Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/235

Rh seemed as dead as the mummy beside her, Maria-Teresa knew what was happening. Little Christobal, peeping over the curve of his sister's arms, was watching everything, and a whisper, so low that she hardly felt the breath rising along her bare neck, said: "Dick has lifted his head.…. Papa is looking at us … we must not move." Maria-Teresa pressed her trembling fingers on the child's lips, and he was silent.

So they were there. Her tired brain, working, working, wondered what they were going to do. It was horrible to know them there, hidden and helpless. For if they had not been helpless, they would not be hidden, they would have come with police and soldiers. Could it be that the Indians were masters of the country now? Then she thought of the revolution, of Garcia, who had once loved her. Why had they not gone to him? At a word, he would have come with his whole army. And they, hidden under their red ponchos, what could they do? What was their plan?

The mammaconas were chanting:—

"Earthquakes shook the world. The moon was girt with rings of many colors. Thunder fell on the royal palace, and reduced it to ashes. An eagle, hard pursued by falcons, circled over the great square of the city, filling the heavens with his cries. Pierced by the talons of his foes,