“Is it, then, blighted?” Bill asked. The priest stared at him and Bill read his mind: celestial messengers should know everything. Bill smiled grimly and corrected his blunder.
“You must know, O, noble of the High-and-Sacred-Order, we who come to earth to serve Chasca must lose the wisdom of the stars and the youth with the bright and shining locks has not chosen to tell us of his purpose among you.”
He glanced toward Cliff who was keeping apart from them and added: “Now we would have food and then we would be alone and I will speak of this matter of the corn to Chasca.”
“It shall be so,” replied the priest and issued orders to the girls who began to busy themselves bringing rude tables and utensils into the small antechamber of the temple where they were to be quartered.
“And if there are those who are sick,” went on Bill, “name them to me that Chasca may be asked to smile toward them and, if it is his purpose, lift them from the ground.”
“There is one—but he is only a pale and worthless one, not of our tribe, though quite a scholar. But first, O, servant speak of our corn.”
“It shall be so,” said Bill. “Now—leave us.”
While they ate strange meats and other food from dishes of silver and gold, served by the maidens, Bill told Cliff that he knew that the father they had come to help was alive. They were all glad and anxious to find a way to see him.
“I wonder why those girls keep tittering, and looking at Nicky,” said Tom as the dishes were cleared away.
Bill, smiling to himself, beckoned to one and said a few words in quichua. The girl giggled, quite like any girl, put her finger to her lips shyly and then whispered a swift word and fled.