"Because I wanted tidings of you, my lord; and for that they could not come too often! At night, too, because they could not get within the town by daytime. For there were sentinels and spies, my lord. Did you not know there were spies?" asked the Cacica, archly, her eyes dancing mischievously. "I--I knew there were spies," answered Balboa, hesitatingly. Then, suddenly assuming a stern and wrathful expression, he grasped the girl's wrists and, looking straight into her eyes, demanded: "What did your people tell you when they came to my house in the night-time? Did they say aught of the cacique Zemaco and of the conspiracy he is forming against me? Tell me, and truly, girl, for if thou liest thou mayst lose thy life!" "I will tell you," answered the Cacica, slowly. "Not because you threaten me, but for the love I bear you. My life is yours, to take at any time." She returned his gaze fearlessly, and in her eyes Balboa could detect no trace of deceit or alarm. "I am a cacique's daughter," she continued, proudly, "though in your eyes a savage and a slave. Your life and the lives of your friends are in my hands--until I tell you; then my life and the lives of my people are at your mercy. Yet I will tell you, because you are still my lord, and I have left my people to go with you and stay within your house. "Know, then, that my brothers came to warn me to fly with them and hide in the mountains, for the men of my race can no longer endure the atrocities committed by the invaders, and are resolved to fall upon them soon by sea and by land. In the town of Tichiri are collected one hundred canoes and five thousand warriors, and the preparations are made for striking a blow that shall destroy your power forever!" IX HOW THE CONSPIRACY WAS DEFEATED 1512 The story told by the Cacica bore the stamp of truth, but Balboa was, or pretended to be, unconvinced, and induced her to send for the brother who had revealed the plot, that he might question him. As she hesitated, he said, "Since he desired you to go with him, you can say you are ready, and he will return." "Yes, he will return. But how will he be received?" she asked, dubiously. "I would not have harm come to him, for his warning was from love of me, my lord." "And for love of me I ask you to send for him," replied Balboa, evasively. He had released the Cacica's hands, and she had fallen into a hammock, where she lay listlessly, with a look of distress in her eyes and a great fear at her heart.