United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The punishment of a woman who deserted her husband was death by burning; were Señora de la Vega caught, this punishment would be undoubtedly inflicted; were it even suspected that she had met me or any other man, secretly, Chimu would almost certainly kill her. Pachatupec husbands had the power of life and death over their wives, and they were as jealous and as cruel as Moors.
At Javita a salt is fabricated by the incineration of the spadix and fruit of the palm-tree seje or chimu. This fine palm-tree, which abounds on the banks of the Auvana, near the cataract of Guarinumo, and between Javita and the Cano Pimichin, appears to be a new species of cocoa-tree.
"Let me tell you about it," she hastened, nodding at the very words "buried treasure." "I suppose you know that the old Chimu tribes in the north were the wealthiest at the time of the coming of the Spaniards?" Craig nodded, and a moment later she resumed, as if trying to marshal her thoughts in a logical order. "They had a custom then of burying with their dead all their movable property.
"So you prefer this wretched pale-face woman to me?" "No, Mamcuna." "Why, then, did you help her to escape and kill her husband? Don't trifle with me." "Because I pitied her." "Why?" "Chimu treated her ill, and she was very wretched. She wanted to go back to her own country, and she has little children at home." "What was her wretchedness to you?
And then she told me that, while travelling in the mountains with her husband, a certain Señor de la Vega, and several friends, they were set upon by a band of Pachatupecs who, after killing all the male members of the party, carried her off and brought her to Pachacamac, where she had been compelled to become one of the wives of the cacique Chimu, and that between his brutality and the jealousy of the other women, her life, apart from its ignominy, was so utterly wretched that, unless she could escape, she must either go mad or be driven to commit suicide.
Lockwood seemed to regard Norton with a sort of aversion, if not hostility, and I fancied that Norton, on his part, neglected no opportunity to let the other know that he was watching him. "I don't know much about the story," resumed Lockwood a moment later as no one said anything. "But I do know that there is treasure in that great old Chimu mound near Truxillo.
"Back in the early part of the seventeenth century," she continued, leaning forward in her chair eagerly as she talked, "a Spaniard opened a Chimu huaca and found gold that is said to have been worth more than a million dollars. An Indian told him about it. Who the Indian was does not matter. But the Spaniard was an ancestor of Don Luis de Mendoza, who was found murdered to-day."
We found her sitting in her chinchura, in the room where she and I first met. Bather to my surprise she was calm and collected; yet there was a convulsive twitching of her lips and an angry glitter in her eyes that boded ill for my hopes of pardon. "Is it true, this they tell me, señor that you have been helping Chimu's wife to escape, and killed Chimu?" she asked. "It is true."
Mamcuna shall know of this, and my wife shall die." Still I made no answer. "Let me pass!" I drew my machete. Chimu drew his and came at me, but he was so poor a swordsman, that I merely played with him, my object being to gain time, and only when the other fellow tried to push past me and get to my left-rear, did I cut the cacique down. On this his companion bolted the way he had come.
The foot-people might do as they liked, they could not overtake the fugitives, but I was resolved that the horsemen should only pass over my body. The foremost of them was Chimu himself. The cacique was quivering with rage. "My wife has gone off with your negro," he said, hoarsely. I made no answer. "I saw you help her to mount. You have met her before.
Word Of The Day