PROLOGUE
I
HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY
'Ah, what a thing it would be for us if his Inca Highness were reallyonly asleep, as he looks to be! Just think what he could tell us--howeasily he could re-create that lost wonderland of his for us, whatriddles he could answer, what lies he could contradict. And then thinkof all the lost treasures that he could show us the way to. Upon myword, if Mephistopheles were to walk into this room just now, I think Ishould be tempted to make a bargain with him. Do you know, Djama, Ibelieve I would give half the remainder of my own life, whatever thatmay be, to learn the secrets that were once locked up in that withered,desiccated brain of his.'
The speaker was one of two men who were standing in a large room,half-study, half-museum, in a big, old-fashioned house in Maida Vale.Wherever the science of archaeology was studied, Professor Martin Lamsonwas known as the highest living authority on the subject of theantiquities of South America. He had just returned from a year'srelic-hunting in Peru and Bolivia, and was enjoying the luxury ofunpacking his treasures with the almost boyish delight which, under suchcircumstances, comes only to the true enthusiast. His companion was asomewhat slenderly-built man, of medium height, whose clear, olive skin,straight, black hair, and deep blue-black eyes betrayed a not veryremote Eastern origin.
Dr Laurens Djama was a physiologist, whose rapidly-acquired fame--he wasbarely thirty-two--would have been considered sounder by hisprofessional brethren if it had not been, as they thought, impaired byexcursions into by-ways of science which were believed to lead himperilously near to the borders of occultism. Five years before he hadpulled the professor through a very bad attack of the calentura inPanama, where they met by the merest traveller's chance, and since thenthey had been fast friends.
They were standing over a long packing-case, some seven feet in lengthand two and a-half in breadth, in which lay, at full length, wrapped ingrave-clothes that had once been gaily coloured, but which were nowfaded and grey with the grave-dust, the figure of a man with handscrossed over the breast, dead to all appearances, and yet so gruesomelylifelike that it seemed hard to believe that the broad, muscular chestover which the crossed hands lay was not actually heaving and fallingwith the breath of life.
The face had been uncovered. It was that of a man still in the earlyprime of life. The dull brown hair was long and thick, the featuressomewhat aquiline, and stamped even in death with an almost royaldignity. The skin was of a pale bronze, though darkened by the hues ofdeath. Yet every detail of the face was so perfect and so life-likethat, as the professor had said, it seemed to be rather the face of aman in a deep sleep than that of an Inca prince who must have been deadand buried for over three hundred years. The closed eyes, thoughsomewhat sunken in their sockets, were the eyes of sleep rather than ofdeath, and the lids seemed to lie so lightly over them that it looked asthough one awakening touch would raise them.
'It is beyond all question the most perfect specimen of a mummy that Ihave seen,' said the doctor, stooping down and drawing his thin, nervousfingers very lightly over the dried skin of the right cheek. 'On myhonour, I simply can't believe that His Highness, as you call him, everreally went to the other world by any of the orthodox routes. If youcould imagine an absolute suspension of all the vital functions inducedby the influence of something--some drug or hypnotic process unknown tomodern science, brought into action on a human being in the very primeof his vital strength--then, so far as I can see, the results of thatinfluence would be exactly what you see here.'
'But surely that can't be anything but a dream. How could it be possibleto bring all the vital functions to a dead stop like that, and yet keepthem in such a state that it might be possible--for that's what Isuppose you are driving at--to start them into activity again, just asone might wind up a clock that had been stopped for a few weeks and setit going?'
'My dear fellow, the borderland between life and death is so utterlyunknown to the very best of us that there is no telling what frightfulpossibilities there may be lying hidden under the shadows that hang overit. You know as well as I do that there are perfectly well authenticatedinstances on record of Hindoo Fakirs who have allowed themselves to beplaced in a state of suspended animation and had their tongues turnedback into their throats, their mouths and noses covered with clay, andhave been buried in graves that have been filled up and had sentrieswatching day and night over them for as long a period as six weeks, andthen have been dug up and restored to perfect health and strength againin a few hours. Now, if life can be suspended for six weeks and thenrestored to an organism which, from all physiological standpoints, mustbe regarded as inanimate, why not for six years or six hundred years,for the matter of that? Given once the possibility, which we may assumeas proved, of a restoration to life after total suspension of animation,then it only becomes a question of preservation of tissue for more orless indefinite periods. Granted that tissue can be so preserved, then,given the other possibility already proved, and--well, we will talkabout the other possibility afterwards. Now, tell me, don't you, as anarchaeologist, see anything peculiar about this Inca prince of yours?'
The professor had been looking keenly at his friend during the deliveryof this curious physiological lecture. He seemed as though he weretrying to read the thoughts that were chasing each other through hisbrain behind the impenetrable mask of that smooth, broad forehead ofhis. He looked into his eyes, but saw nothing there save a cold, steadylight that he had often seen before when the doctor was discussingsubjects that interested him deeply. As for his face, it was utterlyimpassive--the face of a dispassionate scientist quietly discussing thepossible solution of a problem that had been laid before him. Whetherhis friend was really driving at some unheard-of and unearthly solutionof the problem which he himself had raised, or whether he was merelydiscussing the possible issue of some abstract question in physiology,he was utterly unable to discover, and so he thought it best to confinehimself to the matter in hand, without hazarding any risky guesses thatmight possibly result in his own confusion. So he answered as quietly ashe could:
'Yes, I must confess that there are two perhaps very important points ofdifference between this and any other Peruvian mummy that I have everseen or heard of.'
'Ah, I thought so,' said Djama, half closing his eyes and allowing justthe ghost of a smile to flit across his lips. 'I thought I knew enoughabout archaeology and the science of mummies in general to expect you tosay that. Now, just for the gratification of my own vanity, I shouldlike to try and anticipate what you are going to say; and if I'm wrong,well, of course, I shall only be too happy to be contradicted.'
'Very well,' laughed the professor; 'say on!'
'Well, in the first place, I believe I'm right in saying that allPeruvian mummies that have so far been discovered have been found in asitting posture, with the legs drawn close up to the body by means ofbindings and burial-clothes, so that the chin rested between the knees,while the arms were brought round the legs and folded over them. Then,again, these mummies have always been found in an upright position,while you found this one lying down.'
'Quite so, quite so!' said the professor. 'In fact, I may say that noone save myself has ever discovered such a mummy as this among all thethousands that have been taken out of Peruvian burying-places. And now,what is your other point?'
'Simply this,' said Djama, kneeling down beside the case, and laying hishands over the abdomen of the recumbent figure. 'In the case of allmummies, whether Egyptian or Peruvian, it was the invariable practice ofthe embalmers to take out the intestines and fill the abdominal cavitywith preservative herbs and spices. Now, this has not been done in thiscase. Look here.'
And deftly and swiftly he moved the dusty, half-decayed coverings fromthe body of the mummy, while the professor looked on half-wondering andhalf-frightened for the safety of his treasure.
'That has not been done here. You see the man's body is as perfect as itwas on the day he died--to use a conventional term. Now, am I notright?'
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'Yes, yes; perfectly right,' answered the professor, who felt himselffast losing his grip of the conversation which had taken so strange aturn. 'But what has all this got to do with the most unique mummy thatever was brought from South America? Surely, in the name of all that'ssacred, you don't mean--'
'My dear fellow, never mind what I mean for the present,' replied Djama,with another of his half smiles. 'If I mean anything at all, the meaningwill keep, and if I don't it doesn't matter. Now, do you mind telling meexactly how and where you came across this extraordinary specimenof--well, for want of a better term--we will say, Inca embalming?'
'Yes, willingly,' said the professor, glad to get back again on to thefamiliar ground of his own experiences. 'I found it almost by accidentin a little valley about four days' ride to the westward of Cuzco. I wason my way to Abancay across the Apurimac. My mule had fallen lame, andso I got belated. Night came on, and somehow we got off the trackcrossing one of the Punas--those elevated tablelands, you know, up amongthe mountains--and when the mule could go no farther we camped, and thenext morning I found myself in an almost circular valley, completelywalled in by enormous mountains, save for the narrow, crooked gorgethrough which we had stumbled by the purest accident. The bottom of thisvalley was filled by a little lake, and while I was exploring the shoresof this I saw, hidden underneath an overhanging ledge of rock, a coupleof courses of that wonderful mortarless masonry which the Incas aloneseemed to know how to build. I had no sooner seen it than all desire ofgetting to Abancay or anywhere else had left me. I made my arriero turnthe animals loose for the day, and then I sent him back to a village wehad passed through the day before to buy more provisions and bring themto me.
'As soon as he had got out of sight I set to work to get some of thestones out and see what there was behind them. I knew there must besomething, for the Incas never wasted labour. It was hard work, for thestones were fitted together as perfectly as the pieces of a Chinesepuzzle; but at last I got one out and then the rest was easy. Behind thestones I found a little chamber hollowed out of the rock, perfectlyclean and dry, and on the floor of this I found, without any othercovering than what you see there, the mummy of His Highness lying onwhat had once been a bed of soft Vicuna skins, as perfect and aslifelike as though he had only crept in there twelve hours before, andhad laid down for a good night's rest.
'You may imagine how delighted I was at such a find. I hardly knew howto contain myself until my man came back. I put the stones back intotheir places as well as I could, and when Patricio returned the next dayI had the animals saddled up, and started off in a hurry to Cuzco. ThereI had this case made, bought two extra mules, brought them to thevalley, packed up my mummy, took it back to Cuzco, and from there to therailway terminus at Sicuani and took it down by train to Arequipa, whereI left it in safe keeping until I had finished the rest of myexploration. Then I went back, took it down to Mollendo, got it on boardthe steamer, and here it is.'
'And you didn't find any traces of other treasure-places, I suppose, inthe valley?' said Djama, who had listened with the most perfectattention to the professor's story.
'No, I didn't, though I must confess that one side of the cave in whichI found this was walled up with the same kind of masonry as there was infront of it; but, to tell you the truth, the Peruvian Government hassuch insane ideas about treasure-hunting; and the life of a man who isbelieved to have discovered anything worth stealing is worth so littlein the wilder districts of the interior, that I was afraid of losing thetreasure I had got, perhaps for the sake of a few little gold ornamentswhich I might have dug out of the hill, and so I decided to be contentwith what I'd found.'
'H'm!' said the doctor. 'Well, you may have been wise under thecircumstances; I daresay you were. But we can see about that afterwards.Meanwhile there is something else to be talked about.'
He stopped suddenly, took a quick turn or two up and down the room, withhis hands clasped behind him and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then hewent to the door, opened it, looked out, shut it and locked it, and thencame back again and sat down without a word in his chair, staringsteadily at the impassive face of the mummy in the packing-case.
'Why, what's the matter, doctor?' said the professor, a trifle sharply.'You don't suppose I am afraid of anyone coming to steal my treasure, doyou?'
'My dear fellow,' said Djama, looking him straight in the eyes, andspeaking very slowly, as though his mind was doing something elsebesides shaping the thoughts to which he was giving utterance, 'I don'tfor a moment suppose that there are thieves about, or that, if therewere, any burglar with a competent knowledge of his profession wouldthink of stealing your mummy, priceless as it may prove to be. I lockedthe door because I don't want to be interrupted. I want to talk to youabout a very important matter.'
'And that is?'
'Mephistopheles.'
'WHAT?'
'Gently, my friend, gently, don't get excited yet. You will want allyour nerves soon, I can assure you. Yes, I am quite serious. You knowthat in the good old days, when people still believed in His Majesty ofDarkness, such a speech as the one you remember making a short time agowas quite enough to call up one of his agents, armed with full powers tomake contracts and do all necessary business.'
'Look here, Laurens, if you go on talking like that, I shall begin tothink you have gone out of your mind.'
'My dear fellow, to be quite candid with you, I don't care two pins whatyou think on that subject. I have been called mad too many times forthat. Now, suppose, just for argument's sake, that I wereMephistopheles, and staked my diabolic reputation on the statement thatin that thing you possess a possible key to those lost treasures of theIncas, which ten generations of men have hunted for in vain, what kindof a bargain would you be inclined to make with me on the strength ofit? Half the rest of your life, I think you said, and as that wouldn'tbe very much good to me, suppose we say the half of any treasures wemay discover by the help of our silent friend there? Eh?--will that suityou?'
'Are you really serious, Djama, or are you only dreaming another ofthese wild scientific dreams of yours?' exclaimed the professor, takinga couple of quick strides towards him. 'What connection can therepossibly be between a mummy, about four centuries years old, and thelost treasures of the Incas?'
'This man was an Inca, wasn't he?' said the doctor, abruptly, 'and oneof the highest rank, too, from what you have said. He lived just aboutthe time of the Conquest, didn't he--the time when the priests strippedtheir temples, and the nobles emptied their palaces of their treasuresto save them from the Spaniards? Is it not likely that he would knowwhere, at anyrate, a great part of them was buried? Nay, may he not evenhave known the localities of the lost mines that the Incas got theirhundredweights of gold from, and of the emerald mines which no one hasever been able to find? Why, Lamson, if these dead lips could speak, Ibelieve they could make you and me millionaires in an hour. And whyshouldn't they speak?'
'Don't talk like that, Djama, for Heaven's sake! It is too serious athing to joke about,' said the professor, with a half-frightened glancein his set and shining eyes. 'I should have thought you, of all men,knew enough of the facts of life and death not to talk such nonsense asthat.'
'Nonsense!' said the physiologist, interrupting him almost angrily; 'mayI not know enough of the facts of life and death, as you call them, toknow that that is _not_ nonsense? But there, it's no use arguing aboutthings like this. Will you allow this mummy of yours to be made thesubject of--well, we will say, an experiment in physiology?'
'What! the finest and most unique huaca that was ever brought toEurope--'
'It would only be made finer still by the experiment, even if it failed.I know what you are going to say, and I will give you my word of honour,and, if you like, I'll pledge you my professional reputation, that not ahair of its head shall be injured. Let me take it to my laboratory, andI promise you solemnly that in a week you shall have it back, not as itis now, but either the body of your Inca, as perfect as it was the day
he died, or--'
He stopped, and looked hard at his friend, as if wondering what theeffects of his next words would be upon him.
'Or what?' asked the professor, almost in a whisper.
'Your Inca prince, roused from his three-hundred-year sleep, and ableto answer your questions and guide us to his lost mines and treasurehouses.'
'Are you in earnest, Djama?' the professor whispered, catching him bythe arm and looking round at the mummy as though he half thought thatthe silent witness in the packing-case might be listening to the wordswhich, if it could have heard, would have had such a terriblesignificance for it. 'Do you really mean to say in sober earnest thatthere is the remotest chance of your science being able to work such amiracle as that?'
'A chance, yes,' replied Djama, steadily. 'It is not a certainty, ofcourse, but I believe it to be possible. Will you let me try?'
'Yes, you shall try,' answered the professor in a voice nothing like assteady as his. 'If any other man but you had even hinted at such athing, I would have seen him--well, in a lunatic asylum first. Butthere, I will trust my Inca to you. It seems a fearful thing even toattempt, and yet, after all, if it fails there will be no harm done, andif it succeeds--ah, yes, if it succeeds--it will mean--'
'Endless fame for you, my friend, as the recreator of a lost society,and for both of us wealth, perhaps beyond counting. But stop amoment--granted success, how shall we talk with our Inca _revenant_?Have I not heard you say that the Aymaru dialect of the Quichua tongueis lost as completely as the Inca treasures?'
'Not quite, though I believe I am now the only white man on earth whounderstands it.'
'Good! then let me get to work at once, and in a week--well, in a weekwe shall see.'
II
A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT
Laurens Djama dined with the professor that night, and the small hourswere growing large before they ended the long talk of which theirstrange bargain, and the still stranger experiment which was to resultfrom it, formed the subject. The next day the packing-case containingthe mummy was transferred to Djama's laboratory, and then for a wholeweek neither the professor nor any of his friends or acquaintances hadeither sight or speech of him.
Every caller at his house in Brondesbury Park was politely but firmlydenied admittance on professional grounds, and three letters and twotelegrams which the professor had sent to him, after being himselfdenied admittance, remained unanswered.
At last, on the Thursday following the Friday on which the mummy hadbeen sent to the laboratory, the professor received a telegram tellinghim to come at once to the doctor. Three minutes after he had read it hewas in a hansom and on his way to Kilburn, wondering what it was that hewas to be brought face to face with during the next half hour.
This time there was no denial. The door opened as he went up the steps,and the servant handed him a note. He tore it open and read,--
'_Come round to the laboratory and make a new acquaintance who will yet be an old one._'
His heart stood still, and he caught his breath sharply as he read thewords which told him that the unearthly experiment for which he hadfurnished the subject had been successful.
The doctor's laboratory stood apart from the house in the long, narrowgarden at the back, and as he approached the door he stopped for amoment, and an almost irresistible impulse to go away and have nothingmore to do with the unholy work in hand took possession of him. Then thelove of his science and the longing to hear the marvels which could onlybe heard from the lips that had been silent for centuries overcame hisfears, and he went up to the door and knocked softly.
It was opened by a haggard, wild-eyed man, whom he scarcely recognisedas his old friend. Djama did not speak; he simply caught hold of thesleeve of his coat with a nervous, trembling grasp, drew him in, shutthe door, and led him to a corner of the room where there was a littlecamp bed, curtained all round with thin, transparent muslin, throughwhich he could see the shape of a man lying under the sheets.
Djama pulled the curtain aside, and said in a hoarse whisper,--
'Look, it has been hard work, and terrible work, too, but I havesucceeded. Do you see, he is breathing!'
The professor stared wide-eyed at the white pillow on which lay the headof what, a week before, had been his mummy. Now it was the head of aliving man; the pale bronze of the skin was clear and moist with the dewof life; the lips were no longer brown and dry, but faintly red andslightly parted, and the counterpane, which was pulled close up underthe chin, was slowly rising and falling with the regular rhythm of asleeper's breathing. He looked from the face of him who had been deadand was alive again to the face of the man whose daring science andperfect skill had wrought the unholy miracle, and then he shrank backfrom the bedside, pulling Djama with him, and whispering,--
'Good God, it is even more awful than it is wonderful! How did you doit?'
'That is my secret,' whispered Djama, his dry lips shaping themselvesinto a ghastly smile, 'and for all the treasures that that man ever saw,I wouldn't tell it to a living soul, or do such hideous work again. Itell you I have seen life and death fighting together for two days andnights in this room--not, mind you, as they fight on a deathbed, but theother way, and I would rather see a thousand men die than one more comeback out, of death into life. You see, he is sleeping now. He opened hiseyes just before daybreak this morning--that's nearly ten hours ago--butif I lived ten thousand years I should never forget that one look hegave me before he shut them again. Since then he has slept, and I stoodby that bed testing his pulse and his breathing for eight hours before Iwired you. Then I knew he would live, and so I sent for you.'
The professor looked at his friend with an involuntary and unconquerableaversion rising in his heart against him; an aversion that was halffear, half horror, and then he remembered that he himself had a share inthe fearful work which had been done--a work that could not now beundone without murder.
With another backward look at the bed, he said, in a whisper that wasalmost a smothered groan,--
'When will he wake?'
Before Djama could reply, the question was answered by a faint rustle,and a low, long-drawn sigh from the bed. They looked and saw the Inca'sface turned towards them, and two fever-bright eyes shining through thecurtains.
'He is awake already, two hours sooner than I expected,' said Djama, ina voice that he strove vainly to keep steady. 'Come, now, you are theonly man on earth who can talk to him. Let us see if he has come back toreason as well as to life.'
'Yes, I will try,' said the professor, faintly. He took a couple oftrembling steps. Then the lights in the room began to dance, thewhitewashed walls reeled round him, and he pitched forward and fellunconscious by the side of the bed.
When he came to himself he was lying on the floor of the laboratory, outof sight of the bed, behind a great cupboard, glass-doored and filledwith bottles. Djama was kneeling beside him. A strong smell of ammoniadominated the other smells peculiar to a laboratory, and his brow waswet with the spirit that Djama was gently rubbing on it with his hand.
'What have I been doing?' he said, as, with the other's assistance, hegot up into a sitting position and looked stupidly about him. 'It isn'ttrue, that is it, I really saw--Good God no, it can't be; it's toohorrible. I must have dreamt it.'
'Nonsense, my dear fellow, nonsense! I should have thought you wouldhave had better nerves than that. Come, take a nip of this, and pullyourself together. There is nothing so very horrible about it for you.Now, if you had had the actual work to do--'
'Then it _is_ true! You really have brought him back to life again? Thatwas him I saw lying on the bed?' He looked up at Djama as he spoke witha half-inquiring, half-frightened glance. His voice was weak andunsteady, like the voice of a man who has been stunned by some terribleshock, and is still dazed with the fear and wonder of it.
'Yes, of course it was,' said Djama; 'but I can tell you, I should havehesitated before I introduced you so suddenly, if I hadn't thought thatthe nerves o
f an old traveller like you would have been a good dealstronger than they seem to be. It's a very good job that His Highnesswas only about half conscious himself when you collapsed, or you mighthave given him a shock that would have killed him again.'
'Again?' said the professor, echoing the last word as he got up slowlyto his feet. 'That sounds queer, doesn't it, to talk of killing a man_again_? I am more sorry than I can say that I was weak enough to let myfeelings overcome me in such a ridiculous fashion. However, I am allright now. Give me another drain of that brandy of yours, and then letus talk. Is he still awake?'
'No, he dozed off again almost immediately, and you have been here aboutten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Do you think you can stand anotherlook at him?'
'Oh, certainly,' said the professor, who, as a matter of fact, felt atrifle ashamed of himself and his weakness, and was anxious to dosomething that would restore his credit. He followed the doctor out intothe laboratory again, and stood with him for some moments withoutspeaking by the Inca's bedside. He was sleeping very quietly, and hisbreathing seemed to be stronger and deeper than it had been. He hadslightly shifted his position, and was lying now half turned on hisright side, with his right cheek on the pillow.
'You see he has moved,' whispered Djama. 'That shows that muscularcontrol has been re-established. We shall have him walking about in aday or so. Ah! he is dreaming, and of something pleasant, too. Look athis lips moving into a smile. Poor fellow, just fancy a man dreaming ofthings that happened three hundred years ago, and waking up to findhimself in another world. I'll be bound he is dreaming about his wife orsweetheart, and we shall have to tell him, or rather you will, that shehas been a mummy for three centuries. Look now, his lips are moving; Ibelieve he is going to say something. See if you can hear what it is?'
The professor stooped down and held his ear so close that he could feelon his cheek the gentle fanning of the breath that had been still forthree centuries. Then the Inca's lips moved again, and a soft sighingsound came from them, and in the midst of it he caught the words,--
'_Cori-Coyllur, Nustallipa, Nusta mi!_'
Then there came a long, gentle sigh. The Inca's lips became still again,shaped into a very sweet and almost womanly smile, as though his visionhad passed and left him in a happy, dreamless slumber.
'What did he say?' whispered Djama. 'Were you able to understand it?'
'Yes,' said the professor, 'yes, and you were right about the subject ofhis dream. Come away, in case we wake him, and I will tell you.'
They went to the other end of the laboratory, and the professor went on,still speaking in a low, half-whisper,--
'Poor fellow, I am afraid we have incurred a terribly heavy debt to him.What he said meant, "Golden Star, my princess, my darling!" So you seeyou were right, but poor Golden Star has been dead three hundred yearsand more--that is, at least, if his Golden Star is the same as theheroine of the tradition.'
'What tradition?' asked Djama.
'It's too long a story to tell you now, but if she is the same, then ourInca's name is Vilcaroya, and he is the hero of the strangest story,and, thanks to you, the strangest fate that the wildest romancer couldimagine. However, the story must keep, for I wouldn't spoil it bycutting it short. The principal question now is--what are we going to dowith him? We can't keep him here, of course?'
'No, certainly not,' replied Djama, with knitted brows and faintlysmiling lips. 'His Highness must be cared for in accordance with hisrank and our expectations. I shall have him taken into the house andproperly nursed.'
'But what about your sister? You will frighten her to death if you takein a living patient that has been dead for three hundred years.'
'Not if we manage it properly; there will be no need to tell Ruth thestory yet, at anyrate. I'll tell her that I am going to receive apatient who is suffering from a mysterious disease unknown to medicalscience. I'll say I picked him up in the Oriental Home in Whitechapel,and have brought him here to study him, and you and I must smuggle himinto the house and put him to bed some time when she is out of the way.Then I'll instal her as nurse; in fact, she will do that for herself;and as there is no chance of her learning anything from him, we canbreak the truth to her by degrees, and when His Highness is well enoughto travel we'll all be off to Peru and come back millionaires, if youcan only persuade him to tell you the secret of his treasure-houses.'
That night the doctor and the professor took turns in watching by thebedside of their strange patient, whose slumber became lighter andlighter until, towards midnight, he got so restless and apparentlyuneasy that Djama considered that the time had come to wake him and seeif he was able to take any nourishment. So he set the professor to work,warming some chicken broth over a spirit lamp, and mixing a littlechampagne and soda-water in one glass and brandy and water in another.Meanwhile, he filled a hypodermic syringe with colourless fluid out of alittle stoppered bottle, and then turned the sheet down and injected thecontents of the syringe under the smooth, bronze skin of the Inca'sshoulder. He moved slightly at the prick of the needle, then he drewtwo or three deep breaths, and suddenly sat up in bed and stared abouthim with wide open eyes, full, as they well might be, of inquiringwonder.
The professor, who had turned at the sound of the hurried breathing, sawhim as he raised himself, and heard him say in the clear and somewhathigh-pitched tone of a dweller among the mountains,--
'Has the morning dawned again for the Children of the Sun? Am I trulyawake, or am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over? Where isGolden Star, and where am I? Tell me--you who have doubtless brought meback to the life we forsook together--was it last night or how manynights or moons ago?'
The words came slowly at first, like those of a man still on theborderland between sleep and waking; but each one was spoken moreclearly and decisively than the one before it, and the last sentence wasuttered in the strong, steady tones of a man in full possession of hisfaculties.
'Come here, Lamson,' said Djama, a trifle nervously; 'bring the soupwith you, and some brandy, though I don't think he needs it. Do youunderstand what he said?'
"Am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over?"
_To face page 26._]
'Yes,' replied the professor, coming to the bedside with a cup of soupin one hand and a glass of brandy and water in the ether. Both handstrembled as he set the cup and the glass down on a little table. Helooked at the Inca like a man looking at a re-embodied spirit, and saidto him in Quichua,--
'I am not he who has brought you back to life, but my friend here, whois a great and skilled physician, and master of the arts of life anddeath. You are in his house, and safe, for we are friends, and havenursed you back to health and waking life after your long sleep.'
'But Golden Star,' said the Inca, interrupting him with a flash ofimpatience in his eyes. 'Where is she--my bride who went with me intothe shades of death? Have you not brought her, too, back to life?'
The professor stared in silence at the strange speaker of these strangewords, which told him so plainly that the old legend of the death-bridalof Vilcaroya-Inca and Golden Star was now no legend at all, but a truestory which had come down almost unchanged from generation togeneration. Then an infinite pity filled his heart for this lonelywanderer from another age, whose friends and kindred had been dead forcenturies, and whose very nation was now only a shadowy name on ahalf-forgotten page of history.
'What does he say?' said Djama, breaking in upon his reverie. 'I supposehe wants to know where he is, and what has become of that sweetheart ofhis he was dreaming about?'
'Yes,' replied the professor; 'but you won't understand properly until Ihave told you the story. Poor fellow! I suppose we shall have to tellhim the ghastly truth. Good Heavens! fancy telling a man that his wifehas been dead for three hundred years or more! Look here, Djama, thisbusiness can't stop here, you know. What a fool I was, after all, not tosee if there wasn't another chamber beside the one I found him in! Ofcourse there must be, and I have no doubt she is lying
there at thispresent moment. We shall have to go and find her, and you must restoreher as you have done him. Phew! where is it all going to end, I wonder!'
'And suppose we can't find her, or suppose I fail, even if I can bringmyself to undertake that horrible work all over again?' said Djama,looking almost fearfully at the Inca, who was still sitting up in thebed glancing mutely from one to the other, as though waiting for ananswer to his question. Then, keeping his voice as steady as he could,the professor told him the story of his resuscitation, addressing him byhis own name and ending by asking him if he remembered when he andGolden Star had devoted themselves to die together, as the traditionsaid they had done.
'Yes, I remember!' said Vilcaroya, with brightening eyes and faintlyflushing cheeks. 'How could I forget it? It was when the beardedstrangers from the north had come and taken the usurper Atahuallpaprisoner in the midst of his conquering host at Cajamarca. It was afterthe Inca Huascar had been slain by stealth with a traitor's knife. Itwas on the night of the feast of Raymi, when our Father the Sun had leftthe Sacred Fleece unkindled, and when was fulfilled the prophecy thatthe night should fall over the land of the Children of the Sun. Now,tell me, you who speak the language of my people, how long have I beensleeping?'
Instead of replying directly, he offered the Inca the cup of broth, andasked him first to take the nourishment that he must need so greatlyafter his long fast, telling him that it was needful to prevent himlosing his new-found strength again. When he had eaten and drunk alittle, then he would tell him what he could.
He took the broth and a little bread obediently, and while he was eatingand drinking, the professor translated what he had said to the doctor.When he had finished, Djama looked at the Inca, sitting there takingfood and drink like any other human being, and with evident relish, too,and said,--
'That happened in 1532--three hundred and sixty-five years ago! Itsounds utterly incredible, doesn't it, and yet there he is, eating anddrinking and talking with us just like any other man. I can hardlybelieve the work of my own hands, and I am beginning to half wish I hadnever begun it. Just imagine the awful loneliness to which we shall havecondemned this poor fellow, supposing we can't find his Golden Star andrestore her to him! Still perhaps you had better tell him the truth atonce. I think he can stand it. He has been a long time coming round, butI don't think there is much the matter with him now.'
Then the professor told Vilcaroya the, to him, so terrible truth, thatof all men in the world he was the most lonely, separated as he was fromall that he had known and loved by an impassable gulf of nearly fourlong centuries--that his well-loved Golden Star was but a memory knownto few, a name in a vague tradition; that the resting-place, even of hermummy, was unknown, and that all that the darkest prophecy could haveforetold had in very truth fallen upon the land of the Incas and theChildren of the Sun.
Vilcaroya heard him to the end in silence; then, raising his hands tohis forehead, he bowed his head and said,--
'It is the will of our Father, foretold by the lips of his priests, butother things were foretold which shall be fulfilled as well as these.Golden Star is not dead; she only sleeps as I did. If I have awakened,why shall not she? I know where she lies--where Anda-Huillac swore to methey would lay her. Come, let us go! I will take you to the place, andyou shall restore her to me, warm and living and loving as she was whenI kissed her good-bye in the Sanctuary of the Sun, and I will give youtreasures of gold and silver and jewels such as you have never dreamedof in exchange for her.'