Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/201

Rh What good purpose would that serve? No, he must wait; wait until midnight, when Huascar would return. That was the only thing to do; ruse for ruse, and the golden voice of money to talk to those Indians. But midnight was a long way off. Ten times the young man paced round the square, wondering and raging. Surely there were behind all these beflagged and festooned windows a legion of Christian men who would rise like a hurricane if they knew the abominable truth!

Dick's thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a dancing, singing, howling mob at the end of the neighboring calle. This, then, was the populace which he would have raised against Garcia, and which obeyed Garcia, while the Dictator, like Pilate, washed his hands of it. The mob approached, to the thunder of drums and bugles, while flaming torches and swaying paper lanterns lit up the scene, for night had now fallen. Overhead fluttered banners adorned with crosses and strange symbols perhaps two thousand years old. Christians, this crowd? Perhaps!

Not a man of the upper classes was to be seen, not even a high-caste Indian. Here were only the dregs of the city ; a mass of howling maniacs, whirling and whooping round a huge bonfire which had flared up in the center of the square,