Gondocori made fast the canoe to a tree, and we stepped ashore.

We are on the summit of a spur which stands out like a bastion from the imposing mass of the Cordillera, through the very heart of which runs the mysterious waterway we have just traversed.  Two thousand feet or more below is a broad plain, bounded on the west by a range of gaunt and treeless hills ribbed with contorted rocks, which stretch north and south farther than the eye can reach.  The plain is cultivated and inhabited.  There are huts, fields, orchards, and streams, and about a league from the foot of the bastion is a large village.

“Pachatupec?” I asked.

“Si, senor, that is Pachatupec, a very fair land, as you see, and yonder is Pachacamac, where dwells our queen,” said Gondocori, pointing to the village; and then he fell into a brown study, as if he was not quite sure what to do next.

The sight of his home did not seem to rejoice the cacique as much as might be supposed.  The approaching interview with Mamcuna was obviously weighing heavily on his soul, and, to tell the truth, I rather shared his apprehensions.  A savage queen with a sharp temper who occasionally roasted people alive was not to be trifled with.  But as delay was not likely to help us, and I detest suspense, and, moreover, felt very hungry, I suggested that we had better go on to Pachacamac forthwith.

“Perhaps we had.  Yes, let us get it over,” he said, with a sigh.

After descending the bastion by a steep zigzag we turned into a pleasant foot-path, shaded by trees, and as we neared our destination we met (among other people) two tall Indians, whose condor-skull helmets denoted their lordly rank.  On recognizing Gondocori (who had lost his helmet in the snow-storm and looked otherwise much dilapidated) their surprise was literally unspeakable.  They first stared and then gesticulated.  When at length they found their tongues they overwhelmed him with questions, eying Gahra and me the while as if we were wild animals.  After a short conversation, of which, being in their own language, I could only guess the purport, the two caciques turned back and accompanied us to the village.  Save that there was no sign of a church, it differed little from many other villages which I had met with in my travels.  There were huts, mere roofs on stilts, cottages of wattle and dab, and flat-roofed houses built of sun-dried bricks.  Streets, there were none, the buildings being all over the place, as if they dropped from the sky or sprung up hap-hazard from the ground.

About midway in the village one of the caciques left us to inform the queen of our arrival and to ask her pleasure as to my reception.  The other cacique asked us into his house, and offered us refreshments.  Of what the dishes set before us were composed I had only the vaguest idea, but hunger is not fastidious and we ate with a will.

We had hardly finished when cacique number one, entering in breathless haste, announced that Queen Mumcuna desired to see us immediately, whereupon I suggested to Gondocori the expediency of donning more courtly attire, if there was any to be got.