On either side of the villa entrance stood sentinels in the blue of the Incarial Guard, in heavily pourpointed tunics or gambesons, similar to those worn by the European men-at-arms of the fourteenth century. Each wore a casque of burnished silver, with heavy cheek-plates descending to the point of the jaw, and surmounted by the figure of a crouching panther, the device of their corps. Above the head-piece rose a high crescent-shaped crest, not unlike that on the helm of the warrior of ancient Greece. Their arms were bare to the shoulder, but encircled by heavy bands of silver above the elbow and at the wrist. Their legs were protected only by the blue and silver lacings of their sandals, which entwined them to the knees. They were armed with javelins, small round shields of polished brass, and from their broad, heavily plated belts hung small battle-axes and short swords of bronze, an alloy which the Peruvians tempered almost to the hardness of steel. At an early hour the throne-room was filled with officers and nobles costumed as brilliantly as the court of an Oriental potentate. The majority were Quitoans, but among them were a small number of the nobles of Cuzco, recent adherents of Huascar, who had tendered their allegiance to the successful Atahualpa, or whose presence at the court the latter had commanded. All were in the sleeveless outer garment of the country, belted at the waist, with skirts falling to the knees, and not unlike the _tunica_ of the Roman. The stuff was of wool, woven in fanciful and often elegant patterns, and not infrequently decorated with elaborate passementerie, or with braid or scale-work of gold and silver. Every stalwart form glittered with jewelled armlets, bracelets, necklaces, and girdles in the precious metals, while the nobles of Cuzco wore, as a distinguishing mark of their order, heavy discs of gold let into the lobes of their ears. The apartment in which they awaited the coming of the monarch was no less splendid than the assemblage, and showed the same lavish use of gold and silver, which in the empire of the Incas had no value except for ornamentation. It was a lofty chamber with walls of polished porphyry, divided by pilasters into panels bordered with vines in precious metal, perfect in leaf and stem. Suspended from silver brackets wrought in forms of serpents, lizards, and fanciful monsters, were lamps burning perfumed oil, filling the room with faint aroma, and dispelling the obscurity of the early morning with their radiance. The ceiling, panelled by heavy rafters, was of rushes, gilded and elaborately woven in squares and lozenges. At intervals the walls were niched like those of the exterior, to receive natural plants or imitations of them in the metals.