'Ah, yes, where is she?' she cried, looking round only to see that all the rest had vanished, and that she and I were alone in the great hall. 'What have they done with her, and where are Laurens and the others?' she cried, looking fearfully and almost mistrustingly at me. 'What have you done with them, Vilcaroya?'
'They are safe,' I said. 'Tupac and his men have care of them, and they will come back when I bid him bring them. But I have need of your presence here alone before I do that,' I went on, rising from my seat as I spoke. 'Has Joyful Star ever sat on a throne?'
'No,' she stammered, staring at me with wonder in her eyes. 'You know I haven't. Why should you ask?'
'Then sit on mine,' I said, 'for I have something to say to you which I can best say and you can best hear if we change places. Nay, I will take no denial,' I said, drawing her by the hand up the steps in front of the throne, 'for it is not only your—your friend who is asking, but a crowned king in his own palace, who is lord of life and death over all who enter it.'
Half frightened and half wondering, she submitted to my will and allowed me to seat her in the chair which no woman had ever sat in before. Then I took her hand, and, dropping on one knee on the upper step, I said,—
'Joyful Star has taken one queen from me, and she alone can give me another to fill her place. She is sitting where the great Yupanqui sat when he ruled all the land from north to south, and from the eastern mountains to the sea, and ere long I too shall reign, sole and undisputed lord, over a realm wider even than that. Many things have been done that Joyful Star knows not of since I came back to my country and my people. Through all the Land of the Four Regions the word has gone forth, with the swiftness of thought, that the Son of the Sun has returned, and that the heir of the divine Manco has come to deliver his children from bondage.[B]
'Everywhere the tidings have been received with joy, and the people are longing to return to the allegiance of their fathers, and tread their oppressors under foot. Before many days civil war will be raging throughout the lands of the south, and I have but to set flowing that golden stream, one of whose many sources is here, and say, "Here is gold and silver in plenty for all who will fight under the Rainbow Banner," and I shall have armies and fleets to do what I will with, and the sway of my sceptre shall reach from north to south and sea to sea.
'This I shall do because of my oath; but I have brought Joyful Star here to tell her, in the most sacred place that is left in the Land of the Four Regions, that I shall also do it so that she, if she will, may be queen where I am king, and sit beside me on my throne, and make my empire a paradise by the brightness and the sweetness of her presence. I cannot forget, as she bade me do—for the words that I said in the heat of my passion are true—for I love you, Joyful Star, and all that I have or shall ever have on earth will be worthless to me unless you take it as a gift from my hands. Nay, do not speak, for now I seek no answer, whether good or evil. I have brought you here that I, as a king, might kneel at the feet of her whom I would win for my queen, and from now until I sit in the sight of all the world on the throne of the Four Regions no other words of love shall pass my lips. So you shall have many days to ponder what I have said, and to ask your own heart whether it will say "yes" or "no" to me when I stretch out my hand from my throne and ask you to come and sit beside me and rule my people with me.'
Before she could answer, I stood up and clapped my hands, and Tupac with six others, dressed now in the forbidden costume of their ancestors, entered the hall from the ante-chamber, into which they had taken the others, and came towards me, bearing wands across their shoulders in token of homage, and with heads downbent, not daring to look upon my majesty till I bade them. I drew Joyful Star from the throne by the hand, and seating myself in it, said in the ancient tongue,—
'Let the Children of the Blood enter into the presence of their father and their lord, and let the strangers be brought in, and the other maiden, all with eyes bandaged, and let seats of silver be placed to the right and left of the throne, one for each of the virgins of the Sun to sit upon. Are all things else ready, Tupac-Rayca?'