For that “dark line” along the bottom of the wall was a row of squatting Incas!  There they sat, silent, motionless; even when my laugh rang out through the cavern they gave not the slightest sign that they either heard or saw.  Yet it was certain that they had watched our every move.

There was nothing for it but retreat.  With our knives we might have fought our way through; but we were unarmed, and we had felt one or two proofs of their strength.

Harry took it with more philosophy than I had expected.  As for me, I had not yet finished my laugh.  We sought our former resting-place, recognizing it by the platter and basin which we had emptied before our famous and daring attempt to escape.

Soon Harry began: 

“I’ll tell you what they are, Paul; they’re frogs.  Nothing but frogs.  Did you see ’em?  The little black devils!  And Lord, how they smell!”

“That,” I answered, “is the effect of—­”

“To the deuce with your mineralogy or anthromorphism or whatever you call it.  I don’t care what makes ’em smell.  I only know they do—­as Kipling says of the oonts—­’most awful vile.’  And there the beggars sit, and here we sit!”

“If we could only see—­” I began.

“And what good would that do us?  Could we fight?  No.  They’d smother us in a minute.  Say, wasn’t there a king in that cave the other day?”

“Yes; on a golden throne.  An ugly little devil—­the ugliest of all.”

“Sure; that why he’s got the job.  Did he say anything?”

“Not a word; merely stuck out his arm and out we went.”

“Why the deuce don’t they talk?”

I explained my theory at some length, with many and various scientific digressions.  Harry listened politely.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said he when I had finished, “but I believe you.  Anyway, it’s all a stupendous joke.  In the first place, we shouldn’t be here at all.  And, secondly, why should they want us to stay?”

“How should I know?  Ask the king.  And don’t bother me; I’m going to sleep.”

“You are not.  I want to talk.  Now, they must want us for something.  They can’t intend to eat us, because there isn’t enough to go around.  And there is Desiree.  What the deuce was she doing up there without any clothes on?  I say, Paul, we’ve got to find her.”

“With pleasure.  But, first, how are we going to get out of this?”

“I mean, when we get out.”

Thus we rattled on, arriving nowhere.  Harry’s loquacity I understood; the poor lad meant to show me that he had resolved not to “whine.”  Yet his cheerfulness was but partly assumed, and it was most welcome.  My own temper was getting sadly frayed about the edge.

We slept through another watch uneventfully, and when we woke found our platter of fish and basin of water beside us.  I estimated that some seventy-two hours had then passed since we had been carried from the cavern; Harry said not less than a hundred.