“Do they?  Well, now I remember there are strange prophecies about a white god who should rise out of the sea, as did the forefather of the Incas.  They say, too, that this god shall do much mischief to the land when he comes.  So perhaps he had better not draw too near to me, for I like not the look of that great big sword of his.  By the Sun, my father, he is tall and big and strong” (I had risen from my chair) “and his beard is like a fire; it will set the hearts of all the women burning, though perhaps if he is a god he does not care for women.  I must consult my magicians about it, and the head priest of the Temple of the Sun.  Tell the White God to make ready to return with me to Cuzco.”

“The lord Hurachi is my guest, O Inca, and here he bides with me,” said Huaracha.

“Nonsense, nonsense!  When the Inca invites any one to his court, he must come.  But enough of him for the present.  I came here to talk of other matters.  What were they?  Let me sit down and think.”

So he was conducted to his throne upon which he sat trying to collect his mind, which I saw was weak with age.  The end of it was that he called to his aid a stern-faced, shifty-eyed, middle-aged minister, whom after I came to know as the High-priest Larico, the private Councillor of himself and of his son, Urco, and one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.  This noble, I noted, was one who had the rank of an Earman, that is, he wore in his ear, which like that of Kari was stretched out to receive it, a golden disc of the size of an apple, whereon was embossed the image of the sun.

At a sign and a word from his dotard master this Larico began to speak for him as though he were the Inca himself, saying: 

“Hearken, O Huaracha.  I have undertaken this toilsome journey, the last I shall make as Inca, for be it known to you that I purpose to divest myself of the royal Fringe in favour of the prince, Urco, begotten to me in the body and of the Sun in spirit, and to retire to end my days in peace at my palace of Yucay, waiting there patiently until it pleases my father, the Sun, to take me to his bosom.”

Here Larico paused to allow this great news to sink into the minds of his hearers, and I thought to myself that when I died I would choose to be gathered to any bosom rather than to that of the Sun, which put me in mind of hell.  Then he went on: 

“Rumours have reached me, the Inca, that you, Huaracha, Chief of the Chancas, are making ready to wage war upon my empire.  It was to test these rumours, although I did not believe them, that awhile ago I sent an embassy to ask your only child, the lady Quilla, in marriage to the prince Urco, promising, since he has no sister whom he may wed and since on the mother’s side she, your daughter, has the holy Inca blood in her veins, that she should become his Coya, or Queen, and the mother of him who shall succeed to the throne.”

“The embassy came, and received my answer, O Inca,” said Huaracha.