While he was speaking de Molina had caught Nahua’s two little hands in his and pressed them in turn gently and respectfully to his lips, as he might have done had he been kissing the hands of his own sovereign’s consort. Then he rose to his feet with his morion under his left arm and said in a voice that he had hard work to keep steady-- “Señor, I would that I could thank her Highness in her own musical speech, but since I cannot you must do it for me, and doubtless her ears will receive the words more gladly from your lips than mine. Tell her that as long as Alonso de Molina lives her gift shall be the most priceless of his possessions, even as the memory of her beauty and graciousness shall be the sweetest, if also the saddest, that life holds for him. Whether I die in battle, as is my hope, or in bed, as may be my fate, those who find me dead shall find this next to my heart.” As he said this he took the splendid gem and pressed it to his lips, and then throwing back his scarf, he dropped it out of sight under his breastplate. “And now, Señor,” he went on, taking the sacred plume from his morion, “there remains, alas, but this to do. To-day we are your friends and guests. To-morrow we may meet as enemies, each bound by his duty to slay the other if he can. When you gave me this you bade me wear it, and you promised me that it should bear me scathless through every battle. That, Señor, is what no soldier of Spain could accept. I may rely on no protection save the mercy of God and my own right arm. Therefore I pray you take it back, not because I would part with it, but because I must.” “That is spoken like a true warrior and an honest man,” said the Inca as he took the feather from him. “I take back my gift since you have shown me that you cannot wear it with honour, yet should it be our fate to join battle a hundred times for each time our hands have met in friendship, before each onset I will pray to our Father that he may keep your lance and mine far apart. And now farewell, Señor, y amigo mio. The way is long and the sun is getting high. When you come to the City of the Sun give my greeting to Anda-Huillac and the rest of my people that are there, and tell them, and your people too, that it will not be long ere I shall visit them.” So the last farewells were said and the Spaniards and their auxiliaries, escorted by a splendid array of the Inca’s own body-guard, crossed the little plain and the bridge of boats and ascended the winding causeway, ever turning to look back with regretful eyes at the brilliant throng on the terrace which stood watching them and waving their farewells until the spur of the mountain had shut them from sight. After a hard ride over the bare, bleak puna they reached Cuzco shortly after sundown and at once made their report to Don Hernando.