Cliff bowed, not quite sure what else to do. Bill, whose middle left finger had again been caressing his ear, until his friends all gave attentions, made a sign again for no speech, and they all allowed themselves to be conducted to places of honor at a special board table, rather crude but lavishly laden with gold and silver dishes, on which were spread a feast of native roast meats, vegetables, a sort of bread made of the maize—only rarely did the Incas make up bread; they used the corn more often in a sort of porridge, or dried and sometimes parched.
“I am glad you came when you did,” Cliff told the former history instructor. The others echoed his statement.
“We are not out of the frying pan yet,” Bill warned. “Or—if we are, it’s most likely because we’re about to be dipped into the fire.”
“Why?” asked Nicky, thrilling a little with fear and quite a deal more with anticipation of more adventure.
“You saw the priest and the noble glaring at each other?”
They all nodded.
“It was because of their enmity that the noble was so eager to help me,” Mr. Whitley stated. “Naturally the chief priest will not like us too well for showing that his judgment was so far wrong.”
“But the priest won’t dare do anything,” Tom volunteered. “The people think we are heroes, don’t they?” Bill nodded.
“Just now they do,” he agreed. “But—there is no telling—I saw Huamachaco talking to that mysterious stranger as we came—.” He paused and suddenly changed his tone, as he added, “Be careful!” and immediately raised his voice again. “Did you ever see so much gold on a table, Chasca, since we left the halls of the dwellers in the skies?”
They saw at once what caused his sudden change. The dark stranger was approaching. By his shifting gaze and the first words he spoke under his breath they knew him to be Sancho Pizzara, the Spaniard who had offered to join them and then had deserted them in the white pass, only to come to grief himself.