“Thus say we all!” repeated the great company with a roar that shook the walls.

In the silence that followed Quilla asked: 

“Have you aught to add, O Ambassadors?”

“Ay, this,” said the first of them.

“The Chanca tree is about to be cut down, but the Inca still offers a refuge to the Lion that hides among its branches because he has loved that Lion from of old.  Let the White Lord-from-the-Sea over whom you have cast the net of your witcheries return with us and he shall be saved and given place and power, and with them a brother’s love.”

Now Quilla looked at me, and I rose to speak but could not, since all that came from my lips was laughter.  At length I said: 

“But the other day when I gave him his life, the Inca named me noble.  What would he think of me if I said yes to this offer?  Would he call me noble then and the Lion that dwells in the Chanca tree?  Or, whatever his lips might speak, would not his heart name me the basest of slaves and no lion of the tree, but rather a snake that creeps at its roots?  Get you gone, my lords, and say that here I bide happy with her whom I have won, and that the ancient sword Wave-Flame, on which Kari has looked of late, is still sharp and the arm that wields it is still strong, and that he will do well now that it has served his turn, to look on it no more,” and again I drew the great blade and flashed it before their eyes there in that dusky hall.

Then, bowing courteously, for every man of them knew me and some of them loved me well, they turned and went.  That was the last that ever I, Hubert of Hastings, saw of nobles of the Inca blood, though perchance, ere long, I shall meet them again in war.

“Let them be escorted safely from the city,” commanded Quilla, and soldiers went to do her bidding.

When they had gone she issued another order, that the door should be closed and watchmen set about the hall, so that none could approach it unseen.  Then after a pause she rose and spoke: 

“My Lord,” she said, “who soon, as I trust, will be my husband and my king, and you, the chosen of my people, hearken to me for I have a matter to lay before you.  You have heard the Inca’s message and you know that his words are not vain.  He who is great in many ways, in one is small and narrow.  He sets his god before his honour, and to satisfy his god, whom he thinks that I have outraged, is prepared to sacrifice his honour, and even to kill one to whom he owes all,” and she touched me with her hand.  “Moreover, these things he can do, not at once but in time to come, because for every man of ours he is able to gather ten.  Therefore we stand thus; death and destruction stare us in the face.”

She paused, and that old chief of whom I have spoken, asked in the midst of a silence, as I think was planned that he should ask: 

“You have set our teeth in the bitter rind of truth.  Is there no sweet fruit within?  Can you not show us a way of escape, O Quilla, Daughter of the Moon, whose heart is fed with the wisdom of the Moon?”