“The valley told of by de Pereira,” he exclaimed.
“Look, Frank.”
Frank’s gaze followed Bob’s outflung hand. A little way ahead was a considerable body of men of the same sort as their captors. They were resting on a meadow beneath the shade of a gigantic tree. In their midst the boys could make out a number of forms—Jack, Mr. Hampton, the de Avilars, father and son, Carlos and Pedro.
Frank and Bob raised a glad shout of “Jack, Jack. Hello, fellows.”
At the same moment, they were seen. Answering cries came to them. They marched down into the meadow, and the two parties came together. A confused medley of handclasping followed. Evidently, their arrival had been expected, for preparations for moving on at once were in evidence.
The leader of the party who had captured Bob and Frank now approached Mr. Hampton and Senor Don de Avilar.
“We shall embark in boats,” said he. “I have your interest in mind, and you will be permitted to converse one with another, even in the tongue of the young men which is strange to us.”
“Don Ernesto,” said Mr. Hampton to his friend, “you seem to understand this chap better than any of us. Will you ask him where we are being taken?”
Don Ernesto nodded, then turned to the other. After a few sentences, their voices dropped and they drew apart. When Don Ernesto rejoined the group, and the other turned to issue some orders to his men, his eyes shone.
“Senor Hampton,” said he, in an awed tone, “it is as you surmised. These are Incas of the Enchanted City into whose hands we have fallen. This chap is a prince of the royal house. I am not certain, and I had but little time for conversation, yet from something he said, I gather that the reigning family has in it the blood of de Arguello, leader of that old band of Spaniards, as well as the royal Inca strain. Doubtless, too, the nobles have Spanish blood, but that is merely surmise. As to where we are being taken, we are bound for what this chap, Prince Huaca, calls ‘The Fair City,’ We are to cross the lake in boats, and, when we arrive at the landing, we shall be blindfolded, he says, and led ‘through the mountain.’”