José was soon informed in Quichua, which he translated into Spanish for the patient’s benefit, that the patre’s disease was the _sorachi_, an ailment to which travellers in those mountainous districts are liable. But the worst of the attack seemed to be over. The patient would be the better for pursuing his journey as soon as he felt at all able to do so. By the time he reached the plain he would probably be as well as ever. For his headache, he was to take a draught of herbs, and to use the powdered leaf of the _sayri_, a supply of which the doctor produced from his wallet. This was, in fact, the tobacco of modern Europe, which the Peruvians only employed as a medicine. José having hinted, however, that food was just then more needful to them than medicine, all the wallets were explored, and a sufficient quantity of parched maize, chuñu, and charqui (dried meat) was produced to make an abundant meal for the whole party. A portion of the latter was carefully cooked for Fray Fernando; but José and the other Indians did not use so much ceremony with their own food. When the repast was finished, the “doctors” had some further conversation with their countryman; then they strapped up their wallets, and prepared to go their own way, from which they had been diverted by José’s earnest entreaties that they would come to the aid of his sick friend. Fray Fernando asked José what recompense he ought to bestow on them. But José told him none was needed. “They are very glad to serve you,” he said, “because you are my friend.” There was no arrogance or assumption in this: it was the simple truth. The words, “Yntip Churi” (Child of the Sun), had a magic in them to bow all hearts in Tahuantin Suyu. Fray Fernando, however, gave the doctors a few silver coins, which were thankfully accepted; and they parted with mute demonstrations of respect and good-will. When they were gone, José silently prepared and administered the prescribed remedies, replenished the fire, gathered together and put aside the food that had been left. That done, he sat down, and looked at Fray Fernando with the air of a person who had tidings, heavy tidings, to communicate. “Of what are you thinking, José?” the monk inquired. He rather expected that José would urge him to get up, and to make some effort to resume his journey. But José’s thoughts were very differently occupied. “Before they went away the doctors told me something,” he said. Fray Fernando asked rather languidly what it was. “Nothing good,” José answered sadly. “Another crime for the Spaniards, another wrong for the children of my people. The Inca is a captive.” “Whom do you mean by the Inca?” Fray Fernando might be excused for asking, since seven years had passed since José named in his hearing the exiled prince whose right it was to wear the llautu. Moreover, much confusion was created in Spanish minds by the fact that _all_ the male descendants of Manco Capac were permitted to assume the cognomen of Inca.