Without a word he replaced it in his bosom. Then he said, calmly enough, “God bless you, nũstallay,” and turned to go. But, turning again for a moment, he added, “I shall see your face no more. Unless, indeed, you or yours ever need the help of the children of your people. Then I will know it, and be near you.” Coyllur watched him until he disappeared in the long dark passage that led to the outer door. Then she fled for refuge to her aunt, whom she actually terrified by an outburst of passionate weeping. Doña Beatriz Coya, who had laboured much to bring about this Spanish match, soothed and comforted her niece by every tender art in her power. “You have no idea, my child,” she said, “with how many sad misgivings of heart I gave my hand, in my day, to the stranger. Nor was I quite so fortunate as you are. Every one knows Don Francisco Solis is of the best blood in Spain—blue blood, as they say;—while Don Marcio Serra (whom the saints preserve!), you know, was—was not—well, no matter now; he is as good as the best of them, and better. But was it not told you how I braved the anger of Paullu, and of all my kindred, because I could not endure the thought of him? And at last, all that Paullu could wring from me, by prayers and threats and promises, was just this, ‘Perhaps I will have him, and perhaps I will not.’” And the good lady indulged in a laugh at the recollection of her own girlish wilfulness. “But there was no perhaps with my Uncle Paullu,” she continued. “At that time he dared not, for his head, disoblige one of the conquistadors. So I was married, in spite of myself, to the best of husbands. And I have had, since then, everything my heart could desire; besides the power to help my people, which I have not failed to use, God and the saints enabling me.” Whilst Coyllur was thus receiving from her kind-hearted aunt the time-honoured conventional consolation, “She herself was not exempt, Doubtless she herself had suffered,” Viracocha was wandering, with his broken heart, amongst the ruins of his ancestors’ fortress on the Sachsahuaman hill. At length he threw himself down amongst the tumbled stones, on a patch of emerald grass variegated with blue and golden wild-flowers. Then came his hour of weakness. All his proud stoicism gone, he bowed his head and wept—such tears as a man may weep unblamed who has just lost everything that made life precious. What dried his tears at last was not any thought of comfort, but the fierce and passionate hatred that like a bitter flood rushed over his heart, leaving no room for softer feelings there. How he hated these enemies of his race—these cruel Spaniards! His own gentler language supplied no words fit for his rage: he was fain to curse them, and that aloud, in the tongue they had taught him to speak. The crushing sense of their all-conquering power, and his and his nation’s impotence, only intensified his hatred a thousandfold.