With slow, steady steps he advanced to within ten paces of the scaffold. There he stopped, and, turning his face upward to the sun, he closed his eyes and with his lips made the silent Invocation to the Unnameable One. Then with a swift motion he dashed the torch to the ground, sprang forward at a run with the yellow shining dagger in his hand, and bounded with swift leaps up over the wall of fagots on to the scaffold and into the midst of the throng of victims crying-- “Nahua, where are you? I cannot save you, but I will die with you, and my dagger will be kinder than the flames!” CHAPTER VI. THE VEILING OF THE SUN He found her standing bound beside her mother, leaning her head against her breast, and looking with fixed, dazed eyes blankly at the wall of fagots in front of her. In an instant he was at her side, in another he had severed the thongs which bound her wrists and ankles, and the next they were in each other’s arms, and she was sobbing on his breast and imploring him piteously to save her, and not to let them burn her father and mother and little brother. “Alas! Nahua, I have but come to die with you!” he answered, stroking her hair and kissing her upturned brow. “The Inca gave me the choice of being burned alive with you or lighting the fagots myself, and, as he thought, I chose to be your executioner. But I only did that so that I could reach you unbound and armed and save you the torture of the flames.” “But I do not want to die yet, Manco!” she pleaded with him, as though he himself held the power of life and death for her. “What have we done that our Lord should be so cruel?” “There is no time to tell you that, dear,” he answered, brushing the tears from his eyes with the back of the hand that held the knife. Nahua’s eyes caught the yellow gleam of the blade, and she shuddered and clung more closely to him, murmuring-- “Then if I must die I would rather you should kill me than the fire should burn me, for you will not hurt me more than you must, will you, my Prince?” “Quickly, Prince--quickly!” her mother cried out at this moment, “for our Lord has had more torches brought, and they are coming to fire the fagots. But I pray you set free Amaro first, that I may die by his hand, and not see thee shed my Nahua’s blood, even in mercy.” Manco looked towards the throne and saw the Inca pointing towards the scaffold, and four soldiers, each with a lighted torch, descending the terrace steps backwards. He cut Amaro’s bonds and then those of Nahua’s mother, so that they might embrace each other for the last time. Then he gave the knife into Amaro’s hands, and taking Nahua in his arms again turned his head and hers away.