"
I obeyed, and she sank back upon the stone.
"My lord," she said, "our case is very sad, or at least my case is sad,
since though you being a man may love often, I can love but once, and,
my lord, it may not be."
"Why not?" I asked hoarsely. "Your people think me a god; cannot a god
take whom he wills to wife?"
"Not when she is vowed to another god, he who will be Inca; not when on
her, mayhap, hangs the fate of nations."
"We might fly, Quilla."
"Whither could the God-from-the-Sea fly and whither could fly the
daughter of the Moon, who is vowed to the son of the Sun in marriage,
save to death?"
"There are worse things than death, Quilla."
"Aye, but my life is in pawn. I must live that my people may not die.
Myself I offered it to this cause and now, being royal, I cannot take it
back again for my own joy. It is better to be shamed with honour than to
be loved in the lap of shame."
"What then?" I asked hopelessly.
"Only this, that above us are the gods, and--heard you not the oracle of
Rimac that declared to me that I should slip from the hated arms, that
the Sun should be my shelter, and in the beloved arms I should sleep at
last, though from the vengeance of the god betrayed I must fly fast
and far? I think that this means death, but also it means life in death
and--O arms beloved, you shall fold me yet.
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