“Yaca-Huasi, which they also call the House of the Serpent, is over our heads now.”
“Perhaps they have taken her there!”
“No, no! That’s against all the rules. The Temple of Death is the next place.”
“Where are we going to? Where are you taking me?”
“To the Temple of Death, of course!”
Dick followed him without another word, but expressed his surprise when they emerged into the open country.
“Where is the Temple, then?” he asked.
“On the Island of Titicaca. You needn’t be afraid. We shall get there before them.”
They hired horses at a wayside inn and rode to Sicuani. Here they took a train which, turning onto a branch line at Juliaca, then ran to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. On the way, Orellana babbled ceaselessly about the country through which they were passing and the ceremony they were to witness.
No stranger has ever seen it. But he, Orellana, asked nobody’s permission, and since his daughter was to be wedded to the Sun, it was the least of things that he should be present at the marriage, and particularly as he had planned it all so carefully! It had taken him years to find the Temple of Death, but with patience all things could be done. There was not one dried-up river-bed underground, not a deserted goldmine which he did not know so well that he could find his way about it with his eyes shut.