Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/92

78 Indians, and think what it must have been for armored men, with the menace of an unknown enemy above them."

"But what were the Indians doing all this time?" asked Dick, approaching in his turn.

"Nothing, señor ... they were awaiting a visitor, not a foe.... Messages had been exchanged which...."

"One question," put in the Marquis' voice. "Do you suppose that if King Atahualpa had for one minute imagined his 50,000 men were incapable of defending him against a hundred and fifty Spaniards, that he would have behaved as he did? No, he merely felt contempt for their weakness. And he was wrong!"

"Yes, señor, he was wrong." The bank-clerk bent his head humbly over his saddle-bow. Then, straightening himself again, he pointed to a peak towering above. "He should have appeared in those defiles, like the horseman yonder, and all would have been finished. The Sun our God would still be reigning over the Empire of the Incas!"

As he said these words, the clerk seemed to have grown to a giant His sweeping gesture took in the whole huge mass of the Andes, making of it a pedestal for the Indian above them, sitting motionless on his horse, and watching their caravan.