Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/301

Rh was the more surprised at this when, on searching Dick, he found a considerable sum of money in his pockets. For a Quichua not to strip a helpless man was indeed remarkable.

When Dick had sufficiently recovered to understand what was being said, he immediately recognized the Indian described to him as Huascar. In his quality as high-priest, Huascar had probably returned to the temple late at night, and had there found Dick, surrounded by gaping tombs, and the corpses of Orellana and the three Guardians of the Temple. Coldly calculating in his hatred, the Indian had decided to inflict the worst possible torture on Dick, leaving him to live after the death of Maria-Teresa.

That torture would not last long, the young man decided. The idea that he might have saved Maria-Teresa had he not lost his head, and that her death lay at his door, tormented him without ceasing. He realized that he would never be able to free himself of this obsession and that it would finally drive him mad. Better to end it all at once.

Only he did not wish to die among these awful mountains, mute witnesses of the horrors that had cost him his self-respect and happiness. The Maria-Teresa who was constantly before his mind's eye was not the terrible mummy-like figure he had last seen, but the dainty silhouette