Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  III

  DICK’S HEAD SWAM. There, before him, was the narrow tomb into which Maria-Teresa would be plunged living. But was she still living? She must have died when the child was torn from her arms, or when she had heard his terrible cry.

  The priests had lifted the dead Coya from her tomb, and carried her to the pyre. She sat severely erect, as Coyas should sit, even when slowly done to death in a living tomb. So she must sit, and that is why the tomb is made so narrow that she can only remain motionless on her throne.

  Erect and calm, she vanished in the flames of the pyre, while the two living mammaconas watched her enviously.

  Dick did not even glance at the pyres. His eyes were fixed on the hole in the wall. She could not live long in there, and they must lose no time if she was to be saved. One hand gripped Orellana’s pick, while the other, armed with a revolver, still hesitated. Perhaps Maria-Teresa was not dead yet! But, if so why did she not open her eyes?

  Still the two other pyres did not take fire, and the mammaconas prayed passionately to the Sun. They must die before Maria-Teresa, to prepare her chamber in the Enchanted Realms of the Sun, and if they did not hasten they would never reach them first. “Have pity, O Sun! Send us your flames, Ejma of the Heavens! We are women; give us courage.”

  “Have pity! Send us your flames!” chanted the throng in unison.

  But the Sun did not send his flame until the first pyre had nearly died down, its end hastened by the perfumes heavy with spirit which the Guards of the Sacrifice poured over the blazing logs.

  Dropping their festive garments from them, the two mammaconas ran to the pyres with cries of joy, and waited, their eyes turned heavenwards in ecstasy. Diabolical music burst out about them, and a savage frenzy seemed to seize the other mammaconas as they whirled round the fires. The greedy flames climbed upwards and reached the victims. One of them leapt down with a terrible cry.

  “Return to the flames! Return to the flames!” chanted the others, surrounding her. She writhed on the ground, calling for the knife, and a Guardian of the Temple went toward her. The black veils of the mammaconas were spotted with blood, but they danced on, singing. The hideous dwarfs lifted up a body, which disappeared in the fire.

  The other mammacona, heroically erect, had cried out only once, and when she in her turn vanished in the scarlet chariot which the Sun had sent to take her to his Enchanted Realms, hymns of glory thundered through the temple.

  Maddened by the songs, the flames, the incense, and the acrid smoke of the pyres, three more mammaconas followed their sisters. It is impossible to guess how far this delirium of sacrifice would have gone had not Huascar stopped it. At a sign from him, the diabolical music ceased, and the Guardians of the Temple choked the glowing pyres with sand.

  It was Maria-Teresa’s turn. Dick, half fainting, opened his eyes again at Orellana’s words. He saw the mammaconas strip her of the jewels with which she was literally covered from head to foot. From her hair, ears, cheeks, breast, shoulders, from her beautiful arms and shapely ankles, the “tears of the Sun” fell one by one, and were placed preciously in a golden basin. Last of all they removed the fatal Golden Sun bracelet All these jewels were to be hidden again until the day, ten years thence, when the Inca would demand another bride for the Sun.

  As she was rapidly divested of her golden sheath as well, Maria-Teresa appeared swathed in bands of soft material. Her eyes were closed, and externally at all events, she was already a mummy. Her arms were bound to her sides, and all that remained to be done was to lift her into her tomb. Dick’s eyes did not leave what could still be seen of the beloved face under the bands of perfumed linen which bound her chin and forehead. Her lips were parted, but motionless, as if she had just breathed her last sigh.

  Again he told himself that she must be dead. It was better so, for then she could not feel the hands of the horrible Guardians of the Temple lift her to the death-throne and then slide her into the hole where she was to wait a thousand years before being burned in her turn.

  At that moment the rays of the Sun, as if to make a golden ladder for the woman whom the Incas, in their cruel piety, were sending to his realms, fell on Maria-Teresa, and lit up the narrow tomb, so that Dick saw every detail of the atrocious ceremony.

  The three porphyry slabs, fitting perfectly one into the other, had now to be adjusted, and the tomb would be closed. It was done in terrible-silence, and all eyes were fixed on workers and victim.

  Bending under its weight, the Guardians of the Temple slipped the first into position, hiding Maria-Teresa up to the knees. The second, brought to the right level on a rolling platform, covered her to the shoulders.

  All that could now be seen was her head, swathed and bound up for the thousand-year sleep, with a face that was that of a dead woman. Then a shiver ran through the throng, though it had witnessed the sacred horrors preceding it without a quiver. Maria-Teresa had opened her eyes....

  They had opened wide and stared out from the depths of the tomb which was closing on her. They were terribly living, terribly wide open, staring, staring, at all she would see of life before the eternal Shadow took her to its bosom. And those eyes traveled slowly over the throng in gala attire which was there to see her die, then rested for the last time on the golden sunlight, on the beautiful light of day.

  The superhuman agony forced those eyes even wider, those eyes which were never to see again. Her lips moved, as if about to utter a supreme cry of appeal to life, a cry of horror at the living night of the tomb. Then they closed again on a poor, weak little groan, while the last slab blotted out the look of those great eyes.

  She belonged to the god now.

  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!”

  V

  TURNING FROM THE century-dead Coya with an inarticulate cry of rage, Dick seized Orellana by the throat as if he would have strangled the poor madman, who had started work on the wrong tomb. And he, thrice accursed fool that he was, had followed the madman’s lead, made a mistake when every minute might mean Maria-Teresa’s life!

  And now, which was it? The tomb on the right or that on the left? Or neither?

  Loosing the old man, he controlled himself again by a superhuman effort and looked round the temple. No, there could be no mistake this time. It must be the one on the right. He looked for the angle from their hiding-place to the altar. Yes, this was the one!

  The pick thundered on another slab, while Orellana, a raving maniac now, danced and gibbered behind him, grunting with every blow as if he himself had delivered it.

  At last the stone turned.... It moved... slid into their arms... fell to the ground.

  “Maria-Teresa! It is I, Dick! For God’s sake, speak!”

  Again he bent oyer the rigid face of a long-forgotten Coya.

  Dick fell to the ground as if stunned. But Orellana was already at work again, setting him the example, and the young engineer was on his feet in a moment. It must be that other one on the left, then! Once again he wrenched the pick from the old man’s feeble hands and hammered on the granite.... The minutes are flying... flying. And She may be dying behind that slab, struggling for breath!... The thunder of blows echoed through the hall... the stone moved... slipped... fell.... At last.... No!... Another dead woman.... Another, another!... Not Maria-Teresa!

  “Maria Cristina! My daughter! Dearest, I am coming! Your father is here!”

  While Dick staggered to the wall, staring before him with blind eyes, the old man, peering into the tomb, had recognized his child.

  “Maria Cristina! Dearest! Wait, wait! Only one more stone, and you will be out of your prison!”

  Sobbing and laughing in turn, Orellana worked desperately, finding the strength of his youth anew.

  Then Dick fell on him.

  “Give me that pick. You’re wasting time on a dead woman. Give it to me, I say!”

  There was a terrible struggle between the two, and Dick, triumphant, whirled the tool over his head at another tomb, while Orellana, by the last effort of his life, tore the second stone from its socket, drew the dead body of his daughter to him and covered it with kisses and tears. Old madman and dead girl fell to the floor together.

  Orellana was dead, but he had found his daughter.

  Dick saw and heard nothing. Another tomb open... and another dead Coya of long ago.... The gods of the Temple of Death were ready to give up their dead, but not the living bride....

  Crying, calling, driving his nails into his bleeding palms; ready to offer himself up to the ferocious spirit that guarded those tombs, Dick staggered, fell, and got up again, dragging behind him the pick, which he no longer knew where to use, striving to reason and understand.

  There was nothing here to help him! His eyes wandered hopelessly round the circular temple, trying to find a guiding point. Nothing! Perhaps chance would give him what his reasoning had failed to secure.... Yes, that was it... why not try here?... It might be this tomb as well as any other.... He set to work again, but heavily... oh, so heavily... and the pick weighed down his hands terribly.

  ... Exhausted, he dropped it.... He could do no more.... And she was dying... dying... while the dead, torn from their eternal sleep, stared back at him with unseeing eyes.

  How many hours had he been toiling? He did not know. The oblique rays of the sun had gradually risen on the walls, then vanished. Then the light which succeeded them faded in its turn.... Twilight had fallen... then darkness had come.

  Stretched out on the altar steps, whither he had dragged himself with his last remaining strength, he closed his eyes and waited... waited for sleep or death. What did it matter, since Maria-Teresa was dead?

  VI

  IN WHICH IT is seen that lovers should never despair of Providence

  One morning, as the little steamboat which runs between the Island of Titicaca and the mainland, was plowing its way through the waters of the lake, it was hailed by a tall Quichua Indian, standing upright in his pirogue. In the bottom of the frail craft lay a white man, and the captain, seeing the prostrate figure, hove to for a moment to pick it up. Thus did Dick Montgomery return to civilization.

  Among the passengers of the Yavari was a good-hearted alpaca merchant of Punho who took pity on the fever-stricken stranger and had him removed to his own home, where the whole household devoted itself to nursing the young man back to life. The Indian who brought him to the steamer explained that he had found the stranger, probably some tourist, unconscious among the ruins of the sacred island. He had therefore dosed him with pink water for the fever, and had brought him back to people of his own race. The Indian refused all reward, and the captain was the more surprised at this when, on searching Dick, he found a considerable sum of money in his pockets. For a Quichua not to strip a helpless man was indeed remarkable.

  When Dick had sufficiently recovered to understand what was being said, he immediately recognized the Indian described to him as Huascar. In his quality as high-priest, Huascar had probably returned to the temple late at night, and had there found Dick, surrounded by gaping tombs, and the corpses of Orellana and the three Guardians of the Temple. Coldly calculating in his hatred, the Indian had decided to inflict the worst possible torture on Dick, leaving him to live after the death of Maria-Teresa.

  That torture would not last long, the young man decided. The idea that he might have saved Maria-Teresa had he not lost his head, and that her death lay at his door, tormented him without ceasing. He realized that he would never be able to free himself of this obsession and that it would finally drive him mad. Better to end it all at once.

  Only he did not wish to die among these awful mountains, mute witnesses of the horrors that had cost him his self-respect and happiness. The Maria-Teresa who was constantly before his mind’s eye was not the terrible mummy-like figure he had last seen, but the dainty silhouette in the homely surroundings of the office at Callao, among the big green registers, where they had met again after so long an absence and where they had exchanged words of love. He would go there to rejoin her.

  Once this decision was taken, he grew rapidly better, and one day, after warmly thanking his host and showering presents on the whole family, he took the train to Mollendo, where he would join some ship for Callao. The voyage seemed an interminable one. At Arequipa, he visited the little adobe house by the rio de Chili, and thought of the vain appeal they had made to that scoundrel Garcia. There also, for the first time since his illness, he thought of his traveling companions.

  What had happened to Uncle Francis, Don Christobal and Natividad? Perhaps their bones were then bleaching in some inaccessible corner of the Corri
dors of Night. The Marquis, at all events, had not endured the torture of impotently witnessing the murder of his two children.

  When Dick reached Mollendo there was a howling gale on, but he at once went down to the harbor. It was deserted save for two shadows, which rushed toward him with cries of joy. Yes, they were alive and breathing: — Uncle Francis and Natividad! Though white and sad-looking, they did not seem to have suffered a great deal. Dick clasped their hands, and they, seeing him so pale and thin, said no word.

  Together they walked along for a few minutes, deep in thoughts. At last Mr. Montgomery turned to his nephew:

  “What happened to Don Christobal? Do you know?”

  “I thought he was with you.” Dick’s voice was toneless, detached from all things of this world.

  It was only then that Natividad, without being asked, explained how he and Uncle Francis, after the frustrated attempt in the House of the Serpent, had been thrown into a dungeon in which they passed four days, and in which the illustrious scientist had at last become convinced of the reality of their adventure. At the end of those four days, finding the prison doors open and unguarded, they had fled.

  Apparently all the Indians were bolting to the mountains from Cuzco, and the explanation for this they had found on reaching Sicuani. President Veintemilla, risking his all on one bold stroke, had surprised Garcia’s forces in the middle of the Interaymi fêtes, and the four squadrons of his escort which remained faithful had cut up and routed the thousands of Quichua riflemen. Barely five hundred in all, but of Spanish blood, they had repeated Pizarro’s exploit on those same plains of Xauxa, while the same ancient walls, with the impassability of immortal things, again stared down on the struggle of the races.