Pandemonium reigned in the square. This was sacrilege unspeakable! Did not the Coya already belong to the gods! Muera la Coya! Death to the stranger! There was a huge rush, a scramble of raging Indians along parapets, over rocks and the ruins of temples, while the golden litter was hurried away by the Guards of the Sacrifice and the amautas. Maria-Teresa closed her eyes, carrying to the tomb that supreme farewell which was perhaps to cost Dick his life.
“You must be mad,” said the madman Orellana, when he saw Dick lean over and call to Maria-Teresa, and when she answered, asked almost angrily: “How did you come to know my daughter?”
The roar of the angry crowd surged up to them, surrounded them, and drew nearer. It was with the greatest difficulty that Orellana shook Dick out of his strange torpor, dragged him through the gap from which they had emerged, and finally to the labyrinth below the Temple. Apparently familiar with every twist and turning of the place, he led him through a mile of passages, their darkness relieved here and there by round, square or triangular patches of light sifting down between thousand-year-old stones from the world above. Occasionally he stopped to tell Dick what temple, what palace, they were passing under.
“Yaca-Huasi, which they also call the House of the Serpent, is over our heads now.”
“Perhaps they have taken her there!”
“No, no! That’s against all the rules. The Temple of Death is the next place.”
“Where are we going to? Where are you taking me?”
“To the Temple of Death, of course!”
Dick followed him without another word, but expressed his surprise when they emerged into the open country.
“Where is the Temple, then?” he asked.
“On the Island of Titicaca. You needn’t be afraid. We shall get there before them.”
They hired horses at a wayside inn and rode to Sicuani. Here they took a train which, turning onto a branch line at Juliaca, then ran to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. On the way, Orellana babbled ceaselessly about the country through which they were passing and the ceremony they were to witness.
No stranger has ever seen it. But he, Orellana, asked nobody’s permission, and since his daughter was to be wedded to the Sun, it was the least of things that he should be present at the marriage, and particularly as he had planned it all so carefully! It had taken him years to find the Temple of Death, but with patience all things could be done. There was not one dried-up river-bed underground, not a deserted goldmine which he did not know so well that he could find his way about it with his eyes shut.
And what fortunes he had discovered under the earth; a fortune equal to all the fortunes on earth! It was obvious that the Incas must have got their gold somewhere. Well, he had discovered where! There was plenty of it left, plenty of it left!... One day, some clever young engineer would find out, and he would only have to stoop to be as rich as Croesus. (A bitter smile from the young engineer, whose thoughts were far from such things.)... But he, Orellana, did not give a fig for all the gold in creation.
He loved only his daughter, whom the Indians had taken to the Temple of Death, and it was only the Temple of Death which he had sought.
It had taken him years, but now everything was; ready and he was going to save her. He had waited long enough to kiss her again! Ten whole years!
So the old man wandered on, while Dick listened eagerly, striving to guess how much was truth, and how much madness.
“But how do they get from Cuzco to the Temple of Death?”
“Don’t you worry about that.... By the Corridors of Night, by the Corridors of the Mountains of Night, by the Corridors of the Lake of Night.... By the way, do you know anything about fishing?”
Dick did not have time to answer this extraordinary question, for the guard had come through to their carriage, and was inviting them to the luggage-van to see the samacuena danced. Everybody else seemed to be going there, and they accepted so as not to draw attention to themselves. They found the van peopled with Indians, dancing, playing the guitar, and drinking hard. At each step, the guard, to celebrate Garcia’s victories, fired a volley of cohetes, the mountains throwing back the echo of the explosions.
Then some of the Quichua soldiers in the train gave themselves up to the pleasures of the chase. Spying flocks of vicuñas in the hills, they went to the observation-car and tried their luck. One of them, something of a marksman, brought down a vicuña, the train stopped with a grinding of brakes, and the guard himself went off to retrieve the bag.
Dick, wild with impatience, would have liked to club the engine driver and take charge of the locomotive himself, but Orellana calmed him down.
“We’re sure to get there before them. You’ll see! Why, we shall even have time to do some fishing!”
Leaving their fellow-travelers to cut up the vicuña, they returned to their carriage, where the stove had been lighted. It had become intensely cold, for they were now in the snow regions, more than fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Soroche, or mountain fever, threw the young engineer, and after bleeding violently at the nose, he fell into a semi-comatose condition. He did not recover until Punho, when he again remembered the horrible nightmare through which he was living, and savagely demanded to be shown the way to the Temple of Death.
“We’re going there,” replied his strange guide, but first took him to the main square, where about a hundred Indian girls, wearing skirts of a dark material and the low-cut bodices of their race, squatted in orderly rows, selling fruits and vegetables dried in the cold.
“There are usually two hundred of them,” explained Orellana, “but the Red Ponchos have been this way and chosen the best-looking half for the ceremony. It’s the same thing every ten years.”
He made a few purchases with Dick’s money, and after adding a flask of pisco to his stores, led the way out of the city. At nightfall they reached a huge marsh, alive with water-fowl. Next they crossed a heath, llamas and alpacas fleeing at their approach, and finally came to a dismal little bay on the shores of the lake.
Titicaca, in its mountain cradle, is the highest lake in the world. That night, its waters looked somber and heavy, almost dead. A storm, growling in the distance, soon swept down on them with a howl of rain, the waves dashing up the beach mountain-high, and the lightning touching the surrounding peaks with fire.
“Splendid, splendid,” muttered Orellana as the storm broke. “That means fine weather for to-morrow. In the meantime, we may as well have supper.”
He had led the young man under a giant monolith, hewn to the shape of a door. In a niche of it, Orellana managed to light a dung-cake fire, and here they ate a little and warmed themselves with generous pulls at the pisco flask. Dick at last fell asleep, while the old man covered him with a horse blanket and paternally watched over his slumbers.
Just before dawn, Dick awoke to find Orellana reminiscent.
“This place has always brought me luck since I started to look for my daughter, but I cannot make out who to thank for it. Doyouknow who this god is?”
He pointed to the bas-reliefs which covered the stone. They represented a human being, the head adorned with allegorical rays, and each hand holding a different scepter. Around this being were symmetrically ranged other figures, some with human faces, others with the heads of condors, all holding scepters, and all facing toward the center.
“There’s no doubt about it,” mused Orellana aloud. “This is nothing like the Incas’ work. It is much more sculptural, and much older. There must have been worlds on these shores before the advent of the Incas. They’re only savages who steal children.... Well, come on. We may as well go out in my boat and meet the sun.”
In a little creek, half hidden by rushes, they found a cane pirogue, in which Orellana had soon hoisted a mast and a mat sail.
“Come on,” he said, “we’ll do some fishing. It’s all on the way to the Temple of Death.”
Dick followed him into the fragile craft, and they started for the islands. These came into sight late in the afternoon, a blue blur on the horizon. To Dick’s fevered imagination, they seemed like threatening shadows on the face of the waters, ghostly guardians of the Temple of Death.
Orellana refused to go any nearer that night, hauled down the sail, and threw overboard a heavy stone to anchor his boat. Then he handed Dick a fishing-rod. At his astonished look, the madman replied:
“People come to the islands to fish, because these waters are blessed by the gods and the catches are better than anywhere else. Can’t you do what everybody else does?”
He pointed across the waters to little lights flaring up at the bows of other pirogues, in which sat motionless fishermen.
“All those Indians are fishing,” he said. “You may as well join them. If you can’t, go to sleep, and don’t worry us. You’ll see something worth while when you wake up.”
Orellana woke Dick just before dawn. The last stars were paling in the heavens at the approach of their King. The deep waters of the lake showed uniformly gray, not a light and not a shadow upon them. Not a sound to break stillness, not a breath of wind in the air. Suddenly, in the Orient, the mountain peaks were touched with fire, a giant furnace sprang into being behind the torn curtain of the Cordilleras, and the sun painted scarlet splashes into the shadows of the sacred islands.
When they pass before the largest of them, which is Titicaca, the Indian fishermen in their fragile pirogues never fail to chant the Aïmara Hymn of the Ancestors, for it was from this island, untold years ago, that sprang the founders of the Inca race in the persons of Manco Capac and Mama Cello, husband and wife, brother and sister, both children of the Sun. Coming in sight of the island, the traveler perceives giant ruins and great masses of rock piled up in an inexplicable manner, so strange that science has not yet been able to give them a date. These are the baths, the palaces and temples of the first Incas.
Dick, staring landwards from the pirogue, hardly knew whether he was awake or dreaming. Was this a hallucination born of the terrors of the week, or did his eyes really reveal what other eyes had first adored centuries before, at the dawn of the Inca world? As the shadows of night drew away and the island stood out above the waters in all its terrestrial grandeur, he did not merely see dead stones, lifeless temples, and deserted palaces; the Cyclopean whole was peopled by a vast throng, motionless and silent, its myriad faces turned to the flaming Orient. This immobility and silence were those of a dream; there were thousands there who seemed to live and breathe only in the expectation of some mysterious and sacred event.
The disc of the sun was still hidden behind the Andes, but all Nature heralded its approach; the flanks of the mountains were jeweled with a thousand dazzling stones, brooks and torrents were afire, and the broad bosom of the lake was a roseate mirror bearing the still reflections of palaces and temples. Virgins, bearing, as of old, the most beautiful flowers of the season and the emblems of their religion, peopled the porticoes. At the summits of towers, luminous with the dawn, priests waited for their god to show his face.
Suddenly, he appears... he rises... he blazes down on his empire, and is hailed by a great roar. “Hail, O Sun, King of the Heavens, father of men!” Earth trembles, waters shiver, the heavens even quiver at the call. “Hail, O Sun, father of the Inca!” Arms are stretched toward him, hands heavy with offerings implore his intercession, and every voice chants his glory. “Hear thy children! Hail, O Sun!”
Cries and songs of triumph are swelled by the clamor of barbaric instruments, and the tumult grows as the radiant disc climbs higher in the heavens, bathing the multitude in light.
Sun, behold thy Empire! After so many centuries, the faithful, the men who labor in valley and mountain, are still here, and still do thee obeisance. The golden-armed virgins have poured libations from the sacred vases, and the hymns of the priests, after having risen to the heavens, now seem to plunge into the earth.
What is this miracle? The dream has vanished; vanished as do the light mists of morning before the first rays of the sun.
Dick rubbed his eyes. What had become of that crowd? Who had hailed the god of Day? Now that the sun was high on the horizon, and that things had taken on their true shapes again, he could see only ruined palaces and solitude.
Orellana had driven his pirogue to the shore, and jumped onto the beach, signing to the young man to follow. As they neared the cliffs, he stopped him; the pious throng had vanished, but not in a dream, for the sound of chanting could still be heard from within the rock.
“Come with me,” said the old man. “They have gone to the Temple of Death, but we shall be there before them.”
They entered a grotto. Dick had no will but Orellana’s, and no hope. He was convinced that Maria-Teresa must die, and regarded that last greeting of theirs as the supreme one. Once certain that she had passed to the realms of night, he would follow her there. He had been told she was to end her life in the Temple of Death, and this old man, who ten years before had lost his daughter in the same way, said he knew where it was. Well, he would follow him.
The grotto was a deep one. After walking for a few seconds over sand and shells, the old man lit a resinous torch, and the spluttering flame showed the dark entrance of a passage. Before entering it, however, he bent down in a corner and picked something up. Dick saw that it was a pick.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Save my daughter, of course! Just come with me, and I’ll show you. I shan’t let those devils choke her as they did ten years ago. They wall them up alive, you see. All we need do is to wait until they have gone, and then take her out again. Clear enough, isn’t it?... When I discovered the Temple of Death and saw all the slabs on the wall, I said to myself: ‘It would have been easy enough to save her if I had been there.’ It was too late then. And of course, I didn’t know which stone she was behind. This time, though, I shall watch them.... We’ll get the best of them yet. See if we don’t!”
There was hope, then! Dick took a long breath, and steadied himself. Madmen with their set ideas are sometimes nearer the truth than sane men with their set reason. Dick took the pick, and followed Orellana down the winding passage, the torch in the old man’s trembling hand throwing weird lights and shadows on their path. There was not a foreign sound to be heard. The earth had choked all noise as it might yet choke them.
Hacked through the stone, their corridor opened at intervals onto little square rooms, probably the burial-places of long-forgotten priests and dignitaries, slumbering there as their brethren of ancient Egypt slumber in the Pyramids. In the last of these rooms, Orellana put out the torch, and fell on his knees, for the narrow gut which they now entered was far too low for a man to stand upright in. A few yards further on, they came to a spacious niche, and stood up again.
“We are there,” said the old man, stopping Dick.
It was far less dark here, and Dick, his eyes growing used to the obscurity, realized that a diffused light was reaching them from somewhere. The shadowy outline of columns and cornices gradually took shape, and he realized that he was looking down from a height of several feet into a vast hall.
“That is the Temple of Death,” said Orellana. “Listen!”
From the distance came the sound of rhythmic chanting, and suddenly a blinding stream of light descended into the chamber before them. Instinctively, they threw themselves back into the darkest corner of their niche. Above them, at the summit of the vast subterranean hall, a stone had been removed, letting in the golden sunlight. In the heart of the vault was a kind of truncated cone, so fashioned that the sunbeams, sliding along its surface, were thrown into the farthest corner of the mysterious temple.
Altars, altar-steps, and niches were heavy with gold, the plaques of the precious metal being bound together by a wonderful cement, to make which liquid gold had been used. This hidden temple was, in a word, a veritable goldmine.
On the eastern wall was an image of the divinity, wrought in massive gold, and representing a human head surrounded by shafts of light. So the old world has also represented the sun. The heavy plaque was studded with emeralds and other precious stones. The rays of the rising sun fell full upon it, filling the whole temple with a light that seemed almost supernatural, and flashing back from the gold ornaments with which walls and vault were incrusted. Gold, in the poetic language of the country, is “the tears shed by the Sun,” and the Temple blazed with the precious metal. The cornices crowning the sanctuary walls were also of gold, and a frieze of gold, hammered into the stone, ran right round the hall.
Dick and Orellana, from their coign of vantage, could see a number of chapels placed symmetrically round the great central chamber. One of them was sacred to the Moon, mother of the Incas. Her effigy was almost identical with that of the Sun, but the plaque was of silver, recalling the soft glow of that gentle planet. Another chapel was dedicated to the Armies of the Heavens, which are the stars and the brilliant court of the sister of the Sun; a third, to thunder and lightning, the terrible ministers of her wrath; yet another, to the rainbow. And in all these chapels, as in the temple, all that was not silver was gold, gold, gold.
The young engineer’s eyes gradually took in all the details of the temple. First, the central altar, several steps above the floor, on which were golden vases brimming over with maize, incense-burners, ewers for the blood of the sacrifice, and a great golden knife on a tray of gold. Then he realized that something living was moving in the hall, which he had thought deserted. The Guardians of the Temple, like three hideous gnomes, glided from altar to altar, while the one with the cap skull, given the taste for blood from his earliest years by this deformation of the cranium, urged the others to hasten, and every little while went to the main altar to pat the great knife waiting there. Behind the altar, and rising above it, was a kind of golden pyramid, crowned with a golden throne. “That is for the King,” said Orellana. On each side of the altar, and before it, were three other pyramids. But they were not so high, and were not of gold. They were of wood. “The pyres,” explained Orellana.
“The pyres! What do you mean, man?”
“Steady, steady! They’re not going to burn her. She’s the Bride of the Sun, and they wall her up. Burn her, indeed! It’s not done, I tell you. Every Aïmara child knows that. Little children don’t see the Temple of Death unless they are to die in it, but they know that much. Burn my daughter, indeed! As if I would allow it! What do you think I brought this pick for? You do just as well not to answer. Much better remain silent than talk nonsense like that. If you look at the walls out there you’ll see a big porphyry slab between each gold panel. There are just a hundred of them, and behind each one is one of the Sun’s brides. If I only knew which tomb my daughter was in, I would have had her out a long time ago. But the slabs are all just alike, and there is nothing to help a poor father in his search. This time, though, I’m watching, and as soon as they’ve gone, I shall save her.”
“She may be dead, smothered alive, when you get her out.” Dick, thinking hard while the old man babbled on in whispers, was hoping against hope.
“That just shows how little you know about it. They are deep tombs, like cupboards, and you can sit in them. Don’t you know the Indians always bury people sitting? There’s air enough in there to keep her alive for an hour, or even two. And I shall have her out in ten minutes!”
Dick stared blindly at the porphyry slabs before him.
“But if there are a hundred of them in there already, there isn’t room for another. Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. You needn’t worry, boy. The pyres are for the two mammaconas who go before the Bride to prepare her chamber in the Enchanted Realms of the Sun.”
“There are three pyres, though.”
“Naturally. They have to take out the oldest bride to make room for my daughter. Then they burn her. What else should they do?”
“Burn her? Then they do burn her!”
Dick had almost lost control of his mind.
“The old one, you fool!” retorted Orellana testily. “Didn’t I tell you there were a hundred there? The Sun is given a new bride every ten years. Can you count, or can’t you? That makes one of them a thousand years old.... There’s no harm in burning a wife who is a thousand years old. The Sun has got tired of her by then. Doesn’t he set fire to her pyre himself? That proves it.... Listen. Here they come!”
The chanting grew louder, and soon the priests appeared. Behind them walked the nobles, recognizable by the heavy ear-rings which only descendants of an Inca may wear; they were dressed in sleeveless red tunics, and each man bore a banner on which was embroidered a rainbow, its brilliant hues varying to mark the coat-armor of each house. Next came young girls of noble family, who in the old days would have become Virgins of the Sun, ending their lives on the altars of the deity, or as the wives of the Inca. They were followed by their adult brothers, wearing the white robes, crosses embroidered on the breast, which were the traditional costume of men of their caste about to enter the order of knighthood. After them, the curacas, chiefs of the races conquered by the Incas and of all the tribes which had taken the oath of fealty. These men wore multi-colored tunics, unadorned with gold.
The cortège had advanced to the center of the temple, and suddenly, as the chanting ceased, all turned toward the door by which they had entered. A strange silence succeeded the rhythmic throbbing of canticles. Then a terrible scream tore the air. Dick gripped Orellana’s arm.
“What was that?” he asked hoarsely.
“Nothing to do with us. They’re sacrificing a child in the Black Chapel of Pacahuamac, the Pure Spirit.”
The devils!” Dick wrenched ont his revolver, but the old man gripped his wrist.
“Quiet, you fool! We can’t save the child now, and if you make a sign we shan’t save her either. If you can’t stand it, get out!”
The young engineer controlled himself.
“It’s too horrible! Poor little Christobal! My God, why can’t they kill us all and have done with it!”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, talking like that,” said the madman. “When a man has nerves like a woman he shouldn’t come to the Temple of Death.”
After that one terrible cry, all was silence again. Nobles, virgins, young men and curacas continued their slow progress round the Temple. Behind them entered the amautas, sages who teach the children of the Incas; the Red Ponchos, who surrounded the altar like a sacred guard. None of them carried visible arms. The high dignitaries of the court followed, wearing the blanchana, a flowing tunic of light bark, painted in vivid colors. Each man carried a barbaric emblem with wide-open jaws, designed to frighten away all evil spirits.
Dick thought that Maria-Teresa was entering, but then saw that the litter borne on the shoulders of nobles was occupied by a figure which he did not at first recognize. His robe and sandals seemed of solid gold, and his ears were weighted down with enormous ear-rings, reaching almost to the shoulders. About his head was the royal llantu, a multi-colored turban of delicate tissue, and his forehead was further adorned by the kingly borla, the heavy scarlet and gold fringe of which partly hid his eyes. Two coraquenque plumes towered above the crown.
As he descended from his litter, aided by two pages, and slowly mounted the steps of the golden pyramid, the assembly bent to its knees. At the summit of the pyramid, he paused gravely, took his seat on the golden throne, and gave the Aimara greeting:—“Dios anki tiourata.”
Then all rose to their feet, while he sat motionless, like a graven image.
“The bank-clerk!” exclaimed Dick, as he faced toward the hidden watchers.
They had before them Huayna Gapac Runtu, King of the Incas.
“The god is seated in all his light!” chanted the assembly in unison, repeating the words three times. Then the wail of the quenias filled the air, and the religious cortège entered the temple, led by the four Guards of the Sacrifice, their heads erect now, for the sacred bonnets hid no secret. Behind them walked another Red Poncho, bearing in his hands a mass of knotted cords. Dick recognized the Preacher of Cajamarca, head of the quipucamyas, or Keepers of the Historic Word. Then came Huascar, in the saffron-colored vestments of the high-priest, preceded by lesser dignitaries of the church, while four curacas held over him a canopy of brilliant-hued plumes. All bowed before Huascar; the Inca alone was above him.
From the high-priest’s stern face and somber eyes, Dick looked to his hands, to see if they were red with the blood of sacrifice. He felt a wild desire to shoot him down there, to kill him like a mad dog among his priests and servitors.
The mammaconas advanced, chanting. He could not at first see Maria-Teresa, hidden from view by black veils, rhythmically waved about her. The movement ceased and the women parted, leaving the way clear for the two among them who were to die and who advanced with uncovered faces, smiling like happy children.
The quenias ceased their song, and the second litter was brought forward in solemn silence. Dick shivered. Was Maria-Teresa dead or alive? He hoped vainly that her litter might pass close to him, as had Huascar’s canopy. From where he was, she seemed as inert and lifeless as the mummy monarch beside her, and little Christobal was no longer in her arms. That part of her face left uncovered by the golden robe and head-dress was tomb-like in its pallor, and her eyes were closed.
The double throne was set down between the altar and the pyres; Huascar took his seat on the right of the altar, and the chief of the qui-pucamyas on the left; the mammaconas stood on the altar-steps. The two who were to die, their black veils discarded for dainty holiday attire, with flowers in their tresses, knelt at Maria-Teresa’s feet. The nobles and the curacas were ranged round the temple with the virgins and young men. The three Guardians of the Temple closed the doors. No others might enter, for the common people, forbidden the sight of these mysteries, waited far away, in the Corridors of Night, until the priests should return to lead them back through the labyrinth to the light of day.
Huascar rose, and his sonorous voice opened the ceremony.
“At the beginning was Pacahuamac, the Pure Spirit, who reigned in the darkness; then came his son, the Sun, and his daughter, the Moon; and Paeahuamac gave them armies, which are the Stars.
“Unto the Sun and Moon were born children. First were the Pirhuas, king-pontiffs; then the Amautas, pontiff-kings; and then the Incas, kings of kings, sent on earth to rule mankind.”
The assembly repeated Huascar’s words like a litany. When it was ended, young men brought a llama to the altar, and the Guardians of the Temple offered up the sacrifice. Huascar bent over the entrails.
“The gods are propitious,” he announced to the King.
At a sign from the throne, the chief of the quipucamyas rose to his feet, and in a few verses recalled the chief terrestrial episodes of the history of the Incas, the assembly chanting other verses in reply in the same monotonous rhythm, while the priest slipped the knots of the quipus through his fingers like a monk telling his beads.
When he reached the verse recounting Atahualpa’s martyrdom, a great shout went up in the temple. The King, from his throne, raised a sceptered hand, and spoke. The end of the bondage placed upon his people by the gods was near; he, Huayna Gapac Runtu, had been chosen by the Sun to drive out the strangers; and as a gage of his reconciliation with the faithful, the god had permitted them to offer him in sacrifice the noblest and most beautiful virgin of the hated race, a descendant of one of those who had murdered Atahualpa.
At the King’s words, all eyes were carried to Maria-Teresa, and a roar of “Muera la Coya!” beat round her. Was she not already dead, then? The savage cries did not even make her eyelids quiver. If she was still alive, she must be unconscious. Dick, falling to his knees, thanked heaven for that.
Again the King’s voice rose, telling the people that the day of deliverance was near; that their empire would be re-born in all its splendor. The altars of their god, served for centuries in the darkness, would soon smoke anew in his light. Once again would they be the Free Children of the Sun.
“Let the Children of the Sun advance!”
The young men approached the royal throne. For thirty days they had gone through the tests of yore; they had fasted, fought, displayed their skill in wrestling and with arms; they had worn coarse clothing, walked barefoot, and slept on the hard floor. Now they advanced in their white robes, the cross on their breasts, like young knights of the Middle Ages in the Gothic cathedrals of another faith and land.
They surrounded the golden pyramid and
Huascar, taking evergreen branches from a golden vase held by two virgins, bound them in their hair as a sign that the virtues they had acquired must last for all time. Then, one by one, he called their names to the King, who, as each young man knelt before him, pierced his ears with a golden awl. They descended, their white robes smeared with blood, while Huascar, from another vase, took heavy ear-rings, with which he adorned them. Nothing in the young faces betrayed their suffering. Then all raised their hands and took the oath of bravery and of fealty to the Inca.
“That is well,” said the King. “Let them now put on their sandals.”
This part of the ceremony was performed by the quipucamyas, the most venerable among them strapping on the young men’s feet the sandals of the Order of the Incas.
“That is well,” repeated the King. “Let them be given their girdles.” Again the old men passed down the ranks, buckling on the heavy war-belts.
“That is well,” said the King for the third time. “And I say unto you before the dead King and the Goya who is to die, that they may repeat it to your ancestors, that our race is still the first of all living races, for you are the pure Children of the Sun, without earthly leaven, the brother having always drunk the blood of the sister!”
The virgins advanced, taking the places of the young men on the steps of the throne, while fathers and brothers intoned the Aïmara Song of Triumph.
“The savages! The savages!” raged Dick, thinking only of vengeance now that he thought Maria-Teresa was dead. He balanced the revolver in his palm, hesitating. There were at all events Huascar and the King he could bring down; that would be some satisfaction. But suppose Maria-Teresa was not dead after all? He might still save her. For a moment he thought she had moved. He questioned Orellana in a whisper. “My daughter is very tired, and must be sleeping,” replied the madman.
Meanwhile the cap-skulled Guardian of the Temple had made a little incision on the throat of each virgin, gathering their blood in a gold ewer. When the cup was full, he touched it with his lips and handed it to the young men, among whom it passed from hand to hand, while the girls, proud of their light wounds, cried, “Glory to the Children of the Sun!”
“The cup is empty,” announced Huascar.
At his words the King rose, and holding up both arms to the heavens, implored the Sun to give the signal for the sacrifice.
Clouds of pungent incense rose from the burners, and gradually hid from view the azure disc overhead. The mammaconas who were to die, obeying the ritual, ran forward to the King’s feet.
“We implore you, O King, to stop all the smokes of the earth. They hide his face, and the Sun cannot give the signal for the sacrifice.”
At a sign from the figure on the golden pyramid, the burners were extinguished, and the spot of blue gradually reappeared. The Guardians of the Temple, by the pyres, held in their hands metal mirrors, drawing the sun to a little heap of cotton in the center of each resinous pile. Thus did the god, of his own will, give the signal for the sacrifice! There were no stakes on the pyres, no chains; the victims must die willingly.
While the throng about them chanted prayers, the two mammaconas watched the pyres. They feared that the god might reject them; then they would live, shunned by all, until they disappeared. Their eyes, large with hope in the mercy of the divinity, anxiously awaited the first flicker of flame.
If the pyre destined to the thousand-year-old Coya did not take fire, it did not mean that the new one was distasteful to the god. It meant merely that the old one had not known how to please him, that she was not worthy of the sepulcher of fire, and that her body must be thrown to the black vultures in the mountains.
On this day, the first pyre to blaze up was that of the long-dead Coya. She was waiting. Songs rang out in her honor, and a purple veil which Dick had not yet noticed fell to the ground. A black gap showed in the wall, and in it could be seen the shadowy figure of the thousand-year-old queen, stiff in her scented wrappings.
Dick’s head swam. There, before him, was the narrow tomb into which Maria-Teresa would be plunged living. But was she still living? She must have died when the child was torn from her arms, or when she had heard his terrible cry.
The priests had lifted the dead Coya from her tomb, and carried her to the pyre. She sat severely erect, as Coyas should sit, even when slowly done to death in a living tomb. So she must sit, and that is why the tomb is made so narrow that she can only remain motionless on her throne.
Erect and calm, she vanished in the flames of the pyre, while the two living mammaconas watched her enviously.
Dick did not even glance at the pyres. His eyes were fixed on the hole in the wall. She could not live long in there, and they must lose no time if she was to be saved. One hand gripped Orellana’s pick, while the other, armed with a revolver, still hesitated. Perhaps Maria-Teresa was not dead yet! But, if so why did she not open her eyes?
Still the two other pyres did not take fire, and the mammaconas prayed passionately to the Sun. They must die before Maria-Teresa, to prepare her chamber in the Enchanted Realms of the Sun, and if they did not hasten they would never reach them first. “Have pity, O Sun! Send us your flames, Ejma of the Heavens! We are women; give us courage.”
“Have pity! Send us your flames!” chanted the throng in unison.
But the Sun did not send his flame until the first pyre had nearly died down, its end hastened by the perfumes heavy with spirit which the Guards of the Sacrifice poured over the blazing logs.
Dropping their festive garments from them, the two mammaconas ran to the pyres with cries of joy, and waited, their eyes turned heavenwards in ecstasy. Diabolical music burst out about them, and a savage frenzy seemed to seize the other mammaconas as they whirled round the fires. The greedy flames climbed upwards and reached the victims. One of them leapt down with a terrible cry.
“Return to the flames! Return to the flames!” chanted the others, surrounding her. She writhed on the ground, calling for the knife, and a Guardian of the Temple went toward her. The black veils of the mammaconas were spotted with blood, but they danced on, singing. The hideous dwarfs lifted up a body, which disappeared in the fire.
The other mammacona, heroically erect, had cried out only once, and when she in her turn vanished in the scarlet chariot which the Sun had sent to take her to his Enchanted Realms, hymns of glory thundered through the temple.
Maddened by the songs, the flames, the incense, and the acrid smoke of the pyres, three more mammaconas followed their sisters. It is impossible to guess how far this delirium of sacrifice would have gone had not Huascar stopped it. At a sign from him, the diabolical music ceased, and the Guardians of the Temple choked the glowing pyres with sand.
It was Maria-Teresa’s turn. Dick, half fainting, opened his eyes again at Orellana’s words. He saw the mammaconas strip her of the jewels with which she was literally covered from head to foot. From her hair, ears, cheeks, breast, shoulders, from her beautiful arms and shapely ankles, the “tears of the Sun” fell one by one, and were placed preciously in a golden basin. Last of all they removed the fatal Golden Sun bracelet All these jewels were to be hidden again until the day, ten years thence, when the Inca would demand another bride for the Sun.
As she was rapidly divested of her golden sheath as well, Maria-Teresa appeared swathed in bands of soft material. Her eyes were closed, and externally at all events, she was already a mummy. Her arms were bound to her sides, and all that remained to be done was to lift her into her tomb. Dick’s eyes did not leave what could still be seen of the beloved face under the bands of perfumed linen which bound her chin and forehead. Her lips were parted, but motionless, as if she had just breathed her last sigh.
Again he told himself that she must be dead. It was better so, for then she could not feel the hands of the horrible Guardians of the Temple lift her to the death-throne and then slide her into the hole where she was to wait a thousand years before being burned in her turn.
At that moment the rays of the Sun, as if to make a golden ladder for the woman whom the Incas, in their cruel piety, were sending to his realms, fell on Maria-Teresa, and lit up the narrow tomb, so that Dick saw every detail of the atrocious ceremony.
The three porphyry slabs, fitting perfectly one into the other, had now to be adjusted, and the tomb would be closed. It was done in terrible-silence, and all eyes were fixed on workers and victim.
Bending under its weight, the Guardians of the Temple slipped the first into position, hiding Maria-Teresa up to the knees. The second, brought to the right level on a rolling platform, covered her to the shoulders.
All that could now be seen was her head, swathed and bound up for the thousand-year sleep, with a face that was that of a dead woman. Then a shiver ran through the throng, though it had witnessed the sacred horrors preceding it without a quiver. Maria-Teresa had opened her eyes....
They had opened wide and stared out from the depths of the tomb which was closing on her. They were terribly living, terribly wide open, staring, staring, at all she would see of life before the eternal Shadow took her to its bosom. And those eyes traveled slowly over the throng in gala attire which was there to see her die, then rested for the last time on the golden sunlight, on the beautiful light of day.
The superhuman agony forced those eyes even wider, those eyes which were never to see again. Her lips moved, as if about to utter a supreme cry of appeal to life, a cry of horror at the living night of the tomb. Then they closed again on a poor, weak little groan, while the last slab blotted out the look of those great eyes.
She belonged to the god now.