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Though the caciques had not dared to make any open protest against Mamcuna's matrimonial project, I knew that they were bitterly opposed to it, and nothing, I felt sure, would please them better than to kindle the queen's jealousy by making it appear that I was engaged in an intrigue with one of Chimu's wives. Yet no, I could not believe it. No Christian woman would play so base a part.

We found her sitting in her chinchura, in the room where she and I first met. Bather to my surprise she was calm and collected; yet there was a convulsive twitching of her lips and an angry glitter in her eyes that boded ill for my hopes of pardon. "Is it true, this they tell me, señor that you have been helping Chimu's wife to escape, and killed Chimu?" she asked. "It is true."

By leaving at sunset we should be less easily followed; on the other hand, we should have greater difficulty in finding our way and be sooner missed. It was generally about sunset that Mamcuna sent for me, and I knew that at this time it would be well-nigh impossible for Señora de la Vega to leave Chimu's house without being observed and questioned, perhaps followed.

"It is well, señor; your voice has the ring of truth," said the queen, softly, and with a gratified smile, "and inasmuch as you went not away with Chimu's pale-faced wife, but let her depart with the negro " "The señor would have gone also had we not hindered him," interposed Chimu's kinsman.