Whilst I thought thus, lost in a rapture such as I had not felt since Blanche kissed me at the mouth of the Hastings cave after I had killed the three Frenchmen with as many arrows from my black bow, I heard a sound and looked up to see a man standing before me.

“Who is it?” I asked, grasping my sword, for his face was hidden in the shadows.

“I,” answered a voice which I knew to be that of Kari.

“Then how did you come here?  I saw no one pass the open ground.”

“Master, you are not the only one who loves to walk in gardens in the quiet of the night.  I was here before yourself, behind yonder tree,” and he pointed to a palm not three paces distant.

“Then, Kari, you must have seen——­”

“Yes, Master, I saw and heard, not everything, because there came a point at which I shut my eyes and stopped my ears, but still much.”

“I am minded to kill you, Kari,” I said between my teeth, “who play the spy upon me.”

“I guessed it would be so, Master,” he replied in his gentlest voice, “and for that reason, as you will notice, I am standing out of reach of your sword.  You wonder why I am here.  I will tell you.  It is not from any desire to watch your love-makings which weary me, who have seen such before, but rather that I might find secrets, of which love is always the loser, and those secrets I have learned.  How could I have come by them otherwise, Master?”

“Surely you deserve to die,” I exclaimed furiously.

“I think not, Master.  But listen and judge for yourself.  I have told you something of my story, now you shall hear more, after which we will talk of what I do or do not deserve.  I am the eldest son of the Inca Upanqui, and Urco, of whom you have been talking is my younger brother.  But Upanqui, our father, loved Urco’s mother while mine he did not love, and swore to her before she died that against right and law, Urco, her son, should be Inca after him.  Therefore he hated me because I stood in Urco’s path; therefore too many troubles befell me, and I was given over into Urco’s hand, so that he took my wife and tried to poison me, and the rest you know.  Now it was needful to me to learn how things went, and for this reason I listened to the talk between you and a certain lady.  It told me that Upanqui, my father, comes here to-morrow, which indeed I knew already, and much else that I had not heard.  This being so I must vanish away, since doubtless Upanqui or his councillors would know me again, and as they are all of them friends of Urco, perhaps I should taste more poison and of a stronger sort.”

“Whither will you vanish, Kari?”

“I know not, Master, or if I know, I will not say, who have but just been taught afresh how secrets can pass from ear to ear.  I must lie hid, that is enough.  Yet do not think that therefore I shall desert you—­I, while I live, will watch over you, a stranger in my country, as you watched over me when I was a stranger in your England.”