The Incas had disappeared in the passage.

Finally I rose and began to search for an exit from the recess in which I had hidden myself.  At first there appeared to be none, but at length I found a small crevice between two boulders in the rear.  Into this I squeezed my body with some difficulty.

The rock pressed tightly against me on both sides, and the sharp corners bruised my body, but I wormed my way through for a distance of fifteen or twenty feet.  Then the crevice opened abruptly, and I found myself on a broad ledge ending apparently in space.  I advanced cautiously to its edge, but intervening boulders shut off the light, and I could see no ground below.

Throwing prudence to the winds, I let myself over the outermost corner, hung for a moment by my hands, and dropped.  My feet touched ground almost instantly—­the supposedly perilous fall amounted to something like twelve inches.

I turned round, feeling a little foolish, and saw that from where I stood the ledge and part of the lake were in full view.  I could see the spears still lying where they had been thrown down.

But as I looked the two Incas emerged from the passage.  They picked up the spears, walked to the raft, and again launched it and paddled toward the center of the lake.

I thought, “Here is my chance; I must make that ledge before they return,” and I started forward so precipitately that I ran head on into a massive boulder and got badly stunned for my pains.  Half dazed, I went on, groping my way through the semidarkness.

The trail was one to try a llama.  I climbed boulders and leaped across chasms and clung to narrow, slippery edges with my finger-nails.  Several times I narrowly escaped dumping myself into the lake, and half the time I was in plain view of the Incas on the raft.

My hands and feet were bruised and bleeding, and I had bumped into walls and boulders so often that I was surprised when I took a step without getting a blow.  I wanted those spears.

I found myself finally within a few yards of my destination.  A narrow crevice led from where I stood directly to the ledge from which the Incas had embarked.  It was now necessary to wait till they returned to the shore, and I drew back into the darkness of a near-by corner and stood motionless.

They were still on the raft in the middle of the lake, waiting, spear in hand.  I watched them in furious impatience, on the border of mania.

Suddenly I saw a dark, crouching form outlined against a boulder not ten feet away from where I stood.  The form was human, but in some way unlike the Incas I had seen.  I could not see its face, but the alertness suggested by its attitude made me certain that I had been discovered.

Vaguely I felt myself surrounded on every side; I seemed to feel eyes gazing unseen from every direction, but I could not force myself to search the darkness; my heart rose to my throat and choked me, and I stood absolutely powerless to make a sound or movement, gazing in a sort of dumb fascination at that silent, crouching figure.