“Now on leave from your bank?” queried the Marquis, almost insolently.
There was a flash in the Indian’s eyes as he answered somberly:
Dick started at these words, already repeated so often in connection with the Golden Sun bracelet. He glanced at Maria-Teresa, who was evidently ill at ease at the turn taken by the conversation between her father and the stranger. She now remembered him quite clearly as a clerk with whom she had had dealings over a consignment of phosphates for Antwerp. An insignificant little body, she had thought--not at all the haughty Indian of to-day, discarding the disguise of his European clothes and proclaiming himself for what he was. Knowing by experience how susceptible Trujillos are, and fearing that a careless word from her father might provoke a storm, she intervened:
“The Interaymi! Of course, your great festival. Is it to be particularly celebrated at Cajamarca?”
“This year, señorita, it will be particularly celebrated throughout the Andes.”
“But you do not admit outsiders? What a pity.... I should so like to see.... One hears so many things....”
“Old wives’ tales, señorita,” rejoined the Indian, with a complete change of manner. He smiled, disclosing a line of teeth which Dick mentally compared to those of a wild animal, and added in a slightly lisping voice: “There is a lot of nonsense talked.... Human sacrifices, and so forth.... Do I look as if I were going to such a ceremony?... I and my clothes by Zarate?... No, señorita, just a few little ceremonies to keep alive the memory of our lost glories... a few pious invocations to the God of Day, a few prayers for poor Atahualpa, our last King, and that is all.... At the end of the month, señorita, I shall be back at my bank in Lima.”
Reassured by the matter-of-fact level reached by these words, Dick growled at his own absurd fears. A smile from Maria-Teresa and a grumbled comment on kings and bank clerks from Uncle Francis completely dispelled the cloud raised by the mention of the Interaymi.
Their train was now traveling along the bed of a ravine, closed in by dizzying heights. High up above, in a band of blazing blue sky, giant condors could be seen winging their way in heavy circles.
“To think of Pizarro facing country like this!” exclaimed Dick. “How on earth was it that they were not simply wiped out by the Incas?”