Quickly throwing off the mean garments that I wore, I dressed myself in them. Then, binding the golden sandals on my feet, and clasping the long mantle emblazoned in gold and jewels with the symbols of the Sun and his sister-wife the Moon across my shoulders, I wound the scarlet Llautu around my head, with the crimson fringe of the Borla interlaced with gold falling upon my brow, and then, closing the chest, I took up my lantern and went back along the passages I had traversed.

In the middle of the last one I put my lantern down with the glass against the wall, and feeling my way into the doorway, which opened on to the chamber in which the others were awaiting me, I cried, in a voice that echoed strangely through the great chamber,—

'Let the torches be kindled, and let the Children of the Sun look upon their Lord!'

I heard a shuffling of feet and a whispering of many voices. Then lights were struck, and I stepped back quickly into the shadow of the doorway. I saw the glow of light grow into a glare that was flashed back in a thousand many-coloured rays from the walls of the chamber. I heard a deep, low cry of wonder, and then I strode out into the midst and said,—

'I am he who went into the shadows at the bidding of our Father the Sun, and by his will I have returned to bring deliverance to his children!'

For one moment of affrighted amazement they stared wide-eyed at me standing there before them, as though Huayna-Capac himself had returned from the Mansions of the Sun to resume his sceptre and his crown. Then, with one accord, they sank on their knees before me, holding their torches above their bent heads and murmuring,—

'Hail, Son of the Sun and deliverer of his children, who hast come to bring the daylight back to the long-darkened Land of the Four Regions!'

I looked at them and saw Djama standing erect, still bound and blindfold, in the midst of them. I went through the kneeling forms to him, and taking the bandage from his eyes stepped back, and while he was blinking at the light of the torches, said to him in English,—

'Look about you, Laurens Djama, and tell me if you believe now that I, the friend of the filthy Indians whom you despise, can do that which I have said?'

He was still half dazzled by the glare of the torches and the thousand rays of many colours that were flashing about him. Wherever his wondering glance fell it saw great golden plates covering the walls, thick-set with jewels, and in front of him, piled up against the end wall of the chamber, a shining heap of gold bars in the shape of a pyramid reaching to the roof of the chamber, and on either side of this, half way up, was a great image of the Sun, like to that which in the olden times stood above the altar in the sanctuary of the great temple of Cuzco, each with its centre fashioned as a human face, with great flashing diamonds for eyes, with lips of rubies, and long pendants of emeralds hanging from the ears, and all round a hundred curving rays of gold edged and lined with jewels.