Teresa returned from a long tour of the empire with no news of Molina.
He had disappeared and had left no trace behind him. And Yma had wisely
withheld from the Inca the facts.
Teresa had stationed her faithful servant in Caxamalca with
instructions to watch Yma’s movements day and night. He had important
information which he gave with tense excitement.
“I have watched the premier Sun Virgin as you commanded. She goes
from the royal household to the convent daily. But at night she slips
through the darkness, climbs the mountain toward the fortress and
disappears.”
“Disappears--what do you mean?” demanded Teresa.
“I follow her. I look. She is before me. I look again and she is gone.”
“She does this trick on the mountain top?”
“No, Señorita, always at the foot of the mountain before she starts to
climb the steep stairway.”
“We’ll follow her to-night.”
With Gaspara and a single soldier, the four watched the convent until
Yma emerged. The native followed softly with Teresa at his heels.
Gaspara and his companion brought up the rear at a distance.
The Sun Virgin moved with unusual haste and recklessness, evidently
under great excitement.
She paused in the underbrush at the foot of the first tier of steep
stone steps. Her enemies stepped into the shadows but a few feet away
and listened. She was standing stark still, either waiting for some
one, or in a ruse to throw off any possible followers.
The bushes behind her rustled and voices could be plainly heard in an
excited conversation.
“Oh, Toparca,” Yma cried, “I shudder for the Inca. The Spaniards plot
to take his life. Even now they talk in secret council. I will command
the guard to-night. Go quickly, mingle with the drunken men in the
gambling halls, and report to me.
“You wish me to return to-night?”
“Yes. The door will be unbolted. Bring news. I shall not sleep.”
Toparca hurried toward Caxamalca and Yma began her passage toward the
hidden entrance of the lower fortress. In her excitement she threw
caution to the winds and boldly ran to the fissure in the cliff that
marked the door. The dark height rose five hundred feet, on the summit
of which sat the stone masonry of the upper structure.
Teresa ordered her servant to wait with the two men until she returned.
Softly following Yma’s careless footsteps she saw her disappear in the
fissure. In a flash she realized that the fortress could be entered
here by another door. Undoubtedly there were rooms hewn out the solid
rock below the masonry which she had explored above.
With quick, careful steps she returned to the pathway and reported to
Gaspara the discovery. They stole swiftly to the door and opened it.
They entered in silence and utter darkness and began to climb the stone
stairway stealthily.
Yma had reached Molina’s room in a frenzy of climbing without the
slightest suspicion that she was being followed.
Her eyes were wide with excitement as she faced the cavalier.
“What is it now, dear one?” he asked gently.
“They plot the death of our Lord!” she breathed.
Molina winced.
“Surely that cannot be. Men of Spain do not stoop to such perfidy!”
“I’ve heard it from more than one. They’ve sent the Inca’s only friend,
De Soto, on a fool’s errand to Huamachuco while they plot his death.”
“I cannot believe it,” Molina protested.
The girl drew near and touched the chains that bound the Spaniard to
the wall. Her eyes were wide with a grief beyond words. She spoke in an
awed whisper:
“Dear god-man, the blow falls because of my sins. I confess to you now
that I have kept you in chains. The Inca would have freed you but for
me. I told him that I feared the vengeance of Pizarro on his head when
he learned of your suffering. ’Twas true, I did fear this, but far more
than all else I feared to lose you forever to the woman you love.
Forgive me. I could not let you go. The vengeance of heaven now falls
on all because I have sinned.”
Her voice sank in a sob and Molina touched her hair in a gesture of
pity.
“And now,” she went on passionately, “my Lord of the Sun will be slain
and I shall also lose you....”
“You have given to me, dear Yma, something I shall never lose, a
breadth of sympathy for all God’s children, and an abiding wonder at
the miracle of love....”
She lifted her hand and brushed the hair from his forehead.
“They will come to take you--this I know. I feel the dark shadow of the
hour coming closer each day....”
She stopped suddenly, and threw her arms around his neck, her voice
lost in sobs that shook her frame, and the sobs lost in the futile
kisses with which she bruised his lips.
She moaned, covering his lips again with kisses and crushing him to
her heart. She paused and held him at arm’s length looking through her
tears.
“Is my love, then, finally futile?” She asked it as if she were a
prisoner on the gallows.
“I shall always love you, dear little sister to the wilderness, for the
deep lessons of life and death your love has taught me. But, God help
me, I love one in Panama. Were I chained to death, dear one, I should
love her....”
The girl leaped back in a quick defiance. For the first time Molina
saw swift feminine fury strike her and with terrible force. She gave a
hoarse cry.
“She shall not have you! I swear by the Sun to die before I’ll yield
your body to her....”
She stopped and sprang to the door, startled by the sound of footsteps.
She listened in an agony of suspense and the sound died away. Perhaps
the guards had changed at an unusual hour. She passed into the hall,
walked its length to the turn of the stairs leading below. She could
hear only the measured tread of the sentinel pacing his beat before
Molina’s door. The sound had come from the direction of the stairs. The
sentinel was at the other end of the corridor.
Yma met him at Molina’s door and sharply asked:
“Did you hear footsteps on the stairs?”
“Nothing, my lady....”
But while they talked careful feet were climbing the stairs at the
moment. This time they made no sound.
Teresa and her attendants had felt their way up the long steep stairway
ascending the three or four hundred feet to the first tier of rooms
used for cooking and the housing of the servants and guards. An evening
meal was being prepared for the prisoner.
They hid until the servant emerged from the kitchen carrying a platter
filled with savory food. With the tread of a cat, Teresa followed at a
safe distance and by the faint light from Molina’s door saw her enter.
It was the work of a moment to call her confederates and plan an
attack. She asked Gaspara to seize and bind the guard while the soldier
made sure of the maid so that no help could be summoned. Her own
servant would help Gaspara.
The three concealed themselves in the shadows of an alcove near the
entrance of the prisoner’s door. This alcove had been cut for the use
of a double guard. The sentinel approached without suspicion, and as
he passed, Gaspara flung himself upon him and a grim struggle ensued.
The man had muscles of steel and fought with courage though stunned
at first by the sudden attack. He bore his assailant on his broad
shoulders to the stairway and attempted to plunge down its steep stone
steps. Gaspara caught the wall in time, hurled his antagonist back into
the corridor and fought his way inch by inch through its length and
against the wall at the end.
The soldier seized the maid as she leaped through the door and Teresa
with drawn sword sprang into the room and saw Molina with a cry of joy.
Before him stood the rigid figure of Yma, the sword of the cavalier
gripped in her right hand. She had torn it from the wall, at the sounds
of the struggle outside.
Molina started. He lifted his arms in a desperate appeal.
“The struggle is over, dear Yma,” he cried.
“It has just begun!” Her voice, torn by love and hate, sounded
unnatural, her wide, staring eyes fixed on Teresa. “He taught me to
defend myself--I shall!”
A quick thrust of her sword was caught by Teresa. They fought, a duel
of mad courage while the men outside struggled with the guards. The
noise had called the relief sentinel from below.
In vain Molina tugged at his chains. In vain he commanded them to stop.
He feared for Teresa, but also, and for a split second he wondered why,
he feared for Yma. She had not possessed him, and yet....
Yma’s tense figure moved with the agility of a tigress. Her defense was
perfect and her unarmed body began to tell against the coat of mail
with which Teresa was burdened. The Spanish girl was slowly driven
against the wall and by a swift turn of her supple wrist the Sun Virgin
disarmed her opponent, sprang back and leveled her sword for the death
thrust. She smiled cruelly and a bit of the savage of centuries past
screamed within her.
But Molina plunged the length of his chains and gripped the sword.
“Dear Yma,” he pleaded, and his voice also, was torn, “if the love
you swear means much, you cannot do this thing of horror. This is my
beloved. She is mine--I am hers. It is written. Pierce her heart and
the sword will skewer mine also.”
The tense arm relaxed and the lustrous eyes grew dim. She faltered
and flung her arm to her eyes. And again she sobbed--sobs which
reverberated hollowly in the dungeon, while Teresa and Molina looked on.
She dropped the sword, crossed to Teresa and stared into her face.
“You _are_ beautiful!” she sighed as she studied Teresa’s
wondering countenance. “And you will love him I know. But never as I
love and worship.” She paused, and added, “I yield him to you.”
She took her enemy by the hand, led her to Molina and stared as they
embraced. The longing they had known burst forth in a frenzy of emotion
and tears. Turning from the scene with a sharp cry of pain Yma rushed
into the hall and commanded her guards to cease the struggle. Teresa’s
servant had been knocked unconscious and the four evenly matched men
were still fighting.
At her sharp command the struggle ceased and she led Gaspara, the
soldier, and their antagonists into the room, where she ordered the
manacles stricken from Molina.
The cavalier had just grasped his sword and buckled it on when Toparca
entered and stared in amazement.
Yma saw the terror in his face and guessed its secret.
She seized the youth....
“You have heard? The news is bad?”
“The worst!” Toparca groaned.
“What is it?” Molina demanded. “Speak freely, boy. I am no longer a
prisoner--I am the friend of Yma and your Inca.”
“The commander has called a court. Even now they sit in judgment on our
Lord of the Sun!”
“You will help us try to save him?” Yma asked with a shiver.
“I’ll fight to save him--fight to save my country from this disgrace.”
Teresa seized the hand of her rival. She smiled.
“And may I be your friend also? I’ll fight by his side with every ounce
of strength I have. We’ll do our best.”
The Sun Virgin kissed her enemy’s hand.
Without pausing to arrange his clothes, Molina asked the guards to
release his negro servant and have him report immediately to the
assembled court, while he hurried to the Square in Caxamalca.
There was need of haste.