But I am not so discreet,
and I vehemently suspect that the lady who was awaiting the virtuous
Tunapa, was Chasca, the Dawn Maiden, she of the beautiful hair which
distills the dew, and that the place of joys whither she invited him was
the Mansion of the Sky, into which, daily, the Light-God, at the hour of
the morning twilight, is ushered by the chaste maiden Aurora.
As the anger of Tunapa was dreadful, so his favors were more than regal.
At the close of a day he once reached the town of the chief Apotampo,
otherwise Pacari tampu, which means the House or Lodgings of the Dawn,
where the festivities of a wedding were in progress. The guests, intent
upon the pleasures of the hour, listened with small patience to the words
of the old man, but the chief himself heard them with profound attention
and delight. Therefore, as Tunapa was leaving he presented to the chief,
as a reward for his hospitality and respect, the staff which had assisted
his feeble limbs in many a journey. It was of no great seemliness, but
upon it were inscribed characters of magic power, and the chief wisely
cherished it among his treasures. It was well he did, for on the day of
the birth of his next child the staff turned into fine gold, and that
child was none other than the far-famed Manco Capac, destined to become
the ancestor of the illustrious line of the Incas, Sons of the Sun, and
famous in all countries that it shines upon; and as for the golden staff,
it became, through all after time until the Spanish conquest, the sceptre
of the Incas and the sign of their sovereignty, the famous and sacred
_tupa yauri_, the royal wand.
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