ut the skull was shining black and red in patches, and a long
white beard flowed from beneath it. This man, mounted on a kind of altar
of red stone, waved his hand and yelled, and seemed to point to the
shadow of the column which fell across the square.

The people were so furious and so eager that they did not, at first,
notice King Prigio as he slowly descended. But at last the eyes within
the skull looked up and saw him, and then the man gave a great cry, rent
his glittering dress of serpentskin, and held up his hands.

Then all the multitude looked up, and seeing the Flying Horse, let their
weapons fall; and the man of the skull tore it from his face, and knelt
before King Prigio, with his head in the dust.

"Thou hast come, oh, Pachacamac, as is foretold in the prophecy of the
Cord of the Venerable Knots! Thou hast come, but behold the shadow of
the stone! Thou art too late, oh Lord of the Earth and the Sea!"

Then he pointed to the shadow, which, naturally, was growing shorter, as
the sun drew near mid-day.

He spoke in the language of the ancient Incas of Peru, which of course
Prigio knew very well; and he also knew that Pachacamac was the god of
that people.

"I have come," Prigio said, with presence of mind, "as it has been
prophesied of old."

"Riding on a beast that flies," said the old priest, "even as the oracle
declared. Glory to Pachacamac, even though we die to-day!"

"In what can I help my people?" said Prigio.

"Thou knowest; why should we instruct thee? Thou knowest that on
midsummer-day, every year, before the shadow shrinks back to the base of
the _huaca_ {190} of Manoa, we must offer a maiden to lull the
Earthquaker with a new song. Lo, now the shadow shrinks to the foot of
the _huaca_, and the maid is not offered! For the lot fell on the
daughter of thy servant the Inca, and he refuses to give her up. One
daughter of his, he says, has been sacrificed to the sacred birds, the
_Cunturs_: the birds were found slain on the hill-top, no man knows how;
but the maiden vanished."

"Why, it must have been Jaqueline. I killed the birds," said Ricardo, in
Pantouflian.

"Silence, not a word!" said the king, sternly.

"And what makes you bear arms against the Inca?" he asked the old man.

"We would slay him and her," answered the priest; "for, when the shadow
shrinks to the foot of the stone, the sun will shine straight down into
the hollow hill of the Earthquaker, and he will waken an