The first rays of the next morning's sun had scarcely flashed over the
ridge of the sierra which hemmed in the eastern side of the valley, when
Arima, awaking with a most atrocious headache, and the feeling generally
of a man who has just passed through an unusually prolonged bout of
dissipation--or, alternatively, has been drugged--arose from his bed
and, staggering across the room, plunged his throbbing and buzzing head
into a large basin of cold water, preparatory to dressing. Once, twice,
thrice did he plunge head, neck, and hands into the cooling liquid, with
but little satisfactory result, for the relief which he sought, and
confidently expected to derive, from the process, refused to come; and
he groaned as he sank upon a seat and tightly gripped his throbbing
temples in his hands. Never before in his life had he felt so ill, so
utterly cheap and used-up, as he did at that moment. In addition to the
violent headache from which he was suffering, his blood felt like fire
in his veins, his skin was dry and rough; he was so giddy that he could
scarcely stand. The truth was that he had been drugged with such brutal
severity on the preceding night, by Xaxaguana's emissaries, to make sure
of his being out of the way at the moment of his master's seizure, that
it had been due more to chance than anything else that he had ever again
awakened. After a few minutes' rest he felt so much better that he was
able to dress, and afterwards make his way to his master's room. For,
ever since the slaying of the monsters in the lake, it had been
Escombe's habit to rise early in the morning, and, making his way to the
bottom of the garden, embark on a balsa, from which, after Arima had
paddled it a few hundred yards from the shore, master and man had been
wont to bathe together. And now, according to custom, the faithful
Indian hurried away to awaken his master, as usual, for indulgence in
the regular morning dip.
But upon entering the sleeping chamber he of course found it untenanted,
and for a moment the thought occurred to him that possibly he was late,
and that his master, having awakened at his usual hour, had risen and
gone down into the garden alone. A single glance out of the window,
however, at the length of the shadows cast by the various objects
lighted by the sun outside, sufficed to satisfy him that habit had
triumphed over even the influence of the narcotic which had been
administered to him, and that he was certainly not more than a few
minutes late. Then, with the instinct of the semi-savage, he flung his
glances quickly about the room, and instantly detected signs that it had
been invaded during the night by a number of people, and that his master
had arisen and dressed in haste. Quick to take the alarm where Escombe
was concerned, he at once hurried out, and, without waiting to find any
of the palace officials to whom to report his discovery, proceeded
forthwith to question as many of the servants as he met. But here again
he only found matter for further alarm and apprehension; for not only
did the whole service of the building appear to be in a state of
complete disorganisation, but it at once became evident to him that
every man he met was confused, agitated, and more or less anxious of
manner; and, although each and all professed themselves unable to throw
any light upon the mystery of the Inca's inexplicable disappearance, he
felt instinctively that they were all lying to him.
Realising at length that no information was to be obtained from these
people, Arima passed from the palace into the grounds, making his way,
in the first instance, down to the shore of the lake, for the purpose of
satisfying himself beyond all possibility of question whether or not
there was any foundation for his first surmise, that Escombe had risen
early and left the palace without waiting for him. But no; there was no
sign of his young master in that direction; moreover, the balsa was
lying moored in its proper place; also the cutter was at her usual
moorings. There was therefore no possibility that the Inca had taken it
into his head to go for a solitary early morning sail. Satisfied upon
this point, the Indian next made his way round to the front of the
palace, and here at once the evidences of a visit of a large party of
people to the palace, some time during the preceding night, once more
presented themselves, the latest--that is to say the topmost--set of
footprints showing that quite a crowd of people had hurried from the
main entrance of the building down the broad path leading to the
entrance gates of the garden and thence into the main road. Moreover,
the "spoor" remained undisturbed in the road for a distance sufficient
to indicate the general direction in which the party had gone, although
it was lost in the ordinary signs of traffic within a few yards of the
gates. Having ascertained thus much, Arima returned to the spot where
the footprints first showed outside the palace doors, and, going down
upon his hands and knees, patiently set himself to the task of
endeavouring to discover his young master's among them. But before he
had had time to achieve any result in this direction one of the palace
officials appeared and, angrily demanding to know what he was doing
there, ordered him back into the palace to attend to his duty;
explaining, by way of reply to Arima's agitated representations, that
the Inca had left the palace during the early hours of the morning, with
a party of companions, to hunt the vicuna. The Indian at once knew this
to be a falsehood, for the hunting grounds lay many miles down the
valley, and hunting parties never dreamed of proceeding thither
otherwise than on horseback, and Arima was prepared to swear that none
of the party had been mounted. Moreover he was convinced that his
master would never have dreamed of leaving his favourite servant behind
had he been bound upon a hunting expedition. The official, however, was
curt and peremptory in his manner, and Arima soon understood that he
must obey his orders or suffer arrest. He therefore returned to the
Inca's rooms and proceeded to put them in order, as was his duty. But
the very curtness and peremptoriness of the official's manner to him, as
well as the improbable story which he had told, only had the effect of
strengthening and confirming the suspicions in the faithful fellow's
mind; for the attachment of the young Inca to this man was well known,
and even the highest officials of the palace had thus far not disdained
to be extremely civil to him.
But the question in Arima's mind now was: what precisely was it that had
happened to his young master, and whither and why had he gone? For even
thus far no glimmering of the hideous truth had reached the Indian's
mind. His suspicions and apprehensions were all as yet chaotic and
formless, and he was very far from fearing that Escombe's life was in
danger. But as he proceeded with his business, seeking from time to
time to get some relief from his splitting headache and the other
extremely disagreeable symptoms from which he was still suffering
acutely, it gradually began to dawn upon him, as his mental faculties
slowly shook off their stupor, that every one of those symptoms were
synonymous with those following upon the administration of an overdose
of a decoction made from a certain poisonous plant growing here and
there in the valley, and which was sometimes used as an anaesthetic by
the local physicians. He was fully aware of the tremendous potency of
the extracted juices of this plant, as also of its tastelessness, and
the consequent ease with which it could be administered, and he
recognised clearly that if anyone had wished to administer such a
draught to him on the previous night it could easily have been done.
The question which next arose in his mind naturally was: why should
anyone desire to administer such a draught to him? But his mental
powers had by this time sufficiently recovered from the effects of the
drug to enable him quickly to trace a connection--however obscure as
yet--between this act and the extraordinary fact of his master being
missing. When once the faithful fellow had reached the length of
connecting the two circumstances together he was not long in realising
the terrible possibilities that lurked in such a sinister combination of
circumstances. And with this realisation he suddenly took fright, for
at the same moment the significance of certain apparently trivial
remarks and occurrences that had lately come to his knowledge suddenly
dawned upon him. Could it be that these matters, scarcely noticed at
the moment, really bore the significance which he now attached to them,
or was it all the result of some bodily disorder reacting upon his
mental processes and causing him to take a distorted and unnatural view
of things that were actually of no moment whatever? He could not tell;
his brain was still in too muddled a condition for him to feel that he
could trust it. But there was one sensible thing that he could do, he
told himself. He could go to Umu and lay the whole matter before him.
Umu was a shrewd sensible man, who would soon say whether or not there
was anything in those mad fantasies that were now beginning to chase
each other through his bewildered brain. Besides, Umu was the Inca's
most devoted friend--next to himself, perhaps. So, slipping out of the
palace by the garden entrance--lest perchance he should be seen and
stopped if he attempted to pass out by way of the other--he plunged at
once into the most unfrequented paths, and so betook himself, by a
circuitous route, to the lake shore, where he at once got aboard the
balsa, and, paddling the primitive craft some half a mile beyond the
royal demesne, beached her in a secluded spot, and thence made the best
of his way to Umu's house.
The morning was by this time so well advanced that the hour for the
first meal of the day was past, and it became a moot point with Arima
whether to seek Umu at his house or at the barracks of the Inca's
bodyguard. He decided, however, upon trying the house first, and it was
well that he did; for, although Umu was not at home, neither, it seemed,
was he at the barracks. But Maia, his daughter, had an impression that
she knew where he might be found, and Arima had not poured into the
girl's ear half a dozen sentences of his somewhat disjointed tale before
she cut him short by explaining that she was about to seek her father,
and that he (Arima) must on no account whatever attempt to stir from the
house until her return, unless, of course, her father should make his
appearance in the interim. Having bestowed that injunction, Maia, wild-
eyed and white-lipped, rushed into the street and hurried on her way;
for she, too, had heard words said, to which at the moment she had given
scant heed, but which in the light of what was hinted at by Arima now
bore to the quick-witted girl an awful significance.
As it happened, she had not to go very far, for she had not left the
house more than five minutes at the utmost when she caught sight of her
father, mounted, on his way to the barracks, a good mile distant.
Fortunately for her he reined up to exchange a few passing words with an
acquaintance, and that afforded her the opportunity to overtake and stop
him. She did not dare, however, to mention the errand which had brought
her out in search of her father until the two friends had parted, when
she briefly explained that Arima was seeking him, and urged him to
hasten back to the house without delay, at the same time telling him
sufficient of what had passed between herself and the Inca's henchman to
cause Umu to realise something of the gravity of the situation; for he
dug his heels into his charger's ribs and dashed off at a gallop.
When Maia arrived back at the house, she found Arima in the midst of the
relation of his story to her father, and, quite as a matter of course,
sat down to listen. The Indian had, in the interim between her
departure and Umu's arrival, found time to pull himself together and
properly arrange his thoughts, and he related his narrative with due
regard to sequence of events, beginning with such apparently casual
words and trivial occurrences as had come under his notice, and had only
assumed a significance in the light of more recent happenings. Then
going on to describe his sensations upon awaking that morning, he
completed his story by relating in detail everything he had done, and
the thoughts and suspicions that had occurred to him subsequent to his
discovery of his master's absence.
"Yes," agreed Umu, when Arima had brought his story to a conclusion,
"the whole thing seems reasonably clear, up to a certain point. I have
not a shadow of doubt that certain disaffected persons have adopted the
extreme, and altogether unprecedented, step of seizing the person of our
Lord the Inca; and they caused you, my friend, to be drugged in order
that you might not interfere with their plans. The question which we
now have to decide is: who are those persons, and what is their object
in seizing the Inca? They must be individuals of very great power and
influence, otherwise they would never dare--"
At this point Maia, who had been betraying rapidly increasing signs of
anxiety and impatience, cut in with:
"My father, to me it seems of the utmost importance that not a moment
should be lost in discovering what has become of the Inca, whose life
may at this moment be in the utmost jeopardy; for those who were
desperate enough to carry him off would probably not hesitate to kill
him, if need were: indeed that may be their purpose. Your task,
therefore, must be to rescue him without an instant's unnecessary delay,
which you should be easily able to do with the aid of your troops.
Probably if the officials of the palace were carefully questioned they
could be persuaded to tell you what has become of the Inca, for
doubtless they know, since he could not have been carried off without
their knowledge and acquiescence."
"Yes, you are right, Maia. I see exactly what you mean, and I have no
doubt that I can devise a method of making the palace people tell what
they know," answered Umu. "I will ride to the barracks at once, and
order the guard to turn out in readiness to proceed wherever required;
after which I will proceed to the palace with a squadron, and it will be
strange if I do not find means to make somebody tell me what I require
to know. You, Arima, had better go to the barracks and await my return
there from the palace, when you can ride with us. And now I will go;
for, as Maia has said, even moments may now be of importance."
Some twenty minutes later a troop of the Inca's mounted bodyguard, led
by Umu, dashed at a gallop in through the gates of the palace gardens,
and, at a word from their commander, surrounded the building, a party of
a dozen of them following their leader into the palace, to the
consternation of all who encountered them. This dozen constituted a
search party, which, with drawn swords, systematically swept the
building from basement to roof-tree, gathering together every official
and individual of the palace staff that could be found, until the whole,
with the exception of some dozen or so underlings, had been captured.
Then all were marched out into the vast palace garden and surrounded by
the now dismounted troopers, who meanwhile had made prisoners of four of
the chief officials as they were endeavouring to slink out of the palace
and make good their escape.
Marching the whole of the captives off to a secluded part of the
gardens, where nothing which might happen could be seen save by those
immediately concerned, Umu ordered the chamberlain and his three
immediate subordinates to be brought to him, and said to them:
"Now, sirs, my business here is to ascertain from you what has become of
our Lord the Inca. I have not the slightest doubt that you can tell me;
but whether you will tell me the truth or not is quite another matter.
I intend to arrive at the truth, however, either by persuasion or force,
and I will try the former first: let me very earnestly advise you not to
compel me to resort to the latter. And to make as certain as I can that
the information with which you are about to furnish me is true, you will
each withdraw from your comrades to a distance at which it will be
impossible for you to communicate with each other, and where you will
each inform the officer--who, with a file of men, will accompany you--of
everything that you know concerning the mysterious disappearance of the
Inca--where he has been taken, by whom, and for what purpose. If your
stories, when compared with each other, are found to agree at all
points, I shall consider that I am justified in believing them to be
true; if they do not--" He turned to the other captives and said: "Go to
work at once, collect timber, and build a large fire in this open
space." Then, turning to the officers who had been deputed to examine
the four prisoners, Umu concluded: "Take them away; hear their story;
and then bring them back to me, that each man's tale may be compared
with those of the others."
Umu knew his fellow countrymen well. He was fully aware that while the
South American Indian, like his brother of the northern continent, will
endure the most frightfully excruciating tortures with stoical fortitude
if the occasion happens to demand it, he will not willingly subject
himself to even a very minor degree of suffering for the sake of
shielding those whom he has no particular object in serving. He felt
pretty well convinced that these craven wretches who had allowed
themselves to be corrupted into betraying their monarch would have very
little hesitation in also betraying their corrupters, especially as they
might feel assured that, Umu having taken the matter in hand, those
corrupters would henceforth have scant power or opportunity either to
reward or to punish. The hint conveyed by the building of a large fire
therefore proved quite sufficiently persuasive. In little more than ten
minutes the commander of the bodyguard found himself in possession of
all the information which the palace officials had it in their power to
communicate. This information, in brief, was to the effect that they
had, one and all, from the highest to the lowest, been heavily bribed by
the emissaries of Huanacocha and Xaxaguana to allow those two powerful
nobles, with a strong party of followers, to enter the palace in the
dead of night and abduct the person of the Inca, and to hold their peace
upon the matter until either Huanacocha or Xaxaguana should personally
give them leave to speak and tell them what to say. As the stories of
all four of the officials happened to agree, even down to the smallest
detail, Umu decided that he might venture to accept them as true;
whereupon the whole of the prisoners were hustled back into the palace
by way of the back entrance, driven down into one of the basement
chambers, and there securely locked up, with a corporal's guard in the
passage outside. The palace then being locked up, the troop mounted and
departed at a gallop for the house of Huanacocha.
This house, or palace as it might be more appropriately termed, was,
like most of the residences of the great Peruvian lords, a large and
sumptuous edifice, standing in its own spacious grounds. Umu's tactics
upon approaching it were similar to those which he had employed upon
approaching the palace; that is to say, upon entering the grounds he
caused his men to dismount and surround the building, which he then
entered, accompanied by a sergeant in charge of a squad of troopers. As
he unceremoniously made his way into the great entrance hall he found
himself confronted by the chief steward of the establishment, who,
followed by the entire staff of terrified servants, was hurrying to the
garden, anxious to ascertain the meaning of this unwonted invasion of
his master's privacy.
"Where is your lord, sirrah?" thundered Umu, as a file of soldiers
promptly arrested the quaking functionary.
"I know not, Lord Umu," answered the unfortunate man, as well as his
chattering teeth would allow; "indeed I was about to send out the
servants to seek news of him, for I am beginning to fear that evil has
befallen him. He left the house alone last night, less than an hour
before midnight, saying that he knew not when he should return; and he
has not since been seen."
"Then, if he told you that he knew not when he would return, why do you
fear that evil has befallen him?" demanded Umu.
"Because, Lord--nay, I know not, except that--that--well, it is a most
unusual--for my Lord Huanacocha to absent himself for so many hours
without saying whither he intended to go," stammered the steward.
"Say you so?" sneered Umu. "That seems to me strange indeed; for it is
not the usual custom of a noble to acquaint his steward with his
business. Nay, friend, I cannot believe your story: you must have some
better reason than the one which you have given me for your anxiety as
to your lord's safety, and it will be to your great advantage to
acquaint me with it forthwith."
"Lord, I have told you the truth; indeed I have," protested the
unfortunate man, making as though he would throw himself upon his knees
before Umu.
"So much the worse for you," growled Umu savagely, for the delay was
beginning to tell upon his patience. "Is there any man here," he
continued, "who can tell me where my Lord Huanacocha is to be found?"
He glared round upon the assembled servants, the whole of whom had by
this time been quietly herded together by the soldiers. There was no
answer.
"Very well," continued Umu, addressing his men. "Take these people down
to the cellars below; lock them in securely; and then set fire to the
house and burn it over their heads! I can waste no more time here."
As the troopers, in obedience to this order, closed round the prisoners,
and with coarse jests began to hustle them unceremoniously toward the
head of the flight of steps leading down to the basement of the
building, the steward, suddenly realising the desperate nature of his
own and his fellow servants' predicament, turned to Umu and cried:
"Stay, Lord, I pray you, and visit not upon us the misdeeds of our lord.
When I said just now that I knew not the whereabouts of my Lord
Huanacocha, I spoke only the truth, for indeed I cannot tell for certain
where he is--nay, Lord, have patience, and hear what I have to say ere
you condemn me to a frightful death for a fault which is not mine. It
is indeed true that I know not where my Lord Huanacocha is to be found,
for he did not deign to tell me his business when he went out last
night; but I believe I can form a very good guess as to where he now
is."
"You can?" ejaculated Umu. "Then say on, and that right quickly. For
within the next five minutes this house will be ablaze, and you within
it, if you have not by then told me what I want to know." Then, turning
to a sergeant, he said: "Take with you a dozen men; bring everything in
the house that will burn, pile it in this hall, and pour on it all the
oil you can find. Now, sirrah, proceed with your tale."
"Then, Lord, in brief, it is this," answered the wretched steward,
speaking as well as his chattering teeth would allow. "From words which
I have overheard from time to time of late passing between my Lord
Huanacocha and others, especially the new Villac Vmu, I believe that
when my master left this house last night he did so with the purpose of
accompanying the High Priest and an armed party to the palace in order
to seize the person of our Lord the Inca and convey him to the temple,
that he might be subjected to the fire ordeal, to prove whether or no--"
"The fire ordeal, say you?" roared Umu in a paroxysm of fury, as the
full horror of the situation at last dawned upon him.
"Even so, Lord," answered the quaking steward. "I heard my--"
"You had reason to believe that your master had conspired with the
Villac Vmu to seize the Inca and subject him to the fire ordeal, yet you
never took the trouble to come and report the matter to me?" roared Umu.
"I--I--Lord, I knew not that--it was no part of my duty to--" stammered
the wretched steward, as too late he began to realise the terrible
nature of the predicament in which he had placed himself by his too
great fidelity to his master.
"It is enough," interrupted Umu. "Bind him hand and foot; lay him upon
that pile yonder; and set fire to it. Sergeant Huarima, you will remain
here with six men to ensure the utter destruction of this house, after
which you will follow the rest of the corps to the temple. As for you,"
he continued, turning to the staff of servants, who were huddling
together, paralysed with terror at the tragic turn which affairs were
taking, "you would only be receiving your just deserts if I were to
order you to be consumed, with your chief, upon that pile. I am
merciful, however; you are therefore at liberty to go. But let the fate
of the steward be a lesson to you all henceforth, that fidelity to the
Inca comes before fidelity to your master. And now, men, pass out and
mount. Our next place of call is the temple."