o the prince Urco. Through your valour it has
come to naught and I am glad. Great dangers still lie ahead of you and
of my people. Deal with them as you will and can, for henceforward,
Lord-from-the-Sea, they are your people, yours and my daughter's
together, since it is my desire and command that you two should wed so
soon as I am laid with my fathers. Perchance it had been better if you
had slain the Inca when he was in your hand, but man goes where his
spirit leads him. My blessing and the blessing of my gods be on you both
and on your children. Leave me, for I can say no more."

That night King Huaracha died.

Three days later he was buried with great pomp beneath the floor of the
Temple of the Moon, not being preserved and kept above ground after the
fashion of the Incas.

On the last day of the mourning a council was summoned of all the great
ones in the country to the number of several hundreds, to which I was
bidden. This was done in the name of Quilla, who was now named by a
title which meant, "High Lady," or "Queen." I went to it eagerly enough
who had seen nothing of her since that night of her father's death,
for, according to the custom of this people, she had spent the time of
mourning alone with her women.

To my surprise I was led by an officer, not into the great hall where I
knew the notables were assembling, but to that same little chamber where
first I had talked with Huaracha, Quilla's father. Here the officer
left me wondering. Presently I heard a sound and looking up, saw Quilla
herself standing between the curtains, like to a picture in its frame.
She was royally arrayed and wore upon her brow and breast the emblem
of the moon, so that she seemed to glitter in that dusky place, though
nothing about her shone with such a light as did her large and doe-like
eyes.

"Greeting, my Lord," she said in her soft voice, curtseying to me as she
spoke. "Has my Lord aught to say to me? If so, it must be quick, since
the Great Council waits."

Now I grew foolish and tongue-tied, but at length stammered out:

"Nothing, except what I have said before--that I love you."

She smiled a little in her slow fashion, then asked:

"Is there naught to add?"

"What can there be to add to love, Quilla?"

"I know not," she answered, still smiling. "Yet in what does the love of
man and woman end?"

I shook my head and answered:

"In many things, all of them different. In hell sometimes, and more
rarely in he