“I did!” answered Escombe incisively. “What has happened, Arima? Where have you been? Where am I? Why am I being carried off in this outrageous manner? Answer me quickly.”
“My Lord,” answered the Indian deprecatingly, “I implore you not to be disturbed or alarmed in the least. We are all your slaves, and are prepared to lay down our lives in your service. No harm is intended you; but it is necessary that you accompany us to the place whither we are going. Here is my Lord Tiahuana. He will perhaps explain further.”
Meanwhile, during this brief colloquy, the cortege had come to a halt, and now the elder of the two priests presented himself as Arima retired, and, with a profound obeisance, said:
“Let my Lord pardon his servants, and let not his anger be kindled against them. What we have done has been done of necessity and because there seemed to be no other way. But my Lord need have no fear that evil is meditated against him; on the contrary, a position of great power and glory will be his at the end of his journey; and meanwhile every possible provision has been made for the comfort and wellbeing of my Lord during his passage through the mountains.”
“But—but—I don’t understand,” stammered Harry. “Who are you, why do you address me as Lord, and what do you mean by talking about a passage through the mountains? There is a ridiculous mistake.”
“Nay, Lord, be assured that there is no mistake,” answered Tiahuana impressively. “The matter has been most carefully investigated, and the fact has been conclusively established that my Lord is he whom we want. The jewel which my Lord even now wears about his neck proves it. Further than that—”
“The jewel that I am wearing about my neck—this thing?” exclaimed Harry, drawing it forth. “Why, man, I fished this up from the bottom of Lake Chinchaycocha, and am simply wearing it because it appeared valuable and I did not wish to lose it.”
“Even so, Lord,” answered Tiahuana soothingly, and with even increased reverence, if that were possible. “The circumstance that my Lord drew the collar of the great Manco Capac from the depths of Chinchaycocha is but an added proof—if such were needed—that my Lord is he whom we have believed him to be, and that no mistake has been made.”
“But, my good man, I tell you that a mistake has been made—a very stupid mistake—which I must insist that you rectify at once,” exclaimed Escombe, who was beginning to grow a trifle exasperated at what he inwardly termed the fellow’s stupid persistence. “Look here,” he continued, “I don’t in the least know whom you suppose me to be, but I will tell you who I am. My name is Escombe—Henry Escombe. I am an Englishman, and I only came to Peru—”
“My Lord,” interposed Tiahuana with deep humility, yet with a certain inflection of firmness in his voice, “all that you would say is perfectly well known to us your servants; it has been told to us by the man Arima. But nothing can alter the fact that my Lord is the man referred to in the prophecy pronounced by the great High Priest Titucocha on the awful night when the Inca Atahuallpa was strangled by the Spaniards in the great square of Caxamalca. From that moment the ancient Peruvian people have looked for the coming of my lord to free them from the yoke of the foreign oppressor, to give them back their country, and to restore them to the proud position which they occupied ere the coming of the cruel Spaniard; and now that my lord has deigned to appear we should be foolish indeed to permit anything—anything, Lord—to stand in the way of the realisation of our long-deferred hopes.”