I
Maria-Teresa opened her eyes. What was this dream from which she had
awakened, or into which she had fallen? Little Christobal’s plaintive
voice brought her keen realization of the brutal truth. She held out
her arms to the child, but felt neither his kisses nor his tears on her
face. Her eyes were still heavy with magic sleep, and she opened them
with difficulty.
When, gradually, she came out of the abyss of darkness and dreams into
which she could be plunged almost instantly by the sacred sachets always
ready in the hideous fists of the three living mummies; the mammaconas,
too, had terrible perfumes which they burned round her in precious
vases, sandia more pungent than incense, more hallucinating than opium,
which transformed the Bride of the Sun into a beautiful living statue.
Then they could sing their songs uninterruptedly, for Maria-Teresa had
gone to another world, and heard nothing of what happened about her.
Curiously enough, her spirit then carried her back to the hour when the
knock had come at her window in Callao and when, dropping the big green
register to the floor, she had run to meet Dick. She was worried, too,
by the ever present memory of an unfinished letter to their agent in
Antwerp, which she had been writing when that other knock at the
window had sent her running to Dick again. She remembered with horrible
distinctness the appearance of the three living mummies, swaying in
the darkness, and the feel on her mouth and face of the hands made
parchment-like by the eternal night of the catacombs. Waking from this
lethargic slumber, she thought she had shaken off a dream, but when her
eyes opened, she no longer knew whether she had not just entered into a
terrible dreamland.
When Maria-Teresa opened her eyes this time, she was in the House of the
Serpent. She knew, for the mammaconas had told her, that when she awoke
there she would be near unto death. There it was that Huayna Capac,
father of the last King of the Incas, would come to fetch the bride
offered to Atahualpa, and take her with him to the Enchanted Realms of
the Sun. In the lucid moments left to her during the voyage, when she
was given the nectar that kept her alive, the mammaconas had taught her
the duties of the Bride, and the first principles of the faith to which
she was to be sacrificed.
At first, Maria-Teresa had hoped that she would be happy enough to lose
her reason, or that the terrible fever which took her would free the
troubled soul before the body was taken to martyrdom. But the mammaconas
knew the secrets which cure such fevers, and had given her to drink
a reddish liquid, chanting the while: “Fever has spread over you its
poisoned robe. The hated race shall never know our secrets, but our love
for Atahualpa’s bride is greater than our hatred. Drink and be well, in
the name of Atahualpa, who awaits thee!”
So she had returned to life, only to die again, and so, a nerveless
statue, she had traveled right across Peru, to the little adobe house at
Arequipa, the last stopping-place before the House of the Serpent. There
she had seen Huascar for the first time, bearing in his arms something
covered with a veil. Careless of all the listening ears about her, she
had risen, and called to him as to a savior. He had answered: “Thou
belongest to the Sun, but before he takes you, thou shalt have a great
joy. Thou shalt see thy little brother again.” Then he lifted the veil
and showed her Christobal, sleeping. She had run forward, while he had
retreated in terror. None but the appointed may touch the Bride of
the Sun, and the three guardians of the Temple were there, armed, and
swaying gently. One of them signed to a mammacona, who carried the
sleeping boy to his sister; she burst into tears, for the first time
since her captivity. The child opened his eyes and clung to her,
sobbing, “Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”
“How did he come here? You would not hurt him!”
“We shall do as he wishes. He came to us, not we to him. He himself
shall decide his fate. Let him beware of his words. That is all I can
say to you, all I can do for you. Is that not so, ye Guardians of the
Temple?”
Maria-Teresa, clutching the child to her, looked at them with fresh
terror painted on her features; at Huascar, calm and motionless; at the
three living mummies, gently swaying.
“What do you mean? How can a child beware of his words?”
Huascar, without moving, then spoke to little Christobal.
“Child, will you come with me? I will take you to your father.”
“No! I will stop with Maria-Teresa!”
“The child has spoken,” said Huascar. “So it is ordered. Is it not so,
Guardians of the Temple?”
The three horrible skulls swayed gently.
Then Huascar, before leaving, had chanted the words of an Almara psalm:
“Blessed are those who shall come pure to the Kingdom of the Sun, pure
as the hearts of little children, at the dawn of the world.”
“Huascar, have pity! Remember my mother! Have pity!”
Huascar bowed to the Guardians of the Temple and went out silently.
Maria-Teresa, crooning over little Christobal, covered him with kisses.
“Why did you come, little one? Why did you come?”
“To tell you not to be afraid, Maria-Teresa. Papa and Dick are coming.
They are following, and will save us both. But if you must die, little
sister, I will die with you.”
The mammaconas, moving silently, had lit the sandia in their precious
vases; brother and sister slept together, in each other’s arms.
Now she had awakened in the House of the Serpent, and Christobal was not
with her. She struggled to regain consciousness, heard his cries near
by, and rose from the cushioned couch on which she had been reclining.
There was Christobal, naked, struggling in the hands of the mammaconas.
Terrified, she made as if to rush to his assistance, but six of the
women surrounded her, calmed her with fluttering hands. No harm would
come to the child; he was being dressed, as she would be dressed, in a
robe made of bat skins. They spoke with infinite respect, giving her a
title she had not heard before; they called her Coya, which, in Inca,
means queen.
The mammaconas took her in their powerful arms, lifting her like a
child, and took off the sulphur-hued robes with which she had been
adorned in the deserted hacienda. Again they anointed her with sweet
oils and perfumed creams, chanting the while a slow and restful lullaby,
stilling to the senses. They were tall women from the province of Puno,
born on the shores of Titicaca, strong and beautiful; their walk was
almost rhythmic, supple and harmonious, while their rounded arms showed
golden against the black of their veils. They had splendid eyes, all
that could be seen of their faces.
Maria-Teresa and little Christobal were afraid of them, but they were
not cruel. Two of their number were to die with Maria-Teresa, to prepare
the nuptial chamber in the Palace of the Sun, and they were the most
lively, the happiest, the most consoling and understanding. They were
wholly happy, and were sad that the Bride did not share that happiness,
doing all they could to make her understand the joy of being chosen
among all as the Goya. On their ankles they wore great golden bracelets,
and in their ears heavy circlets.
The child was no longer crying. They had promised him that if he
was good he would return to Maria-Teresa’s arms. She also obeyed the
mammaconas docilely. The chant with which they filled her ears lulled
her spirit, still heavy with the magic sleep.
There was a thought, too, which gave her courage. Those who were dearest
to her knew where she was, what had happened to her, who had carried her
off, and why. If little Christobal had been able to find her, surely her
father and Dick could do so. They would both be saved. If Dick had not
appeared before, it was because he delayed until he was sure of success.
At any moment they might appear with the police and soldiers, all these
savages would vanish in the mountains, and the horrible dream would be
ended. She felt as weak as a child face to face with Destiny.
II
In the Home of the Sun,” sang the mammaconas for the hundredth time,
“the trees are heavy with fruits, and when they are ripe the branches
bend down to the earth, that the Indian need not even raise his hand
to pick them. Do not weep! Thou shalt live eternally, eternally! Death
knocks at the doors of the earthly palace, and the Spirit of Evil
stretches his accursed wings over our forests. Weep not! On high in
the heavens, near the Sun and the Moon, who is his sister and his first
bride, near Charca, who is his faithful page, thou shalt live eternally,
eternally!”
On Maria-Teresa’s perfumed tresses they placed the royal borla, its
golden fringe overshadowing her eyes and giving her a strange hieratic
beauty. She shivered when the bat-skin robe slipped over her limbs;
it was as if she had donned something viscous and icy, which from that
instant made her part and parcel of the eternal night of which the bat
is Coya.
Then they placed on her wrist a circlet which she recognized as the
Golden Sun bracelet. She realized that her last hours had begun, and
thought sadly of the happy yet terrible day when this bracelet first
appeared in her existence; she remembered the horror-stricken face of
Aunt Agnes, the old duenna crossing herself, her father’s skepticism and
Dick’s loving laugh. Where were they all now? Why--why did they not come
to her rescue?
Maria-Teresa stretched out her arms to the Providence that seemed to
have deserted her, and closed them again on little Christobal, placed in
her lap by one of the attendants. When she saw him, clad like herself in
the robes of night, she was seized with revolt. This could not be! She
turned to the Guardians of the Temple, who came forward in answer to
her look, gently swaying. There was no doubt of it! There were the same
horrible skulls which Dick and she had seen taken out of the earth, come
from their tombs to take her back with them. But she _would_ speak, and
test their mercy. She turned away her eyes, mortally afraid that the
steady swaying would overpower her will, and told them she was ready to
die quietly, as befitted a Bride of the Sun, if only they would spare
the little boy and send him safely back to Lima.
“I will not leave you, Maria-Teresa! I will not leave you!”
“The child has spoken. So it is ordained.”
The Guardians of the Temple exchanged glances and moved away again,
gently swaying.
Maria-Teresa burst into tears, the ring of madness in her high sobs,
while the little boy clung desperately, striving to console her.
“Do not cry, Maria-Teresa! They will come to save us. Papa and Dick will
come.... Oh! What was that?”
From behind the walls come the strains of music. A curtain is raised,
and the players enter--tall, sad-faced men who take their places in a
ring around them. They are the sacred players of the quenia, the flute
which is made of human bones. Their song is sadder than a De Profundis,
and Maria-Teresa shivers, her beseeching eye exploring in vain every
corner of the great bare room which is the antechamber of her tomb.
Monstrous, Cyclopean masses of stone, hexagonal in shape and placed
one upon the other without mortar, held in place by their mighty weight
alone, form the walls of the House of the Serpent. She knows where
she is, for the mammaconas have told her. There are two Houses of the
Serpent, one at Cajamarca, the other at Cuzco. They are called thus
because of the stone serpent carved over the main entrances. The serpent
is there to guard the sacred precincts, and never allows the victims of
the Sun to escape. Aunt Agnes and old Irene have often told her this,
and until now she has always laughed.
Maria-Teresa, then, is in Cuzco, in a palace well known to travelers,
historians, and archaeologists; a place which all may enter, which
all may leave in freedom; a place to which guides bring the curious
stranger. Then what does it all mean? Why should she fear? They are sure
to come to her rescue. But why are they still not here?
Which way will they come? Listen! Yes, above the sad piping of the
quenias rise other sounds: murmurs, footsteps, and the dull rumble of
a gathering throng. It comes from over there, from behind that vast
curtain, that vast golden-yellow curtain which stretches right across
the room and prevents her from seeing. What does it hide, and what is
that crowd awaiting?
Maria-Teresa questions the two mammaconas who are to die with her.
They are stretched at her feet in their long black veils, and rise with
respect to answer. The faithful are waiting to adore King Huayna
Capac, who will come to lead her back to Atahualpa. Maria-Teresa,
uncomprehending, asks more questions. He will come from the bowels of
the earth to claim them, and they will pass through the realms of night
in their robes of mourning, till they reach the Enchanted Realms of the
Sun. Then they will be clad all in gold, with golden dresses and jewels
of gold, for all time.
“And the little boy?” asked Maria-Teresa.
To her horror, they turned their heads away and did not answer. She
caught Christobal more closely to her, covering his face with kisses,
as if she wished to smother him with caresses to save him from a more
terrible fate. The child strove to console her. “Do not be afraid,” he
whispered. “Papa and Dick will come, not the wicked King. They will soon
be here.”
On one of the giant stones are mysterious signs to which the whispering
mammaconas draw each other’s attention--strange sculptured figures with
the head of man and the body of the coraquenque. In all time and on
all the earth, so say the Incas, there has been only one couple of
coraquenques, two of the mystic birds which appeared in the mountains
at the coronation of each new king and gave him two of their feathers to
adorn his head-dress.
Behind the curtain, the noise has ceased, and the song of the quenias
suddenly grows so piercing that Maria-Teresa cries out in terror.
Christobal, clutching at her bosom, nestles closer. Then the curtains
are parted, and the whole hall is revealed.
Below, a long way below her, is a prostrate and silent crowd. On
the porphyry steps which stretch down to this crowd stand the three
Guardians of the Temple. A step below them, Huascar, his arms crossed
under his red poncho. Lower still, four prostrate Red Ponchos, who
are the Guards of the Sacrifice. Their heads, completely hidden by the
sacred bonnet and ear-caps, are bent so low that none can see their
faces.
Surely there is somebody in that huge crowd who will free her!
Maria-Teresa, filled with a wild hope, rises with the child in her arms,
and cries for mercy. But the booming answer takes away all hope. “Muera
la Coya! Muera la Coya! To death with the Queen!” They give her the
title in Aïmara, but clamor for her death in Spanish, that she may
understand.
The four mammaconas on her right, the four others on her left and the
two who were to die with her surrounded the young girl, forced her back
to her seat. But she still struggled, holding up the boy, and begging
that he at least might be spared.
“He is the sacrifice of Pacahuamac,” came the answer. And the
mammaconas, taking up the echo, chanted: “The sacrifice of Pacahuamac!
Before all things began, before the Sun and before the Moon, his sister,
was the Great Spirit, Pacahuamac. Pacahuamac, the Great Spirit!”
Down below there, the surging crowd took up the cry. Huascar, turning,
commanded silence with a gesture.
They were all standing now, except the four Red Ponchos on the last
step; still prostrate and silent. The cry of the quenias rose again,
strident and shrill; soon they alone were to be heard. Maria-Teresa,
crushed, conquered, had ceased struggling. Not a voice, not a sign, had
answered the appeal. In a groan, she begged the mammaconas for their
perfumes. “Have mercy. Bring your perfumes. Then we shall not suffer.”
The two who were to die with her shook their heads. “We must go to
Atahualpa waking, with all our hearts and all our senses, that heart and
senses may live hereafter.”
The quenia players ceased their music, and a terrible, gripping silence
descended on the hall. The faithful fell to their knees, and Huascar’s
sonorous voice commanded silence.
“Silence! Silence in the House of the Serpent! The dead King is coming!
Listen!”
It was as if an earthquake had shaken the walls. The place was filled
with thunder. But instead of coming from the heavens, it rose from the
very bowels of the earth.
Little Christobal trembled in his sister’s arms, clung closer, and
whispered, “Look, Maria-Teresa! Look at the Red Ponchos.” She lifted her
eyes, looked, trembled, and forced herself to silence. While every other
head was bent in worship, the Guards of the Sacrifice had raised theirs,
and under the sacred bonnets, despite the stain that disguised them,
Maria-Teresa recognized the faces of Dick, her father, Natividad and
Uncle Francis.
When she looked a second time, the four bonnets were prostrate again,
and a cry from Huascar, herald of Huayna Capac, brought the multitude to
its feet.
Another tremor shook the very foundations of the temple, and one wall
seemed to vanish.
“Huayna Capac!”
III
That part of the wall on which were sculptured the strange signs and
the two human-headed birds had opened, as if on a pivot. Maria-Teresa
cowered and covered her face with her hands, for the dead king was
emerging from the gulf of shadow beyond. The wall swung back into
position, and the young girl, opening her eyes again, saw before her
a two-seated throne of massive gold. The seat on the right of the dead
majesty was unoccupied. The great crowd of Indians was bent to the dust
in adoration, while the dirge of the quenia-players rose to the roof in
ever-increasing volume.
The two mammaconas who were to accompany Maria-Teresa to the Enchanted
Realms of the Sun stood on each side of her, while the ten other
priestesses, formed in two lines, passed and re-passed before her, in
the intricate steps of a sacred dance. When they came before the Dead
One’s throne, they fell to their knees, then rose again, chanting: “This
is Huayna Capac, King of kings, son of the great Tapac Inca Yupanqui.
He has come by the Corridors of Night to claim the new Coya offered
by the Inca people to his son Atahualpa.” Then they moved backwards,
crossing and re-crossing, swaying their black veils. Twelve times they
repeated this movement, and each time the chant grew louder, while the
purl of the quenias swelled and broadened.
Maria-Teresa, holding Christobal closely to her, stared fixedly at
Huayna Capac, and the Dead One seemed to stare back at her. He also wore
the bat-skin robe made for the Corridors of Night, but beneath it could
be seen the royal mantle and the golden sandals. His face, calm and
severe, majestic in its still beauty, nearly had the hues of life; it
was framed in masses of coal-black hair, crowned with the royal borla in
which quivered the plumes of the coraquenque. Under the half-closed lids
the eyes seemed living. The dead king was seated naturally, his hands
resting on his knees, and so life-like was his whole attitude that to
Maria-Teresa’s horrified eyes he seemed to be breathing. Only little
Christobal heard her half-strangled cry, for the mammaconas were
repeating their chant for the twelfth time, and with the piercing note
of the quenias, deadened all other sound in the House of the Serpent.
Down below there, the mob of Indians was swaying, swaying gently from
right to left, in imitation of the rhythmic movements of the three
Guardians of the Temple. Maria-Teresa kept her eyes fixed on the dead
king, not only because he was just opposite her and, half fascinated,
she could not do otherwise, but also because she did not wish to look at
the Red Ponchos. She felt that if her eyes were allowed to wander for an
instant, they would fatally betray the four.
Maria-Teresa was now as if half buried in the idea of death; she felt as
if the earth had already claimed her, only leaving her head free for a
little longer. She was becoming gradually hypnotized by the motionless
monarch, while the fanatical crowd about her wondered, awestruck.
Huascar raised his arm, two fingers of his right hand imposing immediate
and absolute silence. The Guardians of the Temple drew near, pointing
towards the vacant seat on the golden throne. Two mammaconas lifted up
Maria-Teresa, carried her to it, and placed her beside Huayna Capac,
son of the great Tapac Inca Yupanqui. Then the double throne was turned
until it faced the assembly and the Red Ponchos.
Maria-Teresa closed her eyes, shivering at the thought of the
corpse beside her. She dared not open them, realizing with horrible
distinctness that if she did she must try to run down to Dick, or call
out something that would betray them. Though her eyes were closed, and
she outwardly seemed as dead as the mummy beside her, Maria-Teresa knew
what was happening. Little Christobal, peeping over the curve of his
sister’s arms, was watching everything, and a whisper, so low that
she hardly felt the breath rising along her bare neck, said: “Dick
has lifted his head.... Papa is looking at us... we must not move.”
Maria-Teresa pressed her trembling fingers on the child’s lips, and he
was silent.
So they were there. Her tired brain, working, working, wondered what
they were going to do. It was horrible to know them there, hidden and
helpless. For if they had not been helpless, they would not be hidden,
they would have come with police and soldiers. Could it be that the
Indians were masters of the country now? Then she thought of the
revolution, of Garcia, who had once loved her. Why had they not gone to
him? At a word, he would have come with his whole army. And they, hidden
under their red ponchos, what could they do? What was their plan?
The mammaconas were chanting:--
“Earthquakes shook the world. The moon was girt with rings of many
colors. Thunder fell on the royal palace, and reduced it to ashes. An
eagle, hard pursued by falcons, circled over the great square of the
city, filling the heavens with his cries. Pierced by the talons of his
foes, he fell dead at the feet of the noblest among the Incas.”
At these words, recalling the defeat and death of their last ruler,
all bent their heads, groaning, and the breath of the quenia players
trembled in the dead men’s bones. Huascar had also bent to the ground;
then he raised his forehead and his eyes met those of Maria-Teresa. She
shivered, and when he moved toward her, she thought her last hour had
come. She had been able to appeal to the mercy of the crowd, but she
could not call to this man, whose look showed that he loved her. She
closed her eyes.
Huascar’s voice reached her, slow, cadenced, and monotonous.
“Coya, thou belongest to Huayna Capac, the great King who will take thee
to the House of the Sons of the Sun. We leave thee alone with him. He
will lead thee through the Corridors of Night, which no living man must
know, and in the temple will seat thee among the Hundred Wives. Thou
must obey him, thou must rise only if he rises! Thou must obey. And
remember that the serpent watches in the House of the Serpent.”
He withdrew, still facing her, with the three Guardians of the Temple,
while the great crowd below flowed silently through the three doors.
All the mammaconas followed, drawing their black veils over their faces,
like widows leaving a cemetery. Even the two who were also to die left
her, first bending to kiss her feet, peeping shoeless from under the
bat-skin robe.
Darkness was rapidly gaining the hall. Why were they leaving her alone
there? What was this horror which even they dared not see? She must not
rise unless he rose. Would this dead thing come to life, then, take
her by the hand, and lead her into the eternal night? What of the Red
Ponchos? She looked. They were still there, prostrate at the foot of the
steps. The Guards of the Sacrifice, she had heard them called. They were
stopping! A surge of joy filled her heart She felt less afraid now.
The Guardians of the Temple had left. Huascar had left.
Would the Red Ponchos follow? No, they did not move. She was watching
them now, with her whole soul. They were still there, motionless, ready
to spring to her rescue when the hall was empty, ready to carry her to
the horses that must be waiting. The Dead One at all events could do
nothing to prevent it.
There were only twenty Indians left in the hall now... only five...
four... three.... They turned slowly at the doorway to look at her
again... She sat motionless, rigid.... She must not move unless the Dead
One moved.... Only the four Red Ponchos remained....
She half screamed.... They also had risen, pacing slowly toward the
doors.
It could not be! They could not be deserting her! But they were going
away like the others, without looking in her direction. No, she must
not scream... she must wait patiently... wait for a sign. Still walking
slowly, three of them had gone to the three doors, but the fourth, Dick,
turned suddenly, his finger on his lips.
Forgetting Huascar’s words, Maria-Teresa half rose in her seat. There
was a revolver in Dick’s fist now, and her father had vanished through
one of the doors, looking to make sure that the courtyard was deserted.
Then his voice gave the signal:--“Recuerda!” (Remember!) Dick dashed
up the porphyry steps, Don Christobal following, while the two others
remained at the doors.
“Come, Maria-Teresa! Quick!”
Dick stretched out his hands to take little Christobal, and Maria-Teresa
had risen, when a terrible whistling sound filled the hall, and the two
prisoners, shrieking, were hurled back into the seat by the monstrous
folds of a huge serpent which seemed to spring into life about them,
binding them down to the throne of Death. The serpent of the House of
the Serpent had come to claim his prey.
Raising his revolver, Dick thundered at the hideous head towering
above them, whistling with wide-open jaws, and tore at the coils which
imprisoned his fiancée. His hands fell, not on living flesh, but on
hard, cold metal; copper rings which ground one against the other,
overlapped, and drew tighter. It was in vain that he and Don Christobal
tore at them with furious hands.
“Look out! They are coming!” shouted Natividad from the doorway, and the
hall was invaded by Indians, while the Serpent shrieked stridently, and
a thousand rattles seemed to sound the alarm. The Marquis still tore at
the coils that were choking his children, but Dick, hesitating a moment,
dashed down the stairs. In a twinkling, the hall was full of Indians,
priests, caciques, mammaconas, scores of Quichua soldiers from the train
of Oviedo Runtu, who alone remained invisible.
Huascar appeared, still calm and immovable, as if this scene did not
surprise him, as if nothing could surprise him. Had he known beforehand
what was to have happened, he could not have given his orders more
deliberately. Don Christobal, Natividad, and Uncle Francis were tied up
in a trice, the latter at last alarmed by the brutality of his captors.
Dick had disappeared.
“Take them away,” ordered Huascar.
Don Christobal struggled, turned and looked once again. “Maria-Teresa!
Christobal!” Then he too was hurried away.
Meanwhile Huascar, more and more somber, directed the search for Dick.
They hunted in vain; he had disappeared like a drop of water in the sea.
Finally, Huascar gave the order to clear the hall again.
Left alone with the Guardians of the Temple, who stood caressing the
serpent’s folds with their hideous little hands, the high-priest went
behind the throne. In a moment, the brazen monster was silent, loosened
its grip, and shrank link by link, until it vanished whence it had come.
Going to the wall, Huascar placed his hand on the coraquenque, and the
massive stones rolled back; the throne shook, slipped backwards, and
vanished down the Corridors of Night, taking with it the dead King,
Maria-Teresa and little Christobal, both unconscious. The wall closed
upon them, hiding again the secrets which only those who are ready to
die may know.
The Guardians of the Temple bent their monstrous heads in obeisance
before Huascar, and in their turn went out Huascar, last High-Priest of
the Incas, was alone in the House of the Serpent Slowly going to the top
of the porphyry steps, he sat down. His head dropped between his hands,
and there he remained till dawn.
IV
Dick, clear of the House of the Serpent by what was little short of a
miracle, crouched down in a niche of the palace wall, hewn out by some
dead Inca hand, and there waited for Huascar throughout the night,
watching the door at which he must appear. He was careless of the
danger he ran, and his very boldness saved him. Not one of the passing
Quichuas, dignitaries of the Interaymi, dreamed for an instant that
the poor Indian wrapped in his poncho, and apparently asleep, was the
sacrilegious stranger who had slipped from their clutches. The darkness,
too, favored him, as it had favored his daring escape; he had merely
turned his red poncho inside out, so that it looked like any other
poncho, and had joined the howling crowd, stopping in it until Huascar’s
order had cleared the hall.
Argue the matter as he would, the young man saw no hope. Garcia’s
victory over the Federal troops at Cuzco had given the district into
the hands of the Indians. The Spanish population, only an eighth of the
50,000 souls in the ancient city, had fled. Never since the Spanish Con
quest had the Quichuas so completely been the masters. Garcia himself
had prudently left the town, waiting for the end of the Interaymi;
and the few troops he had left behind him were heart and soul with the
native population, from which they had been levied, and with which they
shared customs, faith and fetichism. In a word, the Cuzco was as much
the home of the Incas as it had been in the heyday of their despotic
rulers.
When Dick and his companions had reached the outskirts of the city they
had hidden their motor in a half-deserted country inn, bribing the
landlord. They had at once realized that force was out of the question.
Happily, there remained Garcia’s money. The landlord, a poor half-breed
who asked no better than to become rich, had listened readily, and the
offer of a small fortune had set him off looking for Red Ponchos willing
to betray Huascar.
He found four, the very men who were to be the Guards of the Sacrifice,
in the House of the Serpent. When these men had explained their
functions, the four Europeans could hardly believe their good fortune.
Dick and Don Christobal were so absorbed by the idea of getting
through to the prisoners somehow, that they did not stop to think how
suspiciously easy their task had been. Uncle Francis, a witness of
the bargain, was for once not altogether wrong when he shrugged his
shoulders at their childish scheme to “take him in.”
The Red Ponchos agreed to everything, and the price was fixed, and they
received half-payment. The remainder was to be handed over when the
Marquis’ children were free. The traitors promised to help them escape
from the sacred precincts, and moreover brought them their disguises.
Uncle Francis, chuckling covertly, accepted the part assigned to him
with such readiness, showed such quiet courage in his attitude, that he
reconquered at one stroke the lost esteem of both the Marquis and his
nephew. Natividad, ever ready to believe anything to the discredit of an
Indian, and knowing from experience how easily they were to be bought,
was quite confident in the success of the expedition.
Thoroughly fooled by Huascar, they had walked into the trap, and only
amazing luck had saved one of them. Where were the others now? Where was
the dungeon that held them, and what was to be their fate?
Dick was waiting in the dark street before the palace, determined to
shoot Huascar when he saw him. All night through, nobody came out of the
House of the Serpent. At dawn, the young engineer suddenly felt a hand
on his arm, and, looking up, recognized the old man to whom he had
spoken at Arequipa, the father of Maria Cristina de Orellana.
“Why do you stop here?” asked the stranger. “You won’t see the
procession if you do. Follow me, and I’ll show you my daughter coming
out of the Corridor of Night.”
Dick stared at him. Groups of Indians were passing, all heading in the
same direction. The old man spoke again.
“You may as well go with them. They are all off to see the procession of
the Bride of the Sun.”
Dick followed him mechanically. Why not, after all? He was nearly mad
himself. Why should a madman not be his guide? As they walked, Orellana
babbled on tonelessly.
“I know you well. You want to see the Bride of the Sun. I see you
have even disguised yourself as an Indian to do so. Not in the least
necessary, I assure you. You’ll see her, right enough, if you come with
me. I know Cusco, below ground and above ground, better than any living
man. I have lived in their secret passages for ten years. When I am not
under ground, I guide strangers through the city, and show them where
the Bride of the Sun used to pass on her way to the Temple of Death.
You know that, of course? It’s the same as the Temple of the Sun, only
underneath. I’ll show it you, for it’s worth seeing.
“Fine fêtes this year, señor. Last time, they had to hide themselves
in the Corridors of Night, but to-day they are masters both above and
below, and that dead king of theirs, Huayna Capac, will see daylight
again. They’ll take him all through the city, as they used to do. If you
don’t know that, you haven’t been keeping your ears open.
“Where are your friends? I could have shown it to them as well. And
I don’t charge much; a few centavos keep me going for weeks. All the
innkeepers know me, and send for Orellana when they have visitors. I
know you all quite well. I saw you at Mollendo, then at Arequipa, and
now here you are again outside the House of the Serpent. That’s where
they always go first. Yes, that’s the way they brought Maria Cristina
ten years ago. She was the prettiest girl in Lima, so they chose her
for their god. I didn’t know then, but this time they won’t have their
way quite so easily. When I saw the Interaymi come round again, I said
to myself: ‘Orellana, you must get ready for them.’ And I’m ready for
them, never fear!”
Thus they crossed the whole city. Dick, walking like a man in a dream,
following to the next station in the martyrdom of his sweetheart, paid
no heed to the wonderful ruins on all sides of him, the mighty buildings
piled rock on rock by demi-gods, and which have not moved, nor will move
until the earth dies, long after the winds of heaven and the quivering
of the mountains have stamped flat the miserable huts left by the
Conquistadors.
They left the city behind them and Orellana, taking Dick by the hand,
like a little child, made him climb the mount which the Quichuas call
the Hill of the Dancing Monkey. Its gigantic summit, hewn into terraces,
galleries and giant stairways by long-dead craftsmen, was already
crowned with Indians. All eyes were turned toward that other miracle
of Inca work which is Sacsay-Huaynam, a hill of stone fashioned into a
Cyclopean fortress, with three lines of defenses rising one above the
other, each wall dotted with niches from which on this day, as of
yore, armed sentries looked out over the country. On the summit of
Sacsay-Huaynam towered the Intihuatana, or “the pillar on which the sun
is bound.”
Orellana’s broken voice explained it all to Dick, guide-like.
“This pillar, señor, was used by the Incas to measure time. A religious
stone, erected to mark the exact period of the equinoxes. That is why
they call it Intihuatana; it means where the sun is bound.’ Look over
there! You can see the procession starting.... Don’t you understand?
The Corridors of Night run right under the city, from the House of the
Serpent to Sacsay-Huaynam. When my daughter comes out, they will take
her round the hill, and round the Intihuatana. Then, when the Sun has
been freed by the High-Priest, the procession will come down to the
gates of the city.”
Dick could now clearly see the procession forming up on the walls, and
even distinguished Huascar at its head, giving orders. Leaving Orellana,
he hurried toward Sacsay-Huaynam, getting as near as the press of
Indians would allow. He could now see that the solstice pillar, placed
in the center of a circle, was loaded with festoons of flowers and
fruit, while on its summit stood a golden throne. The throne of the Sun,
vanished centuries before, had been brought out from the Corridors of
Night and replaced there before the dawn.
There was silence on Sacsay-Huaynam; a few priests were grouped round
the Pillar, waiting for the hour of noon. Then Huascar appeared, clad in
golden vestments. Facing the throne of the Sun, the High-Priest waited
a few seconds, turned and cried aloud in Aïmara a phrase which was
taken up on all sides in Quichua and Spanish:--“The god is seated on the
Column in all his light!” Then he struck his hands together, giving the
signal for all to march; the god, having visited his people, had been
freed, and continued his voyage through the heavens. The faithful
followed him on earth, from east to west.
The sacred procession sprang into life, led by Huascar. First came a
hundred servitors of the god, simply dressed, whose task it was to
clear the way, chanting paeans of triumph. After them, a group of men
in chequer-board tunics of red-and-white, whom the populace greeted with
shouts of “The amautas! The amautas!” (the sages). Then others all in
white, bearing hammers and maces of silver and copper, who were
the apparitors of the royal palace; the guards and the Inca’s body
attendants, their azure robes blazing with precious metals; finally, the
nobles, with heavy ear-rings marking their rank. The procession wound
slowly down from Sacsay-Huaynam to the plain, and then the double
throne, borne on the shoulders of the noblest among the Indians,
appeared to the multitude. Thousands of throats greeted the dead
king and his living companion; a roar of mingled enthusiasm for
the descendant of Manco Capac, and hatred for the conquering race,
translated by deafening shouts of “Muera la Coya! Muera la Coya!”
Maria-Teresa seemed to hear nothing; pale as marble and beautiful as
a statue, she passed unheeding, little Christobal still in her arms.
Instead of the bat-skin robes, they now wore vicuna tunics, sheer as
silk. Behind them walked the two mammaconas who were to die, their faces
veiled with black; the other women and the three Guardians of the Temple
had disappeared. The cortège was brought up by a company of Quichua
soldiers in modern uniform, rifle on shoulder, tramping to the lilt of
the quenia-players, who closed the march.
The contrast between this antique procession and that fragment of a
modern army was more than curious. Uncle Francis, the only one who could
have really appreciated it under the circumstances, was not there. As
to Dick, he was watching Maria-Teresa with the fixed gaze of a madman.
Strive as he would, he could get no nearer, and so backed out of the
press to run toward the gates of the city, where he hoped to fight his
way to the front ranks.
On the last steps of the Hill of the Dancing Monkey he was immobilized
by the press of people and forced to look with them to the summit of
Sacsay-Huaynam, where, on the top of the highest tower, had appeared the
scarlet figure of a priest, sharp-cut against the azure of the sky.
Dick at once recognized the Preacher of Cajamarca, and voices around him
further explained that this was the chief officer of the quipucamyas,
or Keepers of the Historical Word. His voice, sweeping down from
Sacsay-Huaynam, checked the advance of the procession, chanted the glory
of by-gone days.
Ringing clear and impassioned, it recalled the day when the Stranger and
his diabolical train had first entered those plains after the death of
Atahualpa. As to-day, the Sun blazed over the Imperial City, then full
of altars sacred to his cult. Then, innumerable buildings, which the
conqueror was to leave in ruins, traced white streets in the heart
of the valley, and clustered on the lower slopes of the hills. In the
conqueror’s train was Manco, descendant of kings, in whose name he gave
orders and was obeyed. On that day, when the sun went down behind the
Cordilleras, it might well have been thought that the Empire of the
Incas had ceased to exist.
“But it still lives!” thundered the voice. “The Sun still shines on
his children; the Andes, cradle of our race, still tower to the skies;
Cuzco, navel of the earth, still quivers at the voice of his priests;
Sacsay-Huaynam and the Intihuatana are still standing; the procession of
the Interaymi still starts from these sacred walls!”
At these words, the procession moved on again, and had it not been for
the anachronism of the riflemen bringing up the rear, one could almost
have believed that five hundred years had brought no change in the
plains of the Cuzco.
Dick, finally free to move on, was despairing of ever getting nearer to
Maria-Teresa when he met Orellana again.
“What are you looking for?” asked the old man. “A place to see from?
Then come with me, and I’ll show you my daughter. I know Cuzco better
than the Incas themselves. Come with me.”
Once again Dick allowed the madman to be his guide. They reentered
the city by way of the Huatanay ravine, spanned to this day by the
Conquistadors’ bridges, and entered a maze of side-streets free
from the crowd. Skirting the prodigious Hatun Rumioc, or
wall-which-is-of-one-rock, they passed Calcaurpata, which tradition
makes the palace of Manco Capac himself, first King of the Incas and
founder of Cuzco; then they turned toward the Plaza Principale, called
Huàcaypata by the Quichuas of to-day as by the Incas of yore. To reach
it, Orellana took Dick through the ruined palace of the Virgins of the
Sun, detailing, as he went, the uses and names of the various rooms. The
young man’s impatient interruptions left him quite unmoved.
“We have plenty of time. You shall see my daughter from so near that you
could speak to her. Stop a minute, and listen to the quenias.
The head of the procession has no more than reached San Domingo. That
church, curiously enough, was built on the very foundations of the
Temple of the Sun.... I have never met a visitor less curious than you
are.... This is the cloister of the Virgins of the Sun.... It has always
been the home of virtue and piety, for the Christians turned it into a
convent under the auspices of Santa Catarina.”
Dick, unable to stand the guide’s jargon any longer, began to run toward
the noise of the advancing procession.
“You might pay me!” shouted Orellana in his wake. “Pay me what you owe
me!” and stooped to pick up the centavos which the young engineer threw
on the ground.
Nearing the plaza principale, Dick again found his way blocked by the
crowd, and forgot his anger in the relief of finding a friend when
Orellana tugged at his poncho again.
“You might as well stop with me,” urged the old man. “Hurrying won’t
help you. I know a little tiny Corridor of Night that will lead us
to the Sun, right to the top stone of one of those temples.... It’s a
temple dedicated to Venus.... They call her Chasca, or the young man
with the long and curly locks, and he’s supposed to be the page of the
Sun. Come with me.” Orellana had taken Dick by the hand, and led him to
a cellar, in which they found the foot of a narrow staircase. Once at
the top of it, they were, as the old man had promised, on the summit
of a ruined temple, dominating the crowded square below and the streets
radiating to it like the spokes of a wheel to the huh. Around them were
other ruins; temples sacred to the moon, to the “armies of the heavens,”
which are the stars, to the rainbow, lightning and thunder... walls
which still defied the elements, though the temples were now shops,
work-rooms or stables.
The head of the procession had appeared, the hundred servitors of the
god pressing back the crowd, and slowly wound its way round the square.
Then the golden litter came into sight and Huayna Capac, for the first
time in centuries, came to the center of the world, the Umbilicus of
which he had been lord and master. All heads were bowed before this
sovereign shadow and the memory of ancient glories once again brought
to life. The crowd even forgot for the moment its hatred of the stranger
woman, the motionless Coya with the stranger child in her arms.
The double throne was brought to the center of the square, and the crowd
rose with clamoring voices. Around the litter, the caciques and the
chiefs, the nobles and the amautas, who are the sages, joined hands and
began to circle, dancing as they danced of yore, when each man held a
link of the golden chain and danced the Dance of the Chain. Hands made
the links to-day, for when the Strangers slew Atahualpa, the nobles
of the Cuzco threw that chain, which otherwise would have gone to the
King’s ransom, into the deepest water of Lake Titicaca.
“Recuerda!”
Suddenly, as if from the heavens, this cry checked the rhythm of the
Dance of the Chain. Maria-Teresa started on her throne, remembering the
signal in the House of the Serpent. The child in her arms also lifted
its head, and their eyes questioned the blue vault above from which this
word of hope had fallen.
“That was Dick’s voice, Maria-Teresa! I told you he would come to save
us!”
The girl’s eyes explored the towering walls about her, black with
Indians. How could she recognize him in that crowd? Where was he? Again
the voice rang out over their heads, so loud that it could be heard by
the most distant unit of the crowd.
“Recuerda!”
Every head was turned upwards, and a threatening murmur rose from that
human mass, torn from its dream of renascence and liberty by a single
Spanish word. Recuerda! What must they remember? That they were slaves?
That these fêtes, striving to recall an abolished past, could only
last the space of a day? That the sun of to-morrow, forgetting that of
to-day, would only shine anew on their servitude?
Maria-Teresa started up from the golden throne with the child in her
arms, brought to life and action again by the beloved voice.
Looking higher, they at last saw, on the highest stone in the azure,
a pigmy figure holding out its arms to the Coya, and crying,
“Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”
“Dick!”
Then all understood that on high there was a stranger, one of the hated
race, come to rob them of the soul of their Coya.
V
Pandemonium reigned in the square. This was sacrilege unspeakable! Did
not the Coya already belong to the gods! Muera la Coya! Death to the
stranger! There was a huge rush, a scramble of raging Indians along
parapets, over rocks and the ruins of temples, while the golden litter
was hurried away by the Guards of the Sacrifice and the amautas.
Maria-Teresa closed her eyes, carrying to the tomb that supreme farewell
which was perhaps to cost Dick his life.
“You must be mad,” said the madman Orellana, when he saw Dick lean over
and call to Maria-Teresa, and when she answered, asked almost angrily:
“How did you come to know my daughter?”
The roar of the angry crowd surged up to them, surrounded them, and drew
nearer. It was with the greatest difficulty that Orellana shook Dick out
of his strange torpor, dragged him through the gap from which they
had emerged, and finally to the labyrinth below the Temple. Apparently
familiar with every twist and turning of the place, he led him through
a mile of passages, their darkness relieved here and there by
round, square or triangular patches of light sifting down between
thousand-year-old stones from the world above. Occasionally he stopped
to tell Dick what temple, what palace, they were passing under.
“Yaca-Huasi, which they also call the House of the Serpent, is over our
heads now.”
“Perhaps they have taken her there!”
“No, no! That’s against all the rules. The Temple of Death is the next
place.”
“Where are we going to? Where are you taking me?”
“To the Temple of Death, of course!”
Dick followed him without another word, but expressed his surprise when
they emerged into the open country.
“Where is the Temple, then?” he asked.
“On the Island of Titicaca. You needn’t be afraid. We shall get there
before them.”
They hired horses at a wayside inn and rode to Sicuani. Here they took a
train which, turning onto a branch line at Juliaca, then ran to Puno,
on the shores of Lake Titicaca. On the way, Orellana babbled ceaselessly
about the country through which they were passing and the ceremony they
were to witness.
No stranger has ever seen it. But he, Orellana, asked nobody’s
permission, and since his daughter was to be wedded to the Sun, it
was the least of things that he should be present at the marriage, and
particularly as he had planned it all so carefully! It had taken him
years to find the Temple of Death, but with patience all things could be
done. There was not one dried-up river-bed underground, not a deserted
goldmine which he did not know so well that he could find his way about
it with his eyes shut.
And what fortunes he had discovered under the earth; a fortune equal
to all the fortunes on earth! It was obvious that the Incas must have
got their gold somewhere. Well, he had discovered where! There was
plenty of it left, plenty of it left!... One day, some clever young
engineer would find out, and he would only have to stoop to be as rich
as Croesus. (A bitter smile from the young engineer, whose thoughts were
far from such things.)... But he, Orellana, did not give a fig for all
the gold in creation.
He loved only his daughter, whom the Indians had taken to the Temple of
Death, and it was only the Temple of Death which he had sought.
It had taken him years, but now everything was; ready and he was going
to save her. He had waited long enough to kiss her again! Ten whole
years!
So the old man wandered on, while Dick listened eagerly, striving to
guess how much was truth, and how much madness.
“But how do they get from Cuzco to the Temple of Death?”
“Don’t you worry about that.... By the Corridors of Night, by the
Corridors of the Mountains of Night, by the Corridors of the Lake of
Night.... By the way, do you know anything about fishing?”
Dick did not have time to answer this extraordinary question, for the
guard had come through to their carriage, and was inviting them to the
luggage-van to see the samacuena danced. Everybody else seemed to
be going there, and they accepted so as not to draw attention to
themselves. They found the van peopled with Indians, dancing, playing
the guitar, and drinking hard. At each step, the guard, to celebrate
Garcia’s victories, fired a volley of cohetes, the mountains throwing
back the echo of the explosions.
Then some of the Quichua soldiers in the train gave themselves up to the
pleasures of the chase. Spying flocks of vicuñas in the hills, they went
to the observation-car and tried their luck. One of them, something of
a marksman, brought down a vicuña, the train stopped with a grinding of
brakes, and the guard himself went off to retrieve the bag.
Dick, wild with impatience, would have liked to club the engine driver
and take charge of the locomotive himself, but Orellana calmed him down.
“We’re sure to get there before them. You’ll see! Why, we shall even
have time to do some fishing!”
Leaving their fellow-travelers to cut up the vicuña, they returned
to their carriage, where the stove had been lighted. It had become
intensely cold, for they were now in the snow regions, more than
fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Soroche, or mountain fever,
threw the young engineer, and after bleeding violently at the nose, he
fell into a semi-comatose condition. He did not recover until Punho,
when he again remembered the horrible nightmare through which he was
living, and savagely demanded to be shown the way to the Temple of
Death.
“We’re going there,” replied his strange guide, but first took him to
the main square, where about a hundred Indian girls, wearing skirts of a
dark material and the low-cut bodices of their race, squatted in orderly
rows, selling fruits and vegetables dried in the cold.
“There are usually two hundred of them,” explained Orellana, “but the
Red Ponchos have been this way and chosen the best-looking half for the
ceremony. It’s the same thing every ten years.”
He made a few purchases with Dick’s money, and after adding a flask
of pisco to his stores, led the way out of the city. At nightfall they
reached a huge marsh, alive with water-fowl. Next they crossed a heath,
llamas and alpacas fleeing at their approach, and finally came to a
dismal little bay on the shores of the lake.
Titicaca, in its mountain cradle, is the highest lake in the world.
That night, its waters looked somber and heavy, almost dead. A storm,
growling in the distance, soon swept down on them with a howl of rain,
the waves dashing up the beach mountain-high, and the lightning touching
the surrounding peaks with fire.
“Splendid, splendid,” muttered Orellana as the storm broke. “That
means fine weather for to-morrow. In the meantime, we may as well have
supper.”
He had led the young man under a giant monolith, hewn to the shape of a
door. In a niche of it, Orellana managed to light a dung-cake fire, and
here they ate a little and warmed themselves with generous pulls at the
pisco flask. Dick at last fell asleep, while the old man covered him
with a horse blanket and paternally watched over his slumbers.
Just before dawn, Dick awoke to find Orellana reminiscent.
“This place has always brought me luck since I started to look for my
daughter, but I cannot make out who to thank for it. Do _you_ know who
this god is?”
He pointed to the bas-reliefs which covered the stone. They represented
a human being, the head adorned with allegorical rays, and each hand
holding a different scepter. Around this being were symmetrically ranged
other figures, some with human faces, others with the heads of condors,
all holding scepters, and all facing toward the center.
“There’s no doubt about it,” mused Orellana aloud. “This is nothing like
the Incas’ work. It is much more sculptural, and much older. There must
have been worlds on these shores before the advent of the Incas. They’re
only savages who steal children.... Well, come on. We may as well go out
in my boat and meet the sun.”
In a little creek, half hidden by rushes, they found a cane pirogue, in
which Orellana had soon hoisted a mast and a mat sail.
“Come on,” he said, “we’ll do some fishing. It’s all on the way to the
Temple of Death.”
Dick followed him into the fragile craft, and they started for the
islands. These came into sight late in the afternoon, a blue blur on
the horizon. To Dick’s fevered imagination, they seemed like threatening
shadows on the face of the waters, ghostly guardians of the Temple of
Death.
Orellana refused to go any nearer that night, hauled down the sail, and
threw overboard a heavy stone to anchor his boat. Then he handed Dick a
fishing-rod. At his astonished look, the madman replied:
“People come to the islands to fish, because these waters are blessed
by the gods and the catches are better than anywhere else. Can’t you do
what everybody else does?”
He pointed across the waters to little lights flaring up at the bows of
other pirogues, in which sat motionless fishermen.
“All those Indians are fishing,” he said. “You may as well join them. If
you can’t, go to sleep, and don’t worry us. You’ll see something worth
while when you wake up.”
Orellana woke Dick just before dawn. The last stars were paling in
the heavens at the approach of their King. The deep waters of the lake
showed uniformly gray, not a light and not a shadow upon them. Not a
sound to break stillness, not a breath of wind in the air. Suddenly, in
the Orient, the mountain peaks were touched with fire, a giant furnace
sprang into being behind the torn curtain of the Cordilleras, and the
sun painted scarlet splashes into the shadows of the sacred islands.
When they pass before the largest of them, which is Titicaca, the Indian
fishermen in their fragile pirogues never fail to chant the Aïmara Hymn
of the Ancestors, for it was from this island, untold years ago, that
sprang the founders of the Inca race in the persons of Manco Capac and
Mama Cello, husband and wife, brother and sister, both children of the
Sun. Coming in sight of the island, the traveler perceives giant ruins
and great masses of rock piled up in an inexplicable manner, so strange
that science has not yet been able to give them a date. These are the
baths, the palaces and temples of the first Incas.
Dick, staring landwards from the pirogue, hardly knew whether he was
awake or dreaming. Was this a hallucination born of the terrors of the
week, or did his eyes really reveal what other eyes had first adored
centuries before, at the dawn of the Inca world? As the shadows of
night drew away and the island stood out above the waters in all its
terrestrial grandeur, he did not merely see dead stones, lifeless
temples, and deserted palaces; the Cyclopean whole was peopled by a vast
throng, motionless and silent, its myriad faces turned to the flaming
Orient. This immobility and silence were those of a dream; there were
thousands there who seemed to live and breathe only in the expectation
of some mysterious and sacred event.
The disc of the sun was still hidden behind the Andes, but all Nature
heralded its approach; the flanks of the mountains were jeweled with a
thousand dazzling stones, brooks and torrents were afire, and the broad
bosom of the lake was a roseate mirror bearing the still reflections
of palaces and temples. Virgins, bearing, as of old, the most beautiful
flowers of the season and the emblems of their religion, peopled the
porticoes. At the summits of towers, luminous with the dawn, priests
waited for their god to show his face.
Suddenly, he appears... he rises... he blazes down on his empire, and
is hailed by a great roar. “Hail, O Sun, King of the Heavens, father
of men!” Earth trembles, waters shiver, the heavens even quiver at the
call. “Hail, O Sun, father of the Inca!” Arms are stretched toward him,
hands heavy with offerings implore his intercession, and every voice
chants his glory. “Hear thy children! Hail, O Sun!”
Cries and songs of triumph are swelled by the clamor of barbaric
instruments, and the tumult grows as the radiant disc climbs higher in
the heavens, bathing the multitude in light.
Sun, behold thy Empire! After so many centuries, the faithful, the men
who labor in valley and mountain, are still here, and still do thee
obeisance. The golden-armed virgins have poured libations from the
sacred vases, and the hymns of the priests, after having risen to the
heavens, now seem to plunge into the earth.
What is this miracle? The dream has vanished; vanished as do the light
mists of morning before the first rays of the sun.