lla? Does she still live? Is she wed to Urco?"

"She lives, or lived fourteen days ago, and she is not wed. But where
she is no man may ever come. You have looked your last upon the lady
Quilla, Lord."

"If she lives and is unwed, why?" I asked, trembling.

"Because she is numbered among the Virgins of the Sun our Father, and
therefore inviolate to man. Were I the Inca, though I love you and know
all, should you attempt to take her, yes, even you, I would kill you if
I could, and with my own sword. In our land, Lord, there is one crime
which has no forgiveness, and that is to lay hands upon a Virgin of the
Sun. We believe, Lord, that if this is done, great curses will fall upon
our country, while as for the man who works the crime, before he passes
to eternal vengeance he and all his house and the town whence he came
must perish utterly, and that false virgin who has betrayed our father,
the Sun, must die slowly and by fire."

"Has this ever chanced?" I asked.

"History does not tell it, Lord, since none have been so wicked, but
such is the law."

I thought to myself that it was a very evil law, and cruel; also that I
would break it if I found opportunity, but made no answer, knowing when
to be silent and that I might as well strive to move a mountain from
its base as to turn Kari from the blindness of his folly bred of false
faith. After all, could I blame him, seeing that we held the same of
the sacredness of nuns and, it was said, killed them if they broke their
vows?

"What news, Kari?" I asked.

"Much, Lord. Hearken. Disguised as a peasant who had come into this
country to barter wool from a village near to Cuzco, I joined myself to
the train of the Inca Upanqui, among whose lords I found a friend who
had loved me in past years and kept my secret as he was bound to do,
having passed into the brotherhood of knights with me while we were
lads. Through him, in place of a man who was sick, I became one of the
bearers of the lady Quilla's litter and thus was always about her and
at times had speech with her in secret, for she knew me again
notwithstanding my disguise and uniform. So I became one of those who
waited on her when she ate and noted all that passed.

"After the first day the Inca Upanqui, he who is my father and whose
lawful heir I am, although he discarded me for Urco and believes me
dead, made it a habit to take his food in the same tent or rest-house
chamber as the lady Quilla. Lord, being very