“Because that brow is not worthy to wear it? Is that so, brother of my father?” exclaimed Manco, turning half angrily and half reproachfully upon him.
“Not so, Lord,” replied the old priest, “since I for one believe that if the true spirit of the great Huayna yet burns in the breast of any of the Children of the Sun it burns in thine. It is the crown that is not worthy of the brow since it was placed on it by the hand of the Stranger and the Unbeliever.”
“And the conqueror. Forget not that Anda-Huillac,” the young Inca added, clasping his hands behind his back and looking down upon the discarded crown.
“Conqueror until now only, my son and my Lord,” said Mama-Oello, coming forward and laying her hand lightly upon his arm, “and conquerors only because the Usurper had split the power of the land in twain and set one half of it against the other. Had there been but one Lord over the Four Regions, and had all our armies been united under such a rule as his whose love was my joy and my honour, then these few Strangers, despite their strange weapons and terrible war-beasts, would have been but as feeble reeds in a rushing torrent, to have stood perchance for a while and then fall overwhelmed. My son, is there no hand in all the Four Regions that can draw together what the hands of Atahuallpa parted? Is there no heart whose valour can fire the thousands who yet remain faithful to us with the high resolve to win back what is lost, and to overwhelm these cruel Strangers in the midst of the ruin that they have brought upon us? If there is such a hand and such a heart left in all the Four Regions, surely they shall be thine, my son.”
“Why have you come to tell me this now?” said Manco, turning almost roughly upon her. “Have you waited till I am something worse than a slave, powerless and a captive, degraded before the eyes of my people and accursed in my own? See, there lies the borla which I may never wear again. I am sick of pretence. Henceforth I will be and seem what I am. Oh, Nahua, Nahua, wisest and dearest of my counsellors, what evil spirit stopped my ears to the wisdom of your counsels and opened them to the smooth-spoken lies of these accursed strangers? But why do you three come to me now, now when it is too late?”
“Because it is not yet too late, Lord,” replied Anda-Huillac, motioning to Nahua to be silent till he had spoken, “and because while thou hast been brooding here in thy captivity, since it is nothing else, over the misfortunes of thy people two of the vilest outrages that could have befallen them and thee have this day come to pass.”
“What are they?” said Manco, looking gloomily at him. “What worse can befall the Children of the Sun or him who should be their lawful Lord?”
“My Lord knows,” replied Anda-Huillac solemnly, “that these impious Strangers have already despoiled the House of the Sun of its most sacred treasures. At noon to-day they robbed it even of its holiness, and dedicated it to the worship of their own gods. To-day, too, the common soldiers of the Strangers forced their way for the third time into the House of the Virgins, penetrating this time into its most secret and holiest place, and by order of the same four who came to thee many moons ago as friendly envoys, rifled it of its last priceless treasure, and at this moment the Princess Lalla-Cica and her sisters, fairest save one of the Virgins of the Sun, are the slaves and playthings of these false-tongued and black-hearted Strangers whom we have welcomed as friends only to know them as enemies and oppressors.”
No other tidings could have carried such shame and horror to the heart of a true Son of the Sun as these, and as he heard them Manco staggered back, and the red blood faded out of his cheeks leaving them a dull greyish brown. The Temple of the Sun was the last spot left undefiled in all the land, and the maidens who had been torn from the most sacred recesses of the House of the Virgins were, saving only Nahua herself, the pick and flower of the royal race that had been destined, according to the custom of the land, for the Inca’s own harem. How black was the insult and how deep was the injury may be guessed from the fact that the Temple of the Sun was looked upon as the actual first dwelling-place of the Divine founders of the Inca race, and that not even the vestal virgins of Rome were held in higher honour or guarded more jealously than were the Virgins of the Sun.
There was a little silence in the room before Manco spoke again. Nothing, not even his own captivity, could have shown him how far he and his race had fallen from almost unearthly splendour, or how utterly the imperial fabric which his ancestors had reared, had crumbled into fragments at the touch of these strange and terrible invaders. Then his eyes fell on the fair face and graceful form of Nahua and a new ray of hope seemed to shine through the gathering gloom of his despair. Brushing past his mother and Anda-Huillac he took two quick strides towards her holding out both his hands, and said in a voice that shook with the strength of his mingled sorrow and passion—