Chapter IV

Huascar raised his hand, and the temple began to empty in silence. There was not a song, not a murmur, only the slip of innumerable sandals on the stone slabs of the floor. Huascar and his priests, the nobles, young men, virgins, curacas and mammaconas crossed the threshold of the golden doors.

Huayna Capac Runtu had descended from his throne and taken his seat beside the dead King, on the seat left vacant by Maria-Teresa; the Red Ponchos lifted the two monarchs, the dead, and the living, to their shoulders, and in their turn vanished into the Corridor of Night.

There remained in the hall only the Guardians of the Temple and the ashes of the first victims.

Hardly had the three gnomes closed the doors to carry out their horrible duties in peace than a shadow rose up before them. Squeaking with terror, they fled into the Chapel of the Moon, but vengeance followed them there, and it was at the foot of its altar that they were shot down like loathsome beasts. White as Maria-Teresa had been, but icy-cool in the moment of action, Dick fired only one shot into each hideous skull.

Then he turned and ran into the temple, where Orellana was already raining blows on the tomb with his pick. Dick wrenched the tool from his hands, and set to work. But the stones did not move. His forehead covered with icy perspiration, he forced himself to think, to reason, trying to forget Maria-Teresa in her tomb and bring his engineer’s knowledge to bear on the problem. Those stones could not be very heavy. Orellana and he could lift them easily if the three dwarfs could. They were evidently made light so that they could be readily removed by the priests at certain ceremonies. But what, was their secret? What was their secret?

Quelling the moral storm that would have sent him raging impotently against this rampart, he compelled himself to look for the jointing of the stones. His hands were trembling, so he stopped for a minute to control himself, and then tried again. Again he failed. How were they moved?

He had seen them put back into position before his eyes, so there must be a way. But where was he to press, where strike? And meanwhile Maria-Teresa was dying behind those stones! Dying!

Again he raised the pick, whirled it over his head, and struck at random, on the left side of the stone. Every ounce of his strength, doubled by despair, had been put into that blow, and the slab turned slightly on itself, to the right. The socket in which the stones rested was so made that they could swing and slip out of their frame on that side.

With a shout of triumph, he swung the pick over his head.

“Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!”

Behind him, the madman was calling too.

“Maria Cristina! Maria Cristina!”

Dick was still raining blows on the slab. Soon it had turned so far that he could catch hold of it with his hands, and tore them in a vain effort to hasten. With the handle of the pick he pushed on the left again, and the stone came half out of its socket.

This time, both he and Orellana could get firm hold and put their strength into it. The stone yielded, came toward them. “Maria-Teresa! Maria-Teresa!” One more effort and she would be free.

A prodigious heave, a struggle with teeth set and breath whistling, and the slab came away altogether, thundered on the floor as Dick hurled it from off his shoulder.

“Maria-Teresa!”

There was no answer from the tightly-bound head dimly visible in the darkness. He leaned forward.

“My God. It’s not Maria-Teresa!”