Chapter Eighteen.
How they found an enormous Treasure, and took it Home.
It was past midnight, and the camp fire, which Dick had bountifully replenished with stout branches from the neighbouring clump of bush, the last thing before stretching himself out to sleep, had dwindled to a mass of dull red smouldering embers, when the white-clad figure of an elderly man, copper-hued, bald-headed, and clean shaven, approached with stealthy footsteps the recumbent bodies of the two slumbering Englishmen. Bending over first one and then the other, he held a saturated cloth toward their nostrils in such a manner that the sleepers were permitted to inhale, for about a minute each, the faint, fragrant fumes that emanated from it; then, abandoning all further caution, he withdrew from the fire a half-consumed branch and waved it in the air until the smouldering stump was fanned afresh into flame; when, the torch having served its purpose as a signal, he flung it back upon the almost extinguished fire. A couple of minutes later those to whom this man had signalled approached the camp fire, and while two parties of four each raised the recumbent and now unconscious figures of the Englishmen to their shoulders, the remainder carefully gathered together and took possession of the weapons and other belongings of their prisoners, after which, at a signal from their leader the entire party moved off, marching inland away from the lake. Relieving each other at frequent intervals, for they found their unconscious burdens heavy—especially those who were told off to carry Dick—the party marched a distance of nearly eight miles, until, in a sequestered valley among the hills, they reached the ruins of what had evidently at one time been a city of considerable importance, built equally on both sides of an ice-cold mountain stream. Most of the buildings were in ruins; many, indeed, had been razed almost to their foundations—possibly to provide material for the maintenance in repair of those that remained intact, but there were sufficient of the latter to afford accommodation for fully three thousand people, and all of these were inhabited. Many of the inhabited buildings were of considerable size, but, with one solitary exception, architectural grace and beauty were conspicuously absent, the buildings being, with the exception mentioned, constructed of large blocks of stone so perfectly worked that the joints of the masonry were scarcely perceptible, but without ornament or adornment of any kind whatever, and roughly roofed with thatch. The exception was in the case of the temple, which, like so many in ancient Peru, was dedicated to the Sun. This structure was erected upon the summit of a low mound, scarcely important enough in height to be termed a hill, yet high enough to allow the building to dominate all the rest of the town, and was built of a beautiful white, fine-grained stone, very much resembling alabaster. Also, in startling contrast to all the other buildings in the town, it was admirably proportioned, and elaborately ornamented with bold mouldings, cornices, and other architectural ornaments which, although somewhat barbaric in design, were nevertheless exceedingly effective. But its chief glory lay in the pair of immense bronze doors of its main entrance, the entire surface of which was most exquisitely engraved with a series of pictures representing the ceremonial of sun worship. The building stood upon an immense quadrangular base of massive masonry, the sides of which were worked into steps; and some idea of the age of the structure could be gained from the fact that immediately opposite the main entrance the steps were worn away to a depth of nearly three inches by the innumerable multitudes of worshippers who had passed up and down them. The pavement of the interior was of marble of various colours, worked into an elaborate pattern; and beneath this pavement there were chambers for the confinement of prisoners, and other and more sinister purposes.
It was in one of these subterranean chambers that our friends Phil and Dick recovered consciousness on the morning following their arrival at the shore of the Sacred Lake; and their amazement at awaking to find themselves bound hand and foot on the cold stone floor of a dimly lighted dungeon, whereas they had fallen asleep in the open, may be readily imagined. Their first and most natural impression was that they had again fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; but they were disabused of this idea when, an hour or two later, four stalwart copper-hued, sharp-featured men, with long, straight black hair, clean shaven, clad in white, sleeveless tunics, with sandals on their feet, and each armed with a short, broad-bladed sword of copper, entered the cell, leaving two coarse earthenware basins liberally filled with what looked like stiff porridge, and two jars containing water. Placing these upon the floor, two of the four proceeded to unbind the hands of the prisoners, while the other two drew their copper swords and stationed themselves at the door of the cell, with the evident purpose of frustrating any attempt at escape which the prisoners might be ill-advised enough to make. Then Phil, inspired by that knowledge which he had so mysteriously acquired, at once recognised that he and his companion had fallen into the hands of a body of aboriginal Peruvians, and his face cleared.
“We are all right, Dick,” he exclaimed, joyously; “these fellows are evidently a surviving remnant of the original inhabitants of the country, of whose existence Vilcamapata told me, and whose language I speak. It will only be necessary for me to tell them who we are, and they will free us at once.” But when he addressed first one and then another of the quartette, they paid no attention whatever to what he said, contenting themselves with signing to the prisoners to eat and drink. Instead of obeying, however, Phil continued to talk to them, alternately explaining, ordering, and finally threatening the men; and it was not until, some twenty minutes later, when they proceeded to bind the hands of both behind their backs again, that Stukely realised, too late, that the quartette were evidently deaf and dumb. Thus Phil missed his breakfast that morning, while Dick, the practical one of the two, secured his, having fully availed himself of the opportunity afforded by his unbound hands to eat and drink.
In this eminently unsatisfactory and comfortless fashion the hapless prisoners passed the ensuing ten days, seeing nobody but the four deaf mutes, who twice daily brought them food and water, and stood over them while they ate and drank, afterward securely binding them again; although this seemed to be an altogether unnecessary act of cruelty; since so strongly constructed was their place of confinement—even the door being a massive slab of stone—that, had they been entirely unbound, they could not possibly have forced their way out.
At length, however, on the twelfth day of their captivity, some two hours after their morning meal had been served to them, they were quite unexpectedly visited by their four deaf-and-dumb jailers, who, having unbound their ankles, signed to them that they were to leave the noisome hole where they had hitherto been confined; and when the pair passed through the stone door they found themselves in a long passage, where they were immediately surrounded by an escort of a dozen soldiers armed with sword, spear, and shield, all of bronze, and wearing breastplates and helmets of polished bronze, the latter adorned with the tail feathers of some bird that gleamed with a brilliant metallic golden lustre. Hemmed in by these, the prisoners were marched along the passage until they reached a flight of stone steps which the party ascended, finding themselves, at the top, in a long, spacious, lofty corridor, lighted at intervals by circular openings high up under the flat stone ceiling. Along this corridor also the prisoners were marched until they reached a doorway closed by two bronze doors, at which the officer of the party first knocked, and immediately afterwards thrust open, revealing a room in which were congregated some thirty men attired in a garb that Phil at least instantly recognised to be priestly. By these the pair were at once taken over from the armed guard; who thereupon retired and were no more seen. At one end of the room stood a table upon which lay heaped a quantity of flowers, and two stalwart priests having taken possession of each of the prisoners, the latter were led to the table, and the flowers, which had been arranged in the form of two long festoons, were thrown round their necks, crossed over their breasts, passed round their waists, and finally tied in front, with the long ends drooping almost to their feet. They were evidently being decked as the victims of some sort of sacrifice!
Then Phil suddenly wrenched himself free from the hands of the two priests who were putting the finishing touches to his adornment, and spoke in a low voice to the assembled concourse of priests. What he said was wholly incomprehensible to Dick, for it was in a tongue of which young Chichester had no knowledge, but it had a most extraordinary effect upon the priests, who first seemed stricken dumb with amazement, and finally overwhelmed with paralysing fear. For several minutes, while Phil spoke, in accents of mingled indignation and reproach, the priests stood silent and motionless, with many mingled emotions displaying themselves upon their expressive countenances; but when at length he concluded his tirade by pronouncing certain words in an unmistakably threatening tone of voice, the whole assemblage, as though moved by the same impulse, threw up their hands with an action that clearly expressed the deepest profundity of horror, and then incontinently with one accord prostrated themselves on the marble floor at the feet of the two prisoners, uttering howls of sorrow and abject entreaty. For perhaps five minutes Phil permitted them to remain in this posture; then suddenly he shouted a single word which had the instant effect of reducing the prostrate ones to silence, when he again addressed them, this time in gentler tones; and when he at length concluded, the party rose slowly and humbly to their feet, after which two of them stepped forward and, with every appearance of the deepest reverence, proceeded to untwine the garlands of flowers and release the pair from their bonds. Finally, the erstwhile prisoners were taken in charge by two of the priests, who first conducted them to an apartment wherein were all the requisites for a bath, together with a complete change of clothing, and afterward to another room, very luxuriously furnished, in which they found not only a choice though evidently hastily provided meal, but likewise all their weapons, ammunition, and other belongings. While this was being done the remainder of the priesthood filed into the temple—where a vast congregation had assembled to take part in a specially arranged festival in honour of the full moon, to be accompanied by a sacrifice—to explain, as best they could, to the assembled multitude that an unfortunate and most regrettable mistake had been made; and that, consequently, although the festival would proceed, no sacrifice beyond that of a pair of goats would be offered!
To Dick Chichester this sudden and extraordinary change in the fortune of himself and his friend was utterly incomprehensible; and no sooner were they once more alone than he turned to Phil and demanded an explanation. But, to his great surprise, Stukely, for almost the first time since that memorable night when they had escaped from Cartagena together, seemed inclined to be reticent; he professed himself not to understand wholly the sudden and remarkable turn which affairs had taken, appeared thoughtful, and inclined to be silent; and would only say that the Peruvians had mistaken them for a couple of Spaniards, and that they had consequently escaped a terrible death by the very skin of their teeth. And when Dick further pressed him with several very obvious questions, the only reply which he could extort was, that in the excitement of the moment certain words, the meaning of which he did not in the least understand, had involuntarily escaped his lips, and that it was undoubtedly those mysterious words which had wrought the singular change in the priests’ attitude toward them; of which change he had felt himself justified in taking the utmost advantage immediately that it became apparent. He added that, although danger seemed for the moment to be past, the situation was still exceedingly difficult and delicate, demanding the utmost care and circumspection in handling; and he wound up with an earnest request to Dick to cease from questioning him further, as he wished to think the matter out and decide upon the plan of action which it would be best to pursue under the circumstances.
A week ensued during which Dick and Phil saw very little of each other, for the latter was engaged during practically the whole of each day in conference with either the chief priest or the authorities who governed the town, and sometimes with both together; while at night Stukely manifested an unmistakable desire to be left alone to puzzle out some problem that seemed to be worrying him.
But at length, when they had been exactly a week in the town, Phil returned late in the evening to the quarters which he and Dick had been jointly occupying in the temple; and it was at once apparent to the younger of the two that the troubles and difficulties with which Stukely had been wrestling were at an end, for he was once more his former self, frank, genial, self-reliant, and in exuberant spirits.
“It is all right at last, Dick,” he exclaimed, flinging himself down upon a couch; “I have straightened everything out; and to-morrow we start for the Sacred Island, with labourers, tools, provisions, and in short, everything that we require. And, as things have turned out, it was very fortunate for us that we fell into the hands of these people; for otherwise we should never have succeeded in penetrating to the hiding-place of the treasure and getting safely away again. Now, however, we are going there with their full knowledge and approval—they have even insisted on furnishing us with all the help we may require—consequently we shall have nothing to fear from those who are guarding the island, and who, had we approached as strangers, would certainly have destroyed us.”
“In that case,” said Dick, “I suppose we ought to congratulate ourselves upon what has happened, although I do not hesitate to acknowledge now that I thought it was all up with us when we were hauled up before the priests, last week, and decorated with flowers. But what has happened to bring about this fortunate turn in our affairs? Don’t you think that you may as well explain the whole affair to me?”
“Certainly I will,” agreed Stukely, “indeed it is necessary that you should understand the situation, in order that you may know how to comport yourself in the presence of the people.
“First of all, then, this town is called Huancane. It was a place of very considerable importance in the time of the Incas, being, in fact, one of the places to which the Inca was in the habit of resorting during the period of the extreme summer heat, both on account of its proximity to the lake, and also because of the exceptional salubrity of the climate. Now, at the time of the conquest of the country, a few Spaniards settled here; upon which the Peruvians, in accordance with a pre-arranged policy, entirely abandoned the town and retired to certain secret hiding-places among the mountains, believing that the Spaniards could not possibly contrive to exist here, if left entirely to themselves. But, to the astonishment of the Peruvians, the Spaniards not only contrived to exist, but they steadily increased and multiplied to such an extent that there were some three hundred of them settled here, and supporting themselves entirely upon the products of the valley. Then came a change respecting which the Peruvians of to-day are exceedingly reticent, but one thing is certain, Huancane developed a remarkable and mysterious unhealthiness of climate that rapidly cleared it of every Spaniard, so that for two or three years the town was uninhabited and fell rapidly into decay; after which the Peruvians returned to it, and have been here ever since. So much for the history of Huancane.
“Ever since that time the Peruvians have been very jealously on the watch against any return of the Spaniards to this part of the country; a watch for them has always been maintained; and when, from time to time, small parties have appeared in the neighbourhood they have—well—vanished. Our friends here are very reticent about these disappearances, too.
“Now, it seems that on the day of our arrival at the margin of the lake we were seen and watched all day, under the impression that we were Spaniards; and when night came and we slept, a party stole upon us, stupefied us in some fashion—they did not explain how—and brought us eight miles or so from our camp to the town, where, as I understand, rather elaborate preparations were subsequently made for our dispatch from this world to the next.
“That plan, as you know, fell through in consequence of certain remarks which the exigencies of the situation prompted me to make. I somehow had an idea that we were being mistaken for Spaniards; and the decorating of us with those wreaths of flowers also seemed to me a sinister sign; I therefore concluded that the moment for an explanation had arrived; and I began by informing them that we were not Spaniards, but were such inveterate enemies of them that we had sailed across the Black Water in a great canoe for a whole moon and more with the express object of fighting them. Then, suddenly, that story of Vilcamapata’s came into my head, and I hinted that there was more than met the eye in the fact of our presence in this country. I suddenly assumed a high and mighty demeanour, reproached them for their blindness and inability to recognise the friends who stood before them, and finally, moved by some impulse for which I am wholly unable to account, rapped out certain words that flashed into my mind, of which I knew not the meaning, but which I somehow seemed to understand were words of power. And they were, too; for, from what has since transpired, I understand that they were the mysterious words the utterance of which by a complete stranger was to be the sign to the Peruvians that Manco Capac, the first of the Incas, had returned to earth to free them from the hated Spanish yoke!
“Now, of course, I know that the utterance of those magic words at what was, for us, a most critical moment, was a very extraordinary, almost a miraculous thing; but I have had very little time to dwell upon it thus far; for when I saw the astonishing result of the words which I had spoken, my mind was at once exercised with the task of turning the utterance to the best possible account. But here I was met by a great difficulty, for while the attitude of the priests became instantly changed from relentless hostility to submissiveness so complete as to be absolutely servile, I was without the knowledge which would have supplied the key to the situation, and I therefore had to conduct myself with the utmost circumspection lest I should say or do something which would nullify the good effect which I had unwittingly produced. By adopting an attitude of extreme reticence, however, and allowing the others to do all the talking, I gradually attained to the knowledge that I am regarded as the reincarnated Manco; and now our copper-coloured friends are all on fire with eagerness for me to initiate the operations which shall eventuate in the expulsion of the Spaniard from this wonderful country. Many of them are desirous that I shall at once assume the style and title of Inca, make Huancane my headquarters, and send forth a summons to all the Peruvians scattered throughout the country to come in and enrol themselves under my standard—I understand that, even now, there remain enough of them to sweep the Spaniards into the sea, if properly led. And Dick, my lad, the idea is not without attractiveness, by any means. I assure you that I have quite seriously considered it—tried to picture myself as Inca—with you as Lord High Admiral of my fleet, and Generalissimo of my army—and the prospect appeals to me very strongly, so strongly, indeed, that I intend to give it much further consideration. For, somehow, I feel that the position would exactly suit me, and that I should suit the position. The task of driving out the Spaniard and restoring the country to its position of former power and splendour would provide us both with many years of strenuous work and wild adventure, eh? Meanwhile, however, there are several formidable obstacles in the way of an immediate adoption of the proposal, and these obstacles I have laid before the chief priests and the half-dozen nobles who govern this place, and they have recognised the reasonableness of my contention, and are willing to leave everything in my hands. We arrived at a complete understanding and agreement upon this matter to-day; and I thereupon boldly informed them that the first step which I proposed to take was to secure possession of certain treasure, the existence and situation of which has been revealed to me; and that I demanded their assistance in the task of its recovery. There were one or two of them who were shrewd enough to enquire in what way I proposed to employ the treasure when I had secured it; but that question I refused to answer, hinting that, in the present position of affairs, the less they knew about my plans the better it would be for everybody concerned; and with that rather ambiguous assertion they have been obliged to remain content. The outcome of the whole affair, however, is that to-morrow we start for the Sacred Island, accompanied by a gang of thirty labourers provided with the necessary tools; so now I think I may say that, with one very important exception, all our troubles are over.”
“And pray what is that one important exception?” demanded Dick.
“The question of how we are going to convey the treasure home when we have secured possession of it,” answered Phil.
“Ah!” responded Dick, emphatically, “yes; that is going to be a puzzler. For there are only us two; and—”
“Quite so,” interrupted Phil, “there are only us two, as you say. Nevertheless, I am not going to worry myself unduly over it, for I have no doubt that the problem will solve itself, as all the others have during our wonderful journey. And Dick, my son, the resolution which has brought us two, all alone, from Cartagena to this spot, will not fail us when the time comes for us to decide how we will transport our treasure to England; so don’t you worry either, lad. And now, good night; I am tired to death, for I have scarcely slept a wink during the last five or six nights.”
The expedition which set out from Huancane on the following morning was unexpectedly imposing from the point of view of the two Englishmen; for, in addition to the thirty labourers promised by the authorities, there were half a dozen llamas, four of which were harnessed to a couple of vehicles somewhat resembling hammocks suspended from long poles, these being intended for the accommodation of the Englishmen, while the other two were loaded with food for the expedition, each labourer carrying his own tools. Each llama had its own driver; the expedition therefore consisted of thirty-eight people, all told, including the two white men. Its route lay along the eastern side of the lake; and it covered a distance of twenty-five miles before camping for the night. On the following day, when the afternoon was well advanced, the party arrived at a point where at a distance of some three miles from the shore, a small islet rose out of the bosom of the lake, the highest point of which was crowned with a group of extensive and very imposing-looking ruins. This islet the guide in charge of the expedition declared to be the Sacred Isle; and Phil, strong in the assurance springing from the knowledge of which he was so mysteriously possessed, agreed with him.
The next question was, how to reach the islet, for there were no boats or craft of any kind upon the lake; but that difficulty was quickly met by the labourers, who at once set to work to cut a large quantity of reeds, which they bound together in such a fashion that they formed a commodious and exceedingly buoyant raft, upon which the entire party, with the exception of the llamas and their drivers, crossed over the first thing on the following morning.
The passage of the raft from the mainland to the island, propelled as she was by paddles only, occupied about an hour and a half; and as the unwieldy craft gradually approached her destination the two white passengers on board her began to realise that the island ahead was considerably larger than they had first imagined, being fully a hundred acres in extent; while the character of the ruins made it clear that not only had the island been chosen, for some inexplicable reason, as the site upon which to erect a vast and very magnificent temple dedicated to the worship of the Sun, but that a monastic establishment of corresponding importance had also been founded there. Now, however, the whole of the buildings were roofless and in ruins; yet, even so, they were sufficiently imposing to imbue Dick at least with several new and startling ideas regarding the extent of the civilisation to which the Peruvians had attained under the rule of the Incas. As for Phil, he seemed to have undergone a complete yet subtle transformation during that short journey across the waters of the lake; his eyes blazed with eagerness, his nostrils dilated as though after a prolonged absence he was once more breathing his native air; he carried himself with a new and kingly dignity that somehow seemed to render him unapproachable; he gave his orders with the calm finality of tone of an absolute monarch; his knowledge of the place which he was approaching was so intimate as to be positively uncanny, as was evidenced when the raft drew near the island: those in charge would have run her ashore at the nearest point, but as soon as Stukely perceived what they would be at he turned to them and said rebukingly:
“Not there; not there! bear away to the south. Do you not know that there is a bay on that side of the island, with a wharf at which we can land comfortably and conveniently?”
Apparently the Peruvians did not know; yet when the balsa rounded the point, there was the bay, and there the stone pier or wharf of which Phil had spoken!
The first thing to be done, upon their arrival, was to instal the party in as comfortable quarters as the ruins afforded; and this was accomplished more easily than had seemed possible at the first glance. For although, as viewed from the lake, not only the temple but also all the other buildings had appeared to be roofless, a closer inspection revealed the fact that one of the small chambers which formed a part of the main building of the temple was still intact, even to its coved roof of solid masonry; and this Phil at once ordered to be cleared out and prepared for the reception of Dick and himself; while, as for the rest, a building was soon found which, with the aid of a few branches cut from the neighbouring grove of trees, and a quantity of rushes, which grew abundantly along the margin of the bay, could be quickly covered in sufficiently to render it habitable. These preparations kept the Peruvians busy for the remainder of that day; and while they were thus employed Phil and Dick devoted themselves to a minute inspection of the temple proper.
This had evidently at one time been a magnificent building, probably the finest of its kind in the entire country; but now it was in a state of utter ruin, its beautiful roof and walls having been stripped entirely of the massive hammered and engraved gold and silver plates which, Phil asserted, had once adorned them, while its marble pavement was heaped high with immense fragments of masonry, some of which were evidently portions of a boldly moulded cornice that had once adorned the inner walls of the structure, while others bore upon their faces signs of having been exquisitely sculptured in alto or basso rilievo. It was a melancholy sight, even to the unimpressionable Dick, this irreparable ruin of a once noble and surpassingly beautiful building; but Phil, as he gazed round him in silence, was so deeply moved that, for the moment, he seemed to have entirely forgotten the object of his visit to the place; seeing which, Dick at length wandered away and left his friend to himself and his own mysterious self-communings.
Later on, when they again met to partake together of the evening meal which had been prepared for them, Phil, who, though still in a somewhat melancholy mood, seemed to have become once more almost his normal self, endeavoured to explain to Dick the emotions which had swayed him all through the day.
“It was one of my strange fits, again, that overcame me,” he said. “You know, Dick, that I have been subject to them, off and on, as far back in my life as I can remember. They come upon me without previous warning or apparent cause, sometimes in the form of extraordinarily vivid dreams, and sometimes as more or less vague memories, awakened by a chance sound, or sight, or odour. Either of these apparently slight causes has sufficed, at times, to recall scenes in which I seem to have been an actor far back in the past; so far back, indeed, that if they really occurred at all it must have been long before I—that is to say, my present body—was born. Now, don’t laugh at me, lad; no doubt, when I talk thus, I must seem to you to be stating absurdities, impossibilities; for you have often told me that you have never experienced the curious sensations of which I speak; but let me tell you that, however extraordinary they may seem to you, to me they appear the most natural thing in the world, because they occur to me so frequently, and because they began to come to me when I was still too young to recognise their extraordinary character. The most remarkable thing about them, to my mind, is that they all seem to bear a close relationship to each other; they all appear to refer to the same period of time, and the same locality; that locality being this country of South America, and especially Peru. Is it not a strange thing that I should have dreamed of being associated with a people, one of whom I instantly recognised in the person of Vilcamapata? And is it not equally strange that in my dreams I should have acquired a knowledge of the language spoken by him and these people who are now with us? Yet you know that such was actually the case. And now I tell you, Dick, that when I stood among the ruins of this once splendid temple to-day, the feeling was strong upon me that I was not standing within its walls for the first time! I could shut my eyes and recall a dim and tantalising vision of it in all its pristine glory; I seemed to again see those ruined walls standing erect and perfect, with their decoration of gold and silver plates and ornaments, their sculptured panels, their heavy cornice, and the magnificent golden roof surmounting all. Oh, it is tantalising to remember so much and yet so little; to have these memories flash athwart one’s mind only to vanish again before one has time to fix and identify them! Why do they not come to me perfectly—if they must come at all? These fleeting memories puzzle and perplex me; nay, more, they worry me; for I cannot help thinking that they must have a purpose; if I could but know what it is.
“And now, to turn from generalities to particularities. I am worried as to the locality of the hidden treasure. You will remember that Vilcamapata’s last words to us were that something—which I have always believed to be the treasure—lies beneath the great marble floor of this temple; and until to-day I have believed that I had but to come here and straightway find the entrance giving access to the vaults in which the treasure lies hidden. Yet I have spent the whole day in wandering among the ruins in search of that entrance—without success; I have been quite unable to find any opening which promises to lead to the underground part of the structure. And all day, too, I have been haunted by an elusive memory of some secret connected with, the hiding of the treasure, which memory continually seems to be on the point of becoming clear and illuminating, only to fade away into nothing again. We are here, however; that is the great point; and I swear that I will not go away again without the treasure, even though it should be necessary to raze the temple to its foundations, stone by stone, in order to find it!”
For a time it seemed that nothing short of such drastic measures would serve the purpose of the two adventurers; for, search as they would, they could find no door or opening of any description giving access to the chambers which Vilcamapata had given them to understand existed beneath the floor of the main building; indeed, so far as their discoveries went, there might have been no such chambers at all, although Phil was most positive as to their existence. But they made a beginning of a kind, by setting the labouring gang to work to clear away all the débris and rubbish which lay piled high upon the temple floor; and in the course of a fortnight sufficient progress had been made to lay bare about one-fourth of the marble floor at the eastern end of the building, including the once beautiful but now sadly damaged altar dedicated to sacrifices to the Sun. And then the secret which had so persistently eluded Phil was revealed; for one of the rear corners of the altar had been broken away by the fall of a heavy mass of masonry from the roof, exposing the interior of the structure, which, it now appeared, was hollow. But it revealed more than that; it revealed the fact that the massive slab which formed the rear of the lower portion of the altar was movable, being pivoted on stone hinges at one end, so that by applying pressure in a certain way to the other end it could be made to swing inward, giving access to a flight of steps leading downward. The hinges, it is true, had become stiff from long non-usage, so that it now needed the united strength of half a dozen men to revolve the slab, but when once it was forced open it remained so, and there was no further trouble in that respect. Yet, even then, it was found to be impossible to penetrate to the subterranean chambers at once, for when an attempt was made to do so, the torches which the would-be explorers carried refused to burn in the mephitic atmosphere; and time therefore had to be allowed for the exterior air to penetrate and displace the poisonous vapours which had accumulated in the chambers during the many years that they had remained hermetically sealed.
At length, however, after the process of ventilation had been permitted to proceed for nearly a week, the air in the subterranean passages was found to be fresh enough to be breathed without much difficulty, and to allow of the torches burning in it with scarcely diminished luminosity, and the search for the treasure chamber was resumed. And now it was discovered that the labyrinth of passages and chambers extended far beyond the area covered by the superstructure, many of the chambers having evidently been used as prison cells, in some at least of which the unhappy prisoners had been interned and apparently left to perish of hunger and thirst; for, upon being broken open, they were found to still contain the mummified bodies of the unfortunate wretches; while others seemed to have been used by the priests as places of retirement and meditation. One exceptionally large chamber, too, had been used as the place of interment for the successive chief priests of the temple; for their bodies also, withered and shrunken in the dry atmosphere of the place, were found ranged round the walls of the mausoleum, clad in their sacerdotal vestments, and enthroned in bronze chairs of very beautiful and elaborate workmanship.
Finally, after the two Englishmen had been exploring this elaborate system of underground chambers for nearly three hours, they came upon the object of their search—and stood for awhile breathless and dumb in the presence of apparently incalculable wealth!
The chamber was by far the largest that the pair had thus far entered; so large indeed was it that the light of the torches which they carried was not nearly powerful enough to illuminate the entire chamber. But even what they beheld at the first glance was enough to take their breath away; for upon forcing open the door they found themselves confronted by an enormous mass of dull white, frosty-looking metal which, upon closer inspection, proved to be composed entirely of bricks—hundreds, thousands of them—of pure silver, each brick weighing about thirty pounds, or just as much as a man could conveniently lift with one hand. For several minutes the pair stood gazing enraptured at this enormous mass of precious metal, experiencing such sensations as it is given to few men to feel—for it must be remembered that both had been brought up amid such conditions that the possession of a few hundred pounds would be regarded by them as wealth! Then, as if moved by the same impulse, they turned to each other and burst into a torrent of mutual congratulation, mingled with expressions of amazement that there should be so vast a quantity of wealth in the world. For a few joyous minutes they could scarcely speak rationally to each other, so intense was their delight; but presently they pulled themselves together and proceeded with their investigations. Passing round the enormous pile of silver they were again brought to a stand by a pile of metal of almost equal size, but this time it was dull ruddy yellow in colour—in fact, gold! Gold, piled up like the silver in a solid mass also composed of bricks a trifle larger than those of the less valuable metal, being actually of such a weight that a brick was as much as one man could conveniently lift with both hands. But this was not all; for beyond this pile of gold bricks they came upon row after row of great leather sacks which, upon being opened, were found to contain more gold, either in the form of rough nuggets, just as they had been taken from the mine, or dust which had evidently been washed out of the sand of some river. The sight came near to driving them demented, for there were tons of the precious metal; far more of it indeed than they could possibly hope to ever carry away. But even this was not all; for at the far end of the chamber they came upon three great bronze coffers of elaborate and exquisitely beautiful workmanship, which, upon being opened, were found to be more than half-full of crystals—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds—that reflected the light of their torches in a perfect blaze of vari-coloured effulgence so dazzlingly brilliant that for the moment they could scarcely credit the evidence of their eyes. And with all this at the end of their journey, they had been jealously hoarding and guarding first the pair and latterly the remaining one of the emeralds that had formed the eyes of the idol, and the few gold scales that had decorated its clothing! The idea seemed so absurd, so supremely ridiculous, that when it occurred to Phil and he mentioned it to Dick, the pair of them burst into peal after peal of laughter that soon became hysterical; indeed the pair were very much nearer to being driven crazy than either of them dreamed of, by the sudden sight of such incalculable wealth. Fortunately for them, however, they were in the pink of health and condition, thanks to their long, arduous journey through the wilderness and their continuous life in the open air; and since a sound mind goes with a sound body, their mental processes were in the best possible condition for withstanding the shock, thus suddenly brought to bear upon them; and eventually after their hysterical outburst of joy had spent itself, they once more became rational beings, and fell to discussing the momentous question of how all this treasure was to be transported to England. They soon came to the conclusion that to transport it all to England—or rather to the coast, for, once there, the rest should be easy—would be an impossibility; and they finally decided to take the gems, and as much of the gold as they could find means of conveyance for. This last, namely, the means of conveyance to the coast, was the problem that now confronted them; and they eventually agreed that there was only one way of solving it, and that was by returning to Huancane and enlisting the services of the high priest and the other authorities of the town in their favour. Accordingly, with that object in view, they closed the door of the treasure chamber again, and made it temporarily secure; after which they returned to the upper air and electrified their Peruvian followers by directing them to make immediate preparations for a return to Huancane; and such was the energy which they contrived to infuse into the natives that they not only crossed to the mainland but also accomplished a very satisfactory return march before sunset, that night.
The return of the adventurers to Huancane with the news that the secret hiding-place of the treasure had been discovered caused the utmost rejoicing among the inhabitants, for somehow the idea that the elder of the two strangers was the reincarnated Manco Capac had got abroad, and what is more, had found general acceptance; and now every native in the place, and for miles round, was in a perfect fever of impatience that operations for the recovery of the country from the Spaniards should be pressed forward with all possible speed. Therefore when Phil intimated that he required a strong transport train to assist in the conveyance of the treasure to the coast, nobody thought of demanding his reasons for the conveyance of the treasure out of the country; they simply, one and all, devoted their energies to the collection of the train and the armed guard which Phil declared would also be necessary. And when Stukely, determined to avail himself to the utmost of their obliging mood, further intimated that he would also need at least thirty Peruvians to man the ship which he intended to capture, the said Peruvians of course to proceed across the Great Water with him, he met with no difficulty in securing as many volunteers as he needed. But the formation and equipment of such an expedition as Phil had demanded was not to be accomplished in a day, or even a week; therefore while men, animals, and arms were being got together at Huancane, a messenger, armed with the necessary authority, was sent forward along the route which would be followed by the caravan, with instructions to the natives all along the route to collect a certain quantity of food for the men and fodder for the animals, in order that the passage of the expedition to the coast might be expedited as much as possible. While this was being done, Phil and Dick, having taken formal leave of the Huancane authorities, returned to the Sacred Island, and, assisted by a dozen Peruvians, proceeded to transport to the mainland as much of the treasure as they thought they would be able to convey to the coast. This, of course, was soon done, and then all that remained to them was to wait patiently for the transport train, without which they could do nothing really worth the doing.
At length, after they had been idly waiting for nearly three weeks, the train duly arrived. But what a train it was! Two hundred llamas, with a driver for every ten beasts; two hundred and fifty armed men to protect the caravan from possible—but not very probable—attack by the Spaniards; and forty men, every one of whom were prepared to follow Phil to the world’s end and back, if need be. Ten of the llamas were intended for the transport of provisions on the march from one village to another, and were already loaded to the full extent of their capacity; four were harnessed to the curious hammock-like arrangements which had been provided for the accommodation of Phil and his friend on the march; and the remaining hundred and eighty-six animals, as well as the forty volunteers for sea service, were available for the transportation of treasure, each llama being provided with a pair of saddle bags the broad connecting band of which sank so deeply into the wool of the creature that there was not the slightest fear of the bags slipping.
This transport train was so very much stronger than the Englishmen had dared to hope for that they instantly recognised the possibility of carrying away nearly twice the quantity of gold which they had originally arranged for; and the day following the arrival of the train was accordingly devoted to the transport of further gold bricks from the island to the mainland, until a full load was provided for every animal, including those which were harnessed to the hammocks, Phil and Dick preferring to make the journey on foot.
On the following morning, however, the imposing caravan started, with the first light of day, upon its journey toward the coast, winding its way along the eastern margin of the Sacred Lake until it reached its southern extremity, when it swerved away to the south-westward across the valley in which the lake lay embosomed, toward the towering snow-peaks of the western cordillera of the Andes. The first three days of the journey were quite pleasant and uneventful, for during that time the caravan was winding its slow way across the mountain valley; but on the fourth day the train entered a mountain pass which the Peruvians asserted was known only to themselves—and which they had chosen in order to avoid the possibility of collision with the armed forces of the Spaniards; and thenceforward, for four full days, the train wound its perilous way along narrow pathways bounded on the one hand by towering, inaccessible, rocky cliffs, and on the other by ghastly precipices, of such awful depth that their bases were frequently hidden by the wreaths of mountain mist floating far below; across frail swing bridges stretched from side to side of those awful, fathomless rifts called barrancas which seem to be peculiar to the Andes; or up and down steep, rugged, almost precipitous slopes where a single false step or a loose stone would send man or beast whirling away down to death a thousand feet below. But the llamas seemed to be more sure-footed than mountain goats, and despite their loads they scrambled up and down apparently inaccessible places, or plodded sedately along the narrowest and most dizzy ledges without accident, while the Peruvians seemed to be absolutely at home among the peaks and precipices.
But at length, after four full days of incessant peril, the train emerged from the last mountain pass and found itself upon a sloping, grassy plateau on the western slope of the Andes, with the limitless Pacific stretching away into the infinite distance, and the perils and hardships of the journey were at an end; for thenceforward the road wound its serpentine way downward through a series of ravines that, wild and savage enough at first, gradually widened out into gentle, grassy, tree-clad slopes that led down to the sandy plains which lie between the lower spurs of the Andes and the ocean. It took the train two days to cross these plains, which, under the neglect of the Spaniards, were fast returning to the desert state from which, under the wise rule of the Incas, they had been reclaimed; and finally, on the seventeenth day of the journey the entire train arrived safely at the little Peruvian village on the site of which the important port of Arica now stands. And thanks to the precautions adopted by the guide of the party, not a Spaniard had been encountered on any part of the journey.
But the good luck of the party did not end here; for on the very night of their arrival a small Spanish coasting craft of about seventy tons was sighted by the light of the full moon, becalmed in the offing; and manning four fishing canoes with the forty Peruvian volunteers, Dick and Phil paddled off and took her without the slightest difficulty, towing her safely into the bay before sunrise, where they brought her to an anchor. Her crew of fifteen Spaniards were easily disposed of by the return train, who took them far enough up into the mountains to render it impossible for them to do any harm, and then turned them adrift. The craft herself—named El Ciudad de Lima—proved, upon examination, to be a very fine, stanch little vessel, nearly new, in ballast; she therefore required nothing to be done to her to prepare her for her long voyage, save the storage of a sufficient quantity of water and provisions; and this, with the assistance of the Peruvians, was soon obtained. Before sailing, however, Phil, at Dick’s suggestion, had her completely emptied of all her ballast and stores of every description, and then hauled close in to the beach, in a sheltered position, and careened, so that her bottom might be carefully examined, and all weed removed from it. Then, when this was done, the gold bricks were stowed right down alongside her keelson, upon plenty of dunnage, and on top of them was stowed the gems, packed in strong wooden boxes, the joints of which were afterward caulked and well paid with pitch, the boxes finally being thickly coated all over with pitch. Then, on top of and all round the gold and the boxes of gems, a sufficient quantity of sand to ensure ample stability was placed; and on top of that again the water and provisions were stowed. To do all this to Dick’s satisfaction demanded nearly a month’s strenuous labour; but when it was all finished and the little craft—re-christened Elisabeth—was finally ready for sea, Dick pronounced her fit to face the heaviest weather and the longest voyage. As she was only a small craft, the pair decided that twenty of the forty Peruvian volunteers would suffice as a crew, and these twenty were selected because of their superior fitness for the work of sailors, as exemplified during the preparation of the little ship for sea.
At length, everything being ready, the little craft hove up her anchor and sailed out of the bay on her long voyage round the southern extremity of America and up through the vast Atlantic ocean. To say that this voyage, undertaken in so small a vessel, and with a crew of men who had never before looked upon the sea, was an adventurous one, full of peril, and marked by countless hairbreadth escapes from capture and shipwreck, seems superfluous; indeed so full of adventure was it that a detailed description of what the little vessel and her crew went through would require a larger volume than the present for its adequate recital. It must suffice therefore to state that the adventurers ultimately arrived safely and with their precious cargo intact in Plymouth Sound, some six months after her departure from the Peruvian fishing village, to the unbounded astonishment and delight of those who had long given up Phil and Dick for dead. The meeting with old friends—and relatives, so far as Dick was concerned—the landing and eventual disposal of the gems and gold, with every necessary precaution, must be left for the reader to picture in detail; but it may be mentioned that while Dick purchased a big estate and built himself thereon a magnificent mansion not far from Plymouth, speedily becoming one of Plymouth’s most important citizens, using his enormous wealth wisely and well, and ultimately earning his knighthood for his valiant conduct in assisting to disperse the Spanish Armada, Phil Stukely was so enamoured of the idea of returning to Peru, becoming its Inca, and driving out the Spaniards, that he actually fitted out an expedition with that intent. How he fared and what ultimately became of him it may perhaps be the privilege of the present historian some day to relate.