“Nay!” they cried.  “We would have her wed you, White Lord-from-the-Sea, that she may become a mother of kings.”

“So I thought, Chancas.  Yet I warn you that there is trouble near.  The storm gathers and soon it will burst, since Kari is not one who breaks his oaths.”

“Why did you not kill him when he was in your hand, and take his throne?” asked one.

“Because I could not.  Because it would not have been pleasing to Heaven that I should slay a man who for years had been as my brother.  Because in this way or in that the deed would have fallen back upon my head, upon the head of the lady Quilla, and upon your heads also, O people of the Chancas, because——­”

At this moment there was disturbance at the end of the hall, and a herald cried: 

“An embassy!  An embassy from Kari, the Inca.”

“Let it be admitted,” said Quilla.

Presently up the central passage marched the embassy with pomp, great lords and “earmen,” every man of them, and bowed before us.

“Your words?” said Quilla quietly.

“They are these, Lady,” answered the spokesman of the party.  “For the last time the Inca demands that you should surrender yourself to be sacrificed as one who has betrayed the Sun.  He asks it of you since he has learned that your father Huaracha is no more.”

“And if I refuse to surrender myself, what then, O Ambassador?”

“Then in the name of the Empire and in his own name the Inca declares war upon you, war to the end, until not one of Chanca blood is left living beneath the sun and not one stone marks where your city stood.  It may be that a while will pass before this sword of war falls upon your head, since the Inca must gather his armies and give a breathing space to his peoples after all the troubles that have been.  Yet if not this year, then next year, and if not next year, then the year after, that sword shall fall.”

Quilla listened and turned pale, though more, I think, with wrath than fear.  Then she said: 

“You have heard, Chancas, and know how stands this case.  If I surrender myself to be sacrificed, the Inca in his mercy will spare you; if I do not surrender myself, soon or late he will destroy you—­if he can.  Say, then, shall I surrender myself?”

Now every man in that great hall leapt up and from every throat there arose a shout of,

“Never!”

When it had died away an aged chief and councillor, an uncle of Huaracha, the dead King, came forward and stared at the envoys with his horny eyes.

“Go back to the Inca,” he said, “and tell him that the threats of the mouth are one thing and the deeds of the hand are another.  In the late war that has been he has learned something of our quality, both as foes and friends, and perchance more remains for him to learn.  Yonder is one”—­and he pointed to myself—­“who is about to become our King and the husband of our Queen.  By the help of that one and of some of us the Inca won his throne.  From the mercy of that one, also, but a little while ago the Inca won his life.  Let him be careful lest through the might of that one, behind whom stands every Chanca that breathes, the Inca Kari Upanqui should yet lose both throne and life, and with them the ancient empire of the Sun.  Thus say we all.”