“Him he will not find here. His wife is our kinswoman, aunt to the children yonder.” “How that? She is a daughter of Huayna Capac.” “So was their mother, dead these twelve years. They are of Viracocha’s ayllu through their father, my only son—dead also; of Huayna Capac’s through their mother. Don Marcio is a good man, for a Spaniard. He prayed the viceroy, on bended knees, to spare the Inca’s life. When all was vain, he would not see the crime he could not prevent. He and the princess his wife are far away.” “What shall I do then to find the patre? Must I stand in the street and watch for him? He is sure to pass some time.” Even the phlegmatic Indian could not forbear a grave smile at the expedient José’s ignorance in the ways of cities suggested. “You might watch for him until the great flood comes again,” he said. “Nay, like always goes to like. Seek him at the house where the monks of his sort live.” “He is a gray friar, of the Order of St. Francis.” “One of my servants shall bring you to their house. It is built, like the rest, on the ruins of an Inca palace.” “I long to walk through the city. I have been dreaming of it all my life.” “Dreaming is dangerous in these days,” said the old Inca. “Yesterday’s scaffold was no dream, but dreaming brings a man to that,—or worse.” “There be many things worse,” José remarked. “What Sayri Tupac did, for instance.” “Well said, Child of the Sun,” Yupanqui answered, with grave approval. “Come, we will walk through the city together.” Under the guidance of his new friend, José traversed the great square, the “pleasant hill” of the Incas, through the centre of which the Huatanay flowed, crossed by numerous footbridges of stone. Then he ascended the height of Sachsahuaman, and explored, with mingled pride in the past and bitter indignant sorrow for the present, the ruins of the great Inca fortress. He made Yupanqui point out to him the spot whence his grandfather flung himself into the Colcampata. Thence they looked down on the whole city, which lay beneath them spread out like a map. “There,” said the old Indian—“there once stood the glorious Curi-cancha, glittering with gold and gems. What you see now is the temple and house of the Black Monks. Yet the wall on one side is still standing. Look, you may know it by its dark colour.” “But the grand golden door and cornice, the massive golden vases, the emerald-studded sun—” “You see all the spoiler has left,” Yupanqui interrupted gloomily. “Yonder was the palace of our father, Viracocha. The Christians have built their great temple on its ruins. Those lofty buildings are all theirs. They take our houses, that have better walls than they can make, and set their outlandish towers and balconies upon them, as if the roofs that sheltered princes and heroes were not good enough for them.”