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Updated: June 29, 2025
The place was now vacant, and if I succeeded in restoring her to health she would make me his successor and always have me near her person. I cannot say that I regarded this prospect as particularly encouraging; nevertheless, I tried to look pleased and told Gondocori to assure the queen of my gratitude and devotion and ask her to show me her tongue.
Meanwhile, I was to take up my quarters in her own house, and she ordered the caciques to send me forthwith three suits of clothes, my own, as she rightly remarked, not being suitable for a man of my position. "Now, did not I tell you?" said Gondocori, as we left the room. "Oh, we are going on swimmingly; and it is all my doing.
The stream, if that can be called a stream which does not move, had many branches, and we could well believe, as Gondocori told us, that it was as easy to lose one's self in this watery labyrinth as in a tropical forest. In all Pachatupec there were not ten men besides himself who could pilot a boat through its windings.
"What security have I for this? How do I know that when I am in your power you will carry out the compact?" "You have heard the word of Gondocori. See, I will swear it on the emblem you most respect." And the cacique pressed his lips to the cross which hung from Ignacio's neck.
We dismount and try to drag them after us, but even then they refuse to move. "If they won't come they must die; and unless we hurry on we shall die, too. Forward!" cried Gondocori, himself setting the example. Never did I battle so hard for very life as in that gully. The snow nearly blinded me, the wind took my breath away, forced me backward, and beat me to the earth again and again.
He did, however, tell me that his people called their country Pachatupec and themselves Pachatupecs, that the Spaniards had never subdued them or even penetrated into the fastnesses where they dwelt, and that they spoke the ancient language of Peru. Gondocori admitted that his mother was a Christian, and to her he no doubt owed his notions of religion and the regularity of his features.
"Si, señor, that is Pachatupec, a very fair land, as you see, and yonder is Pachacamac, where dwells our queen," said Gondocori, pointing to the village; and then he fell into a brown study, as if he was not quite sure what to do next. The sight of his home did not seem to rejoice the cacique as much as might be supposed.
Gondocori said very little about his country, still less about Queen Mamcuna, whom he also called "Great Mother." To my frequent questions on these subjects he made always the same answer: "Patience, you will see."
Presently Gahra sighs and opens his eyes, and a few minutes later is able to stand up and walk about. He can tell very little of what passed in the gully. He had followed Gondocori and myself, and was not far behind us. He remembered plunging into the snow-drift and struggling on until he fell on his face, and then all was a blank.
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