“Santiago, Señor Inca! it seems that thou art made of different stuff to him whom we strangled down in Cajamarca yonder. A gallant foe may make a good friend. You and I may be foes hereafter, but for the present we will be friends. Come, come, I meant no harm by my words, however evil they may have sounded. If I had done it would have fared ill with thee by now, in spite of all thy valour. Come, let us ride on as friends, at least to our journey’s end. We love thee none the less for choosing as thou hast done the death of a brave man, and it has made us the more determined to serve thee as we set out to do. Come back, ere these heathen dogs do thee some damage.” Manco was himself too honest and brave a man not to feel instinctively that de Molina’s words were sincere, and he was too good a warrior not to know that if the four Spaniards had been so minded they could by this time have flung him from the saddle and trampled the life out of him under their silver-shod horses’ hoofs. Yet their laugh and Alonso de Molina’s words not a little bewildered him, and as he put back his battle-axe he answered in some confusion-- “What does this mean, Señores? Is it possible that you are friends and not enemies? Are you not Spaniards?” It was a bitter rebuke though spoken almost by chance, and it went home. Already the name of Spaniard had come to have the same meaning as a curse in that new world in which their memory is to-day one of ruthless greed and pitiless cruelty. The generous soul of de Molina felt it even more keenly than his companions did, and as he grasped the Inca’s hand half against his will he said half in sorrow and half in shame-- “Yes, Inca, that is true, we are Spaniards, but all Spaniards are not brute beasts such as thou, to our shame, hast seen amongst us. Even in this army of ours, adventurers and plunderers though in truth we may be, there are yet as thou shalt find some who know how an honest enemy should be treated by gentlemen of Spain. Come back, then, and let us ride along, for I have something to say to thee of those thou hast left behind.” The last words instantly disarmed the Inca’s suspicion. He bowed his head in consent and returned de Molina’s hand-clasp, and when the cavalcade had been re-formed and the march resumed, he said gravely and yet with a thrill of expectation in his voice-- “Señor, I ask your pardon and that of your comrades for my suspicions. Now what of the lost ones I have left behind me?” “They are not lost while they and thou have friends in Cuzco, even though those friends be Spaniards,” replied de Molina gravely. Manco’s heart leaped with newborn hope at his words, though another moment’s thought seemed to show him that they were too fair-spoken to be truthful, and so he simply looked up and said again, somewhat coldly--