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"About that we do not know," he replied. "Except that we do know that Mansiche was the great Cacique or ruler of northern Peru. The natives are believed to have buried a far greater treasure than even that which the Spaniards carried off.
There was an appealing look now in her soft deep-brown eyes, and her thin, delicate lips trembled as she hurried on with her strange story. "I never saw my father in such a state before," she murmured. "For days all he had talked about was the 'big fish, the peje grande, whatever that might mean and the curse of Mansiche." The recollection of the past few days seemed to be too much for her.
Why, some of the temples were literally plated over heavily with pure gold. That gold, as well as what had been buried in the huacas, was sacred. Mansiche, the supreme ruler, laid a curse on it, on any Indian who would tell of it, on any Spaniard who might learn of it. A curse lies on the finding yes, even on the searching for the sacred Gold of the Gods.
Her face, which had already been startled into an expression of fear at his mention of Lockwood, now was pale. "Other warnings?" she repeated tremulously. Quickly Kennedy explained what had already happened to us, watching the effect on her as he read of the curse of Mansiche and the Gold of the Gods.
"I've been thinking a good deal of your visit to me just now," he began, seating himself beside us. "Perhaps I should not have said what I did about your friend Norton. But I couldn't help it. I guess you know something about that dagger he lost, don't you?" "I have heard of the 'great fish' and the 'little fish' and the 'curse of Mansiche," replied Kennedy, "if that is what you mean.
That is my answer to your inquiry about the treasure-hunting company you mentioned, whatever it may be. I need say no more of the curse of Mansiche. Is the Gold of the Gods worth it?" There could be no denying that it was real to her, whatever we might think of the story. I recollected the roughly printed warnings that had been sent to Norton, Leslie, Kennedy, and myself.
One version of the story tells that an Inca ruler, the great Cacique Mansiche, had observed with particular attention the kindness of a young Spaniard toward the people of the conquered race. Also, he had observed that the man was comparatively poor.
Either the curse of Mansiche on the treasure was as real to her as if its mere touch were poisonous, or else she was going out of her way to create that impression with us. "Somehow," she continued, in a low tone, "that Spaniard, the ancestor of Don Luis Mendoza, obtained some idea of the secret.
He had raised his voice from the whisper, and I caught Inez looking anxiously at Kennedy, as much as to say, "You see? He is like the rest. His mind is full of only one subject." "We shall find it, too," he continued, still speaking in a high- pitched key, "no matter what obstacles man or devil put in our way. It shall be ours for a simple piece of engineering ours! The curse of Mansiche pouf!"
"What is this 'curse of Mansiche' which the Senorita has mentioned?" asked Kennedy, seeing a chance to open a new line of inquiry with Lockwood. "Oh, I don't know," he returned, impatiently flicking the ashes of a cigarette which he had lighted the moment Inez left the room, as though such stories had no interest for the practical mind of an engineer. "Some old superstition, I suppose."
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