Three policemen mounted on mules, coming from the direction of Callao, now appeared on the road. Natividad at once requisitioned the mules for his expedition. Before starting, however, he went back into the casa to write a hurried letter to President Veintemilla, explaining what had happened. He did so with a certain malice, remembering that ten years ago this same president had been Chief of Police, and had threatened to suspend him for his “mad reports.”
One of the policemen, entrusted with the letter, started back toward Callao at once. The two others were ordered to take charge at the hacienda and begin a preliminary enquiry. Then Natividad and Uncle Francis mounted two of the commandeered mules, the third being taken by the soldier whose horse had been carried off by Don Christobal. When the soldiers saw that they were heading for the sierra instead of Chorillos, there was a grumble, but Natividad silenced them. “Forward,” he ordered, and they, in their turn, entered the ravine.
“We can, at all events, travel as fast as the mammaconas,” said the Chief of Police to Uncle Francis.
“The mammaconas? Were they here then?” The scientist, intensely interested, urged his mount alongside Natividad’s.
“Yes señor... the mammaconas... and three head priests of the temple... only they may touch the Virgin of the Sun.... señor, for the past fifteen years I have known all this, but they called me a lunatic. Why should we suppose that the Indians have changed? Do they not eat, drink, and get married just as they did five centuries ago? If their outward customs have not changed, why should their secret rites have done so? Why, señor, why?... But nobody will believe me. It all began when I was a young man. I had to investigate a mysterious crime, the only possible explanation for which was a religious one. You must not forget that you are dealing with Incas to this day.... And I got my knuckles rapped.... Five years later, when the Orellana girl disappeared, they treated me in the same way. So I let them give what explanation they liked, and worked on my own. I speak Quichua like a native now, señor. I also learned Aimara, which is their sacred language in the Cuzco and round Titicaca.... That’s where they are making for now; some hidden temple, where their priests have been working since the days of the conquest.”
Uncle Francis looked at his companion suspiciously. Were they all engaged in a huge practical joke at his expense? This Chief of Police was singularly calm under the circumstances; off-handed, almost gay.
“We are sure to catch them, are we not?”
“Of a surety, señor. Dios mio, be content! We will catch them.... How can they possibly escape? We are on their heels; if they stick to the mountains, they run into our troops; if they go down into the costa, every corregidor (mayor) is at my orders.”
There was a moment’s silence, and he went on: —
“Will you not put on that cloak at your saddle-bow, señor? The nights are chilly, and we are nearing the cordilleras.... The only road, you see. They must have passed here. At dawn, we shall be able to see their trail distinctly.... If only those crazy people who dashed on ahead do not make fools of themselves.... A plucky youngster, little Christobal.... We shall soon overhaul them.... One does not climb these mountains as a bull jumps over the barrier at the ring....”
Natividad’s garrulous flow of words was interrupted by a chuckle from Uncle Francis. Not a little astonished, he asked him what he meant, but Mr. Montgomery contented himself with replying:— “I understand, I understand.” Natividad, who did not understand, eyed him doubtfully.
Just before day-break they reached the first masses of the true Andes. Their mounts did not appear over-tired, and after a two-hours’ halt at a wayside guebrada, where beasts and men obtained food, they continued the journey. Over them towered the giant mountain chain, blazing in the molten light of dawn.
The half-breeds at the guebrada could not, or would not, give them any information as to those they followed. That the Indian cavalcade had not stopped there, however, was certain, or larder and loft would have been empty. Natividad, convinced he would get nothing else out of the men, forced them, in the name of “the supreme government,” to exchange two strong mules for two of the horses.
Shortly after they had started again, they came on unmistakable traces of a strong party of horse. Thistles, and the great yellow flower of the amancaes, trampled flat, showed where hoofs had passed.
“We are close on them now, señor,” said Natividad.
Uncle Francis, coughing knowingly, assented in such a detached manner that Natividad began to have serious doubts as to the mental welfare of that illustrious scientist.
Before long, though, he was worrying a great deal more about something else. So far, there had not been a sign anywhere of the Indians’ first pursuers. Uncle Francis, on the other hand, was thoroughly happy, and seemed to be enjoying the scenery.
As they climbed steadily upwards, the road was becoming more and more dangerous, twisting and turning round the mountain-side. Peaks, sky, and precipices; in the blue of the distance, a few mountain goats, all four feet joined together, balancing on some rocky point.
The cold was now intense, and the soldiers grumbled openly. When Natividad reminded them that they were serving “the supreme government,” they let it be inferred that they did not give a tinker’s damn for the supremo gobesnie, but nevertheless followed.
“Are you sure of those men of yours?” asked Uncle Francis.
“As sure as of myself,” replied Natividad, determined to be optimistic.
“What are they? Indians?”
“Quichuas, of course.... Where else would we get soldiers?”
“They do not seem to me to be enthusiastic militarists.”
“A grave error, señor. They are delighted to be soldiers. What else could they be?”
“They are volunteers, then?” questioned the scientist. And to Natividad’s stupefaction, he produced his note-book.
“No, not volunteers, illustrious señor.... We send troops into the Indian villages, and arrest every able-bodied man who has not bolted. Then we enroll them as volunteers.”
“Charming! And you are not afraid that they may turn on you when you have armed them?”
“Not in the least. After the first few days they decide they are so much better off under the colors that they would not go back to their families for anything.... You should see them join in the recruiting afterwards!... They make very good soldiers.... These men are only annoyed at being taken into the mountains; they would die for Veintemilla.”
“So much the better,” concluded Uncle Francis philosophically. And he added, to Natividad’s growing amazement:— “But why insist on their coming with us? We can find those other Indians just as well without their aid.”
Natividad jumped. What kind of a man was this? Then his attention was suddenly drawn to the road again.
“There, over there! They camped there.”
At this point, the mountain path widened to a kind of little plateau, on which were unmistakable traces of a recently-pitched camp. The ashes of the fire had not yet been swept away by the wind, and remains of food littered one corner. Natividad, convinced that he had found the first resting-place of the escort of the Virgin of the Sun, urged on his party.
“It is strange,” he said, “that we should have seen nothing yet of the Marquis, little Christobal, or your nephew.”
“Why worry? We’ll find them all, sooner or later.”
“What?”
“Sooner or later — some day.... Hello, what’s the matter? This beast of mine won’t move. Gee up.”
Calm and collected, quite different from the frightened Mr. Montgomery of the flight from Cajamarca, he urged on his mount, but the mule refused to answer to his heel. Then Natividad, pressing forward to see what was the matter, saw the body of a llama stretched across the narrow path. Dismounting, he lifted its head, examined the nostrils, and then pushed the body over the edge of the ravine.
“Little Christobal’s llama,” he pronounced. “The animal has been ridden to death....
Poor child! I wonder where he is.”
Uncle Francis, busy with his note-book, refused to get excited.
“With my nephew, probably. Even if Dick had left him behind, his father must have come upon him.”
“That is possible, of course,” said Natividad, doubtfully.
“Is this llama-riding common over here?” questioned the scientist, intent on acquiring knowledge.
“No. Children sometimes amuse themselves with it if the llama is willing. Rich people give them to their sons occasionally. Christobal probably had his.”
“I would never have believed a llama capable of going so far, and so fast.”
“No pack-llama could. But that was a good one, trained to carry light weights and travel fast. Probably used to being ridden by children.... I wonder where they found it... Your nephew’s horse, too... in the hacienda stables, I suppose.... A tragedy might have been avoided had they not.”
The little party had ridden on, and now, taking a sharp corner, came suddenly upon Dick and the Marquis, the former on foot, and the latter mounted. Little Christobal was not there.
V
DICK WAS PALE, but the Marquis was livid. So they appeared to Natividad; as to Uncle Francis, he had not his glasses on, and noticed nothing disquieting in their appearance.
“Those scoundrels have both my children now,” groaned Don Christobal in answer to Natividad’s eager questions, and told what had happened.
Badly mounted for mountain roads, the Marquis had found great difficulty in following. Several times he had been on the point of abandoning his horse, but, thinking it might be valuable later on, had kept to it. Once or twice he had been obliged to dismount and drag the unwilling beast behind him. At dawn, he reached the Indians’ camp, which he searched in vain for some personal sign of his daughter. She was evidently too well guarded. Finally he found the llama’s body, but being convinced that Dick was with little Christobal, had not worried overmuch. Then, a little further on, he found Dick, but alone.
Dick, powerless to interfere, had seen little Christobal carried off by the same Indians who already held Maria-Teresa. When they started on their wild ride, and as soon as the road became steeper, the llama had rapidly outpaced Dick’s horse. Little Christobal, riding it hard, would not stop, and soon vanished ahead. Two hours later, Dick had lost his horse in a ravine, throwing himself from the saddle only just in time, and narrowly saving his own life by clinging to a projecting rock. He continued his pursuit on foot, and finally came in sight of the boy, just as the llama, exhausted, burst a blood-vessel and fell. He had called to little Christobal, but the boy, unheeding, had run on, crying, “Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”
They were right on the Indians then, and Dick could see them far above him on the zig-zagging mountain-path. They had checked their horses, waiting for the boy to catch up to them. Then one of the Red Ponchos bent down, lifted him up to his saddle-bow, and hurried on with his new captive. Dick was too far away to open fire, and the Indians had at once spurred on, soon leaving him far behind. The Marquis had come up a short time after.
“You must not despair, Don Christobal,” urged Natividad. “Your news is not all bad. They are only just ahead, and cannot escape us. They must pass through Huancavelica, and there we have troops to help us.”
Natividad ordered one of the soldiers to dismount and give his mule to Dick. The man was indignant, and continued protesting in a weird jargon as he trotted afoot behind the cavalcade. In this manner they reached a point where the road forked, one branch going on up into the hills, the other stretching down toward the coast. They had all turned up the former when the dismounted soldier turned — he would go no further, but would descend to the coast; and once there he would report to the powers the manner in which he had been treated by a mere civilian. Natividad wished him an ironical good-by, and he started, but only to reappear a moment later, waving a soft felt hat in his hand.
“That belongs to Christobal!” exclaimed the Marquis.
They turned their mounts, grateful for the chance-found sign which had saved them from a grievous mistake. Natividad alone hesitated, wondering whether this was not an Indian ruse. They advanced slowly therefore, until the mud and sand on the banks of a torrent just below showed beyond doubt that a large number of mounted men had passed that way and restored Natividad’s serene belief in the ultimate success of their search.
“So they’re doubling back to the costa. They must have been warned that the passes were guarded... all they have gained by the detour is avoiding Chorillos.... Perhaps they are making for Canete.... Well, they must stop somewhere, and then we have them!”
After an hour’s rest, they hurried on again at top speed, one of the soldiers giving his dismounted comrade a lift behind.
“Did you, then, ever think that we might not catch them?” asked Uncle Francis of Natividad, with an enigmatical smile.
“Why not, señor?... Between you and me, it is about time we did catch them.... I for one shall not feel happy if señorita de la Torre and the boy are still in their hands on the last day of the Interaymi.”
“Do you mean that the boy is in danger?”
“Speak lower, señor, speak lower.... Nothing is too young, too beautiful or too innocent for the Sun. Do you understand?”
“More or less. More or less.”
“You people do not know what horrors they are capable of.... They still have their priests.... You might blink at facts if it were only the ordinary Red Ponchos, but there are also those three monsters.... You always find them together in the old burial-grounds.... When one dies, the other two are put to death.... Or when a king died, they sacrificed themselves on his tomb.... They still exist, those monsters, those high-priests of the sacred slaughters.... They exist, señor.”
“Do they?”
“You, señor, are a savant, and know about the Temple of Death. But do you know how many dead were found buried with the mummy of Huayna Capac? Four thousand, señor! Four thousand human lives sacrificed to honor the dead — some by suicide, others strangled, knifed or suffocated.... And the House of the Serpent.... But I prefer not to tell you what happened there.”
“Tell me some other day.... You make an admirable guide. When we return, I will tell the supremo gobierno how grateful I am to them for having made the most erudite of police officers my cicerone.”
“I beg your pardon, señor?”
Natividad, completely taken aback, could only stare at his interlocutor.
“Nothing, nothing! I am only joking!” Scandalized at such levity, Natividad turned away with an indignant snort, while Uncle Francis chuckled. That worthy gentleman had now quite made up his mind that there was a plot afoot against him, and sternly refused to be “taken in.” The joke was rather tiring physically, but he would not cry for mercy. As to all these hair-raising stories, he would take them for what they were worth. Let them play their pranks till they tired of them.
The more he thought of it, the more he became convinced of the truth of his deductions. His antiquarian’s eye rested lovingly on the traces of that long-dead Inca civilization which they met. Here, aqueducts that would have made the Romans wonder; there, remains of the great road which ran from end to end of South America. They were all dead, those Incas. Yet these people wished to make him believe that those vanished warriors and priests had carried off a boy and girl of to-day to offer them as a sacrifice to equally-forgotten gods!
They had now left the arid ranges and dusty wind behind them, and reached a little village nestling in green fields at the foot of the mountain. A babbling stream, tumbling down from the Cordilleras, had transformed this corner into an oasis of verdure, in which Uncle Francis would willingly have passed a few hours. But now that they were in flat country again, Dick, the Marquis and Natividad increased the pace feverishly. Uncle Francis, still determined not to show that he had fathomed their plot, was careful not to protest.
Once or twice, they stopped to ask questions, but it was difficult
to obtain information. Hamlets were rare, and the Interaymi festivals had drawn away nearly the whole population. The few Indians they met received their questions with evident suspicion, and even hostility. Nor would money loosen their tongues.
Fortunately, there were half-breeds more ready to talk, and they learned that Huascar and his companions were riding hard. Nobody had seen Red Ponchos; presumably the priests had concealed the ceremonial raiment imposed by their ritual for the reception of the Bride of the Sun. They were traveling so fast that nobody had had time to notice whether they had a captive boy or young woman with them. At the questions on this score all their informants began to grow uneasy, and turned away with evasive sentences.
Huascar and his men had about two hours’ start, but it soon became evident that they were gaining ground steadily. Natividad could not fathom the meaning of the Indians sudden turn toward the sea, this riding into a town where, normally, everything must be against them if the alarm was given.
They reached Canete at nightfall, Dick still leading. There was a big fête on, with torchlight processions and the deafening noise of fireworks set off by delirious roisterers. Half the native population was under the influence of drink, and Natividad, trained to understand the populace, at once saw that the town was in a state of dangerous effervescence.
Of all the towns in Peru, Canete is perhaps the one which shows most markedly that strange admixture of the new and old. Factory chimneys tower to the sky side by side with Inca aqueducts which to this day bring the water of the Rio Canete to the surrounding plantations. Just above the town are still the remains of the huge native fortress demolished some two hundred years ago by the then viceroy of Mañdelova when he needed materials for the defenses of Callao.
Natividad’s first visit was to the corregidor, who told him that the town was celebrating Garcia’s victories. It was now certain that the rebels had captured Cuzco, and routed the Federal forces. Natividad then told him of the plight of the Marquis de la Torre’s children. The Mayor was skeptical, and showed it. Indians committing such a crime, he said, would never have dared pass through a town.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 326