For the rest of that day and far into the night the Spaniards were treated with a royal and splendid hospitality worthy of the great race from which Manco sprang. They were feasted in gorgeous chambers, seated on chairs of silver, and eating and drinking from dishes and vessels of gold. They were carried in litters up to the rocky ledge beyond Chinchero, where the tableland ends and whence they could see all the glories of the lovely valley spread out laughing in the brilliant sunshine four thousand feet below them. Then, descending into the valley, they were taken without reserve from palace to palace and fortress to fortress, and at night they were amused with dances and martial displays. Then, after feasting splendidly again, they went to rest on couches of cedar and silver covered with the finest and softest furs and inclosed by bright-hued curtains of the silken vicuña wool. The next morning they found their chargers ready groomed and caparisoned for them and their native escort drawn up to receive them in front of the terrace. As soon as the morning meal was over the trumpets and horns sounded and the garrison turned out in silent and perfect order to do honour to the departing guests, and the Inca, accompanied by Nahua and the queen, and attended by old Ruminavi, still clad in steel, and a brilliant array of his nobles, came out to bid them farewell in sight of the assembled host. Behind the Inca came an attendant bearing a great plate of gold, on which was a heap of gems which flashed gloriously in the sunlight, and from this Manco took five long strings of emeralds and rubies, each of which in another land would have been of almost priceless value, and one of these he hung round each of the astonished Spaniards’ necks, and immediately afterwards Nahua left the side of the queen, with whom she had been standing, and went shyly up to de Molina and stood before him blushing rosy red through the pale olive of her skin. On her upturned palms there lay a magnificent ruby cut in the shape of a heart and attached to a golden chain of exquisite workmanship. As soon as he saw it the young cavalier flushed red to the brows and, with the true instinct of a Spaniard and a cavalier, he instantly doffed his morion and dropped on one knee before her, and she took the two ends of the chain and with trembling fingers fastened them around his neck. “That is the gift of my betrothed wife and promised queen,” said Manco, who had come to her side, “and she asks your acceptance of it as a token of the great love that we both bear you, since without you we should not have been together to-day and both of our lives would have been darkened with a great darkness until we met hereafter in the Mansions of the Sun, and therefore we both pray that our Father may keep you to wear it in honour and happiness until we shall meet you as well, no longer enemies, in the land where men do not make war upon each other.”