Still no answer. He peered into the room, trying to see where she was hiding. Nobody there.
“Good God! Maria-Teresa!”
He walked into the room. There could be no doubt of it. That table knocked down, those books on the floor, that curtain torn from its rings, this broken pane in the window told the story. Silence greeted his shout for help. Not a servant, not a soul in the place, and all the doors open! “Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”
Hardly knowing what he did, Dick ran into the deserted courtyard, and then back into the office. There could be no doubt of it. Huascar and his Indians had carried her off. That dog Huascar, whom she trusted, and who loved her, not as a dog should, but as if he were a man. Horror-stricken, furious, Dick searched the room for some clue.
The scoundrels! He swore aloud as he pictured Maria-Teresa struggling in Huascar’s arms and calling for help in vain. That was where he should have been, instead of listening to all those fools in the café. He could have laid his hands on Huascar then! That was the man they should have watched instead of being thrown off the scent by all those wild-cat legends about the Bride of the Sun.
An Indian in love with a white girl and thirsting for revenge! Of course! He saw it all now, and remembered how Huascar had last left that same room, driven out by Maria-Teresa. The insolent dog, with his fist raised in menace!
As idea after idea swept across his brain, Dick stared helplessly at the blank walls about him. What could he do? He jumped back into the street and hesitated. No clue here—only the doors of closed stores and sightless walls—a pit of gloom.
Suddenly he heard voices, and leaped into action. At the corner of the street there, under that lantern, was a wine-shop, the only living thing in this dead street. He ran toward it, kicked the door open, and almost fell on top of Domingo, the night watchman.
“Where is your mistress?”
Domingo, taken aback, mumbled indistinctly. He thought that the señorita had returned to Lima as usual with the señor. The motor had gone by just a little while ago.