ad in the shining steel, took my stand
where Kari showed me, upon a rise of ground. On my right at a little
distance stood Quilla, more splendidly arrayed than I had ever seen
her, and behind her her maidens and the captains and counsellors of her
following.

The army drew nearer, marshalled in regiments and halted on the plain
some two hundred yards away. Presently from it advanced generals and
old men, clad in white, whom I took to be priests and elders. They
approached to the number of twenty or more and bowed deeply, first to
Quilla, who bent her head in acknowledgment and then to myself. After
this they went to speak with Quilla and her following, but what they
said I did not know. All the while, however, their eyes were fixed on
me. Then Quilla brought them to me and one by one they bowed before me,
saying something in a language which I did not understand well, for it
was somewhat different from that which Kari had taught me.

After this we entered the litters, and, escorted by that great army,
were borne forward down valleys and over ridges till about sunset we
came to a large cup-like plain in the centre of which stood the city
called Chanca. Of this city I did not see much except that it was very
great as the darkness was falling when we entered, and afterwards I
could not go out because of the crowds that pressed about me. I was
borne down a wide street to a house that stood in a large garden which
was walled about. Here in this fine house I found food prepared for me,
and drink, all of it served in dishes and cups of gold and silver; also
there were women who waited upon me, as did Kari who now was called
Zapana and seemed to be my slave.

When I had eaten I went out alone into the garden, for on this plain
the air was very warm and pleasant. It was a beautiful garden, and
I wandered about among its avenues and flowering bushes, glad to be
solitary and to have time to think. Amongst other things I wondered
where Quilla might be, for of her I had seen nothing from the time that
we entered the town. I hated to be parted from her, because in this vast
strange land into which I had wandered she was the only one for whom I
had come to care and without whom I felt I should die of loneliness.

There was Kari, it is true, who I knew loved me in his fashion, but
between him and me there was a great gulf fixed, not only of race and
faith, but of something now which I did not wholly understand. In London
he had bee