To José it seemed as if the sun itself had suddenly become black in the heavens. To him the Inca was as truly a part of the unchanging and unchangeable order of things as the light that ruled the day. Gladly would he have laid down his own head on the block instead of his. “Let me look on his face,” he exclaimed at last; “I have never seen him.” “Come,” said the other briefly; and together they threaded their way through the crowd to the great square. In the old times, when the Inca made his royal progress, the spots where his golden litter rested took a new name from that auspicious hour. Eager thousands thronged around, rending the air, and, as the historian says, “bringing down the birds” with their joyful acclamations; and a happy man was he who was so favoured as to behold the face of his prince and lord. _Now_, instead of the golden throne, there was a grim scaffold draped with black; instead of shouts of joy, there were groans and lamentations, and “noise of weeping loud.” Yet the devotion of the nation’s heart burned on unquenched. Because the homage rendered was not born of fear, but of love, it survived all outward change, all circumstance and pomp of golden thrones, and armed guards, and costly apparel, and was poured forth, only more richly than ever, at the feet of the despoiled and fettered captive on his way to death. With hands bound, and halter round his neck, the son of Manco Capac ascended the scaffold. His face was calm and his step firm. He was not unworthy of his royal ancestors, who had ever braved death dauntlessly on the battle-field. Yet Tupac Amaru, still in the morning of his days, keenly felt the injustice of his doom. Looking down upon the sea of upturned dusky faces, he raised his fettered right hand, with the palm open, then slowly lowered it again, mutely commanding silence. And silence, sudden and complete, fell upon that great wailing multitude. It was “as if there had not been one soul left alive in the whole city.” So was obeyed the Inca’s last command. “Let it be proclaimed to all the world,” said Tupac Amaru, “that I have done no wrong, and that I die only because it is the pleasure of the tyrant.” Then he knelt down on the scaffold, clasped his hands, and raised his eyes to heaven. “O God!” he cried, in his native tongue, “behold how mine enemies rob me of my blood!” There was a minute’s pause; then the silent gliding forward of a hooded, black-robed figure; then the gleam and flash of steel. Then a wail of anguish—the cry of a great nation’s broken heart—that arose from the crowded square of Cuzco, and swept on and on till it reached the most secluded hut of the distant Andes. The last sands of the glorious dynasty of Manco Capac had run out. There was no more an Inca.