“Laus tibi Domine! Gloria, Gloria!” cried Valverde, spreading his hands out towards the heavens. “Shall there not be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth? Brother Francis, the font quickly, ere the moment of grace shall pass!”
The monk immediately came forward with a silver vessel containing the holy water. Valverde signed to the penitent to kneel down, and as he did so he dipped his finger in the water and, making the sign of the Cross on the Inca’s brow, he cried in a loud, triumphant voice—
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti, I baptize thee, Juan de Atahuallpa.16By the prayers of our Blessed Mother and the intercessions of the Holy Saints thou hast been brought out of the darkness of heathendom into the light of the true Faith. By the authority given me by our Holy Father the Pope, God’s vicegerent upon earth, lawful heir and successor of him to whom it was said: That whosoever he should bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and whosoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven, I now absolve thee from the sins and errors of thy past life, seeing that they were committed while thy soul was yet in darkness. That which was as scarlet hath been washed whiter than snow. Go now, son of the Church, and enter into the glory of thy new inheritance!”
They were strange words with which to send one who but a few months before had been lord of wide lands and master of many millions to the ignominious death of a common malefactor, and yet not even old Carvahal was able to look upon the face of Valverde as he uttered them and doubt his perfect faith. For him the miracle of the Church’s Sacrament had been accomplished by his hands, and no man believed anything more truly than he did that the heathen soul of the Inca was at that moment as white and pure as the soul of a little child.
He saw none of the mockery, none of the cruelty, none of the murderous injustice of which they were the sanction. If Atahuallpa could have understood them he might have taken them for the words of pardon and release, but a few moments would have bitterly undeceived him. In their inner meaning they were nothing less than a command to his executioners, the surrender of the body of the doomed man from the keeping of the Church to the secular arm in accordance with the hideous formula which has sent thousands of men, women, and children to the agonizing death of the flames.
But the Inca’s tardy recantation had saved him at least from the physical torments of such an end. The fagots were cleared away from the stake, and the fatal torch was extinguished. Two men-at-arms put their hands under his shoulders and raised him to his feet. He walked between them to the stake passively and in seeming unconsciousness of what was being done. Behind it Michael Asterre had taken his place with a noosed rope in one hand and a short thick staff of wood in the other. Then the Inca was placed against the stake and bound to it with cords. Before his right hand was bound he raised it and, looking towards Pizarro, beckoned to him. The Captain-General approached with Filipillo at his side, but Atahuallpa, with almost the last action of his life, turned his head aside and angrily waved him away. So another interpreter was brought, and by him he said to Pizarro.
“That other who speaks for you is a liar and a traitor both to you and me, and I would have my last words to come truthfully to your ears.
“You have entrapped me and betrayed me. You have plundered me and my people, as no doubt you came to do and as you will still do when you have murdered me as you are going to do. Since you have done me so much injury give me at least one pledge in return. When I am dead let my body be taken to my own city of Quito and there dealt with according to the customs of my race and the honour of my name. Protect those whom I leave desolate behind me, and let them suffer neither insult nor injury at the hands of your soldiers. Now I am ready, let me die!”
Even the iron soul of the Conqueror was shaken by these simply and solemnly spoken words, uttered as they were on the threshold of another world. The accusation struck him for the moment to the heart, and he bowed his head as though abashed by the force of it. Then he looked up and said shortly and in a husky voice—
“You have my pledge, Inca, and all that can be done shall be.”
Then he stepped back quickly and made a sign with his hand to Asterre. The next instant the rope was thrown round the Inca’s throat, noosed and knotted. As he felt the touch of it Atahuallpa started in his bonds and opened his eyes which a moment before he had closed. The next instant Asterre had passed the staff through the noose and given it a quick, wrenching turn. A short gasping cry broke from the Inca’s lips only to be instantly silenced as his executioner gave the staff another and yet stronger turn.
Those who stood round saw by the light of the flaring torches a hideous change pass over the face of the doomed man. Yet another turn and his jaw fell and his tongue shot out as though forced from his crushed throat. For a few moments there was an awful silence broken only by the spluttering of the torches and the dull murmuring of prayers for the safety of the departing soul, and then Asterre released the staff. It spun round and dropped to the earth, and as it did so Atahuallpa’s head fell forward on his breast, and so died the son of Huayna-Capac and Zaïma, his queen and murderess.
As soon as the Inca was proved to be dead the trumpet sounded and the square was cleared. In the midst stood the stake with the body still bound to it, left to a grim and solemn solitude, but after about an hour the Inca’s wives and sisters came in a sorrowful procession to Pizarro, praying that he would allow them to go and mourn by the body of their Lord, and this he, no doubt feeling some softness of soul, if not remorse, for the thing that he had helped to do, not only granted, but ordered that all the guards should draw back to the walls of the houses and the entrances to the square, leaving them unmolested for as long as they pleased.
Then presently upon the still night air there rose the soft, wailing sounds of the Death Chant, and hour after hour this went on, ever growing fainter and fainter, till at last it ended in the long, shrill, piercing cry of a woman’s voice, and then all was still.
The Spaniards thought that one by one they had worn themselves out with wailing and so fallen asleep; but when with the first light of dawn they went to take the Inca’s body away to lay it in the newly-built church of San Francisco, they learnt the true cause of the silence, for there in a circle round the stake at which their Lord had died they lay, maid and matron, each with her eyes upturned to his downbent head, and each with a slender dagger of gold taken from her dark unloosed tresses and plunged deep into her faithful heart.
And so too died the wives and sisters and daughters of Atahuallpa, and among them lay the Princess Pillcu-Cica, fairest form of all, saved thus from dishonour by the parting of the gentle soul which had gone in the fulness of its simple faith to rejoin its murdered Lord in the Mansions of the Sun.
Manymonths had passed, and many grievous misfortunes had fallen upon the Children of the Sun since Atahuallpa had been done to death in the square of Cajamarca. De Soto and his companions had returned after performing their mission only too well, since they had by fair words and splendid promises convinced the youth and inexperience of Manco that the sole object of the Spaniards and the only wish of their lord and master in Spain was the conquest and punishment of the Usurper and an honourable alliance with the true descendant and lawful heir of the ancient line of Huayna-Capac.
No sooner had this end been attained by the wily conquerors than it produced just that result which they expected. The nobles of Quito, enraged at the death of their prince and the collapse of their dream of universal empire, at once asserted their independence of Cuzco, and even persuaded the old chieftain Quiz-Quiz to forget his promises to Manco and undertake single-handed the tremendous task of driving the victorious invaders back over the mountains and into the sea whence they came.
Such falsehood and treachery on the part of a warrior so well proved is but one of many incomprehensible incidents in this most wonderful of all conquests. At every step the student of this last dark period of the history of the Incas is confronted and bewildered by events which, according to European ideas, ought never to have happened. At one time he sees the Inca princes and nobles acting like warriors and statesmen, at others like children and cowards. No doubt it would be possible to find many plausible reasons for their extraordinary conduct, but to seek and find such is the business of the philosophical historian. The romancer has nothing to do with them.
The first result of the secession of the army of Quito was the arrest of Challcuchima by the Spaniards after they had invited him as a guest to Cajamarca to be present at the obsequies of his murdered master. They then compelled him to accompany them on their triumphal march to Cuzco, whither they set out some five hundred strong, inflamed to intoxication by the splendid accounts of the incredible wealth of the city which had been brought back by de Soto and his companions.
On the road Quiz-Quiz with his own forces and those that had been Challcuchima’s beset the advancing conquerors at all the most difficult points on the way, and more than once came near to overwhelming them, but again and again the courage and discipline of the Spaniards, aided by their irresistible weapons, triumphed over all difficulties and dangers, though not without considerable cost both in men and horses, till at last in a great battle on the plain of Jauja the army of Quito was cut to pieces and scattered in fragments over the mountains. These fragments gradually came together again, and Quiz-Quiz led them back to Quito, and there at length his treachery was rewarded by a miserable death under the knives and spears of his own mutinous soldiers.
The Spaniards lost no time in turning this victory to the best advantage, and to the speedy clearing of their own road to universal dominion. Immediately after the battle Pizarro sent an embassy to Cuzco informing Manco of the defeat and dispersal of the rebels, and greeting him as Inca and lord of the whole land. At the same time he accused Challcuchima of treasonable correspondence with Quiz-Quiz during the march, and of attempting to lead the Spanish forces into an ambush. Like his master, he was convicted before he was judged, and the Captain-General, to the anger of de Soto and all the better minded of the cavaliers, condemned him to die by fire at the stake. The old warrior met his fate as became a prince and a soldier. Up to the last moment before the torch was applied to the fagots which his own countrymen piled round him, Valverde sought to do with him as he had done with Atahuallpa; but the brother of Huayna-Capac was made of sterner stuff than his son. His last words were—
“I do not understand the religion of the white men. They come with words of peace and kindness on their lips, and with their hands they do deeds of violence and cruelty and treachery. My place is waiting for me in the Mansions of the Sun. Let me go quickly back into the presence of my Father.”
And so he died, unmoved by the torment of the flames, and with the name of his ancient deity upon his lips. Only one of the great chieftains of the nation was now left, old Ruminavi, or Stony-face, of whom more hereafter.
The embassy to Manco bore speedy fruit, for while the Spanish army was resting in the verdant plain of Jauja the young Inca returned with it in brilliant state to thank Pizarro for his destruction of the Usurper and his rebel force, and to enter into a formal alliance with him. The wily Spaniard received him with open arms and all honour. The troops who were really his conquerors were drawn up to receive him as though he had really been a sovereign and independent prince, and the guns which had wrought such havoc in the ranks of his countrymen woke the echoes of the guardian hills of Jauja with salutes in his honour.
The united forces then returned to Cuzco, and here Manco-Capac, in the capital of his ancestors, was proclaimed and crowned Inca with all the stately ceremonial that had been practised of yore. The Spaniards formed his guard of honour, and did homage with his own nobles, but there was one difference. Instead of taking the imperial borla from the hands of Anda-Huillac, the Villac-Umu, High Priest of the Sun, he received it from the hands of him who was in fact Viceroy of the Spanish Emperor and now doubly his own conqueror.
After this had been done, and the sovereignty of Charles V. had been proclaimed at sound of trumpet in the Metropolis of the Inca’s, Pizarro’s brother Hernando returned from his mission to Spain, bringing with him the King’s patent appointing the Conqueror Governor of the country covered by his conquests, and raising him to the rank of Marquis, thus making the base-born adventurer a grandee of Spain.
But Hernando also brought less welcome tidings of other armies of adventurers steering for the golden shores of El-Dorado. Alvarado, one of the bravest of the captains of Cortez, had already landed, others were coming, and it behoved him to see to his position. Worse than all, when Hernando arrived in Peru from Panama, it was found that the Emperor had given Almagro permission to conquer the country to the south of Pizarro’s territory for a distance of two hundred leagues, and rule over it independently. The fatal upshot of this was that Almagro and his men at once took their revenge for what they had considered the unfair distribution of the spoils at Cajamarca by taking advantage of the imperfect measurements of the country and claiming that Cuzco fell outside the jurisdiction of Pizarro, and therefore within that of Almagro.
Thus, by the strange decrees of Fate, it came about that the City of the Sun, the chief and richest prize of their incredible labours and astonishing triumphs, first became the object of the bitter dispute between the two factions of the Conquerors, which speedily grew from personal quarrel into civil war, during which the former friends and allies turned their weapons upon each other, and in the end overwhelmed in mutual disaster for themselves the great enterprise which they had begun so brilliantly.
For the time being, however, the dispute was healed, and the two ancient comrades, who so many years before in far-away Panama had dreamed the golden dream of El-Dorado, took a solemn oath on the Sacrament in the very capital of El-Dorado itself that all quarrels should be forgotten, and that both should work henceforth loyally together for the glory of the crown of Spain and the spread of the true Faith. This being done, Pizarro set out for the coast to found that City of Kings, which is now called Lima, and which was for more than two centuries the most splendid city on the southern continent of America, while Almagro made ready to start southward to the conquest of his new dominions: and it is at this juncture in the fortunes of the conquerors and the conquered that the curtain rises upon the last act of the tragedy which began in the City of the Great Ravine.
Itwas after sunset one day early in the year 1535, and the young Inca Manco, the titular ruler of the Land of the Four Regions, was sitting moody and disconsolate in a chair, whose framework was carved out of massive silver, in a small apartment of the palace of the Inca-Rocca, which stood on an ample terrace about half-way up the slope leading to the great fortress of the Sacsahuaman, and which had been assigned to him as a residence by those whom he had now learnt to recognise were not his allies but his masters. A thousand trifles, and one fact that was anything but a trifle, had at last brought the bitter truth home to him. All the fair promises of the Spaniards had been lies. If they had overthrown the Usurper it had been only to help themselves, not him. He was no more sovereign here in the city of his fathers than Atahuallpa had been in captivity at Cajamarca.
After the fair seeming ceremony of his establishment there had been feasting and dancing and revelry, for the lighthearted, childlike people had believed as honestly as he had done in the sincerity and friendliness of the Strangers. But then had come the rude awakening. The Spaniards had appointed their own officers over the city; their priests had carried a new worship into the temples sacred to the Sun; the soldiers, in spite of their General’s own strict command, had plundered both palaces and temples of their treasures, and, worse than all, they had broken open the great House of the Virgins and the other convents about the city and had inflicted the foulest indignities upon their innocent dwellers. He had himself once sought to escape from the hideous thraldom of this royal mockery with Nahua, his one beloved, and of so little account did the Spaniards hold him that he was allowed to go unnoticed, and they would have escaped to the friendly shelter of the mountains had it not been that Talambo, the chieftain of the Cañaris, a northern tribe which had revolted from the rule of Atahuallpa and joined the invaders, went to Almagro and persuaded him that he had gone to join Ruminavi and bring all the remaining hosts of Peru in an irresistible swarm down upon the devoted city, and this had led to his being pursued and brought back to be thrown into prison like a common malefactor.
The coming of Hernando Pizarro to take command of the city in place of Almagro had led to his release and his restoration to the pretence of royalty. But now the iron had entered into his soul and he knew himself for what he was, a captive and a slave, a puppet dressed in the robes of sovereignty whose business it was to dance at his master’s orders for the delusion of his own people.
Nearly half an hour had passed in his sombre reverie when suddenly the vision of Atahuallpa, bound to the stake and surrounded by these pitiless Strangers, seemed to rise before his view as it had been told to him by many of those who had stood round the square of Cajamarca on that fatal night. Then he saw the morning light breaking over the circle of devoted women lying dead, slain by their own hands, round the stake, and among them the Princess Pillcu-Cica, his own half-sister. He remembered her in the old days at Quito as the friend and playmate of Nahua, and then suddenly again the picture before his half-dreaming eyes changed and he saw himself bound to such a stake with Nahua lying lifeless at his feet.
It needed no more to stir the latent heroism in his soul to revolt. He sprang from his seat, nerved by a sudden impulse of almost despairing anger, and snatching the fringed diadem from his brow he dashed it to the ground, and at the very moment that he did so the heavy curtains that covered the doorway were drawn apart and his uncle Anda-Huillac entered with bowed head and slow steps, followed by Mama-Oello, his mother, the sister-wife and Coya of Huayna-Capac, and Nahua.
When the high priest had given him the customary greetings, his eyes fell upon the borla lying on the floor, then he raised them and looked at the young Inca, and said—
“It is the first time, Lord, that the crown of the Four Regions has lain where it might be trampled underfoot, yet I call our Father the Sun to witness that I would rather see it there—ay, I would rather see it spurned by the foot of the merest slave in Cuzco—than on thy brow.”
“Because that brow is not worthy to wear it? Is that so, brother of my father?” exclaimed Manco, turning half angrily and half reproachfully upon him.
“Not so, Lord,” replied the old priest, “since I for one believe that if the true spirit of the great Huayna yet burns in the breast of any of the Children of the Sun it burns in thine. It is the crown that is not worthy of the brow since it was placed on it by the hand of the Stranger and the Unbeliever.”
“And the conqueror. Forget not that Anda-Huillac,” the young Inca added, clasping his hands behind his back and looking down upon the discarded crown.
“Conqueror until now only, my son and my Lord,” said Mama-Oello, coming forward and laying her hand lightly upon his arm, “and conquerors only because the Usurper had split the power of the land in twain and set one half of it against the other. Had there been but one Lord over the Four Regions, and had all our armies been united under such a rule as his whose love was my joy and my honour, then these few Strangers, despite their strange weapons and terrible war-beasts, would have been but as feeble reeds in a rushing torrent, to have stood perchance for a while and then fall overwhelmed. My son, is there no hand in all the Four Regions that can draw together what the hands of Atahuallpa parted? Is there no heart whose valour can fire the thousands who yet remain faithful to us with the high resolve to win back what is lost, and to overwhelm these cruel Strangers in the midst of the ruin that they have brought upon us? If there is such a hand and such a heart left in all the Four Regions, surely they shall be thine, my son.”
“Why have you come to tell me this now?” said Manco, turning almost roughly upon her. “Have you waited till I am something worse than a slave, powerless and a captive, degraded before the eyes of my people and accursed in my own? See, there lies the borla which I may never wear again. I am sick of pretence. Henceforth I will be and seem what I am. Oh, Nahua, Nahua, wisest and dearest of my counsellors, what evil spirit stopped my ears to the wisdom of your counsels and opened them to the smooth-spoken lies of these accursed strangers? But why do you three come to me now, now when it is too late?”
“Because it is not yet too late, Lord,” replied Anda-Huillac, motioning to Nahua to be silent till he had spoken, “and because while thou hast been brooding here in thy captivity, since it is nothing else, over the misfortunes of thy people two of the vilest outrages that could have befallen them and thee have this day come to pass.”
“What are they?” said Manco, looking gloomily at him. “What worse can befall the Children of the Sun or him who should be their lawful Lord?”
“My Lord knows,” replied Anda-Huillac solemnly, “that these impious Strangers have already despoiled the House of the Sun of its most sacred treasures. At noon to-day they robbed it even of its holiness, and dedicated it to the worship of their own gods. To-day, too, the common soldiers of the Strangers forced their way for the third time into the House of the Virgins, penetrating this time into its most secret and holiest place, and by order of the same four who came to thee many moons ago as friendly envoys, rifled it of its last priceless treasure, and at this moment the Princess Lalla-Cica and her sisters, fairest save one of the Virgins of the Sun, are the slaves and playthings of these false-tongued and black-hearted Strangers whom we have welcomed as friends only to know them as enemies and oppressors.”
No other tidings could have carried such shame and horror to the heart of a true Son of the Sun as these, and as he heard them Manco staggered back, and the red blood faded out of his cheeks leaving them a dull greyish brown. The Temple of the Sun was the last spot left undefiled in all the land, and the maidens who had been torn from the most sacred recesses of the House of the Virgins were, saving only Nahua herself, the pick and flower of the royal race that had been destined, according to the custom of the land, for the Inca’s own harem. How black was the insult and how deep was the injury may be guessed from the fact that the Temple of the Sun was looked upon as the actual first dwelling-place of the Divine founders of the Inca race, and that not even the vestal virgins of Rome were held in higher honour or guarded more jealously than were the Virgins of the Sun.
There was a little silence in the room before Manco spoke again. Nothing, not even his own captivity, could have shown him how far he and his race had fallen from almost unearthly splendour, or how utterly the imperial fabric which his ancestors had reared, had crumbled into fragments at the touch of these strange and terrible invaders. Then his eyes fell on the fair face and graceful form of Nahua and a new ray of hope seemed to shine through the gathering gloom of his despair. Brushing past his mother and Anda-Huillac he took two quick strides towards her holding out both his hands, and said in a voice that shook with the strength of his mingled sorrow and passion—
“All is lost, and yet not all whilst thou art left to me, my Nahua. If the Children of the Sun are false to their gods and themselves, if they give the land into the hands of the Strangers by fighting for it among themselves, is there not many a remote and unknown valley hidden away among our eternal mountains to which thou mayst fly with me and with a remnant of our people who may remain faithful? The land from the sea stretches away for ever so they tell me. Can we not escape out of this prison-house and in some far distant land, where these accursed Strangers can never follow us, found another empire and a new line of royal Incas?”
To his amazement Nahua drew herself up and shrank back for the first time from his proffered embrace, and as he stopped short and stared wide-eyed at her she said with distant and yet gentle dignity—
“My Lord has offered me the greatest honour that can befall a Daughter of the Sun. He has asked me to be not only his wife but his Coya and queen. He has the power to make me his slave, even as these brutal Strangers have made Lalla-Cica and her sisters their slaves. But by the Ancient Law he cannot make me his queen without my full and free consent, and his queen I will never be until he has taken that which is his own again. Not from the hands of the Strangers as he took this dishonoured diadem, but that which he shall have won in battle by the strength of his own right hand, and by the right hands of those who shall still bow faithful to him and the memory of his fathers. It is not that I love you less, my Lord,” she went on in a gentler tone, “for that would be impossible. It is that I love your honour and that of our ancient race more than life itself. Your slave I may be at your will, but—by the glory of our Father the Sun, by the unspeakable might and majesty of the Unnameable, I swear it—your wife and queen I will never be till I can take my lawful place beside you to rule over a people that is free!”
“And free it shall be!” cried Manco, roused by her words to all his old enthusiasm. “That holy oath which thou hast taken I take too. As thou hast sworn, so will I swear never to claim thee for my queen till I can set a worthy diadem upon thy brow. I will find a means of escape and this time I will not be caught. Ruminavi is still free and I will find him, and with him I will either win back what is lost, or thou shalt find me waiting for thee in the Mansions of the Sun. Surely there must be some way of escape even now.”
“There is, Lord, for we have found one for thee,” she said, her eyes suddenly filling with tears, and her voice broken by a sob which she tried in vain to repress. “But of that Anda-Huillac can tell thee better than I. Farewell, my Lord and my love—farewell!”
So saying she clasped her hands to her eyes, and before the Inca could make a motion to stop her or even say a word to call her back, she had fled swiftly and silently from the room.
“Whyhas she gone? Why has she spoken to me in such a manner? It is the first time that her lips have ever spoken any but loving words to me. What is this new trouble that is about to fall upon me? Tell me quickly,” said Manco, turning almost angrily to the high priest.
“Lord,” replied the old man, bending his head humbly before him and yet speaking in strong and steady tone, “the meaning of it is this. The Princess Nahua, frail and tender though she may be in body, has a soul as strong and steadfast as any of the heroines of our ancient race. Nay, I will say that if the men of her race, the princes and warriors of the Sacred Blood, had had such wisdom and such steadfastness as hers the armed foot of the Stranger would not now be on our necks, nor would our most sacred things be the sport of his greed and his lust.”
While he was speaking Manco had looked at him first in angry surprise and then with something very like shame. The blood began to glow red in his bronzed cheeks, and he even hung his head somewhat as he said—
“It is an evil time for reproaches, Anda-Huillac. I have erred in judgment and I have been deceived, but neither the Usurper nor the Stranger has yet seen my back in battle, and the dearest wish of my soul is to be once more with Ruminavi at the head of our warriors, so that, if I could not win back what is lost, I might at least die as becomes my Blood in the strife for it. I have no care for this thing, dishonoured as it is by the touch of the Stranger!” he went on, kicking the borla into a corner of the room. “My only longing is now to fight and die as a simple Inca warrior. I long for battle with an even greater passion than I long for Nahua herself. Her words were bitter but true. What right has a king to claim his queen when he is crownless and throneless?”
“It is of that that she spoke, Lord——”
“Call me not Lord again,” the young Inca interrupted passionately. “It is not I who am Lord here. It is the Stranger. Call me Manco-Capac, since my name and its holy memories are all that our conquerors and plunderers have left me. Now say on.”
“The name of the Divine One is a better and prouder one now than any name of rank,” replied Anda-Huillac, bowing his head at the mention of it, “and therefore I will call thee Manco-Capac and tell thee that thy worthy wish may yet be gratified though the sacrifice may be great. Briefly, then, the matter stands thus: When our Father first looked upon his sorrowing children this morning the Princess Nahua came to me with the queen, thy mother. They had been taking counsel together, and the Princess Nahua, well knowing that the last hopes of the Children of the Sun rest now upon thee, swore upon the sacred emblems of the Sun an oath that may not be recalled, that since the land demands a sacrifice, that sacrifice shall be herself if needs be.”
“What? Nahua?” cried the young Inca, springing from the chair into which he had thrown himself after he had bidden the priest call him Lord no longer. “What? The purest and the holiest thing that is left in the land. It is impossible! The gods could not accept it, and, as for me, I would die first—ay, even as Atahuallpa did.”
“There is but that choice and another before thee, O my son and Son of him who was my Lord,” said the queen, suddenly drawing herself up to her full height and stretching her arms out towards him. “For thee it is escape and then either victory or a death worthy of thy father’s son. That is one choice. The other is captivity, dishonour to thee and all thy House, and such a death of shame as would make thy name unworthy to be spoken hereafter even by the lips of slaves. We know thy love and Nahua’s. She has chosen the chance of death for herself rather than the certainty of shame for thee, and she has consecrated her choice by an oath that may not be broken. Wilt thou do less, bearer of the Divine name and last hope of the Children of the Sun?”
“No, I will not. The choice is bitter, yet I thank thee, mother and queen, that thou hast shown me the only path that my feet can tread with honour. Now, Anda-Huillac, say on and tell me the plan. I will listen patiently and will say no more till I tell thee that, however desperate it may be and however bitter the cost, I will dare the venture. By the glory of our Father the Sun and the holiness of that which may not be named, I, Manco-Capac, swear it.”
As he ceased speaking he made with his lips the silent sign indicating the name of the Unnameable. Then, taking his mother by the hand, he led her to the seat he had just risen from, and, turning to Anda-Huillac, waited in silence for him to begin.
“My son,” he began, speaking now with an air of authority befitting not the subject of a fallen prince but as the chief priest of a pure and ancient faith and the lawful pontiff of the land, “that oath of thine has already been heard in the Mansions of the Sun and carried joy to the hearts of all the kings and heroes who have gone before thee. Now what is to be done is this.
“Thou knowest that these Spaniards have but two passions in life—greed and lust, and that their greed is greater than their lust. So great is it, indeed, that not all the treasures they have torn from our temples and our homes have satisfied it. Nay, they have rather increased it. Thou knowest also that for many days past thou hast been seeking with us and the remnant of the House of Nobles to persuade this Hernando Pizarro, who is now our master and thy gaoler, to let thee go to Yucay and there ransom thyself with great treasures whose hiding-place is now known only to thee, the last of the royal line. This he has so far refused, but now his soldiers have been clamouring for more treasures, and more especially those who have lost all they had by gaming to their companions. We have taken care that stories of this great treasure at Yucay should be well spread among them, and they have demanded that it shall be found and shared as the other was, and to this Hernando Pizarro, driven by his own greed and the fear of a revolt among the soldiers of the chief they call Almagro, has at last consented, but he has made hard terms, and these must of necessity be agreed to.”
The Inca raised his eyes quickly and made as though he would speak, but he remembered his promise and closed his lips again.
“The terms are these,” the high priest continued in a low, sad tone that told Manco only too clearly what was coming. “In the first place a guard of his own men mounted on their war-beasts are to go with thee, and if the treasure is not found they are to slay thee. But so great are their fears of being surrounded in the city and cut off by our armies, and so much greater are their fears and jealousies of each other, that only a very few will be spared, and these Ruminavi will be ready to deal with at the proper time and place. But the second condition is harder than this. It is that thy mother the queen and the Princess Nahua shall give themselves up into his hands to be dealt with as he may see fit shouldst thou not return. Thou wilt not return, son of Huayna-Capac, for thou hast already sworn the oath that may not be broken. They too have sworn it, and so, whatever may befall, thy feet have but one path to tread, and that path lies hence to Yucay. Now, Manco-Capac, I have spoken, and it is for thee to remember thy name and blood and rank.”
While Anda-Huillac had been saying these last words the blood had left Manco’s cheeks and the pale bronze of his skin had turned to a sickly yellow grey. His eyes, opened to their widest extent, showed the white all round the black, gleaming eyeballs. His white, strong teeth were clenched, and his lips, drawn back from them, gave them almost the appearance of a wild animal’s fangs. The countenance which was wont to look so kingly and noble now looked horrible. It was like the face of a corpse with living eyes glaring out of it.
Mama-Oello uttered a cry of terror and, rising from her seat, flung herself weeping on his breast and moaning that he was already dying. The touch of her hand and the sound of her voice recalled its wonted strength to the manhood which had staggered under the stroke of these terrible tidings. The life came back to his features and motion to his limbs as he returned her embrace. For a few brief moments of weakness he mingled his tears with hers, and then, drawing himself up, he put her gently but firmly away from him. As he did so he saw her reel. In an instant he had her in his arms and had laid her on a couch which stood against one of the walls. Then, drawing himself up again, he faced Anda-Huillac and said in a hard, dry, unnatural voice which the high priest hardly recognised as his—
“If the frail daughters of our Father can dare so greatly, is there anything that his sons should not dare? Come, Anda-Huillac, I have looked my last on those I love. To look upon them again might make a craven of me even now. Henceforth I am no longer a man. I will tear out of my heart every human passion save hate and revenge, and the oath that I have sworn I repeat once more, that it may bind me never, so long as my arm can strike a blow, to spare a Spanish man, woman, or child whose life it is given me to take, and as He who sees all things knows the righteousness of my vengeance, so may He help me to take it! Now let us go to this Spanish butcher and tell him lies like his own, and then may the gods grant that I may never look upon his face again until the hour in which I shall ask his innocent victims’ blood at his hands! Come, let us go, for the sooner this thing is done the better.”
And so saying, and without even one backward look at the prostrate form on the couch, he gripped the high priest by the arm and almost dragged him out of the chamber.
Thatnight, soon after sunset, a body of five cavaliers, preceded and followed by a score of native auxiliaries of the Cañaris tribe, left the city by the causeway leading to the north-west across the Sierras in the direction of the lovely valley of Yucay—once the scene of the gorgeous revels of a long line of absolute monarchs, and now the mustering-ground of the last of their armies.
Four of the cavaliers were old acquaintances, Hernando de Soto, Pedro de Candia, Sebastian ben-Alcazar, and Alonso de Molina. The moment that they had heard of the terms that Hernando Pizarro had made with the Inca they had gone to him and not only volunteered themselves for the service, but had practically demanded that it should be entrusted to them and to no others. They had asserted that, after the Pizarros themselves, they stood highest in rank and honour in the old army of the Conquerors, that Almagro’s men were not to be trusted since they had shown themselves traitors already to the Governor by supporting their leader in his claim to a part of his territory, and that if they once set eyes on the treasure they would be quite capable of murdering the Inca and claiming that they had themselves discovered the gold, in which case their comrades in Cuzco would be certain to insist on the lion’s share of it, if not indeed the whole, saving only the royal fifth.
Hernando Pizarro, who, according to the chroniclers of the Conquest, always seemed to have been more kindly disposed towards the conquered people than any other of the Spanish leaders—which, after all, is not saying very much—had seen the force of this logic and consented, and he had also consented, after some further persuasion, to permit Alonso de Molina to lend the Inca one of his chargers, so that he might be spared the indignity of going on foot among the native guards.
Thus it had come about that the fifth cavalier was Manco himself, and he sat his horse as firmly and easily as any of the Spaniards; for, like the rest of the royal youth of Peru, he had been trained to hardy exercises almost from the time that he could walk, and ever since he had made what he had believed to be his alliance with Pizarro on the plain of Jauja, the four envoys who had come first into the City of the Sun had taken a delight in teaching him horsemanship and the better use of the Spanish arms in return for the kindness that he had shown to their lost and destitute countrymen, José Valdez and his comrade Alonzo de Avila.
When they were well out of the City and beyond the farthest outposts which had been placed on the slopes of the hills to guard against surprise, Manco, who was riding in the midst of the four cavaliers, saw a movement among them which at first sight seemed to betoken treachery. They pulled aside a little, allowing him to ride on alone between them and the advance guard of Indians, and then he heard them whispering in the still night together.
Perhaps to disarm his suspicions, but more probably on the representations of his guards, he had been allowed to wear his own arms and armour. José Valdez’ sword hung at his side, a good steel battle-axe was hooked on to his saddle-bow, and a long, keen dagger rested in its sheath at his right hand. His armour, too, was as perfect as that of any of the Spanish cavaliers, and so he was well prepared, if not to guard his life from attack, at least to sell it dearly. Presently he heard de Soto say aloud—
“Go to, Molina. Thou art the man to say and do it. Who better? Who else in the army hath a smoother tongue and a readier wit than thine? Thou art the lover too and the hero of thine own plot. Go on, man, and have no fear for us. We will keep well out of earshot. All the blame and all the glory shall be thine, though if there be danger afterwards thou shalt not find us lacking.”
Then the Inca heard the canter of hoofs behind him. His right hand instantly closed on the haft of his battle-axe; as he turned half round in the saddle he saw Alonso de Molina coming up on his left-hand side.
Instead of the sword-thrust or axe-stroke that he half expected there came a light, good-humoured laugh, and as the young cavalier reined his horse up alongside his he threw up his unarmed right hand and said—
“Nay, nay, your Majesty, it is well for a good soldier to be ever on his guard, more especially against those who come from behind, but thou art not now with Almagro’s men, but with true knights of Spain, who do not tempt a friend out into the open that they may fall on him four to one, so hook on thine axe again and listen to me, for I have something of moment to tell thee for myself and my comrades yonder.”
Manco, whose heart was too sore and whose soul was too utterly steeped in gloom and filled with hatred of all things Spanish to recognise the ring of truth and honesty that there was in Molina’s voice, laughed bitterly as he put his battle-axe back and said—
“Majesty and friend! Those words have a strange sound in my ears from one of those who are my conquerors and enemies. As I am now I would rather have a straight thrust than a crooked word. So far I have had nothing but fair promises and foul lies from your people, even as the Usurper himself had. What better am I to expect from you, Don Molina?”
“All that one brave man may expect from another, Señor Manco,” replied de Molina a little more gravely; “and more than some in thy position might have reason to hope for, even from honest enemies.”
“How can one such as I believe that those who came to me as friends can now be honest or honourable enemies? I and my people are not accustomed to believe those whose lips say one thing and whose hands do another. That is an art which the Children of the Sun have not yet learnt.”
“The rebuke is a just one!” replied de Molina, slightly bowing his head, and as the Inca turned sharply round he fancied he saw, even by the starlight, a deeper flush on the young cavalier’s sunburnt cheeks. “Yes,” he went on, “it is true that there is much to be laid to our charge in that respect, but your Highness must remember that guile was ever the weapon of the weak. What else were we when we first came here, a few score among multitudes?”
“Can a full-armed man be weak among a multitude of children who have no arms to hurt him? Would a god armed with the Llapa and guarded by impenetrable armour be weak among a host of men? If that is so, then you were weak among the hosts of the Children of the Sun.”
“That is true again in a measure, Inca,” replied de Molina, “and, more than that, I grant that we have not used the strength that our better knowledge has given us fairly or honourably against you, but that is a matter for our leaders, not for us. And yet,” he went on, lowering his voice and bringing his horse a little nearer to Manco’s, “not all the guile has been or is on our part. What of this treasure at Yucay? What of the thousands of men who are swarming in the passes and above the mountain roads we shall have to traverse? What of the rocks that are even now being poised ready to hurl down without warning upon us? What of the captured Spanish arms and armour already in Ruminavi’s possession——”
“You have said enough, Don Molina,” interrupted Manco in cold, steady tones. “I see that I have been betrayed, and the great price that has been paid for this, my last hope of freedom, has, like Atahuallpa’s ransom, been paid in vain. Well, you yourselves are four to one, and these barbarians are your slaves, but I at least can die as the last of my race should do.”
He never raised his voice, nor was there a trace of passion in his tone, but as he said these last words he drove the spurs into his horse’s flanks and swung him sharply round to the left, striking de Molina’s heavily on the forequarter and throwing it back on to its haunches, then he leapt him forward and wheeled again, and confronted the troop with battle-axe swung aloft. He knew that escape was hopeless for the hillside along the road sloped sharply upwards, and the Cañaris were already spreading before and behind to cut off his retreat. He believed that the plot had been discovered and that all was lost, and his only hope was to die fighting, and not as a captive. He had gained a little ’vantage ground up the hillside, and in another moment he would have charged the four Spanish cavaliers, and then to his utter amazement they all burst into a hearty laugh, and de Molina, who had been almost unseated by the violence of the shock, rode towards him with his right hand outstretched, and saying between his laughs—
“Santiago, Señor Inca! it seems that thou art made of different stuff to him whom we strangled down in Cajamarca yonder. A gallant foe may make a good friend. You and I may be foes hereafter, but for the present we will be friends. Come, come, I meant no harm by my words, however evil they may have sounded. If I had done it would have fared ill with thee by now, in spite of all thy valour. Come, let us ride on as friends, at least to our journey’s end. We love thee none the less for choosing as thou hast done the death of a brave man, and it has made us the more determined to serve thee as we set out to do. Come back, ere these heathen dogs do thee some damage.”
Manco was himself too honest and brave a man not to feel instinctively that de Molina’s words were sincere, and he was too good a warrior not to know that if the four Spaniards had been so minded they could by this time have flung him from the saddle and trampled the life out of him under their silver-shod horses’ hoofs. Yet their laugh and Alonso de Molina’s words not a little bewildered him, and as he put back his battle-axe he answered in some confusion—
“What does this mean, Señores? Is it possible that you are friends and not enemies? Are you not Spaniards?”
It was a bitter rebuke though spoken almost by chance, and it went home. Already the name of Spaniard had come to have the same meaning as a curse in that new world in which their memory is to-day one of ruthless greed and pitiless cruelty. The generous soul of de Molina felt it even more keenly than his companions did, and as he grasped the Inca’s hand half against his will he said half in sorrow and half in shame—
“Yes, Inca, that is true, we are Spaniards, but all Spaniards are not brute beasts such as thou, to our shame, hast seen amongst us. Even in this army of ours, adventurers and plunderers though in truth we may be, there are yet as thou shalt find some who know how an honest enemy should be treated by gentlemen of Spain. Come back, then, and let us ride along, for I have something to say to thee of those thou hast left behind.”
The last words instantly disarmed the Inca’s suspicion. He bowed his head in consent and returned de Molina’s hand-clasp, and when the cavalcade had been re-formed and the march resumed, he said gravely and yet with a thrill of expectation in his voice—
“Señor, I ask your pardon and that of your comrades for my suspicions. Now what of the lost ones I have left behind me?”
“They are not lost while they and thou have friends in Cuzco, even though those friends be Spaniards,” replied de Molina gravely.
Manco’s heart leaped with newborn hope at his words, though another moment’s thought seemed to show him that they were too fair-spoken to be truthful, and so he simply looked up and said again, somewhat coldly—
“Friends—Spanish friends to them in Cuzco? How can that be, de Molina? You know all, therefore you know that Mama-Oello the queen and the Princess Nahua, who one day I had hoped to make my queen, have delivered themselves up knowingly to a fate of shame and torment to buy one more chance of freedom for me. Who is there among you who could wish or could dare to save them?”
“From what we have done so far, Inca,” replied de Molina in a somewhat altered voice, “thou mayest have seen that there is little that gentlemen of Spain cannot dare. As to the wish, that is another matter, and springing from that there is a tale which concerns myself not a little, and for that reason my comrades yonder have chosen me to tell it. It hath also some interest for thee, if thou art willing to hear it; it may at least beguile a portion of our march.”
“I hear a friend speaking through your lips, my Lord,” replied the Inca quietly, although it took all his native stoicism to keep the eagerness of his expectations from showing itself in his voice. “Say on; I am listening not with patience but with the deepest interest.”
Then there was a little silence as though de Molina hardly knew how to begin his tale, and when he did begin his words were at first slow and halting.
“Inca,” he said, “I have told thee, and I trust I and my comrades have already given thee reason to believe, that we Spaniards, whatever else we may be, are not all thieves and ravishers like that one-eyed scoundrel Almagro and his fellow-villains. Nevertheless thou hast heard much against us of which I will now speak first of one charge. The high priest of thy faith told thee this morning that we who are here with certain of our men-at-arms broke into the most sacred recesses of the retreat that you call the House of the Virgins and took thence by force four of the noblest-born maidens, of whom the Princess Lalla-Cica, destined as they say to adorn thine own court, was one. That is true, but that is not all the truth. We took them with mock violence to save them from the real violence of Almagro’s men, who have to-night leagued themselves to commit just such a crime as ours would have been. The maidens are now safe under the charge of the holy father Valverde, who has received them into the sacred asylum of the Church, which no man among us may violate save at the peril of his own soul.”
“May the blessing of the Unnameable, even though He be not the same god as yours, rest upon you for that good deed for ever!” exclaimed Manco, holding out his right hand.
“It may be that after all He is the same,” replied de Molina, grasping it, “and therefore I take the blessing and thank thee for it. Now for the rest of my story.
“Years ago in old Castile, before these dreams of El-Dorado had fired my soul with visions of adventure and sudden riches, I loved a maiden of my own blood and country, as fair and sweet a maid as the sun of Heaven ever shone on, the fairest of all I thought till I came hither to El-Dorado itself. Thou wilt remember, Inca, how on that first day that we came to thee as an embassy from his Highness the Governor we were led into the great square to the foot of thy throne, and how ere thou didst take thine own place thou didst lead to the seat beside thee her who hath now given herself as hostage for thee. In that moment I saw that earth held a maiden fairer far than her who till then had been my soul’s mistress, and that moment I became a traitor to my own love and a slave of thine. Since then, sleeping or waking, the vision of her beauty has never left mine eyes. Again and again without thy knowledge I have sought by every art I knew to gain her favour, and once, but a few days since, to my eternal shame I say it, I hired force to do what my arts of love had failed to do. She was taken and brought to my house. I could not speak to her as I would in her own language, although, as thou knowest, I know some little of it, and so for want of a better way I sought to bring her to my mind through the lips of the interpreter Filipillo. If I had trusted to what he said I should have taken her as willing to betray thine honour and her own, but happily, when, misled by his lies, I sought to do so, she pleaded so sweetly for herself and thee, and I, more happily still, understood so much of her pleading, that the falsehood was made plain to me. Within the hour she was back unharmed in her home, and it may do thy heart good to know that within the same hour the vile slave who had deceived me, and would have betrayed her, shrieked out his last breath under the lash.”
“It was a fate justly decreed, my friend, for now I may well call you that,” said Manco in a voice that was broken by a faint sob. “Henceforth, whether I live or die, thy name shall be one of honour among our people. What more?”
“The rest may be told in a few words. When we heard this morning of the noble sacrifice that the Princess Nahua had vowed herself to make for the sake of thee and her people, I called my comrades here together and told them all the story, and when they had heard it we plighted our honour as good Christian knights and gentlemen of Spain that in so far as in us lay, even to the shedding of our own blood, we would prevent so foul a shame from falling upon our faith and nation.
“Hernando Pizarro is our leader and captain, but only under our sovereign lord the king, than whom there is no more knightly soul in Christendom, and it would go hard with the greatest among us did he know he had consented to do so vile a thing. Moreover, we know well that it is only these ruffians of Almagro’s who have driven him to it in the hope of getting more treasure, so, though it be called treachery or what it may, we have sworn to save thee this night and thy mother and thy princess so soon as God shall put it in our way to do it. That horse which thou bestridest so well is thine. Take it as a free gift from one who is to-night thy friend and whose duty may to-morrow make him thine enemy. I speak for every Christian and good knight here. Now see, here we have come at last to a fair level plain. None know the way to Yucay better than thou dost. Those slaves ahead are but the knaves who serve him who betrayed thee the other day—nay, waste no time in words or thanks, for time is priceless. Charge through their midst and begone. We shall pursue thee for show’s sake, but thou needst not fear we shall overtake thee. Farewell, friend Manco, and begone with all speed and take thy freedom for thy sweet princess’s sake.”
As the last words left his lips de Molina whipped out his long sword and gave Manco’s charger a slash across the haunches with the flat of it. The animal bounded forward and the next moment Manco found himself in the midst of the front guard of Cañaris. His battle-axe was already unhooked and swung high in air. It came down straight and true on the skull of a warrior who was making a stab at his horse with his spear and clove him to the shoulders. The next moment he had burst through the scattering troop and the next he was free. His battle-cry rose by instinct to his lips and rang out loud and clear as he swung his bloody axe above his head in the fierce exultation of freedom. Behind him he heard the hoarse shouts of the Spaniards mingled, as he thought, with laughter as well as with the stamping of their horses’ hoofs. He looked back and saw them cantering heavily after him with the Indians labouring behind them. He put his own horse to a harder gallop. The Indians vanished in the darkness, then the shouts of the Spaniards and the echo of hoofs grew fainter and fainter and at last they too faded into the star-lit dusk, and Manco sped on alone, exulting in his new-found freedom and with the new-born hope which had driven despair out of his soul.
Althoughthe four cavaliers found no difficulty in reconciling their complicity in the Inca’s escape to their consciences, their generosity did not therefore extend to the rest of his people. They knew from what had already happened that the little force in Cuzco would soon be called upon to fight desperately for its very existence. They knew too from their Indian spies that all the approaches to the beautiful valley were fast filling with detachments of Peruvian warriors, and finally there had come rumours that Ruminavi, the last of Atahuallpa’s great chieftains, had returned from Quito and had rallied all that remained of the four great armies of the empire and had united all the factions, Quitans and Cuscans, tribes of the Sierras and tribes of the plains, under the banner of the Last of the Incas, and devoted them to one supreme effort to crush the conquerors in the midst of their conquests.
As they were now well on the road to Yucay they held a brief council of war when they halted, and determined to spend the rest of the night and the following day in reconnoitring the approaches to the valley and discovering, as far as they could, the positions held by the Peruvian army.
The first thing they did was to collect the Cañaris and rate them soundly for permitting the Inca to escape, emphasising their reproaches, lest they should be not fully understood, with their rein-straps and the flats of their swords, promising them further that if they went back to Cuzco without the information that was needed they should every one be put to death as traitors. They then took up the march again and rode on slowly and cautiously for the best part of the night, but without discovering a sign of the enemy.
A couple of hours before dawn they halted for food and rest and then with the earliest light rode on again. The bleak uplands over which they had passed now began to slope downwards and become more fertile, and as the light increased they saw that they were approaching the entrance to a great valley walled in on all sides by huge and precipitous mountains, and by the time the sun rose they had reached a rocky ledge from which they beheld a scene whose strange and wonderful loveliness told them at a glance that this could be nothing else than the far-famed valley of Yucay.
The lower slopes of the seemingly impassable mountains were terraced into gardens which glowed with a hundred shades of green and gold, azure and scarlet. The broad plain which lay along the centre was sprinkled with villas and temples and palaces bright with colours and glittering with gold and silver, and through the midst of them rolled a broad, winding river, glittering like a wide band of molten silver in the rays of the sun, now streaming into the valley from the eastward. All along the two sides rose ridge after ridge of bare, brown mountains, apparently without a break for miles and miles, and high above these towered into the sky, one to right and one to left, two mighty snow-crowned peaks like twin Titans guarding this enchanted realm.
But the keen eyes of the Spaniards soon discovered that the valley had other guardians than these. At every bend of the river a dark fortress rose tier above tier jutting out from the hillside and completely commanding it. All along the heights there were watch-towers on which, as the light grew stronger, they could see the sun glinting on polished arms and waving plumes, and soon shrill, wailing cries rose to right and left of them and ran along the ridges until they died away in the distance, telling that the sun shining on their own armour had already betrayed their presence and that the whole valley was alert.
“A glorious spot, by the Saints!” said de Soto, as his eye ranged delighted over the lovely prospect. “A very Garden of Eden, if such might be in a heathen land, but well guarded. Methinks it would fare badly with us even if we attacked it with all our forces. Still it is our present business to find a way into it, if such there be, and that can only be where the river flows out of it. Come, let us try the sloping ground down here to the right.”
“Ay,” replied de Candia, “it were well to keep moving lest we find ourselves surrounded, but for all that I doubt not that the Inca will find a way of showing his gratitude for what we did for him last night. He must have reached the army by this time.”
“That is certain,” said de Molina, “and I for one would so far trust him that I would ride unarmed through his whole host. Ah, look yonder,” he went on, pointing ahead past a spur of rock which they had just cleared. “Yonder is the gate of Eden.”
“And the mouth of the River of Paradise!” said ben-Alcazar. “But methinks for all that the mouth of Hell for the enemy that should seek to get into it. Were those forts guarded by well-served artillery not all the Spaniards in Peru could force the entrance.”
“I, for one,” added de Candia grimly, “would pledge my life on holding it with a dozen culverins against a thousand men.”
They had now come within full view of the entrance to the valley. It was some five or six hundred yards wide. On either side rose a steeply-sloping hill and on each of these a huge fortress of black stone built in angles like the Sacsahuaman and crowned with lofty towers dominated the little level, sandy plain through which the river flowed. The stream itself was some thirty yards wide and apparently deep and swift flowing. The moment that they came in sight the loud, shrill blast of a horn rang out, and instantly thousands of warriors, armed and plumed, sprang into view. They lined the tiers of the fortresses in perfect order, and far up the terraces of the hills were swarming in a moment with their glittering ranks. The notes of the horn had hardly died away before they were taken up and echoed far along the valley, and as they went fort after fort in endless succession was manned in full view by the glittering ranks of its garrisons.
Instinctively the whole troop pulled up, horse and foot. It was the first time that the Spaniards had ever seen a Peruvian army so splendid in appearance and so impregnable in position, and it was a sight that might have inspired the boldest heart with both admiration and awe. While they were standing thus gazing at the splendid spectacle, half inclined to wheel about and make the best of their way back to Cuzco, if indeed the way were still open, de Molina threw up his right hand and cried—
“Ah, did I not tell you, Caballeros? There is the Inca himself if I mistake not. By the Saints, does he not look as goodly a figure as any Christian knight amongst us, and how well he sits that good steed of mine! See, he is waving a white scarf and beckoning to us. Come, let us forward, comrades. That means a truce at least.”
The apparition that had called forth this exclamation was that of the Inca himself. He was clad from head to foot in shining steel. Round his helmet was bound the scarlet llautu but without the imperial borla, and from it rose two lofty nodding feathers of the Coraquenque, which only the chief of the royal House might wear. In his right hand he carried a broad white scarf or kerchief, and with his left he guided his charger with perfect ease down the narrow, winding causeway which led from the rear of the fortress on to the plain. As he crossed this towards the brink of the river the Spaniards rode up to the other bank, each of them waving his scarf in reply to his signal. Then across the river there came, in the clear, high-pitched tone in which the Peruvians send their signal-cries from mountain to mountain, the words—
“Why have you followed me so far, my friends? Every moment your lives have been in danger. Do you not know that the City of the Sun is already beleaguered, and that you stand between two of my armies?”
“Cuerpo de Cristo! That is bad news!” growled de Candia. “It will be no light matter getting back to our quarters if that is so.”
“And if it be so it were well to learn the worst at once,” said de Molina. “I will go and speak with his Majesty.”
And before any of them could stay him the gallant young cavalier had leapt his horse into the stream and was swimming across. A half-suppressed cry of wonder broke from the Peruvian soldiers, and two or three companies of them, armed with bows and slings and spears, marched swiftly down out of the fortress which guarded the bank on which the Spaniards were, as though to cut off their retreat, while others marched out from the other fortress as though to close round the sacred person of the Inca. But he instantly waved them back and rode alone to a point on the bank which de Molina was rapidly nearing. As he reached it the dripping horse scrambled out of the water, and de Molina, holding out his hand, said with a laugh—
“A good morrow to your Majesty! This is a strong place and a gallant array that you have here.”
Manco took his hand and replied gravely—
“You and your comrades have done unwisely, my friend. If you had not forced me to leave you so suddenly last night I would have warned you that by sunrise this morning every pathway to it would have been filled by our warriors. Moreover, if I had not been in this part of the valley Ruminavi would certainly have taken you for spies, and my people are now so incensed against yours that you would have been slain if it had cost a thousand lives, and then,” he went on more gently, “how would you have kept your promise, and who would have saved Nahua from her doom? But now you have not a moment to lose. The higher the sun rises the greater will be the peril of your return. There is indeed only one means by which you can reach the city alive. Take this feather,” he said, pulling one of the sacred plumes from his turban. “There is not one of the Children of the Sun who would dare to touch the wearer of that. Put it in your helmet and go. With it I give you and your comrades your lives in payment for mine. Should we come to battle, still wear it and you will be harmless, however thick the fight. Tell your leader what you have seen here, and save Nahua and the queen as quickly as maybe, for soon there will be bitter and relent less war between us to the end. Now farewell. Go quickly if you would go safely.”
“Fear not for the queen and princess, friend Manco!” replied de Molina as he gripped his hand again. “If we could not bring them out of Cuzco in safety we should not ourselves return, since we four have pledged ourselves each to the other by our Christian faith and knightly honour to be hostages for them. If they are not here on this river bank before another sun has set then thou wilt see us here or know that thou hast four Spanish knights the less to fight against. And now farewell, and till we meet again in battle God speed thee!”
Then with a last clasp of the hand he pulled his horse round and plunged into the river again. As he regained the opposite bank all four turned and saluted the Inca, still resting motionless on his horse. He returned the salute, and as he did so ten thousand warriors rent the still morning air with a great cry, and thousands of burnished weapons flashed in the now ardent sunbeams.
“Was that a farewell?” said de Soto, as they turned their horses and rode away up the hill. “To my ears it sounded more like a bidding to battle, and such battle as we have not had yet. Methinks that, despite all our easy-won triumph, the real work of conquest is only just beginning.”
“For one thing,” said de Candia, “this friend Manco of ours would seem to be the only man they have so far had to lead them. He will give us trouble. Old Carvahal said to me not long since that the Governor, if he had been wise, would have treated him as he did Atahuallpa when he had the chance.”
“Carvahal is a Christian savage,” laughed ben-Alcazar. “I have ever had a presentiment that that man will die neither on a field of battle nor in his bed, good soldier and huge drinker as he is.”
The lightly-spoken words were prophetic, although their fulfilment does not come within the limits of this narrative, for there came a day seven years afterwards when the fierce old swashbuckler was dragged in a basket to the scaffold in company with the last of the Pizarros without a fear in his heart and with a homely jest on his lips.
So, talking of the chances of the war which, with de Soto, they all believed to be only now about to commence in earnest, they made their way back with all possible speed to Cuzco. The sacred feather in de Molina’s helmet was saluted again and again on the road by armed detachments of Peruvian warriors, hundreds of whom they saw, not a little to their disquiet, posted with perfect skill and knowledge of the country, so as to command all the most difficult parts of the road. They rightly guessed that where they saw hundreds there were really thousands, but although, as they well knew, part of the great debt of vengeance that they had piled up might well have been paid off on them, not a hand was raised or a spear lowered to bar their path. The instant that the sacred plume was seen the leaders of the detachments bowed their heads and ordered their men back, leaving the road clear, and so with hard riding they came shortly after sundown within sight of Cuzco. When they had nearly reached the bottom of the steep causeway that winds round the western shoulder of the great fortress, de Molina turned in his saddle and said—
“And now, Caballeros, as the Inca has kept faith with us, so, I take it, must we now keep faith with him. There is little time to be lost if all these hosts are closing about us. Are you agreed, then, that we shall go at once and perform what remains of our oath to be fulfilled?”
“Yes,” the other three replied almost in a breath.
And then de Soto dismissed the Indian escort, and the four cavaliers, entering the city, turned their horses’ heads in the direction of the palace which Hernando Pizarro had taken for his headquarters.