Around them lay a scene which had not its equal even in the wonderland that was the cradle of their race--mountain piled on mountain and peak on peak, some dim and dark, and others gleaming pale and ghostly white beneath the clear light of the brilliant stars which thronged the heavens above, where the constellations of two hemispheres mingled, and before them towered the black peaks of Pichincha, dominated by the snowy central cone, some two leagues away to the north-west. At one corner of the altar a stairway hewn in the solid stone led to the top, and, beginning at the foot of this, Mama-Lupa walked thrice around the base with her hands clasped behind her and her face upturned to the stars, muttering swift words which had no meaning for Manco save that he knew them to be spells and incantations of some mystic import. Then she stopped at the foot of the stairway and called to him, saying-- “Come and lead me to the top, Prince of the race that is doomed, for my eyes are dim to the things of outer sense though they see clearly with the sight that pierces the shadows that lie between now and to-morrow.” Without speaking, he mounted the steps in front of her backwards, leading her by both hands until they stood together on the broad, flat top of the stone. Then she drew herself upright and, throwing her long, thick white hair behind her, she turned slowly round, facing all sides of the horizon in turns, and at the moment that she faced Pichincha for the second time a dull red glow began to flicker in the sky above it. She grasped his hand and, stretching out her long, lean arm, pointed to it and said-- “Look, Prince and bearer of the Divine Name! My eyes are dim yet I can see it. Pichincha is putting on her fire-crown, and woe to the People of the Valley when it shall encircle her brows in all its flaming splendour! This night a deed of sin and horror has been done and the Divine Ones have seen it from the windows of the Mansions of the Sun, and they are angry. To-morrow a new reign will be begun with the torment and death of the innocent, if they in their anger do not stretch out their hands and do justice on the guilty. Nay, do not speak, Prince; thou hast come here to watch and not to speak.” She ceased, still pointing towards the red glow in the sky, which, while she was speaking, had deepened and broadened; and now Manco, watching with straining eyes and bated breath, saw it broaden and deepen until he could see the jagged walls of the great crater standing out black and sharp against it, and above the ever-broadening glare perceived a long line of inky cloud like a pall of sable with a lining of flame.