“Ay, ay; ay, ay; that’s as may be,” muttered the old creature, as though speaking to herself. “There,” she added, as, having completed the dressing of Escombe’s injuries, she secured the last bandage, “that is done. Now, more medicine, and then more sleep.” And therewith she bustled away into the shadows, returning, a few minutes later, with a generous draught that foamed and sparkled in the goblet like champagne, but left a taste of sickly sweetness upon the palate. As the invalid swallowed the dose a sensation of great ease and comfort permeated his entire system, and the next moment he was asleep.
When Harry next awoke, feeling very much better, he saw that his hostess, and a fine, stalwart, copper-coloured young Indian whom he took to be her son, were seated at a roughly framed table, at some little distance from his cot, taking a meal by the light of an earthenware lamp, and conversing together in low tones in a language with which he was unfamiliar. From the manner in which the pair glanced in his direction from time to time he rather suspected that he was the subject of their conversation, which was being conducted with much earnestness, especially by the old woman. That she was maintaining a very keen watch upon her patient was perfectly evident, for at Harry’s first movement she sprang to her feet and, snatching up the lamp, rapidly approached his bedside, peering down into his eyes with the same intense eagerness that she had before exhibited, muttering and mumbling to herself excitedly the while.
“Ah, ah!” she exclaimed, in tones of much satisfaction, “so you are awake again at last! You have slept well and long, my friend—slept all through the night without a movement. And your skin is cool, too,” she continued, laying her skinny hand on Harry’s forehead; “cool and moist; no fever. But what of the pain? Is it still severe as ever?”
“The pain!” exclaimed Hal, moving himself slightly. “Why, no, it seems almost gone. What magic is this?”
“No magic at all,” chuckled the quaint old creature, “but merely a poor old Indian woman’s skill in simples. You are doing excellently well, Señor Inglés—better, even, than I dared hope. And now you are hungry, is it not so? Good! your breakfast is ready and shall be brought to you instantly; and when you have finished, there is my son Yupanqui, who is ready to take any message that you may desire to send to your camp.”
An excellently roasted bird—which the patient subsequently learned was a parrot,—bread made of Indian corn flour, and a cup of delicious chocolate were speedily dispatched. Then Harry having asked for his notebook, which had been found in his pocket and carefully dried, he pencilled a note to Butler, briefly informing that individual of his escape, and of his hope that he would be sufficiently recovered from his injuries to rejoin the camp in about a fortnight’s time, and dispatched Yupanqui with it, describing to the Indian the probable situation of the camp, as nearly as he could, and instructing the man to give it only into the hands of the Englishman, and to ask for a reply, which he was to bring back with him.
The next few days passed uneventfully, save that the invalid’s progress toward recovery was so rapid and satisfactory that about midday of the third day Harry—who began to find bed becoming very wearisome—was allowed by his nurse to rise and, clad in trousers and the remains of his shirt, go as far as the entrance of the cave and sit there for an hour or two, enjoying the magnificent prospect which greeted his astonished eyes.
He found that the cave which had afforded him such perfect shelter during his helplessness formed a chamber, or rather a series of chambers, in an enormous mass of rock that rose sheer out of a little circular, basin-like valley through which flowed the stream from the quebrada, the water here spreading out in the form of a lake measuring about a mile across and evidently rather shallow, for here and there he could see small sandbanks showing clear of the water. It was upon one of these that he had been found stranded by Yupanqui. The quebrada died out in the valley about a mile from the mouth of the cave, as could be seen when the spot was indicated by the old Indian woman, and Escombe wondered more than ever by what chance his senseless body had been carried so far by the rushing water without destroying such life as remained in it. The ground sloped rather steeply from the cave down to the water’s edge, and some eight or ten acres of it had been dug up at intervals and planted with maize, vegetables of various kinds, and fruit trees, among which Harry recognised the peach, the orange, the mulberry, and the cacao. It was no wonder, he told himself, that his queer but kind-hearted old hostess indignantly disclaimed any need of money. For, with the produce of the garden, and what Yupanqui could bring in from the forest and the river, it seemed to him that their every want, except perhaps in the matter of clothes, must be abundantly supplied. And, so far as clothes were concerned, doubtless the cultivated ground yielded a superabundance ample enough to afford them the means of bartering it for such simple clothing as they needed. The valley was of basin-like form, the sides of it growing ever steeper as they receded from the middle, until they eventually merged into the mountain slopes which hemmed in the valley on every side and went rolling away, ridge beyond ridge, in interminable perspective, until, in the extreme distance, they terminated in the snow-clad peaks of the Andes.
Harry’s hostess—who now mentioned that she bore the name of Cachama—appeared to be in a singularly communicative mood that day, for she beguiled the time by not only pointing out and naming the principal peaks in sight, but she also related several very interesting legends connected with certain of them and with the country generally, going back to the time before the conquest, and painting in dazzling colours the glories of the Inca dynasty, and the incredible wealth of the ancient rulers of Peru. She appeared to be pretty intimately acquainted with the history of the conquest of the country by Pizarro, and had many bitter things to say of the strange pusillanimity of the Inca, Atahuallpa, on that fatal 16th of November, 1532, when he went, open-eyed, into the trap prepared for him at Caxamalca, and suffered himself to be seized, in the presence of his entire army, by a mere handful of Spaniards. She gave a most emphatic denial to the suggestion that the country had benefited by the civilised conditions that had followed the conquest.
“No, no,” said she, “we are infinitely worse off in every way, to-day, than we were under the rule of the Incas. Poverty, misery, oppression, and suffering of every kind are to be met with on all hands and wherever one goes, while four hundred years ago we had a far higher state of civilisation than now exists, in which poverty and oppression, with their countless attendant evils, were unknown. But it will not last for ever, I tell you; brighter and happier days are in store for us of the ancient race, and perhaps even I, old as I am, may live to see it. Yes, I, poor though I am, and compelled to lodge my worn-out body in a cave, have royal blood in my veins, as had my husband, Yupanqui; we are both descended from Huayna Capac, and, but for Atahuallpa’s incredible folly, I might have been enjoying comfort and affluence to-day; ay, and possibly my husband might also have been living.”