CHAPTER XXII THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN
Never before had Nicky, Tom, or the older men, seen so much treasure asthey found at the end of the passage. Cliff had seen the great roomfilled with gold and precious cloths and metals once before, when theking's son took him there to inquire about the statuette.
"Where can Caya have left my father?" Cliff said anxiously when he hadtaken a swift glance around the treasure room; his chums almost forgottheir danger, so awed and fascinated were they.
But Mr. Whitley hurried them all to the steps and up them.
The stairway into the ante-room, or rear portion of the Sun Temple werenot straight; they curved like steps in a lighthouse tower.
At their top, emerging after spying carefully, the fugitives foundthemselves in a narrow room, a sort of Priests' room, running across theback of the edifice, behind the huge placque on which was embossed andenscrolled the massive face with the Sun-rays around it. Therefore therear room had two doorways, one on each side of the placque, lookinginto the main temple. Great tapestries screened these doorways. Billlost no time in spying through into the main room; finding thatdeserted, he nodded and permitted the others to ascend into the backroom, forbidding loud words in case anyone came into the front templeroom by chance, though few had the privilege of entry there.
As they entered, single file, they all grew tense again--it seemed thatthey were betrayed! A huge curtain hung on the wall opposite to thedoorways began to quiver.
Bill hurriedly produced his weapon. "Come forth!" he muttered inquichua; the curtain remained without further stir.
"Look out!" gasped Nicky, "he might have a bow'n arrow!"
Of course he spoke in English, and at the sound of the words there camea low whisper.
"Do not fire!"
From behind the curtain emerged a white man!
"Father!" gasped Cliff, forgetting all cautions. He and his father, solong separated, were at last rejoined.
Their meeting was joyful; but Cliff lost no time in presenting thegray-haired, weak old scholar to the others--except Bill, who hadalready visited Mr. Gray.
They were not left long without interruption, but, fortunately, when thetension of a steady step ascending the curved stairs was almostunendurable, a lithe, young soldier, hardly older than the chums, madehis appearance, stopping before he reached the top step. He carried ashort throwing spear, with its point toward himself, a token of hiserrand being peaceful.
He explained hurriedly that he was Caya's older brother, belonging tothe Palace guard of picked youths, a sort of picked reserve regiment,called out on occasions such as this.
They liked him at once; but they respected his refusal to come into theTemple. "It is forbidden!" he said, simply, to Bill, and told his storybriefly from the steps.
Caya had been caught; she had managed to see him. She sent him to searchfor the white man, and then, if he found him, to convey him to thetemple steps and bid him go up. But Mr. Gray, once free, had come therealready.
"I go, then, to my duty," said the young soldier. "Because you saved mysister--from--the sacrifice--and she is very dear to me, for we aretwins!--I will try to save your lives tonight."
"Do you know the secret way?" asked Bill. "So we can get out of thevalley?"
The soldier shook his head.
"No. But I will ask to have 'leave.' I will pretend to be seeking foryou--I hope I shall get to the hill path by following some soldierssecretly despatched to duty by a High Priest."
"Yes," Tom agreed. "He would know the secret ways and might sendsoldiers to guard them."
But when they asked the young soldier about Caya, his sister, he becamevery sad.
"She is a captive," he told Bill, who interpreted. "There is nothingthat can be done. Even I, in the Inca's junior guard, cannot see her."
"Who can?" demanded Nicky.
"The Inca alone," said the youthful brother.
He went down the stairway, promising to return after dark, ifopportunity permitted. He was certain that they would not be molestedbecause the ceremonies in the temple were finished and the feastingwould continue as soon as the disturbance was ended.
"I think," Nicky suggested, after the soldier went, "we ought to try tohelp Caya."
"So do I!" declared Cliff and Tom echoed the fact that she had given upher liberty for their sakes. Cliff suggested a plan and although theyhesitated at first, Mr. Whitley, Mr. Gray and Bill finally agreed to it.
Then they began, as is so often the case, to become enthusiastic andhopeful, and also added ideas of their own.
"We would need Tom, too," Mr. Whitley hesitated.
"I'm not afraid," Tom said. "If I can do anything to help! Tell me whatit is."
"We must get that rope that we hid at the ledge," Bill told him. "Myidea is for you to strip down to the sort of costume the Inca's'chasquis' or messengers, wear. I am going to make up a quipu like onethat would be used to identify the Inca's runners, and you are to takeit and go to the place we left our rope, for we will need it in themountain passes. If you meet anybody you can show the quipu and theywon't stop you. If you meet soldiers near the ledge, show the quipu andsay 'I go to get what the Inca has learned about.' Then, even if they gowith you they won't take the rope away."
"Can't I go, too?" Nicky pleaded. "The chances would be better withtwo----"
"Oh, no," Mr. Whitley decided. "Tom proved that he can run during theraces, and--I must say this in frankness, Nicky--he can keep a quiettongue and a level head if an emergency comes before him."
Nicky was crestfallen, but had he been able to look into the future hewould not have been depressed at his forced inactivity just for thetime.
Tom rehearsed his quichua words, Cliff went over, again and again, thethings he might be called on to do and to say. Bill, Mr. Gray and theirleader revised and discussed their plan until they could see no possibleemergency that could come up that they would not be prepared to meet.
With his fading flashlight, later replaced by Mr. Whitley's, Billfashioned a simple quipu of woven strands, taken from a raveled edge ofa woolen wall hanging: he knotted it craftily.