"Most fair!" says the cavalier, as he said long ago, and passes a
steel-clad arm about her as he meets the deep eyes, now brimming.
There they dwelt--Cristoval and Rava--remote from the dreary scenes of
the wars among the Spaniards which followed close upon the fall of the
Empire of the Incas. They found peace and happiness in a love enduring
as their lives. Happiness, it is true, with a deep, life-long undertone
of grief, for Tavantinsuyu and its last Inca; but their sorrow drew them
nearer, as sorrow must. They found, too, palliative in alleviating many
an ill brought upon the people outside their valley by the subjugation,
and the twain--after their marriage, the Autauchi Cristoval and the
Palla Rava--are remembered in undying tradition.
There, withal, dwelt Pedro, beloved comrade of Cristoval, and his genial
head was silvered for many a long year. And all the children of the
valley, when, from Father Tendilla--who gathered his last flock in
Xilcala--they had learned about the saints, fixed upon Pedro as the
vicar of the Patron Saint of childhood. There, moreover, dwelt the
senora, the guardian angel of Pedro. A somewhat surcharged and
superheated guardian angel, perhaps, but gradually moderating, under the
influence of the repose of the valley, to a mild and kindly warmth. On
one or more occasions, in the early days, she requested Pedro's hand in
marriage with affectionate impetuosity; but he gently though firmly
refused, and compromised with a promise never to leave the valley by
stealth.
And in support of all which precedeth thou mayst find, Reader, in that
peaceful valley, the _Palacio del Autauchi Cristoval_; and in its great
hall two suits of armor, side by side, one perfect the other wanting in
a jambe and solleret. They are cherished with almost equal pride and
reverence by the De Peraltas, who dwell there still, and from whom thou
mayst learn, though it may be with less detail, the history which endeth
here.