Chapter XXVII

Teresa returned from a long tour of the empire with no news of Molina. He had disappeared and had left no trace behind him. And Yma had wisely withheld from the Inca the facts.

Teresa had stationed her faithful servant in Caxamalca with instructions to watch Yma’s movements day and night. He had important information which he gave with tense excitement.

“I have watched the premier Sun Virgin as you commanded. She goes from the royal household to the convent daily. But at night she slips through the darkness, climbs the mountain toward the fortress and disappears.”

“Disappears--what do you mean?” demanded Teresa.

“I follow her. I look. She is before me. I look again and she is gone.”

“She does this trick on the mountain top?”

“No, Señorita, always at the foot of the mountain before she starts to climb the steep stairway.”

“We’ll follow her to-night.”

With Gaspara and a single soldier, the four watched the convent until Yma emerged. The native followed softly with Teresa at his heels. Gaspara and his companion brought up the rear at a distance.

The Sun Virgin moved with unusual haste and recklessness, evidently under great excitement.

She paused in the underbrush at the foot of the first tier of steep stone steps. Her enemies stepped into the shadows but a few feet away and listened. She was standing stark still, either waiting for some one, or in a ruse to throw off any possible followers.

The bushes behind her rustled and voices could be plainly heard in an excited conversation.

“Oh, Toparca,” Yma cried, “I shudder for the Inca. The Spaniards plot to take his life. Even now they talk in secret council. I will command the guard to-night. Go quickly, mingle with the drunken men in the gambling halls, and report to me.

“You wish me to return to-night?”

“Yes. The door will be unbolted. Bring news. I shall not sleep.”

Toparca hurried toward Caxamalca and Yma began her passage toward the hidden entrance of the lower fortress. In her excitement she threw caution to the winds and boldly ran to the fissure in the cliff that marked the door. The dark height rose five hundred feet, on the summit of which sat the stone masonry of the upper structure.

Teresa ordered her servant to wait with the two men until she returned. Softly following Yma’s careless footsteps she saw her disappear in the fissure. In a flash she realized that the fortress could be entered here by another door. Undoubtedly there were rooms hewn out the solid rock below the masonry which she had explored above.

With quick, careful steps she returned to the pathway and reported to Gaspara the discovery. They stole swiftly to the door and opened it. They entered in silence and utter darkness and began to climb the stone stairway stealthily.

Yma had reached Molina’s room in a frenzy of climbing without the slightest suspicion that she was being followed.

Her eyes were wide with excitement as she faced the cavalier.

“What is it now, dear one?” he asked gently.

“They plot the death of our Lord!” she breathed.

Molina winced.

“Surely that cannot be. Men of Spain do not stoop to such perfidy!”

“I’ve heard it from more than one. They’ve sent the Inca’s only friend, De Soto, on a fool’s errand to Huamachuco while they plot his death.”

“I cannot believe it,” Molina protested.

The girl drew near and touched the chains that bound the Spaniard to the wall. Her eyes were wide with a grief beyond words. She spoke in an awed whisper:

“Dear god-man, the blow falls because of my sins. I confess to you now that I have kept you in chains. The Inca would have freed you but for me. I told him that I feared the vengeance of Pizarro on his head when he learned of your suffering. ’Twas true, I did fear this, but far more than all else I feared to lose you forever to the woman you love. Forgive me. I could not let you go. The vengeance of heaven now falls on all because I have sinned.”

Her voice sank in a sob and Molina touched her hair in a gesture of pity.

“And now,” she went on passionately, “my Lord of the Sun will be slain and I shall also lose you....”

“You have given to me, dear Yma, something I shall never lose, a breadth of sympathy for all God’s children, and an abiding wonder at the miracle of love....”

She lifted her hand and brushed the hair from his forehead.

“They will come to take you--this I know. I feel the dark shadow of the hour coming closer each day....”

She stopped suddenly, and threw her arms around his neck, her voice lost in sobs that shook her frame, and the sobs lost in the futile kisses with which she bruised his lips.

She moaned, covering his lips again with kisses and crushing him to her heart. She paused and held him at arm’s length looking through her tears.

“Is my love, then, finally futile?” She asked it as if she were a prisoner on the gallows.

“I shall always love you, dear little sister to the wilderness, for the deep lessons of life and death your love has taught me. But, God help me, I love one in Panama. Were I chained to death, dear one, I should love her....”

The girl leaped back in a quick defiance. For the first time Molina saw swift feminine fury strike her and with terrible force. She gave a hoarse cry.

“She shall not have you! I swear by the Sun to die before I’ll yield your body to her....”

She stopped and sprang to the door, startled by the sound of footsteps. She listened in an agony of suspense and the sound died away. Perhaps the guards had changed at an unusual hour. She passed into the hall, walked its length to the turn of the stairs leading below. She could hear only the measured tread of the sentinel pacing his beat before Molina’s door. The sound had come from the direction of the stairs. The sentinel was at the other end of the corridor.

Yma met him at Molina’s door and sharply asked:

“Did you hear footsteps on the stairs?”

“Nothing, my lady....”

But while they talked careful feet were climbing the stairs at the moment. This time they made no sound.

Teresa and her attendants had felt their way up the long steep stairway ascending the three or four hundred feet to the first tier of rooms used for cooking and the housing of the servants and guards. An evening meal was being prepared for the prisoner.

They hid until the servant emerged from the kitchen carrying a platter filled with savory food. With the tread of a cat, Teresa followed at a safe distance and by the faint light from Molina’s door saw her enter.

It was the work of a moment to call her confederates and plan an attack. She asked Gaspara to seize and bind the guard while the soldier made sure of the maid so that no help could be summoned. Her own servant would help Gaspara.

The three concealed themselves in the shadows of an alcove near the entrance of the prisoner’s door. This alcove had been cut for the use of a double guard. The sentinel approached without suspicion, and as he passed, Gaspara flung himself upon him and a grim struggle ensued. The man had muscles of steel and fought with courage though stunned at first by the sudden attack. He bore his assailant on his broad shoulders to the stairway and attempted to plunge down its steep stone steps. Gaspara caught the wall in time, hurled his antagonist back into the corridor and fought his way inch by inch through its length and against the wall at the end.

The soldier seized the maid as she leaped through the door and Teresa with drawn sword sprang into the room and saw Molina with a cry of joy.

Before him stood the rigid figure of Yma, the sword of the cavalier gripped in her right hand. She had torn it from the wall, at the sounds of the struggle outside.

Molina started. He lifted his arms in a desperate appeal.

“The struggle is over, dear Yma,” he cried.

“It has just begun!” Her voice, torn by love and hate, sounded unnatural, her wide, staring eyes fixed on Teresa. “He taught me to defend myself--I shall!”

A quick thrust of her sword was caught by Teresa. They fought, a duel of mad courage while the men outside struggled with the guards. The noise had called the relief sentinel from below.

In vain Molina tugged at his chains. In vain he commanded them to stop. He feared for Teresa, but also, and for a split second he wondered why, he feared for Yma. She had not possessed him, and yet....

Yma’s tense figure moved with the agility of a tigress. Her defense was perfect and her unarmed body began to tell against the coat of mail with which Teresa was burdened. The Spanish girl was slowly driven against the wall and by a swift turn of her supple wrist the Sun Virgin disarmed her opponent, sprang back and leveled her sword for the death thrust. She smiled cruelly and a bit of the savage of centuries past screamed within her.

But Molina plunged the length of his chains and gripped the sword.

“Dear Yma,” he pleaded, and his voice also, was torn, “if the love you swear means much, you cannot do this thing of horror. This is my beloved. She is mine--I am hers. It is written. Pierce her heart and the sword will skewer mine also.”

The tense arm relaxed and the lustrous eyes grew dim. She faltered and flung her arm to her eyes. And again she sobbed--sobs which reverberated hollowly in the dungeon, while Teresa and Molina looked on.

She dropped the sword, crossed to Teresa and stared into her face.

“You _are_ beautiful!” she sighed as she studied Teresa’s wondering countenance. “And you will love him I know. But never as I love and worship.” She paused, and added, “I yield him to you.”

She took her enemy by the hand, led her to Molina and stared as they embraced. The longing they had known burst forth in a frenzy of emotion and tears. Turning from the scene with a sharp cry of pain Yma rushed into the hall and commanded her guards to cease the struggle. Teresa’s servant had been knocked unconscious and the four evenly matched men were still fighting.

At her sharp command the struggle ceased and she led Gaspara, the soldier, and their antagonists into the room, where she ordered the manacles stricken from Molina.

The cavalier had just grasped his sword and buckled it on when Toparca entered and stared in amazement.

Yma saw the terror in his face and guessed its secret.

She seized the youth....

“You have heard? The news is bad?”

“The worst!” Toparca groaned.

“What is it?” Molina demanded. “Speak freely, boy. I am no longer a prisoner--I am the friend of Yma and your Inca.”

“The commander has called a court. Even now they sit in judgment on our Lord of the Sun!”

“You will help us try to save him?” Yma asked with a shiver.

“I’ll fight to save him--fight to save my country from this disgrace.”

Teresa seized the hand of her rival. She smiled.

“And may I be your friend also? I’ll fight by his side with every ounce of strength I have. We’ll do our best.”

The Sun Virgin kissed her enemy’s hand.

Without pausing to arrange his clothes, Molina asked the guards to release his negro servant and have him report immediately to the assembled court, while he hurried to the Square in Caxamalca.

There was need of haste.