Nevertheless, nothing of the sort occurred, and they reached the outer valley in safety, piloted by Michac. He took them to his home.
Toward the end of the day they were joined there by Prince Huaca, with the main body of troops from the fortress. These encamped in the grounds about Michac’s home.
“I sent a messenger to the Inca,” the prince explained, “telling him of the danger threatening Cusco Hurrin and advising him to order the populace to flee through the Tunnel Way. I told him I was abandoning the fortress, and leaving the tunnel open. The messenger returned with word that the Inca, who had recovered from his attack of faintness, deemed me a rebel and refused to be entrapped. I despatched the messenger again with stronger representations, but again he returned with an even stronger and more contemptuous refusal. All day I have waited, with the gates of the fortress open, but no move has been made.
“My poor people,” he groaned, “my poor city.”
Abruptly he left them.
“But, Dad,” said Jack, “think of it. A whole city in danger of destruction merely because a ruler is stubborn. Can’t we do something? Can’t we persuade them to flee? And such a city, too. The Enchanted City of the Caesars! Here we go and find it, and are about to give it to the world, and now it may be wiped out. But the people. Oh, this is horrible.”
Even as he spoke, the ground shook beneath his feet, for they had walked down to the public highroad, and from the distant mountain sounded a heavy rumbling and roaring. They were fully twenty miles removed, a range of foothills intervened and they were safe from a volcanic eruption, for the configuration of the land as such, Don Ernesto had pointed out, that the lava flow would be away from them and directly into the doomed city. The crash and the tremor were succeeded by a sultriness that was almost unbearable. Then the ever-thickening cloud overhanging the mountain seemed to their straining eyes to spread out into a gigantic mushroom that blotted out the whole sky in the east. Flames began to shoot high above the mountain top, illuminating the under side of that sable pall.
There was another and stronger earth tremor, almost throwing them from their feet. The flames shot higher.
“Now,” said Don Ernesto, in an awed voice, “The Enchanted City is no more. The lava is flowing over it now.”