Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/290

252 Through all these mighty events the boy Titu continued to nurse the wounded chief in the lonely hut. They lived on roots and the milk of llamas. When, after many months, Quilacu became convalescent, Titu began to make excursions with the object of obtaining news. Titu then revealed herself to her lover as Curi Coyllur, who had taken upon herself the disguise which enabled her to escape from a hated marriage, to seek for her beloved, to save his life, and to nurse him through a long illness. She told him that everything was changed, that both Huascar and Atahualpa were dead and their armies dispersed, and that strange men had arrived from the ocean, whose power was irresistible. She went to Jauja, where she fortunately met Hernando de Soto, one of the best of the Spaniards, who had protested against the murder of Atahualpa. He heard her very touching story through an interpreter, and befriended her. He gave clothes to the lovers, and they were baptised with the names of Hernando and Leonor, and happily married. But Quilacu did not long survive. After his death Curi Coyllur became the mistress of her benefactor. Her daughter, Leonor de Soto, was married at Cuzco to a notary named Carrillo, and had several children.

The empire of the Incas did not fall without more than one gallant effort to save it. Titu Atauchi, one of the sons of the great Inca Huayna Ccapac, was a youth of ability and resource. He was resolved to resist the murderers of his brother, and collected a considerable force with the object of