Here the boy ended his story, the latter part of which had evidently been taught him word for word, with especial care, as a religious lesson of high importance. Of course, it is not to be supposed that he related it exactly as here set down. He experienced much difficulty in finding suitable Spanish equivalents for the familiar Quichua phrases, and made many verbal blunders in the attempt. He managed, however, not only to make himself intelligible to the monk, but to give him not a little food for thought. On another occasion Fray Fernando asked the child how his parents came to fix their residence in so remote a spot as an oasis in the wild desert of Achapa. It was night, and they were enjoying the welcome blaze of a cheerful fire in Fray Fernando’s cell. The Indian boy, who loved the warmth, was seated close to the fire on his mat of vicuña skin; and his brown face glowed in the ruddy light, as he looked up to answer his benefactor’s question. “My father and mother,” he said, “with other Inca children who lost their parents in the war, were taken to the desert for safety by the faithful servants of their houses. There they grew up and married; but most of them afterwards went away to join our brave Inca Manco in the forests of Vilca-pampa.—Manco? Don’t you know he was Huascar’s brother, and rightful Inca after him? Don’t you remember how bravely he fought the Spaniards? Our _ayllu_—that is, Viracocha’s—were true to him to a man. In the last great fight at Cuzco, it was my mother’s father who defended the strongest of the three forts to the very end against the Spaniard. Long did he stand almost alone upon the wall, and strike down with his club every Spaniard who tried to scale it. But they mounted the wall at last, in many places at once, and sought to surround and take him alive. Then he sprang to the edge of the battlement, wrapped his mantle round his head, and flung himself down the precipice into the Colcampata. He would not live to serve the Spaniard. And he was right.” Fray Fernando began to feel uneasy. The child’s enthusiasm was of a kind that might one day become dangerous. But he was too wise to fan the flame by contradiction. He merely asked, “What became of your father? Did he, when he grew up, join your Inca in his exile?” “No; but he went forth from our little _paucar_[12] to see the great world, and to try if anything yet remained which a Child of the Sun might do there. I do not remember his going—it was a long time ago; but I well remember the day Chaqui—that was the servant who went with him—came back alone. Chaqui told my mother that my father had gone to help the men of Chili, who were still fighting bravely against the Spaniards. And there he died in battle. My mother wept, and taught me to weep for him. But we were glad that he died fighting with the cruel Spaniards.” “José, I am a Spaniard.”