AT THE CISTERN
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.