“I thank you, Lord-from-the-Sea, who through great perils have saved my daughter and brought her home to bid farewell to me, untarnished as she went.  I understand now that it was an evil policy which led me to promise her in marriage to the prince Urco.  Through your valour it has come to naught and I am glad.  Great dangers still lie ahead of you and of my people.  Deal with them as you will and can, for henceforward, Lord-from-the-Sea, they are your people, yours and my daughter’s together, since it is my desire and command that you two should wed so soon as I am laid with my fathers.  Perchance it had been better if you had slain the Inca when he was in your hand, but man goes where his spirit leads him.  My blessing and the blessing of my gods be on you both and on your children.  Leave me, for I can say no more.”

That night King Huaracha died.

Three days later he was buried with great pomp beneath the floor of the Temple of the Moon, not being preserved and kept above ground after the fashion of the Incas.

On the last day of the mourning a council was summoned of all the great ones in the country to the number of several hundreds, to which I was bidden.  This was done in the name of Quilla, who was now named by a title which meant, “High Lady,” or “Queen.”  I went to it eagerly enough who had seen nothing of her since that night of her father’s death, for, according to the custom of this people, she had spent the time of mourning alone with her women.

To my surprise I was led by an officer, not into the great hall where I knew the notables were assembling, but to that same little chamber where first I had talked with Huaracha, Quilla’s father.  Here the officer left me wondering.  Presently I heard a sound and looking up, saw Quilla herself standing between the curtains, like to a picture in its frame.  She was royally arrayed and wore upon her brow and breast the emblem of the moon, so that she seemed to glitter in that dusky place, though nothing about her shone with such a light as did her large and doe-like eyes.

“Greeting, my Lord,” she said in her soft voice, curtseying to me as she spoke.  “Has my Lord aught to say to me?  If so, it must be quick, since the Great Council waits.”

Now I grew foolish and tongue-tied, but at length stammered out: 

“Nothing, except what I have said before—­that I love you.”

She smiled a little in her slow fashion, then asked: 

“Is there naught to add?”

“What can there be to add to love, Quilla?”

“I know not,” she answered, still smiling.  “Yet in what does the love of man and woman end?”

I shook my head and answered: 

“In many things, all of them different.  In hell sometimes, and more rarely in heaven.”

“And on earth which lies between the two, should those who love escape death and separation?”

“Well, on earth—­in marriage.”