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Under the Andes

by Rex Stout · English · Gutenberg #546 · 514,184 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Under the Andes

Author: Rex Stout


        
Release date: June 1, 1996 [eBook #546]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/546

Credits: Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE ANDES ***




Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.








UNDER THE ANDES


by

Rex Stout



CONTENTS

Chapter

     I.  THE SWEETHEART OF A KING.
    II.  BEGINNING THE DANCE.
   III.  A MODERN MARANA.
    IV.  ALLONS!
     V.  THE CAVE OF THE DEVIL.
    VI.  CAPTURED.
   VII.  THE FIGHT IN THE DARK.
  VIII.  THE DANCE OF THE SUN.
    IX.  BEFORE THE COURT.
     X.  THE VERDICT.
    XI.  A ROYAL VISITOR.
   XII.  AT THE DOOR.
  XIII.  INTO THE WHIRLPOOL.
   XIV.  A FISHING PARTY.
    XV.  THE RESCUE.
   XVI.  THE ESCAPE.
  XVII.  THE EYES IN THE DARK.
 XVIII.  A VICTORY AND A CONVERSATION.
   XIX.  AFLOAT.
    XX.  AN INCA SPEAR.
   XXI.  THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY.
  XXII.  THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
 XXIII.  WE ARE TWO.
  XXIV.  CONCLUSION.




Chapter I.

THE SWEETHEART OF A KING.

The scene was not exactly new to me.  Moved by the spirit of adventure,
or by an access of ennui which overtakes me at times, I had several
times visited the gaudy establishment of Mercer, on the fashionable
side of Fifth Avenue in the Fifties.  In either case I had found
disappointment; where the stake is a matter of indifference there can
be no excitement; and besides, I had been always in luck.

But on this occasion I had a real purpose before me, though not an
important one, and I surrendered my hat and coat to the servant at the
door with a feeling of satisfaction.

At the entrance to the main room I met Bob Garforth, leaving.  There
was a scowl on his face and his hand trembled as he held it forth to
take mine.

"Harry is inside.  What a rotten hole," said he, and passed on.  I
smiled at his remark--it was being whispered about that Garforth had
lost a quarter of a million at Mercer's within the month--and passed
inside.

Gaudy, I have said it was, and it needs no other word.  Not in its
elements, but in their arrangement.

The rugs and pictures and hangings testified to the taste of the man
who had selected them; but they were abominably disposed, and there
were too many of them.

The room, which was unusually large, held two or three leather divans,
an English buffet, and many easy chairs.  A smoking-table, covered,
stood in one corner.

Groups of men were gathered about each of the three roulette wheels
ranged along the farther side.  Through a door to the left could be
seen the poker tables, surrounded by grave or jocular faces.  Above the
low buzz of conversation there sounded the continual droning voices of
the croupiers as they called the winning numbers, and an occasional
exclamation from a "customer."

I made my way to the center wheel and stood at the rear of the crowd
surrounding it.

The ball rolled; there was a straining of necks amid an intense
silence; then, as the little pellet wavered and finally came to a rest
in the hole number twenty-four a fervent oath of disappointment came
from some one in front of me.

The next moment, rising on tiptoe to look over the intervening
shoulders, I found myself looking into the white face of my younger
brother Harry.

"Paul!" he exclaimed, turning quickly away.

I pushed my way through and stood at his side.  There was no sound from
the group of onlookers; it is not to be wondered at if they hesitated
to offend Paul Lamar.

"My dear boy," said I, "I missed you at dinner.  And though this may
occupy your mind, it can scarcely fill your stomach.  Haven't you had
enough?"

Harry looked at me.  His face was horribly pale and his eyes bloodshot;
they could not meet mine.

"For Heaven's sake, Paul, let me alone," he said, hardly above a
whisper.  "I have lost ninety thousand."

In spite of myself I started.  No wonder he was pale!  And yet--

"That's nothing," I whispered back.  "But you are making a show of
yourself.  Just now you were swearing like a sailor.  See how your hand
trembles!  You were not made for this, Harry; it makes you forget that
you're a gentleman.  They are laughing at you.  Come."

"But I say I have lost ninety thousand dollars," said the boy, and
there was wildness in his eye.  "Let me alone, Paul."

"I will repay you."

"No.  Let me alone!"

"Harry!"

"I say no!"

His mouth was drawn tight and his eyes glared sullenly as those of a
stubborn child.  Clearly it was impossible to get him away without
making a scene, which was unthinkable.  For a moment I was at a
complete loss; then the croupier's voice sounded suddenly in my ear:

"You are interrupting us, sir."

I silenced him with a glance and turned to my brother, having decided
in an instant on the only possible course.

"Here, let me have your chair.  I will get it back for you.  Come!"

He looked at me for a moment in hesitation, then rose without a word
and I took his place.

The thing was tiresome enough, but how could I have avoided it?  The
blood that rushes to the head of the gambler is certainly not food for
the intellect; and, besides, I was forced by circumstances into an
heroic attitude--and nothing is more distasteful to a man of sense.
But I had a task before me; if a man lays bricks he should lay them
well; and I do not deny that there was a stirring of my pulse as I sat
down.

Is it possible for a mind to directly influence the movements of a
little ivory ball?  I do not say yes, but will you say no?  I watched
the ball with the eye of an eagle, but without straining; I played with
the precision of a man with an unerring system, though my selections
were really made quite at random; and I handled my bets with the
sureness and swift dexterity with which a chess-master places his pawn
or piece in position to demoralize his opponent.

This told on the nerves of the croupier.  Twice I corrected a
miscalculation of his, and before I had played an hour his hand was
trembling with agitation.

And I won.

The details would be tiresome, but I won; and when, after six hours of
play without an instant's rest, I rose exhausted from my chair and
handed my brother the amount he had lost--I pocketed a few thousands
for myself in addition.  There were some who tried to detain me with
congratulations and expressions of admiration, but I shook them off and
led Harry outside to my car.

The chauffeur, poor devil, was completely stiff from the long wait, and
I ordered him into the tonneau and took the wheel myself.

Partly was this due to pity for the driver, partly to a desire to leave
Harry to his own thoughts, which I knew must be somewhat turbulent.  He
was silent during the drive, which was not long, and I smiled to myself
in the darkness of the early morning as I heard, now and then, an
uncontrollable sigh break through his dry lips.  Of thankfulness,
perhaps.

I preceded him up the stoop and into the hall of the old house on lower
Fifth Avenue, near Tenth Street, that had been the home of our
grandfather and our father before us.  There, in the dim light, I
halted and turned, while Evans approached from the inner rooms, rubbing
eyes heavy with sleep.

Good old Evans!  Yet the faithfulness of such a servant has its
disadvantages.

"Well?" said Harry in a thin, high voice.

The boy's nerves were stretched tightly; two words from me would have
produced an explosion.  So I clapped him on the shoulder and sent him
off to bed.  He went sulkily, without looking round, and his shoulders
drooped like those of an old man; but I reflected that that would all
be changed after a few hours of sleep.

"After all, he is a Lamar," I said to myself as I ordered Evans to
bring wine and sandwiches to the library.

It was the middle of the following afternoon before Harry appeared
down-stairs.  He had slept eleven hours.  I was seated in the library
when I heard his voice in the hall:

"Breakfast!  Breakfast for five at once!"

I smiled.  That was Harry's style of wit.

After he had eaten his "breakfast for five" he came in to see me with
the air of a man who was determined to have it out.

I myself was in no mood for talk; indeed, I scarcely ever am in such a
mood, unless it be with a pretty woman or a great sinner.  You may
regard that sentence as tautological if you like; I sha'n't quarrel
about it.

What I mean to say is that it was with a real effort I set myself to
the distasteful task before me, rendered necessary by the
responsibility of my position as elder brother and head of the family.

Harry began by observing with assumed indifference: "Well, and now
there's the deuce to pay, I suppose."

"As his representative I am not a hard creditor," I smiled.

"I know, I know--" he began impetuously and stopped.

I continued:

"My boy, there is always the deuce to pay.  If not for one thing, then
for another.  So your observation would serve for any other time as
well as now.  The point is this: you are ten years younger than I, and
you are under my care; and much as I dislike to talk, we must reach an
understanding."

"Well?" said Harry, lighting a cigarette and seating himself on the arm
of a chair.

"You have often thought," I continued, "that I have been trying to
interfere with your freedom.  But you are mistaken; I have merely been
trying to preserve it--and I have succeeded."

"When our father and mother died you were fifteen years of age.  You
are now twenty-two; and I take some credit for the fact that those
seven years have left no stain, however slight, on the name of Lamar."

"Do I deserve that?" cried Harry.  "What have I done?"

"Nothing irremediable, but you must admit that now and then I have been
at no small pains to--er--assist you.  But there, I don't intend to
speak of the past; and to tell the truth, I suspect that we are of one
mind.  You regard me as more or less of an encumbrance; you think your
movements are hampered; you consider yourself to be treated as a child
unjustly.

"Well, for my part, I find my duty--for such I consider it--grows more
irksome every day.  If I am in your way, you are no less in mine.  To
make it short, you are now twenty-two years old, you chafe at
restraint, you think yourself abundantly able to manage your own
affairs.  Well--I have no objection."

Harry stared at me.

"You mean--" he began.

"Exactly."

"But, Paul--"

"There is no need to discuss it.  For me, it is mostly selfishness."

But he wanted to talk, and I humored him.  For two hours we sat,
running the scale from business to sentiment, and I must confess that I
was more than once surprised by a flash from Harry.  Clearly he was
developing, and for the first time I indulged a hope that he might
prove himself fit for self-government.

At least I had given him the rope; it remained for time to discover
whether or not he would avoid getting tangled up in it.  When we had
finished we understood each other better, I think, than we ever had
before; and we parted with the best of feeling.

Three days later I sailed for Europe, leaving Harry in New York.  It
was my first trip across in eighteen months, and I aimed at pleasure.
I spent a week in London and Munich, then, disgusted with the actions
of some of my fellow countrymen with whom I had the misfortune to be
acquainted, I turned my face south for Madrid.

There I had a friend.

A woman not beautiful, but eminently satisfying; not loose, but
liberal, with a character and a heart.  In more ways than one she was
remarkable; she had an affection for me; indeed, some years previously
I had been in a way to play Albert Savaron to her Francesca Colonna, an
arrangement prevented only by my constitutional dislike for any
prolonged or sustained effort in a world the slave of vanity and folly.

It was from the lips of this friend that I first heard the name of
Desiree Le Mire.

It was late in the afternoon on the fashionable drive.  Long, broad,
and shady, though scarcely cool, it was here that we took our daily
carriage exercise; anything more strenuous is regarded with horror by
the ladies of Spain.

There was a shout, and a sudden hush; all carriages were halted and
their occupants uncovered, for royalty was passing.  The coach, a
magnificent though cumbersome affair, passed slowly and gravely by.  On
the rear seat were the princess and her little English cousin, while
opposite them sat the great duke himself.

By his side was a young man of five and twenty with a white face and
weak chin, and glassy, meaningless eyes.  I turned to my companion and
asked in a low tone who he was.  Her whispered answer caused me to
start with surprise, and I turned to her with a question.

"But why is he in Madrid?"

"Oh, as to that," said my friend, smiling, "you must ask Desiree."

"And who is Desiree?"

"What!  You do not know Desiree!  Impossible!" she exclaimed.

"My dear," said I, "you must remember that for the past year and a half
I have been buried in the land of pork and gold.  The gossip there is
neither of the poet nor the court.  I am ignorant of everything."

"You would not have been so much longer," said my friend, "for Desiree
is soon going to America.  Who is she?  No one knows.  What is she?
Well, she is all things to some men, and some things to all men.  She
is a courtesan among queens and a queen among courtesans.

"She dances and loves, and, I presume, eats and sleeps.  For the past
two years she has bewitched him"--she pointed down the drive to where
the royal coach was disappearing in the distance--"and he has given her
everything.

"It was for her that the Duke of Bellarmine built the magnificent
chalet of which I was telling you on Lake Lucerne.  You remember that
Prince Dolansky shot himself 'for political reasons' in his Parisian
palace?  But for Desiree he would be alive to-day.  She is a witch and
a she-devil, and the most completely fascinating woman in the world."

I smiled.

"What a reputation!  And you say she is going to America?"

"Yes.  It is to be supposed that she has heard that every American is a
king, and it is no wonder if she is tired of only one royal lover at a
time.  And listen, Paul--"

"Well?"

"You--you must not meet her.  Oh, but you do not know her power!"

I laughed and pressed her hand, assuring her that I had no intention of
allowing myself to be bewitched by a she-devil; but as our carriage
turned and started back down the long drive toward the hotel I found
myself haunted by the white face and staring eyes of the young man in
the royal coach.

I stayed two weeks longer in Madrid.  At the end of that time, finding
myself completely bored (for no woman can possibly be amusing for more
than a month at a time), I bade my friend au revoir and departed for
the East.  But I found myself just too late for an archeological
expedition into the heart of Egypt, and after a tiresome week or so in
Cairo and Constantinople I again turned my face toward the west.

At Rome I met an old friend, one Pierre Janvour, in the French
diplomatic service, and since I had nothing better to do I accepted his
urgent invitation to join him on a vacation trip to Paris.

But the joys of Paris are absurd to a man of thirty-two who has seen
the world and tasted it and judged it.  Still I found some amusement;
Janvour had a pretty wife and a daughter eight years old, daintily
beautiful, and I allowed myself to become soaked in domestic sentiment.

I really found myself on the point of envying him; Mme.  Janvour was a
most excellent housekeeper and manager.  Little Eugenie and I would
often walk together in the public gardens, and now and then her mother
would join us; and, as I say, I found myself on the point of envying my
friend Janvour.

This diversion would have ended soon in any event; but it was brought
to an abrupt termination by a cablegram from my New York lawyers,
asking me to return to America at once.  Some rascality it was, on the
part of the agent of my estate, which had alarmed them; the cablegram
was bare of detail.  At any rate, I could not afford to disregard it,
and arranged passage on a liner sailing from Cherbourg the following
day.

My hostess gave me a farewell dinner, which heightened my regret at
being forced to leave, and little Eugenie seemed really grieved at my
departure.  It is pleasant to leave a welcome behind you; that is
really the only necessary axiom of the traveler.

Janvour took me to the railroad station, and even offered to accompany
me to Cherbourg; but I refused to tear him away from his little
paradise.

We stood on the platform arguing the matter, when I suddenly became
aware of that indistinct flutter and bustle seen in public places at
some unusual happening or the unexpected arrival of a great personage.

I turned and saw that which was worthy of the interest it had excited.

In the first place, the daintiest little electric brougham in the
world, fragile and delicate as a toy--a fairy's chariot.  Then the
fairy herself descended.  She cannot be described in detail.

I caught a glimpse of glorious golden hair, softly massive; gray-blue
eyes shot with lightning, restless, devouring, implacable,
indescribably beautiful; a skin wondrously fine, with the purity of
marble and the warmth of velvet; nose and mouth rather too large, but
perfectly formed and breathing the fire and power of love.  Really it
was rather later that I saw all this; at the time there was but a
confused impression of elegance and beauty and terrible power.

She passed from the brougham to her railway carriage supremely
unconscious of the hundreds of eyes turned on her, and a general sigh
of satisfaction and appreciation came from the throng as she
disappeared within her compartment.  I turned to Janvour.

"Who is she?"

"What?" he exclaimed in surprise.  "But my dear Lamar, not to know her
argues one a barbarian."

"Nevertheless, I do not know her."

"Well, you will have an opportunity.  She is going to America, and,
since she is on this train, she will, of course, take the same boat as
yourself.  But, my friend, beware!"

"But who is she?"

"Desiree Le Mire."



Chapter II.

BEGINNING THE DANCE.

It developed, luckily for me, that my lawyers had allowed themselves to
become unduly excited over a trifle.  A discrepancy had been discovered
in my agent's accounts; it was clearly established that he had been
speculating; but the fellow's excessive modesty and moderation had
saved me from any serious inconvenience or loss.

Some twenty thousand or so was the amount, and I did not even put
myself to the trouble of recovering it.  I placed a friend of mine, a
plodder and one of those chaps who are honest on account of lack of
imagination, in the position thus vacated and sighed with mild relief.

My experiment with Harry had proved a complete success.  Left to the
management of his own affairs, he had shown a wisdom and restraint none
the less welcome because unexpected.  He was glad to see me, and I was
no less glad to see him.

There was little new in town.

Bob Garforth, having gambled away his entire patrimony, had shot and
killed himself on the street; Mrs. Ludworth had publicly defied gossip
and smiled with favor on young Driscoll; the new director of the
Metropolitan Museum had announced himself an enemy to tradition and a
friend of progress; and Desiree Le Mire had consented to a two weeks'
engagement at the Stuyvesant.

The French dancer was the favorite topic of discussion in all circles.

The newspapers were full of her and filled entire columns with lists of
the kings, princes, and dukes who had been at her feet.

Bets were made on her nationality, the color of her eyes, the value of
her pearls, the number of suicides she had caused--corresponding, in
some sort, to the notches on the gun of a Western bad man.  Gowns and
hats were named for her by the enterprising department stores.

It was announced that her engagement at the Stuyvesant would open in
ten days, and when the box-office opened for the advance sale every
seat for every performance was sold within a few hours.

In the mean time the great Le Mire kept herself secluded in her hotel.
She had appeared but once in the public dining-room, and on that
occasion had nearly caused a riot, whereupon she had discreetly
withdrawn.  She remained unseen while the town shouted itself hoarse.

I had not mentioned her name to Harry, nor had I heard him speak of
her, until one evening about two weeks after my return.

We were at dinner and had been discussing some commonplace subject,
from which, by one of the freaks of association, the conversation
veered and touched on classical dancing.

"The Russians are preeminent," said I, "because they possess both the
inspiration--the fire--and the training.  In no other nation or school
are the two so perfectly joined.  In the Turkish dancers there is
perfect grace and freedom, but no life.  In Desiree Le Mire, for
example, there is indeed life; but she has not had the necessary
training."

"What?  Le Mire!  Have you seen her?" cried Harry.

"Not on the stage," I answered; "but I crossed on the same ship with
her, and she was kind enough to give me a great deal of her time.  She
seems to understand perfectly her own artistic limitations, and I am
taking her word for it."

But Harry was no longer interested in the subject of dancing.  I was
besieged on the instant with a thousand questions.

Had I known Le Mire long?  What was she like?  Was it true that Prince
Dolansky had shot himself in despair at losing her?  Was she beautiful?
How well did I know her?  Would I take him to see her?

And within half an hour the last question was repeated so many times
and with such insistence that I finally consented and left Harry
delighted beyond words.

My own experience with Desiree Le Mire had been anything but exciting.
The woman was interesting; there could be no doubt of that; but she
possessed little attraction for me.  Her charms, on close inspection,
were really quite too evident.

I require subtlety in a woman, and so far as I could discover Le Mire
knew not the meaning of the word.  We had spent many hours during the
trip across in pleasant companionship; she had done me the honor to
tell me that she found my conversation amusing; and, after all, she was
undeniably a pretty woman.  She had invited me with evident sincerity
to call on her in New York; but I had not as yet taken advantage of the
invitation.

I did not then think, and I do not now believe, that I acted foolishly
when I took Harry to see her.  In any event, he would have seen her
sooner or later, and since all temptations meet us at one time or
another, it is best to have it out with them at as early a date as
possible.  At the time, indeed, I gave the subject no thought whatever;
but if I had I should not have hesitated.

We took tea with her the following afternoon in her apartment, and I
must confess that I myself was more than a little impressed when I
entered.  I realized then that on the ship nothing had been in her
favor; she had been completely out of her element, and she was not a
good sailor.

Here all was different.  The stiffly ostentatious hotel rooms, by her
own genius or that of her maid, had been transformed into something
very nearly approaching perfection.  I was amazed at the excellent
taste displayed in her furniture and its arrangement, for it was clear
that these were no hotel properties.  Certainly a woman is at her best
only when she is able to choose or create her own surroundings.

Harry was captivated, and I can scarcely blame him.  But the poor lad
betrayed himself so frankly!  Though I suppose Le Mire was more or less
accustomed to immediate surrender.

On that day, at least, she had reason to expect it.  She satisfied the
eye, which is saying a great deal and is the highest praise possible
for a woman's beauty, when you consider the full strength of the word.

She was radiant, adorable, irresistible; I had to own that my first
impression of her had been far too weak.

We talked for an hour.  Harry had little to say as he sat devouring Le
Mire with his eyes, and whenever she turned to him for an answer to a
question or confirmation of an opinion he stammered and kept his
composure with difficulty.  Never, I suppose, did woman have clearer
evidence of her power, nor sweeter, for Harry was by no means a fool to
be carried away by the first pretty face that came in his way.

She simply overwhelmed him, and I repeat that I do not wonder at it,
for my own pulse was not exactly steady.  She asked us to dine with her.

I pleaded an engagement at the club and signed to Harry to do likewise;
but he was completely gone and paid no attention to me.

He accepted the invitation gratefully, with frank delight, and I left
them together.

It was about ten o'clock when he came home that evening.  I was seated
in the library and, hearing him enter the hall, called to him.

What a face was his!  His lips trembled with nervous feeling, his eyes
glowed like the eyes of a madman.  I half started from my chair in
amazement.

"I have no time," said he in answer to my invitation to join me with a
bottle.  "I have a letter or two to write, and--and I must get some
sleep."

"Did you just leave Le Mire?"

"Yes."

I looked at my watch.

"What under the sun did you find to talk about?"

"Oh, anything--nothing.  I say, she's charming."

His essay at indifference was amusing.

"You find her so?"

"Rather."

"She seems to have taken a fancy to you."

Harry actually grew red.

"Hardly," he said; but there was hope in the word.

"She is hardly your kind, Harry.  You know that.  You aren't going in
for this sort of thing?"

"This sort--I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do, Hal.  You know exactly what I mean.  To put the thing
plainly, Le Mire is a dangerous woman--none more so in all the world;
and, Harry boy, be sure you keep your head and watch your step."

He stood for a moment looking at me in silence with a half-angry frown,
then opened his mouth as though to speak, and finally turned, without a
word, and started for the door.  There he turned again uncertainly,
hesitating.

"I am to ride with Desiree in the morning," said he, and the next
moment was gone.

"Desiree!"

He called her Desiree!

I think I smiled for an hour over that; and, though my reflections were
not free from apprehension, I really felt but little anxiety.  Not that
I underrated Le Mire's fascination and power; to confess the truth, my
ease of mind was the result of my own vanity.  Le Mire had flattered me
into the belief that she was my friend.

A week passed--a dull week, during which I saw little of Harry and Le
Mire not at all.  At the time, I remember, I was interested in some
chemical experiments--I am a dabbler with the tubes--and went out but
little.  Then--this was on Friday--Harry sought me out in the
laboratory to tell me he was going away.  In answer to my question,
"Where?" he said, "I don't know."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Oh, a week--perhaps a month."

I looked at him keenly, but said nothing.  It would have done no good
to force him into an equivocation by questions.  Early the next morning
he departed, with three trunks, and with no further word to me save a
farewell.  No sooner was he gone than I started for the telephone to
call up Le Mire; but thought better of it and with a shrug of the
shoulders returned to the laboratory.

It was the following Monday that was to see the first appearance of Le
Mire at the Stuyvesant.  I had not thought of going, but on Monday
afternoon Billy Du Mont telephoned me that he had an extra ticket and
would like to have me join him.  I was really a little curious to see
Le Mire perform and accepted.

We dined at the club and arrived at the theater rather late.  The
audience was brilliant; indeed, though I had been an ardent
first-nighter for a year or two in my callow youth, I think I have
never seen such a representation of fashion and genius in America,
except at the opera.

Billy and I sat in the orchestra--about the twelfth row--and half the
faces in sight were well known to me.  Whether Le Mire could dance or
not, she most assuredly was, or had, a good press-agent.  We were soon
to receive an exemplification of at least a portion of the reputation
that had preceded her.

Many were the angry adjectives heaped on the head of the dancer on that
memorable evening.  Mrs. Frederick Marston, I remember, called her an
insolent hussy; but then Mrs. Frederick Marston was never original.
Others: rash, impudent, saucy, impertinent; in each instance
accompanied by threats.

Indeed, it is little wonder if those people of fashion and wealth and
position were indignant and sore.  For they had dressed and dined
hastily and come all the way down-town to see Le Mire; they waited for
her for two hours and a half in stuffy theater seats, and Le Mire did
not appear.

The announcement was finally made by the manager of the theater at a
little before eleven-o'clock.  He could not understand, he said--the
poor fellow was on the point of wringing his hands with agitation and
despair--he could not understand why the dancer did not arrive.

She had rehearsed in the theater on the previous Thursday afternoon,
and had then seemed to have every intention of fulfilling her
engagement.  No one connected with the theater had seen her since that
time, but everything had gone smoothly; they had had no reason to fear
such a contretemps as her nonappearance.

They had sent to her hotel; she was gone, bag and baggage.  She had
departed on Friday, leaving no word as to her destination.  They had
asked the police, the hotels, the railroads, the steamship
companies--and could find no trace of her.

The manager only hoped--he hoped with all his heart--that his frank and
unreserved explanation would appease his kind patrons and prevent their
resentment; that they would understand--

I made my way out of the theater as rapidly as possible, with Billy Du
Mont at my side, and started north on Broadway.

My companion was laughing unrestrainedly.

"What a joke!" he exclaimed.  "And gad, what a woman!  She comes in and
turns the town upside down and then leaves it standing on its head.
What wouldn't I give to know her!"

I nodded, but said nothing.  At Forty-Second Street we turned east to
Fifth Avenue, and a few minutes later were at the club.  I took Du Mont
to a secluded corner of the grill, and there, with a bottle of wine
between us, I spoke.

"Billy," said I, "there's the deuce to pay.  You're an old friend of
mine, and you possess a share of discretion, and you've got to help me.
Le Mire is gone.  I must find her."

"Find Le Mire?" He stared at me in amazement.  "What for?"

"Because my brother Harry is with her."

Then I explained in as few words as possible, and I ended, I think,
with something like this:

"You know, Billy, there are very few things in the world I consider of
any value.  She can have the lad's money, and, if necessary, my own
into the bargain.  But the name of Lamar must remain clean; and I tell
you there is more than a name in danger.  Whoever that woman touches
she kills.  And Harry is only a boy."

Billy helped me, as I knew he would; nor did he insist on unnecessary
details.  I didn't need his assistance in the search, for I felt that I
could accomplish that as well alone.

But it was certainly known that Harry had been calling on Le Mire at
her hotel; conjectures were sure to be made, leading to the assertions
of busy tongues; and it was the part of my friend to counteract and
smother the inevitable gossip.  This he promised to do; and I knew
Billy.  As for finding Harry, it was too late to do anything that
night, and I went home and to bed.

The next morning I began by calling at her hotel.  But though the
manager of the theater had gotten no information from them, he had
pumped them dry.  They knew nothing.

I dared not go to the police, and probably they would have been unable
to give me any assistance if I had sought it.  The only other possible
source of information I disliked to use; but after racking my brain for
the better part of the day I decided that there was nothing else for
it, and started on a round of the ticket offices of the railroads and
steamship companies.

I had immediate success.  My first call was at the office where Harry
and I were accustomed to arrange our transportation.  As I entered the
head clerk--or whatever they call him--advanced to greet me with a
smile.

"Yes," said he in response to my question; "Mr. Lamar got his tickets
from me.  Let's see--Thursday, wasn't it?  No, Friday.  That's
right--Friday."

"Tickets!" I muttered to myself.  And in my preoccupation I really
neglected to listen to him.  Then aloud: "Where were the--tickets for?"

"Denver."

"For Friday's train?"

"Yes.  The Western Express."

That was all I wanted to know.  I hurried home, procured a couple of
hastily packed bags, and took the afternoon train for the West.



Chapter III.

A MODERN MARANA.

My journey westward was an eventful one; but this is not a "History of
Tom Jones," and I shall refrain from detail.  Denver I reached at last,
after a week's stop-over in Kansas City.  It was a delightful
adventure--but it had nothing to do with the story.

I left the train at the Rocky Mountain city about the middle of the
afternoon.  And now, what to do?  I think I am not a fool, but I
certainly lack the training of a detective, and I felt perfectly
rudderless and helpless as I ordered the taxi-driver to take me to the
Alcazar Hotel.

I was by no means sure that Harry had come to Denver.  He was traveling
with a bundle of animated caprice, a creature who would have hauled him
off the train at Rahway, New Jersey, if she had happened to take a
fancy to the place.  At the moment, I reflected, they might be driving
along Michigan Boulevard, or attending a matinee at the Willis Wood, or
sipping mint juleps at the Planters'.

Even if they were in Denver, how was I to find them?  I keenly
regretted the week I had lost.  I was sure that Harry would avoid any
chance of publicity and would probably shun the big hotels.  And Denver
is not a village.

It was the beauty of Le Mire that saved me.  Indeed, I might have
foreseen that; and I have but poorly portrayed the force of her
unmatchable fascination unless you have realized that she was a woman
who could pass nowhere without being seen; and, seen, remembered.

I made inquiries of the manager of the hotel, of course, but was
brought up sharply when he asked me the names of my friends for whom I
was asking.  I got out of it somehow, some foolish evasion or other,
and regarded my task as more difficult than ever.

That same evening I dined at the home of my cousin, Hovey Stafford, who
had come West some years before on account of weak lungs, and stayed
because he liked it.  I met his wife that evening for the first time;
she may be introduced with the observation that if she was his reason
for remaining in the provinces, never did man have a better one.

We were on the veranda with our after-dinner cigars.  I was
congratulating Hovey on the felicity of his choice and jocularly
sympathizing with his wife.

"Yes," said my cousin, with a sigh, "I never regretted it till last
week.  It will never be the same again."

Mrs. Hovey looked at him with supreme disdain.

"I suppose you mean Senora Ramal," said she scornfully.

Her husband, feigning the utmost woe, nodded mournfully; whereupon she
began humming the air of the Chanson du Colonel, and was stopped by a
smothering kiss.

"And who is the Senora Ramal?" I asked.

"The most beautiful woman in the world," said Mrs. Hovey.

This from a woman who was herself beautiful!  Amazing!  I suppose my
face betrayed my thought.

"It isn't charity," she smiled.  "Like John Holden, I have seen
fire-balloons by the hundred, I have seen the moon, and--then I saw no
more fire-balloons."

"But who is she?"

Hovey explained.  "She is the wife of Senor Ramal.  They came here some
ten days ago, with letters to one or two of the best families, and
that's all we know about them.  The senora is an entrancing mixture of
Cleopatra, Sappho, Helen of Troy, and the devil.  She had the town by
the ears in twenty-four hours, and you wouldn't wonder at it if you saw
her."

Already I felt that I knew, but I wanted to make sure.

"Byron has described her," I suggested, "in Childe Harold."

"Hardly," said Hovey.  "No midnight beauty for hers, thank you.  Her
hair is the most perfect gold.  Her eyes are green; her skin remarkably
fair.  What she may be is unknowable, but she certainly is not Spanish;
and, odder still, the senor himself fits the name no better."

But I thought it needless to ask for a description of Harry; for I had
no doubt of the identity of Senor Ramal and his wife.  I pondered over
the name, and suddenly realized that it was merely "Lamar" spelled
backward!

The discovery removed the last remaining shadow of doubt.

I asked in a tone of assumed indifference for their hotel, expressing a
desire to meet them--and was informed by Hovey that they had left
Denver two days previously, nor did he know where they had gone.

Thus did I face another obstacle.  But I was on the track; and the
perfume of a woman's beauty is the strongest scent in the world as well
as the sweetest.  I thanked my cousin for a pleasant evening--though he
did not know the extent of my debt to him--and declined his urgent
invitation to have my luggage brought to his home.

On my way to the hotel I was struck by a sudden thought: Senor Ramal
could not be my brother or my cousin would have recognized him!  But I
immediately reflected that the two had not seen each other for some ten
years, at which time Harry had been a mere boy.

The following morning, with little difficulty, I ascertained the fact
that the Ramals had departed--at least ostensibly--for Colorado Springs.

I followed.  That same evening, when I registered at the Antlers Hotel,
a few minutes before the dinner hour, I turned over two pages of the
book, and there before me was the entry, "Senor and Senora Ramal,
Paris." It was in Harry's handwriting.

After dinner--a most excellent dinner, with melons from La Junta and
trout from the mountain streams--I descended on the hotel clerk with
questions.  He was most obliging--a sharp, pleasant fellow, with
prominent ears and a Rocky Mountain twang.

"Senor and Senora Ramal?  Most assuredly, sir.  They have been here
several days.  No, they are not now in the hotel.  They left this
afternoon for Manitou, to take dinner there, and are going to make the
night trip up the Peak."

An idea immediately suggested itself to me.  They would, of course,
return to the hotel in the morning.  All I had to do was to sit down
and wait for them; but that would have been dull sport.  My idea was
better.

I sought out the hotel's wardrobe--there is nothing the Antlers will
not do for you--and clothed myself in khaki, leggings, and boots.  Then
I ordered a car and set out for Manitou, at the foot of the mountain.

By ten o'clock I was mounted on a donkey, headed for the top, after
having been informed by a guide that "the man and the beautiful lady"
had departed an hour previous.

Having made the ascent twice before, I needed no guide.  So I decided;
but I regretted the decision.  Three times I lost the path; once I came
perilously near descending on the village below--well, without
hesitation.  It was well after midnight when I passed the Half-way
House, and I urged my donkey forward with a continual rat-a-tat-tat of
well-directed kicks in the effort to make my goal.

You who have experienced the philosophical calm and superb indifference
of the Pike's Peak donkey may imagine the vocabulary I used on this
occasion--I dare not print it.  Nor did his speed increase.

I was, in fact, a quarter of an hour late.  I was still several hundred
yards from the summit when the sun's first rays shot through the thin
atmosphere, creating colorful riot among the clouds below, and I
stopped, holding my breath in awe.

There is no art nor poetry in that wonderful sight; it is glorious war.
The sun charges forth in a vast flame of inconceivable brilliance; you
can almost hear the shout of victory.  He who made the universe is no
artist; too often He forgets restraint, and blinds us.

I turned, almost regretting that I had come, for I had been put out of
tune with my task.  Then I mounted the donkey and slowly traversed the
few remaining yards to the Peak.

There, seated in the dazzling sunshine on the edge of a huge boulder
near the eastern precipice, were the two I sought.

Le Mire's head was turned from me as she sat gazing silently at the
tumbling, gorgeous mass of clouds that seemed almost to be resting on
her lap; Harry was looking at her.  And such a look!

There was no rival even in nature that could conquer Le Mire; never, I
believe, did woman achieve a more notable victory than hers of that
morning.  I watched them for several minutes before I moved or spoke;
and never once did Harry's eyes leave her face.

Then I advanced a step, calling his name; and they turned and caught
sight of me.

"Paul!" cried Harry, leaping to his feet; then he stopped short and
stared at me half defiantly, half curiously, moving close to Le Mire
and placing his hand on her shoulder like a child clinging to a toy.

His companion had not moved, except to turn her head; but after the
first swift shadow of surprise her face brightened with a smile of
welcome, for all the world as though this were a morning call in her
boudoir.

"Senor and Senora Ramal, I believe?" said I with a smile, crossing to
them with an exaggerated bow.

I could see Harry cocking his ear to catch the tone of my first words,
and when he heard their friendliness a grin overspread his face.  He
took his hand from Le Mire's shoulder and held it out to me.

"How did you come here?  How did you find us?"

"You forgot to provide Le Mire with a veil," said I by way of answer.

Harry looked at me, then at his companion.  "Of course," he agreed--"of
course.  By Jove!  that was stupid of us."

Whereupon Le Mire laughed with such frank enjoyment of the boy's
simplicity that I couldn't help but join her.

"And now," said Harry, "I suppose you want to know--"

"I want to know nothing--at present," I interrupted.  "It's nearly six
o'clock, and since ten last night I've been on top of the most
perfectly imbecile donkey ever devised by nature.  I want breakfast."

Velvet lids were upraised from Le Mire's eyes.  "Here?" she queried.

I pointed to the place--extreme charity might give it the title of
inn--where smoke was rising from a tin chimney.

Soon we were seated inside with a pot of steaming black coffee before
us.  Harry was bubbling over with gaiety and good will, evidently
occasioned by my unexpected friendliness, while Le Mire sat for the
most part silent.  It was easy to see that she was more than a little
disturbed by my arrival, which surprised me.

I gazed at her with real wonder and increasing admiration.  It was six
in the morning; she had had no sleep, and had just finished a most
fatiguing journey of some eight hours; but I had never seen her so
beautiful.

Our host approached, and I turned to him:

"What have you?"

There was pity in his glance.

"Aigs," said he, with an air of finality.

"Ah!" said Le Mire.  "I want them--let's see--au beurre noire, if you
please."

The man looked at her and uttered the single word: "Fried."

"Fried?" said she doubtfully.

"Only fried," was the inexorable answer.  "How many?"

Le Mire turned to me, and I explained.  Then she turned again to the
surly host with a smile that must have caused him to regret his
gruffness.

"Well, then, fr-r-ied!" said she, rolling the "r" deliciously.  "And
you may bring me five, if you please."

It appeared that I was not the only hungry one.  We ate leisurely and
smoked more leisurely still, and started on our return journey a little
before eight o'clock.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at the Antlers.  The trip
was accomplished without accident, but Le Mire was thoroughly exhausted
and Harry was anything but fresh.  That is the worst of mountain
climbing: the exaltation at the summit hardly pays you for the reaction
at the foot.  We entered the broad portico with frank sighs of relief.

I said something about joining them at dinner and left for my own rooms.

At dinner that evening Harry was in high spirits and took great delight
in everything that was said, both witty and dull, while Le Mire
positively sparkled.

She made her impression; not a man in the well-filled room but sent his
tribute of admiring glances as she sat seemingly unconscious of all but
Harry and myself.  That is always agreeable; a man owes something to
the woman who carries a room for him.

I had intended to have a talk with Harry after dinner, but I postponed
it; the morning would assuredly be better.  There was dancing in the
salon, but we were all too tired to take advantage of it; and after
listening to one or two numbers, during which Le Mire was kept busy
turning aside the importunities of would-be partners, we said good
night and sought our beds.

It was late the next morning when the precious pair joined me in the
garden, and when we went in for breakfast we found the dining-room
quite empty.  We did not enjoy it as on the morning previous; the
cuisine was of the kind usually--and in this case justly--described as
"superior," but we did not have the same edge on our appetite.

We were not very talkative; I myself was almost taciturn, having before
me the necessity of coming to an understanding with Harry, a task which
I was far from relishing.  But there were certain things I must know.

"What do you say to a ride down the valley?" said Harry.  "They have
excellent horses here; I tried one of 'em the other day."

"I trust that they bear no resemblance to my donkey," said I with
feeling.

"Ugh!" said Le Mire with a shudder.  "Never shall I forget that ride.
Besides," she added, turning to Harry, "this morning I would be in the
way.  Don't you know that your brother has a thousand things to say to
you?  He wants to scold you; you must remember that you are a very bad
boy."

And she sent me a glance half defiant, half indifferent, which plainly
said: "If I fight you, I shall win; but I really care very little about
it one way or the other."

After breakfast she went to her room--to have her hair dressed, she
said--and I led Harry to a secluded corner of the magnificent grounds
surrounding the hotel.  During the walk we were both silent: Harry, I
suppose, was wondering what I was going to say, while I was trying to
make up my own mind.

"I suppose," he began abruptly, "you are going to tell me I have acted
like a fool.  Go ahead; the sooner it's over the better."

"Nothing of the sort," said I, glad that he had opened it.

He stopped short, demanding to know what I meant.

"Of course," I continued, "Le Mire is a most amazing prize.  Not
exactly my style perhaps, but there are few men in the world who
wouldn't envy you.  I congratulate you.

"But there were two things I feared for several reasons--Le Mire's
fascination, your own youth and impulsive recklessness, and the rather
curious mode of your departure.  I feared first and most that you would
marry her; second, that you would achieve odium and publicity for our
name."

Harry was regarding me with a smile which had in it very little of
amusement; it held a tinge of bitterness.

"And so," he burst out suddenly, "you were afraid I would marry her!
Well, I would.  The last time I asked her"--again the smile--"was this
morning."

"And--"

"She won't have me."

"Bah!" I concealed my surprise, for I had really not thought it
possible that the lad could be such a fool.  "What's her game, Harry?"

"Game the deuce!  I tell you she won't have me."

"You have asked her?"

"A thousand times.  I've begged her on my knees.  Offered
her--anything."

"And she refuses?"

"Positively."

"Refuses?"

"With thanks."

I stared at him for a moment in silence.  Then I said: "Go and get her
and bring her here.  I'll find out what she wants," and sat down on a
bench to wait.  Harry departed for the hotel without a word.

In a few minutes he returned with Le Mire.  I rose and proffered her a
seat on the bench, which she accepted with a smile, and Harry sat down
at her side.  I stood in front of them.

"Le Mire," said I, and I believe I frowned, "my brother tells me that
you have been offered the name of Lamar in marriage."

"I have thanked him for it," said she with a smile.

"And declined it."

"And--declined it," she agreed.

"Well," said I, "I am not a man of half measures, as you will soon see,
Le Mire.  Besides, I appreciate your power.  On the day," I continued
with slow precision--"on the day that you give me a contract to adhere
to that refusal you may have my check for one million dollars."

She surprised me; I admit it.  I had expected a burst of anger, with a
touch of assumed hauteur; the surrender to follow, for I had made the
stake high.  But as I stood looking down at her, waiting for the flash
of her eye, I was greeted by a burst of laughter--the frank laughter of
genuine mirth.  Then she spoke:

"Oh, you Americans!  You are so funny!  A million dollars!  It is
impossible that I should be angry after such a compliment.  Besides,
you are so funny!  Do you not know Le Mire?  Am I not a princess if I
desire it--tomorrow--today?  Bah!  There is the world--is it not mine?
Mrs. Lamar?  Ugh!  Pardon me, my friend, but it is an ugly name.

"You know my ancestors?  De L'Enclos, Montalais, Maintenon, La Marana!
They were happy--in their way--and they were great.  I must do nothing
unworthy of them.  Set your mind at rest, Mr. Lamar; but, really, you
should have known better--you who have seen the world and Le Mire in
Paris!  And now our amusement is perhaps ended?  Now we must return to
that awful New York?  Voila!"

Indeed I had not understood her.  And how could I?  There is only one
such woman in a generation; sometimes none, for nature is sparing of
her favorites.  By pure luck she sat before me, this twentieth-century
Marana, and I acknowledged her presence with a deep bow of apology and
admiration.

"If you will forgive me, madame," I said, "I will--not attempt to make
reparation, for my words were not meant for you.  Consider them
unspoken.  As for our amusement, why need it end?  Surely, we can
forget?  I see plainly I am not a St.  Evremond, but neither am I a
fool.  My brother pleases you--well, there he is.  As for myself, I
shall either stay to take care of you two children, or I shall return
to New York, as you desire."

Le Mire looked at me uncertainly for a moment, then turned to Harry and
with a fluttering gesture took his hand in her own and patted it gaily.
Then she laughed the happy laugh of a child as she said:

"Then it is well!  And, monsieur, you are less an American than I
thought.  By all means, stay--we shall be so jolly!  Will we not, my
little friend?"

Harry nodded, smiling at her.  But there was a troubled look in his
face.



Chapter IV.

ALLONS!

The events of the month that followed, though exciting enough, were of
a similarity that would make their narration tedious, and I shall pass
over them as speedily as possible.

We remained at Colorado Springs only two days after that morning in the
garden.  Le Mire, always in search of novelty, urged us away, and,
since we really had nothing in view save the satisfaction of her whims,
we consented.  Salt Lake City was our next resting-place, but Le Mire
tired of it in a day.

"I shall see the Pacific," she said to Harry and me, and we immediately
set out for San Francisco.

Is it necessary for me to explain my attitude?  But surely it explains
itself.  For one thing, I was disinclined to leave Harry in a position
where he was so abundantly unable to take care of himself.  For
another, I take amusement wherever it offers itself, and I was most
certainly not bored.

The vagaries and caprices of a beautiful woman are always interesting,
and when you are allowed to study them at close range without being
under the necessity of acting the part of a faithful lover they become
doubly so.

Le Mire managed Harry with wonderful tact and finesse; I sat back and
laughed at the performance, now and then applying a check when her
riotous imagination seemed likely to run away with us.

At San Francisco she achieved a triumph, notorious to the point of
embarrassment.  Paul Lamar, of New York, had introduced himself into
the highest circle of society, and in turn had introduced his friends,
Senor and Senora Ramal.  The senora captured the town in a single night
at a reception and ball on Telegraph Hill.

The day following there were several dozens of cards left for her at
our hotel; invitations arrived by the score.  She accepted two or three
and made the fortune of two drawing-rooms; then suddenly tired of the
sport and insulted a most estimable lady, our hostess, by certain
remarks which inadvertently reached the ears of the lady's husband.

"You have done for yourself, Le Mire," I told her.

She answered me with a smile--straightway proceeded to issue
invitations for an "entertainment" at our hotel.  I had no idea what
she meant to do; but gave the thing no thought, feeling certain that
few, or none, of the invitations would be accepted--wherein I was badly
mistaken, for not one was refused.

Well, Le Mire danced for them.

For myself it was barely interesting; I have passed the inner portals
of the sacred temples of India, and the human body holds no surprises
for me.  But the good people of San Francisco were shocked, astonished,
and entranced.  Not a man in the room but was Le Mire's slave; even the
women were forced to applaud.  She became at once a goddess and an
outcast.

The newspapers of the following morning were full of it, running the
scale of eulogy, admiration, and wonder.  And one of the articles,
evidently written by a man who had been considerably farther east than
San Francisco, ended with the following paragraph:


In short, it was sublime, and with every movement and every gesture
there was a something hidden, a suggestion of a personality and
mysterious charm that we have always heretofore considered the
exclusive property of just one woman in the world.  But Desiree Le Mire
is not in San Francisco; though we declare that the performance of last
evening was more than enough to rouse certain suspicions, especially in
view of Le Mire's mysterious disappearance from New York.


I took the paper to Desiree in her room, and while she read the article
stood gazing idly from a window.  It was about eleven in the morning;
Harry had gone for a walk, saying that he would return in half an hour
to join us at breakfast.

"Well?" said Desiree when she had finished.

"But it is not well," I retorted, turning to face her.  "I do not
reproach you; you are being amused, and so, I confess, am I.  But your
name--that is, Le Mire--has been mentioned, and discovery is sure to
follow.  We must leave San Francisco at once."

"But I find it entertaining."

"Nevertheless, we must leave."

"But if I choose to stay?"

"No; for Harry would stay with you."

"Well, then--I won't go."

"Le Mire, you will go?"

She sent me a flashing glance, and for a moment I half expected an
explosion.  Then, seeming to think better of it, she smiled:

"But where?  We can't go west without falling into the ocean, and I
refuse to return.  Where?"

"Then we'll take the ocean."

She looked up questioningly, and I continued:

"What would you say to a yacht--a hundred and twenty foot steamer, with
a daredevil captain and the coziest little cabins in the world?"

"Bah!" Le Mire snapped her fingers to emphasize her incredulity.  "It
does not exist."

"But it does.  Afloat and in commission, to be had for the asking and
the necessary check.  Dazzling white, in perfect order, a second
Antoine for a chef, rooms furnished as you would your own villa.  What
do you say?"

"Really?" asked Le Mire with sparkling eyes.

"Really."

"Here--in San Francisco?"

"In the harbor.  I saw her myself this morning."

"Then I say--allons!  Ah, my friend, you are perfection!  I want to see
it.  Now!  May I?  Come!"

I laughed at her eager enthusiasm as she sprang up from her chair.

"Le Mire, you are positively a baby.  Something new to play with!
Well, you shall have it.  But you haven't had breakfast.  We'll go out
to see her this afternoon; in fact, I have already made an appointment
with the owner."

"Ah!  Indeed, you are perfection.  And--how well you know me." She
paused and seemed to be searching for words; then she said abruptly:
"M.  Lamar, I wish you to do me a favor."

"Anything, Le Mire, in or out of reason."

Again she hesitated; then:

"Do not call me Le Mire."

I laughed.

"But certainly, Senora Ramal.  And what is the favor?"

"That."

"That--"

"Do not call me Le Mire--nor Senora Ramal."

"Well, but I must address you occasionally."

"Call me Desiree."

I looked at her with a smile.

"But I thought that that was reserved for your particular friends."

"So it is."

"Then, my dear senora, it would be impertinent of me."

"But if I request it?"

"I have said--anything in or out of reason.  And, of course, I am one
of the family."

"Is that the only reason?"

I began to understand her, and I answered her somewhat dryly: "My dear
Desiree, there can be none other."

"Are you so--cold?"

"When I choose."

"Ah!" It was a sigh rather than an exclamation.  "And yet, on the
ship--do you remember?  Look at me, M.  Lamar.  Am I not--am I so
little worthy of a thought?"

Her lips were parted with tremulous feeling; her eyes glowed with a
strange fire, and yet were tender.  Indeed, she was "worthy of a
thought"--dangerously so; I felt my pulse stir.  It was necessary to
assume a stoicism I was far from feeling, and I looked at her with a
cynical smile and spoke in a voice as carefully deliberate as I could
make it.

"Le Mire," I said, "I could love you, but I won't." And I turned and
left her without another word.

Why?  I haven't the slightest idea.  It must have been my vanity.  Some
few men had conquered Le Mire; others had surrendered to her; certainly
none had ever been able to resist her.  There was a satisfaction in it.
I walked about the lobby of the hotel till Harry returned, idiotically
pleased with myself.

At the breakfast table I acquainted Harry with our plans for a cruise,
and he was fully as eager about it as Le Mire had been.  He wanted to
weigh anchor that very afternoon.  I explained that it was necessary to
wait for funds from New York.

"How much?" said he.  "I'm loaded."

"I've sent for a hundred thousand," said I.

"Are you going to buy her?" he demanded with astonishment.

Then we fell to a discussion of routes.  Harry was for Hawaii; Le Mire
for South America.

We tossed a coin.

"Heads," said Desiree, and so it fell.

I requested Le Mire to keep to the hotel as closely as possible for the
days during which it was necessary for us to remain in San Francisco.
She did so, but with an apparent effort.

I have never seen a creature so full of nervous energy and fire; only
by severe restraint could she force herself to even a small degree of
composure.  Harry was with her nearly every minute, though what they
found to talk about was beyond my comprehension.  Neither was exactly
bubbling over with ideas, and one cannot say "I love you" for
twenty-four hours a day.

It was a cool, sunny day in the latter part of October when we weighed
anchor and passed through the Golden Gate.  I had leased the yacht for
a year, and had made alternative plans in case Le Mire should tire of
the sport, which I thought extremely probable.

She and Harry were delighted with the yacht, which was not surprising,
for she was as perfect a craft as I have seen.  Sides white as
sea-foam; everything above decks of shining brass, below mahogany, and
as clean and shipshape as a Dutch kitchen.  There were five rooms
besides the captain's, and a reception-room, dining-room, and library.
We had provisioned her well, and had a jewel of a cook.

Our first port was Santa Catalina.  We dropped anchor there at about
five o'clock in the afternoon of such a day as only southern California
can boast of, and the dingey was lowered to take us ashore.

"What is there?" asked Le Mire, pointing to the shore as we stood
leaning on the rail waiting for the crew to place the ladder.

I answered: "Tourists."

Le Mire shrugged her shoulders.  "Tourists?  Bah!  Merci, non.  Allons!"

I laughed and went forward to the captain to tell him that madame did
not approve of Santa Catalina.  In another minute the dingey was back
on its davits, the anchor up, and we were under way.  Poor captain!
Within a week he became used to Le Mire's sudden whims.

At San Diego we went ashore.  Le Mire took a fancy to some Indian
blankets, and Harry bought them for her; but when she expressed an
intention to take an Indian girl--about sixteen or seventeen years
old--aboard the yacht as a "companion," I interposed a firm negative.
And, after all, she nearly had her way.

For a month it was "just one port after another." Mazatlan, San Bias,
Manzanillo, San Salvador, Panama City--at each of these we touched, and
visited sometimes an hour, sometimes two or three days.  Le Mire was
loading the yacht with all sorts of curious relics.  Ugly or beautiful,
useful or worthless, genuine or faked, it mattered not to her; if a
thing suited her fancy she wanted it--and got it.

At Guayaquil occurred the first collision of wills.  It was our second
evening in port.  We were dining on the deck of the yacht, with half a
dozen South American generals and admirals as guests.

Toward the end of the dinner Le Mire suddenly became silent and
remained for some minutes lost in thought; then, suddenly, she turned
to the bundle of gold lace at her side with a question:

"Where is Guayaquil?"

He stared at her in amazement.

"It is there, senora," he said finally, pointing to the shore lined
with twinkling lights.

"I know, I know," said Le Mire impatiently; "but where is it?  In what
country?"

The poor fellow, too surprised to be offended, stammered the name of
his native land between gasps, while Harry and I had all we could do to
keep from bursting into laughter.

"Ah," said Desiree in the tone of one who has made an important
discovery, "I thought so.  Ecuador.  Monsieur, Quito is in Ecuador."

The general--or admiral, I forget which--acknowledged the correctness
of her geography with a profound bow.

"But yes.  I have often heard of Quito, monsieur.  It is a very
interesting place.  I shall go to Quito."

There ensued immediately a babel.  Each of our guests insisted on the
honor of accompanying us inland, and the thing would most assuredly
have ended in a bloody quarrel on the captain's polished deck, if I had
not interposed in a firm tone:

"But, gentlemen, we are not going to Quito."

Le Mire looked at me--and such a look!  Then she said in a tone of the
utmost finality:

"I am going to Quito."

I shook my head, smiling at her, whereupon she became furious.

"M.  Lamar," she burst forth, "I tell you I am going to Quito!  In
spite of your smile!  Yes!  Do you hear?  I shall go!"

Without a word I took a coin from my pocket and held it up.  I had come
to know Le Mire.  She frowned for a moment in an evident attempt to
maintain her anger, then an irresistible smile parted her lips and she
clapped her hands gaily.

"Very well," she cried, "toss, monsieur!  Heads!"

The coin fell tails, and we did not go to Quito, much to the
disappointment of our guests.  Le Mire forgot all about it in ten
minutes.

Five days later we dropped anchor at Callao.

This historic old port delighted Le Mire at once.  I had told her
something of its story: its successive bombardments by the liberators
from Chile, the Spanish squadron, buccaneering expeditions from Europe
and the Chilean invaders; not to mention earthquakes and tidal waves.
We moored alongside the stone pier by the lighthouse; the old clock at
its top pointed to the hour of eight in the morning.

But as soon as Le Mire found out that Lima was but a few miles away,
Callao no longer held any interest for her.  We took an afternoon train
and arrived at the capital in time for dinner.

There it was, in picturesque old Lima, that Le Mire topped her career.
On our first afternoon we betook ourselves to the fashionable paseo,
for it was a band day, and all Lima was out.

In five minutes every eye in the gay and fashionable crowd was turned
on Le Mire.  Then, as luck would have it, I met, quite by chance, a
friend of mine who had come to the University of San Marcos some years
before as a professor of climatology.  He introduced us, with an air of
importance, to several of the groups of fashion, and finally to the
president himself.  That night we slept as guests under the roof of a
luxurious and charming country house at Miraflores.

Le Mire took the capital by storm.  Her style of beauty was peculiarly
fitted for their appreciation, for pallor is considered a mark of
beauty among Lima ladies.  But that could scarcely account for her
unparalleled triumph.  I have often wondered--was it the effect of a
premonition?

The president himself sat by her at the opera.  There were two duels
attributed to her within a week; though how the deuce that was possible
is beyond me.

On society day at the bull-ring the cues were given by Le Mire; her
hand flung the rose to the matador, while the eight thousand excited
spectators seemed uncertain whether they were applauding her or him.
Lima was hers, and never have I seen a fortnight so crowded with
incidents.

But Le Mire soon tired of it, as was to be expected.  She greeted me
one morning at the breakfast table:

"My friend Paul, let us go to Cerro de Pasco.  They have
silver--thousands and thousands of tons--and what you call them?
Ornaments."

"And then the Andes?" I suggested.

"Why not?"

"But, my dear Desiree, what shall we do with the yacht?"

"Pooh!  There is the captain.  Come--shall I say please?"

So we went to Cerro de Pasco.  I wrote to Captain Harris, telling him
not to expect us for another month or so, and sending him sufficient
funds to last till our return.

I verily believe that every one of note in Lima came to the railroad
station to see us off.

Our compartment was a mass of flowers, which caused me to smile, for Le
Mire, curiously enough, did not like them.  When we had passed out of
the city she threw them out of the window, laughing and making jokes at
the expense of the donors.  She was in the best of humor.

We arrived at Oroya late in the afternoon, and departed for Cerro de
Pasco by rail on the following morning.

This ride of sixty-eight miles is unsurpassed in all the world.
Snow-capped peaks, bottomless precipices, huge masses of boulders that
seem ready to crush the train surround you on every side, and now and
then are directly above or beneath you.

Le Mire was profoundly impressed; indeed, I had not supposed her to
possess the sensibility she displayed; and as for me, I was most
grateful to her for having suggested the trip.  You who find yourselves
too well-acquainted with the Rockies and the Alps and the Himalayas
should try the Andes.  There is a surprise waiting for you.

But for the story.

We found Cerro de Pasco, interesting as its situation is, far short of
our expectations.  It is a mining town, filled with laborers and
speculators, noisy, dirty, and coarse.  We had been there less than
forty-eight hours when I declared to Harry and Le Mire my intention of
returning at once.

"But the Andes!" said Le Mire.  "Shall we not see them?"

"Well--there they are."

I pointed through the window of the hotel.

"Bah!  And you call yourself a traveler?  Look!  The snow!  My friend
Paul, must I ask twice for a favor?"

Once again we tossed a coin.

Ah, if Le Mire had only seen the future!  And yet--I often
wonder--would she have turned her back?  For the woman craved novelty
and adventure, and the gameness of centuries was in her blood--well,
she had her experience, which was shared only in part by Harry and
myself.

Those snow-capped peaks!  Little did we guess what they held for us.
We were laughing, I remember, as we left behind us the edge of
civilization represented by Cerro de Pasco.

We found it impossible to procure a complete outfit in the mining town,
and were forced to despatch a messenger to Lima.  He returned in two
days with mules, saddles, saddle-bags, boots, leather leggings,
knickerbockers, woolen ponchos, and scores of other articles which he
assured us were absolutely necessary for any degree of comfort.  By the
time we were ready to start we had a good-sized pack-train on our hands.

The proprietor of the hotel found us an arriero, whom he declared to be
the most competent and trustworthy guide in all the Andes--a long,
loose-jointed fellow with an air of complete indifference habitually
resting on his yellow, rather sinister-looking face.  Le Mire did not
like him, but I certainly preferred the hotel proprietor's experience
and knowledge to her volatile fancy, and engaged the arriero on the
spot.

Our outfit was complete, and everything in readiness, when Harry
suddenly announced that he had decided not to go, nor to allow Le Mire
to do so.

"I don't like it," he said in troubled tones.  "I tell you, Paul, I
don't like it.  I've been talking to some of the miners and arrieros,
and the thing is foolhardy and dangerous."

Then, seeing the expression on my face, he continued hastily: "Oh, not
for myself.  You know me; I'll do anything that any one else will do,
and more, if I can.  But Desiree!  I tell you, if anything happened to
her I--well--"

I cut him short:

"My dear boy, the idea is Desiree's own.  And to talk of danger where
she is concerned!  She would laugh at you."

"She has," Harry confessed with a doubtful smile.

I clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

"Come, brace up!  Our caravan awaits us--and see, the fairy, too.  Are
you ready, Desiree?"

She came toward us from the inner rooms of the hotel, smiling, radiant.
I shall never forget the picture she presented.  She wore white
knickerbockers, a white jacket, tan-leather boots and leggings and a
khaki hat.

Her golden hair, massed closely about her ears and upon her forehead,
shimmered in the bright sun dazzlingly; her eyes sparkled; her little
white teeth gleamed in a happy, joyous smile.

We lifted her to the back of her mule, then mounted our own.  Suddenly
a recollection shot through my brain with remarkable clearness, and I
turned to Le Mire:

"Desiree, do you know the first time I ever saw you?  It was in an
electric brougham at the Gare du Nord.  This is somewhat different, my
lady."

"And infinitely more interesting," she answered.  "Are you ready?  See
that stupid arriero!  Ah!  After all, he knew what he was about.  Then,
messieurs--allons!"

The arriero, receiving my nod uttered a peculiar whistle through his
teeth.  The mules pricked up their ears, then with one common movement
started forward.

"Adios!  Adios, senora!  Adios, senores!"

With the cry of our late host sounding in our ears we passed down the
narrow little street of Cerro de Pasco on our way to the snow-capped
peaks of the Andes.



Chapter V.

THE CAVE OF THE DEVIL.

You may remember that I made some remark concerning the difficulty of
the ascent of Pike's Peak.  Well, that is mere child's play--a morning
constitutional compared to the paths we found ourselves compelled to
follow in the great Cordillera.

Nor was it permitted us to become gradually accustomed to the danger;
we had not been two hours out of Cerro de Pasco before we found
ourselves creeping along a ledge so narrow there was scarcely room for
the mules to place their hoofs together, over a precipice three
thousand feet in the air--straight.  And, added to this was the
discomfort, amounting at times to positive pain, caused by the soroche.

Hardly ever did we find ground sufficiently broad for a breathing
space, save when our arriero led us, almost by magic it seemed, to a
camping place for the night.  We would ascend the side of a narrow
valley; on one hand roared a torrent some hundreds of feet below; on
the other rose an uncompromising wall of rock.  So narrow would be the
track that as I sat astride my mule my outside leg would be hanging
over the abyss.

But the grandeur, the novelty, and the variety of the scenery repaid
us; and Le Mire loved the danger for its own sake.  Time and again she
swayed far out of her saddle until her body was literally suspended in
the air above some frightful chasm, while she turned her head to laugh
gaily at Harry and myself, who brought up the rear.

"But Desiree!  If the girth should break!"

"Oh, but it won't."

"But if it should?"

"Tra-la-la!  Come, catch me!"

And she would try to urge her mule into a trot--a futile effort, since
the beast had a much higher regard for his skin than she had for hers;
and the mule of the arriero was but a few feet ahead.

Thus we continued day after day, I can't say how many.  There was a
fascination about the thing that was irresistible.  However high the
peak we had ascended, another could be seen still higher, and that,
too, must be scaled.

The infinite variety of the trail, its surprises, its new dangers, its
apparent vanishings into thin air, only to be found, after an all but
impossible curve, up the side of another cliff, coaxed us on and on;
and when or where we would have been able to say, "thus far and no
farther" is an undecided problem to this day.

About three o'clock one afternoon we camped in a small clearing at the
end of a narrow valley.  Our arriero, halting us at that early hour,
had explained that there was no other camping ground within six hours'
march, and no hacienda or pueblo within fifty miles.  We received his
explanation with the indifference of those to whom one day is like
every other day, and amused ourselves by inspecting our surroundings
while he prepared the evening meal and arranged the camp beds.

Back of us lay the trail by which we had approached--a narrow, sinuous
ribbon clinging to the side of the huge cliffs like a snake fastened to
a rock.  On the left side, immediately above us, was a precipice some
thousand feet in height; on the right a series of massive boulders, of
quartzite and granite, misshapen and lowering.

There were three, I remember, placed side by side like three giant
brothers; then two or three smaller ones in a row, and beyond these
many others ranged in a mass unevenly, sometimes so close together that
they appeared to be jostling one another out of the way.

For several days we had been in the region of perpetual snow; and soon
we gathered about the fire which the arriero had kindled for our camp.
Its warmth was grateful, despite our native woolen garments and heavy
ponchos.

The wind whistled ominously; a weird, senseless sound that smote the
ear with madness.  The white of the snow and the dull gray of the rocks
were totally unrelieved by any touch of green or play of water; a spot
lonely as the human soul and terrifying as death.

Harry had gone to examine the hoofs of his mule, which had limped
slightly during the afternoon; Le Mire and I sat side by side near the
fire, gazing at the play of the flames.  For some minutes we had been
silent.

"In Paris, perhaps--" she began suddenly, then stopped short and became
again silent.

But I was fast dropping into melancholy and wanted to hear her voice,
and I said:

"Well?  In Paris--"

She looked at me, her eyes curiously somber, but did not speak.  I
insisted:

"You were saying, Desiree, in Paris--"

She made a quick movement and laughed unpleasantly.

"Yes, my friend--but it is useless.  I was thinking of you.  'Ah!  A
card!  Mr. Paul Lamar.  Show him in, Julie.  But no, let him wait--I am
not at home.' That, my friend, would be in Paris."

I stared at her.

"For Heaven's sake, Desiree, what nonsense is this?"

She disregarded my question as she continued:

"Yes, that is how it would be.  Why do I talk thus?  The mountains
hypnotize me.  The snow, the solitude--for I am alone.  Your brother,
what is he?  And you, Paul, are scarcely aware of my existence.

"I had my opportunity with you, and I laughed it away.  And as for the
future--look!  Do you see that waste of snow and ice, glittering, cold,
pitiless?  Ha!  Well, that is my grave."

I tried to believe that she was merely amusing herself, but the glow in
her eyes did not proceed from mirth.  I followed her fixed gaze across
the trackless waste and, shivering, demanded:

"What morbid fancy is this, Desiree?  Come, it is scarcely pleasant."

She rose and crossed the yard or so of ground between us to my side.  I
felt her eyes above me, and try as I would I could not look up to meet
them.  Then she spoke, in a voice low but curiously distinct:

"Paul, I love you."

"My dear Desiree!"

"I love you."

At once I was myself, calm and smiling.  I was convinced that she was
acting, and I dislike to spoil a good scene.  So I merely said:

"I am flattered, senora."

She sighed, placing her hand on my shoulder.

"You laugh at me.  You are wrong.  Have I chosen this place for a
flirtation?  Before, I could not speak; now you must know.  There have
been many men in my life, Paul; some fools, some not so, but none like
you.  I have never said, 'I love you.' I say it now.  Once you held my
hand--you have never kissed me."

I rose to my feet, smiling, profoundly fatuous, and made as if to put
my arm around her.

"A kiss?  Is that all, Desiree?  Well--"

But I had mistaken her tone and overreached.  Not a muscle did she
move, but I felt myself repulsed as by a barrier of steel.  She
remained standing perfectly still, searching me with a gaze that left
me naked of levity and cynicism and the veneer of life; and finally she
murmured in a voice sweet with pain:

"Must you kill me with words, Paul?  I did not mean that--now.  It is
too late."

Then she turned swiftly and called to Harry, who came running over to
her only to meet with some trivial request, and a minute later the
arriero announced dinner.

I suppose that the incident had passed with her, as it had with me;
little did I know how deeply I had wounded her.  And when I discovered
my mistake, some time later and under very different circumstances, it
very nearly cost me my life, and Harry's into the bargain.

During the meal Le Mire was in the jolliest of moods apparently.  She
retold the tale of Balzac's heroine who crossed the Andes in the guise
of a Spanish officer, performing wondrous exploits with her sword and
creating havoc among the hearts of the fair ladies who took the dashing
captain's sex for granted from his clothing.

The story was a source of intense amusement to Harry, who insisted on
the recital of detail after detail, until Desiree allowed her memory to
take a vacation and substitute pure imagination.  Nor was the
improvisation much inferior to the original.

It was still light when we finished dinner, a good three hours till
bedtime.  And since there was nothing better to do, I called to the
arriero and asked him to conduct us on a tour of exploration among the
mass of boulders, gray and stern, that loomed up on our right.

He nodded his head in his usual indifferent manner, and fifteen minutes
later we started, on foot.  The arriero led the way, with Harry at his
heels, and Desiree and I brought up the rear.

Thrice I tried to enter into conversation with her; but each time she
shook her head without turning round, and I gave it up.  I was frankly
puzzled by her words and conduct of an hour before; was it merely one
of the trickeries of Le Mire or--

I was interested in the question as one is always interested in a
riddle; but I tossed it from my mind, promising myself a solution on
the morrow, and gave my attention to the vagaries of nature about me.

We were passing through a cleft between two massive rocks, some three
or four hundred yards in length.  Ahead of us, at the end of the
passage, a like boulder fronted us.

Our footfalls echoed and reechoed from wall to wall; the only other
sound was the eery moaning of the wind that reached our ears with a
faintness which only served to increase its effect.  Here and there
were apertures large enough to admit the entrance of a horse and rider,
and in many places the sides were crumbling.

I was reflecting, I remember, that the formation was undoubtedly one of
limestone, with here and there a layer of quartzite, when I was aroused
by a shout from Harry.

I approached.  Harry and Desiree, with Felipe, the arriero, had halted
and were gazing upward at the wall of rock which barred the exit from
the passage.  Following their eyes, I saw lines carved on the rock,
evidently a rude and clumsy attempt to reproduce the form of some
animal.

The thing was some forty feet or so above us and difficult to see
clearly.

"I say it's a llama," Harry was saying as I stopped at his side.

"My dear boy," returned Desiree, "don't you think I know a horse when I
see one?"

"When you see one, of course," said Harry sarcastically.  "But who ever
saw a horse with a neck like that?"

As for me, I was really interested, and I turned to the arriero for
information.

"Si, senor," said Felipe, "Un caballo."

"But who carved it?"

Felipe shrugged his shoulders.

"Is it new--Spanish?"

Another shrug.  I became impatient.

"Have you no tongue?" I demanded.  "Speak!  If you don't know the
author of that piece of equine art say so."

"I know, senor."

"You know?"

"Si, senor."

"Then, for Heaven's sake, tell us."

"His story?" pointing to the figure on the rock.

"Yes, idiot!"

Without a sign of interest, Felipe turned twice around, found a
comfortable rock, sat down, rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and began.
He spoke in Spanish dialect; I shall preserve the style as far as
translation will permit.

"Many, many years ago, senor, Atahualpa, the Inca, son of Huayna-Capac,
was imprisoned at Cajamarco.  Four, five hundred years ago, it was.  By
the great Pizarro.  And there was gold at Cuzco, to the south, and
Atahualpa, for his ransom, ordered that this gold be brought to Pizarro.

"Messengers carried the order like the wind, so swift that in five days
the priests of the sun carried their gold from the temples to save the
life of Atahualpa."

Felipe paused, puffing at his cigarette, glanced at his audience, and
continued:

"But Hernando Pizarro, brother of the great Pizarro, suspected a delay
in the carriers of gold.  From Pachacamac he came with twenty horsemen,
sowing terror in the mountains, carrying eighty loads of gold.  Across
the Juaja River and past Lake Chinchaycocha they came, till they
arrived at the city of Huanuco.

"There were temples and gold and priests and soldiers.  But when the
soldiers of the Inca saw the horses of the Spaniards and heard the
guns, they became frightened and ran away like little children,
carrying their gold.  Never before had they seen white men, or guns, or
horses.

"With them came many priests and women, to the snow of the mountains.
And after many days of suffering they came to a cave, wherein they
disappeared and no more were seen, nor could Hernando Pizarro and his
twenty horsemen find them to procure their gold.

"And before they entered the cave they scaled a rock near its entrance
and carved thereon the likeness of a horse to warn their Inca brethren
of the Spaniards who had driven them from Huanuco.  That is his story,
senor."

"But who told you all this, Felipe?"

The arriero shrugged his shoulders and glanced about, as much as to
say, "It is in the wind."

"But the cave?" cried Desiree.  "Where is the cave?"

"It is there, senora," said Felipe, pointing through a passage to the
right.

Then nothing would do for Desiree but to see the cave.  The arriero
informed her that it was difficult of access, but she turned the
objection aside with contempt and commanded him to lead.

Harry, of course, was with her, and I followed somewhat unwillingly;
for, though Felipe's history was fairly accurate, I was inclined to
regard his fable of the disappearing Incas as a wild tradition of the
mountains.

He had spoken aright--the path to the cave was not an easy one.  Here
and there deep ravines caused us to make a wide detour or risk our
necks on perilous steeps.

Finally we came to a small clearing, which resembled nothing so much as
the bottom of a giant well, and in the center of one of the steep walls
was an opening some thirty or forty feet square, black and rugged, and
somehow terrifying.

It was the entrance to the cave.

There Felipe halted.

"Here, senor.  Here entered the Incas of Huanuco with their gold."

He shivered as he spoke, and I fancied that his face grew pale.

"We shall explore it!" cried Desiree, advancing.

"But no, senora!" The arriero was positively trembling.  "No!  Senor,
do not let her go within!  Many times have my countrymen entered in
search of the gold, and americanos, too, and never did they return.  It
is a cave of the devil, senor.  He hides in the blackness and none who
enter may escape him."

Desiree was laughing gaily.

"Then I shall visit the devil!" she exclaimed, and before either Harry
or I could reach her she had sprung across the intervening space to the
entrance and disappeared within.

With shouts of consternation from Felipe ringing in our ears, we leaped
after her.

"Desiree!" cried Harry.  "Come back, Desiree!"

There was no answer, but echoing back from the night before us came
faint reverberations--could they be footsteps!  What folly!  For I had
thought that she had merely intended to frighten poor Felipe, and now--

"Desiree!" Harry called again with all the strength of his lungs.
"Desiree!"

Again there was no answer.  Then we entered the cave together.  I
remember that as we passed within I turned and saw Felipe staring with
white face and eyes filled with terror.

A hundred feet and we were encompassed by the most intense darkness.  I
muttered: "This is folly; let us get a light," and tried to hold Harry
back.  But he pushed me aside and groped on, crying: "Desiree!  Come
back, Desiree!"

What could I do?  I followed.

Suddenly a scream resounded through the cavern.  Multiplied and echoed
by the black walls, it was inhuman, shot with terror, profoundly
horrible.

A tremor ran through me from head to foot; beside me I heard Harry gasp
with a nameless fear.  An instant later we dashed forward into the
darkness.

How long we ran I could never tell; probably a few seconds, possibly as
many minutes.

On we rushed, blindly, impelled not by reason, but by the memory of
that terrible cry, side by side, gasping, fearful.  And then--

A step into thin air--a mighty effort to recover a footing--a wild
instant of despair and pawing helpless agony.  Then blackness and
oblivion.



Chapter VI.

CAPTURED.

The fall--was it ten feet or a thousand?  I shall never know.  Hurtling
headlong through space, a man can scarcely be expected to keep his wits
about him.

Actually, my only impression was of righteous indignation; my memory is
that I cursed aloud, but Harry denies it.

But it could not have been for long, for when we struck the water at
the bottom we were but slightly stunned by the impact.  To this Harry
has since agreed; he must have been as lucky as myself, for I took it
headlong with a clean cleavage.

I rose to the top, sputtering, and flung out my arms in the attempt to
swim--or, rather, to keep afloat--and was overjoyed to find my arms and
legs answer to the call of the brain.

About me was blackest night and utter silence, save a low, unbroken
murmur, unlike any other sound, hardly to be heard.  It was in my
effort to account for it that I first became aware of the fact that the
water was a stream, and a moving one--moving with incredible swiftness,
smooth and all but silent.  As soon as I became convinced of this I
gave up all attempt to swim, and satisfied myself with keeping my head
above the surface and drifting with the current.

Then I thought of Harry, and called his name aloud many times.  The
reverberations throughout the cave were as the report of a thousand
cannon; but there was no response.

The echoes became fainter and fainter and died away, and again all was
silence and impenetrable night, while I battled with the strong suction
of the unseen current, which was growing swifter and swifter, and felt
my strength begin to leave me.

Terror, too, began to call to me as the long minutes passed endlessly
by.  I thought, "If I could only see!" and strained my eyes in the
effort till I was forced to close them from the dizzy pain.  The utter,
complete darkness hid from me all knowledge of what I passed or what
awaited me beyond.

The water, carrying me swiftly onward with its silent, remorseless
sweep, was cold and black; it pressed with tremendous power against me;
now and then I was forced beneath the surface and fought my way back,
gasping and all but exhausted.

I forgot Desiree and Harry; I lost all consciousness of where I was and
what I was doing; the silent fury of the stream and the awful blackness
maddened me; I plunged and struggled desperately, blindly, sobbing with
rage.  This could not have lasted much longer; I was very near the end.

Suddenly, with a thrill of joy, I realized that the speed of the
current was decreasing.  Then a reaction of despair seized me; I tried
to strangle hope and resign myself to the worst.  But soon there was no
longer any doubt; the water carried me slower and slower.

I floated with little difficulty, wondering--could it be an approach to
a smaller outlet which acted as a dam?  Or was it merely a lessening of
the incline of the bed of the stream?  I cursed the darkness for my
helplessness.

Finally the water became absolutely still, as I judged by the absence
of pressure on my body, and I turned sharply at a right angle and began
to swim.  My weariness left me as by magic, and I struck out with bold
and sweeping strokes; and by that lack of caution all but destroyed
myself when my head suddenly struck against a wall of stone, unseen in
the darkness.

I was stunned completely and sank; but the ducking revived me; and when
I returned to the surface I swam a few careful strokes, searching for
the wall.  It was not there, and I had no idea of its direction.  But I
had now learned caution; and by swimming a few feet first one way, then
another, and taking care not to go far in any one direction, I finally
discovered it.

My hand easily reached the top, and, grasping the slippery surface with
a grip made firm by despair, and concentrating every ounce of strength
in one final effort, I drew myself out of the water and fell completely
exhausted on the ground.

Under such circumstances time has no place in a man's calculations; he
is satisfied to breathe.  I believe that I lay barely conscious for
several hours, but it may have been merely as many minutes.  Then I
felt life stir within me; I stretched my arms and legs and sat up.
Gradually entered my mind the thought of Desiree and Harry and the
Andes above and Felipe shuddering with terror as he flew from the cave
of the devil.

First came Harry; but hope did not enter.  It was inconceivable that
he, too, should have escaped that fearful torrent; stupendous luck
alone had saved me from being dashed senseless against the rocks and
guided me to the ledge on which I rested.

Then he was gone!  I had no thought of my own peril.  I had gone
through the world with but little regard for what it held; nothing had
been sacred to me; no affection had been more than a day's caprice; I
had merely sucked amusement from its bitter fruit.

But I loved Harry; I realized it with something like astonishment.  He
was dear to me; a keen, intense pain contracted my chest at the thought
of having lost him; tears filled my eyes; and I raised up my voice and
sang out wildly:

"Harry!  Harry, lad!  Harry!"

The cavern resounded.  The call went from wall to wall, then back
again, floating through black space with a curious tremor, and finally
died away in some dim, unseen corridor.  And then--then came an
answering call!

Owing to the conflicting echoes of the cavern, the tone could not be
recognized.  But the word was unmistakable; it was "Paul."

I sprang to my feet with a shout, then stood listening.  Out of the
blackness surrounding me came the words, in Harry's voice, much lower,
but distinct:

"Paul!  Paul, where are you?"

"Thank Heaven!" I breathed; and I answered:

"Here, Harry boy, here."

"But where?"

"I don't know.  On a ledge of rock at the edge of the water.  Where are
you?"

"Same place.  Which side are you on?"

"The right side," I answered with heartfelt emphasis.  "That is to say,
the outside.  If it weren't for this infernal darkness--Listen!  How
far away does my voice sound?"

But the innumerable echoes of the cavern walls made it impossible to
judge of distance by sound.  We tried it over and over; sometimes it
seemed that we were only a few feet apart, sometimes a mile or more.

Then Harry spoke in a whisper, and his voice appeared to be directly in
my ear.  Never have I seen a night so completely black as that cavern;
we had had several hours, presumably, for our eyes to adjust themselves
to the phenomenon; but when I held my hand but six inches in front of
my face I could not get even the faintest suggestion of its outline.

"This is useless," I declared finally.  "We must experiment.  Harry!"

"Yes."

"Turn to your left and proceed carefully along the edge.  I'll turn to
my right.  Go easy, lad; feel your way."

I crawled on my hands and knees, no faster than a snail, feeling every
inch of the ground.  The surface was wet and slippery, and in places
sloped at an angle that made me hang on for dear life to keep from
shooting off into space.

Meantime I kept calling to Harry and he to me; but, on account of our
painfully slow progress, it was half an hour or more before we
discovered that the distance between us was being increased instead of
lessened.

He let fly an oath at this, and his tone was dangerous; no wonder if
the lad was half crazed!  I steadied him as well as I could with word
of encouragement, and instructed him to turn about and proceed to the
right of his original position.  I, also, turned to the left.

Our hope of meeting lay in the probability that the ledge surrounded a
circular body of water and was continuous.  At some point, of course,
was the entrance of the stream which had carried us, and at some other
point there was almost certainly an outlet; but we trusted to luck to
avoid these.  Our chances were less than one in a thousand; but,
failing that, some other means must be invented.

The simplest way would have been for me to take to the water and swim
across to Harry, counting on his voice as a guide; but the conflicting
echoes produced by the slightest sound rendered such an attempt
dangerous.

I crept along that wet, slimy, treacherous surface, it seemed, for
hours.  I could see nothing--absolutely nothing; everything was black
void; it was hard to appreciate reality in such a nightmare.  On the
one side, nameless dangers; on the other, the unseen, bottomless lake;
enough, surely, to take a man's nerve.  My fear for Harry killed
anxiety on my own account.  We kept continually calling:

"Harry!"

"Yes."

"Steady."

"Yes.  I'm coming along.  I say, we're closer, Paul."

I hesitated to agree with him, but finally there was no longer any
doubt of it.  His voice began to reach me almost in natural tones,
which meant that we were near enough for the vibrations to carry
without interference from the walls.

Nearer still it came; it was now only a matter of a few feet; Harry
gave a cry of joy, and immediately afterward I heard his low gasp of
terror and the sound of his wild scrambling to regain a foothold.  In
his excitement he had forgotten caution and had slipped to the edge of
the water.

I dared not try to go to his assistance; so I crouched perfectly still
and called to him to throw himself flat on his face.  How my eyes
strained despairingly as I cursed the pitiless darkness!  Then the
scrambling ceased and the boy's voice sounded:

"All right, Paul!  All right!  Gad, I nearly went!"

A minute later I held his hand in mine.  At that point the incline was
at a sharp angle, and we lay flat on our backs.  For many minutes we
lay silently gripping hands; Harry was trembling violently from nervous
fatigue, and I myself was unable to speak.

What strength is there in companionship!  Alone, either of us would
probably have long before succumbed to the strain of our horrible
situation; but we both took hope and courage from that hand-clasp.

Finally he spoke:

"In Heaven's name, where are we, Paul?"

"You know as much as I do, Harry.  This cursed darkness makes it
impossible even to guess at anything.  According to Felipe, we are
being entertained by the devil."

"But where are we?  What happened?  My head is dizzy--I don't know--"

I gripped his hand.

"And no wonder.  'Tis hardly an every-day occurrence to ride an
underground river several miles under the Andes.  Above us a mountain
four miles high, beneath us a bottomless lake, round us darkness.  Not
a very cheerful prospect, Hal; but, thank Heaven, we take it together!
It is a grave--ours and hers.  I guess Desiree knew what she was
talking about."

There came a cry from Harry's lips--a cry of painful memory:

"Desiree!  I had forgotten, Desiree!"

"She is probably better off than we are," I assured him.

I felt his gaze--I could not see it--and I continued:

"We may as well meet the thing squarely like men.  Pull yourself
together, Harry; as for Desiree, let us hope that she is dead.  It's
the best thing that could happen to her."

"Then we are--no, it isn't possible."

"Harry boy, we're buried alive!  There!  That's the worst of it.
Anything better than that is velvet."

"But there must be a way out, Paul!  And Desiree--Desiree--"

His voice faltered.  I clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

"Keep your nerve.  As for a way out--at the rate that stream descends
it must have carried us thousands of feet beneath the mountain.  There
is probably a mile of solid rock between us and the sunshine.  You felt
the strength of that current; you might as well try to swim up Niagara."

"But there must be an outlet at the other end."

"Yes, and most probably forty or fifty miles away--that's the distance
to the western slope.  Besides, how can we find it?  And there may be
none.  The water is most probably gradually absorbed by the porous
formation of the rocks, and that is what causes this lake."

"But why isn't it known?  Felipe said that the cave had been explored.
Why didn't they discover the stream?"

Well, it was better to talk of that than nothing; at least, it kept
Harry from his childish cries for Desiree.  So I explained that the
precipice over which we had fallen was presumably of recent origin.

Geologically the Andes are yet in a chaotic and formative condition;
huge slides of Silurian slates and diorite are of frequent occurrence.
A ridge of one of these softer stones had most probably been encased in
the surrounding granite for many centuries; then, loosened by water or
by time, had crumbled and slid into the stream below.

"And," I finished, "we followed it."

"Then we may find another," said Harry hopefully.

I agreed that it was possible.  Then he burst out:

"In the name of Heaven, don't be so cool!  We can't get out till we
try.  Come!  And who knows--we may find Desiree."

Then I decided it was best to tell him.  Evidently the thought had not
entered his mind, and it was best for him to realize the worst.  I
gripped his hand tighter as I said:

"Nothing so pleasant, Harry.  Because we're going to starve to death."

"Starve to death?" he exclaimed.  Then he added simply, with an oddly
pathetic tone: "I hadn't thought of that."

After that we lay silent for many minutes in that awful darkness.
Thoughts and memories came and went in my brain with incredible
swiftness; pictures long forgotten presented themselves; an endless,
jumbled panorama.  They say that a drowning man reviews his past life
in the space of a few seconds; it took me a little more time, but the
job was certainly a thorough one.  Nor did I find it more interesting
in retrospect than it had been in reality.

I closed my eyes to escape the darkness.  It was maddening; easy enough
then to comprehend the hysterics of the blind and sympathize with them.
It finally reached a point where I was forced to grit my teeth to keep
from breaking out into curses; I could lie still no longer, exhausted
as I was, and Harry, too.  I turned on him:

"Come on, Hal; let's move."

"Where?" he asked in a tone devoid of hope.

"Anywhere--away from this beastly water.  We must dry out our clothing;
no use dying like drowned rats.  If I only had a match!"

We rose to our hands and knees and crawled painfully up the slippery
incline.  Soon we had reached dry ground and stood upright; then,
struck by a sudden thought, I turned to Harry:

"Didn't you drink any of that water?"

He answered: "No."

"Well, let's try it.  It may be our last drink, Hal; make it a good
one."

We crept back down to the edge of the lake (I call it that in my
ignorance of its real nature), and, settling myself as firmly as
possible, I held Harry's hand while he lowered himself carefully into
the water.  He was unable to reach its surface with his mouth without
letting go of my hand, and I shook off my poncho and used it as a line.

"How does it taste?" I asked.

"Fine!" was the response.  "It must be clear as a bell.  Lord.  I
didn't know I was so thirsty!"

I was not ignorant of the fact that there was an excellent chance of
the water being unhealthful, possibly poisoned, what with the tertiary
deposits of copper ores in the rock-basins; but the thought awakened
hope rather than fear.  There is a choice even in death.

But when I had pulled Harry up and descended myself I soon found that
there was no danger--or chance.  The water had a touch of alkali, but
nothing more.

Then we crept back up the wet ledge, and once more stood on dry ground.

The surface was perfectly level, and we set off at a brisk pace, hand
in hand, directly away from the lake.  But when, about a hundred yards
off, we suddenly bumped our heads against a solid wall of rock, we
decided to proceed with more caution.

The darkness was intensified, if anything.  We turned to the right and
groped along the wall, which was smooth as glass and higher than my
best reach.  It seemed to the touch to be slightly convex, but that may
have been delusion.

We had proceeded in this manner some hundred yards or more, advancing
cautiously, when we came to a break in the wall.  A few feet farther
the wall began again.

"It's a tunnel," said Harry.

I nodded, forgetting he could not see me.  "Shall we take it?"

"Anything on a chance," he answered, and we entered the passage.

It was quite narrow--so narrow that we were forced to advance very
slowly, feeling our way to avoid colliding with the walls.  The ground
was strewn with fragments of rock, and a hasty step meant an almost
certain fall and a bruised shin.  It was tedious work and incredibly
fatiguing.

We had not rested a sufficient length of time to allow our bodies to
recuperate from the struggle with the torrent; also, we began to feel
the want of food.  Harry was the first to falter, but I spurred him on.
Then he stumbled and fell and lay still.

"Are you hurt?" I asked anxiously, bending over him.

"No," was the answer.  "But I'm tired--tired to death--and I want to
sleep."

I was tempted myself, but I brought him to his feet, from some impulse
I know not what.  For what was the use?  One spot was as good as
another.  However, we struggled on.

Another hour and the passage broadened into a clearing.  At least so it
seemed; the walls abruptly parted to the right and left.  And still the
impenetrable, maddening darkness and awful silence!

We gave it up; we could go no farther.  A few useless minutes we
wasted, searching for a soft spot to lie on--moss, reeds, anything.  We
found none, of course; but even the hard, unyielding rock was grateful
to our exhausted bodies.  We lay side by side, using our ponchos for
pillows; our clothing at least was dry.

I do not know how long I slept, but it seemed to me that I had barely
dozed off when I was awakened by something--what?

There was no sound to my strained ears.  I sat up, gazing intently into
the darkness, shuddering without apparent reason.  Then I reflected
that nothing is dangerous to a man who faces death, and I laughed
aloud--then trembled at the sound of my own voice.  Harry was in sound
sleep beside me; his regular breathing told of its depth.

Again I lay down, but I could not sleep.  Some instinct, long
forgotten, quivered within me, telling me that we were no longer alone.
And soon my ear justified it.

At first it was not a sound, but the mere shadow of one.  It was
rhythmic, low, beating like a pulse.  What could it be?  Again I sat
up, listening and peering into the darkness.  And this time I was not
mistaken--there was a sound, rustling, sibilant.

Little by little it increased, or rather approached, until it sounded
but a few feet from me on every side, sinister and menacing.  It was
the silent, suppressed breathing of something living--whether animal or
man--creeping ever nearer.

Then was the darkness doubly horrible.  I sat paralyzed with my utter
helplessness, though fear, thank Heaven, did not strike me!  I could
hear no footstep; no sound of any kind but that low, rushing breathing;
but it now was certain that whatever the thing was, it was not alone.

From every side I heard it--closer, closer--until finally I felt the
hot, fetid breath in my very face.  My nerves quivered in disgust, not
far from terror.

I sprang to my feet with a desperate cry to Harry and swung toward him.

There was no answering sound, no rush of feet, nothing; but I felt my
throat gripped in monstrous, hairy fingers.

I tried to struggle, and immediately was crushed to the ground by the
overpowering weight of a score of soft, ill-smelling bodies.

The grasp on my throat tightened; my arms relaxed, my brain reeled, and
I knew no more.



Chapter VII.

THE FIGHT IN THE DARK.

I returned to consciousness with a sickening sensation of nausea and
unreality.  Only my brain was alive; my entire body was numb and as
though paralyzed.  Still darkness and silence, for all my senses told
me I might have been still in the spot where I had fallen.

Then I tried to move my arms, and found that my hands and feet were
firmly bound.  I strained at the thongs, making some slight sound; and
immediately I heard a whisper but a few feet away:

"Are you awake, Paul?"

I was still half dazed, but I recognized Harry's voice, and I answered
simply: "Yes.  Where are we?"

"The Lord knows!  They carried us.  You have been unconscious for
hours."

"They carried us?"

"Yes.  A thousand miles, I think, on their backs.  What--what are they,
Paul?"

"I don't know.  Did you see them?"

"No.  Too dark.  They are strong as gorillas and covered with hair; I
felt that much.  They didn't make a sound all the time.  No more than
half as big as me, and yet one of them carried me as if I were a
baby--and I weigh one hundred and seventy pounds."

"What are we bound with?"

"Don't know; it feels like leather; tough as rats.  I've been working
at it for two hours, but it won't give."

"Well, you know what that means.  Dumb brutes don't tie a man up."

"But it's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible.  But listen!"

There was a sound--the swift patter of feet; they were approaching.
Then suddenly a form bent over me close; I could see nothing, but I
felt a pressure against my body and an ill-smelling odor,
indescribable, entered my nostrils.  I felt a sawing movement at my
wrists; the thongs pulled back and forth, and soon my hands were free.
The form straightened away from me, there was a clatter on the ground
near my head, and then silence.

There came an oath from Harry:

"Hang the brute!  He's cut my wrist.  Are your hands free, Paul?"

"Yes."

"Then bind this up; it's bleeding badly.  What was that for?"

"I have an idea," I answered as I tore a strip from my shirt and
bandaged the wound, which proved to be slight.  Then I searched on the
ground beside me, and found my surmise correct.

"Here you go, Hal!  here's some grub.  But what the deuce is it?  By
Jove, it's dried fish!  Now, where in the name of--"

But we wasted no more time in talk, for we were half starved.  The
stuff was not bad; to us who had been fasting for something like
thirty-six hours--for our idea of time was extremely hazy--it was a
gorgeous banquet.  And close by there was a basin full of water.

"Pretty decent sort of beggars, I say," came Harry's voice in the
darkness.  "But who are they?"

"Ask Felipe," I answered, for by this time I was well convinced of the
nature and identity of our captors.  "As I said, dumb brutes don't bind
men with thongs, nor feed them on dried fish.  Of course it's
incredible, but a man must be prepared to believe anything."

"But, Paul!  You mean--"

"Exactly.  We are in the hands of the Incas of Huanuco--or rather their
descendants."

"But that was four hundred years ago!"

"Your history is perfect, like Desiree's geography," said I dryly.
"But what then?  They have merely chosen to live under the world
instead of on it; a rather wise decision, a cynic might say--not to
mention the small circumstance that they are prisoners.

"My dear Hal, never allow yourself to be surprised at anything; it is a
weakness.  Here we are in total darkness, buried in the Andes,
surrounded by hairy, degenerate brutes that are probably allowing us to
eat in order that we may be in condition to be eaten, with no
possibility of ever again beholding the sunshine; and what is the
thought that rises to the surface of my mind?  Merely this: that I most
earnestly desire and crave a Carbajal perfecto and a match."

"Paul, you say--eat--"

"Most probably they are cannibals.  The Lord knows they must have some
sort of mild amusement in this fearful hole.  Of course, the idea is
distasteful; before they cut us up they'll have to knock us down."

"That's a darned silly joke," said Harry with some heat.

"But it's sober truth, my boy.  You know me; I never pose.  There is
nothing particularly revolting in the thought of being eaten; the
disadvantage of it lies in the fact that one must die first.  We all
want to live; Heaven knows why.  And we stand a chance.

"We know now that there is food to be had here and sufficient air.  It
is nearly certain that we won't get out, but that can come later.  And
what an experience!  I know a dozen anthropologists that would give
their degrees for it.  I can feel myself getting enthusiastic about it."

"But what if they--they--"

"Say it.  Eat us?  We can fight.  It will be strange if we can't outwit
these vermin.  And now silence; I'm going to begin.  Listen hard--hard!
The brutes are noiseless, but if they are near we can hear their
breathing."

"But, Paul--"

"No more talk.  Listen!"

We lay silent for many minutes, scarcely breathing.  Not the slightest
sound reached our ears through the profound darkness; utter, intense
silence.  Finally I reached over and touched Harry on the shoulder, and
arose to my knees.

"Good enough!  We're alone.  We'll have to crawl for it.  Keep close
behind me; we don't want to get separated.  The first thing is to find
a sharp stone to cut through these thongs.  Feel on the ground with
your hands as we go."

It was not easy to rise at all, and still harder to make any progress,
for our ankles were bound together most effectively; but we managed
somehow to drag ourselves along.  I was in front; suddenly I felt Harry
pull at my coat, and turned.

"Just the thing, Paul.  Sharp as a knife.  Look!"

I groped for his hand in the darkness and took from it the object he
held out to me--a small flat stone with a sharp-saw edge.

"All right; let me work on you first."

I bent down to the thongs which bound his ankles.  I was convinced that
they were not of leather, but they were tough as the thickest hide.
Twice my overeagerness caused the tool to slip and tear the skin from
my hand; then I went about it more carefully with a muttered oath.
Another quarter of an hour and Harry was free.

"Gad, that feels good!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet.  "Here, Paul;
where's the stone?"

I handed it to him and he knelt down and began sawing away at my feet.

What followed happened so quickly that we were hardly aware that it had
begun when it was already finished.

A quick, pattering rush of many feet warned us, but not in time.
Hurtling, leaping bodies came at us headlong through the air and
crushed us to the ground, buried beneath them, gasping for breath;
there must have been scores of them.  Resistance was impossible; we
were overwhelmed.

I heard Harry give a despairing cry, and the scuffle followed; I myself
was utterly helpless, for the thongs which bound my ankles had not been
cut through.  Not a sound came from our assailants save their heavy,
labored breathing.

I remember that, even while they were sitting on my head and chest and
body, I noted their silence with a sort of impersonal curiosity and
wondered if they were, after all, human.  Nor were they unnecessarily
violent; they merely subdued us, rebound our wrists and ankles more
tightly than before, and departed.

But--faugh!  The unspeakable odor of their hairy bodies is in my
nostrils yet.

"Are you hurt, Paul?"

"Not a bit, Harry lad.  How do you like the perfume?"

"To the deuce with your perfume!  But we're done for.  What's the use?
They've lived in this infernal hole so long they can see in the dark
better than we can in the light."

Of course he was right, and I was a fool not to have thought of it
before and practised caution.  The knowledge was decidedly unpleasant.
No doubt our every movement was being watched by a hundred pairs of
eyes, while we lay helpless in the darkness, bound even more tightly
than before.

"Look here," said Harry suddenly, "why can't we see their eyes?  Why
don't they shine."

"My dear boy," said I, "in this darkness you couldn't see the Kohinoor
diamond if it were hanging on your nose, drawing-room travelers to the
contrary notwithstanding.  We have one advantage--they can't understand
what we say, but they even up for it by not saying anything."

There was a short silence, then Harry's voice:

"Paul--"

"Well?"

"I wonder--do you think Desiree--" He hesitated, his voice faltering.

"I think the same as you do," said I.

"But I don't know--after all, there is a chance.  Just a bare chance,
isn't there?"

"You know as well as I do, Harry.  The chances are a million to one
that Desiree--thank Heaven--has escaped all this!  And isn't that best!
Would you have her here with us?"

"No--no.  Only--"

"Lying here, bound hand and foot?  She would make a dainty morsel for
our friends."

"For the Lord's sake, Paul--"

"Well, let us forget her--for the present.  Nor do we want to make a
dainty morsel if we can help it.  Come, brace up, Hal.  It's up to us
to turn a trick."

"Well?"

"I don't know why I didn't think of it before.  I guess we were both
too dazed to have good sense.  What have you got strapped to your belt?"

"A gun," said Harry.  "Of course I thought of that.  But what good is
it after that ducking?  And I have only six cartridges."

"Nothing else?"

I could almost feel his silent gaze; then suddenly he cried out:

"A knife!"

"At last!" said I sarcastically.  "And so have I.  A six-inch,
double-edged knife, sharp as a razor and pointed like a needle.  They
didn't have sense enough to search us, and we didn't have sense enough
to realize it.  I can feel mine under me now against the ground."

"But they'll see us."

"Not if we use a decent amount of caution.  The trouble is, I can't
reach my knife with my wrists bound.  There's only one way.  Lie
perfectly still; let them think we've given it up.  I'm going to try
something."

I drew up my knees, twisted over on the hard rock, and lay flat on my
belly.  Then I drew up my hands and let my face rest on them, like a
dog with his head on his paws.  And then, keeping my body perfectly
still, and with as little movement of the jaws as possible, I sought
the tough thongs with my teeth.

That was a tedious job and a distasteful one.  For many minutes I
gnawed away at those thick cords like a dog on a bone.  It was
considerably later that I discovered what those cords were made of;
thank Heaven, I was ignorant of it at the time!  All I knew was that
they were, to use one of Harry's phrases, "tough as rats."

I did not dare pull with my wrists, for fear they would fly suddenly
apart and betray me to the unseen watchers.  It was necessary to cut
clear through with my teeth, and more than once I was on the point of
giving it up.  There was a nauseating, rancid taste to the stuff, but I
dared not even raise my head to expectorate.

Finally my teeth met; the cords were severed.  I felt carefully about
with my tongue to make sure there were no others; then, without moving
my hands in the slightest degree, carefully raised my head.

It was then that I first noticed--not light, but a thinning out of the
darkness.  It was, of course, merely the adjustment of my eyes to the
new conditions.  I could make out no forms surrounding me, but, looking
down, I could clearly distinguish the outline of my hands as they lay
on the ground before me.

And, again looking up, I fancied that I could see, some twenty or
thirty feet to the right, that the darkness again became suddenly dense
and impenetrable.

"That must be a wall," I muttered, straining my eyes toward it.

"What's that?" asked Harry sharply.

Obedient to my instructions, the lad had lain perfectly motionless and
silent for over an hour, for it must have taken me at least that long
to gnaw through the cords.

"I said that must be a wall.  Look, Harry, about thirty feet to the
right.  Doesn't it appear to you that way?"

"By Jove," he exclaimed after a moment of silence, "it's getting light!
Look!"

I explained that, instead of "it's getting light," his eyes were merely
becoming accustomed to the darkness.

"But what do you think of that?  Is it a wall?"

After a moment's silence he answered: "Ye-es," and then more
positively: "Yes.  But what good does that do us?"

"That's what I am about to tell you.  Listen!  I've cut the cords on my
wrists, and I'm going to get my knife--"

"How the deuce did you manage that?" Harry interrupted.

"With my teeth.  I've been rather busy.  I'm going to get my
knife--cautiously, so they won't suspect if they are watching us.  We
must lie close together on our sides, facing each other, so I can cut
the thongs on your wrists without being seen.  Then you are to get your
knife--carefully.  Do you understand?"

"Yes."

For the first time there was fight in Harry's voice; the curious,
barely perceptible tremor of the man of courage.

"All right.  Go easy."

We went about the thing slowly, turning but an inch at a time; a second
mistake might prove fatal.  We heard no sound of any kind, and ten
minutes later we were lying flat on our backs side by side, keeping our
hands hidden between our bodies, that the absence of the thongs might
not be discovered.  Each of us held in his right hand the hilt of a six
inch knife.  Cold steel is by no means the favorite weapon of an
American, but there are times--

"Have you got your knife, Harry?"

"Yes."

"Good!  Now listen close and act quick.  When I give the word reach
down and grasp the cords round your ankles in your left hand, then cut
them through with one stroke.  Then to your feet; grasp my jacket, and
together to the wall--that's for our backs.  And then--let 'em come!"

"All right, old man."

"Don't waste any time; they'll probably start for us the instant we sit
up.  Be sure you get your feet free at the first stroke; feel them well
with your left hand first.  Are you ready?"

"Yes." And his voice was now calm and perfectly steady.

"Then--one, two, three--go!"

We bent and cut and sprang to our feet, and dashed for the wall.  There
was a sound of rushing feet--our backs hugged the kindly rock--I heard
Harry's shout, "Here they come!"--dim, rushing forms--fingers clutching
at my throat.

I felt the blade of my knife sink into soft and yielding flesh, and a
warm, thick liquid flow over my hand and arm.



Chapter VIII.

THE DANCE OF THE SUN.

It seemed to me then in the minutes that followed that there were
thousands of black demons in that black hole.  At the first rushing
impact I shouted to Harry: "Keep your back to the wall," and for
response I got a high, ringing laugh that breathed the joy of battle.

The thing was sickening.  Harry is a natural fighting man; I am not.
Without the wall at our backs we would have been overpowered in thirty
seconds; as it was, we were forced to handle half a dozen of them at
once, while the others surged in from behind.  They had no weapons, but
they had the advantage of being able to see us.

They clutched my throat, my arms, my legs, my body; there was no room
to strike; I pushed the knife home.  They fastened themselves to my
legs and feet and tried to bring me down from beneath; once, in
slashing at the head of one whose teeth were set in my calf, I cut
myself on the knee.  It was difficult to stand in the wet, slippery
pool that formed at my feet.

Suddenly I heard a sound that I understood too well--the curious,
rattling sound of a man who is trying to call out when he is being
strangled.

"Harry!" I cried, and I fought like a wild man to get to him, with
knife, feet, hands, teeth.  I reached his coat, his arm; it was
dangerous to strike so near him in the dark, but I felt him sinking to
the ground.

Then I found the taut, straining fingers about his throat, and lunged
forward with the knife--and the fingers relaxed.

Again we were fighting together side by side.

As their bodies fell in front of us we were pressed harder, for those
behind climbed up on the corpses of their fellows and literally
descended on our heads from the air.  We could not have held out much
longer; our breath was coming in quick, painful gasps; Harry stumbled
on one of the prostrate brutes and fell; I tried to lift him and was
unequal to the task.

It appeared to be the end.

Suddenly there rang throughout the cavern a sound as of a gigantic,
deep-toned bell.  The walls sent it back and forth with deafening
echoes; it was as though the mountain had descended with one tremendous
crash into its own bowels.

As though by magic, the assault ceased.

The effect was indescribable.  We could see nothing; we merely became
suddenly aware that there were no longer hands clutching at our throats
or hairy bodies crushing us to the ground.  It was as though the horde
of unseen devils had melted into thin air.  There were movements on the
ground, for many of them had been wounded; a man cannot always reach
the spot in the dark.  This lasted for two or three minutes; they were
evidently removing those who still had life in them, for the straining
breath of men dragging or lifting burdens was plainly audible.

Gradually that, too, died away with the last reverberations of the
mysterious sound that had saved us, and we found ourselves alone--or at
least unmolested--for in the darkness we could see nothing, except the
dim outlines of the prostrate forms at our feet.

The cavern was a shambles.  The smell was that of a slaughter-house.  I
had had no idea of the desperateness of our defense until I essayed to
scramble over the heap of bodies to dry ground; I shuddered and grew
faint, and Harry was in no better case.

Worse, he had dropped his knife when we stumbled, and we were forced to
grope round in that unspeakable mess for many minutes before we found
it.

"Are you hurt, lad?" I asked when once we stood clear.

"Nothing bad, I think," he answered.  "My throat is stiff, and two or
three of the brutes got their teeth in me.  In the name of Heaven,
Paul, what are they?  And what was that bell?"

These were foolish questions, and I told him so.  My leg was bleeding
badly where I had slashed myself, and I, too, had felt their teeth.
But, despite our utter weariness and our wounds, we wanted nothing--not
even rest--so badly as we wanted to get away from that awful heap of
flesh and blood and the odor of it.

Besides, we did not know at what moment they might return.  So I spoke,
and Harry agreed.  I led the way; he followed.

But which way to turn?  We wanted water, both for our dry and burning
throats and for our wounds; and rest and food.  We thought little of
safety.  One way seemed as likely as another, so we set out with our
noses as guides.

A man encounters very few misfortunes in this world which, later in
life, he finds himself unable to laugh at; well, for me that endless
journey was one of the few.

Every step was torture.  I had bandaged the cut on my leg as well as
possible, but it continued to bleed.  But it was imperative that we
should find water, and we struggled on, traversing narrow passages and
immense caverns, always in complete darkness, stumbling over unseen
rocks and encountering sharp corners of cross passages.

It lasted I know not how many hours.  Neither of us would have survived
alone.  Time and again Harry sank to the ground and refused to rise
until I perforce lifted him; once we nearly came to blows.  And I was
guilty of the same weakness.

But the despair of one inspired the other with fresh strength and
courage, and we struggled forward, slower and slower.  It was
soul-destroying work.  I believe that in the last hour we made not more
than half a mile.  I know now that for the greater part of the time we
were merely retracing our steps in a vicious circle!

It was well that it ended when it did, for we could not have held out
much longer.  Harry was leading the way, for I had found that that
slight responsibility fortified him.  We no longer walked, we barely
went forward, staggering and reeling like drunken men.

Suddenly Harry stopped short, so suddenly that I ran against him; and
at the same time I felt a queer sensation--for I was too far gone to
recognize it--about my feet.

Then Harry stooped over quickly, half knocking me down as he did so,
and dropped to his knees; and the next instant gave an unsteady cry of
joy:

"Water!  Man, it's water!"

How we drank and wallowed, and wallowed and drank!  That water might
have contained all the poisons in the world and we would have neither
known nor cared.  But it was cool, fresh, living--and it saved our
lives.

We bathed our wounds and bandaged them with strips from our shirts.
Then we arranged our clothing for cushions and pillows as well as
possible, took another drink, and lay down to sleep.

We must have slept a great many hours.  There was no way to judge of
time, but when we awoke our joints were as stiff as though they had
gotten rusty with the years.  I was brought to consciousness by the
sound of Harry's voice calling my name.

Somehow--for every movement was exquisite pain--we got to our feet and
reached the water, having first removed our clothing.  But we were now
at that point where to drink merely aggravated our hunger.  Harry was
in a savage humor, and when I laughed at him he became furious.

"Have some sense.  I tell you, I must eat!  If it were not for your--"

"Go easy, Hal.  Don't say anything you'll be sorry for.  And I refuse
to consider the sordid topic of food as one that may rightfully contain
the elements of tragedy.  We seem to be in the position of the king of
vaudeville.  If we had some ham we'd have some ham and eggs--if we had
some eggs."

"You may joke, but I am not made of iron!" he cried.

"And what can we do but die?" I demanded.  "Do you think there is any
chance of our getting out of this?  Take it like a man.  Is it right
for a man who has laughed at the world to begin to whine when it
becomes necessary to leave it?

"You know I'm with you; I'll fight, and what I find I'll take; in the
mean time I prefer not to furnish amusement for the devil.  There comes
a time, I believe, when the stomach debases us against our wills.  May
I die before I see it."

"But what are we to do?"

"That's more like it.  There's only one hope.  We must smell out the
pantry that holds the dried fish."

We talked no more, but set about bathing and dressing our wounds.  Gad,
how that cold water took them!  I was forced to set my teeth deep into
my lip to keep from crying out, and once or twice Harry gave an
involuntary grunt of pain that would not be suppressed.

When we had finished we waded far to the right to take a last deep
drink; then sought our clothing and prepared to start on our all but
hopeless search.  We had become fairly well limbered up by that time
and set out with comparative ease.

We had gone perhaps a hundred yards, bearing off to the right, when
Harry gave a sudden cry: "My knife is gone!" and stopped short.  I
clapped my hand to my own belt instinctively, and found it empty both
of knife and gun!  For a moment we stood in silence; then:

"Have you got yours?" he demanded.

When I told him no he let out an oath.

His gun was gone, also.  We debated the matter, and decided that to
attempt a search would be a useless waste of time; it was next to
certain that the weapons had been lost in the water when we had first
plunged in.  And so, doubly handicapped by this new loss, we again set
out.

There was but one encouragement allowed to us: we were no longer in
total darkness.  Gradually our eyes were becoming accustomed to the
absence of light; and though we could by no means see clearly, nor even
could properly be said to see at all, still we began to distinguish the
outlines of walls several feet away; and, better than that, each of us
could plainly mark the form and face of the other.

Once we stood close, less than a foot apart, for a test; and when Harry
cried eagerly, "Thank Heaven, I can see your nose!" our strained
feelings were relieved by a prolonged burst of genuine laughter.

There was little enough of it in the time that followed, for our
sufferings now became a matter not of minutes or hours, but of days.
The assault of time is the one that unnerves a man, especially when it
is aided by gnawing pain and weariness and hunger; it saps the courage
and destroys the heart and fires the brain.

We dragged ourselves somehow ever onward.  We found water; the mountain
was honeycombed with underground streams; but no food.  More than once
we were tempted to trust ourselves to one of those rushing torrents,
but what reason we had left told us that our little remaining strength
was unequal to the task of keeping our heads above the surface.  And
yet the thought was sweet--to allow ourselves to be peacefully swept
into oblivion.

We lost all idea of time and direction, and finally hope itself
deserted us.  What force it was that propelled us forward must have
been buried deep within the seat of animal instinct, for we lost all
rational power.  The thing became a nightmare, like the crazy
wanderings of a lost soul.

Forward--forward--forward!  It was a mania.

Then Harry was stricken with fever and became delirious.  And I think
it was that seeming misfortune that saved us, for it gave me a spring
for action and endowed me with new life.  As luck would have it, a
stream of water was near, and I half carried and half dragged him to
its edge.

I made a bed for him with my own clothing on the hard rock, and bathed
him and made him drink, while all the time a string of delirious drivel
poured forth from his hot, dry lips.

That lasted many hours, until finally he fell into a deep, calm sleep.
But his body was without fuel, and I was convinced he would never
awaken; yet I feared to touch him.  Those were weary hours, squatting
by his side with his hand gripped in my own, with the ever-increasing
pangs of hunger and weariness turning my own body into a roaring
furnace of pain.

Suddenly I felt a movement of his hand; and then came his voice, weak
but perfectly distinct:

"Well, Paul, this is the end."

"Not yet, Harry boy; not yet."

I tried to put cheer and courage into my own voice, but with poor
success.

"I--think--so.  I say, Paul--I've just seen Desiree."

"All right, Hal."

"Oh, you don't need to talk like that; I'm not delirious now.  I guess
it must have been a dream.  Do you remember that morning on the
mountain--in Colorado--when you came on us suddenly at sunrise?  Well,
I saw her there--only you were with her instead of me.  So, of course,
she must be dead."

His logic was beyond me, but I pressed his hand to let him know that I
understood.

"And now, old man, you might as well leave me.  This is the end.
You've been a good sport.  We made a fight, didn't we?  If only
Desiree--but there!  To Hades with women, I say!"

"Not that--don't be a poor loser, Hal.  And you're not gone yet.  When
a man has enough fight in him to beat out an attack of fever he's very
much alive."

But he would not have it so.  I let him talk, and he rambled on, with
scarcely an idea of what he was saying.  The old days possessed his
mind, and, to tell the truth, the sentiment found a welcome in my own
bosom.  I said to myself, "This is death."

And then, lifting my head to look down the dark passage that led away
before us, I sprang to my feet with a shout and stood transfixed with
astonishment.  And the next instant there came a cry of wonder from
Harry:

"A light!  By all the gods, a light!"

So it was.  The passage lay straight for perhaps three hundred yards.
There it turned abruptly; and the corner thus formed was one blaze of
flickering but brilliant light which flowed in from the hidden corridor.

It came and went, and played fitfully on the granite walls; still it
remained.  It was supernaturally brilliant; or so it seemed to us, who
had lived in utter darkness for many days.

I turned to Harry, and the man who had just been ready to die was
rising to his feet!

"Wait a minute--not so fast!" I said half angrily, springing to support
him.  "And, for Heaven's sake, don't make any noise!  We're in no
condition to fight now, and you know what that light means."

"But what is it?" demanded the boy excitedly.  "Come on, man--let's go!"

To tell the truth, I felt as eager as he.  For the first time I
understood clearly why the Bible and ancient mythology made such a fuss
about the lighting up of the world.  Modern civilization is too far
away from its great natural benefits to appreciate them properly.

And here was a curious instance of the force of habit--or, rather,
instinct--in man.  So long as Harry and I had remained in the dark
passage and byways of the cavern we had proceeded almost entirely
without caution, with scarcely a thought of being discovered.

But the first sight of light made us wary and careful and silent; and
yet we knew perfectly well that the denizens of this underworld could
see as well in the darkness as in the light--perhaps even better.  So
difficult is it to guide ourselves by the human faculty of pure reason.

Harry was so weak he was barely able to stand, even in the strength of
this new excitement and hope, and we were forced to go very slowly; I
supported him as well as I was able, being myself anything but an
engine of power.  But the turn in the passage was not far away, and we
reached it in a quarter of an hour or less.

Before we made the turn we halted.  Harry was breathing heavily even
from so slight an exertion, and I could scarcely suppress a cry of
amazement when, for the first time in many days, the light afforded me
a view of his face.

It was drawn and white and sunken; the eyes seemed set deep in his
skull as they blinked painfully; and the hair on his chin and lip and
cheeks had grown to a length incredible in so short a space of time.  I
soon had reason to know that I probably presented no better an
appearance, for he was staring at me as though I were some strange
monster.

"Good Heavens, man, you took like a ghost!" he whispered.

I nodded; my arm was round his shoulder.

"Now, let's see what this light means.  Be ready for anything,
Harry--though Heaven knows we can find nothing worse than we've had.
Here, put your arm on my shoulder.  Take it easy."

We advanced to the corner together within the patch of light and turned
to the right, directly facing its source.

It is impossible to convey even a faint idea of the wild and hugely
fantastic sight that met our gaze.  With us it was a single, vivid
flash to the astonished brain.  These are the details:

Before us was an immense cavern, circular in shape, with a diameter of
some half a mile.  It seemed to me then much larger; from where we
stood it appeared to be at least two miles to the opposite side.  There
was no roof to be seen; it merely ascended into darkness, though the
light carried a great distance.

All round the vast circumference, on terraced seats of rock, squatted
row after row of the most completely hideous beings within possibility.

They were men; I suppose they must have the name.  They were about four
feet tall, with long, hairy arms and legs, bodies of a curious, bloated
appearance, and eyes--the remainder of the face was entirely concealed
by thick hair--eyes dull and vacant, of an incredibly large size; they
had the appearance of ghouls, apes, monsters--anything but human beings.

They sat, thousands of them, crouched silently on their stone seats,
gazing, motionless as blocks of wood.

The center of the cavern was a lake, taking up something more than half
of its area.  The water was black as night, and curiously smooth and
silent.  Its banks sloped by degrees for a hundred feet or so, but at
its edge there was a perpendicular bank of rock fifteen or twenty feet
in height.

Near the middle of the lake, ranged at an equal distance from its
center and from each other, were three--what shall I call
them?--islands, or columns.  They were six or eight feet across at
their top, which rose high above the water.

On top of each of these columns was a huge vat or urn, and from each of
the urns arose a steady, gigantic column of fire.  These it was that
gave the light, and it was little wonder we had thought it brilliant,
since the flames rose to a height of thirty feet or more in the air.

But that which left us speechless with profound amazement was not the
endless rows of silent, grinning dwarfs, nor the black, motionless
lake, nor the leaping tongues of flame.  We forgot these when we
followed the gaze of that terrifying audience and saw a sight that
printed itself on my brain with a vividness which time can never erase.
Closing my eyes, I see it even now, and I shudder.

Exactly in the center of the lake, in the midst of the columns of fire,
was a fourth column, built of some strangely lustrous rock.  Prisms of
a formation new to me--innumerable thousands of them--caused its sides
to sparkle and glisten like an immense tower of whitest diamonds,
blinding the eye.

The effect was indescribable.  The huge cavern was lined and dotted
with the rays shot forth from their brilliant angles.  The height of
this column was double that of the others; it rose straight toward the
unseen dome of the cavern to the height of a hundred feet.

It was cylindrical in shape, not more than ten feet in diameter.  And
on its top, high above the surface of the lake, surrounded by the
mounting tongues of flame, whirled and swayed and bent the figure of a
woman.

Her limbs and body, which were covered only by long, flowing strands of
golden hair, shone and glistened strangely in the lurid, weird light.
And of all the ten thousand reflections that shot at us from the length
of the column not one was so brilliant, so blinding, as the wild glow
of her eyes.

Her arms, upraised above her head, kept time with and served as a key
to every movement of her white, supple body.  She glided across, back
and forth, now this way, now that, to the very edge of the dizzy
height, with wild abandon, or slow, measured grace, or the rushing
sweep of a panther.

The thing was beauty incarnate--the very idea of beauty itself realized
and perfected.  It was staggering, overwhelming.  Have you ever stood
before a great painting or a beautiful statue and felt a thrill--the
thrill of perception--run through your body to the very tips of your
fingers?

Well, imagine that thrill multiplied a thousandfold and you will
understand the sensation that overpowered me as I beheld, in the midst
of that dazzling blaze of light, the matchless Dance of the Sun.

For I recognized it at once.  I had never seen it, but it had been
minutely described to me--described by a beautiful and famous woman as
I sat on the deck of a yacht steaming into the harbor of Callao.

She had promised me then that she would dance it for me some day--

I looked at Harry, who had remained standing beside me, gazing as I had
gazed.  His eyes were opened wide, staring at the swaying figure on the
column in the most profound astonishment.

He took his hand from my shoulder and stood erect, alone; and I saw the
light of recognition and hope and deepest joy slowly fill his eyes and
spread over his face.  Then I realized the danger, and I endeavored
once more to put my arm round his shoulder; but he shook me off with
hot impatience.  He leaped forward with the quickness of lightning,
eluding my frantic grasp, and dashed straight into the circle of
blazing light!

I followed, but too late.  At the edge of the lake he stopped, and,
stretching forth his arms toward the dancer on the column, he cried out
in a voice that made the cavern ring:

"Desiree!  Desiree!  Desiree!"



Chapter IX.

BEFORE THE COURT.

I expected I know not what result from Harry's hysterical rashness:
confusion, pandemonium, instant death; but none of these followed.

I had reached his side and stood by him at the edge of the lake, where
he had halted.  Desiree Le Mire stopped short in the midst of the mad
sweep of the Dance of the Sun.

For ten silent, tense seconds she looked down at us from the top of the
lofty column, bending dangerously near its edge.  Her form straightened
and was stretched to its fullest height; her white, superb body was
distinctly outlined against the black background of the upper cavern.
Then she stepped backward slowly, without taking her eyes from us.

Suddenly as we gazed she appeared to sink within the column itself and
in another instant disappeared from view.

We stood motionless, petrified; how long I know not.  Then I turned and
faced our own danger.  It was time.

The Incas--for I was satisfied of the identity of the creatures--had
left their seats of granite and advanced to the edge of the lake.  Not
a sound was heard--no command from voice or trumpet or reed; they moved
as with one impulse and one brain.

We were utterly helpless, for they numbered thousands.  And weak and
starving as we were, a single pair of them would have been more than a
match for us.

I looked at Harry; the reaction from his moment of superficial energy
was already upon him.  His body swayed slightly from side to side, and
he would have fallen if I had not supported him with my arm.  There we
stood, waiting.

Then for the first time I saw the ruler of the scene.  The Incas had
stopped and stood motionless.  Suddenly they dropped to their knees and
extended their arms--I thought--toward us; but something in their
attitude told me the truth.  I wheeled sharply and saw the object of
their adoration.

Built into the granite wall of the cavern, some thirty feet from the
ground, was a deep alcove.  At each side of the entrance was an urn
resting on a ledge, similar to those on the columns, only smaller, from
which issued a mounting flame.

On the floor of the alcove was a massive chair, or throne, which seemed
to be itself of fire, so brilliant was the glow of the metal of which
it was constructed.  It could have been nothing but gold.  And seated
on this throne was an ugly, misshapen dwarf.

"God save the king!" I cried, with a hysterical laugh; and in the
profound silence my voice rang from one side of the cavern to the other
in racing echoes.

Immediately following my cry the figure on the throne arose; and as he
did so the creatures round us fell flat on their faces on the ground.
For several seconds the king surveyed them thus, without a sound or
movement; then suddenly he stretched forth his hand in a gesture of
dismissal.  They rose as one man and with silent swiftness disappeared,
seemingly melting away into the walls of rock.  At the time the effect
was amazing; later, when I discovered the innumerable lanes and
passages which served as exits, it was not so difficult to understand.

We were apparently left alone, but not for long.  From two stone
stairways immediately in front of us, which evidently led to the alcove
above, came forth a crowd of rushing forms.  In an instant they were
upon us; but if they expected resistance they were disappointed.

At the first impact we fell.  And in another moment we had been raised
in their long, hairy arms and were carried swiftly from the cavern.
Scarcely five minutes had elapsed since we had first entered it.

They did not take us far.  Down a broad passage directly away from the
cavern, then a turn to the right, and again one to the left.  There
they dropped us, quite as though we were bundles of merchandise,
without a word.

By this time I had fairly recovered my wits--small wonder if that
amazing scene had stunned them--and I knew what I wanted.  As the brute
that had been carrying me turned to go I caught his arm.  He hesitated,
and I could feel his eyes on me, for we were again in darkness.

But he could see--I thanked Heaven for it--and I began a most
expressive pantomime, stuffing my fingers in my mouth and gnawing at
them energetically.  This I alternated with the action of one drinking
from a basin.  I hadn't the slightest idea whether he understood me; he
turned and disappeared without a sign--at least, without an audible one.

But the creature possessed intelligence, for I had barely had time to
turn to Harry and ascertain that he was at least alive, when the patter
of returning footsteps was heard.  They approached; there was the
clatter of stone on the ground beside us.

I stood eagerly; a platter, heaped, and a vessel, full!  I think I
cried out with joy.

"Come, Harry lad; eat!"

He was too weak to move; but when I tore some of the dried fish into
fragments and fed it to him he devoured it ravenously.  Then he asked
for water, and I held the basin to his lips.

We ate as little as it is possible for men to eat who have fasted for
many days, for the stuff had a sharp, concentrated taste that
recommended moderation.  And, besides, we were not certain of getting
more.

I wrapped the remainder carefully in my poncho, leaving the platter
empty, and lay down to rest, using the poncho for a pillow.  I had
enough, assuredly, to keep me awake, but there are bounds beyond which
nature cannot go.  I slept close by Harry's side, with my arm across
his body, that any movement of his might awaken me.

When I awoke Harry was still asleep, and I did not disturb him.  I
myself must have slept many hours, for I felt considerably refreshed
and very hungry.  And thirsty; assuredly the provender of those hairy
brutes would have been most excellent stuff for the free-lunch counter
of a saloon.

I unwrapped the poncho; then, crawling on my hands and knees, searched
about the ground.  As I had expected, I found another full platter and
basin.  I had just set the latter down after taking a hearty drink when
I heard Harry's voice.

"Paul."

"Here, lad."

"I was afraid you had gone.  I've just had the most devilish dream
about Desiree.  She was doing some crazy dance on top of a mountain or
something, and there was fire, and--Paul!  Paul, was it a dream?"

"No, Hal; I saw it myself.  But come, we'll talk later.  Here's some
dried fish for breakfast."

"Ah!  That--that--now I remember!  And she fell!  I'm going--"

But I wanted no more fever or delirium, and I interrupted him sternly:

"Harry!  Listen to me!  Are you a baby or a man?  Talk straight or shut
up, and don't whine like a fool.  If you have any courage, use it."

It was stiff medicine, but he needed it, and it worked.  There was a
silence, then his voice came, steady enough:

"You know me better than that, Paul.  Only--if it were not for
Desiree--but I'll swallow it.  I think I've been sick, haven't I?"

Poor lad!  I wanted to take his hand in mine and apologize.  But that
would have been bad for both of us, and I answered simply:

"Yes, a little fever.  But you're all right now.  And now you must eat
and drink.  Not much of a variety, but it's better than nothing."

I carried the platter and basin over to him, and sat down by his side,
and we fell to together.

But he would talk of Desiree, and I humored him.  There was little
enough to say, but he pressed my hand hopefully and gratefully when I
expressed my belief that her disappearance had been a trick of some
sort and no matter for apprehension.

"We must find her, Paul."

"Yes."

"At once."

But there I objected.

"On the contrary, we must delay.  Right now we are utterly helpless
from our long fast.  They would handle us like babies if it came to a
fight.  Try yourself; stand up."

He rose to his hands and knees, then sank back to the ground.

"You see.  To move now would be folly.  And of course they are watching
us at this minute--every minute.  We must wait."

His only answer was a groan of despair.

In some manner the weary hours passed by.

Harry lay silent, but not asleep; now and then he would ask me some
question, but more to hear my voice than to get an answer.  We heard or
saw nothing of our captors, for all our senses told us we were quite
alone, but our previous experience with them had taught us better than
to believe it.

I found myself almost unconsciously reflecting on the character and
nature of the tribe of dwarfs.

Was it possible that they were really the descendants of the Incas
driven from Huanuco by Hernando Pizarro and his horsemen nearly four
hundred years before?  Even then I was satisfied of it, and I was soon
to have that opinion confirmed by conclusive evidence.

Other questions presented themselves.  Why did they not speak?  What
fuel could they have found in the bowels of the Andes for their vats of
fire?  And how did sufficient air for ten thousand pairs of lungs find
its way miles underground?  Why, in the centuries that had passed, had
none of them found his way to the world outside?

Some of these questions I answered for myself, others remained unsolved
for many months, until I had opportunity to avail myself of knowledge
more profound than my own.  Easy enough to guess that the hidden
deposits of the mountain had yielded oil which needed only a spark from
a piece of flint to fire it; and any one who knows anything of the
geological formation of the Andes will not wonder at their supply of
air.

Nature is not yet ready for man in those wild regions.  Huge upheavals
and convulsions are of continual occurrence; underground streams are
known which rise in the eastern Cordillera and emerge on the side of
the Pacific slope.  And air circulates through these passages as well
as water.

Their silence remains inexplicable; but it was probably the result of
the nature of their surroundings.  I have spoken before of the
innumerable echoes and reverberations that followed every sound of the
voice above a whisper.  At times it was literally deafening; and time
may have made it so in reality.

The natural effect through many generations of this inconvenience or
danger would be the stoppage of speech, leading possibly to a complete
loss of the faculty.  I am satisfied that they were incapable of
vocalization, for even the women did not talk!  But that is ahead of
the story.

I occupied myself with these reflections, and found amusement in them;
but it was impossible to lead Harry into a discussion.  His mind was
anything but scientific, anyway; and he was completely obsessed by fear
for the safety of Desiree.  And I wasn't sorry for it; it is better
that a man should worry about some one else than about himself.

Our chance of rescuing her, or even of saving ourselves, appeared to me
woefully slim.  One fear at least was gone, for the descendants of
Incas could scarcely be cannibals; but there are other fates equally
final, if less distasteful.  The fact that they had not even taken the
trouble to bind us was an indication of the strictness of their watch.

The hours crept by.  At regular intervals our food was replenished and
we kept the platter empty, storing what we could not eat in our ponchos
against a possible need.

It was always the same--dried fish of the consistency of leather and a
most aggressive taste.  I tried to convey to one of our captors the
idea that a change of diet would be agreeable, but either he did not
understand me or didn't want to.

Gradually our strength returned, and with it hope.  Harry began to be
impatient, urging action.  I was waiting for two things besides the
return of strength; first, to lay in a supply of food that would be
sufficient for many days in case we escaped, and second, to allow our
eyes to accustom themselves better to the darkness.

Already we were able to see with a fair amount of clearness; we could
easily distinguish the forms of those who came to bring us food and
water when they were fifteen or twenty feet away.  But the cavern in
which we were confined must have been a large one, for we were unable
to see a wall in any direction, and we did not venture to explore for
fear our captors would be moved to bind us.

But Harry became so insistent that I finally consented to a scouting
expedition.  Caution seemed useless; if the darkness had eyes that
beheld us, doubly so.  We strapped our ponchos, heavy with their food,
to our backs, and set out at random across the cavern.

We went slowly, straining our eyes ahead and from side to side.  It was
folly, of course, in the darkness--like trying to beat a gambler at his
own game.  But we moved on as noiselessly as possible.

Suddenly a wall loomed up before us not ten feet away.  I gave a tug at
Harry's arm, and he nodded.  We approached the wall, then turned to the
right and proceeded parallel with it, watching for a break that would
mean the way to freedom.

I noticed a dark line that extended along the base of the wall,
reaching up its side to a height of about two feet and seemingly
melting away into the ground.  At first I took it for a separate strata
of rock, darker than that above.  But there was a strange brokenness
about its appearance that made me consider it more carefully.

It appeared to be composed of curious knots and protuberances.  I
stopped short, and, advancing a step or two toward the wall, gazed
intently.  Then I saw that the dark line was not a part of the wall at
all; and then--well, then I laughed aloud in spite of myself.  The
thing was too ludicrous.

For that "dark line" along the bottom of the wall was a row of
squatting Incas!  There they sat, silent, motionless; even when my
laugh rang out through the cavern they gave not the slightest sign that
they either heard or saw.  Yet it was certain that they had watched our
every move.

There was nothing for it but retreat.  With our knives we might have
fought our way through; but we were unarmed, and we had felt one or two
proofs of their strength.

Harry took it with more philosophy than I had expected.  As for me, I
had not yet finished my laugh.  We sought our former resting-place,
recognizing it by the platter and basin which we had emptied before our
famous and daring attempt to escape.

Soon Harry began:

"I'll tell you what they are, Paul; they're frogs.  Nothing but frogs.
Did you see 'em?  The little black devils!  And Lord, how they smell!"

"That," I answered, "is the effect of--"

"To the deuce with your mineralogy or anthromorphism or whatever you
call it.  I don't care what makes 'em smell.  I only know they do--as
Kipling says of the oonts--'most awful vile.' And there the beggars
sit, and here we sit!"

"If we could only see--" I began.

"And what good would that do us?  Could we fight?  No.  They'd smother
us in a minute.  Say, wasn't there a king in that cave the other day?"

"Yes; on a golden throne.  An ugly little devil--the ugliest of all."

"Sure; that why he's got the job.  Did he say anything?"

"Not a word; merely stuck out his arm and out we went."

"Why the deuce don't they talk?"

I explained my theory at some length, with many and various scientific
digressions.  Harry listened politely.

"I don't know what you mean," said he when I had finished, "but I
believe you.  Anyway, it's all a stupendous joke.  In the first place,
we shouldn't be here at all.  And, secondly, why should they want us to
stay?"

"How should I know?  Ask the king.  And don't bother me; I'm going to
sleep."

"You are not.  I want to talk.  Now, they must want us for something.
They can't intend to eat us, because there isn't enough to go around.
And there is Desiree.  What the deuce was she doing up there without
any clothes on?  I say, Paul, we've got to find her."

"With pleasure.  But, first, how are we going to get out of this?"

"I mean, when we get out."

Thus we rattled on, arriving nowhere.  Harry's loquacity I understood;
the poor lad meant to show me that he had resolved not to "whine." Yet
his cheerfulness was but partly assumed, and it was most welcome.  My
own temper was getting sadly frayed about the edge.

We slept through another watch uneventfully, and when we woke found our
platter of fish and basin of water beside us.  I estimated that some
seventy-two hours had then passed since we had been carried from the
cavern; Harry said not less than a hundred.

However that may be, we had almost entirely recovered our strength.
Indeed, Harry declared himself perfectly fit; but I still felt some
discomfort, caused partly by the knife-wound on my knee, which had not
entirely healed, and partly, I think, by the strangeness and monotony
of our diet.  Harry's palate was less particular.

On awaking, and after breaking our fast, we were both filled with an
odd contentment.  I really believe that we had abandoned hope, and that
the basis of our listlessness was despair; and surely not without
reason.  For what chance had we to escape from the Incas, handicapped
as we were by the darkness, and our want of weapons, and their
overwhelming numbers?

And beyond that--if by some lucky chance we did escape--what remained?
To wander about in the endless caves of darkness and starve to death.
At the time I don't think I stated the case, even to myself, with such
brutal frankness, but facts make their impression whether you invite
them or not.  But, as I say, we were filled with an odd contentment.
Though despair may have possessed our hearts, it was certainly not
allowed to infect our tongues.

Breakfast was hilarious.  Harry sang an old drinking-song to the
water-basin with touching sentiment; I gave him hearty applause and
joined in the chorus.  The cavern rang.

"The last time I sang that," said Harry as the last echoes died away,
"was at the Midlothian.  Bunk Stafford was there, and Billy Du Mont,
and Fred Marston--I say, do you remember Freddie?  And his East Side
crocodiles?

"My, but weren't they daisies?  And polo?  They could play it in their
sleep.  And--what's this?  Paul!  Something's up!  Here they come--Mr.
and Mrs. Inca and all the children!"

I sprang hastily to my feet and stood by Harry's side.  He was right.

Through the half darkness they came, hundreds of them, and, as always,
in utter silence.  Dimly we could see their forms huddled together
round us on every side, leaving us in the center of a small circle in
their midst.

"Now, what the deuce do they want?" I muttered.  "Can't they let us eat
in peace?"

Harry observed: "Wasn't I right?  'Most awful vile!'"

I think we both felt that we were joking in the face of death.

The forms surrounding us stood silent for perhaps ten seconds.  Then
four of their number stepped forward to us, and one made gestures with
a hairy arm, pointing to our rear.  We turned and saw a narrow lane
lined on either side by our captors.  Nothing was distinct; still we
could see well enough to guess their meaning.

"It's up to us to march," said Harry.

I nodded.

"And step high, Hal; it may be our last one.  If we only had our
knives!  But there are thousands of 'em."

"But if it comes to the worst--"

"Then--I'm with you.  Forward!"

We started, and as we did so one of the four who had approached darted
from behind and led the way.  Not a hand had touched us, and this
appeared to me a good sign, without knowing exactly why.

"They seem to have forgotten their manners," Harry observed.  "The
approved method is to knock us down and carry us.  I shall speak to the
king about it."

We had just reached the wall of the cavern and entered a passage
leading from it, when there came a sound, sonorous and ear-destroying,
from the farther end.  We had heard it once before; it was the same
that had ended our desperate fight some days before.  Then it had saved
our lives; to what did it summon us now?

The passage was not a long one.  At its end we turned to the right,
following our guide.  Once I looked back and saw behind us the crowd
that had surrounded us in the cave.  There was no way but obedience.

We had advanced perhaps a hundred, possibly two hundred yards along the
second passage when our guide suddenly halted.  We stood beside him.

He turned sharply to the left, and, beckoning to us to follow, began to
descend a narrow stairway which led directly from the passage.  It was
steep, and the darkness allowed a glimpse only of black walls and the
terrace immediately beneath our feet; so we went slowly.  I counted the
steps; there were ninety-six.

At the bottom we turned again to the right.  Just as we turned I heard
Harry's voice, quite low:

"There are only a dozen following us, Paul.  Now--"

But I shook my head.  It would have been mere folly, for, even if we
had succeeded in breaking through, we could never have made our way
back up the steps.  This I told Harry; he admitted reluctantly that I
was right.

We now found ourselves in a lane so low and narrow that it was
necessary for us to stoop and proceed in single file.  Our progress was
slow; the guide was continually turning to beckon us on with gestures
of impatience.

At length he halted and stood facing us.  The guard that followed
gathered close in the rear, the guide made a curious upward movement
with his arm, and when we stood motionless repeated it several times.

"I suppose he wants us to fly," said Harry with so genuine a tone of
sarcasm that I gave an involuntary smile.

The guide's meaning was soon evident.  It took some seconds for my eye
to penetrate the darkness, and then I saw a spiral stair ascending
perpendicularly, apparently carved from the solid rock.  Harry must
have perceived it at the same moment, for he turned to me with a short
laugh:

"Going up?  Not for me, thank you.  The beggar means for us to go
alone."

For a moment I hesitated, glancing round uncertainly at the dusky forms
that were ever pressing closer upon us.  We were assuredly between the
devil and the deep sea.

Then I said, shrugging my shoulders: "It's no good pulling, Harry.
Come on; take a chance.  You said it--going up!"

I placed my foot on the first step of the spiral stair.

Harry followed without comment.  Up we went together, but slowly.  The
stair was fearfully steep and narrow, and more than once I barely
escaped a fall.

Suddenly I became aware that light was descending on us from above.
With every step upward it became brighter, until finally it was as
though a noonday sun shone in upon us.

There came an exclamation from Harry, and we ascended faster.  I
remember that I counted a hundred and sixty steps--and then, as a
glimmering of the truth shot through my brain into certainty, I counted
no more.

Harry was crowding me from below, and we took the last few steps almost
at a run.  Then the end, and we stumbled out into a blaze of light and
surveyed the surrounding scene with stupefaction and wonder.

It was not new to us; we had seen it before, but from a different angle.

We were on the top of the column in the center of the lake; on the spot
where Desiree had whirled in the dance of the sun.



Chapter X.

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.



Chapter XI.

A ROYAL VISITOR.

If it had not been for the manifest danger, I could have laughed aloud
at what I read in the eyes of the king.  Was it not supremely
ridiculous for Desiree Le Mire, who had been sought after by the great
and the wealthy and the powerful of all Europe, to be regarded with
desire by that ugly dwarf?  And it was there, unmistakably.

I sang out a sharp warning, but it was unnecessary; Desiree had already
caught sight of the royal visitor.  She pushed Harry from her bodily.
He sprang to his feet in angry surprise; then, enlightened by the
confusion in her face, turned quickly and swore as he, too, saw the
intruder.

How critical the situation was I did not know, despite Desiree's
assertions.  His eyes were human and easily read; they held jealousy;
and when power is jealous there is danger.

But Desiree proved herself equal to the occasion.  She remained seated
on the granite couch for a long minute without moving; confusion left
her eyes as she gazed at us apparently with the utmost composure; but I
who knew her could see that her brain was working with the rapidity of
lightning.  Then her glance passed to the figure at the doorway, and
with a gesture commanding and truly royal in its simplicity, she held
her hand forth, palm down, to the Inca king.

Like an obedient trained monkey he trotted across the intervening
space, grasped her soft white hand in his monstrous paw, and touched
his lips to her fingers.

That was all, but it spoke volumes to one who could divine the springs
of action.  I remember that at the time there shot through my mind a
story I had heard concerning Desiree in Paris.  The Duke of Bellarmine,
then her protector, had one evening entered her splendid apartment on
the Rue Jonteur--furnished, of course, by himself--and had found his
divinity entertaining one Jules Chavot, a young and beautiful poet.
Whereupon he had launched forth into the most bitter reproaches and
scornful denunciations.

"Monsieur," Desiree had said, with the look of a queen outraged, when
he had finished, "you are annoying.  Little Chavot amuses me.  You are
aware that I never refuse myself anything which I consider necessary to
my amusement, and just now I find you very dull."

And the noble duke, conquered by that glance of fire and those terrible
words, had retired with humble apologies, after receiving a gracious
permission to call on the following day!

In short, Desiree was irresistible; the subjection of the Inca king was
but another of her triumphs, and not the most remarkable.

And then I looked at Harry, and was aware of a new danger.  He was
glaring at the Inca with eyes which told their own story of the fire
within, and which were waiting only for suspicion to become certainty.
I called to him:

"Harry!  Hold fast!"

He glanced at me, gave a short laugh, and nodded.

Then came Desiree's voice, in a low tone of warning:

"On your knees!"

Her meaning was clear; it was to us she spoke.  The king had turned
from her and was regarding us steadily with eyes so nearly closed that
their meaning was impenetrable.  Harry and I glanced at each other and
remained standing.  Then Desiree's voice again:

"Harry!  If you love me!"

It was the appeal to a child; but love is young.  Immediately Harry
dropped to his knees, facing the king; and I followed him, wondering at
myself.  To this day I do not know what the compelling force was that
pulled me down.  Was it another instance of the power of Desiree?

For perhaps a minute we remained motionless on our knees while the king
stood gazing at us, it seemed to me with an air of doubt.  Then slowly,
and with a gait that smacked of majesty despite his ungainly appearance
and diminutive stature, he stalked across to the doorway and
disappeared in the corridor without.

Harry and I looked at each other, kneeling like two heathen idols, and
burst into unrestrained laughter.  But with it was mixed a portion of
anger, and I turned to Desiree.

"In the name of Heaven, was that necessary?"

"You do it very prettily," said she, with a smile.

"That is well, but I don't care to repeat it.  Harry, for the sake of
my dignity, employ a little discretion.  And what do you suppose the
beggar will do about it?"

"Nothing," said Desiree, shrugging her shoulders.  "Only he must be
pacified.  I must go.  I wonder if you know you are lodged in the royal
apartments?  His majesty's room--he has but one--is in the corridor to
the left of this.

"Mine is on the right--and he is probably stamping the place to pieces
at this moment." She left the granite couch and advanced half way to
the door.  "Au revoir, messieurs.  Till later--I shall come to see you."

The next moment she was gone.

Harry and I, left alone, had enough to think and talk about, but there
was ten minutes of silence before we spoke.  I sat on one of the stone
seats, wondering what the result would be--if any--of the king's visit
and his discovery.

Harry paced up and down the length of the apartment with lowered head.
Presently he spoke abruptly:

"Paul, I want to know exactly what you think of our chances for getting
out of this."

"Why--" I hesitated.  "Harry, I don't know."

"But you've thought about it, and you know something about these
things.  What do you think?"

"Well, I think they are slim."

"What are they?"

"Nothing less than miracles.  There are just two.  First--and I've
spoken of this before--we might find an underground stream that would
carry us to the western slope."

"That is impossible--at least, for Desiree.  And the second?"

"Nature herself.  She plays queer tricks in the Andes.  She might turn
the mountain upside down, in which case we would find ourselves on top.
Seriously, the formation here is such that almost anything is possible.
Upheavals of vast masses of rock are of ordinary occurrence.  A passage
might be opened in that way to one of the lower peaks.

"We are surrounded by layers of limestone, granite, and quartzite,
which are of marked difference both in the quality of hardness and in
their ability to withstand the attacks of time.  When one finds itself
unable to support the other, something happens."

"But it might not happen for a hundred years."

"Or never," I agreed.

Again silence.  Harry stood gazing at one of the flaming urns, buried
in thought--easy to guess of what nature.  I did not think fit to
disturb him, till presently he spoke again.

"What do you suppose that ugly devil will do about--what he saw in
here?"

I smiled.  "Nothing."

"But if he should?  We are helpless."

"Trust Desiree.  It's true that she can't even talk to him, but she'll
manage him somehow.  You saw what happened just now."

"But the creature is no better than a dumb brute.  He is capable of
anything.  I tell you, we ought to get her away from here."

"To starve?"

"And we're none too safe ourselves.  As for starving, we could carry
enough of their darned fish to last a year.  And one thing is sure: we
won't get back to New York lying round here waiting for something to
turn up--even a mountain."

"What do you want to do?"

"Clear out.  Get Desiree away from that ugly brute.  If we only had our
knives!"

"Where would we go?"

In that question was the whole matter.  To escape with Desiree was
possible--but then what?  We knew by experience what it meant to wander
hopelessly about in the darkness of those desolate caverns, without
food, and depending on Providence for water.  Neither of us cared to
repeat that trial, especially with the added difficulty of a woman to
care for.  But what to do?

We decided to wait for the future, and in the mean time lay in a supply
of provisions, and, if possible, devise some sort of weapons.

It is worth remarking here that the Incas, so far as we had seen, used
no weapons whatever.  This was most probably the result of their total
isolation and consequent freedom from foreign hostility.

In the matter of food we were soon to receive an agreeable surprise.
It was about an hour after Desiree had left us that the royal
steward--I give him the title on my own responsibility--arrived, with
pots and pans on a huge tray.

In the first place, the pots and pans were of solid gold.  Harry stared
in amazement as they were placed in brilliant array on one of the stone
tables; and when we essayed to lift the empty tray from another table
on which it had been placed we understood why the steward had found it
necessary to bring four assistants along as cup-bearers.

There was a king's ransom on that table, in sober truth, for there
could be no doubt but that this was part of the gold which had been
carried from Huanuco when it had been demanded by Pizarro as payment
for the life of Atahualpa.

But better even than the service was that which it contained.  It may
not have been such as would enhance the reputation of a French chef,
but to us then it seemed that the culinary art could go no farther.

There was a large platter; Harry lifted its cover in an ecstasy of
hope; but the next instant his face fell ludicrously.

"Our old friend, Mr. Dried Fish," he announced sadly, and gave it up.

Then I tried my luck, and with better success.

First I uncovered a dish of stew, steaming hot!  To be sure, it was
fish, but it was hot.  Then a curious, brittle kind of bread; I call it
that, though on trial it appeared to be made from the roe of some kind
of fish.  Also there was some excellent fish-soup, also hot, and quite
delicious.

Four hundred years of development had taught the royal chefs to prepare
fish in so many different ways that we almost failed to recognize them
as of the same family.

"Couldn't be better," said Harry, helping himself liberally to the
stew.  "We can eat this, and cache the dried stuff.  We'll have enough
for an army in a week."

"As for me, I saw before me the raw material for our weapons.  When we
had emptied the golden platter that held our bread," I secreted it
under the cover of the granite couch.  When the serving-men called to
remove the dishes they apparently did not notice its absence.  So far,
success.

Some hours later Desiree paid us a second call.  She appeared to be in
the gayest of spirits, and I eyed her curiously from a seat in the
corner as she and Harry sat side by side, chatting for all the world as
though they had been in her own Paris drawing-room.

Was it possible that she was really satisfied, as she had said?  What
imaginable food could these black dwarfs find to appease her tremendous
vanity?  Or was she merely living the motto of the French philosopher?

Harry was demanding that he be allowed to visit her apartment; this she
refused, saying that if he were found there by the king nothing could
avert a catastrophe.  Harry's brow grew black; I could see his effort
to choke back his anger.  Then Desiree led him away from the topic, and
soon they were both again laughing merrily.

Some forty-eight hours passed; in that perpetual blackness there was no
such thing as day.  We saw no one save Desiree and the serving men.
Once a messenger appeared carrying a bundle of quipos; I was able to
decipher their meaning sufficiently to understand that we were invited
to some religious ceremony in the great cavern.  But I thought it
injudicious to allow a meeting between Harry and the king, and returned
a polite refusal.

It may be of interest to some to know the method, which was extremely
simple, as in ordinary communications the quipos are easy to read.  I
removed two knots from the white cord--the sign of affirmative--and
placed two additional ones on the black cord--the sign of negative.
Then on the yellow cord--the sign of the Child of the Sun and
submission to him--I tied two more knots to show that our refusal meant
no lack of respect to their deity.

Which, by the way, was not a little curious.

Here were the descendants of the subjects of Manco-Capac, himself a son
of the orb of day, still holding to their worship of the sun, though
they had not seen its light for four centuries.  Deserted by their god,
they did not abandon him; an example from which the followers of
another and more "civilized" religion might learn something of the
potency of faith.

But to the story.

As I say, I was anxious to avoid a meeting between Harry and the king,
and subsequent events proved my wisdom.  Harry was acting in a manner
quite amazing; it was impossible for me to mention the king even in
jest without him flying into a violent temper.

As I look back now I am not surprised; for our harrowing experiences
and the hopelessness of our situation and the wilfulness of Desiree
were enough, Heaven knows, to jerk his nerves; but at the time I
regarded his actions as those of a thoughtless fool, and told him so,
thinking to divert

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