Cliff nodded slightly.
The priest and the Inca, Challcuchima and a number of nobles who had hastened closer, scowled and waited for an answer as Huamachaco sputtered, “What does this mean? What said Chasca?”
The air was electric with tension: Cliff felt it, his chums felt it; the mass of people, although they had not heard, had seen his dramatic attitude—and they felt the suspense. It was so still that they all distinctly heard the crackle of a kindled stick on the altar!
“Chasca speaks the language of the skies,” Bill said, in the dialect of the nobles and priests, which was different from the quichua and which he had not taught the boys, although he understood much of it himself. “Chasca in his anger forgets that you do not speak the speech of the gods, being but mortals!”
All the while his hands were changing position unobtrusively, or his position or attitude shifted.
He dropped his right hand to his side, as he spoke, but the three chums saw that all fingers were clenched except the index finger which pointed outward and downward, hanging loosely.
That meant “Some one is coming!”
They stood with folded arms for he had asked no question and they did not wish to call attention to themselves by too many gestures. Bill was the leader: he had called for a council; whoever did so must do all the gesturing unless he asked for an answer. So they watched without appearing to do so.
“Chasca is very angry,” Bill spoke on, calmly. He did it very well, Cliff had to admit to himself, almost as well as Cliff had done on that memorable occasion when they had considered admitting Mr. Whitley. He hoped Nicky would not speak as he had done then. Nicky did not mean to do that, but if he spoke now in his excitement he might upset all Bill’s plans.
Bill had his hand spread out in what the Inca took for a gesture of anger against him and his priest. Really Cliff saw in it their sign that the next word would tell who was coming; it would be spelled on the fingers of Bill’s other hand, hanging loosely at his side, using the simplest deaf-and-dumb alphabet.