Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/286

272 Clouds of pungent incense rose from the burners, and gradually hid from view the azure disc overhead. The mammaconas who were to die, obeying the ritual, ran forward to the King's feet

"We implore you, O King, to stop all the smokes of the earth. They hide his face, and the Sun cannot give the signal for the sacrifice.

At a sign from the figure on the golden pyramid, the burners were extinguished, and the spot of blue gradually reappeared. The Guardians of the Temple, by the pyres, held in their hands metal mirrors, drawing the sun to a little heap of cotton in the center of each resinous pile. Thus did the god, of his own will, give the signal for the sacrifice! There were no stakes on the pyres, no chains; the victims must die willingly.

While the throng about them chanted prayers, the two mammaconas watched the pyres. They feared that the god might reject them; then they would live, shunned by all, until they disappeared. Their eyes, large with hope in the mercy of the divinity, anxiously awaited the first flicker of flame.

If the pyre destined to the thousand-year-old Coya did not take fire, it did not mean that the new one was distasteful to the god. It meant merely that the old one had not known how to