The foot-people had lassoed me.
[Chapter XXV.]
The Man-Killer.
I was as helpless as a man in a strait waistcoat. When I tried to rise, my captors tautened the rope and dragged me along the ground. Resistance being futile, I resigned myself to my fate.
On seeing what had happened, the flying brave (a kinsman of Chimu’s) returned, and he and the others held a palaver. As Mamcuna’s affianced husband, I was a person of importance, and they were evidently at a loss how to dispose of me. If they treated me roughly, they might incur her displeasure. The discussion was long and rather stormy. In the result, I was asked whether I would go with them quietly to the queen’s house or be taken thither, nolens volens. On answering that I would go quietly, I was unbound and allowed to mount my horse.
I do not think I am a coward, and in helping Señora de la Vega to escape and sending her off with Gahra, I knew that I had done the right thing. Yet I looked forward to the approaching interview with some misgiving. Barbarian though Mamcuna was, I could not help entertaining a certain respect for her. She had treated me handsomely; in offering to make me her husband she had paid me the greatest compliment in her power; and how little soever you may reciprocate the sentiment, it is impossible to think altogether unkindly of the woman who has given you her love. And my conscience was not free from reproach; I had let her think that I loved her—as I now perceived, a great mistake. Courageous herself, she could appreciate courage in others, and had I boldly and unequivocally refused her offer and given my reasons, I did not believe she would have dealt hardly with me.
As it was Mamcuna might well say that, having deliberately deceived her, I deserved the utmost punishment which it was in her power to inflict. At the same time, I was not without hope that when she heard my defence she would spare my life.
By the time we reached the queen’s house my escort had swollen into a crowd, and one of the caciques went in to inform Mamcuna what had befallen and ask for her instructions.
In a few minutes he brought word that the queen would see me and the people who had taken part in my capture forthwith. We found her sitting in her chinchura, in the room where she and I first met. Bather to my surprise she was calm and collected; yet there was a convulsive twitching of her lips and an angry glitter in her eyes that boded ill for my hopes of pardon.