“You stop when I say!” Pizzara gloated, lifting the shining muzzle. “If I shoot you will be capture. I will escape and come another time to take the gold. If you do what I say you get way and I may give you one little bit of gold as a—a souvenir.”
“You expect us to carry gold!—when we are trying to escape with Mr. Gray who is feeble?” Bill snapped at Pizzara.
“Yes!” replied Pizzara. “I have select gold that is carve very pretty: it is not too heavy with so many. It will sell very high for the art and not for the gold, as your scholar will say when he see what I have choose.”
He lifted the revolver as Bill’s fists doubled.
“You are a beast!” said Mr. Whitley. “A beast who——”
“Who drive beast of burden! Come and I load your backs!”
Pizzara had been clever, indeed! He had so maneuvered the procession as they left the cells that Mr. Gray, the most feeble one, was in the lead and the Indian and his sister at the rear.
Therefore they could not make a dash for escape; and when they saw Pizzara’s menacing look as he showed them that he also had his own revolver, a heavy, serviceable automatic, Mr. Whitley and Bill signaled submission. After all, it was their only chance for liberty.
“Look here,” Bill turned on Pizzara. “You had better let the soldier and his sister escape—you can’t ask them to rob their own treasure house. They think the Sun’s gold is sacred!”
“I need them,” said Pizzara. “The soldier have his father with rope to wait to help us at the cistern. If we have not these two how shall the others let us take the gold?”
“You are vile!” cried Mr. Gray. “To use them as hostages!”
“Cease grumbling, my little llamas,” Pizzara said sarcastically. “Come and let the loads be put on your little backs—or!——” he crooked his trigger finger significantly.
The situation was too desperate for argument: when they sullenly filed into the room beneath the sun temple, Caya and her brother showed signs of mutiny but Bill whispered to them that if they raised an alarm there it would result in death for them all: he hinted that some way would be found to save the treasure—and they could take only a few choice carved and moulded pieces. Pizzara could not always be on guard.
Strangely enough the whites were all in sympathy with the Indians: they were not mercenary or lustful. The safety of Cliff’s father, their own escape and a clear conscience were of more worth to them than the risk of a few thousand dollars and the feeling that they were thieves.
They were in such a situation that they had to help a thief but they felt sure that at some time when his vigilance was relaxed they could leave him to dispose of his gains, secured by coercion, as best he might.
He had chosen his loot wisely; they saw that as he indicated the lighter statues, beautifully worked, the animals, flowers and a few urns. He made them tear apart woolen weaves that were as fine and as soft as silk to make bundles and thongs with which to carry more than they could handle loose.
Cowed but sullen Caya and her brother did what they could to delay, but finally Pizzara had as much as he thought they could care for, and off they started, down the long tunnel, laden heavily. Even Mr. Gray, feeble as he was, had to carry the statue of Chasca, which weighed only about five pounds but which was a marvelously well wrought bit of purest gold: small though it was, for gold is heavy, every feature, every line, was perfect.
Herding them before him like the llamas he called them, Pizzara drove his bearers along, prodding the morose Indians with his two ready weapons.
They reached the outlet into the dry aqueduct: it was still a tunnel for the distance it ran under the temple gardens, but its stones were carefully fitted and joined with some hard, glasslike cement to help retain the water if the emergency ever arose in which it would inundate the underground ways: and, thought most of them, here was the emergency—if the truth were discovered by the Incas!
The first beginnings of dawn were in the Eastern sky when the party, their torch flung aside, came to the point where the water way was no longer under the gardens but ran, as an open, deep cut, to the mighty cistern which distributed the water from the mountain reservoirs.
“How are we going to get out of this?” Cliff asked as they saw the open sky through the slit of open stone above them.
“Caya’s family waits with ropes near the cistern,” Bill informed them all: he had learned of this from Pizzara who had allowed the young soldier to make his plans before he knew that the gold would be stolen; had Pizzara dropped a hint of his true purpose it is probable that the Indian would have tried to rescue his sister and then informed the Inca’s troop of the Spaniard’s plan; but Pizzara was cunning.
“But suppose they discover the escape?” broke in Nicky. “When do they change guards again, Bill—ask Caya!”
“It has been done already,” Bill said. “I have asked her. That is why Pizzara is hurrying us. They must know that we are free and maybe they know that the gold is gone!”
“How far must we go?” Cliff asked.
“At least a mile.”
“But won’t they see us in this open aqueduct?”
“They probably won’t waste time searching,” Bill answered. “I expect that a chasqui-runner—has already been sent to the guards who handle the sluice gates.”
Pizzara, himself, seemed anxious. He urged them to hasten.
“Look!” whispered Caya, clutching Cliff’s arm. She pointed behind them. Against the growing illumination of the sky they saw a figure, slim, tall, standing out black against the sky, peering down at them. Suddenly he stood straight. Faintly they heard a hail and then the figure disappeared.
“That was a watcher,” Bill said. “It’s an even chance whether there are soldiers close enough to shower us with arrows, or whether they get those gates open before we reach the place where the rope will help us climb out.”
They needed no prodding from Pizzara.
They ran over the loose pebbles and bits of loosened stone, stumbling, gasping, their lives in their hands; and yet, with all the danger, when Caya dropped her bundle Pizzara compelled her to stop and secure it.
“How can we get away, even if we do get out?”
Nicky panted as he asked the question. His bundle was getting heavier as the moments passed, and his excitement, even though it lent him strength, seemed to make the needless extra burden seem silly; he wanted to drop it, to run faster; but they could go no faster than they did because of Mr. Gray’s feeble condition.
“If we can get to the place my father will help us with the rope,” Caya said. “There is a great hole in the cistern, part way down. If we can get in there before the soldiers see us we can hide and they will not think of looking for us there.”
“But won’t the water drown us?” asked Cliff.
“I think it may not rise that high,” she said. “But hurry—there we shall be safe!”
“Yes,” Cliff panted. “If we can get there in time!”
Although dawn was streaking the heavens with its colors, it was still dusk in the valley and pitch dark in their open cut.
“We are nearly there!” said Caya, coming forward in the dim line to help Cliff with his father: she took his statue in spite of her own burden and they hurried all they could.
From somewhere in the distance ahead they heard shouts.
“Can we make it?” panted Mr. Whitley.
“It’s a question of minutes,” gasped Bill. “Seconds, maybe! Hear that!”
As they neared the place where the great sluice gate of that particular distributing aqueduct was located they heard the shouting of men and the rumble of something—was it a huge stone being lifted by their rude and uncouth mechanical methods? Was that the gurgle of water they heard between the rumblings?
“Oh!” whispered Caya—“Here hangs the rope.” She, in the lead, feeling the walls, had located something hanging down.
Her brother gave a sharp jerk, repeated it, was answered.
“Caya first,” said Mr. Whitley.
“No,” said Mr. Gray. “William—Bill first!”
“He can help pull up the rest,” Cliff urged. “My father can’t climb, he will have to be drawn up.”
“Hurry, then, Bill,” said Mr. Whitley. In the darkness they began to feel the rope twitch and jerk, and heard the scrape of boots feeling for a foothold on the fairly rough side of the aqueduct. Then, far up the side they saw, in the light from the reddening sky, Bill, monkeylike, climbing like a sailor.
Soon the rope came down again. There was a loop at its end. “Sit in the loop and hang on,” Cliff and Mr. Whitley both urged.
“No,” said Mr. Gray. “I am not going until the girl is safe.” Caya was lifted for there was no time for argument. Bill and the eager father of the girl swung her in quick jerks upward.
Then the rope came down. “Wait!” said Pizzara. “Why not send the gold up now? I have tied the bundles together——”
A sharp push flung him aside. Mr. Whitley was at the end of his patience, seeing this man willing to risk their lives in preference to risking his gold. “You can send it up before you come,” he said.
There was a more ominous rumbling close at hand and they began to swarm up the rope as soon as the old man was safe. But Pizzara hung back. The rest were climbing like sailors, for there came the sound of water beginning to seep around an obstruction and there was a tiny wet pool running along under foot. While they climbed Pizzara took his final chance with his Fate or luck or patron Saint’s protection for he waited until he had made all the woolen thongs into a big knot and had swung that to the end of the rope: then he saw that he had no time to waste, for there was the beginning of a swirling torrent at his feet that swung him up and off his balance as he gripped the rope and began to surge upward. When his face topped the edge of a narrow step on which the others waited, he wore a sardonic grin which the growing light showed.
“I save the gold,” he said. “Haul him up.”
Cliff thought that Mr. Whitley was going to prevent that but Bill touched his arm: whispered, “Not yet—we will need the rope!”
They hauled up the gold, then, and were told to inch their way along the narrow ledge for a few feet to where, in the side wall, through long disuse, a great part had crumbled out, leaving a sort of rude cave, uneven of floor and jagged on its sides, but deep enough to enable them all to retire into the darkness at the back and be reasonably sure of not being seen. The rope was also out of sight and as they heard the roar of the waters rushing into the aqueduct, Cliff sighed.
“All that lovely woven stuff will be ruined,” he said. “I feel ashamed of myself in a way for being partly the cause of so much destruction.”
“It is Pizzara’s fault, not yours,” Nicky said. “If he hadn’t touched the gold they might not have flooded the tunnel to stop us. If we had traveled light we could have been here sooner and we might have overpowered the gateman and prevented the opening of the gate.”
“That is how to thank me when I save your life!” growled Pizzara.
“Little you cared for us,” flared Nicky. “Only for the gold we could carry. You’ll get paid back for that, some way.”
Mr. Whitley’s hand warned him to be silent. This was no time nor was it the place for quarreling or anger.
“Judge not——” he warned. “There is a Higher Power to attend to that, Nicky.”
“Yes, you are right,” Nicky admitted. “I’m sorry I spoke.”
Caya’s father had brought a little food, having had time to do no more when his son had raced home to plan with him for their rescue.
They ate and felt better.
“How do we get out of here?” Bill asked Caya’s brother.
They must wait until night, he said, and then they could creep around the ledge to a place where there were steps, and if they could elude the guard there they could get to the level ground and make for the hills.
“But there is no way out of the valley when we get to them,” objected Bill. “We don’t know about the secret pass.”
“Ah!” said Pizzara. “There, again, I am noble to save. I take you. When the high priest tell nobles to guard one place more than all other I follow. I shall save you even when you call me bad name.”
Which only proved it true that one can never hate any man because it is never possible to tell when a seeming enemy may prove one’s best friend. No matter how base Pizzara’s motive might be, he was made an instrument in the hands of a higher power than hate, and he was to prove also that there is a law of exact justice, that what one gives, in his thoughts, whether love, hate, lust, envy, greed or generosity, it returns to him in some way and at some time.
The day was irksome, even with the thrills of seeing soldiers scouting around the reservoir: one even started to walk a little way along the ledge from the stairs of rough stone at the gates, but as the Incas had turned more water into the cistern and it was slowly raising the level toward the ledge he did not go far.
The water itself became a menace before night, for it was almost level with their small, deep cavern; but its rise was slow and would be unless some one cut off the flow into the tunnels, which must happen soon.
It would be a question for them of whether dark came before the water level flooded the break in the stone and swept them out into the cavernous cistern.
The water came almost to the edge and then receded as the gate to the reserve supply in the mountains was closed.
Then darkness came, and they started on the most perilous part of their journey, edging around the ledge. Fortunately for them it was dry and not slippery.
Again Pizzara showed that lust was stronger than caution for he elected to remain in the cavern until they got out; they were then to proceed to a point above the cavern, lower the rope and pull his gold and himself up that way.
They could not refuse for he knew the secret passes.
Finally they were all safe and again they resumed their golden burdens. Caya, who could not stay in the valley without danger of death when she was discovered, had decided to go with her brother, who was also endangered. Their plan was to seek her shepherd and his mother in the hills and to stay there for a while. Perhaps Caya might stay and make a home for him, who could say? She was shy as she said it. Bill told the others of the plans the Indians made, and they all turned away in sympathetic silence as Caya and her brother bade farewell to the stern, proud old father and the clinging, sobbing mother who had braved every danger of discovery to steal close enough to know that all was well and to say goodbye.
But in due time, they were done and again the party walked along under the stars, on open ground and in constant danger of detection—but, happily—perhaps because the Incas supposed that the tunnel flood had served its purpose—they were not seen.
Again, near daybreak, they were in the mountains, and well hidden in a deep crevasse into which light never penetrated.
“Who do you suppose that is?” asked Nicky, calling Cliff’s attention to a slim figure standing not far from the point where the crevasse they were in opened onto the secret passway.
“Do you think it is a spy?” Tom whispered. They were still in hiding. Pizzara and Mr. Whitley had gone away early in the morning to try to find a way to get to their old camp on the ledge. Bill would have been the natural one to do scouting but it had been decided that he ought to stay to help the boys in case of danger of discovery. Although the crevasse, even in the middle of the day, was hidden in gloom that no sun’s ray ever penetrated, and discovery was unlikely, there was the possibility that some Incas might intrude and discover the camp. In such a case Bill was better able to find a hiding place or to help the younger brains to find a course of procedure. But as the figure appeared at the mouth of the crevasse, Bill was fast asleep, worn out after the long exertion.
“Shall we call Bill?” asked Nicky.
“Wait,” suggested Tom. “Keep perfectly still and see what he does.”
But they had forgotten Caya. Rolled in her robe she had been asleep; suddenly, sitting up and staring, she leaped to her feet, cried out a name sharply and ran forward.
It was her shepherd of the hills. She quickly explained what so surprised him, her presence in the hills. Then she brought him to meet the younger members of the party. They liked him at once. He was a handsome, wind-browned, tanned Indian with clear, honest eyes and a likeable manner, though saying little.
He had been on his way the night before to meet Caya when he had found some of the soldiers at the secret pass; they knew him but told him to go and watch for the strangers if they had escaped to the hills; he had waited nearby and was wondering what to do and how to see Caya when she had seen him.
Mr. Gray and Bill were able to understand his hill dialect quite well and he took quite a liking to the kindly old scholar. But most of his time he spent with Caya, for he joined the camp as soon as he had gone away long enough to bring some food.
Late that night Mr. Whitley and Pizzara returned, leading the latter’s Indians. They had found the camp on the ledge without much difficulty, there being an aqueduct that they could follow around the valley. They had all the food from both slender stores and all other equipment: the young men were very glad to get their American clothes again, and with a spare pair of corduroy trousers, an extra woolen shirt and Mr. Whitley’s heavy coat they managed to outfit Mr. Gray in the first “civilized” garb he had worn for several years.
They planned to sleep in the crevasse: the next day the shepherd agreed to come again and bring more dried meat and corn for their journey and to show them the way to regain the regularly traveled mountain passes.
But when they awoke the next morning Cliff, Tom and Nicky observed the camp in dismay.
Pizzara had cheated them again. Once his natives were with him, rough half-breeds, more lustful for money than caring about honesty, he and they had “cleared out” during the night, taking everything belonging to both parties!
For once, however, his cupidity had led him astray.
When the young shepherd came to the camp the next day, soon after sunup, he told them that he had seen a strange thing: nearly a dozen men went silently along the secret way with packs. He rose and followed, thinking that his friends of the day before were leaving with Caya. Not knowing them he naturally did not trust them.
However, soon there came a shouting, the falling of rocks, the cries of injured men, the sharp flash of lightning from a long stick which one of the men held.
Thus the Indian described Bill’s rifle which the Spaniard had stolen.
There was a loud noise after the flash, he said, and this happened several times: then the man fell down and there was much shouting and the tramp of feet marching along one of the higher ledges, with a chant of “Hailli—hailli!”
Bill and Mr. Whitley went to look at the place which the shepherd showed them. When they came back they were very sober and serious.
“Pizzara has stolen his last piece of gold,” Bill told the eager chums. “It looks as though the Incas ambushed his party again—only this time the ambush was a complete success.”
“Wiped out!” Mr. Whitley whispered to Mr. Gray.
“And how about the supplies?” Cliff asked.
“The Incas seemed to want to destroy the party: probably they think that the ones they attacked were our party. At any rate they used arrows, rocks and made a complete job of it. But they left the packs intact. It seems that they ambushed from above and did not even climb down to see anything.”
“Then the gold is there too,” Tom said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Whitley.
Little more was said. They became thoughtful and silent.
“Caya and her brother are going with the shepherd,” Bill said at length. “He will take them to his mother’s little hut.”
“I suppose Caya will marry him when she gets old enough,” Tom said. “But what will her brother do?”
“He has listened to our talk about the wonders of our country,” Mr. Gray said, “and he wants to stay with his sister until he knows she will be all right, and that, I suppose, means ‘until she marries the shepherd,’ then he will make his way to Cuzco. I have promised to send him some money, there, later on, and when he learns English and gets accustomed to the strange things that he will see everywhere outside his little hidden valley—who knows? He may come to visit us, some day!”
It was with considerable regret that the three chums said goodbye to Caya. She had been very faithful as a serving maid in the earlier days in the temple. Then she had endeared herself to their growing sense of chivalry by her sacrifice of freedom for their own sakes. They held her hand a little longer than was their habit with modern girls, and with no sense of sheepishness either!
Her brother they frankly made a comrade and if he did not understand their voluble promises of entertainment when he might come to see them at Amadale, they certainly conveyed a full sense of their comradeship to the straight young soldier.
Waving their hands, they watched Caya, her brother and the shepherd go out of sight down the crevasse and secret passway. Bill had a perfect route for their return tucked away in his pocket for he had drawn a rude map from the shepherd’s directions.
When the three whose lives had so closely twined in with their own were out of sight Bill turned to Mr. Whitley.
“I don’t know your mind and you don’t know mine,” he said—and the boys were tickled to hear the old expression he had used so often in the earlier days of their association—it seemed to bring them back to real, everyday things. “But to me it is a sin to leave that gold and those supplies to be ruined in the first storm in the mountains or to be buried in snow and ice this winter.”
“We aren’t stealing it,” Nicky suggested. “It can’t be returned to the Incas and the Spaniard—won’t need it——”
Mr. Gray was so eager to take the highly valuable specimens of the ancient handicraft to civilization that he urged them also. Mr. Whitley did not so much object to taking the gold; he did not wish the young fellows to be exposed to the sight of the ambush: but Bill settled that by going with him to bring back the gold and such supplies as they could use.
And so, because of greed, Pizzara had acted as an instrument to save their lives and then had actually sacrificed his own and those of his natives; and those who had been, under his revolver, actually beasts of burden, became carriers of their own treasure.
And carry it they did, with no complaint, for the secret way which they traversed was by no means as terrible as that by which they had come. The Inca’s way was cleverly chosen, cleverly hidden. But it was a very usable and easy way compared to the usual mountain passes.
One afternoon, as the sun was beginning to touch the tops of the Westward hills toward which the party now faced, they came to a narrow valley across which, far above, a swinging, osier-supported bridge was hung. But they did not cross the bridge; they went across the bottom of the valley and into a fissure in the rock that anyone would consider just one more cave, broken in there by Nature.
Nevertheless, it was not a cave but the opening into a great cleft in the virgin rock. Above them on both sides towered vast, steep granite slabs: their way lay between them.
Presently they came to steps, steep as a ladder almost, but firmly cut and shaped slightly downward at the inward side so that the wear of use leveling off the outer edge would not for centuries make the steps dangerous.
Up these they toiled, clinging dizzily, roped together, but not in any real danger. Mr. Gray, even, in spite of the toilsome journey, was in high spirits and, with many a rest but with a dauntless heart, he finally reached the top step and sat with his companions for a rest.
Soon they were off again: this time for only a short distance through a cleft; and when they emerged Cliff and Nicky gave a regular Indian war-whoop!
“See where we are?” shouted Cliff. “Look—yonder is the hut where I caught Huayca! There is the ledge where he watched our camp. This is the place, Father, where we lost the map and all——”
Sure enough! The Inca secret way had brought them out at almost the end of their journey; a few days and they would be in Cuzco, their adventures over!
That would have been the case if Huayca had not gone for a walk in the secret pass the day after the attack on Pizzara.
“This is a splendid place to stop until we can bleach out the copper color from our skins,” Mr. Whitley suggested. “We will have to camp somewhere while Bill goes to the nearest settlement and gets something to take out this coloring: we left Cuzco as white people; we do not want to return in red skins.”
“That will enable me to study this old ruin—I think it was a fortress,” Mr. Gray added. “And, besides, I will admit that our last climb tired me greatly.”
“Why can’t we go where we had our camp before—down below?” Nicky inquired.
“We can guard this place better,” Tom told him. “One man can watch that cleft we came from and we can loosen the osier ladder and draw it up: then no one can surprise us.”
“Do you think anybody would try?” Nicky asked.
Cliff spoke up: he had been quite silent and thoughtful for many minutes.
“I vote to go on,” he said.
Even Mr. Whitley looked at him in surprise.
“Why?” he asked.
“I have been thinking about ‘Whackey,’” Cliff replied. “Something has kept reminding me of him ever since we began to make camp here.”
“That is natural,” Mr. Whitley explained. “That is because you captured him, strung him up by the heels, up here.”
“Yes,” Cliff admitted: then he frowned. “But that wouldn’t make me feel as though he might be close to us now, would it?”
“Do you feel that way?” asked Bill.
Cliff nodded. “I keep thinking what I would do if I were in Whackey’s place,” he said.
“And what do you think you’d do?” Nicky demanded.
“This,” answered Cliff. “Suppose me to be Huayca. Well, I slipped away and tried an ambush in the white pass and then reported to my ruler, the Inca. Then, a little later, I found out that my ambush had not frightened the white invaders away. Do you see what I am trying to make plain?”
“Yes,” Tom nodded. “When the white invaders escaped from the dungeons and you heard about it, you might go with a party—or even lead it, as Whackey, of course—to destroy them if they were in the secret pass.”
“How would he know that they were not drowned in the tunnel?” Nicky objected. “How could he believe they were in the secret pass?”
“Easy!” Cliff said. “We—the white invaders were seen in the open part of the aqueduct by a chasqui—remember? Well, that proved they were not drowned in the flooded tunnels. But they were not found in the aqueduct, either, when daylight came.”
“That’s so,” Nicky agreed. “Then what?”
“Then—still pretending I am Huayca!—I would think they might have climbed out or someone might have helped—the Spaniard, maybe. The high priest might tell me that Pizzara knew about the secret pass or had heard of it. So I would go there.”
“Well,” said Bill, “that all fits in. Pizzara was caught during the night——”
“There!” cried Cliff, eagerly. “That is the point. It was at night! His band was wiped out. Now—if I were Whackey, I think I would go back there in daylight! And——”
“I see!” Tom put in. “Even at night the party could see that stuff was strewn all around. And in daytime—it was gone!”
“That is just what I mean!” Cliff was eager.
“By gravy!” Bill broke in, “I didn’t even think about that. Of course the average Peruvian is no detective and might not go as deep as that. But he would wonder what happened to all the stuff!”
“Huayca was a very intelligent fellow,” Mr. Whitley admitted. “If he did as Cliff said——” He stopped, thinking deeply.
“Then he might gather a party and follow us!” Nicky exclaimed.
“Why haven’t they overtaken us sooner, then?” Bill asked. “They can travel faster than we did.”
“Well,” said Cliff, “still being Whackey, I think I would follow all by myself.”
“Why?” It was like a chorus of well trained voices—all asked the question at one time.
“Less chance of being noticed for one thing. For another—and from what I saw of them I think this is how an Inca noble would think—I could let the party get to this ledge and make camp. Then I could wait until dark, slip over and cut away the ladder, wait until the camp was quiet to do it. Then I could pick them off, one by one, with a sling or bow and arrows, in the dawn. If any of the party hid in the ruins I could starve them out.”
“And that is exactly the way an Indian’s mind—an Inca, not an American Indian—would work,” Mr. Gray nodded at Cliff.
“I prophesy that will happen if we stay here,” Cliff said boldly.
And in all but one particular he was exactly right!
The one thing in which Cliff did not outguess Huayca was in the manner of his planning for the white party’s annihilation.
Huayca was not of the hidden Inca tribe. He was a man of Cuzco, but of the higher grade of intelligence. To him had come the Inca noble who had gone with Pizzara to America: that noble had chosen Huayca to serve him and had promised a great reward. By the failure of his ambush he had let the white party get through to Quichaka. And, worse, they had escaped again, as he discovered when he visited the scene of the night raid in the secret pass.
Huayca, being a native of Cuzco, knew that the Spanish justice was as swift as that of the Incas. Since he must live in Cuzco, far from Inca protection, he must not invoke the penalties which the Spanish law would demand if he destroyed the white party. Even in such a place as the Andes passes the law of the Americans would compel the law of the Spaniards to quest and to find him out, if he turned his hand against white men of that America.
He had a better plan and one so thoroughly diabolic that it seemed as though the Cupay, or evil spirit, of the Incas must have whispered it into his ear.
An infuriated mob, turning against white men who sought to rob the buried Incas, hidden among the hills, of their treasure—that was the instrument that would strike swiftly and who could seek, find or punish its scattered arms afterward? No one! Having followed the party to the stairway, keeping well hidden, he let them climb. He went to another spot in the secret pass and there, with catlike agility, soared up the side of a steep crag, hanging sometimes almost by a thread of sheer willpower, clinging with nails and bare feet; but he reached the top, slipped along it to another point, there descended to the main, open-traveled pass and so across the osier bridge. While Cliff was discussing his prophetic idea Huayca ran fleetly along the main pass, under the lip of that very ledge, bound for the nearest settlement.
Bill, when Cliff made his prophecy, looked very sober.
“You may be right,” he told Cliff, “but here’s our situation: We can’t go back to Cuzco as Indians. If we leave this ledge we lose a good position, in the matter of strategic location; no one can attack us from below if we cut loose the ladder and we can guard the cleft much easier than we could watch an open place on the pass. I vote for staying here, at least until I can get some stuff to replace the bleacher we lost when Pizzara took our packs away.”
They talked it over from every angle and finally, although Cliff felt that he was right, they found no other plan as good as Bill’s. Having their strong, light rope, plenty long enough to reach the ground, they promptly cut loose the upper fastenings of the Incas’s osier ladder and put a guard, in two-hour shifts, just within the cleft, with Bill’s small revolver, recovered from Pizzara by Bill after the visit to the scene of the Spaniard’s destruction: a shot would warn the whole camp, day or night.
They ate a frugal supper for the supplies were running very low and must be made to last at least a day more, until Bill could visit the settlement and come back with more. Then, because it was cold and they did not wish to build a fire to attract attention, they made rude blanket beds within the small stone hut, and, secure in the knowledge that Nicky was wide awake, watchful, in the cleft, they slept with the healthy weariness of their long climb that afternoon.
And beyond their camp the mighty Incas were getting ready to snap their jaws and leave the white party, apparently, no way of escape!
At ten o’clock Nicky left his post long enough to shake Bill awake: it was Bill’s next watch. The mountain prospector woke easily, got up, already alert and rested, and took up his post.
And the mountains seemed to sleep.
Mr. Whitley’s watch, from midnight till two, was equally uneventful. Mr. Gray was spared a watch the first night and so it was Cliff who was called to follow Mr. Whitley.
Huayca, having gone to a small settlement, called the men in council, told them that the white men who had previously gone that way were coming back, disguised as Indians, and thus fired his fuse to ignite Peruvian hatred. He told them that the men had discovered an old burial mound, far in the hills, and had ravaged it, in spite of his protest.
Then, giving them some hints, he slipped away, leaving a fuse of anger steadily hissing toward a powder-keg of rage and racial hatred.
Huayca, feeling quite happy, returned along the pass, over the bridge, up the cliff, along its top, down into the valley spanned by the bridge, and thus again up the stone stairway that Cliff’s party had used the afternoon before: he was back in the narrow outlet by the time that Cliff, consulting his radiumite watch face, decided to call Tom for his shift just after Cliff’s own ended.
It was so still, Cliff thought, that you could almost hear the stars singing as they twinkled with strange brightness in the clear air.
Not a sound reached Cliff’s ears, though. The stars did not sing, nor did anything else make any noise. Nature seemed to be resting in the wee hours before dawn, gathering her strength for a new day.
So Cliff crept as quietly as he could to the hut and shook Tom.
When his chum was thoroughly awake and stood outside the doorway with him, Cliff spoke.
“Don’t shoot if you see a shadow on the ledge,” he said in a whisper. “I am going over to the edge and look around toward the lower pass for a minute before I roll into my blanket.”
“All right,” Tom agreed, and went one way while Cliff went the other.
Tom comfortably disposed just inside the open fissure, saw Cliff standing outlined against a star. The cleft was as still as a tomb. Tom gazed up at the stars, looked along the deep, velvety blackness of the fissure, turned to look again toward Cliff.
Something was happening!
Cliff seemed to be moving crazily—or was it Cliff and another.
Tom deserted his post and raced across the turf. Then he shouted, pointed his small revolver aloft, pressed the trigger.
Crash! And the camp started up. The jaws had shut and the Andes were ready to crunch their prey.
While Cliff went to call Tom, Huayca, not too far away up the cleft, slipped closer and when he saw Cliff disappear into the gloomy ruin he whipped across the grass and into hiding at the ruins themselves.
He was within the guarded zone, therefore, when Tom took up his vigil.
But Cliff’s move to the ledge surprised Huayca. Also, it annoyed him: it might disrupt his plans. He counted on a surprise. He desired to remain silent until dawn, while men from the settlement crept up the pass. At dawn his plan was to shout and begin firing arrows into the camp. Then they would rush for the ladder and so plunge down into the arms of the men who would then be waiting in the pass.
But Cliff, as Huayca could tell when he crept close, flat on his stomach—Cliff was watching something. Perhaps one of the men had a light—down in the pass!
As Cliff turned, alarmed by whatever he saw, Huayca, a panther in quickness and a shadow in the gloom, leaped!
He got a hand over Cliff’s mouth.
Then Tom came running, there was the shot. Huayca tried to fling Cliff away, to escape and hide; but Cliff, too, had determination. He clung to his assailant!
Then, at the shot, there rose from the pass the angry, ominous roar of many voices.
The Andes growled over their prey!
Everybody was awake on the higher level. They all came running, Tom first. He caught Huayca in a tackle that helped to upset both struggling adversaries; but, striking sideways, he sent them to the turf with Cliff uppermost. Nicky piled on, then, and there was no chance of Huayca rising right away, squirm though he might.
Bill, when he came pelting, wasted no time: he saw the gleam of bright steel, for Huayca’s knife came from Spain. Bill saw that it was no time for niceness. He kicked Huayca’s wrist and with his screech of a wounded leopard Huayca’s wrist became limp; Bill snatched the weapon from the ground.
Mr. Whitley was there by that time. It took very little longer to trice up Huayca, a snarling, defeated Indian.
They peered over the ledge cautiously, but there was nothing to see: the pass was like a deep well, jet black, impenetrable. They dragged Huayca back to the hut, tried to force from him the secret of the pass, but he would not speak. Bill hinted at some methods a little more forceful but both Mr. Gray and Mr. Whitley demurred. Dawn would soon be upon them: they were all wide awake, and, dividing into two groups, one with Bill’s rifle, the other with two revolvers, each led by the older men, they watched at the cleft and near the ledge.
Beneath them those on the ledge could hear mutterings and growls, as of angered animals.
“It sounds as though there were lions down there,” said Nicky.
“What puzzles me about the affair, tonight, is: How could Huayca get past us and go down the pass?” Cliff said. “Or—if those people down there are from Quichaka—how they got past us.”
It was dawn before they discovered the reality.