Such his aspect. For the emotions sternly repressed, but racking him to the soul—what words! The sacred city, the favored of the Sun, the home and the monument of the loving care of a mighty line of monarchs, perishing under his hand. The city whose splendor had been the work of generations of great kings; for whose glory countless thousands of their subjects had toiled, had fought, had died, given by him to demolition!—doomed by the mandate of one who had received the _llautu_ from the profane hand of a ravager; who had suffered the scorn of an ignoble band of licentious and greedy invaders and had lived; who had worn fetters like a criminal and had lain in prison under the eyes of scoffing guards! That he—O, Inti!—that he, still wearing the marks of his bonds like a released slave, should be the destroyer! Could Cuzco but have fallen beneath the hand of a hero, even an enemy, and could he have fallen with it, its defender, he had been worthy to take his place with the shades of his ancestors. But he had himself led the enemy to its palace doors, had seen them plunder its temples, ravish its vestals, and befoul its most sacred spots. And now he was giving Cuzco to the flames! Would the Sun ever rise upon him again? Ah—but—could he dare to address a prayer to that god while Cuzco remained unpurged? By the great Inti, the fire should do its purifying work! From cottage, palace, and temple, the stench of the Viracocha should be burned! Should the last wall be levelled to the earth, the last stone of its streets upturned, no vestige of their defilement should remain. Cuzco would rise again, and the Viracochas be forgotten. Let the dead Incas look on whilst he wiped out the stain of the ancient city’s dishonor and his own! When at length the sky was graying and he turned away, facing his generals, but seeing none of them, they beheld a countenance aged as by years since he had last spoken. In a night the torture of mind and heart had moulded lines usually beaten in only by the blows of long and hard experience. At the door of his apartments he dismissed his attendants with a word. But, alas! a king before men, alone he was a mortal man. He knelt and prayed for tears. Resting upon his shoulders, with the burden of an empire, was now the weight of a monstrous tragedy; but upon his heart, the unutterable sorrow of a brother and a lover. Within that dread circle of fire were loved ones, and among them the sweetest of consorts. No man looked upon his grief. No man but can know what his grief must have been.