“Nothing right now. But if we should need you again we shall let you know. How about this cord? Do you expect me to walk back like this?”
Soncco removed the thong from Stanley’s ankle and the two started away at a fast walk. They passed through the guard-lines without trouble. Stanley returned the borrowed garments to the waiting man, and then the latter, led by the aged amauta, departed.
CHAPTER XV
THE TERROR OF DARKNESS AT MIDDAY
Ted and Stanley slept little during the night preceding that fateful day. And, to Ted’s occasional questioning, Stanley could only repeat that he thought his record of the time correct; however, there was no way of finding out for a certainty. The morrow alone would tell.
The camp was astir early. Groups of musicians struck up tunes on reed instruments accompanied by the deep roll of drums. The wailing of the flutes seemed to carry a mournful note, an ominous message in its very monotony. But, when singers joined in the music, their shrill voices rising and falling in gay cadence, it changed its tenor and was more like the celebration of some joyous festival than the beginning of a day of torture and life-taking. How pitiless these people were, how devoid of all compassion! Downtrodden and suffering though they were, they made an outward show of rejoicing at the ill fortune of others.
After a breakfast scarcely touched by the two, they were taken to the arena where the spectacle was to be staged. A vast number of people had already assembled. Most of them stood in a solid mass surrounding an open square; armed guards formed lines and held them in check. On one side stood those of noble birth, dressed in their most gorgeous attire and bedecked with jewels. Round ornaments of gold hung from their ears. Some wore large breast-plates of the same precious metal that extended from shoulder to shoulder, and from the chin to the waist-line. Their mantles were embroidered or brocaded in curious figures of birds and animals, among which the condor and puma were conspicuous by the frequency with which they appeared. Huge golden pins, shaped like spoons, held the draperies in place. And chains of emeralds hung from their necks, while the turbans that crowned their heads were a mass of bright colors and flashing stones. Each noble was accompanied by a number of attendants that held a canopy of cloth of fine texture over his head to shield it from the sun, and in his hand he carried a staff of polished wood with numerous gold and silver pendants that denoted his rank and position.
Quizquiz arrived not long after. He came in his sedan of gold, massive and heavy, and borne on the shoulders of his highest officials. As the latter deposited their burden on a specially constructed platform, Ted and Stanley could not suppress exclamations of surprise at his lavish and beautiful attire. He was wrapped in a mantle of gold cloth that covered him from his head to his feet; throwing this aside carelessly, he revealed his undergarments made of the same material. Bracelets and amulets covered his arms. The chain around his neck, falling to his waist, was composed of alternate turquoise, pearls, and emeralds, some of them the size of a pigeon’s egg, and so skilfully had the gems been polished that there was continuous play of refracted light in a thousand points of shimmering, satiny color.
Quizquiz carried a burnished-silver mirror in his hand and made frequent use of it to throw a shaft of dazzling light into the eyes of some favorite; this was always the signal for the honored one to fall upon his knees and to chant the praises of the sovereign who had thus condescended to throw the radiance, supposedly emanating from the Inca’s sacred person, upon him.
After amusing himself in this manner for some time, Quizquiz spoke:
“Rejoice with me, for this day is an eventful one,” he said. “I am about to rid my kingdom of its worst enemies; the two strangers who came to spy on me and to rob me, and also of those others who are of no further use to me, but are rather a burden. There are more persons in the valley deserving of a similar fate, and they all shall be called to account in due time. We shall have these imposing spectacles often. It shall be my pleasure to attend them; you also shall be commanded to do so, for they shall remind you of my greatness and of your own abject station. And let each one feel that perhaps he may some day be chosen to delight my eye as one of those to die in my presence. What end could be more glorious for a slave? So cherish the hope of that honor in your hearts.”