José received these sharp arrows of truth without remonstrance, but without acquiescence. He bore their sting as he would have borne physical pain—silent and unmoved, though keenly sensible. In any other case he would have been very angry with the hands that winged them; but he knew not how to feel anger towards a dying man like Melchior, still less towards the patre. But how unreasonable, how unjust, how cruel the requirement! _Whose_ requirement? That he did not ask himself just yet. With a lowering brow and a heart full of bitterness he went forth; nor did either Melchior or Fray Fernando see him again that night. XXXII. Walter Grey’s Advice. “Forgive!—for ’tis sweet to stammer one letter From the Eternal’s language: on earth it is called ‘Forgiveness.’” LONGFELLOW (_from the Swedish_). José Viracocha was not at all more vindictive than other men. He inherited from his ancestors no implacability of disposition, no burning thirst after vengeance. On the contrary, it was their special glory—a glory that ought to last when other glories fade away—that they saw the beauty of fair Mercy, and wooed and won her to sit beside them on their golden throne. Many a deed of generous magnanimity had place amongst his cherished traditions. He could not remember the first time he had heard how the Inca Mayta caressed and fed the little children of his enemies; how the Inca Huayna Capac taught and acted upon the noble maxim, “We ought to spare our foes, for they will soon be our subjects.” But he had now come to a point at which these traditions could not help him. Although the clemency a monarch extends to despairing suppliants at his feet is a fair thing to look upon, and very grateful to eyes fatigued with the monotonous crimson of battle-fields and massacres, still it is _not_ the forgiveness of keen and cruel personal injuries. As surely as the crystal rings when struck, so surely does human nature respond, with the sharp cry of hatred, to the stroke of wrong. There is only _One_ Hand whose touch can bring peace and make silence there. José could not forgive Don Ramon: he had no wish to do it—his soul rose in rebellion at the very thought. He saw clearly all that it involved. If he pardoned Don Ramon, he must pardon also all his enemies, with all their injuries, public and private. He must pardon Don Francisco Solis; and him he hated quite as bitterly as he hated Don Ramon. And there were times when his resentment against both paled and faded before the intensity of his indignation against the spoilers of Tahuantin Suyu. Them also—even _them_—he must pardon! Impossible! Yet a suspicion, gradually becoming a conviction, was stealing over his heart. It was no other than the King whom he sought—the Divine Monarch and Deliverer, the great Inca of the East—who required this thing of him, who demanded it as the test of his allegiance. If, instead, He had but asked his life-blood!