good result of our betrothal, if I may so call it, was that the
preparations for the wedding took up so much of Mamcuna's time that she
had none left for me, and I had leisure and opportunity to contrive a plan
of escape, if I could, for, as I quickly discovered, the difficulties in
the way were almost if not altogether insurmountable. I could neither go
back to the eastern Cordillera by the road I had come, nor, without
guides, find any other pass, either farther north or farther south.
Westward was a range of barren hills bounded by a sandy desert, destitute
of life or the means of supporting life, and stretching to the desolate
Pacific coast, whence, even if I could reach it, I should have no means of
getting away.

There was, moreover, nobody to whom I could appeal for counsel or help.
Gondocori thought me the most fortunate of men, and was quite incapable of
understanding my scruples. Gahra, albeit willing to go with me, knew no
more of the country than I did, and there was not a man in it who could
have been induced even by a bribe either to act as my guide or otherwise
connive at my escape; and I had no inducement to offer.

Nevertheless, the opportunity I was looking for came, as opportunities
often do come, spontaneously and unexpectedly, yet in shape so
questionable that it was open to doubt whether, if I accepted it, my
second condition would not be worse than my first.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN THE TOILS.

Five days after I had been wooed by the irresistible Mamcuna, and as I was
beginning to fear that I should have to marry her first and run away
afterward, I chanced to be riding in the neighborhood of the village, when
a woman darted out of the thicket and, standing before my horse, held up
her arms imploringly. I had never spoken to her, but I knew her as the
white wife of one of the caciques.

"Save me, senor!" she exclaimed, "for the love of heaven and in the name
of our common Christianity, I implore you to save me!"

"From what?"

"From my wretched life, from despair, degradation, and death." And then
she told me that, while travelling in the mountains with her husband, a
certain Senor de la Vega, and several friends, they were set upon by a
band of Pachatupecs who, after killing all the male members of the party,
carried her off and brought her to Pachacamac, where she had been
compelled to become one of the wives of the cacique Chimu, and that
between his brutality and the jealousy of the