It was but in reason that Pizarro, placed in circumstances still so difficult and dangerous, should be to some extent disquieted by this. He himself could neither read nor write his own language and knew not a word of the Quichua tongue, and none of his better-learned followers had deigned to make any acquaintance with it, saving only Hernando de Soto, and he knew but a few words and phrases which had served well enough on his embassies with Filipillo at his elbow, but were of no use in the lengthy conversations which they were obliged to hold with the Inca. Thus the sole channel of communication between the Spaniards and their captive or any of his people was the youth, whose precociously keen intellect had been quick to perceive and make use of the advantages of his singular position, an advantage which, as has been shown, he was ready enough to use for his own purposes rather than in the service of those who, powerful as they might be in other respects, were yet utterly at his mercy in this one. So far he had used all the opportunities that his position gave him to procure even a few minutes alone with the Princess Pillcu-Cica, whose girlish beauty had inspired him with a passion whose gratification was so far the sole object of his plotting. On the one side there were the stern commands of the Pizarro that the Inca’s household should be held sacred and inviolate, even by the greatest of those among whom he was the least. On the other was the immeasurable gulf which lay between one such as he and a princess of the Blood upon whom the Son of the Sun had looked with favour. The slightest outward sign of his passion might mean, not only the final ruin of his daring hopes, but such punishment as his heart quailed at the thought of. Yet day by day, almost hour by hour, he saw her and looked ever more and more longingly upon her beauty, and at last, when the time for the return of the envoys was growing near, he determined upon a bold and, as he hoped, decisive stroke. The Inca had been growing impatient for news from Challcuchima, and on a suitable pretence had summoned him to his presence in his private apartment. “Are there no tidings from the army yet?” he said as he entered the room. “None, Lord,” he answered, “nor is any news to be had of the General himself. The runner whom I sent with thy mandate should have returned the next day, or at latest the day after, but I can learn no tidings of him. It may be that some of these Unbelievers, who are ever prowling about the valley, have met him and slain him for their sport, for every hour I hear people talk of such doings outside the city. Truly it was an evil day that they came into the Land of the Four Regions, and bitterly do I now repent the service that they have forced me into! Yet, though appearances may have deceived my Lord, still am I his faithful servant and would most gladly see him freed from the base bondage they have put upon him.