This thought naturally suggested others, each more wild and extravagant than the last, until by the time that the party at length reached the camping ground that had been their objective all through the day, the young Englishman discovered, to his unqualified amazement, that not only did there exist within him a strong vein of hitherto entirely unsuspected romance—awakened and brought to light by the extraordinary nature of the adventure of which he was the hero—but also that, quite unconsciously to himself, his views relative to the exigency and binding character of his engagement to Sir Philip Swinburne had become so far modified that it no longer appeared imperatively necessary for him to jeopardise his life in a practically hopeless endeavour to escape.
The journey had been an up-and-down one all day, that is to say, the party had been either climbing or descending almost the whole of the time; the general tendency, however, had been distinctly upward, and when at length a bare, rocky plateau was reached about sunset, affording ample space upon which to camp, the greatly increased keenness of the atmosphere indicated a net rise of probably some two or three thousand feet. The scene was one of almost indescribable but dreary grandeur, titanic peaks crowned with snow and ice towering high on every hand, divided by gorges of immeasurable depth, their sides for the most part shaggy with pine forests, and never a sign of human habitation to be seen, nor indeed any sign of life in any form, save where, here and there, a small moving blotch on the distant landscape indicated the presence of a flock of huanacos or vicuñas; but even these were but few, for the travellers had not yet reached the lofty frozen wastes where alone the ychu grass is found, which is therefore the favoured habitat of those animals.
Escombe now had fresh evidence of the foresight exercised by his escort in providing for his comfort and welfare; for no sooner had the precise spot been selected upon which to camp than from among the baggage borne by the attendants a small tent made of cloth woven from vicuña wool was produced and erected upon jointed bamboo poles; and in a few minutes, with his litter placed inside it to serve as a bed, and a lighted talc lantern suspended from the ridge pole, the young man was able to enter and make himself quite at home.
Nor was he at all sorry; for although he had now been accustomed for several months to be on his feet all day long, day after day, and up to that moment had regarded himself as in the very pink of condition as to toughness and wiriness, the past day’s journey had been a revelation to him in the matter of endurance. He had never before in his life experienced anything like the intense fatigue which now racked every joint in his body; and, ravenously hungry as he was, he felt that it would scarcely be possible for him to remain awake long enough to get a meal. But those wonderful Indians appeared to have foreseen everything. Loaded as most of them were with heavy burdens in addition, to their weapons, they had each gradually accumulated a very respectable bundle of firewood during the progress of their march; and while one party had been erecting the tent and arranging its interior for Harry’s occupation, a second had been busily engaged in lighting a roaring fire, while a third had been still more busily occupied in preparing the wherewithal to furnish forth a most appetising and acceptable evening meal, which, when placed before the prospective Inca, was found to consist of broiled vicuña chops, delicious bread, mountain honey, fruit, and chocolate. By the time that the meal was ready night had completely fallen, a bitterly keen and piercing wind from the eastward had arisen and came swooping down from the frozen wastes above in savage gusts that momentarily threatened to whirl the frail tent and its occupant into space, and hurl them into one of the many unfathomable abysses that yawned around the party, while, to add to the general discomfort, the wind brought with it a dank, chilling fog, thick as a blanket, that penetrated everywhere and left on everything great beads of icy moisture like copious dew. But Escombe was too unutterably weary to let any of these things trouble him. Sleep was what every fibre of his body was crying aloud for; and he had no sooner finished his meal than, leaving all responsibility for the safety and welfare of the party in the hands of the two priests, he hurriedly divested himself of his clothing, and snuggling into his warm and comfortable bed-litter, instantly sank into absolute unconsciousness, his last coherent thought being a vague wonder how he would fare in such a place and on such a night if, instead of being under the care and protection of the Indians, he had chanced to be a lonely and houseless fugitive from them.
Chapter Ten.
The Valley of Mystery.
When young Escombe next morning awoke from the soundest sleep that he had ever enjoyed in his life he at once became aware, from the motion of the litter, that his Indian friends were already on the move; and when, in obedience to his command, they halted to enable him to dress and partake of breakfast, a single glance, as he stepped forth from the litter into the keen air, sufficed to assure him that they must have been in motion for at least three or four hours, for the sun had already topped the peaks of the Andes, and the aspect of the landscape surrounding him was entirely unfamiliar. Not a trace of the spot where they had camped during the preceding night was to be seen, and there was no indication of the direction in which it lay; which fact tended still further to drive home to the young man a conviction of the folly of attempting to find his way back to the survey party alone and unaided.
The journey that day was in all essential respects a counterpart of that of the day before. Tiahuana, who was evidently the leader of the expedition in a double sense, chose his own route, making use of the regular roads only at very infrequent intervals, and then for comparatively short distances, soon abandoning them again for long stretches across country where no semblance of a path of any description was to be found. As on the preceding day, he skirted, climbed, or descended precipices without hesitation, crossing ravines, ascending gorges, and, in fact, he took the country pretty much as it came, guiding the party apparently by means of landmarks known only to himself, but, on the whole, steadily ascending and steadily forcing his way ever deeper into the heart of the stupendous mountain labyrinth that lay to the eastward. And ever as they went the air grew keener and more biting, the aspect of the country wilder and more desolate, the quebradas more appalling in their fathomless depth. The precipices became more lofty and difficult to scale, the mountain torrents more impetuous and dangerous to cross, the primitive suspension bridges more dilapidated and precarious, the patches of timber and vegetation more tenuous, the flocks of huanaco and vicuña larger and more frequent, the way more savage and forbidding, the storms more frequent and terrible, until at length it began to appear to Escombe as though the party had become entangled in a wilderness from which escape in any direction was impossible, and wherein they must all quickly perish in consequence of the unendurable rigours of the climate. Yet Tiahuana still pushed indomitably forward, overcoming obstacle after obstacle that, to anyone less experienced than himself in the peculiarities of the country and the mode of travel in it, must have seemed unconquerable. For ten more days—which to the Indians must have seemed endless by reason of the awful toil, the frightful suffering, and the intense misery that were concentrated in them, although, thanks to the sublime self sacrifice of his escort, Escombe was permitted to feel very little of them—the priest led the way over vast glaciers, across unfathomable crevasses, and up apparently unscalable heights, battling all the time with whirling snow storms that darkened the air, blinded the eyes, and obliterated every landmark, and buffeted by furious winds that came roaring and shrieking along the mountain side and momentarily threatened to snatch the party from their precarious hold and hurl them to destruction on the great gaunt rocks far below, while the cold was at times so terrible that to continue to live in it seemed impossible.