ry; and about half an hour before
sunset they marched into a small village, composed chiefly of adobe
huts, where a halt was called for the night, and where our friends were
confined in a ramshackle barn of a place in company with the sergeant
and ten men. That the sergeant was quite determined not to get into
trouble by the neglect of any possible precaution soon became perfectly
evident; for when, about half an hour after the arrival of the party at
the village, supper was served, the individual in question gave orders
that before the hands of the prisoners were released to enable them to
convey food to their mouths, their ankles were to be securely bound
together; and this was done. Then, after supper was over, without
unbinding the ankles of the prisoners their wrists were again bound
together behind their backs, after which their ankles and wrists were
drawn as closely together as they could be induced to come, and firmly
lashed behind them; and in this constrained and exceedingly painful
posture they were unceremoniously flung into opposite corners of the
hut, where, upon the bare floor, and suffering torments from the vermin
with which the place was infested, and from which, in their constrained
position, they were helpless to defend themselves, they were left to
pass the night as best they might.

A seemingly interminable night of torture for the hapless prisoners came
laggingly to an end at last when, about half an hour after daybreak, the
lashings which had confined their limbs all through the hours of
darkness were loosed, and they were allowed to scramble to their feet
and walk to and fro for a few minutes before partaking of breakfast.
After breakfast the march was resumed; and--not to dwell at unnecessary
length upon this portion of the narrative--about an hour before sundown
the entire party marched into a city which one of the soldiers surlily
informed Phil was Cuzco; and here the two young Englishmen were at
length safely deposited in an underground dungeon of a building which
had once been one of the Inca's palaces; escape being rendered
impossible by the simple process of chaining them to the wall by means
of a heavy iron chain about six feet in length, one end of which was
attached to an iron girdle locked round the prisoner's waist while the
other end was welded to an iron ringbolt, the shank of which was deeply
sunk into the solid masonry of the dungeon wall.

On the morning of the following day