Spring was now well advanced, and Xilcala grew daily more fair in fresh verdure and blossoming orchards. Stray, fragmentary rumors began to float in, borne by herdsmen on their way to pasturage in the higher Cordilleras. But the tales had reached them from mouth to mouth, and so far as they concerned the Spaniards, were tangled and over-colored. One day, however, there came news of a different order, brought by a _chasqui_, the first to enter the valley in many weeks. The first item was the death at Xauxa of the young Inca Toparca, and the burning at the stake by Pizarro of Challicuchima, the Quitoan general, on the suspicion of having poisoned the Inca. The second item, heard with greater grief by the Xilcalans, was Pizarro’s advance upon Cuzco, and the defeat of the Auqui Manco in the Pass of Vilcaconga, where he had opposed the invaders. The Spaniards, it was thought by the _chasqui_, were doubtless in possession of the capital. Pizarro had left Xauxa garrisoned by a small force of infantry and several hundred Cañares to serve as a base upon which to fall back if forced to retreat from Cuzco.
With the exception of Toparca’s death there was nothing in the news which occasioned surprise to Cristoval. He was too familiar with Spanish prowess to doubt that Pizarro would take Cuzco. He mourned the young prince, but there was more than the intelligence itself to cause him uneasiness and depression. The seclusion of the valley seemed violated by its intrusion, and he awakened to reluctant thought of the end which must come to the half-dreamlike days, bringing uncertainties, dangers, and the parting which had grown more and more unwelcome.
The day of the arrival of the evil tidings Rava and Maytalca spent in retirement, and Cristoval was condemned to solitary wandering. His rambling did not take him far from the hemicycle, and he returned thither frequently, lingering with many a glance up the avenue; then strolled again, or lounged where he could view a certain favored seat. He often turned at fancied footfalls; a distant flutter of the garments of some maid of the Palla’s household was strangely suggestive of Rava; and more than once he was deceived by a glint of bright sunlight on the foliage. Curiously, the garden seemed haunted by dim phantasms of that familiar, graceful form, and after the hundredth illusion he took himself to task: "What, Cristoval! Art a boy, to go mooning along these paths, starting at thine own conjurings? What aileth thee? Once thou wast good companion for thyself. Now thou goest about peering and stretching thy neck into the bushes like an unmated cock-pheasant. Come! Go saddle up and ride. Thou ’rt in sore need of exercise, _camarada_."