Prom Sicuani, Uncle Francis and Natividad had gone straight to Mollendo, hoping to find the Marquis there, if the new fortunes of the republic had also opened the doors of his prison. As to Dick, they had not expected to see him until Lima, “after he had done everything to save Maria-Teresa.”
It was the first time that they had pronounced her name before him, and Dick saw a very real and very great sympathy in their faces.
“She is dead,” he said, gripping his uncle’s shoulder.
“Poor boy!”
They paced up and down again, silently, before the raging breakers of the Pacific, which had already kept two of them prisoners in Mollendo for the past ten days. Dick would not say another word, and his companions, ignorant of what had happened, could not even try to give him hope.
Eight more days passed by, and the elements still held them prisoners at Mollendo. His uncle and Natividad watched Dick closely, but his outward calm finally dispelled their fears, and once aboard a ship for Callao, they even questioned him. He told them what he had seen in the Temple of Death, while they listened in horror to the simply-worded narrative, made in a singularly quiet voice. Afterwards, Uncle Francis locked himself in his cabin and sat for a long time with his head between his hands, staring at an unopened note-book.
Dick, leaning over the ship’s side, was now gazing idly at the rapidly approaching coast on which he had landed with so much hope and joy. The Peru of Pizarro and the Incas, the fabulous land of gold and legends, the Eldorado of his young ambition and of his love! Dead were his love and his ambition. There lived only the legends, at which they had laughed, which had killed all their dreams and which was to kill him after sending Maria-Teresa to a living tomb! And they had laughed, laughed at the warning of those two stately old ladies, Velasquez canvases brought to life and striving to retain all their pictorial dignity!
As on that first day, he was the first man off the liner, dropping over the side into the swaying craft of a noisy boatman. This time, though, he did not need to ask where the Galle de Lima lay, and his eyes hardly left the part of the city to which he had hastened so full of hope, where Maria-Teresa had waited for him.
He did not hurry on reaching land. Walking slowly he entered the network of tortuous streets, passed through the labyrinth of alleys, and finally reached the point whence he could see the verandah.... There he had come to greet her every night, there he had come one night to find her gone. Never again would he see that dear face, that dainty figure bent over the big green books, while the slim fingers toyed with a golden pencil attached to her supple waist with a long gold chain.
Suddenly Dick stopped, staggered, and put his hand to his side with a choking intake of breath.... It hurt, that hallucinating apparition on the verandah.... Or perhaps it is true that the shades of the dear departed come back to people the spots they loved best, that they have the power of showing themselves to those they loved.... For Maria-Teresa is there, leaning out as she used to, turning her sweet face as she used to.... How pale she is, how diaphanous; her well-remembered gestures are no more than the ghosts of those gestures!...