Hacked through the stone, their corridor opened at intervals onto little square rooms, probably the burial-places of long-forgotten priests and dignitaries, slumbering there as their brethren of ancient Egypt slumber in the Pyramids. In the last of these rooms, Orellana put out the torch, and fell on his knees, for the narrow gut which they now entered was far too low for a man to stand upright in. A few yards further on, they came to a spacious niche, and stood up again.
“We are there,” said the old man, stopping Dick.
It was far less dark here, and Dick, his eyes growing used to the obscurity, realized that a diffused light was reaching them from somewhere. The shadowy outline of columns and cornices gradually took shape, and he realized that he was looking down from a height of several feet into a vast hall.
“That is the Temple of Death,” said Orellana. “Listen!”
From the distance came the sound of rhythmic chanting, and suddenly a blinding stream of light descended into the chamber before them. Instinctively, they threw themselves back into the darkest corner of their niche. Above them, at the summit of the vast subterranean hall, a stone had been removed, letting in the golden sunlight. In the heart of the vault was a kind of truncated cone, so fashioned that the sunbeams, sliding along its surface, were thrown into the farthest corner of the mysterious temple.
Altars, altar-steps, and niches were heavy with gold, the plaques of the precious metal being bound together by a wonderful cement, to make which liquid gold had been used. This hidden temple was, in a word, a veritable goldmine.
On the eastern wall was an image of the divinity, wrought in massive gold, and representing a human head surrounded by shafts of light. So the old world has also represented the sun. The heavy plaque was studded with emeralds and other precious stones. The rays of the rising sun fell full upon it, filling the whole temple with a light that seemed almost supernatural, and flashing back from the gold ornaments with which walls and vault were incrusted. Gold, in the poetic language of the country, is “the tears shed by the Sun,” and the Temple blazed with the precious metal. The cornices crowning the sanctuary walls were also of gold, and a frieze of gold, hammered into the stone, ran right round the hall.
Dick and Orellana, from their coign of vantage, could see a number of chapels placed symmetrically round the great central chamber. One of them was sacred to the Moon, mother of the Incas. Her effigy was almost identical with that of the Sun, but the plaque was of silver, recalling the soft glow of that gentle planet. Another chapel was dedicated to the Armies of the Heavens, which are the stars and the brilliant court of the sister of the Sun; a third, to thunder and lightning, the terrible ministers of her wrath; yet another, to the rainbow. And in all these chapels, as in the temple, all that was not silver was gold, gold, gold.
The young engineer’s eyes gradually took in all the details of the temple. First, the central altar, several steps above the floor, on which were golden vases brimming over with maize, incense-burners, ewers for the blood of the sacrifice, and a great golden knife on a tray of gold. Then he realized that something living was moving in the hall, which he had thought deserted. The Guardians of the Temple, like three hideous gnomes, glided from altar to altar, while the one with the cap skull, given the taste for blood from his earliest years by this deformation of the cranium, urged the others to hasten, and every little while went to the main altar to pat the great knife waiting there. Behind the altar, and rising above it, was a kind of golden pyramid, crowned with a golden throne. “That is for the King,” said Orellana. On each side of the altar, and before it, were three other pyramids. But they were not so high, and were not of gold. They were of wood. “The pyres,” explained Orellana.
“The pyres! What do you mean, man?”