reach. The plain is cultivated and inhabited.
There are huts, fields, orchards, and streams, and about a league from the
foot of the bastion is a large village.

"Pachatupec?" I asked.

"_Si, senor_, that is Pachatupec, a very fair land, as you see, and yonder
is Pachacamac, where dwells our queen," said Gondocori, pointing to the
village; and then he fell into a brown study, as if he was not quite sure
what to do next.

The sight of his home did not seem to rejoice the cacique as much as might
be supposed. The approaching interview with Mamcuna was obviously weighing
heavily on his soul, and, to tell the truth, I rather shared his
apprehensions. A savage queen with a sharp temper who occasionally roasted
people alive was not to be trifled with. But as delay was not likely to
help us, and I detest suspense, and, moreover, felt very hungry, I
suggested that we had better go on to Pachacamac forthwith.

"Perhaps we had. Yes, let us get it over," he said, with a sigh.

After descending the bastion by a steep zigzag we turned into a pleasant
foot-path, shaded by trees, and as we neared our destination we met (among
other people) two tall Indians, whose condor-skull helmets denoted their
lordly rank. On recognizing Gondocori (who had lost his helmet in the
snow-storm and looked otherwise much dilapidated) their surprise was
literally unspeakable. They first stared and then gesticulated. When at
length they found their tongues they overwhelmed him with questions, eying
Gahra and me the while as if we were wild animals. After a short
conversation, of which, being in their own language, I could only guess
the purport, the two caciques turned back and accompanied us to the
village. Save that there was no sign of a church, it differed little from
many other villages which I had met with in my travels. There were huts,
mere roofs on stilts, cottages of wattle and dab, and flat-roofed houses
built of sun-dried bricks. Streets, there were none, the buildings being
all over the place, as if they dropped from the sky or sprung up
hap-hazard from the ground.

About midway in the village one of the caciques left us to inform the
queen of our arrival and to ask her pleasure as to my reception. The other
cacique asked us into his house, and offered us refreshments. Of what the
dishes set before us were composed I had only the vaguest idea, but hunger
is not fastidious and we ate with a will.

We had hardly finished when cacique nu