THE VERDICT.
For many seconds we stood bewildered, too dazed to speak or move. The
light dazzled our eyes; we seemed surrounded by an impenetrable wall of
flame. There was no sensation of heat, owing, no doubt, to the immense
height of the cavern and our comparatively distant removal from the
flames, which mounted upward in narrow tongues.
Then the details began to strike me.
I have said the scene was the same as that we had previously beheld.
Round the walls of the immense circular cavern squatted innumerable
rows of the Incas on terraced seats.
Below, at a dizzy distance, was the smooth surface of the lake, black
and gloomy save where the reflections from the blazing urns pierced its
depths. And directly facing us, set in the wall of the cavern, was the
alcove containing the throne of gold.
And on the throne was seated--not the diminutive, misshapen king, but
Desiree Le Mire!
She sat motionless, gazing directly at us. Her long gold hair streamed
over her shoulders in magnificent waves; a stiffly flowing garment of
some unknown texture covered her limbs and the lower part of her body;
her shoulders and breasts and arms were bare, and shone with a dazzling
whiteness.
Beside her was a smaller seat, also of gold, and on this crouched the
form of an Inca--the king. About them, at a respectful distance, were
ranged attendants and guards--a hundred or more, for the alcove was of
an impressive size. The light from the four urns shone in upon it with
such brightness that I could clearly distinguish the whites of
Desiree's eyes.
All this I saw in a single flash, and I turned to Harry:
"Not a word, on your life! This is Desiree's game; trust her to play
it."
"But what the deuce is she doing there?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"She seems to have found another king. You know her fondness for
royalty."
"Paul, for Heaven's sake--"
"All right, Hal. But we're safe enough, I think. Most probably our
introduction to court. This is what they call 'the dizzy heights of
prominence.' Now keep your eyes open--something is going to happen."
There was a movement in the alcove. Four of the attendants came
forward, carrying a curious framework apparently composed of reeds and
leather, light and flexible, from the top bar of which hung suspended
several rope-like ribbons, of various lengths and colors and tied in
curious knots. They placed it on the ground before the double throne,
at the feet of Desiree.
All doubt was then removed from my mind concerning the identity of our
captors and their king. For these bundles of knotted cords of
different sizes and colors I recognized at once.
They were the famous Inca quipos--the material for their remarkable
mnemonic system of communication and historical record. At last we
were to receive a message from the Child of the Sun.
But of what nature? Every cord and knot and color had its meaning--but
what? I searched every avenue of memory to assist me; for I had
latterly confined my studies exclusively to Eastern archeology, and
what I had known of the two great autochthonous civilizations of the
American Continent was packed in some dim and little used corner of my
brain. But success came, with an extreme effort.
I recollected first the different disposition of the quipos for
different purposes--historical, sacred, narrative, et cetera. Then the
particulars came to me, and immediately I recognized the formula of the
quipos before the throne. They were arranged for adjudication--for the
rendering of a verdict.
Harry and I were prisoners before the bar of the quipos! I turned to
him, but there was not time for talk. The king had risen and stretched
out his hand.
Immediately the vast assemblage rose from their stone seats and fell
flat on their faces. It was then that I noticed, for the first time,
an oval or elliptical plate of shining gold set in the wall of the
cavern just above the outer edge of the alcove.
This, of course, was the representation of Pachacamac, the "unknown
god" in the Inca religion. Well, I would as soon worship a plate of
gold as that little black dwarf.
For perhaps a minute the king stood with outstretched arm and the Incas
remained motionless on their faces. Then he resumed his seat and they
rose. And then the trial began.
The king turned on his throne and laid his hand on Desiree's arm; we
could see her draw away from his touch with an involuntary shudder.
But this apparent antipathy bothered his kingship not at all; it was
probably a most agreeable sensation to feel her soft, white flesh under
his black, hairy hand, and he kept it there, while with the other arm
he made a series of sweeping gestures which I understood at once, but
which had no meaning for Desiree. By her hand he meant the quipos to
speak.
We had a friend in court, but she was dumb, and I must give her voice.
There was no time to be lost; I stepped to the edge of the column and
spoke in a voice loud enough to carry across the cavern--which was not
difficult in the universal silence.
"He means that you are to judge us by the quipos. The meaning is
this--yellow, slavery, white, mercy; purple, reward; black, death. The
lengths of the cords and the number of knots indicate the degree of
punishment or reward. Attached to the frame you will find a knife.
With that detach the cord of judgment and lay it at the feet of the
king."
Again silence; and not one of the vast throng, nor the king himself,
appeared to pay the slightest attention to my voice. The king
continued his gestures to Desiree.
She rose and walked to the frame of quipos and took in her hand the
knife which she found there suspended by a cord. There she hesitated,
with the knife poised in the air, while her eyes sought mine--and found
them.
I felt a tug at my arm, but I had no time for Harry then. I was
looking at Desiree, and what I saw caused a cold shudder to flutter
through my body. Not of fear; it was the utter surprise of the
thing--its incredible horror. To die by the hands of those hairy
brutes was not hard, but Desiree to be the judge!
For she meant death for us; I read it in her eyes. One of the old
stale proverbs of the stale old world was to have another
justification. I repeat that I was astounded, taken completely by
surprise; and yet I had known something of "the fury of a woman
scorned."
It was as though our eyes shot out to meet each other in an embrace of
death. She saw that I understood and she smiled--what a smile! It was
triumphant, and yet sad; a vengeance, and a farewell. She put forth
her hand.
It wavered among the quipos as though uncertainly, then closed firmly
on the black cord of death.
A thought flashed through my mind with the speed of lightning. I
raised my voice and sang out:
"Desiree!"
She hesitated; the hand which held the knife fell to her side and again
her eyes sought mine.
"What of Harry?" I called. "Take two--the white for him, the black for
me."
She shook her head and again raised the knife; and I played my last
card.
"Bah! Who are you? For you are not Le Mire!" I weighted my voice with
contempt. "Le Mire is a child of fortune, but not of hell!"
At last she spoke.
"I play a fair hand, monsieur!" she cried, and her voice trembled.
"With marked cards!" I exclaimed scornfully. "The advantage is yours,
madame; may you find pleasure in it."
There was a silence, while our eyes met. I thought I had lost. Le
Mire stood motionless. Not a sound came from the audience. I felt
Harry pulling at my arm, but shook myself free, without taking my eyes
from Le Mire's face.
Suddenly she spoke:
"You are right, my friend Paul. I take no advantage. Leave it to
Fortune. Have you a coin?"
I had won my chance. That was all--a chance--but that was better than
nothing. I took a silver peseta from my pocket--by luck it had not
been lost--and held it in the air above my head.
"Heads!" cried Desiree.
I let the coin fall. It rolled half-way across the top of the column
and stopped at the very edge. I crossed and stooped over it. It lay
heads up!
Harry was behind me; as I straightened up I saw his white, set face and
eyes of horror. He, too, had seen the verdict; but he was moved not by
that, but by the thought of Desiree, for Harry was not a man to flinch
at sight of death.
I stood straight, and my voice was calm. It cost me an effort to clear
it of bitterness and reproach. I could not avoid the reflection that
but for Desiree we would never have seen the cave of the devil and the
Children of the Sun; but I said simply and clearly:
"You win, madame."
Desiree stared at me in the most profound surprise. I understood her,
and I laughed scornfully aloud, and held my head high; and I think a
voice never held so complete a disdain as did mine as I called to her:
"I am one who plays fair, even with death, Le Mire. The coin fell
heads--you win your black cord fairly."
She made no sign that she had heard; she was raising the knife.
Suddenly she stopped, again her hand fell, and she said:
"You say the purple for reward, Paul?"
I nodded--I could not speak. Her hand touched the white cord and
passed on; the yellow, and again passed on. Then there was a flash of
the knife--another--and she approached the king and laid at his feet
the purple cord.
Then, without a glance toward us, she resumed her seat on the golden
throne.
A lump rose to my throat and tears to my eyes. Which was very foolish,
for the thing had been completely theatrical. It was merely a tribute
from one of nature's gamblers to the man who "played fair, even with
death"; nevertheless, there was feeling in it, and the eternal mercy of
woman.
For all that was visible to the eye the verdict made not the slightest
impression on the rows of silent Incas. Not a movement was seen; they
might have been carved from the stone on which they were seated.
Their black, hairy bodies, squat and thick, threw back the light from
the flaming torches as though even those universal rays could not
penetrate such grossness.
Suddenly they rose--the king had moved. He picked the purple cord from
the ground, and, after passing his hand over it three times, handed it
to an attendant who approached.
Then he stretched out his hand, and the Incas, who had remained
standing, turned about and began to disappear. As before, the cavern
was emptied in an incredibly short space of time; in two minutes we
were alone with those in the alcove.
There was a sound behind us. We turned and saw a great slab of stone
slowly slide to one side in the floor, leaving an aperture some three
feet square. Evidently it had been closed behind us when we had
ascended; we had had no time to notice it then. In this hole presently
appeared the head and shoulders of our guide, who beckoned to us to
follow and then disappeared below.
I started to obey, but turned to wait for Harry, who was gazing at
Desiree. His back was toward me and I could not see his face; his eyes
must have held an appeal, for I saw Desiree's lips part in a smile and
heard her call:
"You will see me!"
Then he joined me, and we began the descent together.
I found myself wondering how these half-civilized brutes had possibly
managed to conceive the idea of the spiral stair. It was known to
neither the Aztecs nor the Incas, in America; nor to any of the
primitive European or Asiatic civilizations. But they had found a
place where nothing else would do--and they made it. Another of the
innumerable offspring of Mother Necessity.
I took time to note its construction. It was rude enough, but a good
job for all that. It was not exactly circular; there were many angles,
evidently following the softer strata in the rock; they had bowed to
their material--the way of the artist.
Even the height of the steps was irregular; some were scarcely more
than three inches, while others were twelve or fourteen. You may know
we descended slowly and with care, especially when we had reached the
point where no light came from above to aid us. We found our guide
waiting for us at the bottom, alone.
We followed him down the low and narrow passage through which we had
previously come. But when we reached the steps which led up to the
passage above and to the cave where we had formerly been confined, he
ignored them and turned to the right. We hesitated.
"He's alone," said Harry. "Shall we chuck the beggar?"
"We shall not, for that very reason," I answered. "It means that we
are guests instead of captives, and far be it from us to outrage the
laws of hospitality. But seriously, the safest thing we can do is to
follow him."
The passage in which we now found ourselves was evidently no work of
nature. Even in the semidarkness the mark of man's hand was apparent.
And the ceiling was low; another proof, for dwarfs do not build for the
accommodation of giants. But I had some faint idea of the pitiful
inadequacy of their tools, and I found myself reflecting on the
stupendous courage of the men who had undertaken such a task, even
allowing for the fact that four hundred years had been allowed them for
its completion.
Soon we reached a veritable maze of these passages. We must have taken
a dozen or more turns, first to the right, then to the left. I had
been marking our way on my memory as well as possible, but I soon gave
up the attempt as hopeless.
Several times our guide turned so quickly that we could scarcely follow
him. When we signified by gestures our desire to go slower he seemed
surprised; of course, he expected us to see in the dark as well as he.
Then a dim light appeared, growing brighter as we advanced. Soon I saw
that it came through an opening in the wall to our left, which we were
approaching. Before the opening the guide halted, motioning us to
enter.
We did so, and found ourselves in an apartment no less than royal.
Several blazing urns attached to the walls furnished the light,
wavering but brilliant. There were tables and rude seats, fashioned
from the same prismatic stones which covered the column in the lake,
and from their surfaces a thousand points of color shone dazzlingly.
At one side was a long slab of granite covered with the skins of some
animal, dry, thick, and soft. The walls themselves were of the hardest
granite, studded to a height of four or five feet with tiny,
innumerable spots of gold.
Harry crossed to the middle of the apartment and stood gazing curiously
about him. I turned to the door and looked down the outer passage in
both directions--our guide had disappeared.
"We appear to be friends of the family," said Harry with a grin.
"Thanks to Desiree, yes."
"Thanks to the devil! What did she mean--what could she mean? Was it
one of her jokes? For I can't believe that she would--would--"
"Have sent us to death? Well--who knows? Yes, it may have been one of
her jokes," I lied.
For, of course, Harry knew nothing of the cause of Desiree's desire for
revenge on me, and it would have served no good purpose to tell him.
We talked for an hour or more, examining our apartment meanwhile with
considerable curiosity.
The gold excited our wonder; had it come from Huanuco four hundred
years ago, or had they found it here in the mountain?
I examined the little blocks of metal or gems with which the tables and
seats were inlaid, but could make nothing of them. They resembled a
carbon formation sometimes found in quartzite, but were many times more
brilliant than anything I had ever seen, excepting precious stones.
The hides which covered the granite couch were also unknown to me; they
were of an amazing thickness and incredibly soft.
We were amusing ourselves with an attempt to pry one of the bits of
gold from the wall when we heard a sound behind us.
We turned and saw Desiree.
She stood in the entrance, smiling at us as though we had been caught
in her boudoir examining the articles on her dressing-table. She was
clothed as she had been on the throne; a rope girdle held her single
garment, and her hair fell across her shoulders, reaching to her knees.
Her arms and shoulders appeared marvelously white, but they may have
been by way of contrast.
Harry sprang across to her with a single bound. In another moment his
arms were round her; she barely submitted to the embrace, but she gave
him her lips, then drew herself away and crossed to me, extending her
hands in a sort of wavering doubt.
But that was no time for hostilities, and I took the hands in my own
and bent over them till my lips touched the soft fingers.
"A visit from the queen!" I said with a smile. "This is an honor, your
majesty."
"A doubtful one," said Desiree. "First of all, my friend, I want to
congratulate you on your savoir faire. Par Bleu, that was the part of
a man!"
"But you!" cried Harry. "What the deuce did you mean by pretending to
play the black? I tell you, that was a shabby trick. Most unpleasant
moment you gave us."
Desiree sent me a quick glance; she was plainly surprised to find Harry
in ignorance of what had passed between us that evening in the camp on
the mountain. Wherein she was scarcely to be blamed, for her surprise
came from a deep knowledge of the ways of men.
"I am beginning to know you, Paul," she said, looking into my eyes.
"Now what's up?" demanded Harry, looking from her to me and back again.
"For Heaven's sake, don't talk riddles. What does that mean?"
But Desiree silenced him with a gesture, placing her fingers playfully
on his lips. They were seated side by side on the granite couch; I
stood in front of them, and there flitted across my memory a picture of
that morning scene in the grounds of the Antlers at Colorado Springs,
when Desiree and I had had our first battle.
We talked; or, rather, Harry and Desiree talked, and I listened. First
he insisted on a recital of her experiences since her reckless dash
into the "cave of the devil," and she was most obliging, even eager,
for she had had no one to talk to for many days, and she was a woman.
She found in Harry a perfect audience.
Her experience had been much the same as our own. She, too, had fallen
down the unseen precipice into the torrent beneath.
She asserted that she had been carried along by its force scarcely more
than a quarter of an hour, and had been violently thrown upon a ledge
of rock. It was evident that this must have been long before the
stream reached the lake where Harry and I had found each other, for we
had been in the water hardly short of an hour.
She had been found on the ledge by our hairy friends, who had carried
her on their backs for many hours. I remembered the sensations of
Harry and myself, who were men, and together, and gave a shudder of
sympathy as Desiree described her own horror and fear, and her one
attempt to escape.
Still the brutes had shown her no great violence, evidently recognizing
the preciousness of their burden. They had carried her as gently as
possible, but had absolutely refused to allow her to walk. At regular
intervals they gave her an opportunity to rest, and food and water.
"Dried fish?" I asked hopefully.
Desiree nodded, with a most expressive grimace, and Harry burst into
laughter.
Then of the elevation to her evident authority. Brought before the
king, she had inspired the most profound wonder and curiosity. Easy,
indeed, to understand how the whiteness of her skin and the beauty of
her form and face had awakened the keenest admiration in the breast of
that black and hairy monarch. He had shown her the most perfect
respect; and she had played up to the role of goddess by displaying to
the utmost her indifferent contempt for royalty and its favors.
Here her remarks grew general and evasive, and when pressed with
questions she refused details. She declared that nothing had happened;
she had been fed and fawned upon, nor been annoyed by any violence or
unwelcome attentions.
"That is really too bad," said I, with a smile. "I was, then, mistaken
when I said 'your majesty'?"
"Faugh!" said Desiree. "That is hardly witty. For a time I was
amused, but I am becoming bored. And yet--"
"Well?"
"I--don't--know. They are mine, if you know what I mean. Eh, bien,
since you ask me--for I see the question in your eye, friend Paul--I am
content. If the world is behind me forever, so be it. Yes, they are
unattractive to the eye, but they have power. And they worship me."
"Desiree!" cried Harry in astonishment; and I was myself a little
startled.
"Why not?" she demanded. "They are men. And besides, it is impossible
for us to return. With all your cleverness, M. Paul, can you find the
sunlight? To remain is a necessity; we must make the best of it; and I
repeat that I am satisfied."
"That's bally rot," said Harry, turning on her hotly. "Satisfied? You
are nothing of the sort. I'll tell you one thing--Paul and I are going
to find our way out of this, and you are coming with us."
For reply Desiree laughed at him--a laugh that plainly said, "I am my
own mind, and obey no other." It is one of the most familiar cards of
the woman of beauty, and the most effective. It conquered Harry.
He gazed at her for a long moment in silence, while his eyes filled
with an expression which one man should never show to another man. It
is the betrayal of the masculine sex and the triumph of the feminine.
Suddenly he threw himself on his knees before her and took her hands in
his own. She attempted to withdraw them; he clasped her about the
waist.
"Do you not love me, Desiree?" he cried, and his lips sought hers.
They met; Desiree ceased to struggle.
At that moment I heard a sound--the faintest sound--behind me.
I turned.
The king of the Incas was standing within the doorway, surveying the
lovers with beadlike, sparkling eyes.