Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/179

Rh building on the edge of the suburbs, and quite close to the Bio de Chili. It was openly guarded by a dozen armed Indians in red ponchos. Dick and the Marquis soon found, however, that they could not even get as near as that line of guards. Fifty yards away from the house, Civil Guards stopped them, and ordered them back. Garcia's own troops were guarding the Virgin of the Sun!

"Of course, Garcia cannot know," said the Marquis. "I know him, and though he has faults, he is not a savage. He once wanted to marry Maria-Teresa. Let us go and find him."

But Dick refused to lose sight of the adobe house. Had they listened to him, they would have forced their way to it at once. It was only after long arguing that Natividad convinced him such a step would be absurd. Lives are cheap during revolutions, and two or three corpses more or less in the Bio de Chili would not make it overflow its banks. Nor would they contribute greatly to the freeing of Maria-Teresa and little Christobal.

He promised to be reasonable, but would not go with them when they returned to the inn for a meal; instead, he took up his post in a boat on the river, and thence watched his fiancée's prison and the armed men walking up and down before it

The Marquis and Natividad therefore,