CHAPTER IVThe Inca's EncampmentSix weeks later the Army of the Conquest was descending the eastern slope of the Maritime Cordillera into the interior valley of Caxamalca. Here, Pizarro learned, the Inca Atahualpa lay with fifty thousand warriors.The march over the mountains had been one of toil and hardship, but the few Peruvians encountered had displayed nothing but hospitality. Two embassies from the Inca had met the invaders, bearing presents and assurances of welcome. The messages were translated by a young native, called by the soldiers Felipillo, who had been picked up on a former expedition, taught the Spanish language, many Spanish vices, and retained as interpreter. Through him the commander sent courteous replies, and, while neglecting no precaution, marched with a sense of security always.To Cristoval, stretched helpless on his rude litter, the first few days had been torture. Later, however, a halt was made at a mountain village whose friendlycuraca, or governor, proffered the use of his sedan with native bearers. They were hardy, sure-footed mountaineers, and thereafter Cristoval swung along with little discomfort. Halts were frequent, and some were protracted, for Pizarro hoped for reënforcements from San Miguel if ships should come from Panama, whither his partner, Almagro, had sailed in quest of fresh recruits. He tarried in vain, but the halts were favorable to Cristoval. His rugged health, aided by the bracing mountain air and the vigilant care of Pedro, hastened his recovery; and by the end of October his wounds were healed, though he had yet to regain his strength. He bore his inactivity with what patience there was in him, but with no prevision of the gratitude he should one day feel for those very wounds.The Fifteenth of November saw the last day's march in the mountains. The column had for hours trailed down a rocky gorge, which at last opened upon a full panorama of the valley of Caxamalca. It stretched out far below, a fertile and verdant plain, checkered with fields, damaskeened with the silver of rivulets and canals for irrigation, and traversed throughout its length by a fair river. Near its centre, gleaming in its setting of green, lay the town of Caxamalca, surrounded by orchards and gardens, and groves of willows, quinuars, and mimosas, in whose shelter could be descried the tinted walls of the cottages and villas of the suburbs.Involuntarily, when the scene burst upon him, Pizarro reined his horse. His trumpeter sounded a halt, and De Soto, whose troop was in advance, rode up beside him, joined straightway by the officers of the staff. They surveyed the valley with amazement. Pizarro was the first to speak."Maravilloso!" he exclaimed. "Ha! Señores, what say you to it? Have your eyes ever beheld a fairer vale? Did I not know better, I could think myself in Andalusia—but,Santa Madre!—look beyond the river—at those hills!""Tents, as I live!" ejaculated De Soto, "and by the ten thousand.""By the soul of me!" growled Hernando Pizarro, the eldest of the commander's four brothers. "Methinks, Francisco, thy dreams of conquest have overreached. Ho! good Father," he continued, turning with a grin to Valverde, the square-jawed chaplain of the expedition, "I'll presently call upon thee for a shrift. Meanwhile, do thou pray a little.""Aye!" muttered Candia, the Greek captain of artillery, "pray a little, and have the other frocks at it with thee. We'll need all your supplications, and,"—to himself,—"the devil's aid besides."The priest did not reply even with a glance. The commander had ridden a few paces in advance and was looking over the vast encampment below with as little emotion in his thin, sallow face as if the Inca's army were a flock of goats.When the leading files of the column first caught sight of the distant encampment a shout arose and was quickly carried to the rear: "El Inca! El Inca! El ejercito del Inca!" and pikes and halberds were brandished with fierce enthusiasm. But as realization of the magnitude of the host came over them the demonstration gave place to ominous silence, and they gazed with something akin to consternation. Pizarro noticed the change, and looked back over the ranks with a barely perceptible curl of his lip. "Forward!" he said to the trumpeter, and moved down the trail.The command wound its descent through the foothills, and at midday halted again. Pennons were affixed to lances, plumes to helmets, and the banners were uncovered and spread to the breeze. Here Cristoval demanded his horse, and, when Pedro protested, declared with emphasis that he was well, and if not well, then well enough; that in any event he would not go into the presence of an enemy borne in a litter, like a woman. So he mounted, though without his armor. The formation most favorable for action in case of attack was now adopted. The infantry and artillery were placed in the middle of the column with cavalry in front and rear; and, with a small advance guard, the army debouched upon the plain.No hostility met the Spaniards. As on the coast, they came upon knots of the natives gathered at the roadside, and these gazed upon the glittering, bannered pageant as if stupefied. When the outskirts of the town were, reached the afternoon was late, and rain, for some time threatening, set in with dreary steadiness. To their surprise they found here no sign of life. The last group of Indios had long been passed, and as the troops plashed along the muddy highway through the suburbs they were greeted only by silence and desertion. Cots and villas were numerous, but all closed and tenantless. They marched through a desolation emphasized by every mark of recent habitation. The people had fled at their coming as from a pestilence.At length they were in the town. Here, too, vacancy and silent thoroughfares, awakened now to unwonted echoes by the ring of horses' hoofs and the rumble of the guns on the pavements. They entered through one of the poorer quarters, where the dwellings were of bricks of sun-dried clay, heavily thatched with straw, all of a single story, substantial, and severely plain. Toward the middle of the town they passed larger buildings of heavy masonry, whose blank walls, unbroken by window or decoration, wore a dull gloom and mystery which, indeed, pervaded the very air. The gray streets, depressingly regular and paved throughout, were unrelieved by a single tree or shrub or patch of sward. Over all a sombreness profound; no sign either, of welcome or hostility; only the apathy of abandonment everywhere.The thoroughfare opened into a great plaza. Pizarro rode to the centre to direct the deployment of the column: on the right, cavalry; in the centre, artillery and foot; on the left, cavalry again; and in the rear, the pack train. The line formed in silence—a spiritless, sullen line, rain-soaked, mud-splashed, with drooping plumes and dripping banners; and oppressed withal by yonder vast encampment and the sense of being in the toils. The march was ended.Patrols were detailed, scouring the town and its outskirts to make sure the desertedness was not merely apparent. Pizarro assembled his officers. He began with his customary terseness:—"Señores, I purpose sending an embassy to the Inca at once. We must know better than we can judge from the cold reception he hath seen fit to accord to us how he regardeth our coming. We must know to-night. To-morrow we will govern our actions accordingly. So do thou go, Soto, and tell him we have come. Say that we have sailed across the seas from a great prince,—God save him!—to offer service and impart to him and his people the True Faith. Put it in a courtly way, but with no servility—thou knowest how—and say that we pray he will honor us with a visit to-morrow."Remember that to these people we are superior beings, almost more than mortal. Carry thyself as a superior even to this emperor, and he'll not fail to credit thy assumption. Did he know our estate, do not doubt that he would hotly resent our pretension. In a word, by every look, gesture, and tone of thy voice strive to impress him. Display thy horsemanship, if there be opportunity,—he hath never seen a horse,—and hold thy chin well in the air. 'Tis important, Soto! Now go, andDominus vobiscum. Take Felipillo and a dozen lances,—more if thou wilt."The captain saluted, and, turning his horse, cantered to his troop to select a following for the perilous mission. In a few minutes, with fifteen chosen cavaliers, he was clattering down the street. Pizarro looked after him, and said, turning to his brother:"Hernando, take twenty more and go with him. He hath too few."The second detachment followed at a gallop.Pizarro briefly surveyed the place. The plaza was enclosed on three sides by low stone buildings, thatched like the others, with great doors opening upon the square. At the western end, toward the Inca's encampment, rose a redoubt or citadel, overlooking the country and commanding the plaza, from which it was entered by a flight of steps. Hither Pizarro rode, dismounted, and ascended to theterre-plein, followed by his officers. Here he could view the Inca's position with the intermediate plain and its river. The road followed by De Soto led over a causeway extending from the town to the bank of the stream, and from time to time the watchers caught glimpses of the cavalcade, until it was finally lost to sight.It was twilight when the detachment returned, but the dusk could not conceal its gloom. The result of the mission had not been cheering. De Soto and Hernando Pizarro dismissed their detail, and hastened to the commander to report the interview.Cristoval was in his quarters in one of the large buildings on the square, seated with José over a flask ofchichawhen, an hour later, Pedro entered."Good evening, Señores," said he, smiling benignly. "My blessing—a cook's blessing. Ah, Cristoval, thou 'rt the first cheerful-looking man I've seen this night! 'Tis most commendable. Put a good face on 't, and discountenance the devil.Hilarum semper fac te et lubentem!—which meaneth, gentlemen, be cheerful and good-humored always—a good maxim just now, is it not?""Excellent!" replied Cristoval. "Sit and have a cup with us, Pedro. These be serious times.""True!" said the portly cook, squeezing himself between the bench and the table with difficulty. "And there is something like demoralization abroad among the men. So many are clamoring to Father Valverde to be shriven that the good priest is beside himself.Terror incidit exercitui, bonum facit militem—fear striketh the army and maketh the soldier good. They have just consecrated the building next the infantry quarters for a chapel—and 't is well placed, I'll swear, for not a pikeman but is a thief!—and there will be services all night. Pizarro goeth about among the men like their own father, blowing upon the embers of their extinguished courage. What a man! He knoweth neither fear nor doubt, and he can talk both out of any man who weareth ears.Cara! To-morrow might be afiestaso far as it fasheth him. Just now I met him on the square. 'Hola, Pedro!' quoth he, 'hast heard? This pagan king cometh to-morrow for a visit, and I would give him a taste of Christian cooking. Canst scrape up a meal?' What d'ye think of that, Señores?—with the army in a cold sweat from looking at the Inca's camp and counting his tents!"Cristoval smote the table with his fist. "By the fighting Saint Michael, he hath not his peer in armor!""No!" Pedro concurred with emphasis. "Thou sayst right, Cristoval. But the poorveedor! Have ye seen him? He hath been waddling about the square, swollen with consternation, now climbing to the fortress to stare at the campfires on the hills, now scuttling down again to tell how many there are; one minute praying, the next swearing, and the next bellowing like a calf that he is a civilian, no fighting man, and is misplaced. And misplaced he is, I'll take my oath! Pizarro locked him up at last, to prevent the panic he was beginning to spread. Gods, gentlemen! were I the commander I'd melt him and make him into tallow dips."A bugle sounded in the square, and Cristoval exclaimed, rising, "Officers' call! The general hath something to say."Pizarro had something of moment to say, and was in council with his officers through the night.CHAPTER VThe Monarch and the Princess RavaThe entry of the Spaniards into Caxamalca had not been spirited, nor jubilant. But the rain, which had conspired with other depressing circumstances to dishearten them, ceased during the night, and the sixteenth of November broke with a cloudless sky. Its first light was greeted in the Peruvian camp by the clamor of trumpets, the wailing of conches and horns, and the thunder of drums—a warlike and mighty dissonance which struck faintly upon the listening ears of the invaders in the town, and set many a good Christian making the sign of the cross and murmuring his prayers. The army of the Inca was portentously astir.The monarch was quartered in a villa at the edge of the eastern foothills. Not far away, their position marked by columns of rising steam, were the hot mineral springs which had made the place a resort of the Incas for generations.The villa itself differed little in its severe simplicity from other structures of the country. It was massively built of stone, with the usual high-pitched covering of thatch—a form of roof far from primitive in this instance, for the thatches of Peru were artfully and durably constructed, often highly ornate in the weaving and gilding of their straw. The building was without exterior decoration except for the sculptured geometrical design bordering the entrance. This doorway, like the small windows set high up under the eaves, and the numerous niches with growing plants, which served to modify the severity and blankness of the walls, narrowed from threshold to lintel as in the architecture of ancient Egypt. The walls, too, broad at the base and sloping inward as they narrowed to the top, further suggested the comparison.On either side of the villa entrance stood sentinels in the blue of the Incarial Guard, in heavily pourpointed tunics or gambesons, similar to those worn by the European men-at-arms of the fourteenth century. Each wore a casque of burnished silver, with heavy cheek-plates descending to the point of the jaw, and surmounted by the figure of a crouching panther, the device of their corps. Above the head-piece rose a high crescent-shaped crest, not unlike that on the helm of the warrior of ancient Greece. Their arms were bare to the shoulder, but encircled by heavy bands of silver above the elbow and at the wrist. Their legs were protected only by the blue and silver lacings of their sandals, which entwined them to the knees. They were armed with javelins, small round shields of polished brass, and from their broad, heavily plated belts hung small battle-axes and short swords of bronze, an alloy which the Peruvians tempered almost to the hardness of steel.At an early hour the throne-room was filled with officers and nobles costumed as brilliantly as the court of an Oriental potentate. The majority were Quitoans, but among them were a small number of the nobles of Cuzco, recent adherents of Huascar, who had tendered their allegiance to the successful Atahualpa, or whose presence at the court the latter had commanded. All were in the sleeveless outer garment of the country, belted at the waist, with skirts falling to the knees, and not unlike thetunicaof the Roman. The stuff was of wool, woven in fanciful and often elegant patterns, and not infrequently decorated with elaborate passementerie, or with braid or scale-work of gold and silver. Every stalwart form glittered with jewelled armlets, bracelets, necklaces, and girdles in the precious metals, while the nobles of Cuzco wore, as a distinguishing mark of their order, heavy discs of gold let into the lobes of their ears.The apartment in which they awaited the coming of the monarch was no less splendid than the assemblage, and showed the same lavish use of gold and silver, which in the empire of the Incas had no value except for ornamentation. It was a lofty chamber with walls of polished porphyry, divided by pilasters into panels bordered with vines in precious metal, perfect in leaf and stem. Suspended from silver brackets wrought in forms of serpents, lizards, and fanciful monsters, were lamps burning perfumed oil, filling the room with faint aroma, and dispelling the obscurity of the early morning with their radiance. The ceiling, panelled by heavy rafters, was of rushes, gilded and elaborately woven in squares and lozenges. At intervals the walls were niched like those of the exterior, to receive natural plants or imitations of them in the metals.In the rear of the apartment, beneath a canopy resplendent with embroidery and featherwork, was a dais of serpentine on which stood the Inca's seat, a low stool of solid gold, richly chased and jewelled. Back of this, against the wall, was the imperial standard, on whose folds blazed and sparkled in embroidery and precious stones a rainbow, the insigne of the Incas.The room was nearly bare of furniture, but its marble floor was softened by richly dyed rugs and the skins of animals. In a word, in this country villa of the ruler of an empire of the farthest West was a wealth of decoration that would have dimmed the splendor of the palace of a maharajah.Presently, a door in the rear swung open, and a silence fell as a grizzled veteran in the splendid uniform of a general of the Quitoan troops entered and raised his hand. He was followed by two officers of the Incarial Guard, who halted and took post at each side of the doorway. A breathless moment, then came the Inca Atahualpa, attended by his personal staff. The nobles went upon their knees, bending until their foreheads touched the floor, and so remained until the monarch, moving with brisk, soldierly pace, had gained the dais, where he turned with a brief command that they arise.Atahualpa was then close to his thirtieth year. His countenance was one which would have been striking among men of any race. He had the warrior-face of the American aborigine—the aquiline nose, the high cheekbones and firm jaw and mouth, the calm pride and dignity of expression—but refined by generations of Inca culture. It was the face of a fighter, and a slumbering ferocity was perhaps lurking in the dark and somewhat bloodshot eyes; but it was also an intellectual one, clear-cut in line and contour, and backed by a well-formed head, handsomely poised. His complexion, of the usual bronze of the Indian, was yet not more swarthy than that of many Spaniards. His black hair was closely trimmed, and on his head was the royal diadem, thellauta, a thick cord or band of crimson, wound several times around, with a pendant fringe covering his forehead to his brows from temple to temple. Set closely in thellautaabove the fringe, diverging as they rose, were two small white feathers, each with a single spot of black. These were taken from the wings of thecoraquenque, a rare bird sacred to the Incas. He was simply clad in deep red, the royal color. His tunic was quite devoid of decoration, but the cloak thrown over his shoulders glittered with embroidery and scales of gold, and besides his heavy ear-ornaments he wore at his throat a collar of emeralds worth an emperor's ransom.A powerful man, well and serenely accustomed to his power, mentally and physically equal to its exercise, and sufficiently wonted to it not to be self-conscious, is truly a fit object of admiration. There is nothing more sublime, in its way, on earth: nothing more majestic, and only suggested by the brute kingliness of the lion. Atahualpa, the descendant of a long line of absolute monarchs, a line believed by the Peruvians to have sprung from Inti, the Sun-god himself, wore his majesty as naturally as he wore his cloak and with as little thought of it.On this occasion the audience was short, and the Inca did not seat himself. Having heard the reports of his generals, he directed that supplies be sent to the Spaniards in Caxamalca, gave a few orders concerning the disposition of his troops and the formation of his escort for the visit to Pizarro that afternoon, and retired, while the nobles went again upon their knees until he had quit the apartment. In the court outside he dismissed his staff and descended a terrace into the garden in the rear of the palace.It was an alluring place at any hour, and to its quiet seclusion the young monarch often resorted when he wearied of councils, the affairs of government, and the endless formalities of the court. From the rear of the villa an avenue, bordered with flowering shrubbery and spreading palms backed by tall quinuars, led to an open lawn in the middle of which played a fountain. Around the margin of the green, set in shady niches in the foliage, were marble benches. Over one of these rugs had been thrown, and leaning sadly on its arm with her cheek resting on her hand sat a maiden of seventeen. A few paces away were half-a-dozen attendants, seated on the sward, arranging armfuls of flowers. So busy were they, and so deep the maiden's reverie, that the Inca's coming was unnoted, and he paused, surveying the group and hesitating to interrupt. At that moment, slightly turning her head, the girl observed him; with sudden pallor and a movement of her hand to her heart she arose.She was handsome and womanly, and as she stood timidly awaiting her monarch's approach he did not fail to note her beauty with brotherly pride; for she was his half-sister, the Ñusta[1] Rava. Her dark eyes, heavily veiled by their lashes, were downcast, and her color came and went with every step of his advance. Her cloak, falling back as she arose, had left partly uncovered one dimpled arm and shoulder, and the low-cut white robe, orllicla. This garment, made of the soft wool of the vicuña, was loosely and gracefully draped about her form, caught in at the waist by a richly jewelled girdle, and secured by goldentopus, or large, broad-headed pins. A necklace of pearls and the jewelled band of gold about her head were her only other ornaments, save those necessary to keep in place a wealth of black tresses coiled in a form of Grecian knot.[1] Ñusta = Princess.As the Inca drew near she would have knelt, but he stayed her quickly, and taking her hand, reverently carried it to his lips."May the sun shine brightly upon thee this day, my sister," said he. "Thou 'rt abroad early. I thought to find the garden deserted.""I have been walking, my lord," she replied, with eyes still lowered, and drew almost imperceptibly away. "I was about to return.""Nay: let me walk with thee. Perhaps I can tell thee something to lighten thy heart. Come.""Ah, my lord," she sighed, raising her eyes to his with a swift glance, and turning them away filled with tears."I know—I know! Thou grievest for our unfortunate brother Huascar," he said kindly. "It was partly on his account that I had thee come to Caxamalca. I would not have thee mourn needlessly, nor think me a monster in holding him in brief imprisonment. It is against my wish, believe me, and only to prevent renewal of the late unhappy war.""Oh, most unhappy, most dreadful, my lord!—and between my brothers!" she answered with a sob."Most dreadful!" repeated Atahualpa, gravely. "Yet thou knowest how it was forced upon me.""Forced upon thee, my lord? They told me different.""They told thee falsely!" he exclaimed. "Dost thou not know how it was brought about?—I fear not, in its truth. Then let us walk whilst I tell thee." He passed his arm about her fondly, and led her down the avenue."Thou knowest, Rava," he began after they had taken a few steps, "the will of our father, given at Cuzco some months before his death, by which the kingdom of Quito was bequeathed to me, and Cuzco to Huascar. Thou knowest that for several years we reigned in peace, each in his own domain. So it might have continued had Huascar been content. But, chafing under the loss of Quito, which but for me would have been one of his provinces, he sent an ambassador demanding that I acknowledge myself vassal and feudatory. It was a challenge, and what reply could there be but war? Huascar's misfortunes flow from his misguided ambition and impious disregard of our father's will.""Oh, pardon him, pardon him, my brother!" implored the princess, turning to him and pressing her clasped hands to her breast. "He was ill-advised. He was hounded to his fault, I know, by wicked ministers. Most bitterly hath Cuzco repented it!""Cuzco!—it may be," replied Atahualpa, slowly; "but Huascar—However, it is my purpose to pardon him, Rava; so banish thine unhappiness. For the present, for the sake of the tranquillity of the empire, we must hold him. But when that is assured he shall be free. Weep no more.""Oh, Atahualpa, what words will tell thee my heart's gratitude!" sobbed the young girl, taking his hand in both her own. "Thou knowest not what my grief hath been!""Nay! but I do know, my dear. Since the war began I have thought often what it must be. But do not thank me. No need of words. Thy happiness is more than thanks enough. I always loved thee, Rava, when we were together in the old palace at Cuzco. Now, thou 'rt no less dear to me than mine own daughters in far-off Quito. I trust soon to remove the nearest cause of thy sorrow. It was for this, as I have said, that I sent for thee to come to Caxamalca."They were interrupted by a youth of twenty years, in the uniform of a Quitoan general. As he drew near he removed his helmet, disclosing the yellowllautuworn by the princes of the blood royal, and knelt as he placed a pebble upon his shoulder in the customary sign of homage. It was the Auqui[2] Toparca, brother to Atahualpa, and like the latter, a half-brother of the Ñusta Rava. Not even his exalted rank permitted him to approach the sovereign otherwise than in the attitude of a subject; but the obeisance performed, he arose and was embraced by the two, and the trio strolled on together. The conversation turned at once upon the strangers in Caxamalca. The purposed visit of the Inca was deprecated with timid earnestness by the Ñusta, and with energy by the Auqui; but Atahualpa waved aside their objections with a smile, and soon afterwards returned to the palace.[2] Auqui = Prince.CHAPTER VIThe MassacreIt was after midday when the Inca gave the order for the formation of his troops, and the brazen notes of trumpets rose from the parade in front of the villa. As the last measure died away the call was taken up in one quarter after another, and the air trembled with the din of the horns of the legions from Quito, the hoarse bellow of the conches of the coast tribes, the shrieking pipes of the mountaineers from the highlands around Chimborazo, and the growl of the drums of the fierce hordes from the eastern slopes of the Andes,—a huge wild diapason that sent another chill to Spanish hearts as it floated over the valley.The tumult died away on the distant flanks of the encampment. Presently, company after company was sweeping into the low plain between the camp and the river, and forming into battalions. Here they stood motionless, broke at last into columns, and marched down to the fords, the earth shaken by the feet of their thousands, the air hideously vibrant with the fierce music of their instruments and wild chanting. A sound as of surf breaking on a shingled beach rose above the stream, its silver turned into yellow turbidity which stained its course for many a mile below, while the dark columns crept up the eastern bank and deployed on the plain in front of Caxamalca.Pizarro, standing with a small group of officers on the parapet of the redoubt, gazed upon the dense, sinuous line of masses, silent now, stretching up and down the valley. From tens of thousands of spear-points and from myriads of brazen shields and helmets, the rays of the western sun were thrown back in a restless, quivering infinitude of scintillations. Slowly, but with a terrible steadiness, the line rolled forward, now obliterating a canal or roadway, now a garden or a field of grain; here, a battalion losing itself in a grove; there, in the aisles of an orchard; to reappear on the hither side, perfect in alignment. At length, at a distance of something less than a mile, the central battalions halted, but the wings swept on until a vast, dark semi-circle confronted the town.Pizarro watched the progress of the movement in silence, speaking only to give an order, or in brief reply to some remark or inquiry from one of his companions. With him were several of his staff, Father Valverde, Felipillo the interpreter, and two or three orderlies. At the head of the stairway descending to the square were Candia's two cannon, commanding the place. Close at hand was a brazier of burning charcoal for the matches of the cannoneers, who were clustered at the parapet, barefooted and stripped to the waist, watching, half-stupefied, the advancing hordes.Below, the sunlit square, with its shadows now stealing out from the westward, was deserted—peaceful as on a Sabbath. And the Sabbath it might have been, for from one of the buildings came the unceasing murmur of the priests at prayer. All night long priests had knelt in pious invocation of the aid of the Lord of Hosts and the Holy Virgin upon this day's undertaking. Thus, too, they had knelt since dawn, when mass had been celebrated, the soldiers joining devoutly in the hymn, "Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam.""Rise, O Lord, and judge thy cause!"—so they had chanted, with hearts swelling with the exaltation of faith that the cause was just, with the sublime confidence that the Holy Cross must triumph. Through the night Pizarro had been among them, had spoken with simple eloquence, had inspired their zeal by his own; and had roused alike the fires of religious fervor and the lust of conquest and of pagan gold. Through the night the ecclesiastics had given themselves to discipline, had shed tears and blood while they scourged themselves and cried to Heaven to give victory to the soldiers of the True Faith. Such was the prelude!And now, behind the great doors giving upon the square the companies waited in grim readiness: in one of the buildings, the infantry; in another, De Soto's troop; in a third, that of Hernando Pizarro. The hours had lengthened through the morning, and still they waited in suspense. Under prolonged tension their enthusiasm had waned, and now many a villanous face, recently alight with devotion, grew anxious or lowering. Some time after midday achasqui, or runner, had arrived from the Inca with the announcement that he would come with warriors fully armed, like the Spanish emissaries the day before. Replied Pizarro, "Say to your Señor that in whatever manner he cometh he shall be received as a friend and brother." Then he turned to Hernando with a black scowl: "Let the infidel come as he will!—only Heaven grant that he may not come tardily! Delay is more to be dreaded than an onslaught. A few more hours of this waiting, and the blood of our men will turn to water."Hernando shrugged gloomily, and turned his eyes upon the advancing lines.It was late afternoon before the movement of the Inca's troops was completed. For any sign of perturbation Pizarro might have been observing a parade; though his thin lips were more than usually compressed, his face a bit more pallid, his taciturnity increased. De Soto was conversing in a low tone with Candia as they surveyed the field. Hernando Pizarro was standing beside his brother on the parapet, muttering occasional oaths."Caramba!" he exclaimed, as the wings of the approaching army began to close in. "It appeareth that the Inca accepteth thine invitation with some emphasis, Francisco! Had we better not change our plans and prepare to defend the town whilst there is yet time? That is a pretty formation for attack, if I ever saw one, and more promising of a fight than of a neighborly visit, I'll be bound!""Wait!" replied the commander, shortly."By the saints, we have little time for waiting! They will be upon us in half an hour; and not even a barricade! Let me take my troop and show them our metal, at least.""Wait!" repeated Pizarro, sternly.Hernando sprang down with a curse, and strode away. At this instant an exclamation broke from De Soto."Look!—The causeway!"The head of a column had pushed out from the trees which hid the approach to the bridge. The distance was too great to disclose its nature, but soon the highway was covered with thousands. Presently Pizarro noted with relief that the movement of the encircling line had been arrested, and the approaching column had advanced beyond it. He could hear the rolling of drums and the weird strains of heathen marching music. Soon no doubt remained that it was the escort of the Inca. About half a mile from the edge of the town the column turned from the causeway and halted, and the anxious watchers saw they were pitching tents. Achasquiwas seen speeding toward the town. Pizarro descended to the square with his officers. A soldier from the exterior guard hurried in with thechasqui, a half-naked, clean-limbed, intelligent-looking youth, lithe and supple as a panther. He bore a message, translated by Felipillo, to the effect that the Inca would camp for the night on the plain, and would enter in the morning. An impatient oath, quickly suppressed, escaped Pizarro, and he replied coolly:—"Tell him that our disappointment will be immeasurable. We have made all preparations for his reception, and hope to have him sup with us."Thechasquidarted away.After an interval another arrived. The Inca would be pleased to come; and as he would remain overnight, would bring his attendants, but without arms. Thechasquideparted. Pizarro, his pallid face lighted for an instant by a smile, sinister and triumphant, turned to his officers."Now, gentlemen, the quarry! Remember—everything, our lives, all, hang upon the absolute and implicit observance of my instructions. If we fail," he waved his hand toward the menacing dark semicircle outside the town, "ye know what to expect. But we shall not fail. Now, to your posts, and may the Virgin have us all in her keeping! I believe every man knoweth his duty. Candia, art ready?""More than ready, General!""Then, to thy guns!"Candia returned to the redoubt, occupied now only by his cannoneers and the sentinel.On the plain the tent-pitching is given over, the column has regained the causeway, and is again approaching the town. In front are a multitude of sweepers, clearing the way of every pebble, fallen leaf, or twig, singing as they work. In their rear are a hundred drummers beating, in a strange cadence, long-bodied drums of varied size and pitch of tone. Following these, the imperial band of five hundred musicians, gorgeously liveried and resplendent with trappings of burnished metal, playing on trumpets, pipes, and stringed instruments of divers forms, the wild but not unmusical march sung by the sweepers. Then, at an interval, follow a thousand nobles in white tunics, bearing small mallets or hammers of copper and silver. Another interval, and a second body of nobles of higher rank, in tunics of checkered white and red, ablaze with ornaments of gold. Now, two battalions of the splendid warriors in the blue of the Incarial Guard, but without arms. Between them, and guarded by a platoon of nobles, floats the standard of the Inca. Immediately after the detachment of the guard, seated upon an open litter, or sedan, borne on the shoulders of half a score of nobles of the highest rank, and surrounded by his attendants, counsellors, and priests, is Atahualpa, a most imperial and commanding figure, as we have seen. In the rear, follows a great column of guards and nobles no less splendid than those of the van.Treasure enough here, Pizarro, to whet the greed and nerve the arms of your ravening, plunder-hungry companions, could they but behold it from their concealment! Let us see. Twenty-five thousand ducats in the seat on which the Inca sits. Thousands more in the decorations of the sedan. Thousands more in the gem-encrusted standard, and every noble in the train wearing a small fortune on his person. Such a display never before met the eyes or brightened the dreams of your Spaniards, whom thechasquihas reported, not without truth, as huddled, panic-stricken, in some of the buildings of the town.The pageant has passed the suburbs and is in the streets, deserted as Pizarro found them yesterday; for the exterior guards have been withdrawn, to be of use, presently, elsewhere. Now the column has entered the great square, opening its files to the right and left to permit the passage of the Inca and his suite, who move to the middle of the place and halt, the escort massing on the flanks and rear. Company after company of the guard, and body after body of the nobles, march into the plaza and take position with a celerity and precision of movement showing the highest discipline; and it is long before the rear has deployed from the narrow street. Meanwhile the Inca has looked about, at first with expectant interest, then with growing suspicion and impatience as he perceives no sign of welcome, nor any living being outside of his own following. The silence is strange, in truth, and not reassuring,—even it is ominous. The great doors facing upon the square are closed and blank. At the head of the stairway entering the redoubt two bronze muzzles overlook the plaza, but these are quite without significance. At last the Inca demands, with increasing ire at the too evident discourtesy:—"Where are the strangers?"As if in answer to his question a door opposite partly opens, and the dingy, gray-black figure of Father Valverde, in march-worn cassock, bearing crucifix and breviary, enters the square. A soldier follows, in complete armor. He is known to history as Hernando de Aldana—introduced and dismissed for all time by a dozen brief words. Behind him comes the malicious, spoiled renegade, Felipillo, shaking now in his Spanish boots, and scarcely fit to perform his office of interpreting.Slowly, and with priestly dignity, the gray-black figure approaches the Inca as no man ever approached him before, with unbended knee or back, bearing no burden or symbol of one, and no doubt regarded curiously and contemptuously enough by the monarch, who is not done with considering the quality of his reception.Father Valverde, informing the Inca that he has been ordered by his general, Pizarro, to teach him the doctrines of the True Faith, at once sets about that undertaking, expounding its tenets briefly and as convincingly, perhaps, as could have been done under the circumstances. Then, following the formula customarily used by the Spanish conquistadores, he announces the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and the temporal power of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and urgently recommends that the Inca acknowledge himself tributary to the latter, forthwith.No doubt the father expounded the doctrines as convincingly as possible under the circumstances; and with as much effect, probably, as was expected of the perfunctory mockery by the Spaniards themselves: at any rate, not convincingly enough, but with the effect looked for and desired; for Atahualpa, firing at the suggestion of vassalage, reddens with anger, and demanding of Valverde his credentials and authority, seizes the breviary, turns its pages rapidly, then casts it upon the ground with right kingly scorn and rage."Tell your general," says he, with hot pride, "and let him say it to his emperor, that I am no man's vassal! And say further that before I leave this place your people shall account to me for every act of presumption or violence done within my territories!"Shocked at the sacrilege offered the holy book, the good father snatches it from among the feet of the heathens. The doughty Aldana claps hand to his sword with Spanish bravado,—even draws it, says one,—but the priest is scuttling across the plaza to Pizarro, who is waiting in the building occupied by the infantry. Aldana follows. The wretched farce is ended—a farce truly Spanish, as what follows is truly and characteristically Spanish.The door opens again, and Father Valverde, pale to the lips, enters and stands before Pizarro, who is no less pale, but infinitely more composed. Back of him in the dim obscurity of the great hall is massed the infantry, every sword bared, every pike and halberd clutched with nerves strained by long suspense. The priest, his voice husky with excitement and rage at the indignity put upon the holy book, and, it may be, at the unconcealed contempt with which he was received by the monarch, exclaims:—"Dost not see—dost not see what is taking place? Whilst we are engaged in courtesies and parley with this dog full of pride, the plains are filled with his warriors! Fall upon him! Fall upon him!—I absolve you!"Pizarro makes no reply, but flushes with unaccustomed color, and steps out of the door into the plaza, in his hand a white scarf. The Inca, with the frown deepening upon his stern, calm face, sees him raise it over his head, and wonders what new idleness——A quick, sudden flash, half perceived, a sharp, ear-stunning explosion, as of lightning striking near, and an unseen messenger of death ploughs a mangled, horrid furrow through the dense ranks of the Peruvians. A plunging, white sulphurous cloud has burst from one of the guns on the redoubt, and rolls low and stifling over the square. There is a brief instant of stillness, then a moan of terror, broken quickly by yells of wounded men, answered by a second flash and roar. The great doors swing back, their blankness giving place to sudden fell activity as charging columns crash into the open with the battle-cries of Spain. An avalanche of steel-clad men and horses here; another there; a rushing, bellowing phalanx of infantry between. "Santiago à ellos!" "Cristo y San Miguel!" They strike the fear-numbed mass of the Peruvians, cutting, thrusting, slashing, with resistless fury. The ranks of nobles, silent and motionless a moment ago, are whirled by the shock into a seething, shrieking tumult. Those on the edge of the concourse are hurled back upon their fellows by the tremendous impact, and cut down while they reel. The mail-clad Spaniards, released from the nervous strain of hours' duration, are seized of blood-madness. Their battle-cries are lost in an infernal chorus of screams of agony, overtopped by the reports of the cannon which thunder savage accompaniment. A pandemonium! An outbreak of hell itself! A horror not to be dwelt upon!The worst of the slaughter is around Atahualpa, whose person the Spaniards are making most desperate efforts to gain; but a large number of his escort, cut off by the charge of De Soto's troop, have stampeded in wild panic down the narrow streets leading from the plaza. A few escape, but in a moment these avenues are blocked by the crush. De Soto, having perceived at once that the Peruvians are unarmed and that victory—if this atrocity can be so called—-was assured by the very first collision, essays gallantly to check the worse than useless butchery. His commands are unheard. He snatches his trumpeter's instrument and blows the recall—blows again and again. As well shout injunctions to a tornado, or call to a pack of wolves. He drives among his men, striking up their weapons. De Piedra, enraged by his interference, aims a cut at him, and is unhelmed and unhorsed by a blow from the captain's mace. Well struck, De Soto! Pity it had not been better; for Piedra will be breathing again before an hour has passed. But De Soto finds it perilous work. In a moment his horse is wounded by a pikeman, and rearing, slips and is down. Steed and rider are lost in the confusion: at last, up again, the captain unhurt. It is some minutes before he is mounted, and meanwhile a wall of stone and adobe forming part of the enclosure of the square has given away before the crush of the fear-driven horde, and they burst through the break in a huge struggling torrent. They reach the plain outside the town, pursued with relentless ferocity by the cavalry. The Inca's troops, already in consternation at the uproar in the village, the shrieks, the cannonade, and the overhanging cloud of smoke, take the panic and scatter as chaff before the wind.In the square the din has lost its volume. Candia has ceased firing, for the smoke impedes his view of the shambles, where friends are endangered by his guns. Around the Inca the unequal struggle goes on under his horror-stricken eyes, and he stands, benumbed and helpless, tottering on his reeling litter. In the anguish of their despair his nobles cast themselves to death with a loyalty of devotion the gods might envy; but the bulwark they interpose before their beloved lord grows steadily less. Several of the Spaniards now are making frenzied efforts to reach him with their weapons, and one has hurled his pike. Pizarro sees the movement and shouts, hoarse with weariness, unheard and unheeded, "Strike not the Inca, on pain of death!"But he is heard by Cristoval, who, with two or three sick men, has been left as a guard for the priests, still at their supplications. Since the first thundering charge he has watched the long tragedy, at first with tense excitement at the onslaught, then with deepening horror and loathing when he saw the defencelessness of the Peruvians, until he has turned away, sick to his very soul, hating his race, his blood, his parentage, himself. He has cast his sword upon the ground. Now he seizes it and bounds toward the scene with a curse at every stride.The enclosing line of Spaniards has drawn near to the Inca. One of his bearers goes down, then another. The sedan plunges wildly and sinks, throwing its royal burden almost upon the weapons of his enemies. He is down. A pike is at his breast, but swept aside by Cristoval's sword, whose savage thrust the infantryman barely escapes. An axe flashes overheard, and crashes upon Cristoval's buckler. But Pizarro is beside him. As the general stretches out his hand to raise the Inca, a pike-thrust rips both hand and arm—the only wound, be it known to the everlasting infamy of this band of murderers, received by a Spaniard in the day's affair!Pizarro's voice rises above the tumult: "Back, dogs! Back, or, by God, ye shall suffer!"De Soto has dismounted, and dashes through the rabid pack. His buckler touches that of Cristoval, and the two shields ring with a shower of blows aimed at the Inca. It is minutes before the murderous zeal is quelled, and a circle cleared around the captive prince.A stillness has settled over the plaza—alas! not a stillness; for the din has given place to sounds yet more dreadful, in the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying.There are many prisoners, and Hernando Pizarro is directing the work of making them secure in the buildings. Surrounding the group about the Inca is a turbulent circle of soldiers, panting yet from their work, and jostling one another for a view of the royal prisoner. They make a savage and grewsome picture as they glare, red-eyed, faces flushed, reeking with sweat and splashed with blood from head to foot, leaning upon their gory weapons. Atahualpa stands silent, proudly erect, his features immovable as bronze, seemingly devoid of emotion as if his heart were of that metal. His dark, stern eyes overlook the encircling mob, but as if they see no man. He is no less kingly now than a few hours ago, when surrounded by the splendor of his court. Those guarding him are equally silent in the stupor of weariness and reaction. At length Pizarro speaks:—"Come, gentlemen, let us move! Guard him closely!"They close round him. As they are about to leave the square, Atahualpa turns toward the heaps of his people who vainly gave their lives in his defence, and raising his hands, speaks a few words in Quichua, broken by one great sob that shakes his frame. Then he turns away, his countenance as sternly impassive and inscrutable as before.As they enter the building which is to serve as his temporary prison, the sun is setting—setting forever upon the empire of the Incas.
CHAPTER IV
The Inca's Encampment
Six weeks later the Army of the Conquest was descending the eastern slope of the Maritime Cordillera into the interior valley of Caxamalca. Here, Pizarro learned, the Inca Atahualpa lay with fifty thousand warriors.
The march over the mountains had been one of toil and hardship, but the few Peruvians encountered had displayed nothing but hospitality. Two embassies from the Inca had met the invaders, bearing presents and assurances of welcome. The messages were translated by a young native, called by the soldiers Felipillo, who had been picked up on a former expedition, taught the Spanish language, many Spanish vices, and retained as interpreter. Through him the commander sent courteous replies, and, while neglecting no precaution, marched with a sense of security always.
To Cristoval, stretched helpless on his rude litter, the first few days had been torture. Later, however, a halt was made at a mountain village whose friendlycuraca, or governor, proffered the use of his sedan with native bearers. They were hardy, sure-footed mountaineers, and thereafter Cristoval swung along with little discomfort. Halts were frequent, and some were protracted, for Pizarro hoped for reënforcements from San Miguel if ships should come from Panama, whither his partner, Almagro, had sailed in quest of fresh recruits. He tarried in vain, but the halts were favorable to Cristoval. His rugged health, aided by the bracing mountain air and the vigilant care of Pedro, hastened his recovery; and by the end of October his wounds were healed, though he had yet to regain his strength. He bore his inactivity with what patience there was in him, but with no prevision of the gratitude he should one day feel for those very wounds.
The Fifteenth of November saw the last day's march in the mountains. The column had for hours trailed down a rocky gorge, which at last opened upon a full panorama of the valley of Caxamalca. It stretched out far below, a fertile and verdant plain, checkered with fields, damaskeened with the silver of rivulets and canals for irrigation, and traversed throughout its length by a fair river. Near its centre, gleaming in its setting of green, lay the town of Caxamalca, surrounded by orchards and gardens, and groves of willows, quinuars, and mimosas, in whose shelter could be descried the tinted walls of the cottages and villas of the suburbs.
Involuntarily, when the scene burst upon him, Pizarro reined his horse. His trumpeter sounded a halt, and De Soto, whose troop was in advance, rode up beside him, joined straightway by the officers of the staff. They surveyed the valley with amazement. Pizarro was the first to speak.
"Maravilloso!" he exclaimed. "Ha! Señores, what say you to it? Have your eyes ever beheld a fairer vale? Did I not know better, I could think myself in Andalusia—but,Santa Madre!—look beyond the river—at those hills!"
"Tents, as I live!" ejaculated De Soto, "and by the ten thousand."
"By the soul of me!" growled Hernando Pizarro, the eldest of the commander's four brothers. "Methinks, Francisco, thy dreams of conquest have overreached. Ho! good Father," he continued, turning with a grin to Valverde, the square-jawed chaplain of the expedition, "I'll presently call upon thee for a shrift. Meanwhile, do thou pray a little."
"Aye!" muttered Candia, the Greek captain of artillery, "pray a little, and have the other frocks at it with thee. We'll need all your supplications, and,"—to himself,—"the devil's aid besides."
The priest did not reply even with a glance. The commander had ridden a few paces in advance and was looking over the vast encampment below with as little emotion in his thin, sallow face as if the Inca's army were a flock of goats.
When the leading files of the column first caught sight of the distant encampment a shout arose and was quickly carried to the rear: "El Inca! El Inca! El ejercito del Inca!" and pikes and halberds were brandished with fierce enthusiasm. But as realization of the magnitude of the host came over them the demonstration gave place to ominous silence, and they gazed with something akin to consternation. Pizarro noticed the change, and looked back over the ranks with a barely perceptible curl of his lip. "Forward!" he said to the trumpeter, and moved down the trail.
The command wound its descent through the foothills, and at midday halted again. Pennons were affixed to lances, plumes to helmets, and the banners were uncovered and spread to the breeze. Here Cristoval demanded his horse, and, when Pedro protested, declared with emphasis that he was well, and if not well, then well enough; that in any event he would not go into the presence of an enemy borne in a litter, like a woman. So he mounted, though without his armor. The formation most favorable for action in case of attack was now adopted. The infantry and artillery were placed in the middle of the column with cavalry in front and rear; and, with a small advance guard, the army debouched upon the plain.
No hostility met the Spaniards. As on the coast, they came upon knots of the natives gathered at the roadside, and these gazed upon the glittering, bannered pageant as if stupefied. When the outskirts of the town were, reached the afternoon was late, and rain, for some time threatening, set in with dreary steadiness. To their surprise they found here no sign of life. The last group of Indios had long been passed, and as the troops plashed along the muddy highway through the suburbs they were greeted only by silence and desertion. Cots and villas were numerous, but all closed and tenantless. They marched through a desolation emphasized by every mark of recent habitation. The people had fled at their coming as from a pestilence.
At length they were in the town. Here, too, vacancy and silent thoroughfares, awakened now to unwonted echoes by the ring of horses' hoofs and the rumble of the guns on the pavements. They entered through one of the poorer quarters, where the dwellings were of bricks of sun-dried clay, heavily thatched with straw, all of a single story, substantial, and severely plain. Toward the middle of the town they passed larger buildings of heavy masonry, whose blank walls, unbroken by window or decoration, wore a dull gloom and mystery which, indeed, pervaded the very air. The gray streets, depressingly regular and paved throughout, were unrelieved by a single tree or shrub or patch of sward. Over all a sombreness profound; no sign either, of welcome or hostility; only the apathy of abandonment everywhere.
The thoroughfare opened into a great plaza. Pizarro rode to the centre to direct the deployment of the column: on the right, cavalry; in the centre, artillery and foot; on the left, cavalry again; and in the rear, the pack train. The line formed in silence—a spiritless, sullen line, rain-soaked, mud-splashed, with drooping plumes and dripping banners; and oppressed withal by yonder vast encampment and the sense of being in the toils. The march was ended.
Patrols were detailed, scouring the town and its outskirts to make sure the desertedness was not merely apparent. Pizarro assembled his officers. He began with his customary terseness:—
"Señores, I purpose sending an embassy to the Inca at once. We must know better than we can judge from the cold reception he hath seen fit to accord to us how he regardeth our coming. We must know to-night. To-morrow we will govern our actions accordingly. So do thou go, Soto, and tell him we have come. Say that we have sailed across the seas from a great prince,—God save him!—to offer service and impart to him and his people the True Faith. Put it in a courtly way, but with no servility—thou knowest how—and say that we pray he will honor us with a visit to-morrow.
"Remember that to these people we are superior beings, almost more than mortal. Carry thyself as a superior even to this emperor, and he'll not fail to credit thy assumption. Did he know our estate, do not doubt that he would hotly resent our pretension. In a word, by every look, gesture, and tone of thy voice strive to impress him. Display thy horsemanship, if there be opportunity,—he hath never seen a horse,—and hold thy chin well in the air. 'Tis important, Soto! Now go, andDominus vobiscum. Take Felipillo and a dozen lances,—more if thou wilt."
The captain saluted, and, turning his horse, cantered to his troop to select a following for the perilous mission. In a few minutes, with fifteen chosen cavaliers, he was clattering down the street. Pizarro looked after him, and said, turning to his brother:
"Hernando, take twenty more and go with him. He hath too few."
The second detachment followed at a gallop.
Pizarro briefly surveyed the place. The plaza was enclosed on three sides by low stone buildings, thatched like the others, with great doors opening upon the square. At the western end, toward the Inca's encampment, rose a redoubt or citadel, overlooking the country and commanding the plaza, from which it was entered by a flight of steps. Hither Pizarro rode, dismounted, and ascended to theterre-plein, followed by his officers. Here he could view the Inca's position with the intermediate plain and its river. The road followed by De Soto led over a causeway extending from the town to the bank of the stream, and from time to time the watchers caught glimpses of the cavalcade, until it was finally lost to sight.
It was twilight when the detachment returned, but the dusk could not conceal its gloom. The result of the mission had not been cheering. De Soto and Hernando Pizarro dismissed their detail, and hastened to the commander to report the interview.
Cristoval was in his quarters in one of the large buildings on the square, seated with José over a flask ofchichawhen, an hour later, Pedro entered.
"Good evening, Señores," said he, smiling benignly. "My blessing—a cook's blessing. Ah, Cristoval, thou 'rt the first cheerful-looking man I've seen this night! 'Tis most commendable. Put a good face on 't, and discountenance the devil.Hilarum semper fac te et lubentem!—which meaneth, gentlemen, be cheerful and good-humored always—a good maxim just now, is it not?"
"Excellent!" replied Cristoval. "Sit and have a cup with us, Pedro. These be serious times."
"True!" said the portly cook, squeezing himself between the bench and the table with difficulty. "And there is something like demoralization abroad among the men. So many are clamoring to Father Valverde to be shriven that the good priest is beside himself.Terror incidit exercitui, bonum facit militem—fear striketh the army and maketh the soldier good. They have just consecrated the building next the infantry quarters for a chapel—and 't is well placed, I'll swear, for not a pikeman but is a thief!—and there will be services all night. Pizarro goeth about among the men like their own father, blowing upon the embers of their extinguished courage. What a man! He knoweth neither fear nor doubt, and he can talk both out of any man who weareth ears.Cara! To-morrow might be afiestaso far as it fasheth him. Just now I met him on the square. 'Hola, Pedro!' quoth he, 'hast heard? This pagan king cometh to-morrow for a visit, and I would give him a taste of Christian cooking. Canst scrape up a meal?' What d'ye think of that, Señores?—with the army in a cold sweat from looking at the Inca's camp and counting his tents!"
Cristoval smote the table with his fist. "By the fighting Saint Michael, he hath not his peer in armor!"
"No!" Pedro concurred with emphasis. "Thou sayst right, Cristoval. But the poorveedor! Have ye seen him? He hath been waddling about the square, swollen with consternation, now climbing to the fortress to stare at the campfires on the hills, now scuttling down again to tell how many there are; one minute praying, the next swearing, and the next bellowing like a calf that he is a civilian, no fighting man, and is misplaced. And misplaced he is, I'll take my oath! Pizarro locked him up at last, to prevent the panic he was beginning to spread. Gods, gentlemen! were I the commander I'd melt him and make him into tallow dips."
A bugle sounded in the square, and Cristoval exclaimed, rising, "Officers' call! The general hath something to say."
Pizarro had something of moment to say, and was in council with his officers through the night.
CHAPTER V
The Monarch and the Princess Rava
The entry of the Spaniards into Caxamalca had not been spirited, nor jubilant. But the rain, which had conspired with other depressing circumstances to dishearten them, ceased during the night, and the sixteenth of November broke with a cloudless sky. Its first light was greeted in the Peruvian camp by the clamor of trumpets, the wailing of conches and horns, and the thunder of drums—a warlike and mighty dissonance which struck faintly upon the listening ears of the invaders in the town, and set many a good Christian making the sign of the cross and murmuring his prayers. The army of the Inca was portentously astir.
The monarch was quartered in a villa at the edge of the eastern foothills. Not far away, their position marked by columns of rising steam, were the hot mineral springs which had made the place a resort of the Incas for generations.
The villa itself differed little in its severe simplicity from other structures of the country. It was massively built of stone, with the usual high-pitched covering of thatch—a form of roof far from primitive in this instance, for the thatches of Peru were artfully and durably constructed, often highly ornate in the weaving and gilding of their straw. The building was without exterior decoration except for the sculptured geometrical design bordering the entrance. This doorway, like the small windows set high up under the eaves, and the numerous niches with growing plants, which served to modify the severity and blankness of the walls, narrowed from threshold to lintel as in the architecture of ancient Egypt. The walls, too, broad at the base and sloping inward as they narrowed to the top, further suggested the comparison.
On either side of the villa entrance stood sentinels in the blue of the Incarial Guard, in heavily pourpointed tunics or gambesons, similar to those worn by the European men-at-arms of the fourteenth century. Each wore a casque of burnished silver, with heavy cheek-plates descending to the point of the jaw, and surmounted by the figure of a crouching panther, the device of their corps. Above the head-piece rose a high crescent-shaped crest, not unlike that on the helm of the warrior of ancient Greece. Their arms were bare to the shoulder, but encircled by heavy bands of silver above the elbow and at the wrist. Their legs were protected only by the blue and silver lacings of their sandals, which entwined them to the knees. They were armed with javelins, small round shields of polished brass, and from their broad, heavily plated belts hung small battle-axes and short swords of bronze, an alloy which the Peruvians tempered almost to the hardness of steel.
At an early hour the throne-room was filled with officers and nobles costumed as brilliantly as the court of an Oriental potentate. The majority were Quitoans, but among them were a small number of the nobles of Cuzco, recent adherents of Huascar, who had tendered their allegiance to the successful Atahualpa, or whose presence at the court the latter had commanded. All were in the sleeveless outer garment of the country, belted at the waist, with skirts falling to the knees, and not unlike thetunicaof the Roman. The stuff was of wool, woven in fanciful and often elegant patterns, and not infrequently decorated with elaborate passementerie, or with braid or scale-work of gold and silver. Every stalwart form glittered with jewelled armlets, bracelets, necklaces, and girdles in the precious metals, while the nobles of Cuzco wore, as a distinguishing mark of their order, heavy discs of gold let into the lobes of their ears.
The apartment in which they awaited the coming of the monarch was no less splendid than the assemblage, and showed the same lavish use of gold and silver, which in the empire of the Incas had no value except for ornamentation. It was a lofty chamber with walls of polished porphyry, divided by pilasters into panels bordered with vines in precious metal, perfect in leaf and stem. Suspended from silver brackets wrought in forms of serpents, lizards, and fanciful monsters, were lamps burning perfumed oil, filling the room with faint aroma, and dispelling the obscurity of the early morning with their radiance. The ceiling, panelled by heavy rafters, was of rushes, gilded and elaborately woven in squares and lozenges. At intervals the walls were niched like those of the exterior, to receive natural plants or imitations of them in the metals.
In the rear of the apartment, beneath a canopy resplendent with embroidery and featherwork, was a dais of serpentine on which stood the Inca's seat, a low stool of solid gold, richly chased and jewelled. Back of this, against the wall, was the imperial standard, on whose folds blazed and sparkled in embroidery and precious stones a rainbow, the insigne of the Incas.
The room was nearly bare of furniture, but its marble floor was softened by richly dyed rugs and the skins of animals. In a word, in this country villa of the ruler of an empire of the farthest West was a wealth of decoration that would have dimmed the splendor of the palace of a maharajah.
Presently, a door in the rear swung open, and a silence fell as a grizzled veteran in the splendid uniform of a general of the Quitoan troops entered and raised his hand. He was followed by two officers of the Incarial Guard, who halted and took post at each side of the doorway. A breathless moment, then came the Inca Atahualpa, attended by his personal staff. The nobles went upon their knees, bending until their foreheads touched the floor, and so remained until the monarch, moving with brisk, soldierly pace, had gained the dais, where he turned with a brief command that they arise.
Atahualpa was then close to his thirtieth year. His countenance was one which would have been striking among men of any race. He had the warrior-face of the American aborigine—the aquiline nose, the high cheekbones and firm jaw and mouth, the calm pride and dignity of expression—but refined by generations of Inca culture. It was the face of a fighter, and a slumbering ferocity was perhaps lurking in the dark and somewhat bloodshot eyes; but it was also an intellectual one, clear-cut in line and contour, and backed by a well-formed head, handsomely poised. His complexion, of the usual bronze of the Indian, was yet not more swarthy than that of many Spaniards. His black hair was closely trimmed, and on his head was the royal diadem, thellauta, a thick cord or band of crimson, wound several times around, with a pendant fringe covering his forehead to his brows from temple to temple. Set closely in thellautaabove the fringe, diverging as they rose, were two small white feathers, each with a single spot of black. These were taken from the wings of thecoraquenque, a rare bird sacred to the Incas. He was simply clad in deep red, the royal color. His tunic was quite devoid of decoration, but the cloak thrown over his shoulders glittered with embroidery and scales of gold, and besides his heavy ear-ornaments he wore at his throat a collar of emeralds worth an emperor's ransom.
A powerful man, well and serenely accustomed to his power, mentally and physically equal to its exercise, and sufficiently wonted to it not to be self-conscious, is truly a fit object of admiration. There is nothing more sublime, in its way, on earth: nothing more majestic, and only suggested by the brute kingliness of the lion. Atahualpa, the descendant of a long line of absolute monarchs, a line believed by the Peruvians to have sprung from Inti, the Sun-god himself, wore his majesty as naturally as he wore his cloak and with as little thought of it.
On this occasion the audience was short, and the Inca did not seat himself. Having heard the reports of his generals, he directed that supplies be sent to the Spaniards in Caxamalca, gave a few orders concerning the disposition of his troops and the formation of his escort for the visit to Pizarro that afternoon, and retired, while the nobles went again upon their knees until he had quit the apartment. In the court outside he dismissed his staff and descended a terrace into the garden in the rear of the palace.
It was an alluring place at any hour, and to its quiet seclusion the young monarch often resorted when he wearied of councils, the affairs of government, and the endless formalities of the court. From the rear of the villa an avenue, bordered with flowering shrubbery and spreading palms backed by tall quinuars, led to an open lawn in the middle of which played a fountain. Around the margin of the green, set in shady niches in the foliage, were marble benches. Over one of these rugs had been thrown, and leaning sadly on its arm with her cheek resting on her hand sat a maiden of seventeen. A few paces away were half-a-dozen attendants, seated on the sward, arranging armfuls of flowers. So busy were they, and so deep the maiden's reverie, that the Inca's coming was unnoted, and he paused, surveying the group and hesitating to interrupt. At that moment, slightly turning her head, the girl observed him; with sudden pallor and a movement of her hand to her heart she arose.
She was handsome and womanly, and as she stood timidly awaiting her monarch's approach he did not fail to note her beauty with brotherly pride; for she was his half-sister, the Ñusta[1] Rava. Her dark eyes, heavily veiled by their lashes, were downcast, and her color came and went with every step of his advance. Her cloak, falling back as she arose, had left partly uncovered one dimpled arm and shoulder, and the low-cut white robe, orllicla. This garment, made of the soft wool of the vicuña, was loosely and gracefully draped about her form, caught in at the waist by a richly jewelled girdle, and secured by goldentopus, or large, broad-headed pins. A necklace of pearls and the jewelled band of gold about her head were her only other ornaments, save those necessary to keep in place a wealth of black tresses coiled in a form of Grecian knot.
[1] Ñusta = Princess.
As the Inca drew near she would have knelt, but he stayed her quickly, and taking her hand, reverently carried it to his lips.
"May the sun shine brightly upon thee this day, my sister," said he. "Thou 'rt abroad early. I thought to find the garden deserted."
"I have been walking, my lord," she replied, with eyes still lowered, and drew almost imperceptibly away. "I was about to return."
"Nay: let me walk with thee. Perhaps I can tell thee something to lighten thy heart. Come."
"Ah, my lord," she sighed, raising her eyes to his with a swift glance, and turning them away filled with tears.
"I know—I know! Thou grievest for our unfortunate brother Huascar," he said kindly. "It was partly on his account that I had thee come to Caxamalca. I would not have thee mourn needlessly, nor think me a monster in holding him in brief imprisonment. It is against my wish, believe me, and only to prevent renewal of the late unhappy war."
"Oh, most unhappy, most dreadful, my lord!—and between my brothers!" she answered with a sob.
"Most dreadful!" repeated Atahualpa, gravely. "Yet thou knowest how it was forced upon me."
"Forced upon thee, my lord? They told me different."
"They told thee falsely!" he exclaimed. "Dost thou not know how it was brought about?—I fear not, in its truth. Then let us walk whilst I tell thee." He passed his arm about her fondly, and led her down the avenue.
"Thou knowest, Rava," he began after they had taken a few steps, "the will of our father, given at Cuzco some months before his death, by which the kingdom of Quito was bequeathed to me, and Cuzco to Huascar. Thou knowest that for several years we reigned in peace, each in his own domain. So it might have continued had Huascar been content. But, chafing under the loss of Quito, which but for me would have been one of his provinces, he sent an ambassador demanding that I acknowledge myself vassal and feudatory. It was a challenge, and what reply could there be but war? Huascar's misfortunes flow from his misguided ambition and impious disregard of our father's will."
"Oh, pardon him, pardon him, my brother!" implored the princess, turning to him and pressing her clasped hands to her breast. "He was ill-advised. He was hounded to his fault, I know, by wicked ministers. Most bitterly hath Cuzco repented it!"
"Cuzco!—it may be," replied Atahualpa, slowly; "but Huascar—However, it is my purpose to pardon him, Rava; so banish thine unhappiness. For the present, for the sake of the tranquillity of the empire, we must hold him. But when that is assured he shall be free. Weep no more."
"Oh, Atahualpa, what words will tell thee my heart's gratitude!" sobbed the young girl, taking his hand in both her own. "Thou knowest not what my grief hath been!"
"Nay! but I do know, my dear. Since the war began I have thought often what it must be. But do not thank me. No need of words. Thy happiness is more than thanks enough. I always loved thee, Rava, when we were together in the old palace at Cuzco. Now, thou 'rt no less dear to me than mine own daughters in far-off Quito. I trust soon to remove the nearest cause of thy sorrow. It was for this, as I have said, that I sent for thee to come to Caxamalca."
They were interrupted by a youth of twenty years, in the uniform of a Quitoan general. As he drew near he removed his helmet, disclosing the yellowllautuworn by the princes of the blood royal, and knelt as he placed a pebble upon his shoulder in the customary sign of homage. It was the Auqui[2] Toparca, brother to Atahualpa, and like the latter, a half-brother of the Ñusta Rava. Not even his exalted rank permitted him to approach the sovereign otherwise than in the attitude of a subject; but the obeisance performed, he arose and was embraced by the two, and the trio strolled on together. The conversation turned at once upon the strangers in Caxamalca. The purposed visit of the Inca was deprecated with timid earnestness by the Ñusta, and with energy by the Auqui; but Atahualpa waved aside their objections with a smile, and soon afterwards returned to the palace.
[2] Auqui = Prince.
CHAPTER VI
The Massacre
It was after midday when the Inca gave the order for the formation of his troops, and the brazen notes of trumpets rose from the parade in front of the villa. As the last measure died away the call was taken up in one quarter after another, and the air trembled with the din of the horns of the legions from Quito, the hoarse bellow of the conches of the coast tribes, the shrieking pipes of the mountaineers from the highlands around Chimborazo, and the growl of the drums of the fierce hordes from the eastern slopes of the Andes,—a huge wild diapason that sent another chill to Spanish hearts as it floated over the valley.
The tumult died away on the distant flanks of the encampment. Presently, company after company was sweeping into the low plain between the camp and the river, and forming into battalions. Here they stood motionless, broke at last into columns, and marched down to the fords, the earth shaken by the feet of their thousands, the air hideously vibrant with the fierce music of their instruments and wild chanting. A sound as of surf breaking on a shingled beach rose above the stream, its silver turned into yellow turbidity which stained its course for many a mile below, while the dark columns crept up the eastern bank and deployed on the plain in front of Caxamalca.
Pizarro, standing with a small group of officers on the parapet of the redoubt, gazed upon the dense, sinuous line of masses, silent now, stretching up and down the valley. From tens of thousands of spear-points and from myriads of brazen shields and helmets, the rays of the western sun were thrown back in a restless, quivering infinitude of scintillations. Slowly, but with a terrible steadiness, the line rolled forward, now obliterating a canal or roadway, now a garden or a field of grain; here, a battalion losing itself in a grove; there, in the aisles of an orchard; to reappear on the hither side, perfect in alignment. At length, at a distance of something less than a mile, the central battalions halted, but the wings swept on until a vast, dark semi-circle confronted the town.
Pizarro watched the progress of the movement in silence, speaking only to give an order, or in brief reply to some remark or inquiry from one of his companions. With him were several of his staff, Father Valverde, Felipillo the interpreter, and two or three orderlies. At the head of the stairway descending to the square were Candia's two cannon, commanding the place. Close at hand was a brazier of burning charcoal for the matches of the cannoneers, who were clustered at the parapet, barefooted and stripped to the waist, watching, half-stupefied, the advancing hordes.
Below, the sunlit square, with its shadows now stealing out from the westward, was deserted—peaceful as on a Sabbath. And the Sabbath it might have been, for from one of the buildings came the unceasing murmur of the priests at prayer. All night long priests had knelt in pious invocation of the aid of the Lord of Hosts and the Holy Virgin upon this day's undertaking. Thus, too, they had knelt since dawn, when mass had been celebrated, the soldiers joining devoutly in the hymn, "Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam."
"Rise, O Lord, and judge thy cause!"—so they had chanted, with hearts swelling with the exaltation of faith that the cause was just, with the sublime confidence that the Holy Cross must triumph. Through the night Pizarro had been among them, had spoken with simple eloquence, had inspired their zeal by his own; and had roused alike the fires of religious fervor and the lust of conquest and of pagan gold. Through the night the ecclesiastics had given themselves to discipline, had shed tears and blood while they scourged themselves and cried to Heaven to give victory to the soldiers of the True Faith. Such was the prelude!
And now, behind the great doors giving upon the square the companies waited in grim readiness: in one of the buildings, the infantry; in another, De Soto's troop; in a third, that of Hernando Pizarro. The hours had lengthened through the morning, and still they waited in suspense. Under prolonged tension their enthusiasm had waned, and now many a villanous face, recently alight with devotion, grew anxious or lowering. Some time after midday achasqui, or runner, had arrived from the Inca with the announcement that he would come with warriors fully armed, like the Spanish emissaries the day before. Replied Pizarro, "Say to your Señor that in whatever manner he cometh he shall be received as a friend and brother." Then he turned to Hernando with a black scowl: "Let the infidel come as he will!—only Heaven grant that he may not come tardily! Delay is more to be dreaded than an onslaught. A few more hours of this waiting, and the blood of our men will turn to water."
Hernando shrugged gloomily, and turned his eyes upon the advancing lines.
It was late afternoon before the movement of the Inca's troops was completed. For any sign of perturbation Pizarro might have been observing a parade; though his thin lips were more than usually compressed, his face a bit more pallid, his taciturnity increased. De Soto was conversing in a low tone with Candia as they surveyed the field. Hernando Pizarro was standing beside his brother on the parapet, muttering occasional oaths.
"Caramba!" he exclaimed, as the wings of the approaching army began to close in. "It appeareth that the Inca accepteth thine invitation with some emphasis, Francisco! Had we better not change our plans and prepare to defend the town whilst there is yet time? That is a pretty formation for attack, if I ever saw one, and more promising of a fight than of a neighborly visit, I'll be bound!"
"Wait!" replied the commander, shortly.
"By the saints, we have little time for waiting! They will be upon us in half an hour; and not even a barricade! Let me take my troop and show them our metal, at least."
"Wait!" repeated Pizarro, sternly.
Hernando sprang down with a curse, and strode away. At this instant an exclamation broke from De Soto.
"Look!—The causeway!"
The head of a column had pushed out from the trees which hid the approach to the bridge. The distance was too great to disclose its nature, but soon the highway was covered with thousands. Presently Pizarro noted with relief that the movement of the encircling line had been arrested, and the approaching column had advanced beyond it. He could hear the rolling of drums and the weird strains of heathen marching music. Soon no doubt remained that it was the escort of the Inca. About half a mile from the edge of the town the column turned from the causeway and halted, and the anxious watchers saw they were pitching tents. Achasquiwas seen speeding toward the town. Pizarro descended to the square with his officers. A soldier from the exterior guard hurried in with thechasqui, a half-naked, clean-limbed, intelligent-looking youth, lithe and supple as a panther. He bore a message, translated by Felipillo, to the effect that the Inca would camp for the night on the plain, and would enter in the morning. An impatient oath, quickly suppressed, escaped Pizarro, and he replied coolly:—
"Tell him that our disappointment will be immeasurable. We have made all preparations for his reception, and hope to have him sup with us."
Thechasquidarted away.
After an interval another arrived. The Inca would be pleased to come; and as he would remain overnight, would bring his attendants, but without arms. Thechasquideparted. Pizarro, his pallid face lighted for an instant by a smile, sinister and triumphant, turned to his officers.
"Now, gentlemen, the quarry! Remember—everything, our lives, all, hang upon the absolute and implicit observance of my instructions. If we fail," he waved his hand toward the menacing dark semicircle outside the town, "ye know what to expect. But we shall not fail. Now, to your posts, and may the Virgin have us all in her keeping! I believe every man knoweth his duty. Candia, art ready?"
"More than ready, General!"
"Then, to thy guns!"
Candia returned to the redoubt, occupied now only by his cannoneers and the sentinel.
On the plain the tent-pitching is given over, the column has regained the causeway, and is again approaching the town. In front are a multitude of sweepers, clearing the way of every pebble, fallen leaf, or twig, singing as they work. In their rear are a hundred drummers beating, in a strange cadence, long-bodied drums of varied size and pitch of tone. Following these, the imperial band of five hundred musicians, gorgeously liveried and resplendent with trappings of burnished metal, playing on trumpets, pipes, and stringed instruments of divers forms, the wild but not unmusical march sung by the sweepers. Then, at an interval, follow a thousand nobles in white tunics, bearing small mallets or hammers of copper and silver. Another interval, and a second body of nobles of higher rank, in tunics of checkered white and red, ablaze with ornaments of gold. Now, two battalions of the splendid warriors in the blue of the Incarial Guard, but without arms. Between them, and guarded by a platoon of nobles, floats the standard of the Inca. Immediately after the detachment of the guard, seated upon an open litter, or sedan, borne on the shoulders of half a score of nobles of the highest rank, and surrounded by his attendants, counsellors, and priests, is Atahualpa, a most imperial and commanding figure, as we have seen. In the rear, follows a great column of guards and nobles no less splendid than those of the van.
Treasure enough here, Pizarro, to whet the greed and nerve the arms of your ravening, plunder-hungry companions, could they but behold it from their concealment! Let us see. Twenty-five thousand ducats in the seat on which the Inca sits. Thousands more in the decorations of the sedan. Thousands more in the gem-encrusted standard, and every noble in the train wearing a small fortune on his person. Such a display never before met the eyes or brightened the dreams of your Spaniards, whom thechasquihas reported, not without truth, as huddled, panic-stricken, in some of the buildings of the town.
The pageant has passed the suburbs and is in the streets, deserted as Pizarro found them yesterday; for the exterior guards have been withdrawn, to be of use, presently, elsewhere. Now the column has entered the great square, opening its files to the right and left to permit the passage of the Inca and his suite, who move to the middle of the place and halt, the escort massing on the flanks and rear. Company after company of the guard, and body after body of the nobles, march into the plaza and take position with a celerity and precision of movement showing the highest discipline; and it is long before the rear has deployed from the narrow street. Meanwhile the Inca has looked about, at first with expectant interest, then with growing suspicion and impatience as he perceives no sign of welcome, nor any living being outside of his own following. The silence is strange, in truth, and not reassuring,—even it is ominous. The great doors facing upon the square are closed and blank. At the head of the stairway entering the redoubt two bronze muzzles overlook the plaza, but these are quite without significance. At last the Inca demands, with increasing ire at the too evident discourtesy:—
"Where are the strangers?"
As if in answer to his question a door opposite partly opens, and the dingy, gray-black figure of Father Valverde, in march-worn cassock, bearing crucifix and breviary, enters the square. A soldier follows, in complete armor. He is known to history as Hernando de Aldana—introduced and dismissed for all time by a dozen brief words. Behind him comes the malicious, spoiled renegade, Felipillo, shaking now in his Spanish boots, and scarcely fit to perform his office of interpreting.
Slowly, and with priestly dignity, the gray-black figure approaches the Inca as no man ever approached him before, with unbended knee or back, bearing no burden or symbol of one, and no doubt regarded curiously and contemptuously enough by the monarch, who is not done with considering the quality of his reception.
Father Valverde, informing the Inca that he has been ordered by his general, Pizarro, to teach him the doctrines of the True Faith, at once sets about that undertaking, expounding its tenets briefly and as convincingly, perhaps, as could have been done under the circumstances. Then, following the formula customarily used by the Spanish conquistadores, he announces the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and the temporal power of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and urgently recommends that the Inca acknowledge himself tributary to the latter, forthwith.
No doubt the father expounded the doctrines as convincingly as possible under the circumstances; and with as much effect, probably, as was expected of the perfunctory mockery by the Spaniards themselves: at any rate, not convincingly enough, but with the effect looked for and desired; for Atahualpa, firing at the suggestion of vassalage, reddens with anger, and demanding of Valverde his credentials and authority, seizes the breviary, turns its pages rapidly, then casts it upon the ground with right kingly scorn and rage.
"Tell your general," says he, with hot pride, "and let him say it to his emperor, that I am no man's vassal! And say further that before I leave this place your people shall account to me for every act of presumption or violence done within my territories!"
Shocked at the sacrilege offered the holy book, the good father snatches it from among the feet of the heathens. The doughty Aldana claps hand to his sword with Spanish bravado,—even draws it, says one,—but the priest is scuttling across the plaza to Pizarro, who is waiting in the building occupied by the infantry. Aldana follows. The wretched farce is ended—a farce truly Spanish, as what follows is truly and characteristically Spanish.
The door opens again, and Father Valverde, pale to the lips, enters and stands before Pizarro, who is no less pale, but infinitely more composed. Back of him in the dim obscurity of the great hall is massed the infantry, every sword bared, every pike and halberd clutched with nerves strained by long suspense. The priest, his voice husky with excitement and rage at the indignity put upon the holy book, and, it may be, at the unconcealed contempt with which he was received by the monarch, exclaims:—
"Dost not see—dost not see what is taking place? Whilst we are engaged in courtesies and parley with this dog full of pride, the plains are filled with his warriors! Fall upon him! Fall upon him!—I absolve you!"
Pizarro makes no reply, but flushes with unaccustomed color, and steps out of the door into the plaza, in his hand a white scarf. The Inca, with the frown deepening upon his stern, calm face, sees him raise it over his head, and wonders what new idleness——
A quick, sudden flash, half perceived, a sharp, ear-stunning explosion, as of lightning striking near, and an unseen messenger of death ploughs a mangled, horrid furrow through the dense ranks of the Peruvians. A plunging, white sulphurous cloud has burst from one of the guns on the redoubt, and rolls low and stifling over the square. There is a brief instant of stillness, then a moan of terror, broken quickly by yells of wounded men, answered by a second flash and roar. The great doors swing back, their blankness giving place to sudden fell activity as charging columns crash into the open with the battle-cries of Spain. An avalanche of steel-clad men and horses here; another there; a rushing, bellowing phalanx of infantry between. "Santiago à ellos!" "Cristo y San Miguel!" They strike the fear-numbed mass of the Peruvians, cutting, thrusting, slashing, with resistless fury. The ranks of nobles, silent and motionless a moment ago, are whirled by the shock into a seething, shrieking tumult. Those on the edge of the concourse are hurled back upon their fellows by the tremendous impact, and cut down while they reel. The mail-clad Spaniards, released from the nervous strain of hours' duration, are seized of blood-madness. Their battle-cries are lost in an infernal chorus of screams of agony, overtopped by the reports of the cannon which thunder savage accompaniment. A pandemonium! An outbreak of hell itself! A horror not to be dwelt upon!
The worst of the slaughter is around Atahualpa, whose person the Spaniards are making most desperate efforts to gain; but a large number of his escort, cut off by the charge of De Soto's troop, have stampeded in wild panic down the narrow streets leading from the plaza. A few escape, but in a moment these avenues are blocked by the crush. De Soto, having perceived at once that the Peruvians are unarmed and that victory—if this atrocity can be so called—-was assured by the very first collision, essays gallantly to check the worse than useless butchery. His commands are unheard. He snatches his trumpeter's instrument and blows the recall—blows again and again. As well shout injunctions to a tornado, or call to a pack of wolves. He drives among his men, striking up their weapons. De Piedra, enraged by his interference, aims a cut at him, and is unhelmed and unhorsed by a blow from the captain's mace. Well struck, De Soto! Pity it had not been better; for Piedra will be breathing again before an hour has passed. But De Soto finds it perilous work. In a moment his horse is wounded by a pikeman, and rearing, slips and is down. Steed and rider are lost in the confusion: at last, up again, the captain unhurt. It is some minutes before he is mounted, and meanwhile a wall of stone and adobe forming part of the enclosure of the square has given away before the crush of the fear-driven horde, and they burst through the break in a huge struggling torrent. They reach the plain outside the town, pursued with relentless ferocity by the cavalry. The Inca's troops, already in consternation at the uproar in the village, the shrieks, the cannonade, and the overhanging cloud of smoke, take the panic and scatter as chaff before the wind.
In the square the din has lost its volume. Candia has ceased firing, for the smoke impedes his view of the shambles, where friends are endangered by his guns. Around the Inca the unequal struggle goes on under his horror-stricken eyes, and he stands, benumbed and helpless, tottering on his reeling litter. In the anguish of their despair his nobles cast themselves to death with a loyalty of devotion the gods might envy; but the bulwark they interpose before their beloved lord grows steadily less. Several of the Spaniards now are making frenzied efforts to reach him with their weapons, and one has hurled his pike. Pizarro sees the movement and shouts, hoarse with weariness, unheard and unheeded, "Strike not the Inca, on pain of death!"
But he is heard by Cristoval, who, with two or three sick men, has been left as a guard for the priests, still at their supplications. Since the first thundering charge he has watched the long tragedy, at first with tense excitement at the onslaught, then with deepening horror and loathing when he saw the defencelessness of the Peruvians, until he has turned away, sick to his very soul, hating his race, his blood, his parentage, himself. He has cast his sword upon the ground. Now he seizes it and bounds toward the scene with a curse at every stride.
The enclosing line of Spaniards has drawn near to the Inca. One of his bearers goes down, then another. The sedan plunges wildly and sinks, throwing its royal burden almost upon the weapons of his enemies. He is down. A pike is at his breast, but swept aside by Cristoval's sword, whose savage thrust the infantryman barely escapes. An axe flashes overheard, and crashes upon Cristoval's buckler. But Pizarro is beside him. As the general stretches out his hand to raise the Inca, a pike-thrust rips both hand and arm—the only wound, be it known to the everlasting infamy of this band of murderers, received by a Spaniard in the day's affair!
Pizarro's voice rises above the tumult: "Back, dogs! Back, or, by God, ye shall suffer!"
De Soto has dismounted, and dashes through the rabid pack. His buckler touches that of Cristoval, and the two shields ring with a shower of blows aimed at the Inca. It is minutes before the murderous zeal is quelled, and a circle cleared around the captive prince.
A stillness has settled over the plaza—alas! not a stillness; for the din has given place to sounds yet more dreadful, in the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying.
There are many prisoners, and Hernando Pizarro is directing the work of making them secure in the buildings. Surrounding the group about the Inca is a turbulent circle of soldiers, panting yet from their work, and jostling one another for a view of the royal prisoner. They make a savage and grewsome picture as they glare, red-eyed, faces flushed, reeking with sweat and splashed with blood from head to foot, leaning upon their gory weapons. Atahualpa stands silent, proudly erect, his features immovable as bronze, seemingly devoid of emotion as if his heart were of that metal. His dark, stern eyes overlook the encircling mob, but as if they see no man. He is no less kingly now than a few hours ago, when surrounded by the splendor of his court. Those guarding him are equally silent in the stupor of weariness and reaction. At length Pizarro speaks:—
"Come, gentlemen, let us move! Guard him closely!"
They close round him. As they are about to leave the square, Atahualpa turns toward the heaps of his people who vainly gave their lives in his defence, and raising his hands, speaks a few words in Quichua, broken by one great sob that shakes his frame. Then he turns away, his countenance as sternly impassive and inscrutable as before.
As they enter the building which is to serve as his temporary prison, the sun is setting—setting forever upon the empire of the Incas.