“Thou, Lord,” he went on, dropping on to his knee and spreading out his hands towards the Inca, “hast had but too good cause to know that, despite all their courtesy and present gentleness, these Unbelievers hold thee here a prisoner when thou shouldst be seated free and lord of all the land on thy father’s golden throne in the City of the Sun.” The Inca’s brows lowered angrily, and his blood-shot eyes gleamed darkly as he listened to these bold words from the lips of one who was little better than a slave, yet in his heart he knew, bitter as they were, that they were true. He kept a moody silence for a minute or two, and then he said with the manner of one who is musing aloud-- “Ay, true--too true! Would that I had taken faithful old Challcuchima’s counsel! What madness made me trust these strangers who have murdered my people, and, with fair speeches, broken their faith to me! But it is too late. My madness has earned my doom, for even if the captains of my hosts led them here to victory I should be dead before it could avail me anything. What is lost is lost!” “Yet not all lost, Lord,” said Filipillo, in his gentle boyish voice; “though what thou hast said is true, for I have heard the Spaniards talking of what they will do should thy Generals attack them. They will put thee and thy wives and children in front of the battle; their war beasts will be behind thee, and thine own legions before thee, so that they can strike only through thy sacred person. Of this I am well assured, for it is the common talk of the Camp.” He paused for a moment or two to watch the effect of his words on the Inca, and seeing him shrink back and shudder with an irrepressible emotion of horror, he went on, speaking even more softly and insinuatingly than before-- “But there is another way, Lord, another path which the devotion of thy slave might open for thee to freedom and the regaining of thy lost empire.” “Another way?” said the Inca, starting from the seat into which he had thrown himself in an attitude of dejection that was almost like despair. “Another way--a way to freedom and the empire that was mine! Boy, if thou knowest such a way--if thou canst open these prison doors of mine--speak, and when I am once more on the throne of Huayna-Capac, nay, when I once more stand a free man at the head of my hosts, thou hast but to ask and have. I would even bind the yellow Llautu round thy brow and have thee hailed one of the noble Blood, however base thy birth may be, for such a deed would make thee worthy to rank with the noblest. Speak now and open thy mind freely to me.”