Why was she here? Whence had she come? How address her? Vague questions crowded upon him, giving place finally to the conviction that he was an intruder and had unwittingly offended one whose rights here were supreme. And then he yielded to a feeling of shame at being caught in senseless boy’s play.
“Pardon, Senorita,” he murmured lamely.
“Ah,” she sighed, a trace of irony in her voice; “it is I, a stranger here, who must ask pardon for daring to interrupt you.”
“Again—pardon,” he said, moved by the seriousness, the bitterness in her tone. “Surely, you are not a stranger to Guatavita, to Bogota?” he added, not concealing his astonishment.
“My home is far from here,” she said simply. “Four days ago I left it for the first time to go to Bogota.”
“And you visit the Sacred Lake on your way to the city!”
“My fathers sacrificed here,” she said proudly. “I am an Indian, the daughter of those who once poured their treasure into the lake which you have defiled with stones.”
“Sajipona!” called a harsh guttural voice from the trail that followed the cutting made by the Spaniards in the mountain’s side.
“Si, padre mio,” she answered, slowly descending to the path upon which Raoul was standing.