Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/143

Rh told me that a man would say to me, 'Dios anki tiourata' ('good-day,' in Aïmara), and that I was to obey that man. I was to take the wheel, not turn my head, and drive where I was told to go."

Libertad's story, told in jerky sentences, showed that he did not really know until the evening what had been plotted. Though he did not move or look, the sound of the struggle at the open window told him what was happening. It was then too late to draw back, and, when the order came, he drove the car to the calle San Lorenzo, where they stopped for a minute before a low door. Huascar came out, exchanged a few words with the occupants of the machine, and ordered him to take the Chorillos road, and not to stop until he had reached Ondegarda's hacienda. There was not a sound behind him throughout the journey.

At the hacienda, when his passengers got out, he had instinctively glanced sideways, and had seen the señorita, unconscious, being lifted out by three dwarfs with horribly-shaped heads. They took her into the casa, while he, more dead than alive, waited where he was, anxious only to be paid and to get away.

Then they were overtaken by a troop of mounted Indians, all wearing red ponchos, and led by Oviedo. Huascar was also with them,