Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/265

Rh immobility and silence were those of a dream; there were thousands there who seemed to live and breathe only in the expectation of some mysterious and sacred event.

The disc of the sun was still hidden behind the Andes, but all Nature heralded its approach; the flanks of the mountains were jeweled with a thousand dazzling stones, brooks and torrents were afire, and the broad bosom of the lake was a roseate mirror bearing the still reflections of palaces and temples. Virgins, bearing, as of old, the most beautiful flowers of the season and the emblems of their religion, peopled the porticoes. At the summits of towers, luminous with the dawn, priests waited for their god to show his face.

Suddenly, he appears … he rises … he blazes down on his empire, and is hailed by a great roar. "Hail, O Sun, King of the Heavens, father of men!" Earth trembles, waters shiver, the heavens even quiver at the call. "Hail, O Sun, father of the Inca!" Arms are stretched toward him, hands heavy with offerings implore his intercession, and every voice chants his glory.

"Hear thy children! Hail, O Sun!"

Cries and songs of triumph are swelled by the clamor of barbaric instruments, and the tumult grows as the radiant disc climbs higher in the heavens, bathing the multitude in light.