then Amyas went sadly and silently back again, and Parracombe walked
after him, like one who walks in sleep.

Ebsworthy, sobered by the shock, entreated to come too: but Amyas
forbade him gently,--

"No, lad, you are forgiven. God forbid that I should judge you or any
man! Sir John shall come up and marry you; and then, if it still be your
will to stay, the Lord forgive you, if you be wrong; in the meanwhile,
we will leave with you all that we can spare. Stay here and pray to God
to make you, and me too, wiser men."

And so Amyas departed. He had come out stern and proud; but he came back
again like a little child.

Three days after Parracombe was dead. Once in camp he seemed unable to
eat or move, and having received absolution and communion from good Sir
John, faded away without disease or pain, "babbling of green fields,"
and murmuring the name of his lost Indian bride.

Amyas, too, sought ghostly council of Sir John, and told him all which
had passed through his mind.

"It was indeed a temptation of Diabolus," said that simple sage; "for he
is by his very name the divider who sets man against man, and tempts
one to care only for oneself, and forget kin and country, and duty
and queen. But you have resisted him, Captain Leigh, like a true-born
Englishman, as you always are, and he has fled from you. But that is no
reason why we should not flee from him too; and so I think the sooner we
are out of this place, and at work again, the better for all our souls."

To which Amyas most devoutly said, "Amen!" If Ayacanora were the
daughter of ten thousand Incas, he must get out of her way as soon as
possible.

The next day he announced his intention to march once more, and to
his delight found the men ready enough to move towards the Spanish
settlements. One thing they needed: gunpowder for their muskets. But
that they must make as they went along; that is, if they could get the
materials. Charcoal they could procure, enough to set the world on fire;
but nitre they had not yet seen; perhaps they should find it among the
hills: while as for sulphur, any brave man could get that where there
were volcanoes. Who had not heard how one of Cortez' Spaniards, in like
need, was lowered in a basket down the smoking crater of Popocatepetl,
till he had gathered sulphur enough to conquer an empire? And what a
Spaniard could do an Englishman could do, or they would know the reason
why. And if they found none--why clothyard arrows