Some forty-eight hours passed; in that perpetual blackness there
was no such thing as day. We saw no one save Desiree and the
serving men. Once a messenger appeared carrying a bundle of
quipos; I was able to decipher their meaning sufficiently to
understand that we were invited to some religious ceremony in the
great cavern. But I thought it injudicious to allow a meeting
between Harry and the king, and returned a polite refusal.
It may be of interest to some to know the method, which was
extremely simple, as in ordinary communications the quipos are
easy to read. I removed two knots from the white cord--the sign
of affirmative--and placed two additional ones on the black
cord--the sign of negative. Then on the yellow cord--the sign of
the Child of the Sun and submission to him--I tied two more knots
to show that our refusal meant no lack of respect to their deity.
Which, by the way, was not a little curious.
Here were the descendants of the subjects of Manco-Capac, himself
a son of the orb of day, still holding to their worship of the
sun, though they had not seen its light for four centuries.
Deserted by their god, they did not abandon him; an example from
which the followers of another and more "civilized" religion
might learn something of the potency of faith.
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