Inthe late afternoon of a day towards the end of October, in the year 1532, a little company of horse and foot, attended by some twoscore Indian bearers, was plodding slowly and wearily towards the green margin of a thirsty wilderness of red-brown sand and rock, over which it had been toiling almost without rest for sixteen hours past.
Nearly seventy of the company were either mounted or walking beside their parched and weary horses, and four of the strange animals, never before seen in the unknown regions into which the little army was penetrating, were harnessed to wheeled gun-carriages, on each of which was mounted a petrero, or small brass cannon, capable of throwing a ball of about three pounds weight. Besides the seventy horsemen, there were about a hundred men-at-arms, all passably equipped with helmet, breast-plate, and back-piece, sword and dagger and pike, and of these three carried arquebuses and resting-forks, and some twenty of them arbalests, or heavy cross-bows, which at fifty paces would send their short, steel-headed bolts through breast and back of a mailed warrior.
But some of the cavaliers are clad in mail from head to foot, saving only that they have permitted themselves the luxury of exchanging their plumed helmets, which hang at their saddle-bows, for wide-brimmed hats of plaited straw. To many men such a garb in such a place would be intolerable, for there is not a cloud in the sky, and the sun-rays beating down on the parched earth and heated rocks are cast up again as if from a reflector.
There is no breath of wind coming in from the sea twenty leagues away, and in all the wide plain there is not a scrap of shadow save what is cast by the slowly-moving men and horses, and so every bit of steel and iron that the rays catch is hot, so hot that the bare hand can scarcely be laid upon it.
But these men are iron all through, hammered into hardness on the anvil of a fate that none but the sternest and strongest could have endured and yet lived. And good need, too, have they to be stern and strong, for this little army is marching into the heart of an unknown land, fenced in by mighty mountain bulwarks such as no white man has ever crossed before, to confront the master of millions in one of his strong places surrounded by his victorious hosts, and to pluck him from his throne as though he had been but the chief of a petty tribe.
Some of them you have seen before—down on their knees by the water’s edge on the beach at Gallo, grubbing for sea-worms and shellfish to stay the torments of their famine. That was five years ago, and many and great things have happened since then. Yonder cavalier riding alone a little ahead of the troop, armed from head to foot in plate and mounted on a strong black charger, is he who drew that line with his sword-point on the sand and made that famous speech which will be remembered to his honour as long as the history of brave deeds continues to be written.
Then he was but a nameless, base-born adventurer, reckless even to madness in the pursuit of that phantom-land of El-Dorado, whose glittering shores ever receded as the barques of those who sought them struggled against wind and storm and current over the treacherous waters of the unknown sea.
But now El-Dorado is a fact, for the treasures of the golden city of Tumbez have been laid at the foot of his Catholic Majesty’s throne, and Francisco Pizarro is a hidalgo of Spain, a military knight of the Empire who might hang from his shoulders the habit of Sant’ Iago, whose arms are quartered with those of the Crown of Castile, and whose titles are Governor and Captain-General of New Castile, as El-Dorado has been already named though yet unconquered, and Adelantado and Alguacil Mayor, or chief magistrate, of the new land which his sword is to win for his imperial master.
Once more in the history of heroic things the dreamer has confounded the practical men of affairs who had derided and obstructed his schemes till the visions had become realities, and who were now hiding their envy under the mask of eager service.
A little way behind him strides the giant form of Pedro de Candia, leading his horse with his arm through the bridle, and by his side walks Alonso de Molina, also bridle on arm, and with them are six others, all that are left of the gallant band that crossed the line on Gallo, and now hidalgos to a man. But there are some others with them who were not on Gallo, but who are destined to write their names as deeply and redly in the history of El-Dorado as any of them. A fat, white-haired, fiery-faced man, long past the prime of life, who rolls about in the saddle like a full meal-sack, and yet a man of mighty strength and limitless endurance, for all his fat, who can sleep as well on a horse as in a bed, and march and fight and plunder and fight again till he has worn out every man but himself, and then laugh at his troop and curse them for carpet-soldiers and faint-hearts. For this is Francisco Carvahal, the bitterest jester and the bloodiest fighter that you may read of in all the wars of the Conquerors.
Him you will see and hear of again—as you will of Hernando de Soto, stateliest knight of them all, and of Juan and Gonzalo and Hernando, the brothers of the Captain-General—and near him, mounted on a mule and garbed in the black habit of a Dominican friar, rides another of whom the same may be said. From under the cowl that is drawn over his head to shield it from the sun-rays looks out a dark, ascetic face, thin-lipped and peaked-nosed, with small, black, deep-set eyes and high narrow forehead.
That is the face of Fray Vincente de Valverde, sometime to be bishop of Cuzco and Grand Inquisitor of New Castile, a man who, like some others of his cloth that are riding or walking with him, has come out to the new land and its millions of unknown dwellers with the words of the Gospel of Peace on his lips and the fires of fanaticism blazing hot and cruel in his heart.
Yet one more of the company must be signalled out by name, so that what follows may be made the plainer.
He is an Indian youth, slim and agile; a son of the New World clothed in the garb of the Old. Handsome and yet cunning of countenance, he has already learnt to look with something like contempt upon those who were once his people, for this is Filipillo, or little Philip, the lad who was taken away from Tumbez some three years ago and baptized and carried to Spain, being destined, as it appears, to an office which, however poorly performed, nevertheless has given his name a place in the story of the New World, for he is now interpreter to His Excellency Don Francisco, and before many days are passed it shall be his to stand, as it were, between the Old World and the New, and pass through his ears and lips the words which did all that words could do to seal the fate of an empire and the destiny of millions.
Only a bronze-skinned, straight-haired, black-eyed lad who has yet to see his twentieth summer, and yet one who is ere long, for the sake of a pretty face and a pair of eyes brighter and softer than his own, to compass the ruin of one into whose presence his father would scarcely have dared to crawl uninvited through the dust.
Of a sudden Pizarro’s charger raised his head, and after drinking in with widened nostrils a long, deep breath, let out a shrill, whinnying neigh which was instantly taken up by all the other animals in the troop, and with one accord they quickened their pace as though they had drunk in some new principle of life through the air they were breathing.
“Ah,” cried Carvahal, straightening his short, thick legs out from his charger’s flanks, and throwing his arms wide apart, “Cuerpo de Jesu, the good beasts smell the green and the water at last! Carramba! Caballeros, some of us will be glad to get out of this, I fancy, for the good God seems to have made this accursed country in patches with pieces of Paradise and the Inferno, and then, for some wise purpose of His own, left it unfinished at that. It’s a land where one must either get fat and soft and lazy with luxury in valleys that would be no shame to Paradise itself, or else starve and parch in deserts hardly fit for a heretic to die in!”
“It would be a dry desert and a hot one that would melt much of the fat off of that goodly carcase of thine, Carvahal,” said Pedro de Candia, with a laugh, half turning in his saddle towards him; “though doubtless that poor nag of thine would willingly carry thee over a few leagues of desert if thereby he could save himself a few pounds of thy weight to carry. More than once I have seen the poor beast look back at thee to see if thou wert not sweating thyself somewhat smaller.”
“Ay, and I too,” laughed Alonso de Molina; “and yet though this heathen wilderness hath to-day had more rain than it has ever had, and that, too, dripping from good Christian skins, methinks thou, Carvahal, hast done less than any of us to lay the accursed dust.”
“Even so,” growled Carvahal, “and for good reason too, for if there are many more rides like this before us some of ye will get to Atahuallpa’s camp, wherever the heathen may be lodged, with nothing more than your bones rattling inside your mail, and so a man or two with good flesh and blood inside his harness may be wanted when it comes to good honest blows, which the Lord in His mercy send as soon as may be, for this is cheerless work for Christian cavaliers.”
“That is well put, Carvahal,” said Candia, joining in the laugh that the old soldier’s sally raised, and glancing with no little satisfaction from his own mighty frame to the slim, graceful form of Molina, “yet methinks thou wilt not be the only one that gets there unmelted. Ay, it is an accursed land, as thou sayest, and will need a plenteous blessing of heathen gold applied to good Christian profit to sanctify it, for it seems full of evil enchantments.
“Look at those hills yonder. All day we have been riding and walking and labouring alongside them and towards them, and they are no whit nearer than when we started. And as for that green yonder—who knows that we shall reach it to-day or to-morrow? It looks but a couple of leagues away, and yet it may be twenty, or not there at all in reality, but only put there to lure us on by some enchantment of the false gods that these heathens pray to.”
“Thy horse knows better than that, Candia!” snorted Carvahal after a long sniff at the new element that was stealing into the air. “He can smell the grass and water if thou canst not; and so can I, cool and fresh and sweet. Ah, the smell of it is like a good draught of Jerez. I tell thee, to-night we shall camp amidst green fields by cool running waters. Carramba! we have had our bit of Hell to-day for our sins, and to-night we shall see a bit of Paradise for our labours.”
“Labours!” laughed Molina, seeing a chance to turn the tables on the jester. “Call ye these labours, my knight of the ample waistband! Why, it is but a summer’s day’s ride. Hadst thou been with us on Gallo, or on Gorgona or at Puerto de Hambre thou wouldst have learnt more of labour in getting thy breakfast than thou hast done in all this pleasure trip of ours from San Miguel here. And yet, maybe it was well for thee that thou wast swashbuckling in Italy at the time. What say you, Candia? Would it not have been hard for us to refrain when none of us had tasted meat for a month had we had so juicy a morsel within reach?”
“Ay,” said Candia, “that may well be. He would have kept the lot of us on Gallo for a month after the ships sailed away.”
“Carrajo, hombrecito!” Carvahal roared through the laugh that followed, “you are wrong there. It was well for you that I was killing Frenchmen in Italy rather than starving with you on Gallo, for ere I had taken in an inch of my waistband I would have eaten the lot of you and made soup of your bones. But there—a truce to jesting, which is dry work anywhere without wine, and more than ever in a wilderness like this. What think you of the prospects, Candia? Were you ever pledged to a madder-seeming task than this?”
“Mad it may be,” he answered more seriously, “yet those who would do great things must not fear going mad in the daring of them, and we have not done so badly so far. We have our fort at San Miguel and our ships on the coast, with Panama behind us, and El-Dorado in front of us, and more than that, is not all the news we have had good?
“Have not these heathens been fighting amongst themselves for years, and are we not coming like strong men armed into a house that is divided against itself? This Atahuallpa, by all accounts, is a base-born usurper and ruthless tyrant. He has devastated the land with civil war, thrown his half-brother Huascar, the rightful heir, into durance, and made the streets of the Golden City red with the blood of his kindred? Hast thou not seen enough of war and politics to know how great advantage this may be to us?”
“True, true,” said Carvahal, “it looks well enough on paper, as they say of treaties, and we have good swords to turn it into practice. We will take the commission of His Most Catholic Majesty into a land that he would never have heard of but for the Captain yonder, and in his name judge a good judgment of cold steel and hot shot between usurper and rightful heir, for all the world as though we had God’s own right to do it, and then see which can give the most golden reasons for the justice of his cause. Ay, ’tis a merry trade, this adventuring, whether plied by kings at home or simple gentlemen abroad, and the devils must laugh to see how well it goes.”
“Peace, scoffer, peace!” laughed Molina. “Who art thou that thou shouldst deride our holy errand? And knowest thou not that these heathens believe us gods clad in impenetrable armour of light, invulnerable to all earthly weapons, and carrying the thunder and the lightning in our hands?
“Knowest thou not that thou thyself, ugly as thou art, art in their eyes a heaven-descended son of the great god Vira—Vira—what is it, Candia? ah! I have it—the great god Viracocha. Ha, ha! how likes your godship the sound of that? I’ faith, it will be worth all our labours heretofore to see them try and worship thee, good Carvahal.”
“Me a god! ho, ho!” growled Carvahal. “That will be a new trade for an old soldier; yet methinks I shall like it well enough if they do but lay sufficient offerings on my shrine. I will even put off fighting for awhile to see them do it.”
“And if the offerings be not big enough,” said Candia, “I can well picture thee splitting their heathen skulls in punishment for their idolatry.”
“That shows how little thou knowest of Carvahal yet,” he growled again. “Great or small, I would take all the offerings that came and then crack their skulls to boot for following after strange gods, as the Scripture saith.”
“Strange gods, i’ faith!” laughed Molina again. “They would go far before they found a stranger than thou, Carvahal!”
No doubt the old man had a retort ready near his lips, but it was never spoken, and so for a wonder he failed to get the last word, for at that moment Pizarro, who had been looking eagerly ahead with shaded eyes, suddenly pulled up and reined his horse round, holding up his hand as a signal to halt. Instantly the little troop came to a standstill, and Pizarro, riding back to the head of the column, said in a quiet but distinct tone—
“Caballeros, half an hour’s march will take us into the valley, and round the spur of the hill yonder I see a city of some size, and people are coming towards us over the fields; hence it behoves us to enter in due array. So mount and let the ranks be formed.”
Theorder had scarcely left the Captain’s lips ere those in the vanguard had already set about obeying it, and it was passed down the line, each rank forming up as it went by, for every man in the little army, from the Captain-General himself to the meanest pike-bearer of them all, knew that on such an errand as theirs each one took his life in his own hands, and more than that, might by his own failure put all the rest in jeopardy.
Two days before all the faint-hearts whose courage had failed them in face of the difficulties and dangers of that unknown march had been given a chance to go back to San Miguel without loss of credit, and they had gone. There were only nine of them out of a hundred and eighty men, and all the rest were staunch and true, for their going had made the little army stronger and not weaker, and the Captain knew that on every man that was with him he could trust without fear for his own life and the honour of the great enterprise.
More than this, every man knew his orders almost before he got them, and so was worth three who might not have known them. So hardly had the word of command reached the other end of the column than every cavalier was in the saddle, helmed and plumed and in his place in the rank, and every footman was marching step for step with his fellow, and the whole army was moving forward over the desert, not limping or straggling now, but firm and close-ranked like a living wall of steel and iron.
The pace was now nearly doubled, for the column was moving with the uniform motion of a machine instead of that of a crowd of straggling units, and not many minutes had gone by before the leading troop of horsemen saw a considerable body of natives emerge from the long low line of straggling thicket which formed, as it might be, the union between the wilderness of rock and dry earth and the green-carpeted, plentifully wooded valley which swept in waves of gentle, rolling wood-crowned hillspurs far away to the eastward where the giant shapes of the mountains beyond loomed dark and vague through the purple haze of the tropical evening.
They could see now, almost right ahead of them but a little to the left-hand side, a considerable town lying in a little side valley between two bold green bluffs, on each of which stood a guardian fortress which all must pass between who would gain the town from that side.
The sun, which was now sending its almost level beams across the desert plain and low hills which the Spaniards had crossed during the day, glinted brightly on polished mail and helm and trappings, so that to the wondering eyes of the natives who were coming to meet them they seemed as though already adorned with the glory of their deity and endowed with unmistakable marks of his favour. So when they came near to the glittering strangers mounted on those wondrous beasts, whose fame had already travelled far through the land, some of them stood back and waited as though awe-stricken, but others came on making gestures of welcome and deference.
When the two companies were within some fifty paces of each other the Captain made the signal for a halt, and called Filipillo to him. As the lad came to his stirrup he said shortly—
“Seek out some one of credible appearance among those yonder. Ask him the name of the valley and town, and how many soldiers there are in it. Then say that we come in peace on an embassy to the Inca, and ask for guides and safe conduct to the town.”
“I obey, Lord!” Filipillo replied, laying his hand lightly on Pizarro’s foot. Then he looked up, and with a half-boyish, half-cunning smile said, in a soft, almost girlish voice, “and may I not say too, Lord, that the sons of Viracocha are coming to do the bidding of their father?”
“Do thou my bidding, boy, and leave these unholy fancies to the heathen. Have we made thee so bad a Christian that thou should still prate of thy false gods and seek to make us their servants? Go and speak only the words that I have put into thy mouth. What else is it for, save to do that and praise the Lord and His saints?”
The red blood showed bright through the clear bronze of the lad’s cheeks as he bent his head again and turned away to do his master’s bidding. But when he knew that none of the troop could see his face there came a smile on his lips which his back would have paid for could Pizarro have seen it.
It did not take many moments for his quick eyes to single out the most promising object for his inquiries. This was a man of middle age, somewhat better dressed than the rest, who was standing apart watching the column with grave face and eager eyes.
From the black turban of wool that he wore he saw that his veins did not boast of the blood of the Sacred Race, so he saluted him with more friendliness than deference and, straightway forgetting or ignoring his master’s orders, told him that the men in shining clothing were the long-promised sons of Viracocha, who had come into the land by command of their Father to give it peace, and that as they only spoke the speech of the gods heard only in the Mansions of the Sun, he, Filipillo, had been endowed by the god with the power of this speech so that he might speak for the celestial messengers, and make plain their intentions to his children. All of which the Indian heard gravely enough, bowing his head every time the name of the god was mentioned, and when he had answered the questions which followed Filipillo went back to his master and made his report.
“The town and valley are called Zaran, Lord. It is a strong place and one that guards the approach from this wilderness and the coast beyond to the roads which lead over very great and high mountains to the heart of El-Dorado itself. But now there are but a few soldiers in the town, not more than a score or so, for the Inca Atahuallpa has drawn all the fighting-men from these regions to swell his armies, so that the way is open to my Lord, and if my Lord will follow, the man yonder whom I spoke to will go before with me and lead you to the causeway by which the river is crossed.”
“That is well, go thou with him,” said Pizarro; “we follow. Keep thine eyes open and be ready to run back to me at need.”
Then the column moved forward again, preceded at about twenty paces by Filipillo and the native, to whom he was talking constantly. They were guided along the edge of the scrub towards the valley, and then a straight, narrow path opened out. This led them through the thicket and a broad belt of trees and then between level fields, well watered by little channels lined with stone, and when they had passed through these the welcome sight of a broad, shallow river rippling smoothly between its green, shady banks cheered their eyes, so long dazzled by the stones and sand, and set their horses whinnying with delight.
From the end of the path a broad, straight causeway of stone, pierced by wide, square openings, ran from shore to shore, and at the end of this Pizarro halted his troop so that men and beasts might slake their thirst. But the Fray Valverde’s mule, with the headstrong self-will of its kind, waited neither for halt nor order, and carried the cleric with unseemly haste through the breaking ranks and waded out till it was knee deep in the water, where, after striving vainly to drink, it looked round at its master and brayed angrily, saying as plain as speech of mule could say it: “I have thirsted all day for you, now take the bit out of my mouth that I may drink.”
But this the Fray could not do without dismounting, nor could he dismount in two feet of running water without inconvenience. So there he sat, pulling this way and that at the bridle, and cursing the mule for a stiff-necked heathen beast, though she was of good Castilian birth, even as he himself was.
At this there was some unseemly tittering from the bank till one of the Friars tucked up his robe and waded in to do what was needful, but he, either not being quick enough to suit the creature’s fancy, or being unskilful at the task, put her so far out of temper that she took him by the breast of his habit with her teeth and pulled him off his feet, so that he, having nothing better to hold on to, grabbed at her ears, and then down went her head and up went her heels, and the holy father on her back took a flying leap head-first and sorely against his will, and with a mighty splash soused his reverence and dignity over head and ears in a pool hard by.
The men of the troop were mostly pious and God-fearing fellows enough, but the Fray, with his strict insistence on fasts and his liberality with penances, had not won over much love from them, and a long hoarse laugh rolled down the river banks, and after it came a roar from Carvahal, who was standing by his horse holding his fat, shaking sides at the sight of the Friar and the mule struggling and kicking together in the water and his reverence rising like a dripping ghost out of his pool, coughing and spitting the water out of his mouth and rubbing it out of his eyes.
“O la diablatita! ohe! ohe! Ah, carramba!—what a devil of a beast to carry so holy a man! Does she think the good father hasn’t been baptized yet, or that this heathen river is the Jordan and she is John the Baptist? Ohe! ohe! the holy father has come out to baptize the heathen and got a dose of his own physic. Ah, well, it is a good thing to see a brace of clerics washed; you don’t see it every day!” and then he roared out his deep laugh, and the rest joined him till a quick, sharp word of command from the Captain brought them back to their discipline.
Now this, though but a simple if laughable thing in itself, yet had somewhat considerable consequences, for it was seen by many of the natives, and from it they got the idea, as in their simplicity they might well have done, that the sad-robed clerics were not true sons of Viracocha at all, since they had no shining raiment or weapons, nor did they see how the god could permit any of his children to be overcome by a beast and put into such a ludicrous and contemptible position.
Another thing, too, they noticed which had a strange result, for after they had watched the horses drink they saw their riders put the bits back into their mouths, and from this they concluded that these wondrous animals fed upon the strange white metal, and afterwards when the troop had been hospitably and with high respect received into the town, which they reached in about another hour, they had spread this rumour abroad, with what consequence shall presently be told.
The men-at-arms and the horse-troopers were lodged in the barracks which the garrison had left, and Pizarro and his chief cavaliers were entertained with great honour in the houses of the Curaca and his officers; but first of all, like the good soldiers that they were, they saw to the comfort of their beasts, which indeed were priceless to them, since not all the gold of El-Dorado could buy one now nearer than far-off Panama.
Now while they were doing this a very strange thing happened, and one that pleased the cavaliers better than the horses, for many of the townspeople, having heard that they ate the strange white metal in which the strangers were clad, came in their kindly, simple way with handfuls of little pieces of gold and silver and prayed Filipillo to get permission for these to be given to the animals, and to this, as the old chroniclers tell us, the cavaliers made no sort of objection, but rather encouraged them to lay the gold and silver among the green stuff that the beasts were eating, bidding Filipillo tell them that these wondrous creatures, sons of those which drew the chariot of the Sun, relished them greatly since they were softer and sweeter than iron, and that they would love them for their gifts. After which, the chroniclers go on to say, they went secretly at night and gathered up the spoil, and so the precious fodder went to fatten their pouches, which pleased them well and did no hurt to the beasts.
That night Don Francisco learnt from the Curaca that at Caxas, a more important town lying some ten leagues off among the mountains, there was a strong garrison under the command of a general of the Inca blood, and after consultation it was decided that Hernando de Soto should take twenty mounted troopers with him and go as an embassy with presents to this general to learn what manner of reception might be expected from him and also to discover the defences of the country, since they were now assured that they were actually within the dominions of the great Inca.
By sunrise the next day de Soto started, and for eight days Pizarro lay in Zaran awaiting his return more and more anxiously as each day went by, for he had ridden away with his little troop into an unknown country amidst those long-dreaded mountains, and it might be that the news had been but a pretence to lure him into some strong place or fearful gorge among the mountains whence neither man nor beast might ever return.
Butwhile the level beams of the sinking sun were still glancing redly across the low hills that bordered the wilderness to seaward runners came in on the eighth day bringing the welcome news that the sons of Viracocha were returning, and the sun had not long set before the paved causeway that led up to the principal gate of the town was ringing with the music of clanging hoofs, most welcome to the Captain’s ears.
That night, in the principal chamber of the Curaca’s house, by the light of burning cotton wicks floating on oil contained in curiously worked lamps of silver, another council of war was held, and de Soto, most highly bred and gentlest warrior of them all, made the report of his journey.
“Excellency and Caballeros,” he said in the courtly tone which on occasion he could yet raise loud and high above the battle-tumult, “I must first offer you my regrets for the anxiety which, by the needs of my service, I may have caused you, but, this done, I may console myself and you with the information and news that I have brought back. Since there are no listeners here who can take anything away to do us harm, I may speak plainly and as a man among friends and comrades.”
There was a little pause after this, and the assembled cavaliers bowed their heads in sanction and approval, and the Captain, nodding to him with one of his rare, grave smiles, said—
“That is well begun, Don Hernando, and bids fair for what may be to come. Now speak freely, and let your lips show us without fear or restraint all that your eyes have seen and your ears have heard, be it good or evil. There is no need to make the dangers less or the promises of good fortune fairer than in good truth they are, for, as you know, there are none here who can hope more or fear less than good Christian gentlemen who take their lives and their honour hanging to their sword-belts may hope or fear for.”
Again the knightly heads nodded, and Carvahal, bringing his fat fist as gently as might be down on the cedar table round which they sat, said with one of his wholesome, chuckling laughs—
“The Captain-General speaks our minds as ever. Go on, de Soto; thou hast good listeners. There is none here who would turn his back on El-Dorado though to go forward meant instant death, so tell thy story in words as plain as may be. If thou hast been to the mouth of Hell, say so, and we will go and warm ourselves at the blaze, and if thou hast seen the gates of Paradise, or whatever their like may be in El-Dorado, say so too, and we will go none the less speedily to take our share of such of its glories as may be carried away.”
“I have to tell neither of the one nor of the other,” answered de Soto after he had joined in the laugh that followed the old freelance’s sally, “and yet I have that to tell which is worth the telling and the hearing too.
“First, then, we rode up the valley here till the causeway, which is well paved for leagues beyond the town, became a narrow track, winding up out of the valley round hillspurs and in and out of deep, dark gorges, slanting upwards so steeply that we were fain to dismount and lead our chargers by the bridle, taking as much heed to the beasts’ footsteps as we did to our own, and often leading them by the very bit itself round jutting crags where the road went up and down in steps never meant for more than human feet.
“The road sloped so suddenly, and the rock-walls fell away so sheer on the one hand and rose so sharply on the other, that ever and anon our poor frightened beasts stopped and trembled, looking askance down into the abysses, as though knowing that one false step would send them to destruction; and for two days after the first we rode and walked thus, ever ending higher than we had begun, and ever in front of us as each ridge was scaled the mountains beyond rose higher and higher till they seemed like the buttresses of a great wall that rose from earth to Heaven. Yet the valleys were ever green and lovely; and so we travelled on with good cheer till the sunset of the third day brought us to Caxas, which is a sightly town albeit that it is built with nothing better than baked clay.
“The garrison turned out in goodly number to meet us in full and warlike array and, as we thought, with hostile intent; but when we had explained so much of our purpose as we thought fit by the mouth of Filipillo they received us well and lodged us better, and from Caxas the next morning we went on to a most goodly town called Huamacucho, in good sooth as well and solidly built a town as Christian eyes need wish to look upon in such a heathen land as this; for the forts and houses, to say nothing of the temple and the dwelling-place of the Inca noble who rules it, are built, not of clay, but of stone all masoned with marvellous skill, for stone fits on stone and course on course with a precision so perfect that no mortar is needed to bind them together.
“Here we found a garrison stronger by far than at Caxas, and warriors well enough armed after the simple fashion of the land, fit to fight, maybe, with the street lads of Seville and Cordova, though but of poor account as I take it against cavaliers or men-at-arms in mail and plate. Yet their trappings were fine and costly enough, and there were many of them that would be worth a good hundred pesos whether taken alive or found dead on a field of battle.”
Here Carvahal’s eyes began to glitter, nor were they the only ones alight in the company as he growled out—
“Ah! there I see a glimpse of Paradise, or at least of El-Dorado. Go on, de Soto, thou hast good listeners now, I warrant thee.”
But Don Francisco shook his head and said in his quiet, masterful voice—
“Nay, nay, Carvahal, it is early days to talk in that fashion yet. Remember that presently our errand is one of peace. We must not pluck the fruit while it would kill the tree. El-Dorado is not here; we shall find it beyond the mountains where its master is. Know you not the story that the Scripture tells of the strong man armed? We are not in his house yet. Go on with thy story, de Soto.”
A low approving murmur ran round the table and de Soto began again—
“My thoughts were not unlike yours, Don Francisco, even as Carvahal’s would have been had he heard the news that was told me in Huamacucho. The noble who commands the town is no less a personage than one Titu Atauchi, half-brother of the great Inca himself, and from him I learnt that Atahuallpa is presently encamped in the valley of Cajamarca, a great city lying in a broad and verdant plain on the other side of a vast range of mountains compared with which all that we have so far seen are but little more than ant-hills, yet so fast does news fly, by some strange means or other, in this wondrous land, that already he has been informed of our coming, and has sent orders back to the Governor of Huamacucho to receive us with all friendliness and invite you, Excellency, to meet him and confer with him on the subject of your embassy in Cajamarca itself.”
Here de Soto paused for a while, and Don Francisco, slowly nodding his head towards him, said—
“That all sounds well enough so far, de Soto, but heard you any tidings of the war that is being waged between the two Incas, and of what forces Atahuallpa has with him?”
“It was even that that I was coming to, Excellency,” replied de Soto. “All that we have heard so far is true. The armies of Cuzco have been defeated.”
“Cuzco! Where and what is that?” asked Carvahal, again interrupting.
“Cuzco,” said de Soto, “is by all accounts the very city after thine own heart, Carvahal. These heathens call it the Navel of the World, but for thee it may be enough to know that it is the very heart of El-Dorado, the city whose streets are paved with silver and whose palaces and temples are walled and roofed with gold. Art thou content?”
“Nay, not till I get there,” said Carvahal. “Not until I turn my sword into a reaping-hook to garner the harvest that a good Christian should be able to gather there.”
“After the labour the reward, Carvahal. Forget not that!” said Don Francisco, somewhat sharply, as though little pleased by the interruption. “Go on, de Soto, let us know what the labours are first.”
“Well, then, Caballeros, as I was saying,” he continued, “if the armies of Cuzco have been defeated by the armies of Quito. Huascar himself is held in close durance in a strong place called Tumibamba, about half-way between the two capitals, and Atahuallpa is camped in or about Cajamarca with an army—a victorious army, mind ye, of some eighty thousand men.”
“And we are some six score good Christian gentlemen and others!” interrupted Don Francisco with one of his quiet smiles. “Well, the odds are great, but God and Our Lady will defend the right. What more, de Soto?”
“But little more, Excellency,” he said, after he had joined in the laugh that went round the table. “From all I hear these heathens have every disposition to receive us kindly and trustfully. For instance, at Caxas and Huamacucho we drank chicha out of goblets of gold and silver, and ate delicious fruits from dishes of the same, and every man of us might have come back with a golden chain about his neck had I but consented to the taking of them.”
“Ah, de Soto! why was not I sent in thy stead?” growled Carvahal. “Thou art a man of wasted opportunities.”
“Nay,” said Pedro de Candia, “rather say a man of more wisdom than thou, Carvahal. Thou wouldst pluck the feathers from the wings of the bird whose flight would guide thee to El-Dorado just because they were tipped with gold. But de Soto would let it fly and follow it.”
“Ay, that I would!” said he. “All that we have seen is but the fringe of the cloth-of-gold, and if we snatched at it we might never see more of it. But,” he went on more seriously, “I should fail in my duty if I did not warn you, Señor Capitan, that all this kindness may be no better than a blind for our eyes and a snare for our footsteps, nor yet if I did not tell you that from what I have seen of it our road to Cajamarca is of such difficulty and danger that a score of men well placed and resolute might dispute it against a thousand. There are turns where an ambush would mean ruin, where the road might be blocked before and behind and no choice left save surrender or a leap to Heaven over a precipice. Once our feet are treading those mountain paths there is but one road, and that is forward. To come back save as conquerors were death as well as dishonour.”
There was a little pause after this, for the words were grave and serious ears were listening to them. Then Don Francisco, after a quick glance at the sober faces round the table, said quietly, but with a ring in his voice that found an instant echo in every heart.
“The faint-hearts have gone back to San Miguel. Here there are only fearless gentlemen of Spain, and for them the only roadisforward. Is not that so, Caballeros?”
“Ay, that is so! Go forward, Chosen of the Lord, go on and do His work! Shall the heathen prevail against you while ye are clad in the armour of righteousness and girded with the sword of faith? Remember Israel in Caanan and Joshua before Ai! If ye have faith ye may remove mountains—how much easier then shall ye cross them! There is not only shame and death behind you should ye turn back, there is damnation too, even that which befalls him who puts his hand to the plough and looks back. Are ye not the chosen messengers of God, soldiers of the Cross, and champions of our holy Church, and if gold and gems shall be the lawful reward of your labours here, shall not the eternal bliss and glory of Heaven be your reward hereafter?
“It is not only El-Dorado that lies beyond the mountains. The harvest-fields of God and our holy Church are there, and for every heathen soul that is washed clean in the waters of baptism, each one who wields the sword in a good cause shall have reward in Heaven more precious than rubies—ay, more than if all the gold of El-Dorado were his.
“What matters it though the heathen be many in number and their hearts full of guile? How shall numbers prevail against the strength that God shall give you to do His work. How shall the wiles of heathenesse overcome the wisdom of holiness? In your weakness shall be your strength, and in your simple valour your highest wisdom. Soldiers of God and the Church, go on, and God’s blessing go before you!”
It was Vincente de Valverde who spoke; not now the thin, gaunt monk who had dragged his shivering limbs and dripping garments out of the river a few days before amidst the laughter of the whole troop, nor yet the cold-blooded persecutor who had stood not long before in the plaza at Santo Domingo in Hispaniola and with unmoved eyes watched half a score of lapsed heretics writhing and screaming amidst the torture of the flames. For the moment he had risen above the man and the persecutor to be the single-hearted servant of his God and his Church, and his words rang out clear and true as words ever do ring from a heart that has a single purpose, and that a good one. The echo that they found in every heart was instant, and as the last words pealed from his lips every cavalier sprang to his feet, every sword leapt from its scabbard, and every lip was pressed with one consent to the cross-hilt.
“Even so—God speed our holy work, and may His holy Mother bless it with her prayers!” said the deep voice of Don Francisco, and then every other voice rang out in a shout of—
“Cajamarca—on to Cajamarca! There lies the road to glory and salvation!”
“And El-Dorado!” growled Carvahal, as the shout was dying away. “It were as well not to forget that in the meantime, Caballeros.”
Thenext morning, while the dew yet lay on the grass and the higher slopes and peaks of the Eastern mountains were yet cut off from the lower by a shadowy sea of mist, every cavalier and man-at-arms had already breakfasted and was out in the square of Zaran, looking to his arms or making his charger ready for the momentous march that was to begin that day.
They had gathered up and hidden away the fragments of gold and silver which the simple-minded people had brought the night before as fodder for their strange beasts, and by this means every man of them left Zaran the richer by a good many pesos’ worth of the coveted metals than he was when he came into it.
They had learnt much during their brief stay in the little frontier town that had whetted still further their already keen appetites for the wealth and the wonders of El-Dorado, and trusty guides had been given them, and when all was ready for the departure the Curaca with his chief officials came out to bid the sons of Viracocha good-speed, and these, after greetings and presents of meat and drink had been bestowed upon the parting guests, went before them down the smoothly-paved street which led to the gate of the town and out through this on to the little grassy plain which stretched for half a league or so from the walls along the river bank.
Here they saw a strange sight, yet one which they and their children and their children’s children have had good cause to remember from that day to the day of their deaths, generation after generation, even until now. Once clear of the town Pizarro, riding, as was his wont, at the head of the troop, raised his right hand, and every man stopped and every horse was reined in. Then the deep voice of the Captain rolled out—
“Halt, my brothers and companions in the Faith! Ere we go farther let us give thanks to Him who hath brought us thus far through so many and great dangers, and let us pray for that aid and countenance without which our human strength will in vain carry us farther.”
Then every man who was afoot dropped on his knees where he stood, and every cavalier swung himself from the saddle and knelt down likewise by the left fore-foot of his horse with the bridle on his arm, and crossed his hands upon his breast, the Captain kneeling by his charger in front of them all. Then there came out from the midst of the kneeling throng Vincente de Valverde followed by one Brother Joachim, a stalwart Friar of the Order of St. Francis, bearing a tall cross of black wood on which hung the white effigy of his Master, and as Valverde took his stand in front of Pizarro, he raised this in his great arms high above his head, and then the priest lifted his voice and prayed, and while his prayer, in the melodious monkish Latin, rose sweetly upon the still morning air the Curaca and the head-men of the town, with all the throng that had followed them from the gate, first looked about them in wonder, and then, as though drawn by some strange, unknown influence, all their eyes were turned upon the figure of the White Christ upon the cross, and whispers ran from lip to lip as they said wondering to each other—
“Is this, then, the god of the sons of Viracocha? Was it not said that he should come back, even as these have come to us, clad in armour of silver and armed with the lightnings? Why, then, does he hang bleeding and naked as he does yonder?”
Now when Velverde had finished his prayer he saw them looking askant at each other and gazing ever and anon at the crucifix and heard their murmurs, and, though he could not understand what they said, he read their looks of wonder truly enough and knew how to draw an omen of happy augury from them. With a swift motion he flung wide apart the hands that had been crossed upon his breast and cried in a loud voice—
“See, soldiers of the Cross, how gracious a sign hath been vouchsafed to us, even here at the gates of the land we have come to conquer for God and His holy Church! Was it not said of old: ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me’? Behold how the eyes of the heathen are already fixed upon the holy emblem of our Faith! Truly a day shall come when by your valour and devotion the darkness shall be taken away from this land, when its false gods shall be cast down and men’s hearts shall know and their eyes shall see no other God than Him who liveth and reigneth world without end!Laus Domine! Laus Domine!Praise Him, ye children of His and soldiers of His Cross, for in this sign shall ye conquer!”
Then with one accord every man, from the Captain to ribald old Carvahal himself, sprang from his knees to his feet, every sword leapt from its scabbard, and every pike and partisan was waved aloft, and as the hoarse, deep-toned shout, “Laus Domine! Laus Domine!” rolled forth from every warrior’s throat the first sun-burst of the morning streamed over the eastern mountains and flashed in a thousand rays on the gleaming blades and points of the weapons.
Then Pizarro, who of all men knew best how to turn a moment of enthusiasm to good account, sprang into the saddle, swung his blade above his head and, half turning towards his little army, cried—
“Ay, praise to the Lord, for in His strength we shall conquer, though of ourselves we be but few and weak. Mount and forward, gentlemen. Yonder dawns the morning of salvation for us which shall end the long night that we have passed through together. Forward, and God be with us!”
As he said this he turned his horse a little to the right and rode past where Valverde stood with the crucifix still raised above him by the strong arms of Brother Joachim. As he passed it he lowered the sword which ere long was to drink so deeply of innocent blood, and made the sign of the Cross with the hilt, and the priest blessed each man of the troop as he went by with bended head and crossing himself. When all had passed he and Brother Joachim mounted their mules and took their places in the rear, and so those whom they believed to be the sons of the god Viracocha passed from the wondering gaze of the first of the Children of the Sun who had beheld them, and went on their way to El-Dorado.
There is no room to tell here of all that befell them day by day on that first march of theirs, for this is not the story of their journeyings—of which you may learn better from the pens of those who made them—but rather of the things that they did when the end of the march had at length brought them to the scene of their triumphs and their crimes.
They passed through Caxas and Huamacucho, finding them as de Soto had said, and being entertained with the simple and yet bounteous hospitality of the kindly-hearted people who were soon to whisper their names to each other as words of more than mortal terror.
They were surrounded by sights as strange as Christian eyes had ever seen, though not yet by things as terrible as those which the soldiers of Cortes had seen a few years before far away in Mexico on the other side of the central line of the earth. Everywhere they beheld the signs of perfect peace and order, though but a few days’ marches to the eastward the earth had trembled not many weeks before beneath the tread of countless hosts rushing to the conflict out of which was to spring the doom of Atahuallpa and the Children of the Sun, and which Ullomaya the priest had spoken by the bedside of the great Huayna-Capac in far-off Quito.
Everywhere, too, throughout the valleys and towns they saw the wealth of field and mine and the triumphs won by patient labour spread about them with lavish hand. The fields were green and golden with bounteous crops. In the groves of fruit-trees the branches bent beneath the weight of their luscious harvest. Gold and silver seemed to be in as common use as brass and iron were in Spain, and the people, clad in their bright-coloured stuffs of many hues and decked with jewels such as only princes wore in Europe, seemed to be living lives as calm and cloudless as the endless summer which smiled down from the changeless skies above them.
Many another hand than old Carvahal’s closed ever and anon itchingly on sword-hilt or pike-handle at the sight of all this; and often passions less holy than the ardour of conquest, to say nothing of the service of the Church, stirred in many a grim warrior’s breast, for the daughters of this strange and childlike people were very fair and dainty to look upon with eyes which, like theirs, had starved so long for the sight of woman’s beauty.
But the orders of the Captain were very strict, and, what was more, he obeyed them himself, for the greatest honour that can be accounted to Francisco Pizarro is accorded to him by those who truthfully say that he never asked a follower of his to dare or do that which he would not do himself, or forego delights which he himself would not go without.
Only once on that long march did any man seek to break the bonds of this iron discipline, and this was done by one Pedro Navarro, a man-at-arms who, on the morning that the army left Huamacucho, was accused by one of the headmen of the town of having offered violence and insult to his daughter.
Pizarro instantly put off the march until the accusation was made good in due form. Then in the presence of the army and the townspeople he called the offender before him and said—
“Pedro Navarro, hast thou come hither to serve God and His Saints or to pander to thine own evil lusts? What need hadst thou to leave Panama if thy desire was to bear thyself as a lecher and a doer of base violence rather than as a soldier of the Cross? Till thou hast repented, thou art not worthy to bear the arms or wear the garb of a soldier of Spain.”
Then, looking round among the cavaliers, his eyes lighted on Carvahal, and some thought that the shadow of a grim smile was visible under his beard as he beckoned to him and said—
“Come hither, Carvahal. I know of no hands fitter than thine to punish one who hath demeaned himself as this man hath. Let two of his fellows strip him of his arms and clothes, ay, even to his shoes, and do thou tie him to thy stirrup till thy mercy shall see fit to let him loose, and should he give signs of lagging on the march doubtless thou wilt find means at hand to bring him back to good marching order.”
To this Carvahal consented readily enough, for sinners punish sinners with as much gusto as thieves chase thieves, and all that day he dragged the naked, limping wretch by his side, stumbling over the steep stony road with swollen and bleeding feet, his bare back blistered by the scorching sun and his tongue, unslaked by a single drop of water, hanging out black and baked between his parted teeth, and when he was like to faint he roused him with his spurred heel to hear a homily on St. Anthony or a sermon that it would have done the Devil good to listen to.
It was a sore punishment enough, and Pedro Navarro was more dead than alive when the evening halt was called. And yet, not long after, this same man threw himself in the way of a spear that was aimed at his Captain’s throat, so well did Francisco Pizarro know how to lead men like dogs and yet, like dogs, make them love him the better for his chastening of them.
Huamacucho was passed on the fourth day from Zaran, and on the night that the penance of Pedro Navarro was ended the sun set, as it seemed to these voyagers in a strange land, over the confines of two worlds. All day the narrow path, winding round hillspurs and threading mountain-sides midway between Heaven and the depth of unmeasured valleys and gorges, had led upward and ever upward.
At some of the turnings they had looked back and seen valley after valley, divided by their parting ridges, sloping and falling away down into illimitable distances until their eyes lost themselves in a dim, far-off haze beyond which, as they well knew, lay the desert coast and the blue Sea of the South. At others, looking upward, they saw ridge after ridge and range after range, each one barer and bleaker than the one below it, towering ever up and up like the steps of some titanic stairway which seemed to reach from earth to Heaven, and ever and anon from some ’vantage point of better view they saw far, beyond and above the highest of these, twinkling points of gleaming white, whiter than the cloud-sprays drifting in the mid-most heaven, so high and far away that it seemed as though they had as little kinship with the earth as the clouds themselves.
There was not a faint heart in all the company, for none such would have come thus far; but, as day after day they mounted higher and higher, and as hour after hour the awful solitude of those lonely wildernesses encompassed them more and more closely about, there was not a heart among them that did not feel the weight of the Unknown pressing in upon him.
“By the faith of a soldier and a Christian,” said Carvahal as he rounded one of the hillspurs on the forenoon of the seventh day, riding beside Alonso de Molina, “methinks much more of this would pass human endurance. Look at yonder line of snow and ice sharp-edged against the sky! Hast thou ever seen the purity of such whiteness as that on earth? Doth it not seem as though this ever upward mountain road would take us rather to the gates of Heaven than to those of El-Dorado? Santiago! it would need but little faith to see the gleam of the Gates of Pearl amidst yon peaks of snow and ice—may my good St. Francis pardon me for naming things earthly and heavenly in one breath!”
The young cavalier looked at him with a grave face, but with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, and said—
“In good truth, Carvahal, this is a land of strange and mighty marvels that we are coming into, and the best proof of that is that I have never heard thee speak with such reverence of anything in any other land. Even now I feel as though I were hanging ’twixt Heaven and earth, and yet Filipillo had it from the guides this morning that, ere we descend into the valley in which Cajamarca lies, we must even pass between those same shining peaks and pyramids, and, from all they tell, nothing that we have yet seen or done will compare with the labour or the soreness of it.”
“The holy Saints forfend!” said Carvahal, making a show of crossing himself, “for even El-Dorado might be too dearly won or even Heaven itself—may the Saints again forgive me—what blasphemy am I talking! Surely the strange air of this heathen land hath set my old wits a-wandering. Yet well might such a journey daunt the firmest mind.”
He was right; for they, first of all Europeans, were beginning to experience that strange disorder of mind and body which is only known to those who have travelled long at great elevations, and as they went ever higher and higher their sufferings increased even as their wonder and their fear did. Men who would have charged a host single-handed at the call of faith or duty reined up their trembling steeds on the brink of frightful precipices with hands that shook as though they had never held lance or sword, and their eyes gazed blankly down into the awful voids and their hearts fluttered in their labouring breasts like the hearts of little children left alone in the darkness.
Then, at length, they passed through the region of burning sun and piercing wind which lay above the soft summer of the valleys into the eternal winter that reigns unbroken through the centuries on its everlasting thrones of ice and snow.
There indeed they thought themselves wanderers beyond the limits that God had set to human life. Before and behind and around them towered the vast white shapes that seemed like the guardians of the portals of some other world into which no human foot had ever ventured. The icy blasts smote them with the keenness of sword-edges, and they and their labouring, shivering beasts gasped agonisingly for breath in the thin, frozen air.
At night cavalier and charger, man and brute, huddled together for warmth, for those awful wastes held neither tree nor shrub to furnish fuel for a fire. Their commonest duties seemed to them like the labour of slaves, and once a man-at-arms who sought to warm himself by running down a hill-slope fell prone ere he had gone fifty paces, with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth and ears, and his eyes starting out of his head. When they went to take him up he was already dead and the blood that had come from him frozen hard.
Still through all they pressed on, for their Captain, ever the last to rest and the first to move, had but one word on his lips, and that was “onward,” and there was not a man among them who would have dared the shame of retreat or the bitterness of the reproach with which Pizarro would have bade him go back.
And so, as old Carvahal and the great Pedro de Candia had often used the little breath they had to spare in saying, since there is no staircase, however high, but must have a top step, they came at length to a curved ridge of grey-brown grass that sloped between two ice-crowned pinnacles of rock, and here, standing, as it seemed, upon the very roof-tree of the world, they saw before and behind them only downward slopes.
Here Pizarro called a halt that was right welcome to every man and beast in the troop, and, calling Filipillo and the guides to him, he held a short conference with them. And when this was over he faced his pinched and starving, shivering followers, who had gathered in little huddled groups about him, and said in a voice that sounded strangely unlike his own in the thin, dry, cold air—
“Comrades, by the grace of God and with the help of His Holy Mother and the blessed Saints, we have won our way through the terrors of this wilderness to the threshold of the new land which shall be ours. The labours of the upward way are over. Henceforth our steps trend downwards from these fearsome solitudes, forsaken of man, if not of God since His arm has protected us even here, once more into the haunts of men and the home of warmth and sunshine. Did yonder snow-cloud break ye would see through it your first glimpse of the Land of Promise!”
As he said this he pointed with his right hand downward towards a tumbling sea of frozen mist which rolled in ghostly, silent billows along the mountain-side, and even as he spoke a storm-gust swept down from the upper ridges and rent asunder the heavy snow-laden clouds above them. Through this the sun, already beginning to sink towards the west, shone with a sudden stream of warmth and radiance. The mists at their feet parted, and through the changing rifts their longing eyes caught distant glimpses of tree-clad slopes and level, verdant plains cut by shining streams far, far away below them, and in the midst, for one brief instant, they saw a city so far away that it looked like a home of pigmies, yet with a gleam as of gold on its domes and roofs.
“Cajamarca! Cajamarca! Yonder is the Inca’s city!” piped Filipillo in his thin, shrill voice, starting forward and pointing down towards it.
“El-Dorado! El-Dorado!” shouted Carvahal in a hoarse, cracked voice, scrambling back into his saddle. “Santiago! we have won our way through this frozen hell. Now let us get down to Paradise, since in this heathen country God’s order is changed and Hell stands above Heaven.”
“El-Dorado! El-Dorado!” ran like an echo from lip to lip—and, as the whole troop moved forward and downward, the rifts in the snow-mist closed again and shut out the vision from their eyes.
Itwas a good hour or more, so steep and difficult is that downward road, before the zone of frozen mist was passed through, and the vanguard of the little army halted, transfixed with wonder and admiration by the glorious scene which spread out—looking, in good truth, like a vision of Paradise after the hideous regions they had just passed through—some five thousand feet below them.
To the north-westward the slanting beams of the descending sun streamed under the edge of the cloud and mist and spread in a flood of glory over a broad valley walled in by terraced hills on every side. The whole of the level floor of the valley was covered with fields and plantations, separated by long green and red flowering hedges, groves of trees and shining streams, and straight paved roads, bordered by over-hanging trees.
At the very foot, as it seemed from that elevation, of the steep, sloping mountain-wall they had just crossed lay the city of Cajamarca, and scattered all over the valley were scores of villages gleaming white amidst the green of the fields and leafy groves about them.
On the lower slopes of the hills rose countless terraces, formed by the patient labour of many generations, the lowest of them golden with ripened maize, and step by step the gold passed shade by shade into the brilliant green of the unripened crops of the highest terraces. It was a vast oasis in the midst of a still vaster chaos of bleak and desert mountains, the home, as it seemed to these wayworn travellers, of industrious peace and bounteous plenty, and the gentler soul of Alonso de Molina whispered to him as his gaze first fell upon its glories that it was a paradise into which he and his gold-hungering companions were about to bring the poison of treachery and the storms of ruthless violence.
And yet another moment’s thought reminded him that not even this fair-seeming Eden was free from the curse that had blasted the first Paradise of earth, for he knew well that in the midst of it lay encamped a vast and conquering host, led by one who, beguiled by the fleeting dream of empire, had drawn his sword against his brother and brought down upon the ancient empire of the Incas that doom pronounced of old against the kingdom divided against itself—the doom which by the mailed hand of the invader was so soon to fall upon himself.
“A goodly land, comrade, and one that it were a pity to leave too long in the possession of the heathen and the enemies of Holy Church and His Most Catholic Majesty,” said Pedro de Candia, who was guiding his stumbling beast alongside of him. “Malediction! what roads! This is the fortieth time at least in the last hour that nothing but the help of the Saints hath kept this poor beast off his knees, and it were an ill place this even for a dumb brute to kneel down in, to say nothing of pitching a good Christian on to his head.”
“A goodly land as thou sayest, Pedro,” replied Molina, somewhat sadly, “and well worth the stealing, as old Carvahal would say, and yet—well, if I were not a good Catholic I should think that those who could make such a paradise in the midst of such a wilderness, heathens though they be, were well deserving of a better embassy than we bring them, coming as we do with the Cross of God before us, lies on our lips, and the lust of plunder in our hearts.”
“From which speech it would seem that the work before us is not much to your liking, Caballero,” said the deep, stern voice of the Captain-General on the other side of him.
He turned quickly in his saddle and saw Pizarro’s dark, grave eyes looking half inquiringly, half reproachfully at him, and before he could find any words to reply Pizarro went on in a kinder tone—
“Did I not know that there is no stouter heart or stronger arm under our banners than thine, Molina, I should say that thou has brought too gentle a mind to such work as ours is and has to be. They who would hew out empires for their masters in the strange and new-found lands of the earth must do it with hands cased in gauntlets of steel. The silken glove is for the court and the palace. Ends, not means, must be the care of those who stake honour, fortune, and life itself on such hazards as ours.
“And look you,” he went on, speaking quicker and louder, as though he wished those about him to hear as well, “let us make no mistake as to that which now lies before us. Yonder valley looks a paradise, but it is the armed camp of a conquering tyrant to boot. If the envoys have not lied to us, Atahuallpa is yonder at the head of a host of eighty thousand men, full-flushed with the pride of victory, and we are a hundred and sixty soldiers and gentlemen of Spain, cut off from all succour and with but one road to take—and that road lies forward!”
“And thou shalt find none readier to follow thee along that road, Señor, than he who will strike none the less hard for God and king because he would win the land by other means if he could,” replied Molina, bending his head in deference to his Captain’s reproof.
“Spoken like as gentle a knight and as brave a cavalier as Spain herself can boast of!” said Pizarro, smiling one of his rare smiles. “I did not mean to reproach thee, only to show thee how great a difference there may be between that which a man would do and that which he must. Thou knowest well that I could think no evil of one of those who came with me across that line on the sands of Gallo.”
Then, without waiting for any reply, he pulled his horse aside and joined his brother Hernando, who was riding a little way behind him.
“A strange man!” said Candia, in a low voice. “One of those instruments that God fashions sometimes out of vile material to hew out the rough shapes of His mysterious purposes—a base-born bastard, whose first work in life was tending swine, and now raised by the strength of the great heart that God gave him to be a hidalgo of Spain and, as I for one truly believe, ere long to be conqueror of realms wider than Spain itself. Fear not, Molina, put thy scruples in thy pouch, since thou presently hast but little else to put there. God makes great men only to great ends. Leave the means to destiny, and believe thou art not marching under the banner of such a man as Francisco Pizarro for nothing.”
“That I well believe,” answered Molina. “We here are but instruments. Thou art right. It is not for the tool to question the intent of the hand that uses it. Thinkest thou we shall reach the city to-night?”
As though in answer to him the trumpet at that moment sounded a halt. While they were talking a turn in the downward road had brought them in sight of a ridge of rocks out-cropping from the grass-grown mountain-side to the right hand, and looking from a little distance like the fragments of some Titan-built fortress. To the left rose a steep, scarped hill, ringed with rocks. It was a position that a hundred men, resolute and well armed, could have held against ten thousand. Even a few score of naked savages could have poured such a rain of great stones down upon the little company passing between the two fastnesses as would have left neither man nor horse unmaimed, even if alive, and the Captain-General was not a man to lead his followers into such a place without due caution.
So the halt was called while they were yet above what might have been a death-trap for them all, and scouts were sent out on either hand to feel the way, and these, after a diligent search, came back and said that they could find not so much as a mouse among the rocks. So the trumpets sounded again, and the troop, with eyes and ears alert and weapons ready, marched through the defile which, if he had had the knowledge or the will to do so, the master of the hosts encamped below might have infallibly made the end of their journey.
“El-Dorado is ours!” laughed Carvahal to Hernando de Soto, as they came out of the pass and emerged on a green, sloping plain below. “Those who left such a place as that unguarded will make but small fight for the best they have. Carramba! with the men we have here I would hold that pass against all the armies of His Catholic Majesty while my powder and shot and the stones on the hillside held out. It is but child’s play taking a castle whose defenders leave the portcullis up and forget to raise the drawbridge. Cuerpo de Cristo! who would have thought to find the gate of the Inca’s treasure-house left open like that?”
De Soto laughed a trifle bitterly, and said—
“If thou wert anything better than a blaspheming eater of fire with never a thought beyond throat-cutting and gold-getting, Carvahal, thou wouldst have seen by this that we have been welcomed into this land as friends, as envoys of a king whom these poor people look on as a god. Nay, have they not hailed us as sons ourselves of one of their gods? Did not Titu Atauchi, brother of Atahuallpa himself, greet the Captain-General down in Huamacucho yonder as Inca Viracocha, and place on his left arm the golden bracelet which none but those of Divine descent, as they think, may wear? Thou mayest believe me when I tell thee that if they had taken us for what we are we should never have come thus far alive through such a land as this, and it is thought——”
“Which makes thee ever and anon feel and speak more like a monk than a stout adventurer. Is that not so, de Soto?” growled Carvahal in reply. “Santiago! though I am not so fine a gentleman or as soft-hearted a splitter of skulls as thou or Molina yonder, who hath conversed with me more than once in such a strain, yet, in good sooth, I believe I’m the better Christian, for, on my faith as a good Catholic, I believe that the Saints who watch over our enterprise have thus blinded the eyes of these heathens so that we can do our good work the easier. How else could we few prevail against so many? It is faith thou wantest, de Soto—faith. Thou art overmuch given to reasoning, which was ever a bad thing for those whose business is rather with hard knocks than soft, smooth-sounding words.”
“Ha!” exclaimed de Soto, suddenly rising in his stirrups and looking on ahead. “What have we yonder? By my faith, a pair of forts, seemingly as well placed and as skilfully built as the best engineer could wish for. See how they command the way down to the valley from all sides! There, too, a handful of men could hold the road against a host. How much the easier, then, could the hosts of the Inca hold it against such a handful as we are! And look you—Santiago! what madness!—they are coming out from the chief one on the right hand yonder to meet us as though we were friends.”