"Oh, the fighting saint!" he exclaimed, in dismay. "My knees! Stark, gleaming, barefaced, preëminent knees! Gods! I’m _all_ knees! O, San Miguel, clap thine eyes upon them! Didst ever see so many knees, and knees so braggart in their nakedness? Name of a fiend!"
He tugged at the kilt to bring it lower, but vainly, and he sat down.
"A thousand curses!" he groaned, as he contemplated them. "Thrice more flagrant in repose!" He rose and moved about, watching them narrowly. "Flashing like the beacons of Tarragona when I walk! Ah, Blessed Mother, can I ever lug their effrontery into the gaze of women’s eyes? Oh, would that I were Pedro! then this immodesty were reduced by half. Blood and Misery!"
He was standing helpless when Markumi entered with his breakfast. Cristoval eyed him closely, but the boy observed nothing unusual, merely announcing as he set to work to arrange the table that the man would come presently to trim his hair. His knees were bare too, of course, and Cristoval envied their brown. _Bien_! He would sun his own assiduously—and he sat down with a gradually returning feeling of composure.
By the time he had breakfasted the barber arrived. Cristoval hoped to be shaved; but learning that the Peruvians used only tweezers, gave it up, forced to be content with the closest possible trimming. Even this he would have forgone but for Rava, who disliked, and more than half feared, the Viracocha beard. An hour later, with head and face reduced to order, Cristoval strolled out in search of his hostess.
The court in the rear, as he had observed the night before, was open toward the lake and guarded on that side by a low parapet from which steps descended to a broad avenue through the trees, from terrace to terrace to the shore, a few hundred yards distant. In the middle of the patio was the usual fountain, and on each side a parterre, at one of which a venerable servant was at work on the budding plants. Before Cristoval could prevent, the old man prostrated himself; on being asked for the Palla, he rose painfully and led Cristoval to the steps, saying, "She walked toward the lake a moment ago, Viracocha, with two young friends. No doubt you will find her on the shore."