behaviour than himself; for he had sprung to his feet without the
ghost of a notion of what he meant to say, animated only by the one
great and overmastering impulse to save the life of Umu's daughter and
rescue a household from a great and terrible grief. But the words had
leapt to his lips, and he had spoken as one under the influence of
inspiration, without thought, or pause, or hesitation. In the very
building devoted to the worship of that object which, ever since Peru
became a nation, had been the especial veneration of its inhabitants, he
had stood up and boldly denounced the worship of the Sun as idolatry;
had told them that their religious beliefs were all wrong, and had
unceremoniously broken in upon and put a stop to the most impressive
ceremony in their ritual, and had forbidden certain practices hallowed
by ages of religious teaching! And now, what was to be the result?
Would the priests and the congregation rise up as one man and tear the
audacious young innovator limb from limb, or offer him up as a sacrifice
on the altar from which he had essayed to snatch its destined victim, to
propitiate their outraged deity? The sensation produced on all sides as
Tiahuana had translated Escombe's denunciation, sentence by sentence,
was tremendous, and grew in intensity as the denunciation proceeded.
But whether the emotion excited was that of anger, or of blank
astonishment, the young man could not determine; nor, to speak the
truth, did he very greatly care, for he felt that he was doing his duty
regardless of the possibility of the most ghastly peril to himself.
Indeed there are few possibilities more dreadful than those attendant
upon the bearding of a multitude of fanatical idolators and the
denouncing of the objects of their idolatry. Everything, or almost
everything, would depend entirely upon the view which Tiahuana and the
priests took of Harry's conduct. If, after that uncompromisingly
outspoken attack upon the worship of the Sun--the fundamental principle
of their religion--Tiahuana's belief in the theory that Escombe was
indeed the re-incarnation of the first Manco, foretold by the prophet
Titucocha, remained unshaken, all might yet be well; but if not--!

For some minutes excitement and consternation reigned supreme over that
vast assembly, yet there was nothing approaching tumult or disorder in
the behaviour of the people; the points raised by the young Inca's
message were evidently of such tremend