everything, because there came a
point at which I shut my eyes and stopped my ears, but still much."

"I am minded to kill you, Kari," I said between my teeth, "who play the
spy upon me."

"I guessed it would be so, Master," he replied in his gentlest voice,
"and for that reason, as you will notice, I am standing out of reach of
your sword. You wonder why I am here. I will tell you. It is not from
any desire to watch your love-makings which weary me, who have seen such
before, but rather that I might find secrets, of which love is always
the loser, and those secrets I have learned. How could I have come by
them otherwise, Master?"

"Surely you deserve to die," I exclaimed furiously.

"I think not, Master. But listen and judge for yourself. I have told you
something of my story, now you shall hear more, after which we will talk
of what I do or do not deserve. I am the eldest son of the Inca Upanqui,
and Urco, of whom you have been talking is my younger brother. But
Upanqui, our father, loved Urco's mother while mine he did not love, and
swore to her before she died that against right and law, Urco, her
son, should be Inca after him. Therefore he hated me because I stood in
Urco's path; therefore too many troubles befell me, and I was given over
into Urco's hand, so that he took my wife and tried to poison me, and
the rest you know. Now it was needful to me to learn how things went,
and for this reason I listened to the talk between you and a certain
lady. It told me that Upanqui, my father, comes here to-morrow, which
indeed I knew already, and much else that I had not heard. This being
so I must vanish away, since doubtless Upanqui or his councillors would
know me again, and as they are all of them friends of Urco, perhaps I
should taste more poison and of a stronger sort."

"Whither will you vanish, Kari?"

"I know not, Master, or if I know, I will not say, who have but just
been taught afresh how secrets can pass from ear to ear. I must lie hid,
that is enough. Yet do not think that therefore I shall desert you--I,
while I live, will watch over you, a stranger in my country, as you
watched over me when I was a stranger in your England."

"I thank you," I answered, "and certainly you watch well--too well,
sometimes, as I have found to-night."

"You think it pleases me to spy upon you and a certain lady," went on
Kari with an unruffled voice, "but it is not so. What I do is for good
reasons, amongst others that