ard in the still
evening air; and, with a last parting glance at the body, which could be
seen shrivelling in the midst of the flames, they turned and silently
wended their way back to their camping place. And thus passed
Vilcamapata, the last of the ancient Peruvian priests of the Sun, with
two men only, and they of alien blood and alien religion, to perform the
last sacred rites for him.

On the following morning, having breakfasted and completed their
preparations for immediate departure, the two young Englishmen, feeling
strangely lonely, walked over to the spot where the funeral pyre had
been built, and inspected what remained of it. They found that it had
been completely consumed, to the very last twig; and upon searching
among the white ashes they found a calcined skull and a few fragments of
the larger bones. These they gathered carefully together and reverently
buried; after which, having now done all that was possible to preserve
the remains of their late friend from desecration, they returned to the
camp, embarked in their canoe, and resumed their voyage down the river.

The following fortnight proved quite uneventful for our two adventurers;
they journeyed on down the river at an average rate of about twenty
miles a day, and from time to time encountered rapids or cataracts, or
both together, shooting most of the former, and, of course, being
compelled to carry the canoe down past the latter; but they had by this
time become so thoroughly accustomed to the negotiation of rapids and
waterfalls that they had long since ceased to regard the passage of one
or the other as an adventure. True, they saw a few Indians
occasionally; but these generally beat a hasty retreat when the white
men appeared, and remained concealed until the canoe and its two
occupants, now garbed like savages in the skins of beasts, had
disappeared round the next bend in the river.

As foretold by Vilcamapata, they reached the "much mightier river"--the
Maranon--on the afternoon of the twelfth day, and there their pleasant
journeying with the current ceased; henceforward the current would again
be their enemy, instead of their friend as it had been of late, and
every inch of progress would have to be won either with the assistance
of the sail or by arduous toil with the paddle. Luckily for them, they
had had the prescience to bring the sail along with them when they found
themselves obliged to abandon the boat, and now they reaped th