Under the Andes Part 23

I found myself wondering how these half-civilized brutes had possibly managed to conceive the idea of the spiral stair. It was known to neither the Aztecs nor the Incas, in America; nor to any of the primitive European or Asiatic civilizations. But they had found a place where nothing else would do--and they made it. Another of the innumerable offspring of Mother Necessity.

I took time to note its construction. It was rude enough, but a good job for all that. It was not exactly circular; there were many angles, evidently following the softer strata in the rock; they had bowed to their material--the way of the artist.

Even the height of the steps was irregular; some were scarcely more than three inches, while others were twelve or fourteen. You may know we descended slowly and with care, especially when we had reached the point where no light came from above to aid us. We found our guide waiting for us at the bottom, alone.

We followed him down the low and narrow pa.s.sage through which we had previously come. But when we reached the steps which led up to the pa.s.sage above and to the cave where we had formerly been confined, he ignored them and turned to the right. We hesitated.

"He's alone," said Harry. "Shall we chuck the beggar?"

"We shall not, for that very reason," I answered. "It means that we are guests instead of captives, and far be it from us to outrage the laws of hospitality. But seriously, the safest thing we can do is to follow him."

The pa.s.sage in which we now found ourselves was evidently no work of nature. Even in the semidarkness the mark of man's hand was apparent.

And the ceiling was low; another proof, for dwarfs do not build for the accommodation of giants. But I had some faint idea of the pitiful inadequacy of their tools, and I found myself reflecting on the stupendous courage of the men who had undertaken such a task, even allowing for the fact that four hundred years had been allowed them for its completion.

Soon we reached a veritable maze of these pa.s.sages. We must have taken a dozen or more turns, first to the right, then to the left. I had been marking our way on my memory as well as possible, but I soon gave up the attempt as hopeless.

Several times our guide turned so quickly that we could scarcely follow him. When we signified by gestures our desire to go slower he seemed surprised; of course, he expected us to see in the dark as well as he.

Then a dim light appeared, growing brighter as we advanced. Soon I saw that it came through an opening in the wall to our left, which we were approaching. Before the opening the guide halted, motioning us to enter.

We did so, and found ourselves in an apartment no less than royal.

Several blazing urns attached to the walls furnished the light, wavering but brilliant. There were tables and rude seats, fashioned from the same prismatic stones which covered the column in the lake, and from their surfaces a thousand points of color shone dazzlingly.

At one side was a long slab of granite covered with the skins of some animal, dry, thick, and soft. The walls themselves were of the hardest granite, studded to a height of four or five feet with tiny, innumerable spots of gold.

Harry crossed to the middle of the apartment and stood gazing curiously about him. I turned to the door and looked down the outer pa.s.sage in both directions--our guide had disappeared.

"We appear to be friends of the family," said Harry with a grin.

"Thanks to Desiree, yes."

"Thanks to the devil! What did she mean--what could she mean? Was it one of her jokes? For I can't believe that she would--would--"

"Have sent us to death? Well--who knows? Yes, it may have been one of her jokes," I lied.

For, of course, Harry knew nothing of the cause of Desiree's desire for revenge on me, and it would have served no good purpose to tell him.

We talked for an hour or more, examining our apartment meanwhile with considerable curiosity.

The gold excited our wonder; had it come from Huanuco four hundred years ago, or had they found it here in the mountain?

I examined the little blocks of metal or gems with which the tables and seats were inlaid, but could make nothing of them. They resembled a carbon formation sometimes found in quartzite, but were many times more brilliant than anything I had ever seen, excepting precious stones.

The hides which covered the granite couch were also unknown to me; they were of an amazing thickness and incredibly soft.

We were amusing ourselves with an attempt to pry one of the bits of gold from the wall when we heard a sound behind us.

We turned and saw Desiree.

She stood in the entrance, smiling at us as though we had been caught in her boudoir examining the articles on her dressing-table. She was clothed as she had been on the throne; a rope girdle held her single garment, and her hair fell across her shoulders, reaching to her knees.

Her arms and shoulders appeared marvelously white, but they may have been by way of contrast.

Harry sprang across to her with a single bound. In another moment his arms were round her; she barely submitted to the embrace, but she gave him her lips, then drew herself away and crossed to me, extending her hands in a sort of wavering doubt.

But that was no time for hostilities, and I took the hands in my own and bent over them till my lips touched the soft fingers.

"A visit from the queen!" I said with a smile. "This is an honor, your majesty."

"A doubtful one," said Desiree. "First of all, my friend, I want to congratulate you on your savoir faire. Par Bleu, that was the part of a man!"

"But you!" cried Harry. "What the deuce did you mean by pretending to play the black? I tell you, that was a shabby trick. Most unpleasant moment you gave us."

Desiree sent me a quick glance; she was plainly surprised to find Harry in ignorance of what had pa.s.sed between us that evening in the camp on the mountain. Wherein she was scarcely to be blamed, for her surprise came from a deep knowledge of the ways of men.

"I am beginning to know you, Paul," she said, looking into my eyes.

"Now what's up?" demanded Harry, looking from her to me and back again.

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk riddles. What does that mean?"

But Desiree silenced him with a gesture, placing her fingers playfully on his lips. They were seated side by side on the granite couch; I stood in front of them, and there flitted across my memory a picture of that morning scene in the grounds of the Antlers at Colorado Springs, when Desiree and I had had our first battle.

We talked; or, rather, Harry and Desiree talked, and I listened. First he insisted on a recital of her experiences since her reckless dash into the "cave of the devil," and she was most obliging, even eager, for she had had no one to talk to for many days, and she was a woman.

She found in Harry a perfect audience.

Her experience had been much the same as our own. She, too, had fallen down the unseen precipice into the torrent beneath.

She a.s.serted that she had been carried along by its force scarcely more than a quarter of an hour, and had been violently thrown upon a ledge of rock. It was evident that this must have been long before the stream reached the lake where Harry and I had found each other, for we had been in the water hardly short of an hour.

She had been found on the ledge by our hairy friends, who had carried her on their backs for many hours. I remembered the sensations of Harry and myself, who were men, and together, and gave a shudder of sympathy as Desiree described her own horror and fear, and her one attempt to escape.

Still the brutes had shown her no great violence, evidently recognizing the preciousness of their burden. They had carried her as gently as possible, but had absolutely refused to allow her to walk. At regular intervals they gave her an opportunity to rest, and food and water.

"Dried fish?" I asked hopefully.

Desiree nodded, with a most expressive grimace, and Harry burst into laughter.

Then of the elevation to her evident authority. Brought before the king, she had inspired the most profound wonder and curiosity. Easy, indeed, to understand how the whiteness of her skin and the beauty of her form and face had awakened the keenest admiration in the breast of that black and hairy monarch. He had shown her the most perfect respect; and she had played up to the role of G.o.ddess by displaying to the utmost her indifferent contempt for royalty and its favors.

Here her remarks grew general and evasive, and when pressed with questions she refused details. She declared that nothing had happened; she had been fed and fawned upon, nor been annoyed by any violence or unwelcome attentions.

"That is really too bad," said I, with a smile. "I was, then, mistaken when I said 'your majesty'?"

"Faugh!" said Desiree. "That is hardly witty. For a time I was amused, but I am becoming bored. And yet--"

"Well?"

"I--don't--know. They are mine, if you know what I mean. Eh, bien, since you ask me--for I see the question in your eye, friend Paul--I am content. If the world is behind me forever, so be it. Yes, they are unattractive to the eye, but they have power. And they worship me."