"Kill a good fighting man for the sake of a twig of a heathen girl! Thou ’rt mad, Juan. I had as lief sacrifice a horse. We’ll iron him for forty days, and the matter will be forgotten. Come! Set the business afoot. Have a public trial and advertise thy zeal, then keep the affair hanging until interest is worn out. Parade justice for a week, and these varlets will forget their grievance. _Vamos_!" They left the empty hall, and indifferent to the dark looks of the throng in front of the palace, sought their quarters in the old palace of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui. With the few nobles so privileged, Manco went to his apartments. Controlling his agitation, he faced his counsellors. For a moment he studied each, reading under their impassiveness the fire smouldering in his own breast. In the group was Villaoma, the Villac Vmu, or high priest of the empire, most sagacious of his advisers, as he had been before to Huayna Capac and to the ill-fated Huascar. The old priest met his look with one of keen scrutiny. Manco had been his favorite, and from boyhood had been watched with an interest as deep and hopeful as if of his own flesh and blood. Manco’s admission to the military order came when Cuzco was prostrate before the conqueror Atahualpa, her armies scattered, and the Inca Huascar a prisoner in the fortress at Xauxa. When Pizarro, after the death of Atahualpa, marched upon the capital with the new Inca, Toparca, Manco reassembled the forces of Cuzco and prepared for resistance. Following the counsel of the Villac Vmu, Prince Manco had suspended hostilities after Toparca’s death and laid before Pizarro his own claim to the imperial _llautu_, temporarily humiliating himself to forestall such other pretender as this king-maker might advance. If he had underestimated the cost of this surrender of dignity to policy, the Villac Vmu did not share his mistake; and when the monarch presently realized the penalty for his pawned manhood, the stings of injured pride, the chafing under arrogance, and the wounds of slighted majesty, it was with difficulty that the priest restrained a premature outbreak. Now he saw the fire long kept in check burning near the surface. He held his peace, however, and Manco said merely:— "I would have thee come hither to-night, Villac Vmu, after the third watch—and you, my generals, Quehuar, Mayta, and Mocho. And come prepared to counsel no longer caution, delay, but—action!" The effect of the last word was electrical—but as a flash of heat lightning, and as silent. It brightened their dark faces and fierce eyes for an instant, and was gone. But he knew them well, this young warrior-emperor; expected no reply, nor wished it. Presently he was alone.