“We make report,” said the taller man. “Oh, Inca—” and a stream of titles and words of praise followed.
“Let it be spoken from the tongues of truth,” said the Inca.
They bowed again and the story of the exodus into the strange outer world was told. He who had been silent related his experiences on a journey to that strange continent where all men were pale and where many monsters with hot breath and coughing voices dragged great rolling houses along on hard roads of shining metal; where houses were, oh! piled one upon another until one could not count them to the top; where men had even trained huge birds whose wings did not move but whose voices were as the roar of an avalanche, so that these birds did rise from earth to carry the men through the air. Thus, and with many other strange stories he explained to the wondering ruler the sights he had seen but that he did not understand. How could he, buried in his mountain retreat, explain a railway train, or the high skyscrapers of America, or its aeroplanes?
“And the letter of the captive?” demanded the Inca.
Its story also was told up to the arrival of the party among the snows of the white pass.
“There we flung rocks upon them, and we believe that all ran back except one who lay still until new snow covered him.”
The Inca commended their splendid work.
“But this I do not understand,” said he who had been to America, and he displayed the quipu of Bill Sanders. “I sent a message to my brother in the hills and on the way it changed from a message of warning, that men came, to this.”
“Read it, quipucamayu,” the Inca commanded of the other.
“It tells, oh Inca, of the coming of one from the stars, yes, even of Chasca, Page of the Sun, himself, as our fathers prophecied so many ages ago.”