“O thou, base-born and accursed, canst thou know what thou hast said! Wouldst thou make the price of thy Lord’s salvation the dishonour of himself and his whole race? Dost thou not know that, by the Ancient Law that may not be broken, the very telling of thine impious love hath already doomed, not only thee, but also her whose fame thou hast sullied by the foul breath of thy passion, together with all her kindred, to the fiery death? Thou fool, why didst thou not ask for the borla itself? Thou couldst have had it as easily as this! Henceforth and for ever thy name and thy memory are accursed among the Children of the Sun! Slay him, Lord! Slay him--worthless as he is for thy sacred hands to touch--ere he hath time to add some deadly mischief to thy dishonour!” Atahuallpa started at the shrilly-spoken word, and, with a low cry like that of a sorely-wounded wild beast, he came across the room with outstretched hands. A cry of fear burst from Filipillo’s lips. He saw nothing else but swift death in the awful aspect of Atahuallpa’s countenance. With an effort whose vigour was far beyond his years he tore the Palla’s clinging hands away from him, hurled her to the floor in front of the Inca, and fled swiftly and silently from the room and through the passages and chambers of the House of the Serpent till he reached the gate that was guarded by Spanish sentries. They stopped him with crossed halberds. But already his quick wit had found, even in the few short moments of his flight, a way to safety and revenge. “Let me go!” he gasped breathlessly. “It is life or death for the Captain and all of you! Let me go, or one of you take me with you to the Captain. It is life or death, I tell you! Let me go!” Then, with a swift, sudden motion he slipped under one of the halberds and sped away across the square towards Pizarro’s quarters as fast as his fleet and fear-winged feet could carry him. CHAPTER IV. HOW MAMA-ZULA DARED THE ORDEAL The two sentries, knowing the peculiar position in which Filipillo stood, as it were, between the Inca and his captors, contented themselves with laughing at his escape, and they were the more content because they had no mind to call out the guards and engage in a matter of explanations which might have kept them a good hour or so beyond the time of their stated duty. It was a dark, cloudy night, and Filipillo’s swiftly-moving form had traversed the plaza and he had reached the entrance to Pizarro’s quarters before any of the soldiers lounging about the square had noticed him. The crossed halberds again barred his way. He stopped breathless and panting in front of the sentry-guarded door. “How now, lad, how now? Whither in such haste?” growled one of them, who was the same Michael Asterre who had plucked the borla from Atahuallpa’s brow. “Is the Foul Fiend behind thee, or dost thou expect some fair Inca princess waiting for thee inside?”