I had said truly “a hazardous enterprise.”  Hazardous and difficult in any circumstances, the hazard and the difficulty would be greatly increased by the presence of a woman; and the fact of a cacique’s wife being one of the companions of my flight would add to the inveteracy of the pursuit.  I greatly doubted, moreover, whether Senora de la Vega knew the country as well as she asserted.  She was so sick of her wretched condition that she would say or do anything to get away from it—­and no wonder.  But was I justified in letting her run the risk?  The punishment of a woman who deserted her husband was death by burning; were Senora de la Vega caught, this punishment would be undoubtedly inflicted; were it even suspected that she had met me or any other man, secretly, Chimu would almost certainly kill her.  Pachatupec husbands had the power of life and death over their wives, and they were as jealous and as cruel as Moors.  Yet death was better than the life she was compelled to lead, and as she was fully cognizant of the risk it seemed my duty to do all that I could to facilitate her escape.

Then another thought occurred to me.  Could this be a trap, a “put up job,” as the phrase goes.  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.  Senora de la Vega could have no interest in betraying me.  She hated her savage husband too heartily to be the voluntary instrument of my destruction, and she was so utterly wretched that I pitied her from my soul.

A creole of pure Spanish blood and noble family, bereft of her husband, forced to become the slave of a brutal Indian, and the constant associate of hardly less brutal women, painfully conscious of her degradation, hopeless of any amendment of her lot, poor Senora de la Vega’s fate would have touched the hardest heart.  And she had little children at home!  My suspicions vanished even more quickly than they had been conceived, and before I reached my quarters I had decided that, come what might, the attempt should be made.

The next question was how and when.  Clearly, the sooner the better; but whether we had better set off at sunrise or sunset was open to doubt.  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 Senora de la Vega to leave Chimu’s house without being observed and questioned, perhaps followed.  So when we met as agreed, I told her that I had decided to make the attempt on the next morning, and asked her to be in a grove of plantains, hard by, an hour before dawn.  I besought her, whatever she did, to be punctual; our lives depended on our stealing away before people were stirring.