"
"Yet if I go I leave behind me that which I love," here she glanced
towards me, "and give myself to shame, which is worse than death. Is
that your desire, my father?"
"That is not my desire. Remember, Daughter, that you were party to this
plan, aye, that it sprang from your far-seeing mind. Still, now that
your heart has changed, I would not hold you to your bargain, who desire
most of all things to see you happy at my side. Choose, therefore, and I
obey. On your head be it."
"What shall I say, O Lord, whom I saved from the sea?" asked Quilla in a
piercing whisper, but without turning her head towards me.
Now an agony took hold of me for I knew that what I bade her, that she
would say, and that perchance upon my answer hung the fate of all this
great Chanca people. If she went they would be saved, if she remained
perchance she would be my wife if only for a while. For the Chancas I
cared nothing and for the Quichuas I cared nothing, but Quilla was all
that remained to me in the world and if she went, it was to another man.
I would bid her bide.
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