Fortunately for the hunter, Atoyac was a personal enemy of Red Wolf and Addick, which prevented him noticing with what cunning skill the Canadian had led him to listen to his narrative.
The two men hastily continued their walk, and in a few minutes reached the Palace of the Vestals. After a few words with the warrior who had charge of the gate, the Chief and the medicine man were introduced into the interior. The High Priest came eagerly toward the newcomers, whom he had been eagerly expecting. The Amantzin regarded the hunter with suspicious attention, and made him undergo an interrogatory like Atoyac's in the morning.
His answers, prepared long before, pleased the High Priest; for, a few moments after, he led him to the reserved apartments of the Palace, in order to examine the state of the maidens. The Canadian's heart trembled with the most violent emotion, and large drops of perspiration beaded in his face. Indeed, the critical position in which he found himself, was really of a nature to inspire him with serious alarm. What he feared most of all was the effect his presence might produce on the maidens, if, in spite of his perfect disguise, they recognized him at once, or when he made himself known to them; for it was indispensable for the success of the trick he intended to play, that those he was going to see should know with whom they had to deal, and enter fully into the spirit of the characters he meant them to play in the farce. These reflections, and many others which rushed on the hunter, imparted to his face a look of sternness, which was far from injuring him in the minds of those who accompanied him. They at length reached the entrance of the secret apartments, whose door, at a sign from the High Priest, was widely opened before them. But so soon as they entered a large hall, which, through the absence of all furniture, might be regarded as a vestibule, the Amantzin turned to Atoyac, and gave him the order to wait there, while he led the medicine man to the captives.
As we have already said, the abode of the Virgins of the Sun was interdicted to all men, excepting the High Priest. Under certain circumstances, one person might be an exception to this rule, and that was the doctor. Atoyac was too well acquainted with the severe law of the palace to offer the slightest remark; still, when the High Priest prepared to leave him, he caught him respectfully by the robe, and bent to his ear. "My brother will return promptly," he said to him in a low voice; "I have important news to communicate to him."
"Important news," the Amantzin repeated, as he stared at him.
"Yes," the Chief said.
"And they concern me?" the High Priest continued slowly.
Atoyac smiled confidentially. "I think so," he said, "for they relate to Red Wolf and Addick."
The High Priest gave a slight start. "I will return in a moment," he said, with a gracious nod; then turning to the hunter, who stood motionless a few steps off, apparently indifferent to what passed between the two men, he said to him,—"Come."
The hunter bowed, and followed the High Priest. The latter led him across a long courtyard paved with bricks, and ascending ten steps of blue and green-veined marble, he conducted him into a small isolated pavilion, completely separate from the building in which the Virgins of the Sun were secluded. The High Priest closed the door behind him, which gave them admission to the pavilion; they crossed a species of antechamber, and the Amantzin, raising a drapery which hung over a narrow doorway, introduced the pretended physician into a room splendidly furnished in the Indian style. The High Priest, wishing, if possible, to make the maidens forget they were captives, had gilded their cage with the utmost care, by decorating it with all the articles of luxury and comfort which he supposed would please them. In an elegant hammock of cocoa-fibre, overrun with feathers, and hanging from golden rings, about eighteen inches from the floor, there reclined a young woman, whose face of excessive pallor bore the imprint of profound sorrow, and the evident traces of a serious illness. It was Doña Laura de Real del Monte. By her side, with folded arms and tear-laden eyes, stood Doña Luisa, her friend, or rather her sister, through suffering and devotion. The state of prostration into which Doña Luisa was plunged, proved that, in spite of her strength of character, she had also, for some time past, given up all hope of ever leaving the prison in which she was confined. This room, receiving no light from without, was illuminated by four torches of ocote wood, passed through gold rings in the wall, whose vacillating flame dimly lighted up the scene.