All order was at an end. In the face of the awful majesty of nature’s tragedy the Inca himself was nothing more than a trembling man, helpless as the meanest wretch who was running shrieking about the square. For the moment the whole fabric of his rule had crumbled to nothing, even as the monuments of his power seemed about to do. No one in that maddened multitude gave a thought to the bound and helpless ones on the scaffold. When Death, swift and terrible, was threatening all, what mattered the lives of three-score men and women? And yet here was hope, if anywhere, and here too alone was calmness, for these had already set their faces to meet the bitterness of death. For nearly an hour now they had been standing bound on the brink of a fiery grave and death had lost well-nigh half its terrors for them. But if destruction were coming they should at least have the chance of flight with free feet, and their hands should be loosed so that, if it might be, they should save their little ones or die seeking to save them. Waking Nahua from her stupor with a kiss, Manco bade her wait for him, and set to work cutting the bonds of the others, and they, as soon as they were free, took such garments as they could lay hands on and hastily clothed themselves and their children in some sort, and then, flinging the fagots aside, made themselves a way to freedom, leaving only the dead bodies of Amaro and his wife behind them, and, led by Manco, began to make their way as best they could towards the street that led to the Southern Gate. But Mama-Lupa broke away from them and gained the terrace where Atahuallpa still sat, shivering on his golden throne, and, standing beside him over the prostrate Zaïma, she threw up her hands and screamed out shrilly above the tumult-- “The shade of the great Inca is angry! He stands alone in his house in the Mansions of the Sun. Where are those he honoured upon earth--wives of Huayna-Capac? Your Lord is lonely, get ye gone to him--sacrifice! sacrifice! The Divine Ones are wrath, and only sacrifice can appease them!” A crowd of women that had been huddled about the palace door heard her and with one accord sprang towards her, tearing at their hair and their robes, and in shrill, screaming tones echoing her words-- “Sacrifice! sacrifice!” They were the wives of the dead Inca, and they remembered how, in the olden times, when a king died, those who had loved him and whom he had loved had of their own accord gone with him to the Mansions of the Sun. It might be that the wrath of the Divine Ones would pass if they did this now, and one of them screaming out: “To the scaffold, to the scaffold! Let us go to our Lord on the wings of the flames!” began to fight her way down the terrace steps and towards the deserted pyre. Others caught up her cry and followed her. Then Mama-Lupa, pointing down at Zaïma’s prostrate form, screamed out again--