the intentions of
Huanacocha and Xaxaguana toward him, when the sound of footsteps
approaching along the passage outside his door warned him that the
crisis was at hand, and the next moment the door was flung open and a
priest entered.

"My Lord," he said, "it is the command of the Villac Vmu that you
accompany me into his presence."

"The command, did you say?" retorted Harry. "Surely the Villac Vmu
strangely forgets himself and his position when he presumes to send
commands to the Inca. However," seeing that the passage outside was
full of armed men who were evidently quite prepared to enforce obedience
to the orders of the High Priest, he continued, "I will not stand upon
ceremony, or carp at a mere form of words, but will obey the summons of
the Villac Vmu. Yet, let him and all who hear me remember that I am the
Inca, and that my power to reward obedience is as great as it is to
punish presumption. Now, lead on."

The priest led the way into the passage, Harry following, and the moment
that the latter emerged from the room in which he had been confined an
armed guard of a dozen men closed in around him, rendering escape on his
part impossible. In this order the procession passed along the passage,
up the steps which Harry had descended upon his arrival, and thence
along a corridor into a room crowded with priests and civilians, where,
raised upon a dais, sat the Villac Vmu enthroned. Still surrounded by
the guard, Harry was halted in front of this dais, and directed to seat
himself in a handsome chair that had been placed there for his
reception. This done, the proceedings at once commenced, and Harry
immediately perceived that he was about to be subjected to some sort of
a trial, for no sooner was he seated than the Villac Vmu cried:

"Let my Lord Huanacocha stand forth."

There was a moment's bustle and confusion, and then from the midst of
the assembled crowd Huanacocha shouldered his way through, and placed
himself near Harry, but outside the encircling guards.

"My Lord Huanacocha," said the Villac Vmu, "at your instigation, and
because of certain representations made by you, I have taken the
unprecedented course of causing our Lord the Inca to be brought hither,
that he may answer, before those here assembled, to the charges which I
understand you desire to bring against him. State, therefore, those
charges; but before doing so ye shall swear by the Light of our Lord the
Sun that your motive in