“But, Quilla, the sacrifice may be all in vain.  How long will you hold the fancy of this loose-living prince?”

“Long enough to serve my purpose, Lord—­or, at least,” she added with flashing eyes, “long enough to kill him if he will not go my country’s road.  Oh! ask me no more, for your words stir something in my breast, a new spirit of which I never dreamed.  Had I heard them but three moons gone, it might have been otherwise.  Why did you not appear sooner from the sea, my lord Hurachi, be you god or man?”

Then, with something like a sob, she rose, made obeisance, and fled away.

That evening, when we were alone in my chamber where none could hear us, I told Kari that Quilla was promised in marriage to a prince who would be Inca of all the land.

“Is it so?” said Kari.  “Well, learn, Master, that this prince is my brother, he whom I hate, he who has done me bitter wrong, he who stole away my wife and poisoned me.  Urco is his name.  Does this lady Quilla love him?”

“I think not.  I think that like you she hates him, yet will marry him for reasons of policy.”

“Doubtless she hates him now, whatever she did a week ago,” said Kari in a dry voice.  “But what fruit will this tree bear?  Master, are you minded to come with me to-morrow to visit the temple of Pachacamac in the inner sanctuary of which sits the god Rimac who speaks oracles?”

“For what purpose, Kari?” I answered moodily.

“That we may hear oracles, Master.  I think that if you choose to go the lady Quilla would come with us, since perhaps she would like also to hear oracles.”

“I will go if it can be done in secret, say at night, for I weary of being stared at by these people.”

This I said because I desired to learn of the religion of this nation and to see new things.

“Perhaps it can be so ordered, Master.  I will ask of the matter.”

It seemed that Kari did ask, perhaps of the high priest of Pachacamac, for between all the worshippers of this god there was a brotherhood; perhaps of the lord Quismancu, or perhaps of Quilla herself—­I do not know.  At least, on this same day Quismancu inquired whether it would please me to visit the temple that night, and so the matter was settled.

Accordingly, after the darkness had fallen, two litters were brought into which we entered, Quilla and a waiting woman seating themselves in one of them and Kari and I in the other, for Quismancu and his wife did not come—­why I cannot say.  Then, preceded by another litter in which was a priest of the god, and surrounded by a guard of soldiers, through a rain-storm we were borne up the hill—­it was but a little way—­to the temple.