For of Quilla no word reached us.  We heard that she had come safely to Cuzco and after that nothing more.  Of her marriage there was no tidings; indeed she seemed to have vanished away.  Certain of Huaracha’s spies reported to him, however, that the great army which Urco had gathered to attack him had been partly disbanded, which seemed to show that the Inca no longer prepared for immediate war.  Only then what had happened to Quilla, whose person was the price of peace?  Perhaps she was hidden away during the preparations for her nuptials; at least I could think of nothing else, unless indeed she had chosen to kill herself or died naturally.

Soon, however, all news ceased, for Huaracha shut his frontiers, hoping that thus Urco might not learn that he was gathering armies.

At length, when our forces were almost ready to march, Kari came, Kari whom I thought lost.

One night when I was seated at my work by lamplight, writing down numbers upon a parchment, a shadow fell across it, and looking up I saw Kari standing before me, travel-worn and weary, but Kari without doubt, unless I dreamed.

“Have you food, Lord?” he asked while I stared at him.  “I need it and would eat before I speak.”

I found meat and native beer and brought them to him, for it was late and my servants were asleep, waiting till he had filled himself, for by this time I had learned something of the patience of these people.  At length he spoke, saying: 

“Huaracha’s watch is good, and to pass it I must journey far into the mountains and sleep three nights without food amid their snows.”

“Whence come you?” I asked.

“From Cuzco, Lord.”

“Then what of the lady Quilla?  Does she still live?  Is she wed to Urco?”

“She lives, or lived fourteen days ago, and she is not wed.  But where she is no man may ever come.  You have looked your last upon the lady Quilla, Lord.”

“If she lives and is unwed, why?” I asked, trembling.

“Because she is numbered among the Virgins of the Sun our Father, and therefore inviolate to man.  Were I the Inca, though I love you and know all, should you attempt to take her, yes, even you, I would kill you if I could, and with my own sword.  In our land, Lord, there is one crime which has no forgiveness, and that is to lay hands upon a Virgin of the Sun.  We believe, Lord, that if this is done, great curses will fall upon our country, while as for the man who works the crime, before he passes to eternal vengeance he and all his house and the town whence he came must perish utterly, and that false virgin who has betrayed our father, the Sun, must die slowly and by fire.”

“Has this ever chanced?” I asked.

“History does not tell it, Lord, since none have been so wicked, but such is the law.”

I thought to myself that it was a very evil law, and cruel; also that I would break it if I found opportunity, but made no answer, knowing when to be silent and that I might as well strive to move a mountain from its base as to turn Kari from the blindness of his folly bred of false faith.  After all, could I blame him, seeing that we held the same of the sacredness of nuns and, it was said, killed them if they broke their vows?