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Updated: May 9, 2025
As soon as he was safe, Tupac told the other soldiers to take their places along the walls, and they did so in silence, yet wondering greatly at all they saw. After them came Anahuac and Ainu and the rest of the Men of the Blood, bringing with them Djama and the professor blindfolded, and Francis Hartness with his eyes unbound.
Some obeyed, others, when they saw the guns trained on them, ran away and hid themselves in doorways, and then Hartness gave the order to fire. Instantly every sound was drowned by the terrible voices of the machine-guns. Hartness glanced once along the barrel of his, and then sent a torrent of bullets full into the middle of the broken column that had come down from the Plaza Del Cabildo.
I thought it was so important that all this should be kept secret? Surely no one has betrayed you already? But no, that can't be. Hartness, what does it all mean? 'It means first, I said, speaking very slowly, and not in a loud voice, 'that you have been brought here with Laurens Djama to take the oath which you agreed to take never to reveal the secrets of the things that you have learned.
Although Hartness was a much taller and broader man than the Spaniard, his long, loose overcoat fitted him well enough for the occasion, and when he had put on his shako, and wrapped his scarf about his neck so as to hide his fair beard, he was disguised enough to pass in the darkness for one of the enemy. We now took the two soldiers who had been with the officer and visited all the posts.
Hartness stood beside me unharmed, but old Ullullo, the first friend that I had made in my new life among my own people, lay dead behind my throne with a bullet through his forehead. I had not forgotten that old training which taught an Inca warrior to look on near-approaching death with unmoved eyes and unshaken heart, and this was only such a hazard as I had taken a score of times before.
She had broken away from both her brother and Francis Hartness, and as she said the last words she was leaning over Golden Star's pillow, softly stroking her hair; and then she stooped lower and kissed her forehead. Then the others came up to the bedside, Francis Hartness and Djama in front, and the professor standing silent and wondering behind them.
I had been talking of many things with Francis Hartness on the way, and showing him how in the olden times we had made use of the secret passages such as those he had already seen, and when we saw that we had come out by a way different to that which we had entered, he asked me the reason of it, and I answered him in a low voice and said, 'Because the other way is closed.
The Spaniard made no resistance, and when he was bidden crept, trembling like a hound that has been flogged, into his cell, and when they were both in I ordered the openings to be built up. Francis Hartness and the professor had gone away to the other end of the hall, not liking to see this, and yet knowing that it would be useless to seek to persuade me to more mercy.
They were carried up to my own room, and there, in the presence of Djama and Joyful Star, the professor and Francis Hartness, I took out the gold ingots and built them up in a pyramid before them. I could see from their amazement that, whether from fear or faith, Djama had obeyed me, and said nothing of what he had seen during the night. As for me, I said but little.
'Well, said Hartness, with a dry sort of laugh, 'you see he was the victim of the two passions that have done most to drive men mad or make scoundrels of them since the world began the love of woman and the lust for gold.
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