“Do not fear,” said he. “I expect that Prince Huaca wants to see us. We shall return.”
“We would go with you,” said Pedro.
When they started to do so, however, the jailer waved them back.
Pedro shrugged.
“It is fate,” said he. “We shall sleep.”
“Fear not,” Don Ernesto reassured him. “I shall look after you.”
As they moved along the corridor, it became apparent from the direction that their destination was, as Don Ernesto had surmised, Prince Huaca’s apartment. But what could he want with them? Had anything untoward occurred in the Inca’s Council? Were his enemies on the move against him? These questions occurred to all.
“It is unexpected, his sending for us,” Mr. Hampton said. “He gave no indication, when dismissing us the last time, that he would send for us again so soon.”
The jailer bore a torch which flickered and smoked as they passed loopholes at turns in the corridor, making the silent passageways, with their walls of stone, where none but themselves moved, seem even more ghastly and far from civilization than otherwise would have been the case. There was little conversation. Unlike their first trip over this route, the boys kept silent. What they had been told of the Council meeting had sobered their spirits. From these stone hallways within that vast fortress, standing in the heart of the Enchanted City, for so they still termed Cusco Hurrin among themselves, it was a far cry to New York or even Santiago. To more than one it seemed as if the possibility that they would ever return to the outside world was in the gravest doubt.
Instead of taking them through the anteroom into Prince Huaca’s apartment, the guide turned aside before the guards were reached, pressed a stone in the wall of the corridor, which swung back, revealing the entrance to a narrow secret passage and then stepped in and beckoned the others reassuringly to follow. Once all had entered, he swung the stone back into place. Then he led the way a short distance to another stone which he also swung aside. They stepped through the doorway and found themselves in the prince’s inner chamber, alone.