ng the day I might
mask her memory in its urgent business, but when I lay down to rest she
seemed to come to me as a ghost might do and to stand by my bed, looking
at me with sad and longing eyes. So real was her presence that sometimes
I began to believe that she must have died to the world and was in truth
a ghost, or else that she had found the power to throw her soul afar,
as it is said certain of these Indian folk, if so they should be called,
can do. At least there she seemed to be while I remained awake and
afterwards when I slept, and I know not whether her strange company
joyed or pained me more. For alas! she could not talk to me, or tell me
how it fared with her, and, to speak truth, now that she was the wife of
another man, as I supposed, I desired to forget her if I could.

For of Quilla no word reached us. We heard that she had come safely to
Cuzco and after that nothing more. Of her marriage there was no tidings;
indeed she seemed to have vanished away. Certain of Huaracha's spies
reported to him, however, that the great army which Urco had gathered to
attack him had been partly disbanded, which seemed to show that the Inca
no longer prepared for immediate war. Only then what had happened to
Quilla, whose person was the price of peace? Perhaps she was hidden
away during the preparations for her nuptials; at least I could think
of nothing else, unless indeed she had chosen to kill herself or died
naturally.

Soon, however, all news ceased, for Huaracha shut his frontiers, hoping
that thus Urco might not learn that he was gathering armies.

At length, when our forces were almost ready to march, Kari came, Kari
whom I thought lost.

One night when I was seated at my work by lamplight, writing down
numbers upon a parchment, a shadow fell across it, and looking up I saw
Kari standing before me, travel-worn and weary, but Kari without doubt,
unless I dreamed.

"Have you food, Lord?" he asked while I stared at him. "I need it and
would eat before I speak."

I found meat and native beer and brought them to him, for it was late
and my servants were asleep, waiting till he had filled himself, for by
this time I had learned something of the patience of these people. At
length he spoke, saying:

"Huaracha's watch is good, and to pass it I must journey far into the
mountains and sleep three nights without food amid their snows."

"Whence come you?" I asked.

"From Cuzco, Lord."

"Then what of the lady Qui