"Possibly it may, Darrel. Well, one night when I was returning at a late hour to my poor lodgings, I had to take my way through some rather lonely streets. The night was dark, few people were about, and the streets were badly lighted; so, recollecting these things, I walked carefully and vigilantly, lest I should be attacked by footpads. Suddenly, as I was nearing my lodgings, I heard a terrible cry for help, and dashed round the corner of a street, to find a man lying in the middle of it. Two other men ran away at the sound of my footsteps; and I found that their victim was seriously wounded. Still, he was sufficiently conscious to speak, and asked me in a faint whisper to look for the Blue Mummy."
"Ah! the two men had left it as a token?"
"Yes; I found the image on the ground, and shewed it to the wounded man. He gazed at it with terror, and swooned from dread and loss of blood. I was bent on saving him, if only to learn about the Blue Mummy, for I own that so strange an object piqued my curiosity. As the man was small and light, and I was, as I am still, very strong, I picked him up in my arms, and carried him to my lodgings, which were no great distance away. Then I sent for a doctor, who, after an examination, told me that the poor devil was dying. And die he did, on that very night, four hours after I rescued him; but out of gratitude for my interference he told me the secret of the Blue Mummy."
"Good," said Frank, much excited. "Let us hear it."
"The man's name," resumed Blake, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "was Pablo Mendoza, and he had been a person of some position and wealth. As he was, therefore, a desirable personage, likely to be useful, he had been induced to join the secret society of the P.P.'s."
"Who are the P.P.'s?"
"The Society of the Patriotic Peruvians," explained Blake. "So far as I can understand, it is formed mostly of Indians, who desire to restore the empire of the Incas, and of Spanish adventurers disaffected towards the Republic of Peru. The symbol of this society is a tomb image, Now these images--"
"I know all about them," interrupted Frank. "They are substitutes for living people, placed in ancient Peruvian tombs."
"Exactly. Well, this society was shewn one of these Inca sepulchres by an old Indian, and found therein over a thousand blue images placed on shelves round the embalmed body, one for each member of the dead man's household. On this discovery the society took the Blue Mummy as its symbol. Whenever a man hostile to the society was to die an image was sent to him; when a man was killed an image was placed beside his body."
"In that case I should think the supply would soon be exhausted."