Perforce a halt was called, and after the first parleyings were over an old warrior, glittering from head to foot with gold and jewels and gaily-coloured feather-work, came down the pass and spoke with the Inca’s secretary. It was Challcuchima himself, who all this time had been keeping watch and ward over the passes leading out of the valley, determined to let none of the hated strangers escape from it with their lives. Yet when the Inca’s envoy had showed him the thread of intertwisted scarlet and gold which was the token of his authority, and had explained to him the purpose of the embassy, so strong was the loyalty bred in his blood through many generations, that he pressed it to his forehead and gave it back, saying-- “Strange though it seems to me, yet it is well, since my Lord the Son of the Sun has said it. Not on me or my children be the evil if it comes! As for me I have heard and seen, and it is enough.” Then, without deigning to look at the Spaniards, who had alighted from their litters and got their weapons ready against any possible trouble, he turned and walked slowly up the pass, followed by his attendants. A few moments later the soft, singing notes of some reed instrument sounded on both sides of the road, and the soldiers who had barred the way vanished as rapidly and as silently as they had appeared. “A strange country and a strange people!” said de Soto to Alonso de Molina as they were getting back into their litters. “Knowest thou any land in Europe where a captive king would be so well obeyed? It is well for us that they do not fight as well as they obey.” “It may be,” he replied gravely, “that they have not fought well because they have obeyed too well. To tell thee the truth, de Soto, there is more strangeness about these people than I like to see. Such order and obedience could not be found anywhere else in the world. It is no common genius of rulership or kingly wisdom that hath founded such a state as this. Who are we that we should bring disorder in a land where such good order reigns?” “That smacks somewhat of treason, de Molina,” laughed de Candia, who was standing by. “I know not what that rascally Friar of ours would say if he heard thee, and yet there is much in thy words which a plain soldier can scarcely fathom.” “That may well be so,” said de Soto shortly; “but come, Caballeros, we are not out of the wood yet. Who knows what this little parley may have meant, or what there is yet to befall us between here and Cuzco. Let the event prove itself, and let us get out of this ill-favoured spot with what speed we may.”