“So that is the City of the Sun, is it?” remarked Harry, still gazing admiringly at the enchanting view from the window. “I guessed as much; and it appears to be fully worthy of its name. All right, Arima,” he continued, tearing himself reluctantly away; “yes, I will have my bath now. Where is it?”
“If my Lord will be pleased to follow I will show it him,” answered the Indian, with the inevitable bow, as he led the way out of the room.
They passed into a long stone corridor, lighted at each end by an unglazed window, and, traversing the length of it, entered another room, much larger than the first, stone paved, and having a large plunge-bath full of crystal-clear water, sunk into the floor at one end. The room was unfurnished, save for a plain wooden bench, or seat, a soft woollen mat for the bather to stand on when emerging from the bath, and a few pegs along the wall, from which Harry’s own clothes and three or four very large bath towels depended. This room also was illuminated by a large, unglazed window through which the sun-rays streamed, warming the atmosphere of the apartment to a most delightful temperature. Harry therefore made no delay, but forthwith discarded his pyjama suit and at once plunged headlong into the cool, refreshing water. To dress and take breakfast were the next things in order; and half an hour later Escombe rose from the table like a giant refreshed, amid the obsequious bows of his attendants. Then Motahuana stepped forward and, prefacing his speech with another bow, said:
“Lord, I have been commanded by Tiahuana to say that, knowing well how anxious the inhabitants of the City of the Sun will be to learn the issue of this expedition, he has presumed to hasten forward to apprise them that all is well, without waiting until my Lord awoke to mention his intention and crave my Lord’s permission to absent himself; for the way is long, and my Lord slept late this morning. The High Priest also bade me say that he will probably be absent at least four days, for there are many preparations to be made in connection with my Lord’s triumphal entrance into his city, and his reception by his rejoicing people. My Lord will therefore have time to rest and recover his strength after the fatigue of his arduous journey; and it is the prayer of Tiahuana that he will do so, since there will be much to fatigue my Lord in the various ceremonies attendant upon his ascent of the throne of the ancient Incas.”
“Thanks, Motahuana,” answered Harry; “but I am not in the least fatigued by what I have gone through during the last twelve days. If anyone were suffering from fatigue it should be yourself and Tiahuana, for you are both well advanced in years, while I am young and strong, and, so far from being fatigued, I feel quite fresh after my long and refreshing night’s sleep; so much so, indeed, that I was just thinking how much I should enjoy a walk down into that lovely valley. I suppose there is no objection to my doing so?”
“My Lord is monarch of the valley and all within it,” answered Motahuana with another bow and an expressive throwing apart of the hands. “All is his; his will is absolute in all things; he has but to express a wish, and we his slaves will gladly do our best to gratify it. If my Lord desires to go forth into the open, either on foot or in his litter, he has but to say so, and we his slaves will make the path smooth for him or bear him upon our shoulders, as may seem best to him. But it will be well that my Lord should not venture too far into the valley, for he is a stranger; and it is undesirable, on many accounts, that he should be seen by the inhabitants of the valley until all preparations have been made for his public reception.”
“Oh, very well!” returned Escombe. “I have no desire to go very far; a walk of a mile or two from the house, and back, with Arima as my only attendant, to show me the way and answer questions, will satisfy me.”
Whereupon Motahuana, with another bow, turned away and addressed a few quick words to Arima in a tongue which was strange to Escombe, after which the Indian fetched the young Englishman’s hat and signified his readiness to attend the latter whithersoever he might be pleased to go.
Harry’s first act, upon getting outside the house, was to walk away from it some fifty feet, and then turn round and stare at the building to which he had been so mysteriously conveyed while asleep. He saw before him simply a solid, rectangular, stone—built structure, plain almost to the point of ugliness, for it had not a single projection of any kind to mitigate the severity of its simplicity, not even so much as a window sill; and it was thatched!—not with the trim neatness characteristic of some of our charmingly picturesque country cottages in England, but in a slovenly, happy-go-lucky style, that seemed to convey the idea that, so long as a roof was weather-proof, it did not in the least matter what it looked like. The windows were simply rectangular holes in the thick stone walls, unglazed, and without even a frame; but now that Escombe was outside he was able to see that each window was provided with a shutter, something like the jalousies fitted to the houses in most tropical and sub-tropical countries, to keep out the rain. The only thing remarkable about the house, apart from its extreme plainness, was the fact that it appeared to be cut out of a single enormous block of stone; and it was not until he went close up to it, and examined it minutely, that he discovered it to be built of blocks of stone dressed to fit each other with such marvellous precision that the joints were practically invisible.
Having satisfied his curiosity thus far, Escombe looked about him at his surroundings generally. He found that the house to which he had been brought stood at the extreme end of the extraordinary basin-like valley, immediately opposite to the City of the Sun, which occupied the other end, and he naturally concluded that the entrance to the valley must be somewhere not very far distant from the spot on which he stood. But, look as he would, he could see nothing in the remotest degree resembling a pass through those encircling sierras, the upper portion of the sides of which appeared to be everywhere practically vertical, without even as much projection or ledge anywhere as would afford foothold to a goat. Nor was there the least semblance of a road or path of any description leading to the house, save a narrow and scarcely perceptible footpath leading down to the great road which encompassed the lake. Harry turned to the Indian.