Here several comrades were moving about, and he told his tale, remarking that the pair had left the road for the fields. His account brought slight comment, and he dropped the matter until, later in the morning, he found an audience with a pronounced interest in his observations, the significance of which his absence from Caxamalca for a few days had made him unable to measure. He was informed by the first search party met coming from the town, and the squad left him at a gallop.
By the first gray of daybreak the fugitives had gained the crest of a range of foothills. The ridge stretched away to the south with many a rise and dip, finally dropping into a distant valley. In front, almost at their feet, but with two or three smaller ranges between, lay the plain of Caxamalca, half veiled by the morning mist and nearly a thousand feet below. Just over the farthest of the foothills they could descry the road with its fringe of trees, and the group of flat-looking buildings of the tambo. Nearer was a cottage and garden, close to their path into the hills, but which they had not seen. To the west was a ridge higher than theirs, backed by the gray silhouette of the Cordillera. They saw in the fair valley nothing of hostility, to be revealed perhaps at any moment, and strained their eyes to the northward for signs of pursuit. The only life, however, was in a few specks of figures moving about the tambo, the cottager already at work in his garden, and a solitary wayfarer on the road to Caxamalca.
The cavalier turned away satisfied from his scrutiny, and spread his cloak at the foot of an outcropping rock. Soon they were busy with a frugal breakfast, Cristoval eating sparingly, talking little, and keeping a vigilant eye on the valley. Rava, too weary to talk, was quite ready to stretch herself upon his cloak under the sheltering ledge. He wrapped her well in its folds, and had hardly turned away before she was sleeping.
How long she slept she could not have said, but it seemed only a moment before she was roused by Cristoval's touch. She looked up with bewildered eyes. "What is it, Viracocha Cristoval? Oh, where am I? I dreamed—but, are we pursued?" Terrified by his expression, her voice sank into a whisper.
"We must go," he replied, giving her his hand. She rose painfully, and he drew her back from the crest of the hill. A misty rain was falling, obscuring all but the fields immediately below. As she looked, she gasped and clutched his arm. Towering before her, seemingly but a few yards away, was a white, curling column of smoke, writhing heavily as it rose, and drifting off down the valley.
"Oh, what is that, Viracocha?" she cried, cowering at his side. "What is it—what is it?"
"Nothing to fear," said Cristoval, drawing her farther away. "The cottage hath been fired. They have found our trail, Heaven only knoweth how!"
Cristoval threw her cloak around her, secured his own, and hurried her away. The thatch of the cottage was blazing fiercely. Outside of the garden wall stood a group of horses, and trotting in the direction of the hills, a squad of three troopers, one of them in the lead, bending over his saddle-bow in scrutiny of the ground.
Cristoval had seen the cavalcade nearly an hour before; saw them halt at the tambo, leave the road, gallop to the cottage, and surround it. Not long afterward it burst into flames, and he had little doubt that the unfortunate native, and perhaps his family, were being put to torture. He watched until the three troopers left the others and started toward the hills. Then he had awakened Rava.
As they left the spot she was weeping and frantically wringing her hands. "Oh, Viracocha Cristoval," she sobbed; "are they burning and killing because of our flight? Let me go back! Oh, let me go back! My return may stay their cruelty."