CHAPTER XIV—PRINCE HUACA FRIENDLY
“Look here, Jack,” said Frank, as the three chums kept step together along the corridor, while Ferdinand walked ahead with Mr. Hampton and his father, Don Ernesto. “Look here, what do you think our chances of escape are going to be?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack shook his head. As for big Bob, he growled a comment.
“Why worry? I’m having a good time. I want to learn all about this city. And the treasure, too, that we came for, it——”
“Oh, we’ll have to give up that idea now,” said Jack. “We can’t rob these people. If the Enchanted City had been abandoned and in ruins, and we had discovered it, that would have been a different matter.”
Frank took no part in this discussion. It wasn’t treasure of which he was thinking.
“Just the same, Bob,” he interrupted, “we ought to be thinking of how we can escape, for I have an idea that these people intend to keep us imprisoned for life or, as Don Ernesto says, persuade us to join the nation.”
“Why not?” said Bob. “I’d like to be a captain in this man’s army. These Incas look like fine material for soldiers, and with our military school knowledge we ought to be able to drill them in modern tactics.”
“And with our knowledge of radio and other modern inventions and discoveries,” supplemented Jack, “we would be invaluable. We could rise to high positions in the state.”
“What,” exclaimed Frank, “and stay here all our lives?”
“Well, why not?”
“Oh, he wants to go home to Della,” said big Bob, mentioning the name of his sister, with whom Frank was in love.
Frank flushed, but did not reply.
“I’m not keen on staying here forever, either,” said Jack quickly; for his thoughts more and more during their South American stay had turned to Senorita Rafaela in her Sonora mountains, and Bob’s reference to Frank and Della had brought her again to mind. “Just the same, this would be a paradise of a place in which to live if it were brought in touch with the outside world.”
“So you think you’d get to be a big gun here and then open the Enchanted City to civilization?” asked Frank.
“It might be done,” said Jack.
“Well, after seeing that religious ceremony, I doubt it. The Incas would not want to give up their supreme power, and they know they would have to do that if their country were opened up. Chile or Argentine would absorb the country.”
“Oh, not necessarily,” answered Jack. “This country might remain independent, an inland empire.”
“An absolute empire couldn’t survive long in a land of republics,” said Frank, “especially when this country is small.”
“Small, yes,” agreed Bob. “But it is powerful. The Incas in the beginning were few in number, but good fighters with fine military organizations. From their mountain heights in the North they overflowed and conquered their tremendous empire. Perhaps their descendants aim to step out some day from these mountain heights in the South, and do the same.”
“What folly, Bob,” said Frank. “They would be up against modern nations with modern implements of war.”
“Well, can’t they learn to make modern war?” asked Bob. “They’ve got some able instructors in military tactics here to teach them.”
Jack and Frank, recalling that in anything pertaining to military science Bob had beaten both at Harrington Hall, smiled at each other. Some men apparently are born warriors. And Bob was of the number.
Further conversation along this line was halted by their coming up with the others. They had been moving up and down corridors and short flights of steps while talking, and had taken little note of the length of the passage to Prince Huaca’s apartments. Mr. Hampton, however, commented on that fact as they approached. The boys seemed surprised.
“What are we waiting for?” asked Bob.
“To be announced.”
For the first time the boys noticed they stood before a great closed door on either side of which Inca soldiers, six feet tall, impassive of countenance, mounted guard. Their guide had disappeared within. Then the door was opened and they were ushered into an anteroom, of which they had no time to take particular note, except to see that a number of young nobles stood about in groups, talking, for they were taken at once through this room and into an inner chamber.
Here sat Prince Huaca at a table, writing. It was a small table of polished wood, the top mounted on the back of a crouching lion, beautifully carved. The room itself, while large, was considerably smaller than their apartment, and was severely furnished. A number of couches stood about. To these Prince Huaca motioned, with the request that they be seated, and meantime continued his writing. Presently, having finished the task, he sanded the paper to dry the ink, then rolled it into a scroll, about which he tied a cord of gold and purple threads. The missive then was handed to the man who had guided them, with an order delivered in the Inca tongue, and the man departed, leaving them alone with the prince.
“Be not dismayed,” he said, turning to his guests. “I would know what brought you to the Forbidden Land. Few are the men who have come thither, for our fastnesses are impregnable and the outer valley where you were captured can be stumbled upon only by accident. And of those whom I have captured in the past or my fathers before me, none within two hundred years came seeking us, but found their way thither only by accident. You, however, I am certain, came seeking us. Is it not so?”
Directly appealed to, Don Ernesto agreed.
“Your Highness, it is.”
“Call me Prince Huaca,” said the other, simply. “Yes, it is as I thought. And it was this which led you?”
He held a manuscript aloft. It was the de Pereira manuscript, in archaic Spanish, Spanish as old as that spoken by Prince Huaca.
“It was that which brought us.”
“Senor,” said Prince Huaca, “I cannot believe that you came expecting to find a nation in existence.”
“We thought but to find abandoned ruins.”
Prince Huaca was silent, thoughtful.
“Pray, Prince Huaca,” said Mr. Hampton, speaking for the first time, “may we not state our surprise to find that a powerful people exists here unknown to the world at large and unsuspected? Moreover, surpassing in my mind the mystery of how you have kept your secret through the centuries——”
“Eternal vigilance,” interrupted Prince Huaca.
“Well,” continued Mr. Hampton, “surpassing that mystery, I say, is that of how you have maintained a healthy and, doubtless, growing population within this restricted territory.”
“State supervision and control of families, lands, everything, but——”
Prince Huaca arose abruptly, and moved up and down before them, his face dark, his sandals making no sound. He paused before them.
“We need more land,” said he. “Some of us are for marching out with our armies to conquer. But some, like myself——Ah, you have come at a critical time in our life.” He paused, his eyes searching their faces keenly. “I do not know why I talk to you like this,” he said. “But something within bids me have faith, bids me trust you.
“Ah, I would know of the world beyond our mountain fastnesses. Without knowledge a man is like a worm crawling in the soil. But when he knows, it is like the Sun shedding his beneficent light into the gorges of our mountains and dispelling the gloom. You come from this outside world. You are not commoners, like the one or two we have captured in the Forbidden Land in other days. No, you are nobles, men of knowledge and power. This I can see from certain objects among your possessions.”
He waved his hand to a corner of the room, which hitherto had not been noticed. The boys and the older men looked whither he pointed. There stood all their luggage.
“In your possessions are many strange objects,” Prince Huaca continued. “Books in the royal tongue, for so,” he added, proudly, “we call the Spanish which only those of Inca lineage intermarried with de Arguello and his Conquistadores speak. These books puzzle me, for, though they are in Spanish, yet it is changed from the Spanish which I speak. In truth, as you note, we have some little difficulty in understanding each the other. It is only this,” and he held up the de Pereira manuscript, “which is in the tongue I learned.”
“And there are other objects. Strange threads that gleam and cannot be broken.”
“Our copper wire for the radio outfit,” said Jack, involuntarily.
He spoke in English. Prince Huaca stared puzzled.
“I do not understand.”
“He speaks in another tongue, Prince Huaca,” said Mr. Hampton.
“Still another than Spanish?”
“Yes. In the world without are a hundred different tongues.”
Prince Huaca was dumbfounded. He stared at Mr. Hampton, as if in disbelief.
He turned to Don Ernesto.
“And is this so?”
“Yes, it is the truth.”
Prince Huaca abruptly returned to his seat, and placed his head in his hands. He sat, bowed in thought. None interrupted. Presently, he again looked up.
“And are all these peoples powerful?”
“Their numbers are as of the sands of the sea,” said Don Ernesto, thinking to quote an impressive figure. But Prince Huaca merely appeared puzzled, and the Don hastily remembered he could know nothing of the ocean, and amended himself: “They are in number like the leaves of the forest. They have built mighty cities. There is one beyond your mountains to the east called Buenos Ayres where dwell more than two million souls. They——”
“But can they read and write, can they do this?” cried Prince Huaca, eagerly. “Our ancestors, the ancient Incas of Cusco, kept accounts only by means of quippus, knotted strings. But we of Inca lineage here have that knowledge of reading and writing handed down to us by the three priests of de Arguello. This is knowledge, and power.”
“Today, the simplest of the commoners can read and write in that world beyond your mountains,” said Mr. Hampton. “Even Pedro and Carlos, my friend’s servants, have this knowledge.”
Once more Prince Huaca was silent, digesting this. Then he said:
“But has not too much learning made them weak, so that they are like women and cannot fight?”
“On the contrary, Prince, they fight with weapons that slay at great distances, with ships that fly in the air like birds and drop death upon those below. And yet,” added Mr. Hampton, “they seek these peoples, to live in peace with each other. No longer is it considered great to make war. Those who set out to conquer find all other peoples banded together against them.”
Prince Huaca once more fell into a manner of abstraction, from which the others made no effort to arouse him. Presently, he lifted his head, and there was an expression of resolution on his features.
“Senor,” said he, “that is all for the present. These matters that you have told me, however, I shall lay at once before the Council. Do you, therefore, hold yourselves in readiness to appear and be questioned? Meantime, I shall order your possessions restored to you, on one condition.”
He paused, expectantly.
“What is that?” asked Mr. Hampton.
“That these strange devices be explained to me, and that they be not used to cause evil to us.”
He lifted aside a heavy cloth of gold from an end of this table, revealing beneath portions of the radio outfit brought by Mr. Hampton. The others looked at each other. One thought was in every mind. How explain the phenomenon of radio to an idolator to whom it could mean nothing other than witchcraft and wizardry? Then Mr. Hampton had an idea.
“In these South American forests,” said he, “particularly in that jungle land beyond the mountains whence came your ancestors, Prince Huaca, the Indian tribesmen have a method of communicating to each other without the use of runners. They place along the bank of a river a hollow log, upon which they tap certain tappings with a hammer. Miles away, with his ear to another hollow log upon the river bank, a man hears that message.”
“Of this I have heard something,” said Prince Huaca.
“The sound,” said Mr. Hampton, “travels along the water. But this device before you is for the purpose of sending sound through the air, as if a man had a voice which could be heard from here to ancient Cusco, thousands of miles distant. This is only one of the many wonders known to the world outside your mountains today.”
He stopped, unwilling to venture upon a detailed explanation that could not be understood, fearful that, perhaps, he already had said too much, that Prince Huaca would consider him either a great liar or a great wizard, and would act accordingly.
The prince, however, did not change expression.
“Could you call men from beyond the mountains to Cuso Hurrin?”
“To what place?”
“That is the name of our city.”
Mr. Hampton struggled with himself. If he admitted the power that the radio outfit put at his command, doubtless Prince Huaca would take it from him, and their chances of bringing rescuers, if that proved necessary, would vanish. Nevertheless, he was a truthful man.
“Yes,” said he, simply. “It could be done.”
Prince Huaca was silent.
“And who among you understands this best?”
Once more Mr. Hampton hesitated. Perhaps the prince planned to slay whichever member of the party he considered was the operative.
“I mean you no harm,” said Prince Huaca, rightly interpreting his hesitancy. “I would but learn more of this marvel.”
“These boys,” said Mr. Hampton, indicating Jack, Frank and Bob. “They are familiar with this marvel and even have added to it by little improvements.”
“Then,” said the prince, “I shall ask them to come to my quarters here and teach me. Perhaps we shall employ your marvel. I would learn about it. It may be useful. I shall keep it here. Meantime, do you go to your apartment while I go to the Council. And hold yourselves in readiness for my summons.”