“This is the room beneath the Temple of the Sun,” Challcuchima informed him, “this is sacred ground.” He and Cliff removed their sandals for everyone of the few permitted access to the Temple or its underground counterpart, went unshod.
Wide and long was the chamber. The light, flaring and flickering as the torches leaped up and burned down, was filled with gold and silver objects. There were utensils of every sort, from plates, cups and rude pots, to wonderful statues and urns and placques of precious metal. It was a very treasure-house.
Challcuchima led Cliff, his eyes dazed by the glories of the objects which he dared only to examine briefly in passing, to a statue depicting a youth cast and moulded in purest gold, a lithe, poised figure of a young man in the action of running, poised on the toes of one foot, the other leg thrust out and lifted as though it had just taken a step.
“It is like to you and yet not like,” said Challcuchima.
Cliff thought quickly. It could not be a trap, this effort to discover whether or not he knew the figure. Or could it. And why a trap at all? Was anyone suspicious of his pose and of the part he played?
If he said it was Chasca and the Incas knew differently, he mused, he would disclose his ignorance: if he denied that it was the image of Venus as they imaged the god of that star, what might they answer?
He was spared the need for an answer.
Huamachaco, the high priest, coming down the passage with a torch, said something in quite an excited manner. Challcuchima grasped Cliff’s arm.
“There is something new—come,” he urged, “this can wait!”
Cliff hurried after the servants with their torches and his royal young guide turned swiftly into a passage they had not used, which brought them out into one of the small houses just beyond the Sun temple, a dwelling of one of the priests.