Maria-Teresa started up from the golden throne with the child in her arms, brought to life and action again by the beloved voice.
Looking higher, they at last saw, on the highest stone in the azure, a pigmy figure holding out its arms to the Coya, and crying, “Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”
“Dick!”
Then all understood that on high there was a stranger, one of the hated race, come to rob them of the soul of their Coya.
V
Pandemonium reigned in the square. This was sacrilege unspeakable! Did not the Coya already belong to the gods! Muera la Coya! Death to the stranger! There was a huge rush, a scramble of raging Indians along parapets, over rocks and the ruins of temples, while the golden litter was hurried away by the Guards of the Sacrifice and the amautas. Maria-Teresa closed her eyes, carrying to the tomb that supreme farewell which was perhaps to cost Dick his life.
“You must be mad,” said the madman Orellana, when he saw Dick lean over and call to Maria-Teresa, and when she answered, asked almost angrily: “How did you come to know my daughter?”
The roar of the angry crowd surged up to them, surrounded them, and drew nearer. It was with the greatest difficulty that Orellana shook Dick out of his strange torpor, dragged him through the gap from which they had emerged, and finally to the labyrinth below the Temple. Apparently familiar with every twist and turning of the place, he led him through a mile of passages, their darkness relieved here and there by round, square or triangular patches of light sifting down between thousand-year-old stones from the world above. Occasionally he stopped to tell Dick what temple, what palace, they were passing under.