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Updated: May 5, 2025
Some forty-eight hours passed; in that perpetual blackness there was no such thing as day. We saw no one save Desiree and the serving men. Once a messenger appeared carrying a bundle of quipos; I was able to decipher their meaning sufficiently to understand that we were invited to some religious ceremony in the great cavern.
I stood several feet away, holding one of the golden clubs in my hand, thinking it unnecessary to rouse Harry until the space was wide enough to cause apprehension. Or rather, because I had no fear of an assault I was convinced that our ruse had succeeded, and that they were about to communicate with us by means of the quipos. The stone was raised a little over a foot, then became stationary.
Evidently the good Pachacamac approved whatever suggestions the royal priest communicated, for he rose to his feet with a solemn grin and strutted majestically to the rear, facing the frame of quipos. It was evident that he no longer had faith in Desiree's interpretation of the divine will of the great Pachacamac. It is a royal privilege to be able to judge your own enemies.
She rose and walked to the frame of quipos and took in her hand the knife which she found there suspended by a cord. There she hesitated, with the knife poised in the air, while her eyes sought mine and found them. I felt a tug at my arm, but I had no time for Harry then. I was looking at Desiree, and what I saw caused a cold shudder to flutter through my body.
Do you think they would have condemned their precious king to starvation?" "Then the king can save us!" "And how?" "Our lives for his. We'll give him nothing to eat, and if, as you say, they have some way of watching us, they'll be forced to negotiate. You can talk with the quipos, and tell them that unless they give us our freedom and let us go in safety they'll have a dead king.
But this apparent antipathy bothered his kingship not at all; it was probably a most agreeable sensation to feel her soft, white flesh under his black, hairy hand, and he kept it there, while with the other arm he made a series of sweeping gestures which I understood at once, but which had no meaning for Desiree. By her hand he meant the quipos to speak.
When they may have occasion to recollect at a distance of time the tale of any commodities they are carrying to market, or the like, the country people often assist their memory by tying knots on a string, which is produced when they want to specify the number. The Peruvian quipos were I suppose an improvement upon this simple invention.
But I thought it injudicious to allow a meeting between Harry and the king, and returned a polite refusal. It may be of interest to some to know the method, which was extremely simple, as in ordinary communications the quipos are easy to read. I removed two knots from the white cord the sign of affirmative and placed two additional ones on the black cord the sign of negative.
We had a friend in court, but she was dumb, and I must give her voice. There was no time to be lost; I stepped to the edge of the column and spoke in a voice loud enough to carry across the cavern which was not difficult in the universal silence. "He means that you are to judge us by the quipos. The meaning is this yellow, slavery, white, mercy; purple, reward; black, death.
"Probably nothing more important than a bundle of quipos. Lord, I'm sleepy!" Still the stone moved upward, very slowly. It reached a height of two feet, yet did not halt. "This is no quipos" said Harry, "or if it is, they must be going to send us in a whole library. Six inches would have been enough for that." I nodded, keeping my eyes on the ever-widening space at our feet.
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