



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive







THE BRIDE OF THE SUN

By Gaston Leroux

1915, McBride, Nabt & Co.




BOOK I--THE GOLDEN SUN BRACELET




I

As the liner steamed into Callao Roads, and long before it had
anchored, it was surrounded by a flotilla of small boats. A moment
later, deck, saloons and cabins were invaded by a host of gesticulating
and strong-minded boatmen, whose badges attested that they were duly
licensed to carry off what passengers and luggage they could. They raged
impotently, however, round Francis Montgomery, F.R.S., who sat enthroned
on a pile of securely locked boxes in which were stored his cherished
manuscripts and books.

It was in vain that they told him it would be two full hours before the
ship came alongside the Darsena dock. Nothing would part him from his
treasures, nothing induce him to allow these half-crazed foreigners to
hurl his precious luggage overside into those frail-looking skiffs.

When this was suggested to him by a tall young man who called him uncle,
the irascible scientist explained with fluency and point that the idea
was an utterly ridiculous one. So Dick Montgomery shrugged his broad
shoulders, and with a “See you presently,” that hardly interrupted his
uncle’s flow of words, beckoned to a boatman.

A moment later he had left the ship’s side and was nearing the
shore--the Eldorado of his young ambition, the land of gold and legends,
the Peru of Pizarro and the Incas. Then the thought of a young girl’s
face blotted out those dreams to make way for new ones.

The monotonous outline of the waterfront brought no disappointment.
Little did he care that the city stretched out there before his eyes was
little more than a narrow, unbeautiful blur along the sea coast, that
there were none of those towers, steeples or minarets with which our
ancient ports beckon out to sea that the traveler is welcome. Even when
his boat had passed the Mole, and they drew level with the modern works
of the Muelle Darsena, well calculated to excite the interest of a
younger engineer, he remained indifferent.

He had asked the boatman where the Calle de Lima lay, and his eyes
hardly left the part of the city which had been pointed out to him in
reply. At the landing stage he threw a hand-full of centavos to his man,
and shouldered his way through the press of guides, interpreters, hotel
touts and other waterside parasites.

Soon he was before the Calle de Lima, a thoroughfare which seemed to be
the boundary line between the old city and the new. Above, to the east,
was the business section--streets broad or narrow fronted with big,
modern buildings that were the homes of English, French, German, Italian
and Spanish firms without number. Below, to the west, a network of
tortuous rows and alleys, full of color, with colonnades and verandahs
encroaching on every available space.

Dick plunged into this labyrinth, shouldered by muscular Chinamen
carrying huge loads, and by lazy Indians. Here and there was to be seen
a sailor leaving or entering one of the many cafés which opened their
doors into the cool bustle of the narrow streets. Though it was his
first visit to Callao, the young man hardly hesitated in his way. Then
he stopped short against a decrepit old wall close to a verandah from
which came the sound of a fresh young voice, young but very assured.

“Just as you like, señor,” it said in Spanish. “But at that price your
fertilizer can only be of an inferior quality.”

For a few minutes the argument went on within. Then there was an
exchange of courteous farewells and a door was closed. Dick approached
the balcony and looked into the room. Seated before an enormous ledger
was a young girl, busily engaged in transcribing figures into a little
note-book attached by a gold chain to the daintiest of waists. Her
face, a strikingly beautiful one, was a little set under its crown of
coal-black hair as she bent over her task. It was not the head of
a languorous Southern belle--rather the curls of Carmen helmeting a
blue-eyed Minerva, a little goddess of reason of today and a thorough
business-woman. At last she lifted her head.

“Maria-Teresa?...”

“Dick!”

The heavy green ledger slipped and crashed to the floor, as she ran
toward him both hands outstretched.

“Well, and how is business?”

“So, so.... And how are you?... But we did not expect you till
to-morrow.”

“We made rather a good passage.”

“And how is May?”

“She’s a very grown-up person now. I suppose you’ve heard? Her second
baby was born just before we left.”

“And dear smoky old London?”

“It was raining hard when last I saw it.”

“But where is your uncle?”

“Still on board. He won’t leave his collection.... Does nothing all
day but take notes for his next book.... Wait a minute, I’ll come in.
Where’s the door? I suppose it would be bad form to climb in through the
window? Won’t I be in the way, though? You seem awfully busy.”

“I am, but you may come in. Round the corner there, and the first door
on your right.”

He followed her indications and found an archway leading into a huge
courtyard crowded with Chinese coolies and Quichua Indians. A huge dray,
coming from the direction of the harbor, rumbled under the archway, and
wheeled in the court to let an empty one pass out. People and things
seemed to unite in making as much dust and noise as possible.

“So she manages all this,” he reflected as he made his way toward a door
at which she had appeared.

“You may kiss me,” she said as she closed the door behind them.

He took her in his arms and held her to him, by far the more troubled of
the two. Again it was she who spoke first.

“So you really have not forgotten?”

“Could you believe it, dear?”

“Well, you were so long in coming.”

“But I wrote, and...”

“Well, never mind now. It is not too late. I have just refused my fourth
suitor, Don Alonso de Cuelar. And father, I think, is furious with me
for refusing the most eligible young man in Lima.... Well, why don’t you
say something?”

“Forgive me, dear.... How is your father? and the kiddies?... I hardly
know what I am saying, I am so glad.”

“Father is very well, and very glad to hear that you were coming. To
tell the truth though, he is far more interested in your uncle’s visit.
He has arranged a meeting at the Geographical Society for him. And
for the past month he has been thinking and talking of nothing but
archaeology. They have been digging up all sorts of things.”

“And so he has been angry with you?”

“He seems to think he has every reason to be. I am twenty-three and he
already sees me an old maid.... It’s awfully funny! Do you know what
they call me in Lima now? The Virgin of the Sun!”

“What does that mean?”

“Aunt Agnes and Aunt Irene will explain better than I can. It’s
something like one of the Vestals--an old Inca legend.”

“H’m, some superstitious rot.... But look here, Maria-Teresa, I’m an
awful coward. Do you think your father...”

“Of course! He’ll do anything I like if he is asked at the right moment
We’ll be married in three months’ time from San Domingo. Truly we will!”

“You dear!... But I’m only a poor devil of an engineer, and he may not
think me much of a son-in-law for the Marquis de la Torre.”

“Nonsense, you’re clever, and I make you a gift of the whole of Peru.
There’s plenty to do there for an engineer.”

“I can hardly believe my luck, Maria-Teresa! That I--I.... But, tell me,
how did it all happen?”

“The old, old way. First you are neighbors, or meet by accident. Then
you are friends... just friends, nothing else.... And then...?”

Their hands joined, and they remained thus for a moment, in silence.

Suddenly, a burst of noise came from the courtyard, and a moment later
a hurried knock announced the entrance of an excited employee. At the
sight of the stranger, he stopped short, but Maria-Teresa told him to
speak. Dick, who both understood and spoke Spanish well, listened.

“The Indians are back from the Islands, señorita. There has been trouble
between them and the Chinamen. One coolie was killed and three were
badly wounded.”

Maria-Teresa showed no outward sign of emotion. Her voice hardened as
she asked:--

“Where did it happen... in the Northern Islands?”

“No, at Chincha.”

“Then Huascar was there?”

“Yes, señorita. He came back with them, and is outside.”

“Send him in to me.”




II

The man went out, signing as he went to a stalwart Indian who walked
quietly into the office. Maria-Teresa, back at her desk, hardly raised
her eyes. The newcomer, who took off his straw sombrero with a sweep
worthy of a hidalgo of Castille, was a Trigullo Indian. These
are perhaps the finest tribe of their race and claim descent from
Manco-Capac, first king of the Incas. A mass of black hair, falling
nearly to his shoulders, framed a profile which might have been copied
from a bronze medallion. His eyes, strangely soft as he looked at the
young girl before him, provoked immediate antagonism from Dick. He was
wrapped in a bright- poncho, and a heavy sheath-knife hung from
his belt.

“Tell me how it happened,” ordered Maria-Teresa without returning the
Indian’s salute.

Under his rigid demeanor, it was evident that he resented this tone
before a stranger. Then he began to speak in Quichua, only to be
interrupted and told to use Spanish. The Indian frowned and glanced
haughtily at the listening engineer.

“I am waiting,” said Maria-Teresa. “So your Indians have killed one of
my coolies?”

“The shameless ones laughed because our Indians fired cohetes in honor
of the first quarter of the moon.”

“I do not pay your Indians to pass their time in setting off fireworks.”

“It was the occasion of the Noble Feast of the Moon.”

“Yes, I know! The moon, and the stars, and the sun, and every Catholic
festival as well! Your Indians do nothing but celebrate. They are lazy,
and drunkards. I have stood them, so far because they were your friends,
and you have always been a good servant, but this is too much.”

“The shameless sons of the West are not your servants. They do not love
you....”

“No, but they work.”

“For nothing... They have no pride.

“They are the sons of dogs.”

“They earn their wages.... Your men, I keep out of charity!”

“Charity!” The Indian stepped back as if struck, and his hand, swung
clear of the poncho, was lifted over his head as if in menace. Then it
dropped and he strode to the door. But before opening it, he turned and
spoke rapidly in Quichua, his eyes flaming. Then, throwing his poncho
oyer his shoulder, he went out.

Maria-Teresa sat silent for a while, toying with her pencil.

“What did he say?” asked Dick.

“That he was going, and that I should never see him again.”

“He looked furious.”

“Oh, he is not dangerous. It is a way they have. He says he did
everything he could to prevent the trouble.... He is a good man himself,
but his gang are hopeless. You have no idea what a nuisance these
Indians are. Proud as Lucifer, and as lazy as drones.... I shall never
employ another one.”

“Wouldn’t that make trouble?”

“It might! But what else can I do? I can’t have all my coolies killed
off like that.”

“And what of Huascar?”

“He will do as he pleases.... He was brought up in the place, and was
devoted to my mother.”

“It must be hard for him to leave.”

“I suppose so.”

“And you wouldn’t do anything to keep him?”

“No.... Goodness, we are forgetting all about your uncle!” She rang,
and a man came in. “Order the motor.... By the way, what are the Indians
doing?”

“They’ve left with Huascar.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, señorita.”

“Without saying a word?”

“Not a word, señorita.”

“Who paid them off?”

“They refused to take any money. Huascar ordered them to.”

“And what of the Island coolies?”

“They have not been near the place.”

“But the dead man... and the wounded?”

“The Chinamen take them back to their own quarters.”

“Funny people.... Tell them to bring the motor round.”

While speaking she had put on a bonnet, and now drew on her gloves.

“I shall drive,” she said to the liveried <DW64> boy who brought round
the car.

As they shot toward the Muelle Darsena, Dick admired the coolness
with which she took the machine through the twisting streets. The boy,
crouching at their feet, was evidently used to the speed, and showed no
terror as they grazed walls and corners.

“Do you do a great deal of motoring out here?”

“No, not very much. The roads are too bad. I always use this to get from
Callao to Lima, and there are one or two runs to the seaside, to places
like Ancon or Carillos--just a minute, Dick.”

She stopped the car, and waved her hand to a curly gray head which had
appeared at a window, between two flower pots. This head reappeared at
a low door, on the shoulders of a gallant old gentleman in sumptuous
uniform. Maria-Teresa jumped out of the motor, exchanged a few sentences
with him, and then rejoined Dick again.

“That was the Chief of Police,” she explained. “I told him about
that affair. There will be no trouble unless the Chinamen take legal
proceedings, which is not likely.”

They reached the steamers’ landing stage in time. The tugs had only just
brought alongside the Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s liner, on board
which Uncle Francis was still taking notes:--“On entering the port of
Callao, one is struck, etc., etc.” He lost precious material by not
being with Maria-Teresa as she enthusiastically described “her harbor”
 to Dick.... Sixty millions spent in improvements... 50,000 square
meters of docks.... How she loved it all for its commercial bustle, for
its constant coming and going of ships, for its intense life, and all
it meant--the riches that would flow through it after the opening of the
Panama Canal... the renascence of Peru.... Chili conquered and Santiago
crushed... the defeat of 1878 avenged... and San Francisco yonder had
best look to itself!

Dick, listening to the girl at his side, was amazed to hear her give
figures with as much authority as an engineer, estimate profits as
surely as, a shipowner. What a splendid little brain it was, and how
much better than that imaginative, dreaming type which he deplored both
in men and women, a type exemplified by his uncle with all his chimeric
hypotheses.

“It would all be so splendid,” she added, frowning, “if we only stopped
making fools of ourselves. But we are always doing it.”

“In what way?”

“With our revolutions!”

They were now standing on the quay, while the liner gradually swung in.

“Oh, are they at it here as well? We found one on in Venezuela, and then
another at Guayaquil. The city was under martial law, and some general
or other who had been in power for about forty-eight hours was preparing
to march on Quito and wipe out the government.”

“Yes, it is like an epidemic,” went on the young girl, “an epidemic
which is sweeping the Andes just now. The news from Boloisa is worrying
me, too. Things are bad round Lake Titicaca.”

“Not really! That’s a nuisance... not a cheerful outlook for my business
in the Cuzco.” Dick was evidently put out by the news.

“I had not intended telling you about it until to-morrow. You must not
think of unpleasant things to-day... all that district is in the hands
of Garcia’s men now.”

“Who is Garcia?”

“Oh, one of my old suitors.”

“Has everybody in the country been in love with you, Maria-Teresa?”

“Well, I had the attraction of having been brought up abroad... at the
first presidential ball I went to after mother’s death there was no
getting rid of them.... Garcia was there. And now he has raised the
revolt among the Arequipa and Cuzco Indians.... He wants Vointemilla’s
place as president.”

“I suppose they have sent troops against them?”

“Oh, yes, the two armies are out there... but, of course, they are not
fighting.”

“Why?”

“Because of the festival of the Interaymi.”

“And what on earth is that?”

“The Festival of the Sun.... You see, three quarters, of the troops on
both sides are Indian.... So, of course, they get drunk together during
the fêtes.... In the end, Garcia will be driven over the Boloisan
border, but in the meantime he is playing the very mischief with
fertilizer rates.”

She turned toward the liner again, and, catching sight of Uncle Francis,
raised her hand in reply to the frantic waving of a notebook.

“How are you, Mr. Montgomery?” she cried. “Did you enjoy the crossing?”

The gangways were run out, and they went on board.

Mr. Montgomery’s first question was the same as had been his nephew’s.

“Well, and how is business?”

For all those who knew her in Europe had marveled at the change which
had come over the “little girl” at her mother’s death, and her sudden
determination to return to Peru and herself take charge of the family’s
fertilizer business and concessions. She had also been influenced in
this decision by the fact that there were her little brother and sister,
Isabella and Christobal, who needed her care. And finally there was her
father, perhaps the greatest child of the three, who had always royally
spent the money which his wife’s business brought in.

Maria-Teresa’s mother, the daughter of a big Liverpool shipowner, met
the handsome Marquis de la Torre one summer when he was an attaché at
the Peruvian legation in London. The following winter she went back to
Peru with him. Inheriting a great deal of her father’s business acumen,
she made a great success of a guano concession which her husband had
hitherto left unexploited.

At first the marquis protested vigorously that the wife of Christobal de
la Torre should not work, but when he found that he could draw almost to
any extent on an ever-replenishing exchequer, he forgave her for making
him so wealthy. Yet on his wife’s death did he find it surprising
that Maria-Teresa should have inherited her abilities, and allowed the
daughter to take over all the duties which had been the mother’s.

“And where is your father, my dear?” asked Uncle Francis, still with a
wary eye on his luggage.

“He did not expect to see you until to-morrow. They are going to give
you such a reception! The whole Geographical Society is turning out in
your honor.”

When his luggage had been taken to the station, and he had personally
supervised its registration for Lima, Uncle Francis at last consented
to take a seat in the motor, and Maria-Teresa put on full speed, for she
wished to reach home before the early tropical nightfall.

After passing a line of adobe houses and a few comfortable villas,
they came to a long stretch of marshy ground, overgrown with reeds and
willows, and spotted with clumps of banana trees and tamarisks,
with here and there an eucalyptus or an araucaria pine. The whole
countryside was burnt yellow by the sun, by a drought hardly ever
relieved by a drop of rain, and which makes the campo round Lima and
Callao anything but enchanting. A little further along they passed some
scattered bamboo and adobe huts.

This parched landscape would have been infinitely desolate had it not
been relieved at intervals by the luxuriant growth surrounding some
hacienda--sugar-cane, maize and rice plantations, making a brilliant
green oasis round the white farm buildings. The badly-built clay roads
which crossed the highway were peopled by droves of cattle, heavy carts,
and flocks of sheep which mounted shepherds were bringing back to the
farms. And all this animation formed a strange contrast to the arid
aspect of the surrounding country. In spite of the jolting shaking of
the car over a poorly kept road, Uncle Francis kept taking notes, and
even more notes. Soon, with the lower spurs of the Cordilleras, they saw
on the horizon the spires and domes which make Lima look almost like a
Mussulman city.

They were now running alongside the Rimac, a stream infested by
crayfish. <DW64> fishermen were to be seen every few yards dragging
behind them in the water sacks attached to their belts, and in which
they threw their catch to keep it alive. Turning to comment on them,
Dick noticed Maria-Teresa’s preoccupied air, and asked her the cause.

“It is very strange,” she said, “we have not met a single Indian.”

The motor was almost in Lima now, having reached the famous Ciudad de
los Reyes, the City of Kings founded by the Conquistador. Maria-Teresa,
who loved her Lima, and wished to show it off, made a detour, swerving
from the road and running a short distance along the stony bed of
dried-up Rimac, careless of the risk to her tires.

Certainly the picturesque corner to which she brought them was worth the
detour. The walls of the houses could hardly be seen, overgrown, as it
were, with wooden galleries and balconies. Some of them were for all
the world like finely carved boxes, adorned with a hundred
arabesques--little rooms suspended in mid-air, with mysterious bars and
trellised shutters, and strongly reminiscent of Peru or Bagdad. Only
here it was not rare to see women’s faces half hidden in the shadows,
though in no way hiding. For the ladies of Lima are famed for their
beauty and coquetry. They were to be seen here in the streets, wearing
the manta, that fine black shawl which is wrapped round the head and
shoulders and which no woman in South America uses with so much grace as
the girl of Lima. Like the haik of the Mor, the manta hides all but two
great dark eyes, but its wearer can, when she wishes, throw it aside
just enough to give a sweet glimpse of harmonious features and a
complexion made even more white by the provoking shadow of the veil.
Dick had this amply proved to him, and seemed so interested that
Maria-Teresa began to scold.

“They are far too attractive in those mantas,” she said. “I shall show
you some Europeans now.”

She turned the car up an adjoining street, which brought them to the
new city, to broad roads and avenues opening up splendid vistas of the
distant Andes. They crossed the Paseo Amancaes, which is the heart of
the Mayfair of Lima, and Maria-Teresa several times exchanged bows with
friends and acquaintances. Here the black manta was replaced by Paris
hats overdressed from the rue de la Paix, for its discreet shadow is
too discreet to be correct at nightfall. It was the hour at which all
fashionable Lima was driving or walking, or gossiping in the tearooms,
where one loiters happily over helados in an atmosphere of chiffons,
flirting and politics. When they reached the Plaza Mayor, the first
stars had risen on the horizon. The crowd was dense, and carriages
advanced only at a walking pace. Women dressed as for the ball, with
flowers in their dark curls, passed in open carriages. Young men grouped
round a fountain in the center of the square, raised their hats and
smiled into passing victorias.

“It really is strange,” murmured Maria-Teresa, “not an Indian in sight!”

“Do they generally come to this part of the city, then?”

“Yes, there are always some who come to watch the people come past....”

Standing in front of a café was a group of half-breeds, talking
politics. One could distinctly hear the names of Garcia and Vointemilla,
the president, neither of them treated over gently. One of the group,
evidently a shopkeeper, was moaning his fears of a return to the era of
pronunciamentos.

The car turned at the corner of the cathedral, and entered a rather
narrow street. Seeing the way clear, Maria-Teresa put on speed only to
pull up sharply a second later, just in time to avoid running down a man
wrapped in a poncho, who stood motionless in the middle of the street.
Both young people recognized him.

“Huascar!” exclaimed Maria-Teresa.

“Huascar, señorita, who begs you to take another road.”

“The road is free to all, Huascar. Stand aside.”

“Huascar has nothing more to say to the señorita. To pass, she must pass
over Huascar.”

Dick half rose in his seat, as if to intervene, but Maria-Teresa put a
hand on his sleeve.

“You behave very strangely, Huascar,” she said. “Why are there no
Indians in the town to-day?”

“Huascar’s brethren do as they please, they are free men.”

She shrugged her shoulders, thought a moment, and began to turn the car
round.

Before starting again, however, she spoke to the Indian, who had not
moved.

“Are you always my friend, Huascar?”

For an answer, the Indian slowly raised his sombrero, and looked up to
the early stars, as if calling them to witness. With a brief “Adios!”
 Maria-Teresa drove on.

When the motor stopped again, it was before a big house, the door-keeper
of which rushed out to help his young mistress to alight. He was
forestalled, however, by the Marquis de la Torre himself, who had just
driven up, and who greeted the two Montgomerys with delight. “Enter,
señor. This house is yours,” he said grandly to Uncle Francis.

The Marquis was a slim little gentleman of excessive smartness, dressed
almost like a young man. When he moved and he was hardly ever still, he
seemed to radiate brilliancy: from his eyes, his clothes, his jewels.
But for all that, he was never undignified, and kept his grand manner
without losing his vivacity in circumstances when others would have
had to arm themselves with severity. Outside his club and the study of
geographical questions he cared for nothing so much as romping with his
son Christobal, a sturdy youngster of seven. At times one might have
taken them for playmates on a holiday from the same school, filling the
house with their noise, while little Isabella, who was nearly six, and
loved ceremony, scolded them pompously, after the manner of an Infanta.




III

The Marquis de la Torre’s residence was half modern, half historical,
with here and there quaint old-fashioned rooms and corners. Don
Christobal was something of a collector, and had adorned his home with
ancient paneling, carved galleries several centuries old, rude furniture
dating back to before the conquest, faded tapestry--all so many relics
of the various towns of old Peru which his ancestors had first sacked
and then peopled. And each object recalled some anecdote or Story which
the host detailed at length to all willing listeners.

It was in one of these historical corners that Mr. Montgomery and his
nephew were presented to two old ladies--two Velasquez canvases brought
to life, yet striving to retain all their pictorial dignity. Attired
after a fashion long since forgotten, Aunt Agnes and her duenna might
almost have been taken for antiques of Don Christobal’s collection: they
lived altogether in another age, and their happiest moments were those
passed in telling fear-inspiring legends. All the tales of old Peru
had a home in this ancient room of theirs, and many an evening had been
whiled away there by these narratives