# Works of Jules Verne/The Pearl of Lima/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V
THE PLOT BETRAYED
All this time, however, a very unusual agitation was going on amongst the Indians; those of them who resided in the town keeping up a vigorous communication with those who habitually made their homes amongst the mountains. They seemed for a time to have shaken off the dullness of their native apathy. No longer lounging wrapped in their ponchos and basking in the sunshine, they were ever and again hurrying to and fro in the direction of the open country; they greeted one another significantly as they met; they were ever making mysterious signs of mutual recognition, and continually held their meetings in out-of-the-way, second-rate hotels, where they could carry on their conferences without any risk of being observed.
This unusual commotion was for the most part obvious in one of the loneliest quarters of the town. At the corner of a street there was a dejected tenement, only one story high, the miserable appearance of which could not fail to attract observation. It was a kind of tap-room, of the lowest description, kept by an old Indian woman, who found her customers entirely among the most abject of the poor, who bought her beer made from fermented maize, or, failing that, contented themselves with a decoction of sugar-canes.
It was only at certain hours that there was any gathering of Indians at that spot, the signal of meeting being a long pole displayed on the roof of the building. But whenever notice was given there was soon a motley assemblage of ​the lowest class of the natives; there were cabriolet- drivers, muleteers, and carmen hurrying to the place of rendezvous, without loitering for a moment outside. The hostess was all on the alert, and, leaving the care of her counter to the charge of a servant-maid, hastened herself to give her best attention to her habitual guests.
A few days after the disappearance of Martin Paz there was a concourse larger than usual collected in the large room of the inn. The apartment was dim with clouds of tobacco-smoke, and it was with much difficulty that anyone of the habitués of the place could be distinguished from another. Altogether there were about fifty Indians congregated around the long table, some of whom were chewing a kind of tea-leaf mixed with a morsel of fragrant earth, while others were drinking fermented liquor from huge cans; but none of them seemed so much absorbed in their own doings as to prevent them from attending to the speech in which an old Indian was addressing them.
This Indian was no other than Sambo, and the whole assembly appeared to be following him with an eager interest. He looked with a keen scrutiny round the circle of his audience, and, after a brief pause, continued his appeal.
"The Children of the Sun can now discuss their own affairs quite unmolested. No perfidious spy can overhear them here. All round about are friends who, disguised as wandering street-singers, attract the passers-by, and prevent all interruption, so that now we may enjoy an uncontrolled and ample liberty.
And while he spoke the notes of a mandolin were heard thrumming in the thoroughfare hard by. Certified as to their security, the whole gathering of Indians prepared to pay a yet closer attention to the words of Sambo, who manifestly enjoyed their largest confidence. One of the party, however, interrupted him by asking abruptly: "Can Sambo give us any tidings of Martin Paz?"
"None whatever," he replied; "nor can I tell you whether he is alive or dead: the Great Spirit alone knows that. But I am expecting some of our brethren back who have been exploring the river down to its very mouth, and they perchance will have something to relate about the lost body of your chief."
​"Ay, he might be a good leader," said an Indian named Manangani, with the fierce, bold manner that belonged to him; "but why was he wanting in his duty, and absent from his post on the very night that the schooner arrived with our arms?"
The question elicited no reply. Sambo hung his head in silence.
"Are our brethren aware," continued Manangani," that there was an exchange of shots that night between the schooner and the coastguards, and do they know that the capture of the Annunciation would have been fatal to our enterprise?"
A murmur of assent ran through the assembly.
Sambo now took up the conversation, saying that all who would wait to judge the matter would be welcome.
"And who knows," he said, "whether my son shall not some day reappear? Be patient still. Even now the arms which we received from Sechura are in our keeping; safe they are in the mountain recesses of the Cordilleras, and ready to fullfil their work when you are prepared to do your duty."
"And what shall hinder us?" exclaimed a young Indian; "our weapons are sharpened, and we only bide our time."
"The hour will come," said Sambo; "but do our brethren know on whom the blow ought first to fall?"
The voice of one of the party was heard protesting that the first to perish ought to be the half-breeds who had treated them so insolently, chastising them like restive mules.
"Not so," declared another; "the first that we should strike should be the appropriators of the soil we tread."
"Mistaken are ye altogether!" shouted Sambo, with a voice raised in eagerness. "You must let your blows fall first in another quarter. It is not those of whom you speak that have dared for three centuries to plant their foot upon our ancestral soil; rich as they are, it is not they who have dragged the descendants of Manco-Capac to the tomb. No; rather 'tis the haughty Spaniards who are the true conquerors, and who have reduced you to the condition of being their very slaves. Their riches may have gone, but their authority survives, and they it is who, in spite of any emancipation that should give liberty to Peru, still trample ​our natural rights beneath their feet. Let us forget what we are, just that for once we may remember what our fathers were."
"True! true!" was the shout that burst forth from many a voice in the excited company.
Then ensued a few moments of silent consideration, when Sambo proceeded to make inquiries of some of the conspirators and to satisfy himself that their allies in Cusco and throughout Bolivia were ready to rise as one man.
His enthusiasm soon again broke out in speech. "And our brethren on the mountains, brave Manangani, only let them cherish in their souls a hatred such as yours, and arm themselves with your courage, too, and they shall fall upon Lima as an avalanche might come crashing down from the Cordilleras."
"Sambo shall not need to complain," said Manangani; "their firmness will not fail them at the proper time. Go but a few yards beyond the town and you shall find groups of eager Indians fired with the passion of revenge. In the gorges of San Cristoval and the Amancäes many a one beneath his poncho wears his poignard hanging in his belt, and only waits to have the rifle trusted to his hand. Never will they forget to exact the vengeance that is due from the Spaniards for their defeat of Manco-Capac."
"Good!" replied Sambo; "it is the God of hatred that inspires your lips. My brethren shall soon know what their chiefs have decided. All that Gambarra wants now is to consolidate his power; Bolivar has retired; Santa Cruz has been chased away, and we can act in perfect safety. Wait but a few days and our adversaries will be taking their pleasure at the coming festival of the Amancäes. Then will be our time; then must we set ourselves in motion, and the summons must be heard even to the remotest village of Bolivia."
Three Indians at this moment entered the room. Sambo received them with the eager inquiry: "Well, what news? Is he found?"
"No," replied one of the three; "the body is nowhere to be found. Though we have searched every foot of the river bank, and sent the most skillful of our divers down to search the depths, we find no trace of Sambo's son. Doubtless he has perished in the waters of the Rimac." ​"Have they then killed him? Is he lost? Woe, woe to them if they have slain my son!" Then, repressing his passion, he added, "Let my brothers now go quietly away. Go ye away to your place, but be on your guard and ready for the call."
All the Indians gradually took their departure, leaving Sambo and Manangani alone behind.
"Do you know," asked Manangani, "what was the motive that took your son that night to the quarter of San Lazaro? Are you sure of him?"
"Sure of him!" said Sambo, re-echoing the words, with a flash of indignant wrath in his eyes beneath which Manangani involuntarily recoiled, "sure of him! If Martin Paz should be a traitor to his friends, I would first slay every soul to whom he had given his friendship; nay, I would not spare them to whom he had yielded his dearest love; and then I would kill him; and, last of all, I would kill myself. Perish everything beneath the sun rather than dishonor shall befall our race."
His fervid speech was interrupted by the hostess bringing in a letter addressed to him.
"Who gave you this? " he asked.
"I cannot tell," replied the woman; "it was left, apparently by design, as if forgotten by one of the men who have been drinking at one of the tables."
"Have any but Indians been in here?" he inquired.
" None whatever but Indians," was her prompt reply.
As soon as the woman had gone he unfolded the document and read it aloud: "A young girl has been praying for Martin Paz. She cannot forget one who has imperiled his life for the sake of hers. Has Sambo any tidings of his son? If he has news of him, let him bind a scarlet band around his arm. There are eyes ever on the watch to see him pass."
Crumpling up the paper, he exclaimed: "Unhappy fool! to be entangled by the fascinations of a pretty girl!"
"Who is she?" inquired Manangani.
"No Indian maid," said Sambo, "some dainty damsel full of airs. Ah, Martin Paz, you are beside yourself! I know you not!"
"Do you mean to do what the woman asks?"
"No!" said the Indian vehemently, "let her abandon ​all hope of setting eyes upon my son again, and let her die in ignorance!" And while he spoke he angrily tore the paper into fragments.
"It must have been an Indian who brought the letter," observed Manangani.
"Not one of our party. It is known well enough that I am often here, but I shall not come again. Now; do you return to the mountains. I will keep watch in the town. The feast day comes, and we shall see whether it be a festival of rejoicing for the oppressors or the oppressed." With this parting direction the two Indians each departed on his own way.
The plot of the Indians had been deeply laid, and the time for its execution was adroitly chosen. The population of Peru was reduced to a comparatively small number of Spaniards and half-breeds. From the forests of Brazil, from the mountains of Chili, from the plains of La Plata, the hordes of Indians had been summoned, and would find it an easy task to cover the whole territory which was to be the theater of revolution. Once let the larger towns, Lima, Cusco, and Puno, fall into their hands, and victory was all their own. There was no fear of the Colombian troops, who had recently been driven out by the Peruvian government, returning to assist their adversaries in the hour of their necessity.
And it can hardly be doubted that this revolutionary movement would have resulted in entire success if its intention had been confided to none but Indian breasts: among them there was no fear of treachery.
But they knew not that there was a man who already had obtained a private audience with Gambarra, and had apprized him that the schooner Annunciation had been unlading firearms of every description into the canoes and pirogues of the Indians at the mouth of the Rimac; they knew not that that man had gone to claim a reward from the Peruvian Government for the very service of exposing their own proceedings.
A double game was this. The man who for a large payment had chartered his ship to Sambo for the conveyance of the arms, had gone at once to the president and betrayed the existence of the conspiracy.
The man was Samuel the Jew.
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