her father, Huaracha, King of the
Chancas, as by swift messenger this King invited me to do, Quismancu
answered that if I so desired I must be obeyed as the god Rimac had
commanded, but that nevertheless he was sure that we should meet again.

Now, thinking these things over, I wondered much whether that oracle
came out of the golden Rimac or perchance from the heart of Quilla, or
of Kari, or of both of them, who desired that I should leave the Yuncas
and travel to the Chancas and further. I did not know, nor was I ever
to learn, since about matters to do with their gods these people are as
secret as the grave. I asked Kari and I asked Quilla, but both of them
stared at me with innocent eyes, and replied who were they to inspire
the golden tongue of Rimac? Nor, indeed, did I ever learn whether Rimac
the Speaker was a spirit or but a lump of metal through which some
priest talked. All I know is that from one end of Tavantinsuyu to the
other he was believed to be a spirit who spoke the very will of God to
those who could understand his words, though this as a Christian man I
could not credit.

So it came about that some days later, with Quilla and Kari and certain
old men who, I took it, were priests or ambassadors, or both, I departed
on our journey. As we went the people wept around my litter for sorrow,
real or feigned, for we travelled in litters guarded by some two hundred
soldiers armed with axes of copper and bows, and cast flowers before
the feet of the bearers. But I did not weep, for though I had been very
kindly treated there and, indeed, worshipped, glad was I to see the last
of that city and its people who wearied me.

Moreover, I felt that there I was in the midst of plots, though of what
these were I knew nothing, save that Quilla, who to the outward eye
was but a lovely, innocent maiden, had a hand in them. Plots there were
indeed, for, as I came to understand in time, they were nothing less
than the preparing of a great war which the Chancas and the Yuncas were
to wage against their over-lord, the Inca, the king of the mighty nation
of the Quichuas, who had his home at a city called Cuzco far
inland. Indeed, there and then this alliance was arranged, and by
Quilla--Quilla, who proposed to sacrifice herself and by the gift of
her person to his heir, to throw dust in the eyes of the Inca, whose
dominion her father planned to take and with it the imperial crown of
Tavantinsuyu.

Leaving the coastland