Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/105

Rh At these words, the Indians surrounding the little band of Europeans turned toward the sun, just about to vanish behind the Andes, uttering a strange cry, a cry of mingled farewell and hope handed down by generations as the salutation of their faith to the God of Day. Above the reverently bowed throng, a purple sky awaited the coming of night.

The scene was so grandiose that Dick and Maria-Teresa could not restrain a movement of admiration. There could be no doubt of it: the Sun god still had his true worshipers, as in the tragic days of Atahualpa. To know it, one had only to look at this trembling mass of men, who had kept their language and their traditions through so many centuries. They had been vanquished, but not conquered. Perhaps it was true after all that back there in the mountains, in some city unknown to all but themselves, guarded by the rampart of the Andes and the eternal snows, there lived priests who passed their lives feeding the sacred fires.

After their salutation to the Sun, the Indians resumed their kneeling posture, many, strangely enough, making the sign of the cross as they bent to the ground. Where did that sign come from? Was it only another instance of the extraordinary mingling of cults and creeds so often seen, or did it go even further back? Historians