“Years ago in old Castile, before these dreams of El-Dorado had fired my soul with visions of adventure and sudden riches, I loved a maiden of my own blood and country, as fair and sweet a maid as the sun of Heaven ever shone on, the fairest of all I thought till I came hither to El-Dorado itself. Thou wilt remember, Inca, how on that first day that we came to thee as an embassy from his Highness the Governor we were led into the great square to the foot of thy throne, and how ere thou didst take thine own place thou didst lead to the seat beside thee her who hath now given herself as hostage for thee. In that moment I saw that earth held a maiden fairer far than her who till then had been my soul’s mistress, and that moment I became a traitor to my own love and a slave of thine. Since then, sleeping or waking, the vision of her beauty has never left mine eyes. Again and again without thy knowledge I have sought by every art I knew to gain her favour, and once, but a few days since, to my eternal shame I say it, I hired force to do what my arts of love had failed to do. She was taken and brought to my house. I could not speak to her as I would in her own language, although, as thou knowest, I know some little of it, and so for want of a better way I sought to bring her to my mind through the lips of the interpreter Filipillo. If I had trusted to what he said I should have taken her as willing to betray thine honour and her own, but happily, when, misled by his lies, I sought to do so, she pleaded so sweetly for herself and thee, and I, more happily still, understood so much of her pleading, that the falsehood was made plain to me. Within the hour she was back unharmed in her home, and it may do thy heart good to know that within the same hour the vile slave who had deceived me, and would have betrayed her, shrieked out his last breath under the lash.” “It was a fate justly decreed, my friend, for now I may well call you that,” said Manco in a voice that was broken by a faint sob. “Henceforth, whether I live or die, thy name shall be one of honour among our people. What more?” “The rest may be told in a few words. When we heard this morning of the noble sacrifice that the Princess Nahua had vowed herself to make for the sake of thee and her people, I called my comrades here together and told them all the story, and when they had heard it we plighted our honour as good Christian knights and gentlemen of Spain that in so far as in us lay, even to the shedding of our own blood, we would prevent so foul a shame from falling upon our faith and nation.