He soon became aware that the dwelling of Yupanqui was a gathering-place for those of the Inca family residing at Cuzco who still in their hearts detested the rule of the Spaniards; as was the palace of Prince Paullu on the Colcampata for those who cheerfully accepted the present state of things. Yupanqui’s guests would drop in—usually by twos and threes—to share the frugal evening meal of the family, who, like all the Incas, only ate twice a day—in the early morning, and again at sundown. When, after they had partaken of the boiled maize seasoned with red pepper, the bitter herbs, and the charqui, chica was brought in, each would dip his finger in his cup and sprinkle a few drops in the air by way of thanksgiving. Then, as they drank together, their conversation was sure to turn upon the former days that were better than these, and the crimes and cruelties of the Spaniards. José soon made friends amongst them, and ere long was on terms of the closest intimacy with his dusky cousins, Don Fernando, Don Juan, and Don Diego, whom however, he always called by more uncouth and less familiar ancestral names. They had all accepted the outward badges of Christianity; indeed, the rites of their old religion were now forbidden by the conquerors. Yupanqui was almost the only person who contrived to evade their laws; or else his disobedience was connived at by the authorities through special favour. But in fact nearly all the Inca Indians had received the new faith, not only willingly, but joyfully. José, himself a heathen in his early childhood, and of late well-nigh moved to cast off Christianity again by the enormities he had witnessed in its professors, felt and expressed some astonishment at the unaffected (though unenlightened) devotion of his kinsmen. But an old Inca, named Maricancha, an intimate friend of Yupanqui’s, and certainly no well-wisher of the Spaniards, took him gravely to task for his irreverence. “You must indeed have been bred in the desert, young man,” he said, “if you never heard the last charge of the great Huayna Capac, when, in dying, he left his peace with us. These were his words, hearken well to them: ‘In a few years after my death a new nation will invade you, and they shall become your lords and masters. Wherefore I charge you to serve them as men; for _their Law is better than yours_.’ It was because of these words (confirmed by many omens of strange significance,[37] which I will relate to you at a more convenient season), that, when the Spaniards came to us, we received them as messengers from heaven. We thought them the sons of Viracocha, who appeared to your father in the plains of Chita; wherefore to this day many of us call them Viracochas. And we would not hurt or offend them in any wise, but obeyed them, and believed all they told us. In truth, we were never conquered,—we were betrayed. Even at Caxa-marca, when they fell upon us without cause and without warning, in the midst of a