“Just in time——” Cliff whispered. “They are here.”
The tramping stopped suddenly at a sharp command. With only a brief delay to remove his sandals, an officer came into the doorway.
“O, royal son of the Sun,” he said, after he had bowed his head low in respect.
He looked around. On a stool on the side of the room far away from the single lamp, what looked to him like the form of the Inca bent over some turbans which he seemed to be sorting on a low bench over which the gaudy colored woolen and spun vicuna-fleece hung in thick folds.
There was no other in the room. Cliff had fled behind the curtain.
“Say on,” came a mutter.
“We have caught one of the servants of Chasca,” reported the soldier.
The form bent over the turban material straightened but only half turned.
“It is the one that Chasca called—‘Nee-kee!’”