CHAPTER XIV GOLD, AND A SURPRISE
"Four days more and you will see your father," Bill told Cliff. "He ismuch better. I saw him today."
"If only I could slip away and see him, just for a minute." Cliff spokewistfully. Bill shook his head.
"I am afraid they would suspect something," he said. "It was easy for meto see him, as I told you before; I pretended to know that there was agreat, pale scholar from beyond the mountains whose knowledge I wantedto compare with mine. The chief priest often talked with your pa and hewas glad to take me; and now I can go alone. You are supposed to bespending all your time pleading with the Sun-god to save their corn. I'mafraid to have you caught going through the tunnels."
Quichaka was a city modeled very closely along the pattern of theancient capital, Cuzco. As in that old place, so in Quichaka, thegrounds beneath the temples were honeycombed with secret passages,tunnels that led to underground chambers.
In the fifteenth century Topa Inca Yapanqui had extended the borders ofthe flourishing empire of the Incas to the Maule River and his son hadlater subdued Quito and made it a part of his possessions; then theSpaniards had come into the country. Observing that these invaders hadconfiscated treasure, one of the many sons of the reigning Inca of theperiod had gathered much treasure and many of his nobles and theirsubjects and had found a way to the hidden valley where they had builtup Quichaka during long years of labor until it almost duplicated theancient glories of Cuzco, their former home.
"They don't keep Cliff's father in a dungeon, do they?" Tom asked Bill.Mr. Whitley was away, alone, in the foothills, searching for certainminerals. Bill shook his head in reply to Tom.
"Not a dungeon," he explained. "They have some cells down under theground but he is in a sort of chamber, a good, big room."
"Why isn't he allowed to be in a house?" Nicky demanded.
"Huamachaco, the high priest, is to blame for that," Bill said. "Cliff'spa heard in some way that there was a secret pass or some way to get outof the valley and he tried to find it; they caught him and brought himback and then he tamed the eaglet and when they discovered that it wasmissing and found some torn scraps of paper which he had tried todestroy after he had spoiled the letter he had started on them,Huamachaco, who isn't any man's dummy, decided to have the white manwatched."
It was because the chief priest was so clever that Bill feared to takethe least chance of upsetting their plans.
Challcuchima, who had become very much attached to Cliff and to hischums, in a respectful awed way, came to visit them while they discussedtheir plans.
"Holy Chasca," he said to Cliff in quichua dialect at which Cliff wasonly fairly proficient, covering up his deficiency by saying verylittle. "As successor to the Inca rule I have been shown the mysteriesof the secret ways beneath the city. Among our hidden treasure is astatue which is like you and yet not like you. My father, the Inca, haspermitted me to show it to you that you may say if it is truly yourimage and if it should be set in the Temple of the Stars."
Cliff consulted Bill with his eyes and Bill, with a very tiny wink andnod, bade him go. The chums, not invited, looked downcast as Cliffwalked across the gardens of gold and silver with his young guide; butBill soothed them by telling them what he had seen underground.
Cliff was to see far more than was permitted to the eyes of his supposedscholarly servant.
Taking him to the Inca, who greeted him with a mixed respect and goodfeeling, Challcuchima led Cliff through a tapestried and hidden openingin the private rooms of the palace; then they went down many steps;Cliff had brought a flashlight, an implement which caused Challcuchimamuch awe and wonder when he was allowed to operate it. Mostly, they usedtorches as they traversed long passages, twisted around sharp bends,slipped through cross-cuts.
Finally the two came to a huge chamber cut out of the rock. Servants,carrying torches, held their lights high and Cliff had to suppress histendency to gasp. He had never seen a sight to compare with that whichmet his eyes.
"This is the room beneath the Temple of the Sun," Challcuchima informedhim, "this is sacred ground." He and Cliff removed their sandals foreveryone of the few permitted access to the Temple or its undergroundcounterpart, went unshod.
Wide and long was the chamber. The light, flaring and flickering as thetorches leaped up and burned down, was filled with gold and silverobjects. There were utensils of every sort, from plates, cups and rudepots, to wonderful statues and urns and placques of precious metal. Itwas a very treasure-house.
Challcuchima led Cliff, his eyes dazed by the glories of the objectswhich he dared only to examine briefly in passing, to a statue depictinga youth cast and moulded in purest gold, a lithe, poised figure of ayoung man in the action of running, poised on the toes of one foot, theother 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 discoverwhether 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, hewould disclose his ignorance: if he denied that it was the image ofVenus 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, saidsomething 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 youngguide turned swiftly into a passage they had not used, which broughtthem out into one of the small houses just beyond the Sun temple, adwelling of one of the priests.
There was a crowd assembled near the Temple of the Stars and Cliff sawat once that Bill, Nicky and Tom were on the way to join the gatheringcrowd. With Challcuchima and Huamachaco he went quickly toward them.
"What goes on?" he asked. Huamachaco did not answer. He was rather stoutand the climb had taxed his wind.
Cliff met his comrades at the edge of the group: some fell backrespectfully to give passage to the young Inca-to-be and to Chasca andthe high priest. They pressed to the point of interest.
A native, much more stocky than the others they had seen, and of a fardeeper reddish complexion, seemed to be a captive; but so rapid was theexchange of conversation, so sharp the questions which Huamachaco askedand so hasty the replies that Cliff and his fellows were completely atsea.
Finally the crowd grew so thick that, at the high priest's ordersoldiers formed a quick wedge and began to disperse them. The strangerstared fixedly for a while at the group facing him, while he replied toHuamachaco's sharp demands with fluent quichua dialect. The priestseemed puzzled. Finally he made a sign to Challcuchima who turned andhurried toward his father's palace. Huamachaco, taking the stranger bythe arm, with the soldiers closing in behind them, apologized to Chascafor leaving so abruptly, and Huamachaco led the stranger away towardanother building.
"He claims that he has an important word for Manco Huayna, who was, hesays, the fellow who went out into the mountains to find out about theeaglet," Bill explained as they returned soberly to their own place. "Doyou know who I think he is?"
"The Spaniard," said Nicky promptly, "Did you see his shifty eyes?"
"Did he recognize us?" Tom asked, "I know he stared."
"I think he suspected," Bill answered.
"What word do you think he has? About us?" Tom mused.
"I hope not," said Bill, dubiously. "He's after gold, of course. I don'tknow how far that fellow would go in an effort to get it."
And not even Chasca could tell him.