An International Mission to the Moon

by Jean Petithuguenin

  Jacques thought, therefore, that he could assume that his life was not in danger, in the absence of any unexpected complication.

  But why had Alvarez, who had boasted of being able to set emptiness before Robert and Pierre, in order to lead them astray, not done the same with Jacques? Why had he encumbered himself with a prisoner who could only, one way or another, create difficulties for him?

  “Señor Alvarez, don’t you think I have a right to know what you propose to do with me?”

  “Why are you so intent on knowing? You are a man, if I am not mistaken, who likes adventure and the unexpected.”

  “Does that mean that you have a surprise in store for me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “That will depend on you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I cannot explain myself any more clearly.”

  Leaning over the hot dish in which the Indian cook had just served a gilded crepe, Jacques declared:

  “I imagine, Señor Alvarez, that you’re a fervent admirer of the ancient civilization of the Incas, that you have a reverence for the vestiges of that great epoch, for the relics of the power of the Son of the Sun and that, knowing our intention to discover and visit the as-yet-unknown ruins of a holy city, you wanted to prevent us from committing what you regard as a profanation.”

  Alvarez seemed slightly disconcerted by that direct attack.

  “It is not good,” he said, shaking his head, “to trouble the slumber of the dead and the meditation of the gods.”

  “But does the man trouble the gods and the dead who comes to officiate at their altars or pray over their tombs?”

  The Indian smiled disdainfully.

  “What do you know,” he said, “about our ancient kings?”

  “I will tell you if you wish,” said Jacques, “how the empire of the Incas was founded nine hundred years ago. The men of those times lived like beasts and had no religion. They were ignorant of the art of building houses, did not know either how to cultivate the earth or to spin wool or cotton. Caverns served as their refuges and dwellings. They nourished themselves on wild fruits, herbs and roots, and also sometimes ate human flesh.

  “The Sun, touched by compassion, decided to send two of his children from the heavens, a son and a daughter, to teach human beings knowledge, to give them laws, to teach them to build houses and cities, to labor the earth, to grow crops, to raise herds. Thus, humans would no longer be savages, but reasonable and civilized beings.

  The Sun deposited, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, his son Manco-Capac and his daughter Mama-Ocllo. ‘Act,’ he said to them, ‘at the behest of your inspiration. Take this golden plowshare, it will serve to prove the earth; where you can embed it at a single stroke, establish yourselves and form your court. When you have submitted the people to your obedience, take care to maintain them by law and reason, in piety, clemency and equity, doing for them everything that a good father is accustomed to do for his children. You will be following my example, since you know that I never cease to do good to all mortals. I am the one who gives them life; I am the one who nourishes them. I want your empire to extend over all the people that you instruct by your good actions.’

  “When the Sun had spoken to them thus, Manco-Capac and Mama-Ocllo set about exploring the earth, attempting, at each new step, to prove it with the golden plowshare that their father had given to them; but the earth would not allow itself to be pierced anywhere. They wandered thus for a long time before arriving in the valley of Cuzco, where they saw nothing but mountains and precipices. Then, at the first stroke they delivered, the plowshare dug deeply into the soil. The children of the Sun recognized the will of their father and resolved to settle in that valley. They presented themselves to the savages of the surrounding area and announced to them that they would be their benefactors.

  “Surprised to see the two strangers clad in the brilliant costumes that the Sun had given them, the savages worshiped them and recognized their power. They gathered in great numbers, and thus was founded the empire of the Incas.”

  When Jacques fell silent, Alvarez inclined his head slowly and murmured, thoughtfully: “Yes, Señor, you recount the history of the origin of our empire very well. Perhaps the souls of our ancestors would not regard you with anger.”

  “They could only be propitious to a man who admires the grandeur of your race. I don’t believe that the Empire of the Sun has disappeared forever. Is Peru not populated primarily by the descendants of the Incas’ subjects? How could that nation not be faithful to its origins and not return to them, sooner or later, doubtless evolved and metamorphosed, but always animated by the same interior fire? Others might be deceived, Señor Alvarez, but I have perceived strange glimmers in the eyes of the men and women of your country, and I have divined the secret with which their minds are incessantly occupied. That is why I merit not being treated as a profane individual, but as an initiate.”

  “You can do nothing for our cause; you would betray it in trying to serve it. You are not of our race and yours has shed our blood.”

  Jacques made a gesture of denial. “I am not descended from those who ruined the Empire of the Sun. Remember too, Señor Alvarez, that the Incas, of whom you are perhaps distant offspring, initially prepared their misfortune themselves. If they had not been divided by a merciless civil war, Francisco Pizarro would not have been capable, with three hundred adventurers, of putting an empire of several million inhabitants to fire and the sword.”

  “Our ancestors, I agree, were subjected to the punishment of their own sins,” said Alvarez, with a somber expression, “and the time of expiation is not yet finished. Ours will be fortunate if they can maintain, until the distant day of our renaissance, the flame that you mentioned just now. That is why it is important for us to guard it, why we must watch over it jealously, driving away without weakness everything that threatens it. Too many of our hearths, once dazzling, have been extinguished by sacrilegious hands.

  “I know who you are, you and your companions, Señor Lasserre; there are no scholars more disinterested, endowed with a broader and more welcoming intelligence. I would like to be your friend. I am, insofar as I am a Peruvian, and a member of the society of this century, but I cannot be insofar as I am the son of an ancient race, the heir of its thought, the guardian of its secrets and its faith. For, noble of heart as you might be, everything that a miracle of our gods has saved through the ages from the cataclysm of our ruin would be put up for sale, dispersed or odiously profaned on the day when you revealed your discovery to your brethren.”

  “How can you suspect us of being so barbaric?”

  “It’s not you I suspect; but you would be proud of your discovery, you would talk about it; your very enthusiasm would betray you. And do you not know that a horde of curiosity-seekers would follow in your tracks? Curiosity-seekers, I tell you, perhaps less bloodthirsty than Pizarro’s brigands, but no less deadly. No, Señor Lasserre, I will not surrender to you the key to the sanctuary over which I have the mission to keep watch.”

  “You have just pronounced moving words, Señor Alvarez, and I respect your reasons, which are great. But what if I were to swear on oath, for myself and my friends, never to betray your secret?”

  “You want me, as the price of that oath, to serve as your guide and initiator?”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you believe me disposed, then, to compromise an immense interest with the sole objective of giving you pleasure? If your child were playing in the middle of the road, would you permit a galloping horse to pass over his body, on the pretext that the rider had sworn to you to jump over him without wounding him?”

  “Who can tell whether I might not have been sent by your gods to aid your recognition?”

  Alvarez considered his interlocutor silently for a moment, as if he had just heard his own thought expressed, and replied, slowly: “Well, that might be the case. That is why the idea occurred to me to have
you brought here and to treat you with respect. But I do not want to make any decision lightly, and I am counting on you to submit to the proofs that will enlighten me as to the will of my gods.”

  Brave as he was, Jacques could not suppress a shudder.

  “Proofs?” he said. “And if I don’t triumph therein?”

  “Then you would have been wrong to persist in this adventure when the first obstacles raised in our path should have warned you that it would be prudent to renounce it.”

  “You’re inviting me, I see, to a redoubtable game.”

  “You are the one who began it.”

  “Would you hold me in esteem if I were afraid?”

  “No, undoubtedly—but temerity is no longer bravery. Listen: I am offering you one last chance; you can still take back your stake. I am ready to set you free if you desire to return to our friends and beat a retreat with them.” The Indian added, with a smile: “I think, moreover, that they are no longer far away, for they must have set out to search for you.”

  “Well, they’ll rejoin me, and they’ll submit, like me, to the proofs to which you have the intention of subjecting me.”

  “No: I do not want to expose myself to a triple hazard; one is already too many. If you decide to stay with me, I will make sure that your companions cannot rejoin you. Come on: there is still time; you can recover your liberty.”

  “My choice is made. I prefer the adventure.”

  VII

  Leaving Jacques alone in the little house where he had shared his supper, Alvarez had gone out to confer with the other Indians and give them his orders.

  The explorer no longer had any reason to flee, since he had agreed to accompany the band, in the hope of being initiated into the secret of the Incas, so his host had not taken the trouble to have him watched.

  “Please wait for me here, Señor; I have to instruct my men to make arrangements for the departure.”

  Jacques was meditating in a room with bare clay walls, equipped with rudimentary furniture.

  The house was merely a temporary abode, a refuge for the rare travelers who risked traversing that wilderness, but Robert and Pierre would not fail to notice it and investigate it. They would certainly have set out in search of their companion when they had not seen him return. As Alvarez had observed, they ought not to be very far away, although the band had obtained a long start on them before halting. If the departure had been delayed even by an hour, they would have arrived in the Indians’ midst—but Alvarez had apparent decided to travel by night in order to give them the slip completely.

  Jacques would have liked to leave a message for Robert and Pierre, but he dared not scribble a letter and leave it in evidence in the room, Alvarez having naturally refused him that authorization. It was all too evident that an imprudence might cost him his life and also suspend a threat over the heads of his friends.

  When he had sat down at the table with Alvarez, he had deposited his water-flask against the wall, with the cord that he had previously kept wound around his waist, and which his abductors had not removed. As his gaze paused on those objects, it occurred to him that if he left them there, his friends would doubtless find them and draw deductions therefrom.

  He began pacing back and forth, still pensive.

  The Indians, when they took him away, would doubtless abandon the traced path that they had been following thus far and head into the wilderness, where their trail would be almost impossible to pick up for men like Robert and Pierre, who had not been trained since childhood to notice the slightest indications of the passage of an animal or a human.

  If I could only imitate Petit Poucet, the explorer thought, and drop white pebbles along my route.

  He had advanced mechanically to the threshold of a communicating door. Is gaze plunged into another room, which, to judge by the objects with which it was cluttered, served for domestic tasks. It was from there that the Indian woman had emerged to bring the dishes to Alvarez and Jacques at table.

  For the moment, there was no one in the room. The oven-fire had gone out; an alpaca cloth, dyed red, was drying on a line above a tub, where the remains of a scarlet decoction of campeachy wood was still stagnating.

  The rays of the low sun were penetrating through the unglazed window and reflecting ruddily from the bottom of the tub.

  An idea passed through Jacques’ brain like a flash of light.

  That decoction of campeachy wood, if it were possible to take it away, might be capable of replacing Petit Poucet’s white pebbles. It would be sufficient to let drops fall along the way. Many would doubtless be lost, soaked up by soft ground, but some would cling to stones and grass, and an attentive observer would be bound to spot them.

  Jacques thought that Alvarez’ cook might come back at any moment, and that in such circumstances, rapidity of decision is the first condition of success. Without further reflection, he went swiftly to pick up his flask, emptied its contents into a hole that served as a drain, and, arming himself with a ladle picked up from a table, replenished it from the tub of dye. The flask, which contained more than two liters, was soon full.

  Jacques returned to the other room and made a small notch in the cork of the flask with his penknife, in such a way that when it was inverted, the liquid could trickle out, one drop at a time.

  Having completed that task, he slung the flask over his shoulder.

  I hope they’ll leave me enough liberty, he thought, that tonight, during the march, I’ll be able to distribute red spots without anyone noticing.

  And, continuing to meditate, he said to himself: Very good, but in order for Robert and Pierre to have the idea of searching for red splashes, they need to be alerted. How can I tip them off? Why don’t I send them a quipus—the kind of message composed of colored cords and marked with knots that the Quichuas once used for communication, in accordance with a system of agreed signals?

  His eyes fell upon the cord that he had dropped on the ground against the wall, and he remained perplexed for a few moments, seeking a practical means of realizing the plan that had just come to mind.

  Why not? Two adjacent knots could make a dash, an isolated not a dot; that way, one could compose a message in Morse code. Robert and Pierre, who read Morse fluently, will certainly be struck by it and will understand, if they find the cord. Let’s try. As long as I have time before Alvarez comes back!

  Having picked up the cord, Jacques hastily set to work composing his message. First of all, three dashes separated by two dots composed the call signal to mark the beginning of the message; then, continuing to represent the dots and dashes with knots, the explorers formed the words: Prisoner. Walking to holy city. Follow red dots. Jac….

  He had only composed the first three letters of his signature when he heard the sound of footsteps. Quickly rolling up the cord, he threw it in a corner.

  He was just in time. Alvarez came in.

  “We are leaving, Señor,” the Peruvian said. “Follow me.”

  At the same time the Indian cook went into the next room to collect the objects she intended to take away.

  “I can have you carried on a litter, if you wish,” said Alvarez, as he emerged from the house with the explorer.

  “No, I prefer to walk,” said Jacques, who needed to have freedom of movement to put his plan into execution.

  Provided, he thought, that Robert and Pierre find the cord and understand my quipus!

  The sun had just disappeared at the extremity of the gorge, in the gap in the mountains with grandiose perspectives. A few minutes more, and everything would be drowned in the shadows of the night.

  The herdsmen of the band drove the llamas forward. The animals only walked reluctantly; it was not their habit to travel by night, they preferred to lie down when the sun set. An old male was at the head; its fleece was gray with dust but its haughty head was decorate with red feathers; its gait was grave and arrogant; it resembled a patriarch guiding his tribe.

  Alvarez walked alongside Jacques and t
he rest of the band, some twenty men and women with bronzed skin and gleaming, shrewd eyes, brought up the rear.

  The troop continued to follow the ancient Inca road. Night had fallen completely. Discreetly, Jacques tilted his flask and caused a few drops to leak out.

  After an hour of rapid marching, one of the llama conductors, who was in the lead, uttered a guttural cry and drove his herd off the road, into the bushes and the rocks. There was a moment of disorder. The men had to part the bushes and jump from stone to stone in order to get through.

  Jacques thought it as well not to spare the red droplets that were replacing Petit Poucet’s white pebbles, because his friends might have difficulty finding the place where the troop had quit the road.

  The march continued with difficulty for ten minutes through a chaos of rocks, and then the band moved into a narrow fissure that opened like a kind of portal in the seemingly-inaccessible wall of the cliff. There, Jacques could economize with the red liquid with which he had filled his flask, the provision of which was beginning to run low, because, once engaged in the defile, it was no longer possible to go astray.

  The moon was shining, but its light scarcely penetrated the rocky corridor. The men, who had to grope their way forward at times, were careful to call out from time to time in order to guide one another.

  We’d never have discovered this passage on our own, Jacques thought.

  The floor of the defile rose up in a stiff slope, and here and there, when the inclination became too steep, large steps were hollowed out, the regularity of which indicated the intervention of human hands. Jacques no longer doubted that he was on the secret path to the holy city of the Incas. The defile with the smoothed floor and the rustic stairways were part of the as-yet-unknown vestiges of the brilliant civilization of the Emperors of the Sun.