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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Have done, Traitor," I laughed, "for I know them all. So Urco may wed Quilla and I may not. Also cease to fret as to that messenger of yours for whom you seek far and near, since he is safe in my keeping. To-morrow I take him to deliver his message not to Urco, but to Kari and then, Traitor?"
After this they went to speak with Quilla and her following, but what they said I did not know. All the while, however, their eyes were fixed on me. Then Quilla brought them to me and one by one they bowed before me, saying something in a language which I did not understand well, for it was somewhat different from that which Kari had taught me.
Here at least Kari was my friend if a jealous one, though of late, as I could see, he was thinking of other things than friendship dark plottings and high ambitions of which as yet he said little to me. Then there was that strange and beautiful woman, Quilla, to whom my heart went out and not only because she was beautiful, and who, as I thought, at times looked kindly on me.
I am promised in marriage to the Child of the Sun and which child is nothing to me." "Well said, Lady Quilla, and why should I wonder? Though I grow old they tell me that I am still handsome, a great deal better looking than Urco, in fact, who is a rough man and of a coarser type.
Also in her hand she held a little silver spear. I stared at her, for move I could not. Then remembering my crazy talk with Kari, uttered one word, only one. It was Quilla. She bowed her head and answered in a voice soft as the murmur of the wind through rushes, speaking in the rich language called Quichua that Kari had taught me.
On the same evening I was summoned by Huaracha and found him dying. There in the presence of his chief captains Quilla and I told him all our story, to which he listened, answering nothing. When it was finished he said: "I thank you, Lord-from-the-Sea, who through great perils have saved my daughter and brought her home to bid farewell to me, untarnished as she went.
Especially would they think so if he were observed to love the company of women or to melt beneath their soft glances. Now I grew sore at the sting of these arrows which of late he had loved to shoot at me, and without pretending to misunderstand him, said outright: "The truth is, Kari, that you are jealous of the lady Quilla as once you were jealous of another."
A voice came from the white heap upon the ground by whom and for whom this dreadful combat had been fought, the voice of Quilla. "One died, but who lives?" asked the voice. I could not answer because I had no breath. All my strength was gone. Still I sat up, supporting myself with my hand and hoping that it would come back.
All being ready, I lay down to sleep awhile, wondering whether it were the last time I should do so upon the earth and, to tell the truth, not caring overmuch who, believing that Quilla was dead, had it not been for my sins which weighed upon me with none to whom I might confess them, should have been glad to leave the world and its troubles for whatever might lie beyond, even if it were but sleep.
Then at least Quilla and her children would live on in peace and greatness since they can have no other foe to fear. Death, what is death? I say that it is the hope of every one of us and most of all the exile and the wanderer. At the best it may be glory; at the worst it must be sleep. Moreover, am I so happy that I should fear to die?
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