n which he had that day
missed in consequence of the rescue of his daughter from the sacrificial
altar. "And, remember, Lord," concluded Tiahuana, "that it is not
necessary to keep any of those people at your table during the entire
progress of the banquet; let them stay here long enough to taste a
single dish, or to drink with you out of your cup, and then dispatch
them with instructions to send up someone else in their stead."

Upon this principle, accordingly, Harry acted, arranging matters so
judiciously that, under Tiahuana's able guidance, he was able, during
the course of the evening, to compliment every guest whom that astute
old diplomatist considered it desirable especially to honour, and thus
avoid all occasion for jealousy.

It is not necessary to describe the banquet in detail; let it suffice to
say that for fully three hours there was placed before the Inca and his
guests a constant succession of dishes representing all that was
esteemed most choice and dainty in Peruvian culinary art, washed down by
copious libations of the wine of the country, prepared from the
fermented juice of the maguey, for which, it is deplorable to add, the
Peruvians exhibited an inordinate fondness. By the exercise of extreme
circumspection, taking merely a taste here and there of such food as
especially appealed to him, and merely suffering the wine to moisten his
lips when pledging his nobles, the young Inca contrived to emerge from
the ordeal of the banquet not a penny the worse.

The next morning Escombe spent in the company of a sort of committee of
the chief _amautas_ or "wise men", who represented the concentrated
essence--so to speak--of all Peruvian wisdom and learning, and who had
been embodied for the express purpose of instructing the young Inca in
the intricacies--such as they were--of the code of Tavantinsuyu--or
"four quarters of the world"--as it then stood. This code was simple,
but exceedingly severe, the laws, properly so called, relating almost
exclusively to criminal matters and their punishment. The regulations
governing the daily life of the Peruvian Indian--where he should live,
what should be the character of his work, what should be the distinctive
character of his clothing, when and whom he should marry, how much land
he should hold and cultivate, and so on, were the result of ages of
tentative experiment, and were so numerous and intricate that probably
none but the _amautas_ themselves thoroughl