“So they’re doubling back to the costa. They must have been warned that the passes were guarded... all they have gained by the detour is avoiding Chorillos.... Perhaps they are making for Canete.... Well, they must stop somewhere, and then we have them!”
After an hour’s rest, they hurried on again at top speed, one of the soldiers giving his dismounted comrade a lift behind.
“Did you, then, ever think that we might not catch them?” asked Uncle Francis of Natividad, with an enigmatical smile.
“Why not, señor?... Between you and me, it is about time we did catch them.... I for one shall not feel happy if señorita de la Torre and the boy are still in their hands on the last day of the Interaymi.”
“Speak lower, señor, speak lower.... Nothing is too young, too beautiful or too innocent for the Sun. Do you understand?”
“You people do not know what horrors they are capable of.... They still have their priests.... You might blink at facts if it were only the ordinary Red Ponchos, but there are also those three monsters.... You always find them together in the old burial-grounds.... When one dies, the other two are put to death.... Or when a king died, they sacrificed themselves on his tomb.... They still exist, those monsters, those high-priests of the sacred slaughters.... They exist, señor.”
“You, señor, are a savant, and know about the Temple of Death. But do you know how many dead were found buried with the mummy of Huayna Capac? Four thousand, señor! Four thousand human lives sacrificed to honor the dead--some by suicide, others strangled, knifed or suffocated.... And the House of the Serpent.... But I prefer not to tell you what happened there.”
“Tell me some other day.... You make an admirable guide. When we return, I will tell the supremo gobierno how grateful I am to them for having made the most erudite of police officers my cicerone.”
Natividad, completely taken aback, could only stare at his interlocutor.
“Nothing, nothing! I am only joking!” Scandalized at such levity, Natividad turned away with an indignant snort, while Uncle Francis chuckled. That worthy gentleman had now quite made up his mind that there was a plot afoot against him, and sternly refused to be “taken in.” The joke was rather tiring physically, but he would not cry for mercy. As to all these hair-raising stories, he would take them for what they were worth. Let them play their pranks till they tired of them.