Then, seeing by his face that something had happened, I turned my eyes again on the Inca in the room.  He had turned about, squarely facing us.  As we stood motionless he took a hasty step forward; we had been discovered.

There was but one thing to do, and we didn’t hesitate about doing it.  We leaped forward together, crossing the intervening space in a single bound, and bore the Inca to the floor under us.

My fingers were round his throat, Harry sat on him.  In a trice we had him securely bound and gagged, using some strips of hide which we found suspended from the ceiling.

“By gad!” exclaimed Harry in a whisper.  “Look at him!  He’s a woman!”

It was quite evident—­disgustingly so.  Her eyes, dull and sunken, appeared as two large, black holes set back in her skull.  Her hair, matted about her forehead and shoulders, was thick and coarse, and blacker than night.  Her body was innocent of any attempt at covering.

Altogether, not a very pleasant sight; and we bundled her into a corner and proceeded to look round the room, being careful to remain out of the range of view from the corridor as far as possible.

The room was not luxuriously furnished.  There were two seats of stone, and a couch of the same material covered with thick hides.  In one corner was a pile of copper vessels; in another two or three of stone, rudely carved.  Some torn hides lay in a heap near the center of the room.  From the ceiling were suspended other hides and some strips of dried fish.

Some of the latter we cut down with the points of our spears and retired with it to a corner.

“Ought we to ask our hostess to join us?” Harry grinned.

“This tastes good, after the other,” I remarked.

Hungry as we were, we made sad havoc with the lady’s pantry.  Then we found some water in a basin in the corner and drank—­not without misgivings.  But we were too thirsty to be particular.

Then Harry became impatient to go on, and though I had no liking for the appearance of that long row of open doorways, I did not demur.  Taking up our spears, we stepped out into the corridor and turned to the right.

We found ourselves running a gantlet wherein discovery seemed certain.  The right wall was one unbroken series of open doorways, and in each of the rooms, whose interiors we could plainly see, were one or more of the Inca Women; and sometimes children rolled about on the stony floor.

In one of them a man stood; I could have sworn that he was gazing straight at us, and I gathered myself together for a spring; but he made no movement of any kind and we passed swiftly by.

Once a little black ball of flesh—­a boy it was, perhaps five or six years old—­tumbled out into the corridor under our very feet.  We strode over him and went swiftly on.

We had passed about a hundred of the open doorways, and were beginning to entertain the hope that we might, after all, get through without being discovered, when Harry suddenly stopped short, pulling at my arm.  At the same instant I saw, far down the corridor, a crowd of black forms moving toward us.