By the time I had so far mastered the language as to be able to converse without much difficulty, the queen had fully regained her health. This result--which was of course entirely due to temperate living and regular exercise--she ascribed to my skill, and I was in high favor. She made me a cacique and court medicine-man; I had quarters in her house, and horses and servants were always at my disposal. Had her Majesty's gratitude gone no further than this I should have had nothing to complain of; but she never let me alone, and I had no peace. I was continually being summoned to her presence; she kept me talking for hours at a time, and never went out for a ride or a walk without making me bear her company. Her attentions became so marked, in fact, that I began to have an awful fear that she had fallen in love with me. As to this she did not leave me long in doubt. One day when I had been entertaining her with an account of my travels, she startled me by inquiring, _à propos_ to nothing in particular, if I knew why she had not married. "Because you are a daughter of the Incas, and there is no man in Pachatupec of equal rank with yourself." "Once there was not, but now there is." I breathed again; she surely could not mean me. "There is now--there has been some time," she continued, after a short pause. "Know you who he is?" I said that I had not the slightest idea. "Yourself, señor; you are the man." "Impossible, Mamcuna! I am of very inferior rank, indeed--a common soldier, a mere nobody." "You are too modest, señor; you do yourself an injustice. A man with so white a skin, a beard so long, and eyes so beautiful must be of royal lineage, and fit to mate even with the daughter of the Incas." "You are quite mistaken, Mamcuna; I am utterly unworthy of so great an honor." "You are not, I tell you. Please don't contradict me, señor" (she always called me 'señor'); "it makes me angry. You are the man whom I delight to honor and desire to wed; what would you have more?" "Nothing--I would not have so much. You are too good; but it would be wrong. I really cannot let you throw yourself away on a nameless foreigner. Besides what would your caciques say?" "If any man dare say a word against you I will have his tongue torn out by the roots." "But suppose I am married already--that I have left a wife in my own country?" I urged in desperation. "That would not matter in the least. She is not likely to come hither, and I will take care that I am your only wife in this country." "Your condescension quite overwhelms me. But all this is so sudden; you must really give me a little time--" "A little time! why? You perhaps think I am not sincere, that I do not mean what I say, that I may change my mind. Have no fear on that score. There shall be no delay. The preparations for our wedding shall be begun at once, and ten days hence, dear señor, you will be my husband."