The child was no longer crying. They had promised him that if he was good he would return to Maria-Teresa’s arms. She also obeyed the mammaconas docilely. The chant with which they filled her ears lulled her spirit, still heavy with the magic sleep.
There was a thought, too, which gave her courage. Those who were dearest to her knew where she was, what had happened to her, who had carried her off, and why. If little Christobal had been able to find her, surely her father and Dick could do so. They would both be saved. If Dick had not appeared before, it was because he delayed until he was sure of success. At any moment they might appear with the police and soldiers, all these savages would vanish in the mountains, and the horrible dream would be ended. She felt as weak as a child face to face with Destiny.
II
In the Home of the Sun,” sang the mammaconas for the hundredth time, “the trees are heavy with fruits, and when they are ripe the branches bend down to the earth, that the Indian need not even raise his hand to pick them. Do not weep! Thou shalt live eternally, eternally! Death knocks at the doors of the earthly palace, and the Spirit of Evil stretches his accursed wings over our forests. Weep not! On high in the heavens, near the Sun and the Moon, who is his sister and his first bride, near Charca, who is his faithful page, thou shalt live eternally, eternally!”
On Maria-Teresa’s perfumed tresses they placed the royal borla, its golden fringe overshadowing her eyes and giving her a strange hieratic beauty. She shivered when the bat-skin robe slipped over her limbs; it was as if she had donned something viscous and icy, which from that instant made her part and parcel of the eternal night of which the bat is Coya.
Then they placed on her wrist a circlet which she recognized as the Golden Sun bracelet. She realized that her last hours had begun, and thought sadly of the happy yet terrible day when this bracelet first appeared in her existence; she remembered the horror-stricken face of Aunt Agnes, the old duenna crossing herself, her father’s skepticism and Dick’s loving laugh. Where were they all now? Why—why did they not come to her rescue?
Maria-Teresa stretched out her arms to the Providence that seemed to have deserted her, and closed them again on little Christobal, placed in her lap by one of the attendants. When she saw him, clad like herself in the robes of night, she was seized with revolt. This could not be! She turned to the Guardians of the Temple, who came forward in answer to her look, gently swaying. There was no doubt of it! There were the same horrible skulls which Dick and she had seen taken out of the earth, come from their tombs to take her back with them. But she would speak, and test their mercy. She turned away her eyes, mortally afraid that the steady swaying would overpower her will, and told them she was ready to die quietly, as befitted a Bride of the Sun, if only they would spare the little boy and send him safely back to Lima.
“I will not leave you, Maria-Teresa! I will not leave you!”