them back their country, and to restore them to the proud position which they occupied ere the coming of the cruel Spaniard; and now that my lord has deigned to appear we should be foolish indeed to permit anything—anything, Lord—to stand in the way of the realisation of our long-deferred hopes."

Harry began to realise that the misunderstanding was more serious than he had at first thought. It must be put right without any further delay. But he could not sit there in that ridiculous palankeen affair and argue with a man who stood with his head thrust between the curtains; he must get up and dress. Moreover, he was ravenously hungry, and felt certain that the breakfast hour must have long gone past. So, instead of replying to Tiahuana's last remarks, he simply said: "Send Arima to me."

The old priest instantly withdrew, and in his place appeared Arima again, who had been standing within earshot, quite expecting a summons at any moment.

"Behold, I am here, Lord," remarked the Indian with a deep obeisance. "What is my Lord's will with the least of his servants?"

"My will," answered Harry, "is to dress and have breakfast at once. When you and your friends kidnapped me last night, did you by any chance have the sense to bring my clothes along?"

"We have brought everything with us, Lord," answered Arima. "Nothing that I know to be my Lord's property has been left behind."

"Um!" thought Harry, "the beggar has been altogether too faithful for my liking. He has brought everything of mine, has he? That means that if I cannot persuade these idiots to take me back to the camp, and it becomes necessary for me to make my escape, I shall have to go off with just what I stand up in, leaving the rest of my belongings in their hands!" Aloud he said: "Very well, then please bring me the clothes that I wore while at work yesterday."

With breathless haste the clothes required were brought forth from a bundle into which they had been hastily thrust, and presented to their owner; the litter was gently deposited upon the ground, and Harry, lightly clad in his pyjama suit, scrambled out, to find himself in the midst of an extensive pine wood, with his escort, consisting of twenty- one persons all told, prostrate on their faces around him! Evidently, he told himself, he was a personage of such dignity and consequence that he must not be looked at by profane eyes while dressing. Smiling to himself at the absurdity of the whole adventure, he quickly proceeded with his toilet, obsequiously assisted by the faithful Arima; and when at length he was dressed, a word from Arima caused the escort to rise to their feet. Then, while some of them proceeded to gather branches and light a fire, others set to work to open certain bundles from which they rapidly extracted bread, chocolate, sugar, and, in short, all the ingredients required to furnish forth an appetising and satisfying breakfast. Finally, about half an hour later, the young Englishman, in a frame of mind about equally divided between annoyance at his abduction and amazement at the unaccountable behaviour of his abductors, found himself partaking of the said breakfast, presented to him in a service of solid gold of curious but most elaborate design and workmanship, and waited upon by his entire suite with as much ceremony and obsequiousness as though he were a king.



CHAPTER NINE.

TIAHUANA TELLS A STRANGE STORY.

Escombe's appetite was good, the food delicious, the cooking perfection, the service irreproachable, if somewhat elaborate. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the young man made an excellent meal, and that at its conclusion he should feel himself in admirable form for tackling his captors upon the subject of their outrageous abduction of him. Therefore, after performing his post-prandial ablutions in a basin of solid gold, held before him by a kneeling man, and drying himself upon an immaculate towel woven of cotton which was a perfect miracle of absorbent softness, tendered to him by another kneeling man, he resolutely seated himself upon a moss-grown rock which happened to conveniently protrude itself from the soil close at hand, and proceeded to deal with the matter. He had no difficulty in recognising that Tiahuana and Motahuana were the two wielders of authority in his escort—which, by the way, he noticed had a persistent trick of arranging itself about him in a tolerably close circle of which he was the centre—he therefore opened the proceedings by remarking:

"Now, before I go another step I insist upon having a full and explicit explanation of your unwarrantable behaviour in entering my camp last night and abducting me, to the serious detriment of the exceedingly important work upon which I am engaged. You have assured me that I have nothing to fear at your hands, and you appear to be quite satisfied that in abducting me you have got the man you want; but I am as far as ever from understanding what your motive can be. Which of you two men is responsible for the outrage?"

"I am the responsible one, Lord," answered Tiahuana. "I, the high priest of the remnant of the ancient Peruvian race, now and for many long years established in the city of the Sun which, unknown to any but ourselves, lies hidden far away among the mountains. You demand an explanation of what you have termed my unwarrantable action in taking possession of your august person. It is a just and reasonable demand, Lord; moreover, it is necessary that you should have it. Therefore, let my Lord deign to listen to what to him may seem a wild and incredible story, but which is strictly true in every particular.

"When in the dim and remote past our Lord and Father the Sun took compassion upon us his people, he sent two of his children—Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco—to earth in order that they might form us into a united and consolidated nation. These two established themselves in a certain spot, the locality of which had been divinely revealed to them by a certain sign—even as your identity, Lord, has been revealed to us; and our forefathers gathering about them, the ancient and royal city of Cuzco was built, wherein Manco Capac took up his abode as our first Inca. Now, Manco Capac, being of divine origin, was endowed with marvellous wisdom and knowledge, even to the foreseeing of future events; and among the events which he foretold was that of the conquest of our country by the Spaniard. He also formulated many wise and righteous laws for the government of the people, which laws were further added to by his successors.

"Now, with the building of the city of Cuzco and his establishment therein as Inca, Manco assumed royal dignity, and inaugurated a code of stately ceremonial for all those who formed his court and might have occasion to come to it. He also arrayed himself in regal garments and adorned his person with certain regal ornaments, of which the collar now worn by you, Lord, was the most important next to the imperial borla, or tasselled fringe of scarlet, adorned with coraquenque feathers, which was the distinguishing insignia of royalty.

"When in the fullness of time Manco was called home to the mansions of his father the Sun, he gave minute instructions, before his departure, as to the disposal of everything belonging to him, including his royal jewels. Some of these he ordained were to be deposited with his body in the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. But the jewel which you are now wearing, Lord, he decreed was to be handed down from Inca to Inca, even unto the last of the race; and it was so. Atahuallpa wore it as he entered the city of Caxamalca at the head of his vassals and retinue on the afternoon of that fatal day when he fell into the hands of the treacherous Spaniards and, helpless to prevent it, beheld thousands of his unarmed followers slaughtered like sheep in the great square. But he did not wear it on the night when, at the command of the false and treacherous Pizarro, he was haled forth himself to die in the great square where so many of his followers had previously perished. Nor did it fall into the hands of his captors, thus much was ascertained beyond all possibility of doubt. What became of it nobody could—or would— say; but on the night of Atahuallpa's murder the High Priest Titucocha suddenly emerged from the great temple of the Sun in Cuzco and, standing before the entrance, summoned the inhabitants of the city to assemble before him. Then he told them that Atahuallpa was dead, that the Inca dynasty was at an end, and that the great Peruvian nation was doomed to pass under the rule of the Conquistadors, and be swallowed up by them and their descendants. 'But not for all time, my children,' he cried. 'We have sinned in that we have permitted the Spaniards to overrun our country without opposition, instead of utterly destroying them as we might have done; and this is our punishment for not defending the land which our Father the Sun gave us for our sustenance and enjoyment. But be not dismayed; a remnant of you shall survive, and under my leadership shall retire to a certain place the locality of which has been revealed to me, and there will we build a new City of the Sun, the glory of which shall exceed that of Cuzco, even as the glory of our Lord and Father the Sun exceeds that of his consort the Moon. And in the fullness of time it shall come to pass that Manco Capac, the founder of our nation, shall be reincarnated and shall appear among us, and he will become our Inca, to reign over us as aforetime, and restore the Peruvian nation to its pristine power and glory by virtue of his own wisdom and the power of the wealth which we will accumulate for his use. And when he appears ye shall know him from the fact that he will wear about his neck the great emerald collar worn first by himself and afterward by all the Incas.'

"And behold, Lord, as Titucocha spake, so hath it all happened. A remnant of the ancient Peruvian race survives to this day, untainted by any admixture with the blood of aliens; and while many of them are scattered abroad over the face of the country watching ever for the reappearance of Manco Capac, the lesser part are gathered together in the City of the Sun, founded by Titucocha, and now in the very zenith of its magnificence, awaiting the coming of my Lord."

"So that is the yarn, is it?" exclaimed Harry, as Tiahuana came to a halt in his narrative. "And a very extraordinary story it is; never heard anything like it in all my life! And I suppose, friend Tiahuana, that because I happen to have fished up this collar out of Lake Chinchaycocha, and am wearing it round my neck because I do not wish to lose it, you identify me as the reincarnated Manco Capac, eh?"

"Assuredly, Lord," answered Tiahuana. "He would indeed be a sceptic who should venture to entertain the shadow of a doubt in the face of proof so complete in all respects as that which has been vouchsafed to us."

"Ah!" ejaculated Harry, bracing himself to demolish this absurd fable, and secure his release at a stroke. "Now, I don't understand very much about the doctrine of reincarnation, but I suppose, if I were really Manco Capac come to earth again, I should have some recollection of my former state of existence, shouldn't I? Well, will it surprise you to learn that I have nothing of the sort—not the feeblest glimmer?"

"Nay, Lord," answered Tiahuana, "that is not in the least surprising. It often happens that the reincarnated one has no recollection of his former existence until he finds himself amid surroundings similar to those with which he was familiar in his past state; and even then remembrance often comes but slowly. Your lack of recollection does not in the least alter facts; and of those facts we have all the proof that can possibly be required. And now, Lord, will it please you that we resume our journey? There are many difficulties to be surmounted before we reach the spot at which we must encamp to-night, and it is high time that our march should be resumed."

"No," answered Harry, "it does not please me that we resume our journey. On the contrary, I refuse to accompany you another step unless you will undertake to convey me back to the camp whence you brought me. If you will do this I am willing to overlook the outrage which you have perpetrated in abducting me, and promise that you shall hear nothing more about it. But if you persist in keeping me a prisoner, I warn you that the British Consul will be speedily made acquainted with the facts, and he will never rest until I have been released and every one of you severely punished; and that punishment, let me tell you, will be no joke; for he will take care that it is adequate to the offence. You will be made to understand that even a solitary young Englishman like myself cannot be kidnapped with impunity!"

"Pardon, Lord," answered Tiahuana with a deprecatory gesture. "I am overwhelmed with distress at having incurred my Lord's displeasure; but I must not permit even that to interfere with the discharge of my duty. It is imperative that my Lord should accompany us. Were we to fail to convey him to the hidden City of the Sun we should all be justly put to death; my Lord will therefore see that we have no choice in the matter. The only one who has a choice is my Lord himself, who can choose whether he will accompany us willingly, or whether we must resort to something in the nature of coercion."

As Tiahuana spoke the last words he made a sign with his hand, upon which the little band of attendants contracted themselves into a circle of considerably smaller diameter than before, yet still preserving an attitude of the most profound respect. Escombe saw at once that the moment was by no means favourable for an attempt to escape; he therefore quickly decided to make the best of things and to submit pro tem, with a good grace to what was unavoidable. He accordingly said:

"Very well; since you are absolutely determined to carry me off, I prefer to accompany you voluntarily. But I warn you that you will all suffer severely for this outrage."

It is most regrettable to be obliged to record it, but Escombe's threatened invocation of Britain's might and majesty seemed to discompose those obstinate Indians not at all; to use his own expression when talking of it afterwards, his threats glanced off them as harmlessly as water off a duck's back, and all that they seemed in the least concerned about was his welfare and comfort during the journey. With much solicitude Tiahuana enquired whether it would please him to walk or to be carried in the litter. "We would have brought your horse with us for your use, Lord," the High Priest explained apologetically, "but much of the road before us is impassable for horses or mules—nay, even a llama might scarcely pass it."

"Oh, that's all right!" answered Harry cheerily; "I dare say I can walk as fast and as far as you people can."

Nevertheless he deeply regretted that they had not thought fit to bring his horse, for he felt that, mounted, he would have had a much better chance of escape than on foot; and this conviction was greatly strengthened when, as the day wore on toward evening and the stiff ascents which they were frequently obliged to negotiate began to tell upon him, he observed how the Indians, with their short, quick step, covered mile after mile of the uneven, rocky road, without the slightest apparent effort or any visible sign of distress. Then it began to dawn upon him gradually that, even should he find a suitable opportunity to give his custodians the slip, they could easily run him down and recapture him. Besides, he was by no means certain that he could now find his way back to the camp. He had not the remotest notion of the direction in which the camp lay, for during many hours of his journey he had been asleep, and the Indians were not only continually changing the direction of their travel, but were apparently taking a constant succession of short cuts across country, now winding their way for a mile or two along the face of some dizzy precipice by means of a ledge only a foot or two in width, anon clambering some hundreds of feet up or down an almost vertical rock face, where a slip or a false step meant instant death; now crossing some ghastly chasm by means of a frail and dilapidated suspension bridge constructed of cables of maguey fibres and floored with rotten planking, which swung to the tread until the oscillation threatened to precipitate the entire party into the terrible abyss that yawned beneath them, and perhaps half an hour later forcing their way, slowly and with infinite labour and difficulty, up the boulder-strewn bed of some half-dry mountain stream that was liable at any moment—if there happened to be rain higher up among the hills—to become swollen into a raging, foaming, irresistible torrent, against the impetuous fury of which no man could stand for an instant. To do the Indians no more than the barest justice, they were to the last degree solicitous to spare their prisoner the least fatigue, and repeatedly assured him that there was not the slightest necessity for him to walk a single step of the way, while whenever there was the barest possibility of danger there was always a sufficient number of them within arm's reach to render him every required assistance, and to ensure that no harm should possibly befall him. But although continuous travelling hour after hour over such very difficult ground became at last most horribly fatiguing. Harry set his teeth and plodded grimly on. He was not going to let "those copper-coloured chaps" suppose that they could tire an Englishman out, not he! Besides, he wished to become accustomed to the work against the time when the opportunity should come for him to break away successfully and effect his escape. For that he would escape he was resolutely determined. The prospect of being an Inca—an absolute monarch whose lightest word was law—had, at that precise moment, no attraction for him. He had not a particle of ambition to become the regenerator of a nation; or, if a scarce-heard whisper reached his mental ear that to become such would be an exceedingly grand thing, he promptly replied that his genius did not lie in that direction, and that any attempt on his part to regenerate anybody must inevitably result in dismal and utter failure. No, he had been sent out to Peru by Sir Philip Swinburne to execute certain work, and he would carry out his contract with Sir Philip in spite of all the Indians in the South American continent. As to that story about his being the reincarnated Inca, Manco Capac, Harry Escombe was one of those estimable persons whose most valued asset is their sound, sterling common sense. He flattered himself that he had not an ounce of romance in his entire composition; and it did not take him a moment to make up his mind that the yarn, from end to end, was the veriest nonsense imaginable. He laughed aloud—a laugh of mingled scorn and pity for the stupendous ignorance of these poor savages, isolated from all the rest of the world, and evidently priding themselves, as such isolated communities are apt to do, upon their immeasurable superiority to everybody else. Then he happened to think of the exquisitely wrought service of gold plate off which he had fed that day, and the wonderfully fine quality of the material of the priests' clothing; and he began to modify his opinion somewhat. A people with the taste and skill needed to produce such superb goldsmith's work and such beautiful cloth—soft and smooth as silk, yet as warm as and very much finer than any woollen material that he had ever seen—could scarcely be classed as mere savages; they must certainly possess some at least of the elements of civilisation. And then those "second thoughts", which are proverbially best, or more just, gradually usurped in young Escombe's mind his first crude ideas relative to the ignorance and benighted condition generally of the inhabitants of the unknown City of the Sun. And as they did so, a feeling of curiosity to see for himself that wonderful city gradually took root, and began to spring up and strengthen within him. Why should he not? he asked himself. The only obstacle which stood in the way was his duty to Sir Philip Swinburne to complete the work which he had been sent out to do. But after all, when he came to consider the matter dispassionately, his absence—his enforced absence—was not likely to prejudice appreciably Sir Philip's interests; for the railway survey was very nearly completed, and what remained to be done was simple in the extreme compared with what had already been accomplished, and there was Bannister—a thoroughly capable man—to do it. And as to the soundings on Lake Titicaca, they were simply child's play—anybody could take them! No, it was only his own conceit that had caused him to think that his absence, especially at the existing state of the survey, would be in the least inimical to Sir Philip's interests; it would be nothing of the kind. Bannister could finish the work as satisfactorily as he— Escombe—could, probably much more so!

It will be seen, from these arguments—which were in the main perfectly sound—that Mr Henry Escombe, having conceived the idea that he would like to have a peep at the mysterious City of the Sun, was now endeavouring to reconcile himself as thoroughly as might be to what was rapidly assuming to him the appearance of the inevitable; for with every step that the party took, it was being borne with increasing clearness upon his inner consciousness that to escape was already impossible. For, first of all, their route had been over such trackless wastes that, despite the keenness with which he had noted the appearance of every conspicuous object passed, they were all so very much alike that he had the gravest doubts as to his ability to find his way back to the camp without a guide. And if he were to attempt it and should lose his way, there could be very little doubt that he would perish miserably of exposure and starvation in that wilderness, where not even so much as a solitary hut had been sighted throughout the day. But, apart from this, and granting for the moment that his memory might be trusted to guided him aright, there were places to be passed and obstacles to be overcome which he admitted to himself he would not care to attempt unaided unless he were in actual peril of his life, and the assurances of Tiahuana had completely set his mind at rest on that score. The thought of invoking Arima's assistance came to him for a moment, only to be dismissed the next, however; for, faithful and devoted as the Indian had proved himself in the past, Harry remembered that it was through his instrumentality and direct intervention that all the pother had arisen. Arima seemed to be as completely convinced as any of the others that Harry was the person foreordained to restore the ancient Peruvian nation to its former power and splendour, and Escombe knew enough of the fellow's character to feel certain that he would not permit personal feeling to interfere with so glorious a consummation. It seemed, then, as though fate, or destiny, or whatever one pleased to call it, willed that he—Harry Escombe—should see the mysterious city; and he finally concluded that, taking everything into consideration, perhaps the wisest thing would be to go quietly and with as much semblance of goodwill as possible, since it appeared that no other course was open to him.

This thought naturally suggested others, each more wild and extravagant than the last, until by the time that the party at length reached the camping ground that had been their objective all through the day, the young Englishman discovered, to his unqualified amazement, that not only did there exist within him a strong vein of hitherto entirely unsuspected romance—awakened and brought to light by the extraordinary nature of the adventure of which he was the hero—but also that, quite unconsciously to himself, his views relative to the exigency and binding character of his engagement to Sir Philip Swinburne had become so far modified that it no longer appeared imperatively necessary for him to jeopardise his life in a practically hopeless endeavour to escape.

The journey had been an up-and-down one all day, that is to say, the party had been either climbing or descending almost the whole of the time; the general tendency, however, had been distinctly upward, and when at length a bare, rocky plateau was reached about sunset, affording ample space upon which to camp, the greatly increased keenness of the atmosphere indicated a net rise of probably some two or three thousand feet. The scene was one of almost indescribable but dreary grandeur, titanic peaks crowned with snow and ice towering high on every hand, divided by gorges of immeasurable depth, their sides for the most part shaggy with pine forests, and never a sign of human habitation to be seen, nor indeed any sign of life in any form, save where, here and there, a small moving blotch on the distant landscape indicated the presence of a flock of huanacos or vicunas; but even these were but few, for the travellers had not yet reached the lofty frozen wastes where alone the ychu grass is found, which is therefore the favoured habitat of those animals.

Escombe now had fresh evidence of the foresight exercised by his escort in providing for his comfort and welfare; for no sooner had the precise spot been selected upon which to camp than from among the baggage borne by the attendants a small tent made of cloth woven from vicuna wool was produced and erected upon jointed bamboo poles; and in a few minutes, with his litter placed inside it to serve as a bed, and a lighted talc lantern suspended from the ridge pole, the young man was able to enter and make himself quite at home.

Nor was he at all sorry; for although he had now been accustomed for several months to be on his feet all day long, day after day, and up to that moment had regarded himself as in the very pink of condition as to toughness and wiriness, the past day's journey had been a revelation to him in the matter of endurance. He had never before in his life experienced anything like the intense fatigue which now racked every joint in his body; and, ravenously hungry as he was, he felt that it would scarcely be possible for him to remain awake long enough to get a meal. But those wonderful Indians appeared to have foreseen everything. Loaded as most of them were with heavy burdens in addition, to their weapons, they had each gradually accumulated a very respectable bundle of firewood during the progress of their march; and while one party had been erecting the tent and arranging its interior for Harry's occupation, a second had been busily engaged in lighting a roaring fire, while a third had been still more busily occupied in preparing the wherewithal to furnish forth a most appetising and acceptable evening meal, which, when placed before the prospective Inca, was found to consist of broiled vicuna chops, delicious bread, mountain honey, fruit, and chocolate. By the time that the meal was ready night had completely fallen, a bitterly keen and piercing wind from the eastward had arisen and came swooping down from the frozen wastes above in savage gusts that momentarily threatened to whirl the frail tent and its occupant into space, and hurl them into one of the many unfathomable abysses that yawned around the party, while, to add to the general discomfort, the wind brought with it a dank, chilling fog, thick as a blanket, that penetrated everywhere and left on everything great beads of icy moisture like copious dew. But Escombe was too unutterably weary to let any of these things trouble him. Sleep was what every fibre of his body was crying aloud for; and he had no sooner finished his meal than, leaving all responsibility for the safety and welfare of the party in the hands of the two priests, he hurriedly divested himself of his clothing, and snuggling into his warm and comfortable bed-litter, instantly sank into absolute unconsciousness, his last coherent thought being a vague wonder how he would fare in such a place and on such a night if, instead of being under the care and protection of the Indians, he had chanced to be a lonely and houseless fugitive from them.



CHAPTER TEN.

THE VALLEY OF MYSTERY.

When young Escombe next morning awoke from the soundest sleep that he had ever enjoyed in his life he at once became aware, from the motion of the litter, that his Indian friends were already on the move; and when, in obedience to his command, they halted to enable him to dress and partake of breakfast, a single glance, as he stepped forth from the litter into the keen air, sufficed to assure him that they must have been in motion for at least three or four hours, for the sun had already topped the peaks of the Andes, and the aspect of the landscape surrounding him was entirely unfamiliar. Not a trace of the spot where they had camped during the preceding night was to be seen, and there was no indication of the direction in which it lay; which fact tended still further to drive home to the young man a conviction of the folly of attempting to find his way back to the survey party alone and unaided.

The journey that day was in all essential respects a counterpart of that of the day before. Tiahuana, who was evidently the leader of the expedition in a double sense, chose his own route, making use of the regular roads only at very infrequent intervals, and then for comparatively short distances, soon abandoning them again for long stretches across country where no semblance of a path of any description was to be found. As on the preceding day, he skirted, climbed, or descended precipices without hesitation, crossing ravines, ascending gorges, and, in fact, he took the country pretty much as it came, guiding the party apparently by means of landmarks known only to himself, but, on the whole, steadily ascending and steadily forcing his way ever deeper into the heart of the stupendous mountain labyrinth that lay to the eastward. And ever as they went the air grew keener and more biting, the aspect of the country wilder and more desolate, the quebradas more appalling in their fathomless depth. The precipices became more lofty and difficult to scale, the mountain torrents more impetuous and dangerous to cross, the primitive suspension bridges more dilapidated and precarious, the patches of timber and vegetation more tenuous, the flocks of huanaco and vicuna larger and more frequent, the way more savage and forbidding, the storms more frequent and terrible, until at length it began to appear to Escombe as though the party had become entangled in a wilderness from which escape in any direction was impossible, and wherein they must all quickly perish in consequence of the unendurable rigours of the climate. Yet Tiahuana still pushed indomitably forward, overcoming obstacle after obstacle that, to anyone less experienced than himself in the peculiarities of the country and the mode of travel in it, must have seemed unconquerable. For ten more days—which to the Indians must have seemed endless by reason of the awful toil, the frightful suffering, and the intense misery that were concentrated in them, although, thanks to the sublime self sacrifice of his escort, Escombe was permitted to feel very little of them—the priest led the way over vast glaciers, across unfathomable crevasses, and up apparently unscalable heights, battling all the time with whirling snow storms that darkened the air, blinded the eyes, and obliterated every landmark, and buffeted by furious winds that came roaring and shrieking along the mountain side and momentarily threatened to snatch the party from their precarious hold and hurl them to destruction on the great gaunt rocks far below, while the cold was at times so terrible that to continue to live in it seemed impossible.

About the middle of the afternoon of the twelfth day after leaving the survey camp, the party topped a ridge and saw before them a long, steep, smooth slope of snow, frozen hard by a night of almost deadly frost; and a sigh of intense relief and thankfulness broke from the breasts of the utterly exhausted Indians. Without wasting a moment, they proceeded to open and unpack a certain bale which formed part of the baggage which they had brought with them, and drew from it a number of llama skins. These they spread out flat on the crest of the snow slope, with the hair side upward, and then the entire party carefully seated themselves upon them—two men to each skin, one behind the other—when, with a little assistance from the hands of the occupants, the skins started to glide smoothly over the surface of the snow, slowly at first, but with swiftly increasing velocity, until the descent of the party became a sweeping, breathless, exhilarating flight, speedy as that of a falcon swooping upon its prey. The riders sat cross-legged upon the skins, and to Escombe—who was piloted by Tiahuana—it seemed that the slightest inclination, right or left as the case might be, throwing a trifle more weight on one knee than the other, and thus causing one part of the skin to press more hardly than another upon the snow, was all that was needed for steering purposes; for the toboggan-like skins swept downward straight as the flight of an arrow, save when some black fang of rock protruded through the snow fair in the track, when a slight slope of the body sufficed to cause a swerve that carried the adventurous riders safely clear of the obstacle. To Escombe this headlong, breathless swoop down the slope seemed to last but a few seconds, yet during those few seconds the party had travelled nearly three miles and descended some three thousand feet. The slide terminated at last upon the very edge of the snow-line, where it met a mile-wide meadow thickly clothed with lush grass and bountifully spangled with lovely flowers, many of which were quite new to the young Englishman.

For some minutes the entire party, as with one consent, remained sitting motionless just where their impromptu toboggans had come to a halt; for they felt that they needed a certain amount of time in which to become accustomed to the glorious change that had been wrought by that three- mile glissade. Above and behind them were furious tempest, deadly cold, and never-ceasing danger; while here was perfect safety, cloudless sunshine, grateful warmth, and surroundings of surpassing beauty. The meadow upon which they rested sloped gently away before them for about a mile, where it appeared to plunge abruptly down into a thickly wooded ravine, beyond which shot up a long, rocky ridge, the slopes of which appeared to be absolutely inaccessible; for, search as Escombe might with the aid of his telescope, nowhere could he detect so much as a single speck of snow to indicate the presence of even the smallest ledge or inequality in the face of the rock. This ridge, or range, stretched away to right and left of the spot where the party had come to a halt, retiring to the eastward, as it went, in a tolerably regular curve, until the cusps, if such there were, swept out of sight behind the nearer ridge.

At length Escombe rose from his llama skin and, with an ejaculation of inexpressible relief, began to slap his still benumbed hands together, and vigorously rub his stiffened limbs, in order to restore feeling and warmth to them; whereupon Tiahuana also rose and gave the order to re- pack the skins prior to resuming the journey. A few minutes later the entire party were once more on the march, moving rapidly athwart the meadow toward the ravine, and within a quarter of an hour they were in the ravine itself, clambering down the steep slope of its hither side toward where the sound of rushing water began to make itself heard with increasing distinctness. Another ten minutes, after a wild and breathless downward scramble among the trunks of thick-growing pine trees, brought them to the margin of a wide and turbulent mountain torrent that in the course of ages had scored a deep channel for itself right down the centre of the ravine. The bed of the stream was thickly strewed with enormous boulders, moss-grown upon their upper surfaces where drenched with the everlasting spray, and between these the turbid waters from the melting snow on the heights above leapt and foamed with a clamour and fury that rendered conversation impossible, and threatened instant death to the foolhardy adventurer who should attempt to cross them.

Yet those indomitable Indians somehow contrived to win a passage across; and half an hour later the entire party stood safely on the opposite side.

Then followed a long and toilsome scramble up the other side of the ravine, the top of which was not reached until the sun had set and darkness had fallen upon the scene. But, at the top of the ravine and clear of the trees, they found themselves on a grassy slope very similar in character to that which they had encountered on the other side of the stream, and there, fatigued to the point of exhaustion by their long and arduous day's travel, they went into camp, prepared and partook of their evening meal, and at once resigned themselves to a long night of repose under conditions of infinitely greater comfort than they had enjoyed for many days past.

Escombe's sleep that night was unusually sound, even after making every allowance for the excessive fatigue of the past day; in fact he had not slept so soundly and so long since the night of his abduction from the survey camp. When at length he awoke he found himself labouring under the same feeling of puzzlement that had oppressed him on that eventful morning; for when consciousness again returned to him and, opening his eyes, he looked about him, he at once became aware that his surroundings were very different from what he had expected. It is true that he still occupied the litter in which he had retired to rest on the previous evening, but a single glance was sufficient to show him that the litter was no longer in the little tent which had then sheltered it; the tent was gone, and the litter, or couch, upon which he lay comfortably stretched now stood in a room lighted by a single window in the wall, facing the foot of the couch. The window was unglazed, and apparently had no window frame; it seemed in fact to be no more than a mere rectangular aperture in a thick stone wall through which the sun, already some hours high in the sky, was pouring his genial rays into the room. The couch stood so low on the floor that from it nothing could be seen of the landscape outside save a glimpse of a range of serrated peaks, touched here and there with snow that gleamed dazzlingly white in the brilliant sunshine. Urged therefore by surprise at the mysterious change that had been wrought in his surroundings while he slept, and curious to ascertain where he now was, Harry sprang from his couch and went to the open window, out of which he gazed in an ecstasy of astonishment and admiration. For his eyes rested upon the most glorious landscape that he had ever beheld. He discovered that the building in which he so strangely found himself stood at one extremity of an enormous, basin-like valley, roughly oval in shape, some thirty miles long by twenty miles in width, completely hemmed in on every side by a range of lofty hills averaging, according to his estimate, from three to four thousand feet in height. The centre of the valley was occupied by a most lovely lake about fifteen miles long by perhaps ten miles wide, dotted here and there with fairy-like islets, some of which were crowned by little clumps of trees, while others appeared to be covered with handsome buildings. But that was only a part of the wonder! At the far end of the lake he could distinctly see—so exquisitely clear and transparent was that crystalline atmosphere—the general outline and formation of a large and doubtless populous town built on the margin of the lake, his attention being at once attracted to it by the strong flash and gleam of the sun upon several of the roofs of the buildings, which had all the appearance of being covered with sheets of gold! From this city broad white roads shaded by handsome trees ran right round the margin of the lake, and for a mile or two on either side of the city, glimpses could be had of detached buildings embosomed in spacious gardens, forming a kind of suburb of the city; while the entire remainder of the valley, and the sides of the hills for a distance of about one-third of their height, were entirely laid out as orchards, pasture, and cultivated land, the appearance of the whole strongly suggesting that the utmost had been made of every inch of available space.

As Escombe stood gazing, enraptured at the surpassing beauty of the panorama thus spread out before him, the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ear, and, turning round, he beheld Arima entering the room. The Indian made the profound obeisance usual with him upon entering Harry's presence, and enquired:

"Is it the will of my Lord that he now bathe, dress, and partake of breakfast?"

"Yes, by all means," answered Harry, "for I have somehow managed to oversleep myself again, and am ravenously hungry. But, Arima, what means this? How do I come to be here? And what town is that which I see yonder at the far end of the lake?"

"As my Lord has truly said, he slept long this morning, being doubtless greatly fatigued with the toilsome journey of yesterday," answered Arima smoothly, with another profound bow. "Therefore, when the hour arrived to break camp and resume our march it was Tiahuana's order that my Lord should not be disturbed, but should be allowed to sleep on and take a full measure of rest; and therefore was my Lord brought hither to this house, there to sojourn and recruit himself after the fatigues and hardships of his long journey, while Tiahuana went forward to the City of the Sun—which my Lord sees yonder at the head of the valley—to acquaint the Council with the success of our expedition, and to make the necessary arrangements for my Lord's reception by the inhabitants of the city. If it be my Lord's will, I will now conduct him to the bath, which I have made ready for him."

"So that is the City of the Sun, is it?" remarked Harry, still gazing admiringly at the enchanting view from the window. "I guessed as much; and it appears to be fully worthy of its name. All right, Arima," he continued, tearing himself reluctantly away; "yes, I will have my bath now. Where is it?"

"If my Lord will be pleased to follow I will show it him," answered the Indian, with the inevitable bow, as he led the way out of the room.

They passed into a long stone corridor, lighted at each end by an unglazed window, and, traversing the length of it, entered another room, much larger than the first, stone paved, and having a large plunge-bath full of crystal-clear water, sunk into the floor at one end. The room was unfurnished, save for a plain wooden bench, or seat, a soft woollen mat for the bather to stand on when emerging from the bath, and a few pegs along the wall, from which Harry's own clothes and three or four very large bath towels depended. This room also was illuminated by a large, unglazed window through which the sun-rays streamed, warming the atmosphere of the apartment to a most delightful temperature. Harry therefore made no delay, but forthwith discarded his pyjama suit and at once plunged headlong into the cool, refreshing water. To dress and take breakfast were the next things in order; and half an hour later Escombe rose from the table like a giant refreshed, amid the obsequious bows of his attendants. Then Motahuana stepped forward and, prefacing his speech with another bow, said:

"Lord, I have been commanded by Tiahuana to say that, knowing well how anxious the inhabitants of the City of the Sun will be to learn the issue of this expedition, he has presumed to hasten forward to apprise them that all is well, without waiting until my Lord awoke to mention his intention and crave my Lord's permission to absent himself; for the way is long, and my Lord slept late this morning. The High Priest also bade me say that he will probably be absent at least four days, for there are many preparations to be made in connection with my Lord's triumphal entrance into his city, and his reception by his rejoicing people. My Lord will therefore have time to rest and recover his strength after the fatigue of his arduous journey; and it is the prayer of Tiahuana that he will do so, since there will be much to fatigue my Lord in the various ceremonies attendant upon his ascent of the throne of the ancient Incas."

"Thanks, Motahuana," answered Harry; "but I am not in the least fatigued by what I have gone through during the last twelve days. If anyone were suffering from fatigue it should be yourself and Tiahuana, for you are both well advanced in years, while I am young and strong, and, so far from being fatigued, I feel quite fresh after my long and refreshing night's sleep; so much so, indeed, that I was just thinking how much I should enjoy a walk down into that lovely valley. I suppose there is no objection to my doing so?"

"My Lord is monarch of the valley and all within it," answered Motahuana with another bow and an expressive throwing apart of the hands. "All is his; his will is absolute in all things; he has but to express a wish, and we his slaves will gladly do our best to gratify it. If my Lord desires to go forth into the open, either on foot or in his litter, he has but to say so, and we his slaves will make the path smooth for him or bear him upon our shoulders, as may seem best to him. But it will be well that my Lord should not venture too far into the valley, for he is a stranger; and it is undesirable, on many accounts, that he should be seen by the inhabitants of the valley until all preparations have been made for his public reception."

"Oh, very well!" returned Escombe. "I have no desire to go very far; a walk of a mile or two from the house, and back, with Arima as my only attendant, to show me the way and answer questions, will satisfy me."

Whereupon Motahuana, with another bow, turned away and addressed a few quick words to Arima in a tongue which was strange to Escombe, after which the Indian fetched the young Englishman's hat and signified his readiness to attend the latter whithersoever he might be pleased to go.

Harry's first act, upon getting outside the house, was to walk away from it some fifty feet, and then turn round and stare at the building to which he had been so mysteriously conveyed while asleep. He saw before him simply a solid, rectangular, stone—built structure, plain almost to the point of ugliness, for it had not a single projection of any kind to mitigate the severity of its simplicity, not even so much as a window sill; and it was thatched!—not with the trim neatness characteristic of some of our charmingly picturesque country cottages in England, but in a slovenly, happy-go-lucky style, that seemed to convey the idea that, so long as a roof was weather-proof, it did not in the least matter what it looked like. The windows were simply rectangular holes in the thick stone walls, unglazed, and without even a frame; but now that Escombe was outside he was able to see that each window was provided with a shutter, something like the jalousies fitted to the houses in most tropical and sub-tropical countries, to keep out the rain. The only thing remarkable about the house, apart from its extreme plainness, was the fact that it appeared to be cut out of a single enormous block of stone; and it was not until he went close up to it, and examined it minutely, that he discovered it to be built of blocks of stone dressed to fit each other with such marvellous precision that the joints were practically invisible.

Having satisfied his curiosity thus far, Escombe looked about him at his surroundings generally. He found that the house to which he had been brought stood at the extreme end of the extraordinary basin-like valley, immediately opposite to the City of the Sun, which occupied the other end, and he naturally concluded that the entrance to the valley must be somewhere not very far distant from the spot on which he stood. But, look as he would, he could see nothing in the remotest degree resembling a pass through those encircling sierras, the upper portion of the sides of which appeared to be everywhere practically vertical, without even as much projection or ledge anywhere as would afford foothold to a goat. Nor was there the least semblance of a road or path of any description leading to the house, save a narrow and scarcely perceptible footpath leading down to the great road which encompassed the lake. Harry turned to the Indian.

"Those hills appear to be everywhere quite impassable, Arima," he said. "Where is the road by which we came over them?"

"It is not permitted to me to say, Lord," answered Arima with a deprecatory bow. "There is but one known way of passing to and from the outside world, and that way is a jealously guarded secret, communicated to but few, who are solemnly sworn to secrecy. It is regarded by the Council as of the first importance that the secret should be preserved intact, as it is known that rumours of the existence of the City of the Sun have reached the outer world, and more than one attempt has been made to find it. But we are all pure-blooded Peruvians of the ancient race here, and it is a tradition with us to keep ourselves uncontaminated by any admixture of alien blood, therefore every possible precaution is taken to maintain the most absolute secrecy as to the way by which the Valley of the Sun is entered and left."

"But if that is so, why has Tiahuana brought me here?" demanded Harry. "I am an alien, you know; yet, as I understand it, I have been brought here to rule over you all!"

"Yes, it is even so, Lord," answered Arima. "But my Lord is an alien only by an accident of birth, which must not be allowed to interfere with the fact that my Lord is in very truth the reincarnation of Manco Capac, our first Inca and the founder of the Peruvian nation."

"In that case," said Harry, "it is but meet and right that I should know the secret way into the outer world. Surely what is known to several of my subjects should also be known to me?"

"Undoubtedly, Lord," answered the Indian; "and the information will certainly be imparted to my Lord in due time, when he has been accepted and proclaimed Inca by the Council of Seven. But I have no authority to impart that information, and I implore my Lord that he will not urge me to do so and thus break the solemn oath of secrecy which I have sworn."

"Very well, Arima, let it be so," answered Harry. "Doubtless, as you say, I shall be informed in due time; and meanwhile you are perfectly right to remain true to the oath which you have sworn. Now, let us get down into the valley. After scrambling up and down mountain sides for so many days, I have a longing to walk on a smooth and level road once more."

The footpath from the house to the main road sloped obliquely along the face of the hill, descending by a tolerably easy gradient for a distance of about a mile before it joined the road at a depth of some three hundred feet below the level of the house. Upon reaching the road, which, be it remembered, completely encircled the lake, Escombe had yet another opportunity to note the thoroughness with which the Peruvians did their work, and the inexhaustible patience which they brought to bear upon it. For this road, approximating to one hundred miles in length, was constructed of a uniform width of about one hundred feet, apparently also of uniform gradient—for in some parts it was raised on a low embankment, while in others it passed through more or less shallow cuttings—and with just the right amount of camber to quickly throw off the rainwater into the broad gutters or watercourses that were built on either side of it. The most remarkable feature of the road, however, was that it was paved throughout with broad flags of stone, which, like the blocks of which the house was built, were so accurately fitted together that the joints could only be found with difficulty.

The young Englishman spent some three hours sauntering along that magnificent road, enjoying the pure air, the genial temperature, and the sight of the superb panorama that hemmed him in on every side, pausing often to note the clever system of irrigation adopted by the inhabitants, whereby every square inch of cultivable soil could at any moment receive precisely the right quantity of water to satisfy its requirements; admiring, with the eye of an engineer, the workmanship displayed in the construction of the ample culverts whereby all excess of water was promptly discharged into the lake; and marvelling at the varied nature of the agricultural products of the valley; for it seemed to him that, in the comparatively circumscribed space between the margin of the lake and the highest point on the mountain slope to which the barest handful of soil could be induced to cling, there were to be found examples of every vegetable product known to the sub-tropical and temperate zones, while it was a never-ceasing source of astonishment to him that such enormous numbers of cattle and sheep were apparently able to find ample sustenance on the proportionately small quantity of land allotted to pasture. What seemed to him somewhat remarkable was that, while cattle, sheep, and even horses were apparently plentiful in the valley, he saw no llamas; but it was afterwards explained to him that the climate there was altogether too mild for them, and that the enormous herds owned by the inhabitants were kept in the highlands on the other side of the encircling mountains.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE CITY OF THE SUN.

On the afternoon of the fourth day following Tiahuana's departure, about an hour before sunset, as Escombe was about to enter the house after a somewhat longer walk than usual in the valley, he paused for a moment at the head of the footpath to take a last, long look at the lovely landscape, with the leading features of which he was now becoming tolerably familiar, when his wandering gaze was arrested by the glint of the sunlight upon what had the appearance of a number of rapidly moving objects indistinctly seen about a mile distant among the low spreading branches of the trees which lined the great road leading from the City of the Sun.

"Hillo, Arima," he said to the Indian who was his sole attendant, "who comes here? Are they soldiers? Do you see that flash and glitter yonder among the trees? To me it has the appearance of sun-glint upon spear points and military accoutrements."

Arima looked for a moment, and then replied:

"Without question it is so, Lord. Doubtless it is Tiahuana returning with the bodyguard which is to escort my Lord the Inca on the occasion of his triumphal entry into the City of the Sun."

"But those fellows are surely mounted, Arima!" said Escombe. "The movement is that of cavalry; and—listen!—unless I am greatly mistaken, I can hear the clatter of hoofs on the stone pavement of the road."

"It is even so, Lord," answered the Indian. "The bodyguard of my Lord the Inca consists of a thousand picked men, mounted on the finest horses that it is possible to breed in the valley."

"But I have always understood," said Harry, "that you Peruvians did not believe in mounted men, and that it was, in fact, as much due to your terror of the mounted Spaniards as anything else that you were vanquished in the old days. But I am forgetting; you knew nothing of horses then, did you?"

"My Lord says truth," answered Arima. "We had no horses in Peru until the Spaniards brought them. But since then we have learned the value of horses, and I understand that the inhabitants of the valley have devoted especial attention to the breeding of them, even from the date of the foundation of the city."

"And with a marvellous success, I should say, if one may judge from the appearance of the animals yonder," remarked Harry enthusiastically, as he watched the approaching horsemen.

The cavalcade had by this time reached the junction of the footpath with the road, and, debouching on to the former, or rather on to the hillside which it traversed, breasted the slope at a gallop, presenting as it did so a superb and inspiriting picture of eager, prancing, satin-skinned, gaily caparisoned, foam-flecked horses, bestridden by lithe, sinewy forms gorgeous in their blue and gold uniforms, and a-glitter with their burnished copper shields, swords, maces, and lance-heads. At their head rode Tiahuana in his long, white, gold-embroidered robe and mitre-like head—dress as Chief Priest, gallantly holding his own with the magnificently attired commander of the regiment; and in the centre of the cortege there appeared an open litter—somewhat similar to a sedan chair with the top part removed—entirely covered with burnished plates of gold and silver, hammered into a bold but very intricate pattern, while the interior was lined with richly coloured feathers also arranged in a very elaborate design. This structure was supported before and behind by a pair of long, springy poles or shafts, to which were harnessed six white horses, three abreast, the harness and trappings of the animals being blue, elaborately embroidered with gold, while the headstall of each horse was decorated with a plume of half a dozen long blue feathers. The middle horse of each trio—that which ran between the shafts—was ridden by a postilion, who guided and controlled all three of the horses under his charge.

While the gorgeous cavalcade was still some distance away, Motahuana came running out of the house, babbling the most earnest and urgent entreaties that Harry would be graciously pleased to enter the house forthwith, as it was not meet that the members of the Inca's bodyguard should set eyes upon their sovereign lord until the latter should be attired in the robes of his regal rank; and Harry, already painfully aware of the dilapidated condition of the jacket and knickers in which he had accomplished the march from the survey camp, fully agreeing with him, hastily retreated to the interior of the building and, standing well back from the window, where he was concealed in the deep shadow, interestedly watched the movements of his regiment as it went into camp on a little plateau at the rear of the house.

But the troopers had scarcely begun to unsaddle before Tiahuana, still hot and dusty from his long ride, entered the house, followed by a servant bearing a large bundle. And a few minutes later the old fellow entered the room where Harry was standing and, having first made his obeisances, respectfully invited the young Englishman to retire to his sleeping room, there to don certain garments more suitable to his rank and state than those which he was wearing, in order that he might be ready to receive the Lord Umu, commander of the royal bodyguard, who was represented to be dying of impatience to do homage to his Sovereign Lord. With another glance at his ragged and disreputable garments, Harry smilingly admitted the desirability of the change, and followed Tiahuana into the chamber where Arima, now formally confirmed in his rank and position of chief valet and body servant of the new Inca, awaited his master. Ten minutes later, attired in white skin-tight pantaloons which were also stockings; a shirt of white wool, of so marvellously fine a texture that it was thin, soft, and light as silk; a fine white wool sleeveless tunic, the material of which was stiff and almost completely hidden by an elaborately embroidered pattern in heavy gold thread, and which was confined to the waist by a broad white leather belt, also heavily embroidered in gold and fastened by a massive and exquisitely chased gold clasp; with soft, white, gold-embroidered boots on his feet, reaching halfway up to the knee; with the royal borla, or tasselled fringe of scarlet adorned with two feathers from the coraquenque bound round his temples, and the emerald collar of Manco Capac—which he had fished up from the mud of Lake Chinchaycocha—round his neck and hanging down over the breast of his tunic, young Escombe was led by Tiahuana into the largest room in the house. Here, seated upon an extemporised throne, and with his feet resting upon a footstool of solid gold, massively chiselled in an elaborate and particularly graceful scroll-work pattern, hastily brought in from the imperial litter, he presently received not only Umu, the captain of the royal bodyguard, but also some half-dozen other nobles who had come from the City of the Sun to pay their homage to their re-incarnated Lord and Sovereign, Manco Capac.

These individuals were introduced, one by one, by Tiahuana, who, as each person presented himself in the doorway, loudly proclaimed the rank and titles of the visitor, who then, barefooted, and carrying a light burden upon his shoulders as an act of humility in the presence of his sovereign, slowly advanced, with head and body humbly bent, until he reached the footstool, when he knelt down on the bare stone floor and kissed, first the hands and then the feet of the young Inca; after which, still kneeling, he murmured a few words expressive of joy, gratitude, and devotion at the condescension of the great Manco in deigning to return to earth for the purpose of regenerating the ancient Peruvian nation. Then he rose to his feet and, with more bows, retired to make way for the next. The whole ceremony was exceedingly brief, not occupying much more than a quarter of an hour altogether; but, brief as it was, it constituted in itself an education for Harry, who, as he witnessed the almost slavish humility of the demeanour of these proud and haughty nobles toward him, now began to realise, for the first time, the tremendous power to which he had been raised by a most unique and extravagant freak of fortune. And it did him good; for it set him to think seriously of the enormous responsibility which he had almost unwittingly incurred when he so light-heartedly allowed himself to become enmeshed in the toils of the adventure, and caused him to make many very excellent resolutions as to the manner in which he would discharge that responsibility.

With the coming of dawn on the following morning the camp of the royal bodyguard suddenly awoke to strenuous life and activity. The troopers, attired only in thin shirts, riding their barebacked horses down to the lake, where the animals were watered and bathed in preparation for the return journey to the City of the Sun. Then, having returned to the camp, the horses were carefully groomed and fed, after which the troopers spent a busy hour in examining and burnishing their arms and accoutrements. For this was the great day upon which the re-incarnated Inca was to make his triumphal entry into his capital, the new holy and royal city which, during a period of over three hundred and fifty years, his people had been patiently building and extending and decorating and enriching in order that it might be worthy the reception of the monarch when it should please him to return to earth. It was to be the day of days, the first day in the history of a great, glorious, regenerated nation, in which much was to be done, and that in a manner which would becomingly adorn the first page of that history. Then everybody, including Harry—who, meanwhile had bathed and dressed—partook of breakfast; after which the final preparations for the journey were completed. Then Tiahuana and Umu, having first craved audience of their Lord, presented themselves before Harry to intimate respectfully that there were two alternative methods of travel open to him, namely by horse litter or on horseback, and to crave humbly that he would be pleased to indicate which of the two he would choose. To which Harry, who was by this time beginning to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the adventure, replied that, since the task had been laid upon him of restoring the ancient Peruvian race to its former power and splendour, and that, before this could be accomplished it would be necessary for him to lead his troops many times to battle, it was his will to make his first appearance among his subjects on horseback, as a warrior, at the head of his own bodyguard; a reply which created a perfect furore of enthusiasm among the other nobles, and the troopers of the royal bodyguard, when it was communicated to them by Tiahuana and Umu.

That the possibility of such a choice on the part of their new Inca had not been altogether unanticipated was soon apparent; for Umu presently returned to the house, bearing on a cushion of azure blue—which it appeared was the royal colour—trimmed with a heavy cord of bullion and with a bullion tassel at each corner, a sword of hardened and burnished copper, with a hilt of solid gold elaborately chased, and encased in a scabbard of solid gold, also most magnificently chased. This he presented on bended knees to Tiahuana, who, in his capacity of High Priest, then knelt before Harry and girded the weapon to his side, after which Arima came forward with a long roll of extraordinarily fine silk- like cloth woven in bands of many different colours in which, however, scarlet and azure predominated. This was the llautu, or turban, which the Indian at once proceeded with deft fingers to bind about his royal master's head in such a manner as to afford complete protection from the ardent rays of the sun while leaving the borla, or tasselled fringe of scarlet, which was really the royal diadem, fully exposed to view. A woollen mantle of almost silken texture, azure blue in colour, with a very broad border of gold embroidery, and with more gold embroidery on the shoulders and halfway down the back, was next laid upon his shoulders and secured at the throat by a pair of massive gold clasps and chain, and Escombe was fully equipped for the road. And a very handsome and gallant figure he looked as, tall, lithe, and slim, and clad in all his barbaric finery, he stepped out of the house into the dazzling sunshine, to be greeted with a deafening shout of welcome from the officers and troopers of his bodyguard, who were already mounted and drawn up in a double line for his inspection. So obviously was this expected of him that Harry needed no hint to that effect, but, vaulting lightly into the saddle of the magnificent white stallion that, gorgeously caparisoned, chafed and fretted under the restraint of his bridle, held by two of the nobles, while two more held the heavy gold stirrups for the royal rider's feet, wheeled his steed and cantered gaily off to where Umu, sitting bolt upright in his saddle with drawn sword, waited in the centre, and some few paces in front of the regiment, to receive him. That the military usages of the more civilised nations had not been permitted to pass altogether unnoticed now became apparent; for as Harry approached Umu uttered a loud shout of command, and at the word every sword flashed up in salute in the most approved fashion, while a band of mounted musicians blared forth certain weird strains which, the young Inca subsequently learned, was the national anthem of the ancient Peruvians.

Accompanied by Umu, Harry now rode to the right flank of the regiment, from whence he proceeded slowly along the front rank and finally the rear, noting critically the appearance and bearing of the men, and gauging the breed and quality of the horses as he went. The horses were, without exception, splendid animals, while the men were, for the most part, fine, stalwart fellows, well set up; but, accustomed as Escombe had been to the sight of the Life Guards and other crack cavalry regiments in London, he could not avoid seeing that there was plenty of room for improvement in the appearance and discipline generally of his own bodyguard. Yet it was glaringly apparent to him that Umu, their captain, was inordinately proud of his regiment; and the new Inca was by no means untactful. Wherefore, having completed his inspection, Harry spoke a few well-considered words of praise that rang sufficiently true to make Umu his devoted slave henceforward, while the faint suggestion conveyed that the praise was not quite unqualified impressed the Indian noble with a sense of the high standard of perfection that must exist in the young monarch's mind, and caused him there and then to register a silent vow that the regiment should be brought up to that standard, even though he should be obliged to kill every man of it in the process.

By the time that the inspection was completed the priests and nobles had climbed into their saddles, and everything was ready for the commencement of the march. Harry therefore gave the word to Umu, who in turn uttered a few sharp orders to the men, whereupon the ranks closed up. The horses pranced and tossed their heads as they wheeled into line, and the cavalcade proceeded, the band leading the way, followed by a solitary horseman in gorgeous array who bore proudly aloft the Inca's banner—a blue silk flag embroidered in gold and coloured thread with an image of the rainbow, which was the symbol sacred to the Inca, and trimmed with heavy gold fringe round the three free edges. Harry rode immediately behind, surrounded by a little group consisting of the two priests and the nobles who had come out to meet him, and followed by Umu, who led his glittering and imposing regiment.

It was rather a trying ride in some respects for the young Inca, at least at the outset, for Escombe's knowledge of the Quichua, or ancient Peruvian, language was extremely restricted, while the nobles, with the exception of Tiahuana and Umu, were apparently ignorant of Spanish. Anything in the nature of conversation was therefore extremely difficult, quite apart from the fact that everybody excepting Tiahuana seemed altogether too shy to address the Inca, unless first spoken to by him. Harry very quickly realised that his ignorance of the Quichua was likely to handicap him most seriously, and he there and then ordered Tiahuana to make the necessary arrangements to have himself taught without delay.

But although for the first few miles of the journey the young Inca suffered from a certain feeling of constraint, he did not allow it to trouble him long, for if conversation lagged there was plenty apart from it to interest and delight him. There was his horse, for instance. Harry had alway been particularly fond of horses, and was an excellent rider; as a boy, indeed, he had often followed the staghounds over Dartmoor. He therefore had a very fair idea of what a horse ought to be; but he had not been in the saddle more than five minutes, on this particular morning, before he realised that at length he had come into possession of that rarest of all good things, a perfect horse; perfect in temper, shape, and action, full of fire and courage, yet with a mouth so sensitive that it would be quite possible to control him with a thread for a bridle, while one had but to glance at the great; hard muscles sliding so smoothly beneath the satin skin to be assured of his indomitable endurance and insensibility to fatigue. Then there was plenty to interest and occupy his attention as they swept along the great, smooth road at a hand gallop. First of all, there was the road itself, which was, in its way, a masterpiece of engineering; but, apart from that, Harry could not but marvel at the perfect cleanliness of it, until he learned that it had been traversed throughout the entire length of the route by a whole army of sweepers during the early hours of the morning, since when no living thing had been allowed upon it. Then there was the noble and endless avenue of shade trees which bordered the road on either hand, dividing it from the wide footpaths, which in their turn were shaded by less lofty trees, fruit-bearing for the most part, the fruit being intended for the refreshment of the wayfarer. Then there were neat, orderly, and perfectly cultivated fields of sugar cane, maize, tobacco, indigo, cotton, rice, coca trees, cacao, and other tropical products on the flats immediately adjoining the road, while farther back, toward the hills, were grain of all sorts, interspersed with vast orchards and, at intervals, a stretch of pasture land, with low, squat farmhouses and outbuildings dotted about in the midst. The farmers and their helpers were all busily engaged upon various kinds of labour in their fields, but those who were near enough to the roads to do so no sooner heard the distant hoof-beats of the approaching cavalcade, and beheld the royal banner flaunting its blue and gold in the wind, than they flung down their implements and rushed helter- skelter to the roadside to watch the Inca go by, and acclaim him as he passed.

But with every mile of that exhilarating ride towards the City of the Sun the aspect of the landscape became subtly modified; the farms became more extensive, the farmhouses larger and more elaborate in their style of architecture, ornamental and decorative features became increasingly conspicuous in every building encountered, until finally the aspect became distinctly suburban, the farmhouses gave place to country residences, the farms gradually merged into pleasure gardens, gay with flowers and rich in carefully-cultivated fruit trees; the houses drew closer together, and little groups of people in gala attire were encountered, gradually increasing in numbers until the footpaths on either hand were lined with joyous crowds of cheering people.

Then the white buildings of the city itself swung into view, gleaming like alabaster between the boles of the bordering trees, with here and there a flash of sunlight from the golden roofs of the principal buildings; and finally a great archway, pierced through the lofty and massive wall that enclosed the city, came into view, spanning the road, and at the same moment a great blare of horns stifled the sound of trampling hoof-beats, the jingle of accoutrements, and the frantic shouts of the cheering multitude. Then Umu flung his flashing sword- blade aloft and shouted a word of command, whereupon the panting, sweating horses were pulled into a walking pace, the riders straightened themselves in their saddles, the band of musicians which led the way struck up a weird, barbaric air, the great bronze gates, which had been closed, were flung open, and the cavalcade passed through into the principal street of the City of the Sun. If Escombe had been questioned ten minutes earlier he would, in reply, have expressed the confident opinion that every man, woman, and child had left the city in order to line the road outside the gates by which it was known that he must pass; but he had no sooner traversed the echoing archway in the immensely thick city wall than he saw how greatly mistaken such an opinion would have been. For, starting from the very wall itself, the pavement on either hand, all along the line of route, was simply packed with people—the children in front, the women next, and the men in the rear— frantic with enthusiasm, and shouting themselves hoarse in their eagerness to afford an adequate welcome to the Inca whose coming had been looked forward to by them and their ancestors for more than three hundred years. But they did not confine their demonstrations of welcome to mere acclamations. At frequent intervals triumphal arches of an elaborate character and of great beauty, decorated with banners and flags, and profusely wreathed with flowers, were thrown across the roadway, each being connected with the next by a line of poles, painted blue, surmounted by a banner or flag, twined with flowers, and supporting a heavy festoon of flowers which formed an unbroken floral chain from one triumphal arch to the next. The houses on either hand were also decorated with flowers, banners, and long streamers of many- tinted cloths hung from the eaves and windows, the whole scene strongly reminding the young Englishman of the aspect of London's streets on the occasion of our own gracious King's coronation. But what impressed Escombe more than anything else was the fact that all along the line of route children and young girls, provided with large baskets of flowers, were stationed, and, as the procession approached, these young people stepped forward and strewed the road with the contents of their baskets, thus carpeting the hard pavement with freshly gathered flowers, which exhaled a delightful fragrance as they were trampled under foot by the horses.