“Señores, I spoke hastily and I ask your pardon. The loss of the Inca’s person is a very serious one to us. From the reports that have reached us it might even mean our ruin. It was natural, then, that the tidings should affect me deeply, but no doubt you have a report to make. If so, we are all attention. Will you be seated?” “Señor,” replied de Soto, still in the same cold, quiet voice, “I have a somewhat strange tale to tell you for myself and these caballeros here, and after the greeting you have been pleased to give us, we would prefer not to sit in your presence lest perchance we might be taken for your guests.” Don Hernando frowned at the coolly-spoken insult, but he was too politic not to see the danger of exasperating de Soto and his companions any further, so he simply nodded his head and waved his hand again and said-- “Very well, Señores. As you will. And now for the report.” “What happened first,” said de Soto without any further preamble, “was this. In the darkness of the night and just as we had reached the edge of a level plain beyond the mountains, the Inca, who sits a horse as well as any Christian cavalier, suddenly spurred forward into the midst of the fore-guard of Indians. He clove the skull of one with his battle-axe, rode half-a-dozen others down, and went for his life across the plain with us hard after him. The horse he rode belonged, as you know, to the Señor de Molina here, and as you know also, five thousand pesos would not buy such a horse south of Panama. He had the better animal, and he knew the country to a yard. To be brief, he outrode us and escaped. We rode on, hoping to gain some knowledge of the position of the Indian army, which by all accounts is about to attack us. Soon after sunrise we found ourselves in the entrance to that valley of Yucay on which we had doubtless stumbled by accident in the chase, and there we found the Inca.” “Ha!” exclaimed Hernando with just the suspicion of a sneer. “You found him and you did not bring him back--you, four Spanish cavaliers, to one puny Peruvian!” “Señor,” replied de Soto as calmly as ever, “he who hears a tale but half told knows little of the truth of it. We were not four to one. We were more like four to forty thousand, for no sooner did the Inca show himself than the whole valley was alive with armed men. Moreover, there was a fortress on each side of us, a river in front of us, and behind us leagues of country swarming with the enemy. We had already given ourselves up for lost when the Inca waved a white scarf and made a sign that he wished to speak with us. Señor de Molina leapt his horse into the stream and swam to him. What happened, let him tell himself.” He stepped aside, and the young cavalier strode forward, pale, angry, and defiant. But before he could speak Don Hernando waved his hand again and said--