“Then say them, Ullomaya, and say them quickly, for neither you nor I know at what moment the summons may come to me to take my place with my fathers in the Mansions of the Sun. Speak freely, therefore, yea, even though you would speak on things forbidden.”

“It was even of a thing forbidden that I would speak, Lord!” the priest replied, taking another step forward and stretching out his hands as though in entreaty. “It was even to seek that permission that I came.”

The Inca’s eyes closed for a moment, and then he opened them again and said with a smile, half of weariness and half of indulgence—

“Say on, then, old friend and good counsellor. For your sake the law of my lips shall be broken for the first and the last time. What is it? Not that which is already resolved? Do not tell me it is that, for the decree is already gone forth, and the last act of my life cannot be the revoking of words that an Inca’s lips have spoken.”

“Yet is it even that, Lord,” said the priest more boldly; “for in this matter only in all the long years that I have served you you have listened to my counsel and taken that of others. Your footsteps are approaching the thresholds of the Mansions of the Sun, and mine are not very far off. Once past them we shall stand side by side in the presence of our Father, and each must give to the Divine Manco an account of that which he has wrought in the land that he gave to our fathers. And you, O Lord, would go into that sublime presence with the guilt of a disobedience lying heavy on your soul.”

As the priest said these last words in a low and yet unfaltering tone a light seemed to kindle in the dying despot’s eyes, a faint flush rose into his cheeks, and his hands caught nervously at the bed-coverings as he said with the ghost of the voice that had once rung high above the clamour of battle—

“Only one man in the land of Tavantinsuyu dare say that to me, Ullomaya, and even he scarce dare say it to me save on my death-bed.”

“The Son of the Sun is still Lord of the land, and his word could still send me to the doom of those who disobey!”[2] said the priest, crossing his hands over his breast again and bending low before his master.

“Nevertheless, for the sake of the love I bear you, say on!” said the Inca.

Then the priest drew himself up again and said—