“Friends--Spanish friends to them in Cuzco? How can that be, de Molina? You know all, therefore you know that Mama-Oello the queen and the Princess Nahua, who one day I had hoped to make my queen, have delivered themselves up knowingly to a fate of shame and torment to buy one more chance of freedom for me. Who is there among you who could wish or could dare to save them?” “From what we have done so far, Inca,” replied de Molina in a somewhat altered voice, “thou mayest have seen that there is little that gentlemen of Spain cannot dare. As to the wish, that is another matter, and springing from that there is a tale which concerns myself not a little, and for that reason my comrades yonder have chosen me to tell it. It hath also some interest for thee, if thou art willing to hear it; it may at least beguile a portion of our march.” “I hear a friend speaking through your lips, my Lord,” replied the Inca quietly, although it took all his native stoicism to keep the eagerness of his expectations from showing itself in his voice. “Say on; I am listening not with patience but with the deepest interest.” Then there was a little silence as though de Molina hardly knew how to begin his tale, and when he did begin his words were at first slow and halting. “Inca,” he said, “I have told thee, and I trust I and my comrades have already given thee reason to believe, that we Spaniards, whatever else we may be, are not all thieves and ravishers like that one-eyed scoundrel Almagro and his fellow-villains. Nevertheless thou hast heard much against us of which I will now speak first of one charge. The high priest of thy faith told thee this morning that we who are here with certain of our men-at-arms broke into the most sacred recesses of the retreat that you call the House of the Virgins and took thence by force four of the noblest-born maidens, of whom the Princess Lalla-Cica, destined as they say to adorn thine own court, was one. That is true, but that is not all the truth. We took them with mock violence to save them from the real violence of Almagro’s men, who have to-night leagued themselves to commit just such a crime as ours would have been. The maidens are now safe under the charge of the holy father Valverde, who has received them into the sacred asylum of the Church, which no man among us may violate save at the peril of his own soul.” “May the blessing of the Unnameable, even though He be not the same god as yours, rest upon you for that good deed for ever!” exclaimed Manco, holding out his right hand. “It may be that after all He is the same,” replied de Molina, grasping it, “and therefore I take the blessing and thank thee for it. Now for the rest of my story.