SUARRA OF THE GOLDEN SPEARS.
Graydon had run into Sterrett in Quito. Or, rather, Sterrett sought him
out there. Graydon had often heard of the giant West Coast adventurer,
but their trails had never crossed. It was with a lively curiosity,
then, that he opened the door of his room to this visitor.
And he had rather liked Sterrett. There was a bluff directness about
the big man that made him overlook a certain cruelty of eye and a touch
of brutality about mouth and jaw.
Sterrett came to the point at once. Graydon had no doubt heard the
story of the treasure train which had been bringing to Pizarro the
ransom of the Inca Atahualpa? And learning of the murder of that
monarch had turned back and buried that treasure somewhere in the
Peruvian wilderness? Graydon had heard of it, hundreds of times. And,
like every other adventurer in the Andes, spent a little time himself
searching for those countless millions in jewels and gold.
Sterrett nodded.
"I know how to find it," he said.
And Graydon had laughed. How many had told him that they, too, knew
where lay hidden the hoard of Atahualpa the Inca!
But in the end Sterrett convinced him; convinced him at least that
there was something more solid than usual in his story, something
decidedly worth looking into.
There would be two others in the expedition, Sterrett told him, both
men long associated with him. One was Dancre, a Frenchman, the other an
American named Soames. These two had been with Sterrett when he had got
hold of the old parchment with its alleged map of the treasure trail,
and with its carefully drawn signs that purported to be copies of
those along that trail; signs cut by its makers to guide those who one
day, when the Spaniard was gone, would set out to recover the hidden
hoard. Graydon asked why they wanted him, Sterrett bluntly enough told
him--because he was an American; because they knew he could be trusted;
because he could afford to pay half the expenses of the expedition.
He, Dancre and Soames would pay the other half. They would all share
equally if the treasure was found. Still another reason, Graydon was
a mining engineer and his special knowledge might be essential when
it came to recovering the stuff. Furthermore, if the treasure was not
found, the region where they were going was full of minerals. He might
make some valuable discoveries. In which event all would share equally
as before.
There were no calls on Graydon at the time. It was true that he could
well afford the cost. At the worst there would be adventure and some
pleasant excitement. He met Dancre and Soames, the first a cynical,
but amusing little bunch of wires and nerves, the second a lanky,
saturnine, hard-bitten Yankee. They had gone down by rail to Cerro de
Pasco for their outfit, that being the town of any size closest to
where, according to the map, their trail into the wilderness began. A
week later, with eight burros and six _arrieros_ or packmen, they were
well within the welter of peaks through which the old map indicated
their road lay.
They found the signs cut in the rocks exactly as the parchment had
promised. Gay, spirits high with anticipation, three of them at least
spending in advance their share of the treasure, they followed the
symbols. Steadily they were led into the uncharted wilderness.
At last the _arrieros_ began to murmur. They were approaching, they said,
a region that was accursed, the Cordillera de Carabaya, where demons
dwelt and only fierce Aymaras, their servants, lived. Promises of more
money, threats, pleadings, took them along a little farther.
Then one morning the four awoke to find the _arrieros_ gone--and with
them half the burros and a portion of their supplies.
They pressed on. Then suddenly, the signs had failed them. Either
they had lost the trail, or there were no more carven symbols and the
parchment which had led them truthfully so far had lied at the last. Or
was it possible that the signs had been obliterated--cut away?
The country into which they had penetrated was a strangely deserted
one. They saw no sign of Indians--had seen none indeed since when, more
than a week before, they had stopped at a Quicha village and Sterrett
had got mad drunk on that fiery spirit the Quichas distill. Food, too,
was curiously hard to find, there were few animals and fewer birds.
But worst of all was the change that had come over his companions. As
high as they had been lifted by their certainty of success, just so
deep were they now cast into despair. The wilderness, the loneliness of
it, their disappointment, had brought out the real man that lies hidden
beneath the veneer we all of us carry. Sterrett kept himself at a
steady level of drunkenness, alternately quarrelsome and noisy or sunk
in a sullen mood of brooding, brutal rage. Dancre had become silent and
irritable. Soames seemed to have reached the conclusion that Graydon,
Sterrett and the Frenchman had combined against him; that they had
either deliberately missed the trail or had erased the signs. Only when
the two of them joined Sterrett and drank with him the Quicha hell-brew
did either of them relax. At such times Graydon had the uneasy feeling
that they were holding the failure against him and that his life might
be hanging on a thin thread.
On the day that his adventure really began--that strange adventure to
which all that had passed before had been prelude--Graydon was coming
back to the camp. He had been hunting since morning. Dancre and Soames
had gone off together on another desperate search for the missing
symbols that would lead them to the treasure trail again.
Cut off in mid-flight, the girl's cry came to him as the answer to all
his apprehensions; materialization of the menace toward which his vague
fears had been groping ever since he had left Sterrett alone at the
camp hours ago. He had sensed some culminating misfortune close--and
here it was! He knew it; how, he did not stop himself to ask; he was
sure. He broke into a run, stumbling up the slope to the group of gray
green _algarroba_ trees where the tent was pitched.
What had the drunken fool done? Graydon had warned them all that their
situation was perilous; that if Indians came they must try to make
friends with them--that they must be superlatively careful in their
treatment of any Indian women.
He reached the _algarrobas_; crashed through the light undergrowth to the
little clearing. Why didn't the girl cry out again, he wondered. There
was a sickness at his heart. A low chuckle reached him, thick, satyr
toned. Then Sterrett's voice, cruel, mocking!
"No more fight in you, eh? Well, which'll it be, pretty lady--the way
to the gold or you? And by Heaven--I guess it'll be you--first!"
For an instant Graydon paused. He saw that Sterrett, half crouching,
was holding the girl bow fashion over one knee. A thick arm was
clinched about her neck, the fingers clutching her mouth brutally,
silencing her; his right hand fettered her slender wrists; her knees
were caught in the vise of his bent right leg.
She was helpless, but as Graydon sprang forward he caught a flash of
wide black eyes, wrath filled and defiant, staring fearlessly into
those leering so close.
He caught Sterrett by the hair, locked an arm under his chin, drawing
his head sharply back.
"Drop her!" he ordered. "Drop her--quick!"
Sterrett hurled himself to his feet, dropping the girl as he rose.
"What the hell are you butting in for?" he snarled. His hand struck
down toward his pistol. But even while the fingers were tightening
around the butt, Graydon's fist shot out and caught him on the point of
the hairy jaw. The clutching fingers loosened, the half drawn pistol
slipped to the ground, the great body quivered and toppled over. Long
before it fell the girl had leaped up and away.
Graydon did not look after her. She had gone no doubt to bring down
upon them her people, some tribe of those fierce Aymaras that even the
Incas of old had never quite conquered and who would avenge her--in
ways that Graydon did not like to visualize.
He bent down over Sterrett. His heart was beating; feebly it was
true--but beating. The reek of drink was sickening. Graydon's hand
touched the fallen pistol. He picked it up and looked speculatively at
the fallen man's rifle. Sterrett, between the blow and the drink, would
probably be out of the running for hours. He wished that Dancre and
Soames would get back soon to camp. The three of them could put up a
good fight at any rate; might even have a chance for escape. So ran his
thoughts. But Dancre and Soames would have to return quickly. The girl
would soon be there--with the avengers; no doubt at this very moment
she was telling them of her wrongs. He turned--
She stood there; looking at him!
And drinking in her loveliness, Graydon forgot the man at his feet;
forgot all, and was content to let his soul sit undisturbed within his
eyes and take its delight to her.
Her skin was palest ivory. It gleamed translucent through the rents
of the soft amber fabric like the thickest silk that swathed her. Her
eyes were deep velvety pools, oval, a little tilted; Egyptian in the
wide midnight of their irises. But the features were classic, cameo;
the nose small and straight, the brows level and black, almost meeting
above it! And her hair was cloudy jet, misty and shadowed, and a narrow
fillet of gold bound the broad, low forehead. In it like a diamond were
entwined the sable and silver feathers of the _caraquenque_, that bird
whose plumage in lost centuries was sacred to the princesses of the
Incas alone. Above her dimpled elbows golden bracelets twined, reaching
to the slender shoulders. The little, high arched feet were shod with
high buskins of deerskin.
She was light and slender as the Willow Maid who waits on Kwannon when
she passes into the World of Trees to pour into them new fire of green
life--and like the Willow Maid green fire of tree and jungle and flame
of woman gleamed within her.
Nothing so exquisite, so beautiful had ever Graydon beheld. Here was no
Aymara, no daughter of any tribe of the Cordilleras, no descendant of
Incas. Nor was she Spanish. There were bruises on her cheeks--the marks
of Sterrett's cruel fingers. Her long, slim hands touched them. The red
lips opened. She spoke--in the Aymara tongue.
"Is he dead?" she asked--her voice was low, a faint chime as of little
bells ringing through it.
"No," Graydon answered.
In the depths of the midnight eyes a small hot flame flared; he could
have sworn it was of gladness; it vanished as swiftly as it had come.
"That is well," she said. "I would not have him die--" the voice become
meditative--"_so!_"
"Who are you?" Graydon asked wonderingly. She looked at him for a long
moment, enigmatically.
"Call me--Suarra," she answered at last.
Sterrett stirred; groaned. The girl gazed down upon him. The slim hand
touched once more the bruises on her cheek.
"He is very strong," she murmured.
Graydon thought there was admiration in the voice; wondered whether all
that delectable beauty was after all but a mask for primitive woman,
worshiping brute strength; looked into the eyes scanning Sterrett's
bulk, noted the curious speculation within them, and knew that whatever
the reason for her comment it was not that which his fleeting thought
had whispered. She looked at him, questioningly.
"Are you his enemy?" she asked.
"No," said Graydon, "we travel together."
"Then why," she pointed to the out-stretched figure, "why did you do
this to: him? Why did you not let him have his way with me?"
Graydon flushed, uncomfortably. The question, with all its subtle
implications, cut. What kind of a beast did she think him? His defense
of her had been elementary--as well be asked to explain why he did not
stand by and watch idly while a child was being murdered!
"What do you think I am?" His voice shook with half shamed wrath. "No
man stands by and lets a thing like that go on."
She looked at him, curiously; but her eyes had softened.
"No?" she asked. "No man does? Then what is he?"
Graydon found no answer. She took a step closer to him, her slim
fingers again touching the bruises on her cheek.
"Do you not wonder," she said--"now do you not wonder why I do not call
my people to deal him the punishment he has earned?"
"I do wonder," Graydon's perplexity was frank. "I wonder indeed. Why do
you not call them--if they are close enough to hear?"
"And what would you do were they to come?" she whispered.
"I would not let them have him--alive," he answered. "Nor me!"
"Perhaps," she said, slowly, "perhaps--knowing that--is why--I do not
call them!"
Suddenly she smiled upon him--and it was as though a draft of wild
sweet wine had been lifted to his lips. He took a swift step toward
her. She drew up to her slim lithe height, thrust out a warning hand.
"I am--Suarra," she said; then, "and I am--Death!"
And odd chill passed through Graydon. Again he realized the unfamiliar,
the alien beauty of her. Was there truth after all in those legends of
the haunted Cordillera? He had never doubted that there was something
behind the terror of the Indians, the desertion of the _arrieros_. Was
she one of its spirits, its--demons? For an instant the fantasy seemed
no fantasy. Then reason returned. This girl a demon! He laughed.
She frowned at that laughter.
"Do not laugh," she said. "The death I mean is not such as you who
live beyond the high rim of our land may know. It is death that blots
out not alone the body, but that lord whose castle is the body; that
which looks out through the windows of your eyes--that presence, that
flame, you believe can never die. That, too, our death blots out;
makes as though it never had been. Or letting it live, changes it
in--dreadful--ways. Yet, because you came to me in my need--nay, more
because of something I sense within you--something that calls out to
me and to which I must listen and do desire to listen--because of this
I would not have that death come to you."
Strange as were her words, Graydon hardly heard them; certainly did not
then realize fully their meaning, lost still as he was in wonder.
What was this girl doing here in these wild mountains with her
bracelets of gold and the royal Inca feathers on her lovely little
head? No demon of the wilderness, she! Absurd! She was living,
desirable, all human.
Yet she was of no race he knew. Despite the _caraquenque_ plumes--not of
the Incas.
But she was of pure blood--the blood of kings. Yes, that was it--a
princess of some proud empire, immemoriably ancient, long lost! But
what empire?
"How you came by the watchers, I do not know. How you passed unseen by
them I do not know. Nor how you came so far within this forbidden land.
Tell me," her voice was imperious, "why came you here at all?"
Graydon stirred. It was a command.
"We came from afar," he said, "on the track of a great treasure of gold
and gems; the treasure of Atahualpa, the Inca. There were certain signs
that led us. They brought us here. And here we lost them. And found
soon that we, too, were lost."
"Atahualpa," she nodded. "Yes, his people did come here. We took
them--and their treasure!"
Graydon stared at her, jaw dropping in amazement.
"You--you took them--and the treasure!" he gasped.
"Yes," she nodded, indifferently, "it lies somewhere in one of the
thirteen caves. It was nothing to us--to us of Yu-Atlanchi where
treasures are as the sands in the stream bed. A grain of sand, it was,
among many. But the people of Atahualpa were welcome--since we needed
new folks to care for the Xinli and to feed the wisdom of the Snake
Mother."
"The Snake Mother!" exclaimed Graydon.
The girl touched the bracelet on her right arm. And Graydon, looking
close, saw that this bracelet held a disk on which was carved a serpent
with a woman's head and woman's breasts and arms. It lay coiled upon a
great dish held high on the paws of four animals. The shapes of these
did not at once register upon his consciousness--so absorbed was he in
his study of that coiled figure.
And now he saw that this face was not really that of a woman. It was
reptilian. But so strongly had the maker feminized it, so great was the
suggestion of womanhood modeled into every line of it, that constantly
the eyes saw it as woman, forgetting all that was of the serpent.
Her eyes were of some small, glittering, intensely purple stone. And as
Graydon looked he felt that those eyes were alive--that far, far away
some living thing was looking at him through them. That they were, in
fact, prolongations of some one's--some _thing's_--vision!
And suddenly the figure seemed to swell, the coils to move, the eyes
come closer.
He tore his gaze away; drew back, dizzily.
The girl was touching one of the animals that held up the bowl or
shield or whatever it was that held the snake woman.
"The Xinli," she said.
Graydon looked; looked and felt increase of bewilderment. For he knew
what those animals were. And, knowing, knew that he looked upon the
incredible.
They were dinosaurs! Those gigantic, monstrous grotesques that
ruled earth millions upon millions of years ago, and but for whose
extinction, so he had been taught, man could never have developed.
Who in this Andean wilderness could know or could have known the
dinosaur? Who here could have carved the monsters with such life-like
detail as these possessed? Why, it was only yesterday that science
had learned what really were their huge bones, buried so long that
the rocks had molded themselves around them in adamantine matrix.
And laboriously, with every modern resource still haltingly and
laboriously, science had set those bones together as a perplexed
child a picture puzzle, and timidly put forth what it believed to be
reconstructions of these long vanished chimeras of earth's nightmare
youth.
Yet here, far from all science it must surely be, some one had modeled
those same monsters for a woman's bracelet. Why then, it followed that
whoever had done this must have had before him the living forms from
which to work. Or, if not, copies of those forms set down accurately
by ancient men who had seen them. And either or both these things were
incredible.
What were these people to whom this girl belonged? People who--what was
it she had said--could blot out both body and soul or change the soul
to some dreadful thing? There had been a name--
Yu-Atlanchi.
"Suarra," he said, "where is Yu-Atlanchi? Is it this place where we are
now?"
"This," she laughed. "No! Yu-Atlanchi is the ancient land. The hidden
land where the Five Lords and the Lord of Lords once ruled, and where
now rules only the Lord of Fate and the Lord of Folly and the Snake
Mother! This place Yu-Atlanchi!" again she laughed. "Now and then we
hunt here--with the Xinli and the--the--" she hesitated, looking at
him oddly; then went on. "So it was that he," she pointed to Sterrett,
"caught me. I was hunting. I had slipped away from my--my--" again
she hesitated, as oddly as before--"my followers, for sometimes I
would hunt alone, wander alone. I came through these trees and saw
your _tetuane_, your lodge. I came face to face with--him. And I was
amazed--too amazed to strike with one of these." She pointed to a low
knoll a few feet away--"so, before I could conquer that amaze he
seized me, choked me. And then you came."
Graydon stared at the place where she had pointed. There upon the
ground lay three slender shining spears. Their slim shafts were of
gold; the arrow shaped heads of two of them were of fine opal.
But the third--the third was a single emerald, translucent and
flawless, all of six inches long and three at its widest and ground to
keenest point and cutting edge!
There it lay, a priceless jewel tipping a spear of gold--and a swift
panic shook Graydon. He had forgotten Soames and Dancre! Suppose they
should return while this girl was there! This girl with her ornaments
of gold, her gem tipped golden spears, and her--beauty! Well, he knew
what they could do. And while now he knew, too, how with all his wit
and strength he would fight for her. Still they were two and armed and
cunning, and he only one.
Suddenly he discounted all that tale of hers of a hidden land with
its Lords and Snake Mother and its people who dealt out mysterious
unfamiliar deaths. If this were all so, why had she come alone into
the _algarrobas_? Why was she still alone? As suddenly he saw her only a
girl, speaking fantasy, and helpless.
"Suarra," he said, "you must go and go quickly. This man and I are
not all. There are two more and even now they may be close. Take your
spears, and go quickly. Else I may not be able to save you."
"You think I am--" she began.
"I tell you to go," he answered. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, go
now and keep away from this place. To-morrow I will try to lead them
back. If you have people to fight for you--well, let them come and
fight if you so desire. But take this instant your spears and go."
She crossed to the little knoll and slowly picked them up. She held one
out to him, the one that bore the emerald point.
"This," she said, "to remember--Suarra."
"No," he thrust it back. "No!"
Once the others saw that jewel never, he knew, would he be able to
start them on the back trail--if they could find it. Sterrett had seen
it, of course, but that was not like having it in the camp, a constant
reminder to Soames and Dancre of what might be unlimited riches within
their reach. And he might be able to convince those others that
Sterrett's story was but a drunken dream.
The girl regarded him meditatively, a quickened interest in the velvety
eyes. She slipped the golden bracelets from her arms, held them out to
him with the three spears.
"Will you take all of them--and leave your comrades?" she asked. "Here
are gold and gems. They are treasures. They are what you have been
seeking. Take them. Take them and go, leaving that man there and those
other two. Consent--and I will not only give you these, but show you a
way out of this forbidden land."
For a moment Graydon hesitated. The great emerald alone was worth a
fortune. What loyalty did he owe after all, to Sterrett and Soames and
Dancre? And Sterrett had brought this thing upon himself.
Nevertheless--they were his comrades. Open eyed he had gone into this
venture with them.
He had a swift vision of himself skulking away with this glittering,
golden booty, creeping off to safety while he left them, unwarned,
unprepared to meet--what? Peril, certainly; nay, almost as
certainly--death. For whatever the present danger of this girl might
be at the hands of his comrades, subconsciously Graydon knew that it
must be but a brief one; that she could not be all alone; that although
through some chance she had strayed upon the camp, somewhere close were
those who would seek for her when they missed her. That somewhere were
forces on which she could call and against which it was unlikely three
men, even well armed as they were, could prevail.
Very definitely he did not like that picture of himself skulking away
from the peril, whatever it might be.
"No," he said. "These men are of my race, my comrades. Whatever is to
come--I will meet it with them and help them fight it. Now go."
"Yet you would have fought them for my sake--indeed did fight," she
said, as though perplexed. "Why then do you cling to them when you can
save yourself; go free, with treasure? And why, if you will not do
this, do you let me go, knowing that if you kept me prisoner, or--slew
me, I could not bring my people down upon you?"
Graydon laughed.
"I couldn't let them hurt you, of course," he said, "and I'm afraid to
make you prisoner, because I might not be able to keep you free from
hurt. And I won't run away. So talk no more, but go--go!"
She thrust the gleaming spears into the ground, slipped the golden
bracelets back on her arms, held white hands out to him.
"Now," she cried, "now, by the Wisdom of the Snake Mother, by the Five
Lords and by the Lord of Lords, I will save you if I can. All that I
have tempted you with was but to test that truth which I had hoped was
in you and now know is within you. Now you may not go back--nor may
they. Here is Yu-Atlanchi and Yu-Atlanchi's power. Into that power you
have strayed. Nor have those who have ever so strayed ever escaped. Yet
you I will save--if I can!"
Before he could answer her he heard a horn sound; far away and high in
air it seemed. Faintly it was answered by others closer by; mellow,
questing notes--yet with weirldy alien beat in them that subtly checked
the pulse of Graydon's heart!
"They come," she said. "My followers! Light your fire to-night. Sleep
without fear. But do not wander beyond these trees!"
"Suarra--" he cried.
"Silence now," she warned. "Silence--until I am gone!"
The mellow horns sounded closer. She sprang from his side; darted
through the trees.
From the little ridge above the camp he heard her voice raised in
one clear, ringing shout. There was a tumult of the horns about
her--elfinly troubling. Then silence.
Graydon stood listening. The sun touched the high snowfields of the
majestic peaks toward which he faced; touched them and turned them into
robes of molten gold. The amethyst shadows that draped their sides
thickened, wavered and marched swiftly forward.
Still he listened, scarce breathing.
Far, far away the horns sounded again; faint echoings of the tumult
that had swept about Suarra--faint, faint and faerie sweet.
The sun dropped behind the peaks; the edges of their frozen mantles
glittered as though sewn with diamonds; darkened into a fringe of
gleaming rubies. The golden fields dulled, grew amber and then blushed
forth a glowing rose. They changed to pearl and faded into a ghostly
silver, shining like cloud wraiths in the highest heavens. Down upon
the _algarroba_ clump the quick Andean dusk fell.
And not till then did Graydon, shivering with sudden, inexplicable
dread, realize that beyond the calling horns and the girl's clear
shouting he had heard no other sound--no noise either of man or beast,
no sweeping through of brush or grass, no fall of running feet nor
clamor of the chase.
Nothing but that mellow chorus of the horns!
From infinite distances, it seemed to him, he heard one single note,
sustained and insistent. It detached itself from the silence. It swept
toward him with the speed of light. It circled overhead, hovered and
darted; arose and sped away; a winged sound bearing some message,
carrying some warning--where?