Page:Ollanta An Ancient Ynca Drama.pdf/21

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INTRODUCTION.
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had heard in the garden, and the strange feeling with which they fill her mind, is considered by Señor Barranca to be the finest passage in the play. Then follows an amusing dialogue between Rumi-ñaui and the scrapegrace Piqui Chaqui, during which the death of the Ynca is announced. Pachacutec is succeeded by his son Ynpanqui, who had been absent for many years, engaged in the conquest of the coast valleys, and who is supposed to be imperfectly informed of the events that had taken place round Cuzco. He entrusted the command against the rebel to Rumi-ñaui, who adopted a cunning stratagem. Concealing his army in a neighbouring ravine, he came to the stronghold of the rebels, and appeared before Ollanta covered with blood, declaring that he had been cruelly treated by the new Ynca, and that he desired to join the insurrection. He encouraged Ollanta and his troops to celebrate the festival of the Sun with drunken orgies, and, when all were heavy with liquor, he admitted his own men and captured the whole of the rebels. In the first scene of the third act there is a touching dialogue between Yma Sumac and her governess Pitu Salla, which ends in the child being allowed to visit her mother in the dungeon. In the second scene the successful stratagem of Rumi-ñaui is related to the Ynca by a messenger, and Ollanta, and his companions, are brought in as prisoners, by the victorious general. The great rebel is not only pardoned by his magnanimous sovereign, but restored to all his honours; and in the midst of the ceremonies of reconciliation, the child Yma Sumac bursts into the presence, and entreats the Ynca Ynpanqui to save the life of his sister and her mother. The Ynca and his