The Romance of Golden Star

The Romance of Golden Star ..., by George

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romance of Golden Star ..., by George Chetwynd Griffith, Illustrated by Alfred Pearse
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Romance of Golden Star ...
Author: George Chetwynd Griffith

Release Date: December 23, 2006 [eBook #20173]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...***
E-text prepared by Wilelmina Mailli��re and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 20173-h.htm or 20173-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/1/7/20173/20173-h/20173-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/1/7/20173/20173-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Some punctuation has been changed to meet contemporary standards.
Printer's errors: see the list of corrections at the end of the text.

THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
by
GEORGE [CHETWYND] GRIFFITH[-JONES]

Reprint Edition 1978 by Arno Press Inc. Reprinted from a copy in The Library of the University of California, Riverside Editorial Supervision: Marie Stareck

THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR

[Illustration: Hail, Son of the Sun!
Page 78.
THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR.
Frontispiece.]

THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
by
GEORGE GRIFFITH
Author of 'The Angel of the Revolution,' 'Olga Romanoff,' 'The Outlaws of the Air,' 'Valdar the Oft-Born,' 'Briton or Boer?' Etc., Etc.
Illustrated by Alfred Pearse

'To that Son of the Sacred Race who for Honour and Faith and Love shall take the hand of a pure virgin of his own holy blood and with her pass fearless through the Gate of Death into the shadows which lie beyond shall be given the glory of casting out the Oppressor and raising the Rainbow Banner once more above the Golden Throne of the Incas. On that Throne he shall sit and wield power and mete out justice and mercy to the Children of the Sun when the gloom that is falling upon the Land of the Four Regions shall have passed away in the dawn of a brighter age.'
--THE PROPHECY CONTAINED IN THE ANCIENT LEGEND OF VILCAROYA-INCA AND GOLDEN STAR, HIS SISTER-BRIDE.
London: F. V. White & Co.... 14 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. 1897

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE - HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY
A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT
I BACK THROUGH THE SHADOWS
II BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD
III IN THE HALL OF GOLD
IV THE SISTER STARS
V HOW DJAMA DID HIS WORK
VI THE WAKING OF GOLDEN STAR
VII IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI
VIII HOW THE SOUL OF GOLDEN STAR CAME BACK
IX THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA
X ON THE RODADERO
XI HOW WE TOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN
XII QUEEN AND CROWN
XIII HOW DJAMA PAID HIS DEBT
XIV THE RE-KINDLING OF THE SACRED FIRE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY ALFRED PEARSE
'HAIL, SON OF THE SUN!' Frontispiece
'AM I ONLY DREAMING THAT THE DEATH-SLEEP IS OVER?'
THE DAGGER-POINT DROPPED TILL IT WAS WITHIN AN INCH OF GOLDEN STAR'S BREAST
THEY THRUST HIM IN WITH HIS ARMS STILL BOUND
IT HAD SMITTEN HIM TO THE HEART
NOW THE MOMENT FOR THE GIVING OF THE SIGN HAD COME

The Romance of Golden Star

PROLOGUE
I
HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY
'Ah, what a thing it would be for us if his Inca Highness were really only asleep, as he looks to be! Just think what he could tell us--how easily he could re-create that lost wonderland of his for us, what riddles he could answer, what lies he could contradict. And then think of all the lost treasures that he could show us the way to. Upon my word, if Mephistopheles were to walk into this room just now, I think I should be tempted to make a bargain with him. Do you know, Djama, I believe I would give half the remainder of my own life, whatever that may be, to learn the secrets that were once locked up in that withered, desiccated brain of his.'
The speaker was one of two men who were standing in a large room, half-study, half-museum, in a big, old-fashioned house in Maida Vale. Wherever the science of arch?ology was studied, Professor Martin Lamson was known as the highest living authority on the subject of the antiquities of South America. He had just returned from a year's relic-hunting in Peru and Bolivia, and was enjoying the luxury of unpacking his treasures with the almost boyish delight which, under such circumstances, comes only to the true enthusiast. His companion was a somewhat slenderly-built man, of medium height, whose clear, olive skin, straight, black hair, and deep blue-black eyes betrayed a not very remote Eastern origin.
Dr Laurens Djama was a physiologist, whose rapidly-acquired fame--he was barely thirty-two--would have been considered sounder by his professional brethren if it had not been, as they thought, impaired by excursions into by-ways of science which were believed to lead him perilously near to the borders of occultism. Five years before he had pulled the professor through a very bad attack of the calentura