“White man, whence come you, and whither were you going when you strove to force a passage up the river on the evening of the day before last?”
“We come,” replied Phil, “from an island far away across the Great Water; so far that we were voyaging a whole moon and more without sight of land; and our business is to fight the Spaniard, who is our enemy, as well as that of the Indian. Twice have we fought him already; once on the Great Water, where we took from him one of his great canoes; and once again in one of his towns, far away to the north, where we took another of his great canoes, with much gold of which he had robbed the Indian. But by a mischance my friend and I were left behind when our comrades sailed away; and for a time we were in danger of falling into the hands of the Spaniard. Then we escaped from them, but, having no canoe big enough to take us across the Great Water, we were obliged to remain in this land; and, having heard that there are many Spaniards in the land lying to the southward, we determined to seek them out and take from them as much as we can get of the gold which they have unrighteously taken from the Indians.”
“If that story be true, why did ye not tell it us instead of slaying many of my people, one of them by an arrow from your bow, and the rest by the jaws of the caimans?” demanded the cacique.
“Nay, why ask a question of which you yourself know the answer?” retorted Phil. “For you were in one of the canoes, and saw and heard everything that passed. Did not I make to your leader all the signs of amity and goodwill? But he rejected them; he called us dogs of Spaniards; bade us go back by the way that we had come; and himself shot the arrow which led to all the trouble. Is that the way in which the Mayubuna treat those who come to them as friends?”
“How do I know that ye come as friends?” demanded the cacique. “When the Spaniards first appeared in this land they, too, said that they came as the friends of the Indian; and how have they proved their friendship? By killing the Inca Atahuallpa and seizing his kingdom; by enslaving the Indian and despoiling him of all that he possesses; by ravaging the country with fire and sword! Nay, I believe not your story. If ye are not Spaniards, ye are white-skinned, even as they are; your hearts are evil and full of guile, like theirs; and if we were foolish enough to listen to your lying words you would treat us even as they treated Atahuallpa and his people. But there are only two of you, and you are in our power; moreover ye have slain, or caused to be slain, seventeen men of the Mayubuna; therefore shall ye die; not quickly and easily, but little by little, so that ye shall die not once but a thousand times; and your torments shall be as honey to the friends of those whom ye have slain, and your groans and cries for mercy shall be more pleasant to them than the songs of birds. Go; I have spoken!” And amid tumultuous shouts of rejoicing from the assembled multitude the two Englishmen were conducted back to their prison hut and once more placed under strict guard. For they were trebly valuable now, having been condemned to die by the torture, and it was seldom indeed that an Indian was afforded so delectable a sight as that of a white man suffering the unspeakably hideous torments which, with fiendish cleverness, were designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain which the human frame could possibly endure, and still continue to live. Moreover there were two of them; big, strong men, apparently in the very pink of health and condition; they would linger long and endure unimaginable torments before succumbing; and the sight of their agonies would be one long-drawn-out rapture to those who were privileged to witness them. Oh yes; they must be guarded well, for their escape now would mean lifelong disappointment to the whole village and its guests.
But they must not only be kept safe; their health and strength must be preserved intact; therefore during the remainder of that day an abundant supply of food was provided for them, and they were urged with the utmost solicitude to partake of it freely. Which they did; for as Phil remarked to Dick, their strength was never of such vital importance to them as now; since it was not to be supposed that they were going to submit to be slowly tortured to death without at least making an effort to escape; and for that effort to be successful they must keep well and strong.
The worst of it was that they were quite unable to obtain the slightest inkling of the form which their torture was to take; the men who guarded them were willing enough to converse with them upon general subjects, indeed they were full of curiosity, and asked innumerable questions respecting the past adventures of the Englishmen; but when it came to talking about the forthcoming festivities they at once fell silent; they either could not or would not give the slightest information.
“Well,” said Phil, at the conclusion of a long conversation with their jailers, “we are at least unbound; our hands and feet are free; and before I suffer myself to be again tied up a good many of the Mayubuna are going to die.”
“I say ditto to that,” replied Dick, rising to his feet and stretching his long limbs as though to test their strength, an action which, by the by, at once brought the guard facing round with their spears poised and their bows bent, so alert were they to act upon the slightest thing that seemed to hint at an attempt to escape. Yet that was precisely the problem that was exercising the minds of the two white men all through that day and the succeeding night; and three times during that night did they make tentative efforts to escape the watchfulness of their gaolers, but without success.
One thing, however, was pretty evident, and that was that the torture, whatever might be its nature, was to begin on the morrow; for the village was in a perfect ferment of excitement all day, and all through the night, too, for that matter; people were constantly coming and going in crowds past the hut, merely for the sake, apparently, of getting a casual peep at the prisoners as they passed; and with nightfall great fires were lighted in the square, and singing and dancing went on all through the night as a fitting introduction to the entertainment of the following day.