All the beauty of the place, however, was lost on Hualpa. He saw only Nenetzin. She was sitting, at the time, in a low sedilium, her white garments faintly tinted by the scarlet stripes of a canopy extended high overhead, to protect her from the too ardent sun.
At the sound of his sandals, she started; and as he approached her, she arose in alarm. In sooth, his toilette was not that most affected for the wooing of women; he brought with him the odor of battle; and as he knelt but a little way from her, she saw there was blood upon his hands, and upon the axe and shield he laid beside him.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He took off the steel cap and shapeless panache, and looked up in her face.
“The lord Hualpa!” she exclaimed. Then a thought flashed upon her mind, and with terror in every feature, she cried, “Ah, you have taken the palace! And the Tonatiah?”—she clasped her hands despairingly,—“dead? a captive? Where is he? I will save him. Take me to him.”
At these words, the uncertain expression with which he had looked up to her upon baring his head changed to utter hopelessness. The hurried sentences tore his heart, like talons. For this he had come to her through so much peril! For this he was then braving death at her feet! His head sunk upon his breast, and he said,—
“The palace is not ours. The Tonatiah yet lives, and is free.”
With a sigh of relief, she resumed her seat, asking,—
“How came you here?”
He answered without raising his eyes, “The keepers of the palace are strong; they can stay the thousands, but they could not keep me out.”