How long she slept she could not have said, but it seemed only a moment before she was roused by Cristoval’s touch. She looked up with bewildered eyes. "What is it, Viracocha Cristoval? Oh, where am I? I dreamed—but, are we pursued?" Terrified by his expression, her voice sank into a whisper.
"We must go," he replied, giving her his hand. She rose painfully, and he drew her back from the crest of the hill. A misty rain was falling, obscuring all but the fields immediately below. As she looked, she gasped and clutched his arm. Towering before her, seemingly but a few yards away, was a white, curling column of smoke, writhing heavily as it rose, and drifting off down the valley.
"Oh, what is that, Viracocha?" she cried, cowering at his side. "What is it—what is it?"
"Nothing to fear," said Cristoval, drawing her farther away. "The cottage hath been fired. They have found our trail, Heaven only knoweth how!"
Cristoval threw her cloak around her, secured his own, and hurried her away. The thatch of the cottage was blazing fiercely. Outside of the garden wall stood a group of horses, and trotting in the direction of the hills, a squad of three troopers, one of them in the lead, bending over his saddle-bow in scrutiny of the ground.
Cristoval had seen the cavalcade nearly an hour before; saw them halt at the _tambo_, leave the road, gallop to the cottage, and surround it. Not long afterward it burst into flames, and he had little doubt that the unfortunate native, and perhaps his family, were being put to torture. He watched until the three troopers left the others and started toward the hills. Then he had awakened Rava.
As they left the spot she was weeping and frantically wringing her hands. "Oh, Viracocha Cristoval," she sobbed; "are they burning and killing because of our flight? Let me go back! Oh, let me go back! My return may stay their cruelty."
"No, no!" he replied, quickly. "They are not killing, and now that they have found our traces they will probably burn no more. Your return would not help, Ñusta Rava. Compose yourself, I pray you."
"Ah, my poor people!" she wailed. "My unhappy country! The Sun hath indeed turned away his face! Ah me, ah me!"
Cristoval crossed himself at the mention of her pagan deity, and whispered a prayer for her soul. She turned to him earnestly.