“Truly it is a strange tale, oh ruler,” Bill spoke without apparent surprise. “A tale that is the more strange because it comes from the lips of one of that race of Spaniards who tore the empire of the Incas to shreds and took much gold away!”
Pizzara snarled as the Inca turned toward him; but he swiftly composed his face to a smile.
“Royal son of the Sun,” Pizzara said to the Inca. “Which of us speaks the truth? It is easy to prove. Here come the men!”
Cliff, Nicky and Tom wheeled. There was a commotion among the crowds still mulling around in the great square, drawn by the feeling that something important was happening. Soldiers threw the people aside as they advanced toward the gardens in which the royal table and those for the nobles were set out.
Cliff felt a prickle of fear run along his spine; there was no mistaking the figure coming toward them. It was Huayca, or Whackey, their former mountain guide, the one who had deserted them on the same night that the Spaniard had slipped away. Behind him were two others. They later proved to be the Indian who had accompanied Pizzara to America and the other who had waited in the hills for the quipu from Cuzco.
Soldiers formed a cordon around the garden as though by a previous arrangement; it was as well, for the crowd, sensing one threat in the attitudes of the five strangers, began to murmur and to press in toward the gardens.
“Can you say who these men are?” the Inca demanded, turning to Huayca and signing for him to rise from his posture of kneeling with his face to the ground.
“They are five,” replied Huayca. “They have the same height as did five whom I guided toward our trap in the white pass. But their faces are red, the others were white.”
“And who, say you, does this man resemble?” Bill indicated Pizzara. “Is he not of the height of a Spaniard who followed us?”
“He is of that height, perhaps,” said the former guide. “But him I cannot recognize for I saw him only at a distance.”