For of Quilla no word reached us. We heard that she had come safely to
Cuzco and after that nothing more. Of her marriage there was no tidings;
indeed she seemed to have vanished away. Certain of Huaracha's spies
reported to him, however, that the great army which Urco had gathered to
attack him had been partly disbanded, which seemed to show that the Inca
no longer prepared for immediate war. Only then what had happened to
Quilla, whose person was the price of peace? Perhaps she was hidden
away during the preparations for her nuptials; at least I could think
of nothing else, unless indeed she had chosen to kill herself or died
naturally.
Soon, however, all news ceased, for Huaracha shut his frontiers, hoping
that thus Urco might not learn that he was gathering armies.
At length, when our forces were almost ready to march, Kari came, Kari
whom I thought lost.
One night when I was seated at my work by lamplight, writing down
numbers upon a parchment, a shadow fell across it, and looking up I saw
Kari standing before me, travel-worn and weary, but Kari without doubt,
unless I dreamed.
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