“Only this, Lord,” answered their spokesman, “Fight you must, of that there can be no doubt, but we would fight with you, the ten of the Chancas against the ten of the Quichuas.”

“Aye, that is good,” replied the first of Kari’s nobles.  “This business is too great to set upon one man’s skill and strength.”

“Have done!” I said.  “It lies between the Inca and myself,” while Kari nodded, and repeated “Have done!” after me.

Then I sent one of the captains back to the camp for my sword and Kari commanded that his should be brought to him, since according to the custom of these people when ambassadors meet, neither of us was armed.  Presently, the captain holding my sword returned, and with him servants who brought my armour.  Also after them streamed all the army of the Chancas among whom the news had spread like wind-driven fire, and lined themselves upon the ridge to watch.  As he came, too, I noticed that this captain sharpened Wave-Flame with a certain kind of stone that was used to give a keen edge to weapons.

He brought the ancient weapon and handed it to me on his knee.  The Inca’s man also brought his sword and handed it to him, as he did so, bowing his forehead to the dust.  Well I knew that weapon, since once before I had faced it in desperate battle for my life.  It was the ivory-handled sword of the lord Deleroy which Kari had taken from his dead hand after I slew him in the Solar of my house in the Cheap at London.  Then the servant came to me with the armour, but I sent him away, saying that as the Inca had none, I would not wear it, at which my people murmured.

Kari saw and heard.

“Noble as ever,” he said aloud.  “Oh! that such bright honour should have been tarnished by a woman’s breath.”

Our lords discussed the manner of our fighting, but to them I paid little heed.

At length all was ready and we stepped forward to face each other at a given word, clad much alike.  I had thrown off my outer garment and stood bareheaded in a jerkin of soft sheepskin.  Kari, too, was stripped of his splendid dress and clad in a tunic of sheepskin.  Also, that we might be quite equal, he had taken off his turban-like headgear and even the royal Fringe, whereat his lords stared at each other for they thought this a bad omen.

It was just then I heard a sound behind me, and turning my head I saw Quilla stumbling towards us down the stony slope as best her half-blind eyes would let her, and crying as she came: 

“Oh! my Lord, fight not.  Inca, I will return to the House of the Sun!”

“Silence, accursed woman!” said Kari, frowning.  “Does the Sun take back such as you?  Silence until the woe that you have wrought is finished, and then wail on forever.”

She shrank back at his bitter, unjust words, and guided by the women who had followed her, sank upon a stone, where she sat still as a statue or as dead Upanqui in his hall.