“That is well, my brother. It is better to live purged of dishonour than to die a death of shame. Let the torch be brought.”
Then a soldier brought a blazing torch of aromatic, resinous wood with the upper half wrapped thickly about with strips of cotton soaked in oil. Manco took it from his hand and, saluting the Inca, walked backwards from the throne down the steps of the terrace without a word, and then turned and walked towards the scaffold through a gap made for him by the guards, with one hand gripping the shaft of the torch and the other in his breast closed upon the hilt of a long, keen knife of tempered copper.
Until now the little throng of victims on the scaffold had uttered no sound. Those who knew what the ghastly preparations meant had steeled themselves to meet their fate with the heroic stoicism of their race. Those who did not know were still wondering what it all meant, and some of the little children were even playing with each other among the fagots, of whose terrible purpose they were still in happy ignorance.
But now, as the elders saw their executioner—to them the strangest of all who could have been found for the task—approaching they knew that the end was near, and for the first time they opened their lips, and the shrill, wailing cadencies of the Death-Song floated to the ears of the listening multitude, whose every eye was now turned on Manco.
With slow, steady steps he advanced to within ten paces of the scaffold. There he stopped, and, turning his face upward to the sun, he closed his eyes and with his lips made the silent Invocation to the Unnameable One. Then with a swift motion he dashed the torch to the ground, sprang forward at a run with the yellow shining dagger in his hand, and bounded with swift leaps up over the wall of fagots on to the scaffold and into the midst of the throng of victims crying—
“Nahua, where are you? I cannot save you, but I will die with you, and my dagger will be kinder than the flames!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE VEILING OF THE SUN
He found her standing bound beside her mother, leaning her head against her breast, and looking with fixed, dazed eyes blankly at the wall of fagots in front of her. In an instant he was at her side, in another he had severed the thongs which bound her wrists and ankles, and the next they were in each other’s arms, and she was sobbing on his breast and imploring him piteously to save her, and not to let them burn her father and mother and little brother.
“Alas! Nahua, I have but come to die with you!” he answered, stroking her hair and kissing her upturned brow. “The Inca gave me the choice of being burned alive with you or lighting the fagots myself, and, as he thought, I chose to be your executioner. But I only did that so that I could reach you unbound and armed and save you the torture of the flames.”
“But I do not want to die yet, Manco!” she pleaded with him, as though he himself held the power of life and death for her. “What have we done that our Lord should be so cruel?”