“Well, Harry and Topsie, you have led us into a warrior land indeed,” exclaimed Lady Vane, laughing. “Hardly has your Queen welcomed us than she dashes away into strife and turmoil. What can it all mean?”
“I can’t make out, aunt,” answered Harry, just a shade anxiously. “Those cries we hear are war cries. You, who understand Spanish, heard what she said to us. Really, I think we had better obey her. I know Aniwee well, and can trust her. But what a scowling-looking chap the Cacique is, in whose care she has left us. I don’t half like his looks, do you, Uncle Francis?”
“I can’t say I am impressed by them, my boy,” answered Sir Francis quietly. “I’m a bit of a character reader, and it strikes me he entertains no good feeling to the young Queen. His expression was savage and sullen when she addressed him just now.”
Again shouts and cries came floating up the valley. The face of Inacayal wore a triumphant expression. Suddenly he turned to the warriors who surrounded him. “There is a fight down yonder,” he exclaimed. “Shall we stand idle while a woman bears the brunt of war? Say, brothers, shall we not charge?”
An approving shout greeted his suggestion, and before Sir Francis and Lady Vane, Harry, Topsie, and their cousins had fathomed what was going to happen, they felt themselves borne forward in the midst of a hundred or more stalwart warriors, all shouting and yelling like so many demons. Madly excited, Shag brought up the rear.
“We’re in for it, Topsie, and no mistake,” gasped Harry, as he got his horse tight by the head, and tried to check his headlong career. He had quite forgotten that this was a signal to go faster, so that the animal merely redoubled its efforts. In a few minutes they had dashed into the Indian camp.
What a sight they beheld! A scene of fierce turmoil indeed. Some hundred white men, surrounded by Aniwee and her braves, fighting desperately for their lives. They had sought to catch the Warrior Queen in a trap, and had been caught themselves, and now they saw no chance of escape from the furious Araucanians who pressed upon them.
A weird scene indeed! The sun had sunk, the gloom of night was already upon everything, throughout the camp huge fires gleamed and sparkled, lighting up the faces of the combatants, and giving them a strange, fantastic appearance. As Inacayal swept upon the scene with his bevy of warriors, he took it all in at a glance. His plan had failed.
Yet must he save the Cristianos whom his vile intrigues had lured to the spot. His had been the intention to rob the Queen-Regent of her baby child, during her brief absence and when all the warriors were withdrawn from the camp. For this purpose he had put himself in communication with the Cristianos, who, at war with the Araucanians, had willingly agreed to secure the little Guardia, in hopes of forcing her great tribe to accept disadvantageous and degrading terms of peace. As we have seen, Inacayal’s plan had failed.
