Then, tracing the route taken by the original Spanish caravels, they turned, as Nick said, “down the map,” along the South American coast, and landed at Lima, in Peru, where Mr. Whitley wanted to locate an old acquaintance of his college days and get more information and a proper set of ancient Inca costumes, if possible, for use in Cliff’s plan.
They found the city a thriving one and spent pleasant days there. The journey to Cuzco seemed almost endless, so eager were they. But, like all things that depend on time, the trip was eventually completed and the chums, hardly able to speak for their suppressed excitement, saw the first glimpses of what Cliff termed “The Gateway to Adventure”—Cuzco!
CHAPTER IV
“QUIPU BILL”
Romance! Adventure. To Cliff, Tom and Nicky the ancient capital city of the Inca empire was built on those two words.
Not that Cuzco, when they reached it, had any of its old treasures; Spanish invaders had stripped it centuries before. But the memory was there among the ruins.
The native Peruvian Indians—over whom the Incas had ruled, for the Incas were a superior tribe which governed its subjects kindly but firmly—these natives were shiftless, poor and inclined to be lazy.
But to the three adventurers, with their imaginations fired by what Cliff had read and what Mr. Whitley had told them on the boats, Cuzco still echoed to the tramp of armies carrying bows and arrows, swords and light shields; the great square shook again to the shouts of hosts gathered for ceremonies and feasting in the rites of their worship of the Sun.
“It is certainly interesting,” declared Cliff, as they stood near the stripped temple which had once rivaled in splendor any other place of worship ever built. “The gold cornice is gone and so is the silver and so are the emeralds and ornaments. But we can imagine them. And notice how perfectly the edges of these stones are ground and fitted and matched.”
“How big they are, too,” Nicky added, “tons, some of them must weigh. The Incas had no beasts of burden to haul things—how they ever got these stones cut and shaped and hauled here and lifted into place—it is too much for me.”
“Patience and time did it,” Tom said, “I believe they say it took fifty thousand men twenty years and more to build one great palace or temple.”