Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/43

Rh me, they still hope for a return of the old kings." "And they still go in for human sacrifice?" asked Dick.

"Of course not! What absolute nonsense!"

Aunt Agnes and Irene both turned to Uncle Francis.

"Maria-Teresa was brought up abroad, and does not know.... She cannot know.... But she is wrong to laugh at what she calls 'all these old stories.'... There is plenty of proof, and we are sure of it.... Every ten years—all great events were decennial among the Incas—every ten years, the Quichua Indians offer a bride to the Sun."

"A bride to the Sun?" exclaimed Uncle Francis, half horrified, half incredulous.

"Yes ... they sacrifice a young girl in one of those horrible Inca temples of theirs, where no stranger has ever gone!... It is terrible, but it is true."

"Really ... it is so difficult to believe.... Do you mean to say that they kill her?"

"They do ... as a sacrifice to the Sun."

"But how? By fire?"

"No, it is even more horrible than that. Death by fire is only for far more unimportant ceremonies. At the Interaymi, they wall up their victim alive.... And it is always a Spanish girl.... They kidnap one, as beautiful