In the tiger's lair

Soncco, accompanied by two soldiers carrying the heavy boxes, returned as the first shafts of coming daylight penetrated the wreath of vapor that clung to the peaks standing like black monoliths between the Hidden Valley and the steaming forests of the Upper Amazon. The party looked tired and worn from the strenuous labor of the night.

The men threw down their burdens none too gently and departed. Stanley noticed that one of the boxes had been opened, and the aged amauta, reading the trend of his thoughts, hastened to explain.

“I could not bring the parcels without knowing what was in them,” he said; “they might have contained some contrivance dangerous to the Inca or to the people, or that would help you to escape. I am responsible for your safe-keeping. But I found only sticks of sweet, harmless earth. There can be nothing wrong in letting you have them, so I had them brought to you. I tasted one of them; how it did make my head ache!”

“You are lucky to have your head on your shoulders,” thought Stanley, “handling and eating that dynamite as if it were candy.” Then aloud: “Thank you, Soncco, for bringing it. You shall be well rewarded for your trouble. Now you must continue to do as we say.”

“No! I will do nothing more. My conscience troubles me already. I may have done too much. And, besides, the things you ask me to do are too hard. The tunnel under the wall was blocked with stones; we had to remove them, and there were many; then hunt for the cave in the darkness. Uti is a terrible place even when the sun shines. What then is it at night? The bats were chirping and fluttering about our heads, and we had to drive them away to keep from being attacked; and one of the men bumped into a wasp’s nest, so that we were all stung. After we finally found the boxes they had to be dragged back to the wall and through the passage, and then there were all the stones to put into place again. The men grumbled at the work, and I, Soncco, old though I am, had to help them.”

“I am sorry we had to put you to all that trouble; but remember, we are helping you more than any one else. Do you want to take the lives of your relatives and friends?”

“No! You know that. My heart is heavy that this duty has fallen upon me.”

“Then do as I say and you will be relieved of that duty.”

“But the Inca’s command must be obeyed.”

“Of course. We have given you our word before this that his wishes shall be carried out. In other words, you will do exactly as he directs. Go ahead with all the preparations; do as you were told. It is Quizquiz who will change his mind at the proper time. And, remember, you shall be well paid.”

“Who will reward me?”

“The king. Be patient. You shall see in a few days.”

“My head is dizzy. I cannot think clearly. But no matter what happens I can be no worse off than I am. I curse the day that Villac Umu obtained his evil power over Quizquiz,” Soncco murmured.

“Come back at nightfall, then,” Stanley continued. “We want you to take these boxes away again. Bring only one man with you this time—some one you can trust absolutely. If he is deaf, dumb, and blind, it will be all the better.”

“Yes, yes; I will be here. You have me completely in your power. And may all the devils of Uti torture you if you betray me.”

“Do not worry. You will soon find out that we have told you nothing but the truth. Then you will be thankful to us.”

“I will keep my word,” Soncco said, “and at the same time I will make provisions against trickery. Do not forget that.”

When the old amauta had gone the two opened the boxes and took out the fuse and primers; then they began to prepare the charge. They fastened one of the long, copper caps to one end of the fuse and then inserted it in a stick of dynamite, carefully folding back the paper wrapper over the end and tying it in place with a strip of cloth torn from their clothing. As they worked Stanley explained his scheme to Ted. The latter fell in with it immediately, and to all outward appearances both were cheerful and entirely confident over the outcome of the plan.

“I am going to ask you just one more time,” Ted said suddenly after a short pause, and with a trace of anxiety in his voice. “Are you sure about the date of the eclipse? And are you certain you made no mistake in keeping track of the time—the knots in the string, I mean?”

“Wait and you shall see,” was all Stanley could say. Of course he knew that everything depended on these two things, and several times he was on the verge of confessing to Ted his uncertainty as to both the date and the number of knots. But why should he add to the burden of worry of his companion? If he were mistaken, they would meet the end like men, fighting to the last gasp. If he were right, they would be freed, no doubt. Better look at the bright side, anyway, and make their last days as cheerful as possible. They could do no more than had been done, and in the meantime they were constantly on the alert for any eventuality that might present itself.

Food of excellent quality and in abundance was brought the two by the guards. Soncco was responsible for that, they felt sure. They were also permitted to walk around the outside of their tent. A double row of soldiers, well armed, formed a compact circle around them, and not more than twenty paces away. They watched every movement of the prisoners and held their spears ready for instant action.

As they strolled about they could not help but see that preparations for the awful event had begun on all sides of them. They had frequent glimpses of Soncco hobbling from one group of workers to another, giving sharp orders, reprimanding, and directing their labors in general.

Here, a furnace was being built in which to heat the spear with which to blind Toparca. The workers had piled up two rows of stones and were covering them with mud. After that other stones were placed across the top and plastered down with more mud so that no heat could escape from the interior of the oven-like structure.

A short distance away was the enormous earthenware caldron; menials in a steady stream were bringing oil in small vessels and pouring it into the huge container. Ted and Stanley did not envy Huascar the fate that awaited him.

The stones that were intended for Tupichi lay in a neat heap. They were the size of apples, and were round and smooth, having been gathered from the river-bed.

Then their eyes met another sight that made them shudder. On the far end of an open, arena-like plot masons were constructing a short wall. The stones were being dragged to the spot by long lines of men. As the work progressed, earth was banked up against the structure and tamped down to form an inclined plane up which other stones could be hauled into position on top of the last layer of the wall. The ingenuity displayed would have been interesting to the Americans had they not known the sinister meaning of the work. It was against this wall that they were to be chained, with the deadly snakes at their feet. Copper rings on long spikes had been incorporated in the wall between the stones to receive the chains that would hold them in their helpless, hopeless position.

After surveying the various activities for a short time they went back into their prison tent.

“One of us will have to accompany Soncco to-night,” Stanley announced when they were inside, “to see that the dynamite is placed where it will do the most damage.”

“I will go,” Ted volunteered, “but I doubt if I can get past the guards, even in the company of Soncco. The soldiers get their orders higher up.”

“That is why I asked him to bring along some one he trusts absolutely. That one must change clothes with one of us and remain here while the work is being done. Perhaps I had better go.”

“It isn’t fair to let you face all the danger.”

“There is no danger, but even if there were, it would be up to me because I started the thing, and I shall have to see it through. You entertain the substitute while I am away.”

“It is all a capital idea. How easy everything is when you know just how to do it! You are a better general than Pizarro. He killed the Inca and caused the death of millions of the people. You will bring the whole nation to its knees through strategy, and they will respect you instead of hating you as they did the Spaniard.”

“Never mind that kind of talk. We haven’t done a thing yet.”

“But we shall, to-morrow,” Ted said confidently.

Stanley suppressed a sigh and turned away.

Soncco arrived in due time.

“You see, I have kept my promise,” he said without enthusiasm. “And I have brought a man who can neither hear, see, nor speak.”

“You are a wonder, Soncco,” Stanley returned gleefully. Then he told him what was expected of him.

At first the aged teacher was absolutely set against allowing Stanley to accompany him after exchanging clothes with the man he had brought. He was certain that it must be part of a plot to escape, the far-reaching branches of which he could not foresee.

“But,” they argued, “what good would it do one of them to get away while the other remained a prisoner in the valley? Could he not quickly take revenge on the hostage who was left to his mercy? From what he had seen of them, did it seem possible that one of them would desert the other in such a position?”

Soncco finally was forced to bow to the strength of their arguments. But only the firm conviction that his lot was already so luckless that it could not possibly be worse, no matter what happened, and that the growing unrest among the people was spreading to the proportions where it was a menace to the existence of the race induced him to lend his aid in a scheme he could not comprehend.

Therefore the two, carrying the heavy boxes of explosive, left the tent at a moment when clouds obscured the moon, Soncco taking the lead, Stanley, fully disguised in the borrowed clothes, following at his heels. Before long the latter realized how futile it would have been for them to attempt to leave the place of confinement unaided by some one in full authority. They passed through no fewer than five lines of sentries. To each of the five challenges Soncco replied with a different password, and in addition there was also a short ceremony to be gone through with each time they were halted. Thus, at the first challenge of “Who lives?” Soncco replied with “Quizquiz, the great and glorious king,” and, stooping, picked up a handful of earth which he threw over his left shoulder. At the second station he answered, “Quizquiz, greatest of all the great kings,” and beat his breast three times with his free hand; and so on until all the guard-lines had been passed.

It was with a feeling of relief that Stanley finally found himself in the open country beyond the encampment. He offered to carry Soncco’s burden in addition to his own, for the old man was lacking in strength; but the amauta insisted on retaining possession of the package, adding in a whisper: “Now you walk in front of me, and at the first sign of treachery I will kill you; I have a poisoned dagger in my hand.”

“Do not be foolish,” Stanley responded, losing patience. “I would not leave this place now if you asked me to. I want to stay to see all of you get what’s coming to you.”

Before long they reached the foot of the great wall, looming black and awe-inspiring high into the cloud-checkered sky. They followed along the base, their elbows almost touching the cool, moss-covered stones, until they reached the point where the gigantic structure joined the abrupt face of the mountain. It was here that the passage into Uti had been dug under the foundation; the existence of this opening saved them the labor of making another in which to place the explosive.

“We need go no farther,” Stanley announced, carefully depositing his pack on the ground and relieving the aged man of his.

“I am glad of that; my limbs are weary, for I am no longer young.”

“Then rest while I work. Sit right beside me if you wish, so you can see everything I do.”

“I will tie this thong to your foot, and fasten the other end to my own feet.”

Stanley was on the point of making a wrathy reply when the humor of the situation struck him. Soncco, in spite of his shrewdness, was childish in many ways. With the thong tied to his feet and the other end in Stanley’s possession, it would have been an easy matter to upset the old man and then pounce upon him. But of course he did not intend to do anything of the kind. With a smile he submitted to his companion’s whim. Then he fell to work in earnest, carefully following the plan formulated by Ted and himself after much discussion.

The passage under the wall had been left partly open by Soncco when he brought back the boxes of dynamite from the other side. Therefore Stanley had to close it again. He began by rolling stones into the tunnel and pushed them to the far end, packing in the open spaces between them with earth. When half of it had been filled he carefully planted the explosive, placing the fuse so that it led out where Soncco was sitting. Then he shut up the remaining portion of the passage with earth and the largest stones he could handle.

This took several hours of the hardest kind of work. Stanley was nearly exhausted when the task was completed.

“Now listen,” he said, seating himself by the side of his guard. “If you fail us in this one detail, everything will be lost.”

“I am willing to hear. Speak!”

“Here is a white cord,” Stanley explained, placing the end of the fuse in Soncco’s hands. “I will leave it here in plain view. To-morrow you must have a trusted guard stand on this spot beginning with the rising of the sun. He must not go away from this place for an instant, understand, for it all depends upon his faithful performance of the duty you will impose upon him.”

“What is that duty?”

“When the light of your god, the sun, is suddenly blotted out, as it were, by a hand to hide his face in shame over the actions of his child Quizquiz, and of all the rest of you, too, who meekly permit him to do such fiendish things; when the blackness of night has enveloped the valley, although it is only noon; when the bats leave their caves, and the beasts of prey come out of their dens to kill their defenseless victims, thinking the day is over—that will be the time for him to act. Fire must be applied to the end of this cord. It will begin to burn and sputter, and later will send out a message that will be heard throughout the valley, and even far beyond. But I must caution you of this: when the cord begins to give off its first crackling sparks, let the man who lighted it flee from the spot. His work here will be finished, so he must hurry back to the encampment, and not stop running until he reaches it.”

Soncco appeared greatly impressed.

“The message that will be conveyed by the cord,” he asked in an awed whisper, “will it reach the sun?”

“Who knows? It may reach farther than the sun.”

“And will it cause the bright light and warmth to come back to us again?”

“If the sunlight should be withheld from the earth all life would soon come to an end. Nothing could live in the cold and everlasting darkness.”

“Oh! Such a calamity must not befall us.”

“Then follow my instructions to the letter. Will you?”

“I swear it. My own beloved brother, whom I trust in all things, shall be assigned to this mission. His faithfulness cannot be questioned.”

“Good. Now we might as well start back. My companion is waiting, and we must get past the guards before daylight comes or they would recognize me.”

“Yes, and that would spoil everything. I can hardly wait to see if you are really such wonderful magicians, or if you have been deceiving me.”

“Soncco,” Stanley said with a note of pleading in his voice, “do everything exactly as Quizquiz has commanded. If he should suspect anything he might remove you from your position, where you can help us and—yourself. Be patient. Continue to trust us. And you will not be disappointed in the end.”

“Now what do you want?” rather testily.

“Nothing right now. But if we should need you again we shall let you know. How about this cord? Do you expect me to walk back like this?”

Soncco removed the thong from Stanley’s ankle and the two started away at a fast walk. They passed through the guard-lines without trouble. Stanley returned the borrowed garments to the waiting man, and then the latter, led by the aged amauta, departed.