No words more awful could have been uttered in the ears of the multitude, for to every man and woman in the city the Inca was as the visible incarnation of a God, and to say that he had sinned was to say that the Gods themselves had done wrong since they had permitted him to sin. It would have been blasphemy from any lips, but from those of Mama-Lupa, revered by the whole people as the wisest and holiest of the Pallas, they were more, and they smote the hearts of her hearers like words uttered by the very voice of Doom.
Atahuallpa heard them without moving a muscle or a feature till the last of them had died away in a long, wailing scream. Not even he, immeasurably far removed as he was above the common herd of the people, could resist wholly the great wave of terror which was sweeping over the souls of the multitude.
He saw the sea of upturned faces turning as though moved by a single impulse from the figure of Mama-Lupa on the wall to himself on the throne. He saw his soldiers, perfectly disciplined as they were, relaxing the rigidity of their lines, and looking about them with frightened, shifting glances. In another moment fear might have blazed up into panic and all order have been lost in a riot of terror. He sprang to his feet, and, pointing to where Mama-Lupa stood, he shouted—
“Let the blasphemer’s tongue be silenced! Pay no heed to her lying words, my children, go and fling her from the wall, and let her body be food for the vultures. Stop—no—such a death is too easy. Bring her here and I will judge her. Challcuchima, let the scaffold be guarded that none may escape, but let not the fagots be kindled till this speaker of lies is ready for the flames.”
“I will come to thee, Inca!” Mama-Lupa screamed. “I will come to thee without the bringing, and thou shalt judge me and I will judge thee.”
Then she vanished from the top of the wall, and presently, when the soldiers had reached the door of the House of the Virgins, she came forth and, waving them aside, strode along the terrace, every one making way for her as she passed, and, without deigning to make the universal sign of homage, she stood erect before Atahuallpa, looking him in the eyes, and said in a loud voice—
“The Son of the Sun has sinned, and would slay the innocent for his own sin! I tended my Lord that departed last night to the abode of the Divine Ones, and I saw his face when he was dead, and thou, Inca, didst see him die, thou and thy mother, the queen!”
Such words had never yet been spoken by mortal lips to a crowned Inca, and Atahuallpa, struck dumb by their daring and the terrible meaning that lay hidden in them, heard her to the end perforce ere the command of speech came back to him. When it did all he said was—
“She is mad! Take her away and throw her into the midst of the others, then let the fagots be kindled. Away with her, and let my eyes be no longer polluted by the sight of her!”
Four of the guards advanced to seize her, but their hands trembled as they stretched them out, for the terror of her words had sunk deep into their hearts. She waved them back, and they stood trembling and looking from her to their master, and she raised her voice again and replied—