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.
Even at that distance something about their appearance and gait
told us that they were not women. Their number was so great that
as they advanced they filled the passage from wall to wall.
There was but one way to escape certain discovery; and
distasteful as it was, we did not hesitate to employ it.
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