“But, bad as the tribute was,” José continued, recovering calmness, and turning again towards the monk, “men did not curse it, as they did the mita. It was long before I could understand aright what the mita was. I stayed in Nasca, to learn the laws of my people from the old men there; and then I went northwards. Having crossed a desert, I came to another valley, broad and fertile. It was evening. A little village lay amongst fields of quinoa. I thought it had a lonely look. Soon I saw a group of women returning thither from their work. But I saw no men. The women walked hand in hand, chanting a mournful yaravi:— ‘The stranger has taken our husbands to work in his mines, And we toil in the fields for our children’s bread.’ When I talked with them, they told me the Spaniards take away every seventh man to work in the mines and the obregas.[19] If that is not enough, they take more. The men die quickly, and more and more are ever needed. Year after year fewer men in the villages; year after year more men in the mines and obregas.—Where will it end, patre?” “But,” said Fray Fernando, “the term of their service is only a year.” “So said I to the women in my simplicity—‘Your husbands will come back to you in a year.’ And they answered, weeping, ‘They will never come back—no, never again. They will die. Or if haply they live, the Spaniards will say—they are in debt,—and will keep them for yanaconas[20] for ever.’” “Is such done?” asked Fray Fernando. “Every day,” answered José. “At last I said to the poor women of Yea, ‘I will go and see your husbands at the mine.’—They blessed and thanked me, and gave me a store of coca leaves to carry to them, such as I have here” (touching a little ornamental bag, curiously woven of twisted threads in different colours, which hung by his side). “One, the widow of a curaça, gave me this dress to put on; for everywhere the children fled from me in terror, because I was clothed as a Spaniard. It was the holiday dress of her only son. Two years ago a Spanish traveller had taken him by force, with another youth, to carry his baggage to Cuzco. Neither of them ever returned.” “This again is a practice forbidden by the laws,” said Fray Fernando. “What good are _your_ laws? We obeyed the laws of our Inca, because we both loved and feared him. But Spaniards fear nothing, and love nothing—except gold.” “José! José!”