his presence and in agitated accents
informed him that one of the underlings of the temple, on his passage
into the town, had given forth the startling intelligence that the
Villac Vmu and Motahuana, both of whom had been his lord's honoured
guests at the banquet of the previous night, had just been found dead
upon their beds!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

TRAPPED!

The emotion of Huanacocha at this surprising piece of news was almost
painful to see. As he listened to the hurriedly told story, poured
forth by his man, his features took on a sickly yellow tinge, his eyes
seemed to be on the point of starting out of his head, and his breath
came in labouring gasps from his wide-open mouth; finally, when at
length he seemed to have fully grasped the purport of the story, he hid
his face in his hands, rested his elbows upon his knees, and sat there
quivering like an aspen leaf. In the course of a few minutes, however,
he regained his self-control, and with a sigh of such depth that anyone
unaware of its melancholy cause might have almost mistaken it for one of
relief, he rose to his feet and, muttering to himself something about
the difficulty of believing so incredible a story, and the necessity for
personally ascertaining the truth, he gave orders for his litter to be
brought to the door, and presently sallied forth on his way to the
temple, with this intention.

The distance to be covered was not great, and by the time that
Huanacocha reached the temple he had almost completely recovered his
composure. Alighting from his litter, and bidding his bearers to wait,
he climbed the long flight of steps leading up to the building and,
accosting the first person he met, demanded, in an authoritative tone of
voice to see Xaxaguana. It was perfectly evident, even to one less
experienced than Huanacocha in matters pertaining to the temple routine
and its discipline, that some very unusual occurrence had happened, for
everybody about the place seemed excited, agitated, distraught; but
Huanacocha was, of course, well known to every inhabitant of the City of
the Sun, and presently someone was found possessing enough authority to
deal with the great man's request, or command, rather, and in the course
of a few minutes he was conducted along a passage and shown into an
empty room, there to await the arrival of the man he sought.

Apparently Xaxaguana was busy at the moment, for it was nearly a quarter
of an hour ere he appeared, an