T 1 O 
 

 
 THE GOLD FISH of 
 GRAN CHIMU 

 
 By the same Author 
 MY FRIEND WILL 
 
 Small 18mo, illustrated 
 75 cents net 
 
 THE SPANISH PIONEERS 
 
 Nine full - page illustra 
 tions, 12mo . $1.00 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS CHICAGO
 
 In a smother of mud and water Gonzalo went 
 whirling into the abyss. [Page 109]
 
 The Gold Fish 
 of Gran Chimii 
 
 By 
 
 CHARLES F. LUMMIS 
 
 Author of "The Spanish Pioneers of 
 America," "My Friend Will," etc 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 1911
 
 Copyright, 1911 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 
 Published March, 1911 
 
 The Caslon Press 
 
 Chicago
 
 TS 
 
 WA-U-WI WI-WAI
 
 THE GOLD FISH OF 
 GRAN CHIMU 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 An Oppressive Law 
 
 "AND what says the Se'or Bullfighter?" 
 ./~V queried Gonzalo, anxiously. 
 
 "Say? I say abur! If they pass this 
 grand-larceny of a law, much good may it 
 do them ! Snails ! But they fear to sleep, 
 lest some one have time to forget how 
 many varieties of imbecile a Peruvian Con 
 gress can be." 
 
 " Pero, Se'or, what imports it? Even 
 though they make the law, it would not 
 be hard to to compose the Prefect or to
 
 The gratify the soldiers, so that one might dig 
 
 Gold Fish none the less." It was Franco who said 
 of Gran this, with a foxy twinkle in his thin, light 
 Chimu f ace . 
 
 "No!" replied the Bullfighter, sharply. 
 "It is a fool's law, a thief's law but if they 
 pass it, there it is. When I'm in a country 
 I obey its laws, crazy though they be. If 
 Congress shows its ears, we will do no more 
 digging, that's all. I would sooner the whole 
 expedition failed than either break their law 
 or be robbed by it. It hasn't even the sense 
 to be funny. If it were possible to exhaust 
 the mummies, as they've exhausted the guano 
 and the mines, it would be right to protect 
 them; but all the people in Peru, digging a 
 hundred .years, could hardly make a begin 
 ning on the antiquities, much less finish 
 them. Bah ! When the Chileans come, these 
 gentlemen cannot find roads enough to run 
 away by. When a president has stolen only 
 five millions, they re-elect him to steal an 
 other five. But when a Peruvian or a for 
 eigner dares to be a scholar veremos! " 
 
 With this outburst he rose from the block 
 of adobe upon which he had been sitting,
 
 filled his capacious lungs with a jerk, as if An 
 he were rather angry at the Peruvian air, too, Oppres- 
 and strode off around the corner of a huge wall five Law 
 that shielded them from the tropic sun. 
 
 " But he is a so-little revolutionary, no, this 
 Se'or Yanqui?" observed Franco in a low tone, 
 looking to see that the Yanqui had well gone. 
 
 "How revolutionary, thou? Did he not 
 say he would mind the law, bad though it 
 be? Claro, that he is angry now and 
 who can make strange? Here they have 
 come, he and the Maestro, thousands of miles, 
 and spending money like the sands of the 
 pampa; and of a sudden our Congress would 
 prevent them. Yet, even angry, he says 'no 
 more digging.' Is that seditious? As for 
 saying fools and thieves, what else do we say? 
 Do not our own papers write 'We Peruasnos, 1 
 that serve for nothing except to be robbed ' ? " 
 
 " And he, also, is an asno for they might 
 well dig in spite of the law. All know the 
 Prefect, that he has his lean side; and it 
 were easy to make that the huaqueando 2 go 
 
 * A sarcastic jumbling of Peruano and asno, like say 
 ing " Peruviasses " instead of Peruvians. 
 1 The specific word for mummy-mining. 
 
 [J]
 
 The on, with soldiers to watch, yet getting not 
 
 Gold Fish much for the government. With a good 
 of Gran gratification to the Prefect, and now and 
 Chimu then a sol to the guards pooh, they would 
 be blind as Beggar Juan ! " 
 
 " Without shame ! When the strangers for 
 their own interest will not sneak, how should 
 a Peruvian? They are right, and I will stop 
 too, when comes the law. Truly, I know not 
 what we shall do, for now there is nothing 
 else but mummy-mining but no huaquero 
 could make the livelihood as they order. 
 Ea ! But perhaps it will not endure for 
 laws come and go. My father has told me 
 when there were laws here against carriages, 
 and against capes, and the women's shawls 
 
 and even that Indians should not eat cu 
 cumbers. 1 But they were not for long. Per 
 haps even so this ill law will last not much 
 
 or, quizd they will not pass it after all. 
 But vamos I think the Maestro will be 
 ready to measure again. He said to come 
 to the Bewitched Fig." 
 
 The Bullfighter was headed for the same 
 
 1 A real decree of the Duque de Palata, viceroy of 
 Peni, about 1680.
 
 spot; his brow wrinkled up and down, and An 
 fists clenching now and then as he jumped Oppres- 
 arroyos and clambered over ruined walls, sive Law 
 He was not really a bullfighter at all, of 
 course, or he never would have been in the 
 Gran Chimu. But his bronzed face was clean 
 shaven; and in Peru no one except a toreador 
 or a priest would think of exposing himself 
 without so much as a moustache. As priests 
 do not wear hunting boots and corduroy 
 jackets, it was plain that this Yanqui must be 
 a bullfighter; and people in the Peruvian 
 cities stepped down from the narrow side 
 walks to. give him room, and boys followed 
 at a respectful distance, and the clergy bowed 
 courteously at meeting him. So it was not 
 strange that every one should continue to call 
 him "the Bullfighter," even after they knew 
 his business; and that he should accept the 
 nickname with his usual carelessness about 
 careless opinions. He had been mistaken for 
 so many different things, in his wanderings, 
 and this was by so much the least troublesome 
 error, that it rather pleased him. 
 
 Emerging from a maze of ruined buildings, 
 he crossed a clear, level space faintly fur- 
 [5]
 
 The rowed with the strangest patterns that ever a 
 
 Gold Fish plowed field bore, and presently came to a 
 of Gran great pit, in the center of which stood an 
 Chimu ancient fig-tree the only green thing in 
 miles around. In its shade sat another Yan- 
 qui, bending over a paper covered with figures. 
 He, also, was clean-shaven and bronzed, but 
 much older, and not to be mistaken for a 
 bullfighter. Still, he was rather too quick- 
 footed for a priest; and the country agreed in 
 calling him "the Master," vaguely know 
 ing that he was a great scholar, a cientifico 
 whose name was high in both hemispheres. 
 "So! When did you get back from 
 Moche? And where are the boys? " he said, 
 without looking up. 
 
 "I finished the pictures there last night. 
 The boys will be here. I left them in the 
 edge of the second barrio. But say have 
 you heard about this law Congress is going to 
 pass?" 
 
 "Yes, and I had been expecting it. This 
 National Museum plan has been in the air 
 for years, but they have not been able to vote 
 money to found it, for the very good reason 
 that there was no money. Now they see a
 
 way to dance and let others pay the piper. An 
 It is really a polite manner of confiscating Oppres- 
 certain collections and documents they have sive Law 
 long had a jealous eye upon and taking the 
 pick of all future ones. I think, however, 
 they are overreaching themselves. They 
 certainly shall not fatten on us; and I doubt 
 if any one will work under such restrictions." 
 
 "Do you know just what they are? Old 
 Quesada had not the full details." 
 
 " It is simple but effective. Any one who 
 wishes to dig for antiquities must notify the 
 Prefect, who will authorize the Intendente to 
 detail a guard of soldiers to watch every turn of 
 the digging. You feed and pay these guardias 
 out of your own pocket, and they take charge 
 of everything you find. One-half (the better 
 half, of course) is the property of the govern 
 ment. Your half is also taken, 'to be photo 
 graphed and described for the National Muse 
 um. ' It is supposed to be then returned to you 
 and may be it will be. Furthermore, you 
 will have to give the Museum copies of all your 
 photographs, and I of all my ground plans." 
 
 " Pestilence ! Well, it shuts the door on 
 further excavations, no?" 
 
 [7]
 
 The "Certainly. We couldn't carry them on 
 
 Gold Fish under such conditions even in a country 
 of Gran where we could trust the government to do 
 Chimu its part. But that is not vital. We can con 
 tinue to excavate until the law passes, and 
 then stop. The surveys, measurements, 
 photographing all the more important 
 work can still go on. We have collections 
 enough for the present and, thank heaven, 
 they are all safely on their way to New York. 
 By the time we need more, there may be 
 better laws. Where it will come hardest is 
 on Peru herself on the poor huagueros, 
 / who have no resource but mummy-mining. 
 ^/ That law will make criminals; for many of 
 these poor fellows will have to dig, and will 
 do it furtively, as they cannot afford to 'go 
 halves ' with the government. Ah, picaros! " 
 he added, with a sudden change of tone, as 
 Gonzalo and Franco came scuffing down the 
 bank. " Why should I not bump you the 
 heads, for keeping me so long waiting?" 
 His face and speech were wholly severe ; but 
 the boys laughed understandingly. He was 
 so droll, this wise Maestro to whom the 
 learned listened with reverence, and whom 
 [*]
 
 the ignorant found even more entertaining An 
 than the wittiest of their rough companions. Oppres- 
 
 " Pues, Se'or, now we are ready," answered sive Law 
 Gonzalo, still smiling. "Only to-morrow, 
 and for a few days, if you will dispense with 
 us for there is to be a new law, ill for the 
 huagueros, and we would like to dig what 
 can be before it." 
 
 " Rascals ! Well, dig then. And that you 
 find the Fez Grande! But now, to work." 
 
 Franco took the plane-table and the sur 
 veyor's level, Gonzalo the tripod and the 
 little side-satchel of notes, and the three 
 clambered out of the big pits, trudging away 
 through the sands toward a huge wall that 
 stood off to the northwest. 
 
 "Until soon!" said the Bullfighter, look 
 ing at his watch. "I'm going over to the 
 Hall of the Arabesques to study the light a 
 little, the shadows in that last photograph 
 didn't suit me." 
 
 " Much eye, then ! " called back Franco, 
 twisting his sharp face over his shoulder. 
 " For there, many say, is the hiding-place of 
 the Fez Grande. 11 
 
 " Bother your Big Fish ! If you Peruvians
 
 The would dig your fields half as hard as you dig 
 
 Gold Fish for that treasure, you wouldn't need any wind- 
 of Gran falls. Not but I'd like to stumble on the 
 Chimu tail of him, myself," smiled the Bullfighter, 
 as he strode away to the southeast. "He 
 must be a very pretty lump, when the Little 
 Fish was such a whopper. But plain huacos 
 are good enough for me, personally I 
 don't care to get a touch of the golden fever." 
 The others had already disappeared be 
 hind the great wall, as he went scrambling 
 over mounds of crumbled adobe masonry 
 the ruins of prehistoric homes and temples. 
 Ahead was a stupendous truncated pyramid 
 of the same clay bricks, a terraced artifi 
 cial hill, five hundred feet long and one hun 
 dred and fifty high, and off in the southerly 
 haze stood out the shadowy vastness of the 
 far greater Pyramid of Moche. No wonder 
 a deep light came into his eyes as they swept 
 that wondrous view, the gray eyes that in 
 boyhood had always dreamed of exploring 
 and of antiquity, and that now found them 
 selves explorers sure enough, in the Gran 
 Chimu! That prehistoric "city" whose 
 origin is lost in the dawn of time; that ruin 
 
 [70]
 
 whose mighty walls and bewildering edifices An 
 cover more area than the city of London; Oppres- 
 that greatest town that aborigines ever built sive Law 
 in the New World ! 
 
 Nor had it grown common to him with 
 familiarity. The months of measurements, 
 of photographing, of excavating, of study, 
 had but enhanced the fascination of the for 
 gotten city. Every day and every hour there 
 was some new wonder, some new beauty. 
 What architects were those stolid Indians of 
 Peru when Europe was in the Dark Ages ! 
 As for relics of antiquity, the innumerable 
 and precious curios that their peons were con 
 stantly turning up, how poverty-stricken 
 all the years of exploration in North Ameri 
 can ruins looked, beside these dazzling finds ! 
 He could remember the boy days when the 
 acquisition of a poor little flint arrow-head 
 had kept him sleepless all night with the op 
 pression of riches, and here already they 
 had gathered such collections of ancient 
 Peruvian relics as the British Museum itself 
 never held ! 
 
 Now he was threading his way through a 
 vast and confused huddle of mounds, each of
 
 The which had been, in its immemorial day, a 
 
 Gold Fish great building. All about were modern holes, 
 
 of Gran tunnels, banks of upthrown earth ; and here 
 
 Chimu and there volleys of dust kept puffing up from 
 
 trenches and pits. It was a favorite part of 
 
 the ruins with the huaqueros ; for somehow a 
 
 belief had grown current that in this vicinity 
 
 was the famous "Big Fish." 
 
 "God give Your Grace good-day," spoke 
 out a courtly old Spaniard as the Bullfighter 
 dropped lightly down a fourteen-foot wall, in 
 stead of going around by the trail which led 
 to the bottom of the excavation. " How easy 
 of foot are you Norte- Americanos ! And 
 comes Your Grace to help us uncover the 
 Fez Grande ? " The speaker's hair and beard 
 were white, and in his swart cheeks the darker 
 wrinkles ran deep and innumerable; but his 
 voice was musical with the tone of one who 
 has learned, and his step was springy. 
 
 "Ah, Don Beltran ! " said the American, 
 warmly grasping the proffered hand. " Few 
 of us are so easy of foot at seventy-five. A 
 jaguar might envy you. No, I don't believe 
 the Fez Grande has bitten me, yet though 
 if you come across him, just let me scrape up
 
 a scale or two, eh? I'm a pretty good hand AH 
 with the shovel, myself." Oppres- 
 
 "Well do I believe it. Aye, so are the stiff Law 
 Yanquis not afraid to work, for proud though 
 they be. But in my unhappy land we have 
 only 'gentlemen ' 'gentlemen,'" he repeat 
 ed bitterly, "ashamed to be men. There is 
 nothing 'gentle ' except to be lazy or, if one 
 have no longer mine nor hacienda to feed him, 
 then to hold office and rob his country ! " 
 
 " Pobre de Peru ! If there were more to 
 think like you, Don Beltran ! " 
 
 " But what is one poor old man ? I work, 
 yes ! And my son, my little Gonzalo, he is 
 noflojo. Do you not find him a very worker? 
 So I have taught him from my knee, and it is 
 in the bone. I have said-him: 'hijito, here 
 they are blind. They make it disgrace to 
 harden the hand. But they do not see the 
 world. We are behind, for elsewhere they 
 have learned it the honor of to do. Even 
 in Peru we were not always thus did not 
 Don Francisco, the Conqueror, himself work 
 even as the common soldier? Remember 
 this, my Gonzalito, what a man is is what he 
 does, Thou, whose ancestor was the Con-
 
 The queror of New Granada, hast blood and name 
 
 Gold Fish as well as any; but upon that thou must build 
 of Gran for thyself. Do / Do .' Fear not that work 
 Chimu shall bring thee down it is the Man who 
 exalts his work.' " 
 
 " Bravely said, Don Beltran, and worthy of 
 your blood. And you may be proud of such 
 a son as Gonzalo I love the boy, too. But 
 come, what are you finding since I was here ? " 
 "Pues, it is little!" And the old man 
 gave a shrug. " Some well-wrought huacos 
 and a few admirable cloths; but of gold, or 
 silver, nothing." 
 
 "Yes, here is!" croaked a hoarse voice 
 near by, and a tattered huaquero scrambled 
 out of his pit, holding up a long, thin plate 
 of metal, reddish, shaped to the rude sem 
 blance of a fish. 
 
 " So ! The Fez Chiqui-ti-ti-i-to ! " laughed 
 the Bullfighter, wetting a spot on the plate 
 and rubbing it hard on his leg. Just there 
 the red hue departed, and a rich, waxy yellow 
 took its place. "And it's very good gold, too," 
 he added, surveying it critically and weighing 
 it upon his fingers. " Curious how the alloy 
 varies! I've dug up gold in Pachacamac
 
 that was half copper and then the very An 
 next ornament was as pure as our eighteen- Oppres- 
 karat jewelry. It shows how little of a sive Law 
 science smelting was with the old Peruvians, 
 after all their alloys all went by guesswork. 
 Well, I hope the gold fish had a big shoal of 
 small-fry, and that you'll catch them all. But 
 as for me, I'd rather have yonder cloth than 
 a whole string of your gold fish." 
 
 "Carry ! " cried the old man, picking up 
 and handing him a fabric a yard square, as 
 fine as a spider's web, so beautiful in design 
 that no one who had not seen it come up from 
 twenty feet under ground could have believed 
 that it had lain buried so many centuries. 
 "No," he added, "there is not whereof to 
 thank. But come, tell me. I have known 
 the story of the Fez Chico -since I was born, 
 and so did my fathers. But I never besought 
 the records. You, who are e-scholar, you shall 
 know to the point. It is historical, no ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes and past all doubt. The records 
 are exact you see everything was done with 
 a system, then. I only wish we Saxons had 
 as faithful and full chronicles of our early 
 doings in America. Well, it is an historical
 
 The fact that in the year 1575 a Spanish peddler 
 
 Gold Fish from Lima, named Garci-Gutierrezde Toledo 
 of Gran began tramping up the coast to Truxillo with 
 Chimu his pack. He was what you call simpatico, 
 making many friends and warmest of them 
 all, the old Indian in whose house he lodged 
 during these visits. You know the cacique of 
 an Indian village is in honor bound to enter 
 tain strangers; and the peddler's host was 
 Antonio Chayhuac, the last cacique of Man- 
 siche. Between the two sprung up a friend 
 ship of unusual strength. The peddler often 
 lamented his poverty; and one dark night in 
 1576 the cacique said: 'Then I am the one 
 who will help you. ' Leading the way to yon 
 der huaca, he opened the hidden mouth of an 
 underground passage. At the bottom was the 
 Fez Chico ; * and it made Garci-Gutierrez the 
 richest man in Peru. Of all treasure found, 
 one-fifth had to go, you know, to the king of 
 Spain; and in this case the 'Royal Fifth ' was 
 ^58,527 in weighed gold so the whole find 
 was nearly $300,000. That was a fortune 
 for those days, since gold was worth several 
 times as much as it is now. The lucky 
 
 l " The Little Fish."
 
 peddler made a present to Don Francisco de An 
 Toledo, the fifth viceroy of Peru, of $20,000 Oppres- 
 worth of golden vessels and trinkets." sive Law 
 
 "And the Fez Grande?" 
 
 "Ah, the Big Fish is only guesswork, 
 though there's no possible doubt it rests on 
 this truth that there are still great treasures 
 here. The legend is that the messengers who 
 were carrying to Cajamarca the golden ran 
 som with which their captive war-chief, Ata- 
 hualpa, had promised to fill his room, turned 
 back when they heard of his death and buried 
 the treasure here in the Gran Chimu. That 
 story has been believed for three hundred 
 and fifty years and there is nothing im 
 possible in it. Garci-Gutierrez, by the 
 way, squandered his Little Fish superbly, 
 and forgot his old friends. In a few years 
 he was poor as ever. Then he came back to 
 Truxillo and begged the cacique to disclose 
 the hiding-place of the Big Fish; but the 
 Indian laughed. I only hope you find it ! " 
 
 " Ah, " sighed Don Beltran. " But this evil 
 
 law they talk to pass this law meant to rob 
 
 our few scholars of their collections if one 
 
 were to find even the Fez Grande, it would 
 
 C/7]
 
 The rob him even of that. There is no remedy; 
 
 Gold Fish either to find it before the law shall pass, or 
 
 of Gran not at all. And see how the news of it has 
 
 Chimu set the poor afoot ! " he added, pointing to 
 
 distant groups of men, trudging with spade 
 
 on shoulder, or already flinging out the dust 
 
 from their prospect-holes. "All Peru will 
 
 be digging by to-morrow. All, it is to say, 
 
 except the ge nflemen." 
 
 " It is worth more that you find it on your 
 own land, Don Beltran," smiled the Bullfighter 
 as he turned toward a doorway in the massive 
 walls. The voice was jesting; but there was 
 a note in it which none should better inter 
 pret than this brave old cavalier, head of a 
 noble but decayed house.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Some of the Anglers 
 
 THE Maestro and the two boys stood on Some 
 top of the tallest wall in the Gran of the 
 Chimu. Upon this vast adobe circumvalla- Anglers 
 tion, over thirty feet high and four yards 
 thick at the base, they were lingering a 
 moment before they should scramble down 
 a gap and turn homeward. Their day's 
 work was done. The red ball of the sun 
 was just resting on the blue Pacific, the 
 boom of whose surf stole up on the faint
 
 The breeze. The great, sharp, barren peaks of 
 
 Gold Fish Salaverry burned high above the advance- 
 of Gran guard of the fog ; and upon the ruins of 
 Chimu the Gran Chimu lay such wizard shadows 
 that one could almost find it once more 
 a peopled city, and begin to look for the 
 brown Yuncas to come gliding back out of 
 the forgotten centuries and fill their broken 
 streets again with labor and with life. The 
 great wall boxed a court fifteen hundred feet 
 square, with two gateways. Within, and 
 parallel to it, was a lesser wall, leaving be 
 tween them a narrow alley all around the 
 court. Inside this, again, stood the myriad 
 naked walls of a whole town of pitch-roof 
 adobe houses, in "blocks " separated by nar 
 row passages. It was one of the " wards " of 
 the ancient city; as all Chirmi had a tre 
 mendous circumvallation against hostile out 
 siders, so each ward had a similar defense 
 against its jealous and sometimes hostile 
 neighbor wards. There are many very beau 
 tiful things about the organization of primi 
 tive peoples, many virtues which do not 
 seem to thrive so well in civilization. But 
 there are also, as a rule, many unlovely fea- 
 [*>]
 
 tures; and it does not do to believe all nor Some 
 half the romantic moonshine we have been of the 
 taught about ancient Peru and "the enlight- Anglers 
 ened rule of the Incas." We are coming to 
 understand these things, now that scientists 
 and historians have learned that it is wise to 
 see and know something of the country they 
 are going to write about, and something 
 of other countries, too. 
 
 "a/ But this is a laberinto! " cried the 
 flippant Franco, breaking the almost solemn 
 hush. Evidently his thoughts had not been 
 with the grandeur and awe of the scene. 
 "To-morrow, pues, I shall dig even yonder; 
 for this barrio is the best in all the Gran 
 Chimu, and why should not the treasure be 
 in that huaca? " In an open space amid the 
 thatchless houses stood a dim adobe pyra 
 mid, the sacrifice-mound of the ward. 
 
 No one answered, and he rattled on. " But 
 it can be that I will wait a so-little. Don 
 Guzman, the old Stingy, thinks to dig, and 
 maybe he will know where ! You know that 
 Indian, Bartolo, he that is said to be a de 
 scendant of the caciques ? Well, I saw them 
 this morning in the courtyard, and Don Guz-
 
 The man was well pouring to him the red wine. 
 
 Gold Fish He ! he ! " Franco chuckled. 
 
 of Gran " Shameless ! Is it well to make drunk the 
 
 Chimu poor old innocent, hoping that he may spill 
 his knowledge? It is like Don Guzman 
 but thou! What would say my father?" 
 Gonzalo had roused from his dreaming, and 
 spoke sharply, rather with a tone of authority. 
 " What imports-me ? " Franco retorted, with 
 a shrug. " If the Stingy can get him a so- 
 much drunk, it may be he will show where is 
 the Fez Grande, for sure that he can. All 
 know that since the Spaniards came the secret 
 is only with the caciques, who hand it down to 
 their sons. And if Don Guzman finds it, call 
 me toad if / get not a mouthful ! For I shall 
 watch him as the condor does a sick mule." 
 " Vamos, vultureling and eaglet," broke in 
 the Maestro. "We have enough measured 
 now for a while, and to-morrow you can bait 
 your hooks for the Big Fish. Ay ! But this 
 ward is a labyrinth ! I should like to know 
 how many thousand walls and angles I have 
 measured in it in the last ten days." 
 
 " But where shall we fish for him, Se'or 
 Maestro?"
 
 " H'm ! Anywhere that you can be alone. " Some 
 This was said as if to himself; and then, in of the 
 his usual tone of banter with the boys, he Anglers 
 added : " He is as like to be in the shallows 
 as in the deeps. Only, much eye that at the 
 first bite ye call friends, and not strangers, 
 to help pull him out ! " 
 
 By now they were in the uncertain gravelly 
 road which winds through the ruins from the 
 upper coast to Truxillo. Great breached 
 walls crept up out of the dusk, and glowered 
 down on them, and fell behind. The gray 
 road upon the gray plain could no longer be 
 made out, only by their feet they knew 
 when they had overstepped its edge. The 
 last glow was gone from sky and peaks ; even 
 the ghostly whiteness of the city of Truxillo 
 had disappeared. Up through the gloom 
 came only the low, far moan of the sea, as if 
 to emphasize the silence of the ruins. 
 
 Then this murmur seemed to grow and 
 swell; and presently it became a sharp clatter 
 on the pebbles, with sparks flying from iron- 
 shod heels, and next a towering form thun 
 dered out of the darkness and reined up in 
 their very faces.
 
 The "Alto!" roared a thick voice. "Who are 
 
 Gold Fish ye, sneaking in the highway by night? Rats, 
 
 of Gran go back, or I trample ye ! " 
 
 Chimu "Alto, thyself!" rang the Maestro 's clear 
 
 voice. "Thou art drunk. A handsome 
 police, truly, whose sotted zambos would 
 ride down their betters ! " 
 
 "Who'sh drunk, rebel?" sputtered the 
 negro cavalryman, in new rage. "I'll show 
 you to resist the guardia ! " And he drew 
 his saber, rising in his stirrups as he spurred 
 the horse. 
 
 " Enough, bruto! Go and get thee sober. 
 Meantime I will speak so ! Wouldst 
 thou?" The hickory cane revolved in a 
 curious fashion, and a saber was heard rat 
 tling upon the rocks off to the right. " Then 
 thou hadst best try foils with some one who 
 was not pupil to Ducrot. As I went to say, 
 I will speak with my friend the Senor In- 
 tendente, 1 Don Pedro de Villazur, and dis 
 cover why drunken zambos are sent out to 
 abuse the peace they are paid to guard." 
 
 The cavalryman was none too drunk to 
 recognize the authority of that quiet tone, 
 i Chief of Police.
 
 and that the voice was not of the rabble. Some 
 Only the Great used such Spanish as that; of the 
 and after stumbling and groping about for Anglers 
 his sword, he rode away, muttering, but 
 cowed. 
 
 "Ay / But I thought it was your hour! " 
 said Gonzalo, huskily, dropping a cobblestone 
 he had snatched up. "How knows Your 
 Grace the sword so well ? For you disarmed 
 him even as one would a child." 
 
 " So ! I learned it in Paris, when I was a 
 student and young. Even in science, it is 
 useful to have hands; so I have not forgotten. 
 Ach! So soon?" 
 
 It was Franco stumbling back into the 
 road. " I was to go for succor, " he explained 
 glibly, "seeing you so besieged by the 
 guardia." 
 
 " Well thought !" replied the Maestro, drily. 
 "Thou for presence of mind! Now this 
 young stupid here," and he laid his hand 
 on Gonzalo 's head in the darkness, "this 
 four-times thoughtless had tumbled the zambo 
 with a rock, even though late, if I had not 
 saved him the need. So there could have 
 been two to want succor by the time thou
 
 The got'st back from Truxillo, which is only a 
 
 Gold Fish league from here ! " 
 
 of Gran " Yes, but I would have come in a breath, 
 
 Chimu with the Se'or Intendente himself ! " cried 
 Franco, unabashed. But in himself he was 
 wondering: "What wizard is this that sees 
 in the night, and blows cavalry away with his 
 breath, and reads the thought?" 
 
 After that they walked on in silence, their 
 heels clacking on the pebbles in the hollows, 
 or stirring a faint whisper as they shuffled up 
 the heavy sand-dunes. Only when they came 
 between tall hedges of osage-orange, and the 
 lights of Cortiju were just ahead, the Maestro 
 stopped abruptly, with a hand on Gonzalo's 
 arm, saying : " Oyes, Franco. Put the things 
 in my room, and then feet in the dusty ! " 
 "Tell me, then," he continued in a lower 
 tone, as Franco slouched away in the gloom. 
 "What is this I hear of thy father's hacienda? 
 They have told me truth? That it is com 
 promised because he guaranteed the debt of 
 a friend, who failed to pay, and now they 
 are to take it?" 
 
 Gonzalo hesitated a moment. "Surely, 
 my father will not blame me," he said at
 
 last, " for he has told me Your Grace is worthy Some 
 all trust. Yes, it is truth ! They want to of the 
 take our dear Moche, and then there is Anglers 
 nothing left but this poor house in Cortiju. 
 Ay de mi .' And so hard as he has worked, 
 this my father he, Don Beltran de Quesada, 
 laboring even as a peon to lift us back out 
 of the wreck in which the Chileans left us ! " 
 The lad's voice was now unsteady. 
 
 "Pity! But in spite of the jealousy that 
 he is industrious, thy father has much in 
 fluence. He is beloved of all the common 
 people ; and of a certainty those of his own 
 rank dare not do anything illegal against 
 him, even in this Peru." 
 
 "No, Excellency, they dare not. But I 
 think that legally, too, they can take the haci 
 enda, since he formally compromised it for 
 his friend, who is now a general in the army, 
 but a without-shame. He laughs and says : 
 ' Vaya ! The gentleman who works pues, 
 let him work ! Why should I waste money, 
 paying it to one who forgets his birth ? ' 
 Thrice has my father gone to him, in vain. 
 Only with the silver in hand to satisfy the 
 Jews could the Moche be saved, and it is 
 O7]
 
 The twenty thousand soles he had to pay for that 
 
 Gold Fish ingrate." 
 
 of Gran " Ach! That comes to twelve thousand 
 
 Chimu dollars in gold. It is ill indeed! Pues, 
 thou must know that for much as I spend 
 money, it is not mine, but in trust for the 
 expedition. Of my own, I have none. But 
 I have strings in this thy Peru; and perhaps 
 some of my friends will aid thy father. A 
 good name is good, even in Judea though 
 it is much, this twenty thousand soles. And 
 in passing, my young fox," he went on with 
 out change of tone, " let us suppose that thou 
 betake thy tiresome ears whither I ordered 
 them. For plane-tables and tripods are not 
 made to go eavesdropping in the hedges." 
 
 There had been no sound that Gonzalo's 
 sharp young ears could detect; nor was there 
 now, except the snapping of one twig. 
 Gonzalo gave a little start, half wonder and 
 half awe. 
 
 "It is nothing," said the Maestro, in a 
 tone one might know, even in the darkness, 
 had a smile in it. " A man does not live ten 
 years with the North American Indians with 
 out learning what his eyes and ears were made
 
 for. Si, and his nose, too. Franco is a Some 
 clever stalker; but my tobacco-pipe in the of the 
 satchel is a trifle too old for him to expect Anglers 
 to bring it within so few yards of my nose 
 undetected. Well, let us go in, for I have 
 eaten nothing since my coffee and biscuit at 
 sunrise." 
 
 It was a queer old room, that in which the 
 Maestro lighted a candle in its massive silver 
 stick, and then turned to wash in a silver 
 basin two feet in diameter, whose pitcher 
 was to match. Gonzalo set the level-box 
 carefully in a corner, stowed away the tri 
 pod, plane-table, and satchel, which they 
 had found lying upon the threshold, and 
 now stood waiting respectfully, his faded 
 Panama hat in his hands. 
 
 The ceiling was high and strong, with 
 carved rafters, though earthquakes had racked 
 it till a star peered through here and there; 
 and the mildew of a Peruvian "winter" 
 stained it and the walls. The windows 
 were high, narrow, deep in the yard-thick 
 adobe masonry, and had, besides their iron 
 bars, modern shutters almost as heavy as the 
 venerable door. The furniture was a pon-
 
 The derous bed, a table, lounge, washstand, and 
 
 Gold Fish three chairs. It was all very shabby. Its 
 of Gran brocades were dingy and threadbare, the 
 Chimu wood dim with scratches till one might never 
 have guessed that it was carved from the solid 
 mahogany logs below Chachapoyas. The 
 tiled floor was uneven, and in places broken. 
 Even the great candlestick, the massive ink 
 stand, the overgrown wash set, were so dented 
 and discolored they might well have been 
 mistaken for pewter, except when as now 
 that the Maestro bumped the bowl with the 
 pitcher they rang true as a good dollar 
 upon an inquisitive counter. 
 
 That was where Don Beltran was " differ 
 ent." The neighbor cavaliers, who still 
 dressed as for Court, and kept all their airs 
 and their soft hands, well their silver fur 
 niture was in Jacobi's dazzling windows, in 
 Lima, along with countless other tokens of 
 the time when iron was the only metal too ex 
 pensive to be much used in Peru. "They 
 ihave been eating their silverware these ten 
 ^s/ years," as Jacobi concisely put it; and there 
 was now precious little left to eat of silver 
 or of plain bread in these proud houses.
 
 But a "gentleman" could not work, of Some 
 course, even though he starve. of the 
 
 Now, Don Beltran preferred to work. So Anglers 
 the old heirlooms were still in the old, faded 
 house, though they had grown dull since 
 the death of their mistress. Out in the dingy 
 kitchen was even one of the silver cauldrons; 
 it was still huge and thick, but so battered 
 and begrimed that I fear poor Dona Ine"z 
 would never have recognized it, could she 
 have come back to see how cholo servants 
 can soon undo even so famous a house 
 keeper. 
 
 For Don Beltran had fallen upon poverty, 
 though he worked, as deep as that of his lazy 
 neighbors. He had done very bravely in 
 building up from the wreck left by the 
 Chilean war, till, in an evil hour, he indorsed 
 for a pleading neighbor. It was clear as 
 highway robbery. Don Ce"sar had never in 
 tended to meet his note. Don Beltran had 
 had to pay it, going to the bank with twenty 
 porters, each carrying an ore-sack heavy 
 with a thousand silver dollars, which had 
 come up by steamer from Lima. The con 
 venience of gold or greenbacks does not exist
 
 The in Peru. Now he was almost penniless; 
 
 Gold Fish while Don Ce"sar, a new-fledged general in 
 of Gran the army, and with both greedy hands in the 
 Chimu public coffers, mocked at the claim. 
 
 It was true the silver olla, and the bowls, 
 pitchers, picture-frames, stirrups of the same 
 pretty metal, would have sold for enough to 
 keep the family and run the hacienda a year, 
 not more, for such trinkets bring nowadays 
 in Peru less than their weight in minted dol 
 lars. But as Don Beltran said: " Pues, we 
 eat them for a year, eh ? Good. And then ? 
 Then there is no more to eat, and my house 
 is naked without the trinkets that are from 
 my fathers, and that my wife loved. Nay ! 
 If we are to starve, let it be with our heir 
 looms beside us and not in the pawn-shops. " 
 For he, too, was a little proud in his own 
 way, you see, this old Don Beltran. As for 
 the mortgaged plantation of Moche, the sil 
 verware would not help that. There must 
 be a miracle, nothing less, to raise twenty 
 thousand soles in hard coin. Or yes if 
 he could find the Fez Grande! That, also, 
 might seem a miracle anywhere else; but in 
 Peru, the land of buried treasures, no man
 
 that ever touched hand to spade in one of Some 
 the great ruins but believed he, his very self, of the 
 might most likely find the treasure. Only Anglers 
 that accursed law! When mummy-mining 
 should be stopped, what remained unless 
 to hold office ? But where salaries are beg 
 garly small, and only the chances for theft 
 large, there is not much temptation for an 
 honest man to enter public life. 
 
 The modest supper of bread, brown beans, 
 jerked mutton, and coffee, served by a bare 
 foot chola, was finished, and the Bullfighter 
 had gone to develop his negatives in the 
 stable. The Maestro had lighted his pipe, 
 and Don Beltran a husk cigarro, and they 
 were talking earnestly, while Gonzalo sat 
 bolt upright in his chair, drinking in every 
 word. It was ten o'clock when the old man 
 rose with a sigh. 
 
 " You have to forgive," he said. " I meant 
 not to give you care. Most kind is Your 
 Grace more than a brother. But I hope 
 little from your friends. Here, only the 
 foolish give security for their fellows. No, 
 we have to find the Fish, or Moche is 
 lost"
 
 The At precisely the same moment, and not a 
 
 Gold Fish hundred yards away, there was going on a 
 
 of Gran curiously different conversation, but with the 
 
 Chimu same glittering text. From a corner in the 
 
 osage-orange hedge a footpath led "across- 
 
 lots " to the northwest. Just here and now 
 
 was a noise of floundering and grunts, as if 
 
 two pigs might be rooting under the hedge. 
 
 Finally a short, fat figure struggled through 
 
 on the farther side of the gap, hauling an 
 
 unsteady mass, which also had some look of 
 
 being human. 
 
 "Barbarian!" panted the fat man in an 
 angry whisper. " One had need be a mule, 
 to carry thee ! With what motive art drunk 
 so wastefully much? I might have spared a 
 media's worth of wine, as well as not. For 
 heaven's sake, move ! " 
 
 To this the only response was a thick : " No 
 Atahualpa." 
 
 " Tst! Hush the mouth, with thy 'father 
 Atahualpa ! ' He's well dead, this three hun 
 dred and sixty years. Anda ! Shake the 
 feet ! " and he gave his staggering charge an 
 ungentle shove. "A whole pint of wine 
 more than was needed ! Ay de mi ! Thou' It 
 \.34\
 
 drive me to the Asylum of Indigents, wretch ! Some 
 Walking, now, stupid ! " of the 
 
 But the lurching Indian either did not Anglers 
 hear, or could not obey, the order. The 
 mechanical motion of his legs grew more and 
 more uncertain. He shuffled, and swayed, 
 and backed, and lopped forward, and tangled 
 his toes with his heels, in a fashion that 
 some folk might find very funny but that 
 braver men would reckon more sad than 
 laughable. To his conductor, indeed, it 
 seemed lamentable enough; but perhaps not 
 from excess of manhood. He groaned and 
 berated at each new lurch; and when, in a 
 particularly boneless slump, the big frame 
 fairly lost all notion of its legs, swung over 
 upon him and bore him headlong to the 
 earth, his guarded voice forgot itself in a 
 snort of rage. 
 
 "Child of sea-lions! Get thee from off 
 me, or I break thee that leaden skull ! " 
 
 But his threat was wasted. The Indian, 
 who was head and shoulders the taller, had 
 fallen literally "all over him." The fat man 
 was sprawled upon his back, with meddle 
 some clods searching his ribs, and that inert
 
 The bulk half smothering him. In vain he tried 
 
 Gold Fish to be rid of it Typhon might as well have 
 of Gran thought to heave Mt. Etna off his chest. 
 Chimd " Oyes, Bartolo," he gasped in a con 
 
 ciliatory whisper. "Disembarrass me, and 
 I have still some juice of the grape for 
 thee." 
 
 The only answer was a deep, husky snore. 
 Bartolo had promptly improved the oppor 
 tunity to fall into a drunken sleep. For a 
 while after this the captive heaved and tugged 
 in voiceless rage, and of a sudden began 
 actually to blubber ! Had he not been thus 
 occupied in relieving his tense nerves, he 
 might have noticed a curious sound, as of 
 some one choking to death behind a bush a 
 few yards away. There a prone figure shook, 
 and writhed, and pulled the flaps of a tat 
 tered jacket about its head, as if to stifle 
 these gurglings. 
 
 A little later, Guzman the Miser for the 
 fat man was he had roused his sleeper by 
 dint of merciless punchings and pinchings, 
 and escaped from under him; and, sore but 
 eager, was again dragging him along the 
 trail, both stumbling in the darkness. In a
 
 moment more, a much smaller form than Some 
 
 either of theirs, and much better possessed of the 
 
 of its feet, crept from behind its bush and Anglers 
 followed, noiselessly as a cat.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Fishing in the Dust 
 
 The "A LL Peru" did, indeed, appear to have 
 
 Gold Fish -^A- fallen to digging for mummies, as 
 of Gran Don Beltran had predicted at least, so 
 Chimu much of it as could conveniently get at the 
 Gran Chimii. 
 
 The square leagues of ruins had broken out 
 with something like an eruption of dust gey 
 sers. Look whichever way one would, little 
 clouds were puffing up so thickly that at fifty 
 feet above the earth they united in a great can-
 
 opy which quite hid the faint sun, and turned Fishing 
 the landscape from its ashen gray to a curious in the 
 smoky yellow. And along the ground the Dust 
 air was so laden with impalpable dust that it 
 was ill breathing. 
 
 As for the " fishers " in this strange sea 
 of sand, they were a curious assortment. 
 Here was Arana the contractor and master- 
 mason who was getting rich at his trade, 
 five years ago, until he had caught the 
 mummy-fever and was now a professional 
 huaquero with the dozen half-breed peons 
 he had been able to secure by glittering prom 
 ises. He was working vigorously among them 
 for Arana was at once too much of a con 
 noisseur to let escape him the personal thrill 
 of that exciting quest, and too frugal to for 
 get that if he found something himself there 
 would be no question of division or extra 
 pay. 
 
 Over yonder a mighty cloud went up 
 from the fast-deepening pits where toiled 
 seven huaqueros of the poorer sort, who had 
 banded together to hold a certain promising 
 court. 
 
 In another place forty Chinese convicts
 
 The were digging soberly far too soberly to 
 
 Gold Fish please the cavalier who lolled upon a mag- 
 
 of Gran nificent horse on the bank above, and urged 
 
 Chimu them with many gratuitous reflections upon 
 
 their character and country; the while he 
 
 wrapped closer a costly poncho of the silken 
 
 vicuna to keep the dust from his clothing. 
 
 Here and there were solitary spadesmen, 
 
 many of whom as one might easily see by 
 
 their actions had never dug for mummies 
 
 before ; poor cholo laborers, out of work, who 
 
 had come to think it better to cast a hook 
 
 for the Big Fish of Chimti (or any chance 
 
 small-fry, for that matter) than to go seining 
 
 along the beach for the little mackerel, that 
 
 usually, in dull times, fed them and theirs. 
 
 So it went, all across that great area 
 hardly was there a barrio but had some one 
 gophering somewhere within its limits; and 
 in certain localities, where it was thought 
 more promising, the claims fairly elbowed 
 one another. 
 
 Down in the Hall of the Arabesques, Don 
 Beltran's old back was see-sawing with an 
 agility to have shamed almost any one of his 
 stout peons. He had nine of them all the
 
 servants and plantation hands of Moche and Fishing 
 Cortiju; Indians, cholos, zambos. Even in the 
 Chenta, the fat cook, had come along and Dust 
 was now dusting with her unrecognizable 
 apron some particularly fine pottery which 
 a laborer handed up from the depths; now 
 stowing some metal trinkets in a coarser large 
 jar which she covered with a square of 
 mummy-cloth. Gonzalo was there, too, dig 
 ging with the best, but a little oftener pop 
 ping his head out of his shaft for a sniff of 
 such choky air as was to be had. And amid 
 all this stir and life dwelt a silence utterly 
 oppressive. The dust-puffs flew up, and now 
 and then a spade flashed above the surface; 
 but in that strange soil there was no sound 
 of digging. Only now and then a faint voice 
 seemed to exhale from the underground, or 
 there was a husky cough. 
 
 Over on the other side of the ponderous 
 walls (uncovered by prior excavations so that 
 their remarkable clay arabesques were fully 
 revealed) the Bullfighter walked to and fro 
 upon an adobe parapet, his eyes hovering 
 from point to point in the area directly 
 below. A score of holes were there, each
 
 The belching its dust-cloud; and every few mo- 
 
 Gold Fish ments he leaped down from his wall, and 
 of Gran bent over the mouth of one of them and 
 Chimu ordered, "give me." Then a grimy hand 
 would come up from below, holding a pot 
 tery vase or a metal mace-head, or some such 
 thing, which he would examine critically, 
 mark with a pencil, and stow in the big 
 pockets of his horsehide coat or in the red 
 alforja* over his shoulder. It was not as easy 
 work as it looked to watch the hired exca 
 vators of the expedition, making sure that 
 they broke nothing and stole nothing; to 
 clamber down into a shaft, every now and 
 then, and in that stifling dust make a dia 
 gram of the position of some mummy with 
 reference to its surroundings, or the con 
 struction of a peculiar burial-chamber; to 
 scan the indications at the bottom of some 
 hole and decide in which direction the hua- 
 quero had better "drift"; to unmask that 
 beautiful camera on the wall and photograph 
 some object just handed up from below, or 
 lower the instrument and follow it under 
 ground, focus by the little lantern at his belt, 
 1 A sort of saddle-bags, frequently carried as a satchel.
 
 and make a " flashlight " of an unusual find, Fishing 
 before it should be disturbed at all in the bed in the 
 where it had slumbered for ages. Yes, it was Dust 
 tremendously hard work ; particularly on the 
 tense nerves. He had almost to be a mind 
 reader to be sure that some priceless little 
 relic did not go slipping into a greasy pocket, 
 or some other of the innumerable details go 
 wrong. But the Bullfighter seemed to be 
 enjoying it; and as he strode swiftly about or 
 leaped at the work, his face glowed through 
 all its grime. 
 
 " Que ? " he jerked out abruptly, as a dusty 
 figure, slouching up the parapet, touched him 
 upon the elbow. " Eh, lu ? Well, Franco, 
 what axe for the stone? I thought thee 
 huaqueando to-day." 
 
 "Then, Your Grace, I will Your Excel 
 lency honor me to speak a word in the ear? 
 For it is importanti-i-isimo / " 
 
 " Quickliest, then, for I am worked. What 
 is it?" 
 
 "But why should Your Lordship work? I 
 am I who will make it that you need not any 
 more. Let the peons work and Don Bel- 
 tran, who is with affection of it but we will 
 
 Mr]
 
 The be rich and gentlemen, hiring commoners to 
 
 Gold Fish labor for us. If only Your Worship will lend 
 
 of Gran me the goodness of fifty soles for / know 
 
 Chimu where is the Fez Grande / " The sharp young 
 
 face seemed grown old since yesterday, and 
 
 the ferret eyes burned greenish. Franco was 
 
 trembling, too a very serious symptom in 
 
 so self-possessed a young person. 
 
 " Vaya with your Big Fish /don't want 
 him. And do you think me a camarron, 1 
 to sleep in the swift water? Do I look as one 
 who has never seen people that 'knew just 
 where was the Fez Grande ' ?" 
 
 "No, no, Your Worship! I am not of 
 those truly, truly I swear it ! It is that 
 by accident I I in verity of truth, one 
 who knows from the old times, a son of the 
 caciques, showed me, in gratitude that I had 
 once befriended him. And now it is to take 
 out the treasure before Don Guz before 
 any one shall be-find it, since so many dig 
 to-day." 
 
 "I'm sorry to say, Franco," replied the 
 Bullfighter, slowly, " that I see thou art lying 
 to me. Why canst thou not, just for change, 
 
 1 Shrimp.
 
 tell the truth like a man? Thou'rt a bright Fishing 
 boy, a mighty clever one, and I should look in the 
 to hear considerable things of thee, one of Dust 
 these days, if thou knewest enough to be 
 honest. Come, open to me." 
 
 Franco looked down, and then away, and 
 then back again. His knees began to tap 
 together nervously. " I will tell the true," he 
 whispered abruptly, "though Your Worship 
 shall blame me. Last night, having an errand, 
 I was coming back through the ruins very late. 
 Of a sudden, hearing secret voices, I crept 
 behind a wall and listened. It was Don 
 Guzman, the Stingy, with the Indian Bar- 
 tolo very drunk. Without doubt he had 
 made him so, by intention. And said Don 
 Guzman : ' Where, brute ? Where is it hid, 
 this Fez Grande?' The Indian spoke 
 nothing, till Don Guzman shook him like a 
 rattle and questioned again. And then he 
 said very slow-and-sleepily : 'Even here! 
 Dig here ! ' " 
 
 " Well, what have I to see with it that he 
 did, you poor little crazed? What does he 
 know about it?" 
 
 " Se'or ! He is son of the caciques, as I
 
 TTie have said ; and all know that they know where 
 
 Gold Fish are the tafadas. 1 For superstition, they will 
 
 of Gran not use this gold for themselves, nor disclose 
 
 Chimu its hiding for to them the idols are sacred. 
 
 Only making them drunk might one learn the 
 
 secret; and so has done Don Guzman, who 
 
 is wise as a fox." 
 
 "Foxes aren't wise, my boy! They are 
 just smart enough to make good thieves, not 
 smart enough to know that every thief is a 
 fool. If they didn't steal, nobody would 
 chase them. But suppose the old miser has 
 found the Big Fish?" 
 
 " Pues, for sharp though he be, others may 
 be sharper! He finds the melon, and we 
 will eat it ! He is digging with near a hun 
 dred men over in the big barrio just where 
 I minded me yesterday to dig, and so told the 
 Maestro. But to-day he will not reach. I 
 see that it is very thick, the wall of the huaca. 
 Good. Then to-night, while he dreams of his 
 fishing, I will come-me with fifty peons that 
 I can hire at a sol each one, and go in where 
 he has saved me the most of the work and 
 
 * Literally " covered things." The popular general 
 word, in Peru, for buried treasures.
 
 it is a thing secured that before dawn I will Fishing 
 be in the huaca, and the Fez Grande in my in the 
 hand! Only that, as Your Grace knows, I Dust 
 have neither white nor yellow, 1 and laborers 
 will not take the promise of a boy. But only 
 with lending me the fifty soles then shall 
 Your Worship share justly in all I find! " 
 
 The Bullfighter looked at him steadily a 
 moment, and something renewed Franco's 
 shivers. Then the Americano answered very 
 low: 
 
 " Thou hast much fortune, common, in be 
 ing very young ! No ! And without thanks ! 
 I want no treasure thou mayest steal from an 
 older thief who makes drunk some poor fool 
 and coyotes his secret. Vayate, before I have 
 to tell thee what I think of the pair of ye ! " 
 
 "Pere, Se'or! " 
 
 " Feet in the dusty, I tell thee ! For small 
 that thou art, one might spank thee ! " 
 
 Franco's face spoke as much of disgust as 
 rage. Resentment at the suggestion of a nal- 
 gueando for him, a boy of sixteen, was not 
 more rampant than contempt for the man 
 who would not put out his hand to have a 
 
 1 Silver nor gold. 
 
 [7J
 
 The treasure poured into it. How many classes 
 
 Gold Fish of a fool this Yanqui was, to be sure ! Franco 
 
 of Gran had more than half a mind to voice his opin- 
 
 Chimu ion; but after a glance at those gray eyes he 
 
 turned silently on a sullen heel, and slouched 
 
 away as he had come. In a dozen steps he was 
 
 out of sight amid the maze of ruined walls. 
 
 The Bullfighter was already stooping at one 
 
 of the shafts, receiving some husky news from 
 
 the invisible miner. " Yes ! " he cried at last. 
 
 "Very extraordinary! Move not, nor wink, 
 
 till I am down lest thou shake in earth and 
 
 disturb the arrangement." In a moment 
 
 more he had lowered the camera carefully 
 
 into the pit. He took off the alforja and 
 
 the horsehide coat, laying them gently upon 
 
 the ground, drove a crowbar into the soil, 
 
 and slipping a noose over it, slid by the rope 
 
 into the shaft as glibly as a spider spinning 
 
 down its line. 
 
 There must have been something very 
 interesting in those dusty depths, for he was 
 gone fully twenty minutes. Then he came 
 up the rope, hand over hand, with the same 
 strong ease, hauled up the hooded camera, 
 and resumed the alforja. Doubtless he would
 
 have first looked into that red-woven pouch, Fishing 
 could he have had an inkling of what had in the 
 occurred during his absence from the surface. Dust 
 But he had no suspicion of it, whatever 
 nor, indeed, had any one else noted the head 
 peering from behind a wall, the furtive figure 
 sneaking out and rummaging the alforja, and 
 then gliding off under cover of the ruins. So 
 he went on with his swift work, now and then 
 cracking an extraordinary smile of triumph at 
 the thought of the find of the whole week, a 
 small parcel wrapped in a rag at the bottom 
 of the alforja. If only he had guessed that 
 just now it was not there !. 
 
 It was even noon when the Bullfighter came 
 up out of the shaft. Half an hour later, the 
 Maestro was still laboring with his notes in 
 the musty room at Cortiju, and not exactly 
 in a humor for interruptions; but the object 
 in his hand was an eloquent apology for the 
 intruder. 
 
 "Very well, Franco," he was saying. 
 "Though, in the compact, whatever thou 
 shalt dig belongs to the expedition, since 
 thy wages liberally cover thy whole time, yet 
 this is truly a most extraordinary antique, 
 
 Op]
 
 The and I will pay thee for it the fifty soles thou 
 
 Gold Fish sayest thy family sorely needs. But this is 
 
 of Gran the last time, mind you, as it is the first. If 
 
 Chimu we were to make the custom so, our hua- 
 
 queros would find very little, and others would 
 
 bring much to sell us. So ! There is a check 
 
 for the money. Good day." 
 
 Franco had no need of the dismissal. No 
 sooner was he clear of the room than he set 
 out running at the best of his legs; and it 
 was not till halfway to Truxillo that he turned 
 from the footpath (for he had avoided the 
 highway) and dropped behind a tree to rest 
 and think. That slender yellow paper had 
 to be looked at again, and a precocious sneer 
 curled his lip. "Then the foxes are not 
 wise, eh?" he muttered, the sneer melting 
 into a self-satisfied grin. " Perhaps it is be 
 cause all the wisdom is locked up in the 
 gringo donkeys! Vaya!" And regaining 
 his feet, he plodded more soberly away 
 toward the city. 
 
 For barely an hour's time, there had been 
 a considerable change since Franco left the 
 ruins of the Gran Chimu. Something seemed 
 to be going on in the Hall of the Arabesques.
 
 From ten of the prospect holes, no dust what- Fishing 
 ever went up; but about the eleventh, a lot in the 
 of peons were working with unwonted energy. Dust 
 Many bystanders were there, and others could 
 be seen coming from different directions. 
 The ponchoed cavalier, too, had left his 
 Chinamen over yonder to their own devices, 
 and urged his horse as close to the spot as 
 even a reckless rider might. Then Gonzalo 
 elbowed through the crowd and went racing 
 over the ridge. The Bullfighter was photo 
 graphing a peculiar mummy beside the shaft 
 whence it had been taken. He looked up 
 absently but kindly at the lad's approach. 
 
 "Oh, if you will come, Se'or!" panted 
 Gonzalo. " For we think to find Something 
 and, as the Maestro said, it is well before 
 hand to have friends around you, and not 
 strangers or indifferents. Some are there 
 whom we trust not, and we have no defense." 
 
 " Of course I will ! " said the American, 
 heartily. "For the father of you, and for 
 the son of your father, I would do a little. 
 Sanchez!" and he called up a huaquero 
 from one of the shafts " Guard me these 
 things, and much eye that no one steals the
 
 The antiquities, nor so much as breathes toward 
 
 Gold Fish the instrument. Vamos, my boy." 
 of Gran Don Beltran was awaiting them. He 
 Chimu welcomed the Bullfighter with only a nod, 
 but his eyes said much. 
 
 " You will pardon the molestia, Don Car 
 los?" he whispered. "In the tunnel are 
 things as I like; but here above, not." 
 
 The younger man took a swift glance about. 
 "There is no care, Don Beltran. Go on with 
 your work, and leave me for guard. I will 
 answer for your neighbors." 
 
 " God pay you, friend ! " The old Spaniard 
 put out his withered but still sinewy hand. 
 Then, directing the peons how to enlarge 
 the opening, that the sides might not cave 
 down, he scrambled into the pit and was lost 
 in its dust, followed by Gonzalo. 
 
 The volunteer sentinel looked thoughtfully 
 about for a moment. Then he walked over 
 to an eight-foot wall a couple of rods away, 
 jumped and caught the top with his fingers, 
 and vaulted up. After a glance behind, he 
 sat down upon the wall, his heels dangling 
 against its face, and at the same time gave a 
 roundabout hitch to his leathern belt.
 
 "I don't just know which of our amigo* fishing 
 here the old man is suspicious of," he mused, in the 
 " but the watertight way will be to keep a Dust 
 neighborly eye upon them all. I only hope 
 he has struck it! It would be good as a 
 story, if the brave old fellow were to save his 
 fortunes at the eleventh hour with stumbling 
 upon a treasure ! And I don't see what any 
 one could do, they certainly wouldn't have 
 the nerve to try to jump his claim." 
 
 None of the bystanders, in fact, looked 
 apt for such desperate business. Most of 
 them were cholo mummy-miners; poor 
 enough, ignorant enough, perhaps none too 
 much to be trusted face to face with a large 
 temptation in the dark but clearly not 
 criminals. They had gathered more out of 
 curiosity; and if their faces wore a shade of 
 envy, the sympathy of the craft was stronger. 
 As for the horseback cavalier, he had ridden 
 off. 
 
 Half an hour went by, without any new 
 developments from the shaft. The Bull 
 fighter yawned. His seat was none too soft, 
 and he had been working " on the jump " 
 since dawn. At last he got to his feet upon
 
 The the wall, stretched his arms and chest, and 
 
 Gold Fish turned an idle glance toward the declining 
 of Gran sun. But certainly it was not the colors in 
 Chimu the hazy west that caused so sudden a jerk 
 of his shoulders and such a flash of his eyes. 
 He bounded from the wall, strode swiftly to 
 the top of a low, long mound at the back of 
 Don Beltran's claim, and called out in a dan 
 gerously polite voice : 
 
 " Alto! What does the caballero there?" 
 " What imports it to the gringo? " retorted 
 the cavalier with cool insolence. " Gentle 
 men have not to answer to the rabble. Dig, 
 brutes ! " He lifted his whip threateningly 
 at the gaping Chinamen. 
 
 " It imports thus much, Senor. You were 
 huaqueando over yonder, quarter of a mile 
 from here. You see Don Beltran has found 
 something, and you sneak up behind the 
 ridge, to dig in from the other side and, 
 with your more peons, to reach the supposed 
 treasure before him. As I have the honor to 
 be his friend, I am here to advise you that 
 he is not to be crowded. You will do me 
 the infinite favor to remove your operations 
 the most promptly possible."
 
 The horseman was clearly a person of tern- Fishing 
 per, and unused to dictation, and his rage in the 
 flashed up in a storm. " Animal ! " he yelled, Dust 
 quite beside himself, "out of my sight, or I 
 will shoot you as a dog and feed you to my 
 dogs of Chinos.' " 
 
 As he spoke he drew from under his poncho 
 a jeweled revolver, and swung his horse 
 around a hole to advance upon the stranger. 
 
 "It is worth more that you try not the 
 game of shots with one who was baptized 
 to it in New Mexico," the Bullfighter said 
 slowly and in the same tone of significant 
 formality. "Must I? When you ride to 
 shoot, you had better keep the reins ! " 
 
 Even as he spoke, his right hand flew up 
 from his side to the height of his hat and 
 dropped a foot, all in the same indistin 
 guishable motion, and there was the un 
 mistakable crack of a heavy sixshooter. The 
 cavalier lurched backward in his saddle 
 for the ball had cut the pleated reins under 
 the horse's throat just as he was leaning back 
 upon them. He was a capital horseman, 
 and instantly found his seat again; but the 
 motion had set the big spurs to Fleche's ribs,
 
 The and the nervous animal terrified by that 
 
 Gold Fish and the shot and the dangling rein-ends and 
 of Gran the absence of the accustomed pressure of 
 Chimu the cruel bit cleared a whole file of the 
 diggers at a bound, and went off in a whirl 
 wind of dust. As for the frightened China 
 men, they were already scattered in every 
 direction, leaving their spades. 
 
 The Bullfighter smiled a dry little smile, 
 as if satisfied that the pistol-hand had not 
 forgot its cunning. He carefully wiped the 
 blued Colt and thrust it into its scabbard, 
 and sauntered over to the tunnel, from which 
 Don Beltran was just clambering, blinking 
 strangely through his earthy mask.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 A "Nibble" 
 
 "AND?" said the American, inquir- A 
 
 J\ ingly. " Nibble" 
 
 " Quien sale? It can be yes, it can be no. 
 Something there is, in there, out of the 
 common. The rooms are those of the rich; 
 but what shall lie beyond come; we will 
 see what has this mummy." The old man's 
 lips and throat fairly creaked as he spoke. 
 It is an awful thing, that dust of the mummy- 
 [57]
 
 The mines a dust the like of which is nowhere 
 
 Gold Fish else in the world. One might say that it 
 of Gran has been drying out ever since Time began. 
 Chimu On the coast of Peru it almost never rains; 
 and even when it does, the water rather runs 
 off than soaks in. Through millenniums of 
 drouth and tropic sun the Peruvian sands have 
 been steadily baking; and in the ruins, under 
 the sands, is a dust drier yet the dust to 
 which we return. It is literally humanity 
 turned to powder. And it is because of this 
 extraordinary dryness that articles under 
 these ruins are so marvelously preserved 
 that one can wear to-day a bit of lace that 
 was buried beside a Yunca mummy before 
 the time of Alfred the Great. 
 
 A couple of laborers were carefully lifting 
 a big brown bundle from the pit. It was 
 something like a huge carboy, completely 
 enclosed in a wickerwork of rushes woven 
 upon it. Don Beltran deftly slit this bas 
 ketry and husked it from the figure. There 
 was the same shape still, swathed in a cotton 
 cloth as coarse as burlap, but wonderfully 
 white. He found the end of this, cut the 
 stitches with which it was caught, and began
 
 to unwind it with great care. Fold after A 
 fold, fold after fold, it reeled off like tape "Nibble* 
 from a roll. Not till he had unwound a full 
 fifty yards did the end slip free, disclosing a 
 still mysterious bundle enveloped in woolen 
 fabrics of brilliant colors and beautiful pat 
 terns. At the top in the neck of the bot 
 tle, so to speak was a carved wooden face; 
 carved as the best Swiss carver should have 
 been proud to cut it, but with such a type of 
 features as no man ever saw alive in Switzer 
 land, and on its brow a mat of rusty reddish 
 hair. 
 
 "There's a treasure itself! " said the Bull 
 fighter, judicially. " I know the Maestro will 
 want that for our collection it is so differ 
 ent from the usual grave-mask." 
 
 Meantime Don Beltran was unwrapping, 
 with even gentler fingers, the finer cloths, 
 folding them and laying them in a safe place. 
 At last he came to the core of the bundle 
 and there a chieftain of old Peru sat bare, 
 unblinking at the forgotten sun. He was 
 squatting, with bony hands clasped about his 
 knees, his head bowed as if in thought, his 
 long hair perfect as the day it was last combed
 
 The with yonder comb of ironwood in his lap, 
 
 Gold Fish though stained reddish by the nitre in the 
 of Gran soil. A slim turban of a blue fabric, filmy 
 Chimu as lace, held back the straying locks, and 
 around it was twined his exquisitely braided 
 sling. A tall plume of thin gold and a head 
 dress of parrot feathers nodded above his 
 brow. The skin was like ancient parch 
 ment; on his cheeks the red face-paint was 
 still bright. A pair of golden tweezers, the 
 " razor " of antiquity, and to this day many 
 aborigines thus pluck out their beard by the 
 roots, hair by hair, hung by a cord from 
 his neck. Between his jaws were thin plates 
 of gold. One of his thumbs was turned in 
 upon the palm, to hold a tuft of cotton upon 
 which was the deep blue stain the mummy- 
 miner instantly recognizes. Gold remains 
 unchanged or but a trifle dulled through 
 the ages; copper and bronze are devoured 
 by a greedy green, which finally leaves only 
 a stain in their place; and silver oxidizes in 
 blue. 
 
 "a!" whispered Don Beltran. "But 
 he had something about his neck." 
 
 The sun of the Dark Ages had failed to 
 [do]
 
 He poured them tenderly from his palm to that of 
 the Bullfighter.
 
 tan a narrow line, which was still clear upon A 
 the ancient skin. Ah ! Here was the frayed "Nibble* 
 end of a tiny cord, and upon it one odd- 
 shaped bead. Just one but the rest must 
 be here; and the old expert began to search 
 delicately. One by one he picked them out, 
 here and there, in the dusty lap, in the folds 
 of the cloths until at last, straightening up, 
 he poured them tenderly from his palm to 
 that of the Bullfighter. Forty-seven of these 
 little faceted prisms of transparent purple ! 
 The younger man gloated over them with 
 undisguised delight. 
 
 " You are going to break the heart of my 
 friend, Doctor Saenz," he said. "No one 
 ever before, among collectors, had such a 
 necklace of graven amethysts but he ; and 
 his two together are not worth this one. See 
 how finely they have carved the crystals with 
 their rude tools of hard-tempered bronze! 
 Of course we must have this and at your 
 own price." 
 
 " Ah ! " smiled the old Don. " You would 
 never do to deal with Jacobi, showing thus be 
 forehand how much you make of the thing !" 
 
 " Ay, pues, but this is my face in the Jews' 
 [d/]
 
 The street " and the shining countenance sud- 
 
 Gold Fish denly became like a block of wood, as he 
 of Gran drawled in very different Spanish: "Oh, de- 
 Chimu scend, Sigmundo! I'll give just the fourth 
 part of that price ! " 
 
 Don Beltran laughed outright. " In purity 
 of truth I see not even he could gain from 
 you. Neither can I. The necklace is yours 
 for a hundred soles" 
 
 "Shame on you, Don Beltran! Why, 
 Jacob! himself would have to give you a 
 thousand soles for it and you know it." 
 
 " So he should but my friends are not 
 Jacobi. I know its price, and I make my 
 price. But I have to be in the tunnel again. 
 As for our cacique here, the peons shall bury 
 him decently for I cannot bear to leave 
 even a mummy naked to the sky. His treas 
 ures he needs not now, as do we who have 
 not yet gone to a better world; but respect 
 that he shall have still." 
 
 Just then a dust-cloud bore down on them 
 from the west, and half a dozen horsemen 
 reined up at the top of the bank. Five of 
 them were in uniform; the sixth wore a 
 priceless vicuna poncho.
 
 " There is the assassin, Senor Intendente ! " A 
 cried the latter, pointing. "Seize him or "Nibble" 
 shoot him down, better, for he is dangerous." 
 
 "Little by little, Don Bias," rejoined the 
 Intendente. " Let us see, first eh? Pos 
 sible ? Why did you not tell me it was the 
 young American cientifico? Good evening, 
 Don Carlos." 
 
 "Good evening, Don Pedro. It is sur 
 prise and pleasure to see you here." 
 
 " In the same degree. But Don Bias Vis- 
 caino here accuses that you were to murder 
 him, and we are come to arrest you. Though 
 of a certainty I would not have budged, had 
 I known it was you." 
 
 " I am at your orders, Senor Intendente, 
 in any event but I am no assassin. Had 
 I tried to kill the caballero, he would scarce 
 have given you a needless ride; for I learned 
 the pistol where it is no toy, but the brother 
 of the frontiersman. Your gentleman thought 
 to undermine Don Beltran; and when I warn 
 ed him off, he drew a toilet pistol and prom 
 ised to shoot me. At that, for practice mine, 
 and instruction of him, I shot away the reins 
 and set him going." 
 
 [4*3
 
 The " Listen, then ! What gringo talk is this, 
 
 Gold Fish that such a shot was by intention? He 
 of Gran laughs to your chin, Senor Intendente. He 
 Chimu went to slay me and but that my horse ran 
 away, he should have paid for his crime ! " 
 
 The Bullfighter threw back his head, laugh 
 ing softly. " Nay, then, " he said, " but we 
 will not go back to that wheat-field. I will 
 establish my words or to the prison with 
 me." 
 
 " Arrest him, Senor ! He but makes some 
 trick to escape. Is it not enough, the word 
 of a caballero? " 
 
 "You will hardly make me believe him a 
 murderer, Don Bias. I know him. But 
 since he offers to repeat the shot, I should 
 like to see, for these Norte- Americanos are 
 wonders." 
 
 " Par Dios I I will not that he fire my 
 way again ! " Don Bias reined his horse 
 swiftly behind the others. 
 
 "There is no fear, Senor Intendente I 
 will not even look toward the valiant cavalier. 
 This sol will do." 
 
 He drew from his pocket a Peruvian silver 
 dollar and clasped its circumference with the
 
 thumb and forefinger of the right hand A 
 precisely as one takes a flat pebble to " skip " "Nibble" 
 on a pond. The sixshooter lay cocked across 
 the palm of his left hand, which was extended 
 nearly at arm's length before him and as high 
 as his shoulder. Drawing back the right 
 hand, he scaled the coin with a full-arm 
 throw. In the same flash, the same hand 
 caught the revolver with a curving downward 
 sweep, and fired as it swung. 
 
 " Now if you will send one of yonrguardtas 
 to look somewhere along the foot of yonder 
 big wall. And then permit me to resume 
 my affairs with Don Beltran." 
 
 In a moment the private came back, and 
 laid the coin in the hand of his superior. A 
 broad, dull streak ran clear across the face of 
 it from a dent on one edge, and there a tiny 
 particle of lead was lodged. 
 
 "Clear! It is one he carries marked in 
 his pocket, to fool innocents," sneered Don 
 Bias. But his face was the color of a dead 
 man's. 
 
 "That could be, too," rejoined the In- 
 tendente, drily, "when he deals with inno 
 cents. But probably he carries not a furnace 
 
 [4fJ
 
 The in his pocket, also; and you may see that 
 
 Gold Fish this piece is still warm from the impact of 
 
 of Gran the ball. I never could have believed it 
 
 Chimu but you all saw. A thousand pardons, Don 
 
 Carlos. Nor did I doubt your word. As 
 
 for you, Don Bias, my advice is: 'Of the 
 
 Yanquis, little ! ' They are better let alone. 
 
 And most certainly I counsel you not to let 
 
 me hear that you have further molested Don 
 
 Beltran de Quesada. In honor, the claim of 
 
 the huaqucro is the same as a gold-mining 
 
 claim and I shall so hold it, sacred from 
 
 interference. That you pass good evening, 
 
 gentlemen." 
 
 The Intendente and his soldiers rode off. 
 The cavalier in the poncho wavered a moment 
 between rage and fear, and then spurred away 
 to his former ground. 
 
 "Avail me heaven!" Don Beltran said 
 earnestly. "But such an aim half gives 
 one to believe in witchcraft." 
 
 " No more magic in it, friend, than much 
 
 practice and the natural eye. In the 
 
 school where I learned it, there were many 
 
 better shots than I and some worse." 
 
 "The saints! But to the tunnel. Will
 
 you enter ? There is no care now since the A 
 Intendente, and that shot, no one will "Nibble" 
 meddle." 
 
 The two men let themselves down into the 
 shaft, with a long breath as one takes at sink 
 ing under water. The pit was about eight 
 feet deep. At its bottom a " drift " ran off 
 southerly and downward. In the dust they 
 could no longer use their eyes; but, groping 
 for the opening, they began to creep in 
 cautiously on hands and knees. Even for 
 that posture, the passage was at times too 
 low, and their heads kept knocking down 
 lumps of pulverized earth which nearly 
 smothered them. There was always danger, 
 too, of a cave- in that would crush them to 
 death for in mummy-mining one does not 
 timber the tunnels. The Bullfighter lighted 
 his pocket lantern, and they crept on. Now, 
 opening their eyes for an instant, they saw 
 adobe masonry ahead ; and, worming through 
 a gap in this underground wall, were in a lit 
 tle adobe cell six feet square, roofed with 
 poles. The peons had cleared it out, and a 
 breach in the farther wall showed where they 
 had gone on.
 
 The " I know not what this shall be," said Don 
 
 Gold Fish Beltran in his companion's ear. "There is 
 
 of Gran a world of these little rooms here, four rooms 
 
 Chimu thick and in two tiers, one upon the other. 
 
 How long the row is, right and left, I do not 
 
 yet know, till now, we have only pierced 
 
 it crosswise. Understood, that all these cells 
 
 were full with earth; and it was in the fourth 
 
 they found the mummy we have just searched, 
 
 sitting upon an adobe bench. Beyond is what 
 
 seems a hall, and in the further wall of that, 
 
 a doorway bricked up with adobes. There 
 
 is where I have the hope. Is it not a strange 
 
 arrangement and a promising one?" 
 
 They crawled on from little room to little 
 room. In the fourth a peon was passing the 
 dust of the floor through a small sieve. 
 
 "But not to waste time with these," said 
 the old man to him. " Get thee to helping 
 them that carry out the earth. We are for 
 great things, now, or nothing toys will not 
 ransom the Moche." 
 
 Three negroes came crawling through from 
 beyond, tugging rawhide sacks of earth to 
 empty at the mouth of the shaft. Don Bel 
 tran and the Bullfighter entered the hole
 
 whence they had emerged. Here Gonzalo, A 
 
 with two feeble candles, was digging cau- "Nibble" 
 
 tiously, and at the same time directing the 
 
 peons. The place did look to be a narrow 
 
 hall. It was six feet wide, and they had 
 
 cleared out some ten feet lengthwise. The 
 
 roof was still strong enough to protect them 
 
 from a serious cave-in, though constantly 
 
 sifting down a thick dust upon them. Its 
 
 rafters were crooked trunks of small trees, 
 
 all but two, and they were ribs of some 
 
 whale that had drifted upon the beach in the 
 
 ancient days. Midway of the farther wall 
 
 was a clearly defined doorway, walled up 
 
 solid with the same adobe masonry. 
 
 "To see, then! " cried Don Beltran, seiz 
 ing an iron bar. " I wished you to be here 
 at the entering." 
 
 He pecked eagerly at the tough mud bricks. 
 An elfish thing it was, to watch, here thirty 
 feet under the ground : the crazy candles and 
 brave little lantern fighting at odds with the 
 gloom; the dull, close air stifling thick with 
 the dust of what was life so many ages ago; 
 and that swaying shadow swinging the bar, 
 peck, peck, peck, against the ancient wall.
 
 The Presently Don Beltran had loosened one 
 
 Gold Fish adobe. With this gap made, he pried out 
 of Gran the next more easily; the third more easily 
 Chimu still. In another five minutes he had removed 
 enough to leave a hole a couple of feet square, 
 through which the dust from beyond came 
 sliding about their feet. Only under high 
 excitement could so old a man have worked 
 so long in such air, and now Don Beltran 
 staggered. The Yanqui caught him gently 
 under the arms and laid him down; and tak 
 ing a spade, began to shovel earth into one 
 of the zurroncs which a peon held open. 
 That was soon filled, and the cholo dragged 
 it off toward the upper world, while another 
 brought his pouch for a load. 
 
 Several times the Bullfighter flung himself 
 down, gasping upon the floor, burying his 
 face in his sleeve to escape the dust, while a 
 peon continued the digging. Then he would 
 get up again and go at it as hard as ever. 
 Already the sliding soil disclosed a consider 
 able space of roof and wall in the new 
 chamber. 
 
 Then the spade felt something which half 
 resisted, half yielded. Even the Bullfighter
 
 He scaled the coin with a full-arm throw.
 
 had dug enough in Peruvian ruins to know A 
 
 what it meant. He stooped swiftly, reach- "Nibble" 
 
 ing out his hand to grope in the dust. Then 
 
 he suddenly straightened up, scraped a little 
 
 avalanche of dust down over the spot, and 
 
 backed out into the passage with a little twist 
 
 in the corner of his dusty mouth. 
 
 "Come, hijito, and dig a little," he said 
 to Gonzalo, very soberly. "Perhaps thou 
 shalt bring luck." 
 
 Gonzalo did not wait for a second bidding, 
 but sprang into the gap with undisguised 
 delight. That is the fever of it ! This boy, 
 who in six hours had drawn hardly as many 
 breaths without such pain as one has who 
 smothers in a burning house ; who had been 
 working, all those hours, as one can work 
 only under keen excitement; whose hands 
 were blistered and back aching; whose eyes, 
 mouth, nostrils, throat, lungs, and pores 
 were almost buried alive in the dust which 
 had invaded them, this boy springing to a 
 new, hard task as eagerly as if he had never 
 heard of discomfort! 
 
 He had not dug three spade-thrusts when 
 he cried out loudly and even with the jar 
 [7*]
 
 Thf of his voice, a barrow-load of soil pattered 
 
 Gold Fish down in the passage. He fell upon his knees 
 
 of Gran and ran his bare arm shoulder-deep in the 
 
 Chimu dust, and brought out a battered object, with 
 
 which he came stumbling to the nearest 
 
 candle. 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried his father, wiping off the 
 dust till a blue surface was visible. "Where 
 silver vases are so large, better things may 
 be." And the Bullfighter, smiling till his 
 mask of caked dust cracked clear across, 
 added: "A hundred soles the shovelful! 
 Look what a huaquero is this Gonzalo ! " 
 
 But the boy hardly heard. He was already 
 back in his stope, worrying the flour-like soil. 
 In another moment he reappeared in the pas 
 sage with another vase. 
 
 "They are twins," said Don Beltran, be 
 ginning to fire up too. " But hast thou not 
 yet made room so that another might work 
 in there with thee?" 
 
 "Ye-es but oh, tata, it is a so-little 
 room let me find what is! /want to be 
 the one to make you rich ! " 
 
 " It were doubly welcome at thy hand, son. 
 But even for that, we must not lose much
 
 time. Yet a little longer thou and then let A 
 'Lipe help thee." "Nibble" 
 
 " Ea ! But this is a deposito of vases, and 
 all silver! " For Gonzalo had flung out two 
 more. All four were about of a size tall, 
 tapering, and of some two quarts' capacity 
 each. But all differed in the crude embossed 
 figures hammered up around the rim as 
 the Bullfighter was satisfying himself, lying 
 alongside his lantern and rubbing off the 
 blue "rust" with his tough palm. 
 
 Don Beltran had been holding his hands 
 clasped about his knees, with a tension at 
 the knuckles which showed that he was also 
 holding his impatience. But now he leaned 
 forward with: "Puts, we must not delay 
 more, even for the lad's delight. Anda, 
 'Lipe." 
 
 'Lipe was crawling into the hole, when 
 Gonzalo burst out so impetuously as to send 
 the big peon sprawling against the farther 
 wall. 
 
 "Mira!" cried the lad, shrilly. "The 
 weight of it ! The weight of it ! Here is no 
 silver ! Rub it and see ! " 
 
 He was hugging to him a tall jar a foot in
 
 The diameter, and flinging himself to his knees 
 
 Gold Fish beside his father, he held it out, gasping. 
 of Gran The old man caught it by the edge; and as 
 Chimu he lifted it, his hand suddenly shivered. 
 
 "Don Carlos," he said faintly, and laid 
 a hand softly upon the Bullfighter's knee 
 "I think we have a bite of the Fez 
 Grande!"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A Night in the Ruins 
 
 GOD send it so! " answered the Bull- A Night 
 fighter, earnestly, pressing the old in the 
 man's hand. "But to me, the room promises Ruins 
 to be small for that. The Fez Grande they 
 would hardly divide; and it would need a 
 very great chamber. Not that we are yet sure 
 how large this room is; and even though the 
 Big Fish be not here, there may be a 'fish' 
 big enough for all needs. But come, amigo 
 already it is very-night, and you must rest. 
 [75]
 
 The You are too old for this, and the boy too 
 
 Gold Fish young. If the Big Fish be here, he will not 
 
 of Gran have swum away by morning." 
 
 Chimu " Ah, so little fevered ! Nor am / a gold- 
 
 crazy, either. It is only that this means to 
 lose or to save my home only for that I am 
 so spurred. But you have reason. The boy 
 must sleep. And for me ay I I am shak 
 ing!" 
 
 Don Beltran had risen, but now suddenly 
 sank back. The Bullfighter twisted him across 
 his thicl: young shoulders and packed him out 
 of the shaft, followed by Gonzalo. After a 
 breathless scramble on all fours, they were 
 out under the dim, fresh sky and how good 
 it seemed to get an honest breath again ! As 
 they gasped and gulped greedily at the salty 
 air, one of them saw himself back in Colorado 
 watching poor old Jack the mule brought 
 up to the surface for the first time in five years 
 and how the blinded brute went mad with 
 very joy of the light and air and forgotten 
 grass. 
 
 A few moments revived Don Beltran from 
 his swoon. "We will rest us even here," he 
 said, sitting up. "I could not leave it."
 
 " I would stay, too, but I promised the A Night 
 Maestro, and it is already late." in the 
 
 The Bullfighter looked at his watch in its Ruins 
 " dust-proof " case. It had stopped. " Our 
 watchmakers don't know the mummy-dust," 
 he smiled, turning to the Southern Cross. 
 "By the stars it should be about eleven 
 o'clock, so I must hurry. Keep this with 
 you, in case of need to guard your mine " 
 and unbuckling his belt he handed his six- 
 shooter to the old man. 
 
 "No! You more need it, going back to 
 Cortiju by night for in these pauper 
 times the bandits are a wonder." 
 
 "There is no care," answered the other, 
 lightly. "Four years I was practicing the 
 Bok-kess 1 daily, and my fists suffice. Except 
 for the excavations I wouldn't be bothered 
 with the pistol getting a permit and all 
 that. Rest well and I will see you early. 
 Till the morning, then " and he was gone 
 before Don Beltran could expostulate further. 
 
 The night had suddenly become very dark. 
 
 1 There is no Spanish word for boxing ; and this bor 
 rowed word is hard for a Spaniard to pronounce. This 
 is as near as he comes to it. 
 
 [77]
 
 The The fog, considerably behind time, was now 
 
 Gold Fish rolling in heavily, and had quite drowned the 
 of Gran stars. The Bullfighter went stumbling over 
 Chimu the uneven surface ; he knew the ground well, 
 and in spite of trips threaded his way rapidly 
 through the maze of walls and mounds and 
 pitfalls. His head was buzzing with excite 
 ment; for though he had talked coolly, he 
 believed Don Beltran had "struck it." Not 
 the "Big Fish," probably the chamber 
 looked wrong for that, to his notion but 
 at any rate, some sort of topada. May be 
 enough to set the dear old man upon his 
 feet again. 
 
 Suddenly it was as if a cold cloud had fal 
 len across his brain. The fire of his thoughts 
 went out instantly, and he stopped short with 
 an involuntary shiver. 
 
 "What thing?' he muttered in bewilder 
 ment. "What ails me? Say! Something 
 is wrong here ! " He thrust his chin out 
 in the darkness. "Am I learning to dream 
 nightmares awake?" 
 
 He pushed on very slowly now, with ears 
 alert, and that aggressive chin poked for 
 ward. There was nothing to be seen, nothing 
 
 [7*]
 
 to be heard. He edged a little away from A Night 
 the foot of a big wall he had been following; in the 
 and half faced toward it as he reached its Ruins 
 end. 
 
 There was a desperate rush in the darkness; 
 then three sodden thumps in swift succession. 
 He had struck out right and left, and each fist 
 found a mark. But in almost the same instant 
 a dull, red light seemed to smite his eyes, a 
 sound as of crashing timbers filled his head, 
 and he went down like a log. 
 
 But the ponchoed gentleman on horseback 
 was by no means satisfied, when he had in 
 spected the job. " Fools, and sons of fools ! " 
 he snarled. " Why did you strike so hard ? 
 Do you think the skull of a man is made of 
 algorrobo wood, that such clubs cannot crack 
 it? And I clearly told you to get him alive, 
 for / had an account to settle with him. Ea I 
 And these two swine that he smote, we have 
 them to carry off, lest they lie here till they 
 be seen. A diosl What class of fists have 
 these gringoes that exercise them with the 
 Bok-kess ? Pepe and Juancho lie as if a 
 wall had befallen them. Stir, pigs ! Fling 
 them across the crupper, and I will pack them
 
 The to the hacienda. And for the gringo puts, 
 
 Gold Fish here is too near the road. Haul him over to 
 of Gran the Big Barrio and drop him in a pit." 
 Chimu 
 
 But the Bullfighter was not quite so dead 
 as all that. If not altogether of ironwood, 
 his skull was a wonderfully tough one tough 
 enough to have cheated the murderers. Along 
 in the first gray of dawn, consciousness began 
 to come back to him and with it madden 
 ing pains in the head. Stupidly he tried to 
 roll over, but relinquished the effort with a 
 groan. He was lying at the bottom of a long, 
 deep trench, sprawled and doubled over a 
 heap of cobblestones that were wet, this 
 morning, for the first time in years and red 
 for perhaps quite the first time. Off to the 
 right an enormous wall loomed up in the 
 dark; and near it he presently became aware 
 of a great rolling cloud. 
 
 " What er where am I ? " he thought, 
 as his senses began to clear. "Yon wall 
 looks to me like one of the Big Barrio. I 
 certainly did not lie down here for I was 
 sober, and not wholly insane. Where was I 
 last ? Eh so ! I knocked somebody down, 
 
 [*>]
 
 and then the sky fell on me, I guess ! I A Night 
 remember, now. But that wasn't here. To in the 
 see ! " Ruins 
 
 Clenching his teeth, he struggled up out of 
 the trench, at last, and lay spent with the pain 
 of the effort. There seemed to be a hum as 
 of voices not far off, and he started to call out, 
 but closed his mouth and dragged himself 
 toward the sound. He was sore in need of 
 help, but that gashed skull reminded him that 
 it would be better first to know upon whom 
 he called. His crawling progress was slow 
 and full of torture ; but at last he came to the 
 top of a steep little slope, and peered over 
 the wall at its top to the hollow beyond. 
 
 Dark figures in motion were there; and, 
 even more visible, a great cloud that rolled 
 up like smoke from under their feet. " Some 
 body must have struck a pay streak," he 
 mused, " thus to be digging all night. Well, 
 hitaqueros won't hurt me " and he was 
 again about to call, but bit down upon the 
 sound just in time. For down in the hollow 
 a too well-known voice was crying: "More 
 force, lazies! It fails little of dawn, and 
 we must be done." 
 
 [*/]
 
 The " Seven million monkeys ! " the wounded 
 
 Gold Fish man ejaculated under his breath. "Where 
 
 of Gran under the moon did the boy raise the money? 
 
 Chimu Somebody has 'staked ' him, and here he is 
 
 coyoting the old miser's claim, after all. 
 
 No, if my head aches off, I won't call him! 
 
 The little rat even his mercy would smell 
 
 of thievery. But since he invited me to share 
 
 the burglary, I suppose I'm welcome to lie 
 
 here and watch it." 
 
 Just then there was a sudden commotion, 
 down yonder, of crowding figures and low 
 cries of "They have reached! One has 
 broken through to the chamber! Now to 
 see the Fez Grande ! " Then Franco was 
 heard again, nervously urging them to dig 
 fast. 
 
 The foggy east began to light up a little, 
 and the Bullfighter could see more clearly. 
 Fifty peons were bunched at the foot of the 
 adobe pyramid, digging for dear life; and 
 the boy employer was hopping about like a 
 grasshopper in hysterics, exhorting, plead 
 ing, threatening, promising, directing. 
 
 From the mouth of the big pit rolled out 
 a great cloud as from a volcanic crater. They 
 [**]
 
 must be clearing the chamber very fast but A Night 
 as yet there were no outcries. Presently in the 
 even the low buzz began to wane. The Ruins 
 peons turned now and then to look at one 
 another as they shoveled; and Franco was 
 running to and fro on the bank like a crazy 
 boy. 
 
 " Will you never be done in there ? " he 
 cried at last, bending over the brink; and his 
 voice was like a rusty hinge. " It is making 
 day. Haven't you found it yet?" He 
 rushed up to the top of the ridge and looked 
 off toward Truxillo; and tore down to the 
 excavation again. "Jumping! " he fairly 
 shrieked. "Already I see the dust at Cor- 
 tiju the Stingy is coming! Let me in 
 there!" 
 
 He dove down out of sight in the dust- 
 cloud. The laborers above straightened up 
 over their spades, nodding significantly to 
 one another. Two minutes after a huge 
 zambo clambered out, hauling the boy kindly 
 by the arm. Franco was limp and ghastly. 
 
 "It is too bad, young sir," said a digger 
 with evident sympathy. "But now it is to 
 go for in a breath Don Guzman will be
 
 The here, and it is not I that have compliments 
 
 Gold Fish to swap with him here. Our wage, then, and 
 
 of Gran we are gone." 
 
 Chimu "I will pay ye in Truxillo," whined the 
 
 boy. " Here is no time for counting soles 
 and noses. Vamos, and at home you shall 
 have the money." 
 
 " Of truth, my sir? " The big peon spoke 
 sarcastically. "Look you, young master! 
 The Englisher that ten years ago deserted 
 his cholo wife and their child, here in Tru 
 xillo, he owes me still for the work of a 
 week. And his son will pay me before he 
 budges from this place." 
 
 Franco groaned and glanced desperately 
 about; but what he saw in their faces set him 
 to shoveling down into his pockets. One 
 after another he emptied them of their heavy 
 load, till his tattered hat was brimming with 
 the silver dollars. He rose from his knees 
 with a sob, the hat sagging heavy between his 
 hands. Then a swift, foxy light flared in his 
 eyes, and the end of the sob had a queer, 
 chuckling ring. Still clutching the rim, he 
 flung his hands up and out, one higher than 
 the other, and whirling on his heel like the 
 
 CM
 
 pivot of a pinwheel that flings its sparks in A Night 
 every direction, fled down the barrio like a in the 
 gray shadow. Almost before the shower of Ruins 
 silver had ceased to patter on the dust, he 
 was out of the hollow. The peons stared 
 after him with a gasp, and fell upon their 
 knees, groping in the dust for the scattered 
 coins. No use to follow him the money 
 was here; and if they did not get it now, 
 they never would. 
 
 As for the Bullfighter, up behind his wall, 
 he gasped too. 
 
 " Canary ! " he muttered. " But if ever a 
 boy was born to fit a rope, there he goes ! 
 Because his sneak-thief trick fails, he is con 
 soled with torturing the poor peons that have 
 been working like dogs for him. He must 
 be poison all through." 
 
 Such another rooting was never seen in 
 Gran Chimu nor anywhere else ; unless it 
 may have been when Circe flung that hand 
 ful of acorns to remind Ulysses that his two- 
 legged pigs had not yet forgotten their bris 
 tles. The only disinterested spectator would 
 have roared in spite of his mangled head, had 
 not his heart been sorer still with thought of 
 
 Mf]
 
 The the boy; and even in his repugnance a smile 
 
 Gold Fish flickered on the blue lips. The poor peons 
 of Gran were wallowing and clawing in the deep dust, 
 Chimu jostling one another, sifting the soil through 
 their fingers, in an agony of haste. Now and 
 then one would thrust his hand swiftly or fur 
 tively into his pocket, and then resume his 
 scratching. 
 
 All leaped to their feet as a low, search 
 ing voice called: "Feet-in-dusty, lads! 
 Don Guzman comes ! " Some looked about 
 in wonder; others gazed hungrily at the 
 ground, whose silver harvest was not yet all 
 gathered; and then all scurried away through 
 a walled alley. Three minutes later, the 
 Miser came puffing over the southwestern 
 ridge, followed by his hundred laborers. 
 
 Now the watcher's smile was uncon 
 strained. He hitched up on his elbow, the 
 better to look down through his little gap in 
 the adobe wall. It was quite light, and even 
 faces were now clear, down there. Don Guz 
 man had plainly been walking fast, but his 
 sour countenance glowed with something 
 warmer than exercise. "What a heart must 
 one carry, to own such a face ! " thought the
 
 watcher. "Even hope, which transfigures A Night 
 the plainest, only makes him the uglier." in the 
 
 The Miser half turned as he neared the Ruins 
 excavation, and beckoned his peons with an 
 impatient sweep of the arm. " More speed, 
 lazies! And to work, even as you left off. 
 Five soles to him who shall first Holiest 
 Mother! Robbed! Robbed!" His voice 
 rose to a howl, and he tottered upon the brink 
 of the great pit. 
 
 The peons came running up with grunts 
 and cries of wonder. Certain it was that 
 the excavation was twice as large as they had 
 left it at dark last night. 
 
 "It will be witchcraft!" whined one fel 
 low, glancing about nervously; but the Miser 
 flew at him like a fury. " What witches? 
 Nor what weathervanes ! " he screamed. 
 " What have brujos to say with money or with 
 gold ? A thief and son of thieves has come 
 while we slept and stolen my treasure ! I am 
 ruined, then ruined! Three hundred soles 
 thrown to the dogs, and all that some shame 
 less should steal my prize. To see if they 
 have left nothing! " 
 
 He plunged into the excavation followed
 
 The by the slower peons. In a moment he was 
 
 Gold Fish out again, dashing his candle viciously un- 
 of Gran derfoot and tearing his scrawny beard. 
 Chimu " All ! All ! " he bawled. " It is bare as a 
 
 broken jar. They left not so much as a can 
 dle-end. Ay de mi, wretched that I am, who 
 have wasted my substance to make another 
 rich!" 
 
 "But, master," ventured a cholo who had 
 tarried longer in the tunnel, " come and look 
 yet again. For neither did the thief find 
 anything, or my eyes are fools ! " 
 
 "Fools they are, and their owner! For 
 what should be so great a chamber, if not to 
 hold the Big Fish? Ay I Ay! Ay!" 
 
 "But come and see, nevertheless," per 
 sisted the laborer. "Nothing was in that 
 chamber when it was opened, so all the signs 
 say. Not so, Juan?" 
 
 "Clear! " answered the peon appealed to. 
 "Any one may see that they found nothing." 
 
 Incredulous still, Don Guzman accom 
 panied them back into the huaca. When he 
 emerged his face was purple. 
 
 "There is but one thief that barbarian 
 Bartolo ! And I will bring him in the courts ! 
 [*]
 
 He shall rot in jail ! Did I not waste a dime A Night 
 and a half of good wine to disclose his in the 
 tongue ? And when I had brought him here Ruins 
 to Chimii with pain of my joints and asked 
 him, 'Where? where, brute? ' he said, 'Here ! 
 Dig even here ! ' Shameless ! But he shall 
 pay ! Three hundred soles and fifteen cents 
 yes, and the costs of my sorrow! " 
 
 "Don Guzman! 11 
 
 The Miser started, at this unknown voice, 
 but then sank down stupidly upon the ground, 
 flinging dust upon his hair, bewailing his 
 three hundred soles and fifteen cents, and 
 anon cursing the "barbaro." 
 
 The call came again. Above the wall up 
 yonder a hand waved something round and 
 shiny. Don Guzman sprang to his feet and 
 clambered up the slope with alacrity, but at 
 sight of that ghastly face and matted head 
 recoiled in horror. 
 
 "There is no fear," said the young man, 
 faintly but clearly. " Some one bumped-me 
 the head, last night, and I cannot help my 
 self. Lend me a pair of peons to carry me 
 to Cortiju, and you shall have five soles 
 and I will pay them besides."
 
 The "Money counted? For I have been 
 
 Gold Fish robbed, Senor, of a great sum, and cannot 
 
 of Gran waste time on credit." 
 
 Chimu " Yes, yes ! Only with haste, or not a real 
 
 do you get." 
 
 In half an hour two burly negroes brought 
 the limp burden upon their shoulders into 
 the west room at Cortiju. The Maestro 
 sprang up, suddenly pale. " What have ye 
 done to him ? Ach, my poor boy ! In the 
 bed there and gently, oxen ! Now call me 
 the doctor from Truxillo." 
 
 "What an escape!" he ejaculated, when 
 he had bandaged the broken head and heard 
 the story. Then in his familiar way again : 
 "I'm glad that head is good for something! 
 But come, here's better medicine than the 
 doctor will bring you. You young crank! 
 /know your blood if you were ever quite 
 dead (which I doubt is possible) I'd bring 
 you to life again with just holding a rare 
 curio to you ! " 
 
 With which extravagance, half satire, half 
 affection, he went over and dived into his 
 desk, returning with his right hand elevated 
 and closed.
 
 " Now, then, let me see a little more color A Night 
 in that whetstone of a face ! " He opened in the 
 his fingers and thrust his hand before the Ruins 
 inquiring eyes. But curiously enough, what 
 little color was in the pale cheek left it at 
 once. The blue lips parted and then pursed 
 together again. 
 
 " Eh ? Ever see the like ? Of course you 
 didn't ! It is a unique, I can tell you not 
 another like it in any collection on earth. 
 Do you see ? It is inlaid, silver on gold, the 
 whole body even the pattern of the tunic. 
 And those eyes! Did you ever see better 
 emeralds of their size? But I'm a brute! 
 Pardon me, my poor boy you are too 
 weak." 
 
 The "poor boy" shook his head with a 
 grim little smile. " Oh, no ! But whence is 
 it? Can there be two ? Have you also been 
 huaqueando? " 
 
 " Two I should say not ! What are you 
 talking about? Franco dug it up; and in 
 spite of my rule, I gave him fifty soles for it, 
 as he said his family was in great distress for 
 the money." 
 
 The wounded man bit his lip. Then he
 
 The said quietly : " Well, you certainly were jus- 
 
 Gold Fish tified. It is a priceless find, and we are get- 
 
 of Gran ting it cheap. And fifty soles reminds me 
 
 Chimu I want you to hold back fifty from my salary. 
 
 Never mind why I don't like to talk 
 
 about my blunders, but I don't intend the 
 
 expedition shall pay for them." 
 
 " As you will, my boy. And, by the way, 
 I just got a despatch from Lima. Congress 
 passed the National Museum law at last 
 night's session!"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "And this is what they call Rain!" 
 
 D 
 
 ON BELTR AN and Gonzalo had been 
 hard at work since three o'clock this 
 
 morning; and now at nine were come out of 
 
 the stifling hole to rest their lungs a while. ^ 
 Their faces were unlike any mask of humani- R a { n /> 
 ty, grotesquely malformed with the persistent 
 dust. But though a stranger to the country 
 would very probably have fled at first sight 
 of those demoniac visages, a second glance 
 would have reassured, and even won him. 
 Through all the disguise, hope and weari- 
 [*?]
 
 The ness, excitement and awe, looked out their 
 
 Gold Fish full humanity. 
 
 of Gran "Praised be God! " the old man was mur- 
 
 Chimu muring, half to himself. " So He did not 
 desert us. Ah, if only thy poor little mother 
 might have waited with us, that she might 
 know her son was not cursed to be a pauper ! " 
 " Pobrecita dc mi mama ! She would be 
 better than ten Peces Grandes I But perhaps 
 He will let her to know and how she will 
 smile, when she looks down and sees the 
 Moche free ! This little one I saved to build 
 an altar for her, when the house is recom- 
 posed." Gonzalo drew from his pocket a 
 small head of massive gold, a pound in 
 weight. The rest of their trophies were laid 
 up in a niche just inside the shaft a dozen 
 large golden vases, and twice as many of 
 silver. 
 
 "And is there yet enough to quiet the 
 usurer? " he continued, affectionately weigh 
 ing his own particular prize in a slender, 
 grimy fist. 
 
 " Nor the third of it. Still, at the rate at 
 which we have come this morning, two days 
 more will do it for that treasure enough is
 
 in there, I make no doubt. But come. "And 
 Rest is good, and even needful; but we shall this is 
 rest the better when Moche is nearer in our what 
 hands. Come, hijo." they call 
 
 The old man rose, straightening his back Rain ! " 
 with an effort. 
 
 "Hola, DonBeltran!" 
 
 They were just dropping into the shaft 
 when the call reached them, and they came 
 back out of the dust. The Intendente and 
 a couple of guards had reined up on the 
 bank. 
 
 "I come to advise, friend, that we just 
 have news. Our Congress passed the huaca 
 law last night; and if you are to go on hua- 
 queando, it must be under the regulations, 
 which I shall be glad to give you at the in- 
 tendencia." The officer's face and tone 
 were full of friendly sympathy. 
 
 Don Beltran went gray as death. Big 
 drops suddenly stood out like beads upon 
 his forehead, and his legs seemed to be giv 
 ing way. Then, gradually, he grew to his 
 full stature, the tired old shoulders squaring 
 back, not defiantly, but with slow uncon 
 sciousness, the grizzled head turning erect
 
 The and steady. He looked up at the Intendente 
 
 Gold Fish for a moment, and then said, so very slowly, 
 
 of Gran clearly, softly that a woman would have wept 
 
 Chimu at hearing that voice: "I give you most 
 
 thanks, Don Pedro. I shall either dig no 
 
 more, or comply fully. And for the past? 
 
 We have already found articles of great 
 
 worth, this morning since the law became 
 
 law, and perhaps something after its hour, 
 
 last night. It is all here, for we have not 
 
 left the spot, and all at your orders." 
 
 Don Pedro de Villazur looked earnestly at 
 the slender, erect old figure, and his eyes 
 kindled. "By St. lago!" he cried impul 
 sively. "There are still men in Peru! 
 Look you, then, Don Beltran. I know not 
 how one of our sainted courts might read 
 the law, but as far as now / am its judge. 
 There needs no witness to tell that you first 
 hear the news from me. Then I rule that 
 what you have done before the law was 
 announced in the Gran Chimu makes no 
 count. It is yours and I but wish I could 
 in honor say as much for afterward. But 
 now the law is here, I shall enforce it to the 
 letter. So if you wish to continue, I must
 
 ask you to wait until I can send the under- "And 
 stood detail of soldiers." this is 
 
 " No, sir, and friend of mine, I shall dig what 
 no further. To what purpose, under such a they call 
 law?" Rain!" 
 
 " You have reason. Neither would I. So 
 far as touches my office, you know you could 
 expect justice; but when your treasures 
 should once have gone to Lima pues, you 
 know our friends the officials." 
 
 Don Beltran stood watching the Intendente 
 as he rode off. Then he sank upon a hum 
 mock of earth, and drew his arm gently 
 about the sobbing boy, smoothing the jetty 
 hair mechanically. " Oyes I " he called 
 huskily to a peon just emptying his zurron 
 from the mouth of the shaft. " Now it is to 
 stop. The digging is finished." 
 
 " But, Se'or, " ventured the laborer. " They 
 are even now uncovering a large bulto 
 which " 
 
 "It imports not," the old man answered 
 gently. " Leap in and bid them drop it and 
 cease work on the instant." Then his head 
 drooped again. 
 
 Gonzalo lifted his stained face and broke 
 [07]
 
 The out, between sobs, "It's a wi-wicked law, 
 
 Gold Fish a law of fools and thieves, as said the Se'or 
 of Gran Bullfighter, and it ought to be b-broken, 
 Chimu I say ! " 
 
 "No, sonling! No law is so wicked it 
 should be broken. True is it, what Don 
 Carlos says; but he also will respect it 
 and so shall we." 
 
 "But just when we were to sa-save our 
 dear Moche ! And now it will be lost ! " 
 
 " Even as God will, soul of my heart. I 
 had hoped He would permit us but 
 but " Then, in spite of him, the brave, 
 gentle voice broke, and laying his head to 
 Gonzalo's he sobbed heartbrokenly. 
 
 " Tstl Tst, friends ! " rang a cheery cry 
 and the Maestro was hauling at them. 
 " Come up, sons ! " He laughed, tugging 
 their arms with affected roughness and for 
 their own tears they could not see the mist 
 in his eyes. ' 
 
 " Come for home, you tired huaqueros ! " 
 he went on. " When I got a despatch from 
 the Secretary of the Chamber, we thought of 
 you, and now I have come for you. But you 
 must see our poor Don Carlos. Some one 
 [<#]
 
 set upon him after he left you last night, and "And 
 killed him only, as you might know, he's this is 
 too obstinate to admit it. But he is a sorry what 
 sight, and needs better nurses than I am. they call 
 Vamos? To be sure let me carry some of Rain!" 
 the plunder. So! All that? At the least, 
 I can give you better prices for them than 
 you could get from the Jews or the melting- 
 pot. Here will be four or five thousand 
 soles, I should say." 
 
 Don Beltran looked at him half dreamily. 
 "You are too good! But it avails not. 
 Five soles, or five thousand, it is all the 
 same since it is not twenty thousand." 
 
 A week from that day, the Bullfighter was 
 coming out of the Hotel Cosmos and turning 
 down the Calle del Progreso. He was still 
 very pale, and his step lacked its old spring; 
 but his eyes were clear. At the corner of 
 the plaza he ran up against a stalwart zambo. 
 The negro started to brush him aside and 
 then recoiled, staring at him- in evident terror. 
 
 "Ah, my lamb!" drawled the American, 
 sardonically. " No, I am not a ghost. And 
 welcome, thou ! I looked to meet thee, but
 
 not so soon. I thought it was the cheek- 
 Gold Fish bone, by the feel of my knuckles." 
 of Gran " Se'or ! Of what talk you ? I never saw 
 Chimu Your Grace before ! " 
 
 " Perhaps not but felt me, no ? Thinkest 
 thou that I sign, and afterward know not my 
 ovmfirma ? And I trust thy fellow is as well 
 bewritten, eh? My left hand seemed to 
 deal with a nose. But I have joy to meet 
 thee and understand for before, I was at a 
 loss. I remember thee at the hacienda of 
 Viscaino. Tell then thy master Don Bias, 
 for me, that I am not feeble for long, and 
 that if he would try me again he had best 
 hasten, ere I get strong. And thou go 
 with God, lest I sign the other cheek, to bal 
 ance that ugly page." 
 
 As the negro slunk away, there was a touch 
 on the Bullfighter's elbow which was turned 
 out in a peculiar fashion you never see in 
 those whose intentions are wholly peaceable. 
 He wheeled as if to meet an attack and 
 dropped his hand to his side with a swift smile. 
 " Gonzalo, my boy ! But shameless ! Here 
 I've been in the bed six days, without a word 
 of thee." 
 
 [700]
 
 " No, friend shame I have ! But it was "And 
 not fault of mine. My father is very sick, this is 
 and I have not left him till now. When what 
 they brought you to the hotel, we carried him they call 
 to Moche for he was always crying out for Rain I n 
 it in his fever. If you and the Maestro could 
 but come ! For he ever thinks on you." 
 
 "Understood that I will come, and now. 
 The Maestro, too, when he shall return from 
 Lima, whither he went by this morning's 
 steamer." 
 
 "And that zambo, Se'or? For he is the 
 same who has thrice interrogated me touch 
 ing our luck at digging; and I saw that he 
 was strangely maltreated in one side of the 
 face as if it had caved in, and with three 
 purple cuts in a line, the middle one longest." 
 
 The Bullfighter closed his right hand till 
 the knuckles stood sharp, and extended it. 
 Gonzalo nodded, with a sudden light. 
 
 "So, he was with them that laid wood to 
 Your Grace's head ! But he not, I'll engage. 
 Then it is to thank Don Bias for all that 
 cowardly crime we thought of him. And 
 it is he, too, who is so concerned touching 
 what we found in the huaca."
 
 The "Well, he is not dangerous. But come 
 
 Gold Fish back to the hotel, and we will take horses 
 of Gran for when your Peruvian sun breaks out I 
 Chimu can't trust this second-hand head to walking 
 under it." 
 
 They had ridden down the last streets of 
 Truxillo and out between the ponderous 
 adobe fences of the cornfields, rather in 
 silence. Then the Bullfighter turned to his 
 companion. 
 
 "And? What are the plans now? Does 
 thy father think to dig still, under the new 
 law?" 
 
 "No, Se'or, it is useless. He talked it 
 much with the Se'or Maestro and the Se'or 
 Intendente, and all agree that to dig under 
 the law is only to be robbed. I think that 
 is his sickness. There is no longer any honest 
 way to gain twenty thousand soles ; and so in 
 a few days Moche will be gone from us. He 
 is brave, and says nothing when he is not in 
 the fever, and then he talks of it all the time, 
 and that I am a pauper. It avails not for 
 much that I tell him to have him is riches 
 all I want. He does not hear, and only 
 cries: 'Seventy and five years with these
 
 hands untiring and then to leave my only "And 
 child a beggar ! ' " this is 
 
 " Dear, brave old man ! If ever one man- what 
 fully earned success, he has and hard it is they calf 
 to see him cheated out of it. I can under- Rain / " 
 stand how he feels about the old hacienda. 
 Even if it had not been in the family for 
 three centuries, it is a place that even a new 
 owner would hate to give up. And we are 
 on the Moche now, no? " 
 
 "Not yet, Se'or about ten paces farther. 
 Here the line runs along yonder bank of the 
 arroyo, and thence to yonder peak, going 
 some three hundred paces this side of the 
 great huaca." 
 
 " So ! Then you own the whole pyramid 
 of Moche. the Huaca of the Sun! " 
 
 ".Si", Se'or. But it does us nothing. Only, 
 that I love it to climb up and down, and 
 to sit upon its top where the pagans made 
 sacrifice, and to think of the old days." 
 
 The trail led under the very foot of the 
 great pyramid. It is eight hundred feet long 
 and nearly five hundred wide, and the top 
 rises two hundred feet in the air. 
 
 "Ay ! But so many years as it must
 
 The have taken the antiguos to build it, no, 
 
 Gold Fish Se'or?" 
 
 of Gran " Verily ! I made a rough measurement the 
 
 Chimu other day. There are like two and a third 
 millions of tons of masonry in that pyramid 
 now and it used to be somewhat greater. 
 Lucky that this coast is so dry, or the ages 
 would have left little of this wonder." 
 
 " A thing strange, no ? And you say that 
 in your country, in the States Uniteds, it 
 rains every year? Then you need not irri 
 gate. But in this poor my Peru, never. In 
 the mountains, yes, but that is far; and they 
 have told me of great storms in the Ama- 
 zonas. But here in the Coast pues, I have 
 fifteen years, and / have never seen it. It 
 must be a thing good to look upon, no? 
 The water falling from the sky in round 
 drops, they say even like great, pitying 
 tears of Our Father. And you have seen it 
 rain?" 
 
 The Bullfighter smiled across to the eager 
 face. " And felt it, and slept in it, many a 
 night. Aye, and if this were anywhere but 
 the West Coast, I should say you'll see rain 
 before you go to bed," he added, rising in
 
 the saddle. " See yon black front of cloud "And 
 scowling behind Salaverry ? That has rain this is 
 in its heart, or its face is a liar." what 
 
 "But it cannot rain here, I think, Se'or." they call 
 
 "Oh, yes it can. Your father remembers Rain!" 
 a rain about twenty-five years ago; and the 
 walls of the Gran Chimu show rain-carving 
 plainly. In the old records I have read of 
 several hard rain-storms on the coast of Peru 
 and one in 1730 destroyed the town of 
 Paita, so fierce was it." 
 
 "Well, I would not that it destroy any 
 thing but oh, to see it rain, the very hard 
 est it knows ! It must be a wonder ! And 
 does it fall from all the sky, or only leaking 
 in places? Falling from so high, it must 
 hurt, no ? But mark that cloud, how it gal 
 lops across all the heaven ! I have never seen 
 it so. Even the fog comes more slowly." 
 
 Their horses had turned through the wil 
 lows, crossing a little bridge over the irri 
 gating ditch, and quickened their pace 
 toward the long, low, white building half 
 hidden among its tropic trees. A servant 
 took the animals to the stable, while Gonzalo 
 conducted his friend through the arched halls
 
 The and into a broad, high room. " Here he is, 
 
 Gold Fish fata," he whispered at the bedside; and tip- 
 of Gran toeing out, closed the door, leaving the old 
 Chimu man and the younger one clasping hands and 
 looking into one another's eyes. 
 
 When Chenta shuffled into the room half 
 an hour later to remove the chocolate cups, 
 she was all a-quake. " Save me, heaven ! " 
 she stammered, crossing herself. " But this 
 will be the end of the world ! Water is fall 
 ing from all the sky, and swift lights go 
 everywhere ! " 
 
 " It is but rain, child, " said the old man, 
 gently. "Twice have I seen it, since I was 
 born in Moche, and there is no fear. Storm, 
 then, sky ! But for me the clearer weather " 
 and his eyes turned to the Bullfighter. 
 "Where is Gonzalo? Send him hither, that 
 he may know who shall stand in my place to 
 him when I am gone. " 
 
 "Who knows, Se'or? He went out just be 
 fore the tempest." 
 
 "There is no fear, Don Beltran," put in 
 
 the American. "He has but gone to enjoy 
 
 his first rain. He was greatly interested 
 
 when I told him about it, and now he means 
 
 \_io6-]
 
 to prove it for himself. But I wonder how "And 
 he will enjoy that ! " Just then the shuttered this is 
 room was pierced with a tremendous glare; what 
 and in a moment an avalanche of thunder they call 
 rocked the earth. Rain ! " 
 
 The small, drenched figure squatted upon 
 the very crest of the Pyramid of Moche 
 could himself hardly have told at first " how 
 he liked that." As to the torrent from the 
 clouds, there was no question. It was as 
 glorious as it was wonderful. And this was 
 what they call Rain ! To think that the sky 
 could drop such a deluge ! There certainly 
 must be an ocean up there and how could 
 so much water come overhead ? He had run 
 about in sturdy glory under the pelting down 
 pour shouting trying to catch those swift 
 drops and see what they looked like up 
 turning his face to trap them in his mouth, 
 and sputtering with delight at the choky full 
 ness of his success. If it would only rain 
 oftener in Peru ! Not just once in a life 
 time, but every year, as it did in happier 
 lands, and maybe even more than once in 
 a year, by the way Don Carlos spoke !
 
 The But when for the first time in his life, 
 
 Gold Fish too, he saw the sky split by a swift red blade 
 of Gran of light, and heard the sundered halves come 
 Chimu together again with a crash that made the 
 pyramid shiver, he was scared very nearly 
 out of his wits. That, however, was not for 
 long. Finding that this blind light and ap 
 palling roar passed without harming him, he 
 jumped less at the second bolt, and at the 
 third hardly at all. It was rather sudden to 
 the nerves, yes but but well, he began 
 to believe this was quite as much fun as the 
 rain itself; and in a few minutes more he 
 was again trotting up and down the level 
 "platform" of the pyramid's top, stopping 
 now to catch the deep growl of the lions of 
 the sky, now shouting with delight when a 
 glare of lightning flung across his high look 
 out his own vast shadow, so swiftly come, so 
 swiftly swallowed back by the gloom, that 
 he knew it must be magic. 
 
 The rain was coming down, now, in very 
 waves. It drummed on the adobe with the 
 sway and roar of a rising surf. By the flashes 
 he could see wavering pools, that ran to 
 gether, and blinked on the dark edge, and 
 [**]
 
 leaped off down the precipitous side in sud- "And 
 den whiteness. this is 
 
 Hm ! But it must be well night ! And what 
 his father ? Pricked with shame at having they call 
 forgotten everything but the storm, he turned Rain ! " 
 and went scrambling down at a point on the 
 west where the pyramid was not quite so in 
 accessible. The rain-flood swished around 
 his bare legs, tugging at them. The drenched 
 adobe set his feet to sliding. He flung up 
 his arms, lurching to get balance. And 
 suddenly above the storm he heard a strange, 
 gurgling roar, as of a gigantic suction; the 
 earth gave way underfoot, and in a smother 
 of mud and water Gonzalo went whirling 
 into the abyss.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Gonzalo's "String" 
 
 TT 7 HEN midnight had come to Moche, 
 Gold Fish ** anc ^ no Gonzalo, it was clear some- 
 of Gran thing must be done. For two hours the Bull- 
 Chimu fighter had been frequently reassuring the 
 fevered old man. "No hay cuidado" he 
 kept saying. "You must remember that the 
 lad never before saw the rain, and now is
 
 carried away with it. But as for harm Gonzalo's 
 pooh, he is too hombrote to get into trouble." "String" 
 
 But at last the comforter grew anxious, 
 too. For a Spanish boy, of Gonzalo's bring 
 ing up, to be out thus meant something, he 
 knew. And presently he said: " Pues, Don 
 Beltran, since you have anxiety, I will go to 
 look. Only that you promise to sleep, and 
 leave it to me. I will answer for the boy. 
 Until soon, then ! " 
 
 The storm was over, when he descended 
 the veranda and mounted his horse. Now 
 and then a dingy star glimmered in the leaden 
 sky. The only sound abroad was the swish 
 of running waters everywhere. The horse 
 slowly picked its way to the acequia and 
 over the little bridge ; and now the rider sat 
 higher in the saddle, trying to pierce the 
 gloom. 
 
 " I have a notion that he went to the big 
 Pyramid. He spoke of his fondness for it 
 and that's the lookout I'd choose, if /were 
 a boy. To see ! " 
 
 It was ticklish going. The sidling trail 
 was gullied everywhere, and slippery as ice. 
 The horse, whose very grandsire was too
 
 The young to have seen a rain in Peru, was em- 
 
 Gold Fish barrassed in hoof and mind by this astounding 
 of Gran departure from his traditions of eternal bone- 
 Chimu dry sand. But finding himself held up and 
 not jerked up when he would fall, and warm 
 ing to certain confidential pattings, he 
 struggled along very creditably for an ani 
 mal first experiencing so serious a phenom 
 enon as this sudden trickiness of the earth 
 underfoot. 
 
 "So! Here's the huaca!" The Bull 
 fighter reined up, where a deeper blackness 
 towered against the night. "From here I 
 reckon the old man will not be made ner 
 vous by hearing me. Gonzalo ! Gonza-a-lo ! " 
 But there was no answer. Only the rivu 
 lets, still stumbling down the pyramid, rustled 
 in the hush. He called again; listened, and 
 rode on. In this wet air a yell from such 
 lungs should carry at least a mile. Clearly, 
 then, there was no need to ride around the 
 huaca. That is unless well, what if the 
 boy were hurt somehow, and though hearing, 
 could not make himself heard? Better see, 
 anyhow and they went slipping, slewing, 
 stumbling, splashing around the broken flanks
 
 of that vast pile of clay brick. Once the Gonzalo's 
 horse came down headlong in a big pool "String" 
 through which ran a current so strong that 
 only by a desperate struggle they got out. 
 
 "Eh, but this is new! Can the acequia 
 have broken ? But no it was running full 
 at the house. This looks to come from the 
 huaca itself ! However, we shall not know 
 in this darkness. I'll try the town, if per 
 chance some one shall have seen him there." 
 
 Truxillo, of course, was sound asleep 
 as is every well-regulated Peruvian town, long 
 before such uncanny hours. The four cholo 
 soldier-police, scattered over the city no, 
 they had seen nothing of the young Quesada. 
 Si, Senor, they knew him. But he had not 
 been in Truxillo since they took their beats. 
 
 At daybreak the searcher was riding back 
 to Moche, mud-beplastered and undeniably 
 worried. He had scouted clear to the Gran 
 Chimu, questioning every one he could 
 waken, and shouting himself hoarse along 
 deserted roads. What could he say to the 
 wan old man awaiting him? 
 
 The gray of a Peruvian " winter " dawn was 
 on the gaunt peaks of Salaverry. Even the
 
 The great Pyramid of Moche had caught lights not 
 
 Gold Fish yet vouchsafed the valley; and its lofty bulk 
 of Gran seemed rejuvenated by the night its wrin- 
 Ch ! viu kles smoothed away, and half its centuries 
 forgotten. 
 
 " But / would have gone to the huaca, if I 
 were a boy wanting to get the most of my 
 first rain ! How it must have pelted, upon 
 that top, eh? I'm a fool understood! 
 But I'm going around by daylight." 
 
 The tired horse clearly agreed with the 
 premise, and left the trail only under com 
 pulsion. His knees were trembling with so 
 long a fight for a footing; and when he came 
 to a deep, broad gully he halted resolutely. 
 
 "Pause and consider, then," smiled the 
 rider, patiently. " And this must be the hole 
 we measured last night. A wonder we ever 
 got out for by the mark the water, ran ten 
 feet deep here, with four more to the top of 
 the bank. But where on earth did it come 
 from ? Stand and study, eh, while I go see " ; 
 and dismounting, he strode away up the 
 arroyo. 
 
 Around a knee of the pyramid whose 
 base is shaped something like the letter L
 
 the gully led; and there at the bottom was Gonzalo's 
 a ragged cave running far back in the adobe "String" 
 masonry. 
 
 " Snails ! A stream from under the huaca? 
 Ah, yes I see. The watershed of this 
 whole side drained into yonder angle and 
 burrowed down into the mound at that sink 
 hole I see half-way up, and broke out again 
 here at the base. But say ! There must have 
 been a hollow in the pyramid, or it never 
 could have done that solid adobe masonry 
 isn't to be made a fool of, even by a cloud 
 burst. I'm going to look into that hole up 
 there ! " 
 
 What? You would like to find Gonzalo 
 this Bullfighter is too slow? Well, we are 
 coming to the boy. 
 
 Twelve hours ago when he felt the very 
 earth open its mouth and swallow him, he 
 would not have given much for his chances 
 of being found. It was all so sudden and 
 so so impossible ! The solid ground, mind 
 you, yawning and in the same instant a 
 torrent pounced upon him and strangled him. 
 He could not see, nor cry out, nor, worst of
 
 The all, think. All was, he knew himself falling 
 
 Gold Fish falling falling ! Then there was a 
 of Gran stunning plunge into a body of water, and he 
 Chimu went down, fathoms, till his ears were burst 
 ing; and came up so slowly that it seemed 
 four times as deep. But at last the air roared 
 in his face, and he was shoved against a wall, 
 the current lifting and tugging to carry him 
 over. For a few moments he clung there 
 stupidly, his arms to the elbows on the dam, 
 his feet dangling in those dreadful depths he 
 had sounded so far. 
 
 Then, as breath and strength and heart 
 came back, he groped forward to the right, 
 to the left, overhead. First, it was to be un 
 derstood that from the well in which his feet 
 were, a strong current overflowed. Ahead 
 he could hear it hissing downward in a fash 
 ion that meant a steep descent; and louder, 
 but different, was the roar of a fall overhead, 
 whose spray pelted his hair like rain. Up 
 there was nothing but blackness. Left and 
 right was a continuation of the shelf against 
 which the current pressed his waist. To see ! 
 He hunched along cautiously to the left, 
 keeping his elbows well bent and his chin 
 
 [7/d]
 
 thrown back, lest that mill race tip him Gonzalo's 
 headlong. A foot, two, three, four feet, "String" 
 and suddenly he drew back from a stronger 
 suction. Clearly, the water was making a 
 breach there in its dam. He reached out 
 and overhead nothing. Then he rested 
 carefully on his left arm, and with the 
 right flung a handful of water. So! In 
 spite of the roar of the falls he was sure 
 his fluid missile had struck earth, not water. 
 The cave must end there, and it was use 
 less to go further. To the right, then. He 
 hunched back, with the same slow cau 
 tion. One foot, two feet, a yard; two yards 
 three, four. Ah! His shoulder rubbed 
 against something hard! A cautious hand 
 went up. Glory ! A foot above his head 
 was a shelf of solid adobe. Trembling and 
 half crying, now, he drew himself slowly up 
 till one knee was on the dam; and with a 
 wild lunge flung himself clear of the water 
 and upon the safe ledge. He did not even 
 grope about to see how large his shelf might 
 be; but cuddling as small as he could, lay 
 there, panting. It would be as foolish as 
 false to pretend that this fifteen year old boy 
 ["73
 
 The was not in mortal terror. So may all men be 
 
 Gold Fish unless it is true, as themselves claim, that 
 
 of Gran there are some fools so absolute that they 
 
 Chitnu really do "not know what fear is." But there 
 
 are different kinds of cowards. Some, when 
 
 they look in the eye of Death fall groveling 
 
 in the dust that they may not see him smite; 
 
 and some there are that tremble and are pale, 
 
 but take their coward hearts in their teeth to 
 
 die like men, fighting. And Gonzalo was 
 
 one of these. Through all this horror his 
 
 mind had worked clearly and swiftly; and 
 
 his will had held the trembling body up to 
 
 its work. 
 
 But now he was worn out; and for hours he 
 lay huddled there in a shivering heap. The 
 spray kept him drenched and yet to his 
 nostrils came a strange odor of dust. The 
 pouring waters filled the gloom with a won 
 derful monotony without rise or fall of 
 sound. 
 
 The hours crept by. The exhausted boy 
 was breathing deeply and regularly, except 
 for now and then a fit of coughing. 
 
 "Let be! It is mine the Fez " and 
 he sat up with a start. " Ah-h-h ! I I shall 
 [XT*]
 
 have been dreaming ! I thought I had found Gonzalo'? 
 it and here I am in this grave! Pero, "String" 
 there it is lighter ! " 
 
 And indeed there was, far up at the top of 
 his night, a queer, jagged patch of gray. 
 As he sat and watched, it slowly grew clearer 
 and presently he cried out excitedly : " The 
 sky! The good sky!" 
 
 Deeper and deeper the light crept down 
 into his profound prison, until even a little 
 ray of sunlight flaunted upon the left-hand 
 wall, away overhead; and now he could see 
 well enough to begin to explore. 
 
 First, then, that little peephole of sky was 
 something like fifty feet above him, and its 
 diameter maybe two yards. The walls were 
 wet, but no more water was pouring in. At 
 his feet was the black pool which had cush 
 ioned his fearful fall, now merely brimming 
 at the dam. At ten feet over his head the 
 cavity suddenly widened, and he could make 
 out a great room, with arched roof, running 
 forty feet to the left, and with dark recesses 
 in the farther wall. Where the " well " over 
 flowed looked to have been a low, narrow 
 passageway, sloping strongly downwards.
 
 The He reached over and felt clear! There 
 
 Gold Fish were adobe steps, worn but not obliterated 
 of Gran by the waters which, for a dozen hours, had 
 Chimu been tumbling down that secret staircase in 
 the heart of the huaca. 
 
 Gonzalo had been groping and peering 
 like the half -drowned rat he was; and now 
 he rose stiffly to cross the strange, dim 
 chamber. A few feet away the adobe floor 
 was already less slippery; and he saw that the 
 wall, two feet from the floor, was dusty ! And 
 yonder recess, which looked like an alcove 
 
 In another ten minutes, if a stranger could 
 have been set down in the heart of the Pyra 
 mid of Moche, he would have seen a drag 
 gled boy rushing to and fro in that musty 
 catacomb like one bereft of reason; now dis 
 appearing in a dark passage, and then stag 
 gering out again, hauling or rolling a great 
 burden; and all the while uttering strange, 
 inarticulate cries. The beholder would have 
 concluded either that he was enjoying a 
 most extraordinary dream, or that this sub 
 terranean chamber was inhabited by the 
 craziest of all gnomes.
 
 Just as he ceased clawing at one of these Gonzalo's 
 mysterious loads, the gnome chanced to look "String" 
 up at that far little eye of sky and on the 
 instant went still crazier. 
 
 "Don Carlos! Amigol I am / / 
 //" 
 
 Up there at the brink was the silhouette 
 of a round head and smooth face under a 
 broad hat, which started back as if at a shot, 
 and then reappeared. 
 
 " Como? " a voice came falling down the 
 pit. "Thou, my little Gonzalo? Art thou 
 alive or dead? Is it deep as it sounds? 
 But hold, while I fetch my reata and haul 
 thee up." 
 
 " No, friend ! " The boy voice rang shrill 
 and swiftly, till the words stumbled on one 
 another's heels. "There are two reatas* 
 length, at the least. To the hacienda, and 
 bring the peons all, every one. And my 
 father, too, if he can be carried on shoulders. 
 And hasten, before I turn crazed for I 
 have Him hooked, Don Carlos ! I have Him 
 hooked I Tell my father only: 'Gonzalo is 
 safe, and the Moche also ! ' And hurrying 
 for it is too much to be borne ! "
 
 The When Don Beltran on his narrow mattress 
 
 Gold Fish had been set down by strong-backed peons 
 of Gran beside the gaping hole, he leaned over on a 
 Chimu wavering elbow and called down tremulously : 
 " Art safe, soul of my heart? " And whatever 
 the answer that floated up to him, it was 
 something at which a wondrous smile trans 
 figured his wan face. 
 
 The Bullfighter was paying a horse-hair 
 rope down into the pit, while three stout 
 cholos held the coil. "Does it reach? " he 
 shouted. " Good ! Then sit on the cross- 
 stick and hold well." 
 
 A great smooth pole had been laid across 
 the opening, to pull the rope over, and a 
 man anchored down each end of it. "Jd-le, 
 then ! " The peons walked away slowly, 
 steadily, with the reata on their shoulders, 
 while the Bullfighter steadied it over the 
 pole. Up and up and up they hauled, till 
 at last a head came in view. But it was not 
 Gonzalo's head; and Don Carlos and Don 
 Beltran gasped at sight of it that big, 
 round, dented head of reddish metal, and 
 the thick neck with the rope knotted upon 
 it, and burly shoulders, and a strange, rude 
 [Jlf]
 
 Up and up they hauled, till at last a head came 
 in view.
 
 body. The Bullfighter stooped, and with a Gonzalo's 
 great heave fetched out upon the ground a "String" 
 statue taller than himself and heavier, too, 
 though it was hollow from head to toes. He 
 and Don Beltran looked in one another's 
 eyes without a word. The old man was even 
 paler than before. He leaned over again 
 and called huskily : 
 
 " No, sonling ! I want thee, and not the 
 idols ! Come up to me, Gonzalito mio ! " 
 
 Already the rope was on its way down again. 
 This time it returned faster. A muddy black 
 head came twirling up to the daylight, and 
 two eyes that shone like living jet blinked 
 hard at Don Beltran and then at the Bull 
 fighter; and in a second more there was such 
 another fuss of hugs and tears and broken 
 voices as the Pyramid of Moche had not seen 
 in five hundred years, if ever. 
 
 "And the Moche, little papa! " Gonzalo 
 laughed through new channels on his muddy 
 cheeks. " Ea ! But Our Father heard me, 
 no ? For always I prayed it might be / who 
 should save you. And que guapo, no?" 
 dancing around the great golden image. 
 " Much face is the face of him, no ? Not
 
 The many like him, perhaps, would it take to 
 
 Gold Fish stop the mouths of the money-lenders?" 
 of Gran "Few indeed!" answered Don Beltran, 
 Chimu softly. " Two, when most. Ah, he is pure 
 gold ! " But he was not looking at the image 
 so much as at a shabby boy whose face was 
 half mud and half twinkle. 
 
 " Two, then ? Well, papacito I have ten ! 
 Some are smaller, a little; and one, in its 
 niche, is greater, that I could not even tip it 
 from its pedestal. But come, let me go down 
 and send them up." 
 
 " Never, son ! It is the peons that shall 
 brave the pit, and not thou again." 
 
 "Nor needs it," put in the Bullfighter. 
 " If I mistake not, there is an easier way. 
 The water which opened the huaca for you 
 where that water came out must be the 
 passage I saw at the base. It was the proper 
 way to enter the chamber in the pyramid; 
 and when the ancients closed it up, they 
 never thought of two such burglars as a rain 
 and Gonzalo breaking in from above. I'll 
 take in the peons with lanterns, and we'll 
 fetch the statues down the stairs they were 
 carried up so long ago. But to think that
 
 thou shouldst fall thus upon the secret cham- Gonzab's 
 
 her of their ancestral gods ! Never but once "String" 
 
 in the world has such a thing chanced before 
 
 and that was three hundred and sixty years 
 
 ago. At Cuzco, in 1532, the conquerors 
 
 found in a subterranean room 'life-size golden 
 
 figures, four of llamas and twelve of women, 
 
 the which to see was a great comfort' as I 
 
 mind me to have read in a Relation of the 
 
 First Discovery. And now thou! Pucs, 
 
 'when least one thinks, jumps the hare,' they 
 
 say and I remember, too, that when I used 
 
 to fish for trout, they always bit best in rainy 
 
 weather. It seems the Big Fish of Peru have 
 
 the same habits." 
 
 The old Don's face was sweet with a great 
 peace. "I give thanks," he said reverently, 
 " not alone for this, but that I did not dig 
 secretly in our mine after the law passed 
 and the temptation was sore." 
 
 "Look you then at justice," smiled the 
 Bullfighter. " I forgot to tell you that last 
 night, hunting the boy, I learned Don Bias 
 is in jail for that very thing and not to 
 come out soon. He was huaqueando secretly 
 in your shaft, and the Intendente caught him
 
 The at it. But you, picaro, " and he drew his arm 
 
 Gold Fish about Gonzalo, "you go and hook your Fez 
 of Gran Grande on your own land of Moche, where 
 Chimu not even the laws of a Peruvian Congress can 
 rob you of one scale of him ! " 
 
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