As the piles of gold and silver grew higher, the lust of the conquerors
mounted. They complained that the Inca was not using the speed he had
promised. They could make no allowance for the distance covered by
many of his messengers or the difficulty with which such treasure was
transported by hand in litters, or on the slender backs of llamas. The
pack load for this curious little camel of the south could not contain
more than seventy-five pounds and five to six miles a day was the limit
to which they could be pressed.
In spite of these difficulties, articles worth as much as two hundred
thousand _castellanos_ sometimes came in a day and once the total
daily receipts reached three hundred and fifty thousand.
Each article, carefully weighed, was piled in the room under heavy
guard. With each day’s growth of the fabulous wealth before their eyes,
nerves grew more and more taut. The strain at last became terrific.
They began to build all sorts of wild fancies. Atahualpa had merely
devised the scheme to gain two months’ time in which to organize in
secret his forces. He never intended to allow this enormous treasure
to be taken from the country. When ready to strike he would take it
again. They would never get it to the coast. Felipillo saw to it that
rumors of uprisings continued to disturb the peace of the invaders. It
was impossible to trace these rumors to their source, a fact that made
them all the more sinister and alarming.
The stir reached a climax on the arrival at the court of a messenger
from Andamarca reporting the death of Huascar. Atahualpa sent for
Pizarro and made the announcement.
“I am sorry to have to report to you, commander, the death of my
brother Huascar....”
“And how did he die?” growled the Spaniard.
“It is said that in walking along a steep cliff of the river, he fell
from the heights and was drowned....”
“It can’t be true!” stormed Pizarro.
The Inca’s voice expressed the deepest sorrow.
“I have just received the full account of his unhappy end.”
“If your brother is dead I will hold you accountable for his life!”
thundered the Spaniard.
“But how, Your Excellency, could I be held accountable for the acts
of a jailor in a distant province, seeing that I am a prisoner? His
jailor is my friend and was appointed to his office by me. If this man
believed that in Huascar’s death he might advance my interests surely
you cannot accuse me of his acts?”
The smooth words of the Inca did not deceive the commander. That he
was justified in executing his prisoner as a traitor, Pizarro did not
question for a moment; but it did not suit his purpose to allow this
view and he loudly refused to accept it.
He called a conference of his officers and it was decided to demand of
Atahualpa an explanation of the continued rumors of an uprising.
The Inca’s astonishment was genuine.
“The latest rumor,” Pizarro sternly announced, “names the City of
Huamachuco as the rallying point of the rebels--what say you?”
“That the story is the invention of an enemy,” was the prompt reply.
“If there is a native soldier at Huamachuco I have no knowledge of it.”
“The influx of your ransom has slackened,” the Spaniard continued
gravely. “My officers suspect that you are delaying its payment to give
time for the uprising....”
The Inca moved in a gesture of indignation.
“No one of my subjects would dare to lift his hand without my orders. I
am in your power. What better security could you ask?”
His logic was sound but Pizarro pressed him.
“Then why this delay in delivering the ransom?”
“You must remember that Cuzco, my capital, is more than seven hundred
miles from Caxamalca. My royal couriers running with their best speed
over the mountain passes require five days to deliver a message. It
will require weeks for a porter to carry his load of gold over the same
road--a llama much longer.”
“Our men are growing impatient,” was the curt answer. “And their mood
is ugly.”
“To prove to you my good faith,” Atahualpa urged, “I ask you to send a
delegation of your own to Cuzco and every important city of the Empire.
I guarantee their safety. They can aid my officers in collecting and
forwarding the gold.”
Pizarro eagerly accepted the offer.
“There is no trick in this?” the Spaniard demanded.
The Inca smiled.
“How can there be? My life is in your hands.”
It was true. The risk of the venture was small. It would give him an
opportunity to verify the stories of the riches of Cuzco and make a
complete survey of the state of the country.
Pizarro first sent his brother Hernando to Huamachuco to find if there
were any truth in the report of an uprising.
Hernando found the place quiet, and was received hospitably by the
people of the city. While resting his troop he received an order from
his brother to continue his march across the mountain to the famous
city and temple of Pachacamac, situated a hundred leagues further, near
the coast. Pizarro had discovered that pilgrimages were being made to
this place from every quarter of the Empire. It was the holy city of
the kingdom, as Mecca is the holy city of the Mohammedan world. He
believed that vast treasures would be found in this temple.
The journey was difficult and Hernando’s progress slow. It required
several weeks to cover the ground. But the journey was a new revelation
of the wealth, beauty and boundless resources of the Inca’s Empire.
The highways were broader and more solidly built. They found the
suspension bridges so heavily constructed that the cavalry crossed them
without accident.
Flocks of thousands of llamas browsed lazily on the hills and in the
beautiful irrigated valleys. In every direction stretched fields of
corn and grain. As the climate grew warmer the edges of the roadway
were lined with gorgeous flowers, some of them bearing a rich perfume.
Every mountainside was terraced with gardens and orchards of the most
luscious fruits and vegetables, and every field was irrigated by
aqueducts through which flowed limpid waters from the mountains.
By order of the Inca they were everywhere received with honor. In every
town of size the people welcomed them with singing and dancing. Strong
porters were furnished to carry their baggage.
At length Hernando stood before the temple in Pachacamac, a vast pile
of buildings clustering around a cone-shaped hill. Pizarro was refused
permission to enter by the priests in charge. He thrust the guardian
aside and boldly entered with his men.
The door was set with crystals, turquoise and coral. But great was
the Spaniard’s astonishment to find a bare, dark interior. Instead of
a great room blazing with gold and precious stones the only ornament
found was the simple wooden image of the God of the Universe. The
worship of the Great Spirit, Creator of heaven and earth, was a
religion thousands of years old when the Incas built their temple of
the Sun close beside it. Religious toleration was one of the first
principles of their faith.
In a rage of disappointment Pizarro tore the sacred image from its
recess, hacked it to pieces and erected a large cross in its place.
The natives, terror-stricken at the sacrilege, in seeing no bolt
from heaven strike the invaders, humbly submitted their lives to the
Spaniards, watching them in trembling awe. Hernando preached them a
sermon on the truths and beauty of Christianity and taught them the
sign of the Cross as a talisman against all evil.
Although sorely disappointed in the bare walls of the temple of the
Great Spirit, the Spaniards reaped a good harvest of precious metal
from the adjoining temple of the Sun and the homes of the nobility in
the city. When weighed it amounted to the value of eighty thousand
_castellanos_.
On his journey returning to Caxamalca he made a grave discovery. He
learned that the ablest general of the empire lay at Xauxa with an army
of thirty-five thousand men. Could he capture this famous officer as
his brother had taken the Inca, the greatest danger to their safety
would be removed at a stroke.
He determined to take Challcuchima. He knew that the general’s
inactivity was due to an order from the Inca. Yet a new secret order
dispatched at any time, could bring this general down on them with an
army twice the size of the one he now commanded.
He forced his march on Xauxa, and found the road far rougher than
the one to Pachacamac. Their horses’ shoes gave out and there was no
iron with which to shoe them. But they solved the difficulty by using
their store of silver. The twenty horses were shod with solid silver
shoes and the march resumed. The Indian smiths were experts in working
silver, and no further trouble developed in the cavalry.
The Spaniards, arrived at Xauxa, found a large, prosperous city of
a hundred thousand inhabitants. They were hospitably received and
immediately dispatched a message to Challcuchima inviting him to a
conference.
The general entered the city in state borne on a litter by his
soldiers. He received the most striking tribute from the crowds which
lined the way attesting his fame and popularity.
Pizarro received him with courtesy and found no difficulty in
persuading him that he had come at the request of the Inca to escort
him to Caxamalca to receive his master’s orders.
Challcuchima fell into the trap and accompanied the Spaniards to the
prison of the Inca.
Great was Atahualpa’s surprise and dismay to see his famous general. He
had counted on his army to march to his rescue when the hour struck.
Challcuchima, too, was a prisoner of war.
In startling contrast to the pomp of his estate at the head of his
army Challcuchima entered the presence of his royal master barefooted
with a burden on his shoulder to symbolize the humble submission of a
servant.
Standing before his sovereign, the grizzled warrior, victor of a
hundred battlefields, raised his head and cried:
“Would I had been here--this could not have happened to you, my Lord of
the Sun!” He knelt, kissed the hands and feet of the Inca and bathed
them in his tears.
Atahualpa betrayed no emotion. In an even voice he bade his general
welcome.
The payment of the ransom had been greatly quickened by the delegation
of Spaniards sent to aid the natives. The higher piled the gold, the
higher mounted the excitement in camp.
They awaited with impatience the return of the commissioners sent to
Cuzco. They should have reported long before Hernando Pizarro. Their
journey had been along the great State highway to Cuzco. They had been
borne on swift litters in luxury by order of the Inca. They had been
received with royal honors along the entire journey. Pizarro knew this
from native couriers who had reported their progress and reception.
Something had happened in Cuzco to hold them. And a wave of suspicion
and uneasiness again swept the Spaniards at Caxamalca. Had their
commissioners met with foul play in the Temple? Had they been
overwhelmed by an army marching from the South? Again the rumor mongers
were busy, and nerves were on edge.
Something _had_ happened in Cuzco. The men sent on this mission
had proven themselves the veriest boors in the presence of the
distinguished priests and nobles who received them. The royal message
to desecrate the temples had been received with surprise and grief; yet
it was done with all possible speed. The priests were forced with rude
threats to tear from the Temple seven hundred huge plates of gold.
The commissioners demanded more speed. With heads swollen by the
tributes paid them on every hand by the nobility, they began to assume
the airs of princes. They demanded a rich feast every evening. At times
they drank the native liquor and wines until dawn. No woman whom they
saw, however high her rank, was free from insult. Their debauchery
reached a climax that threatened an armed clash when they boldly
invaded the convent and forced the Virgins of the Sun to join them in
their revelry. Their scandalous conduct with these girls sacred to the
Inca and Temple, sent a wave of horror and indignation over the city.
An ugly mob gathered before the building and the commissioners were
held prisoners for days, fearing to emerge.
The High Priest, holding the message of the Inca in his hand, addressed
them:
“My people, in the name of the Lord of the Sun, I command peace. These
men are here sent by him. They bear his royal commission to gather the
treasure for his ransom. They are under his divine protection. You will
not dare to lift your hand against them without his order.”
The mob sullenly dispersed and the revelers, sobered by their danger,
emerged from the convent and hurried to make good their return to
Caxamalca.
They took with them two hundred loads of gold, the limit in weight
that could be carried by four stalwart men at the handles of a baggage
litter. They were relieved by fresh porters at each royal storehouse,
never more than five miles apart.
The storage of this immense treasure was made at Caxamalca with shouts
and songs. The stories of drink and the revelry in the convent at Cuzco
stirred the camp to new dreams of splendor and license. Pizarro found
the maintenance of discipline a problem of increasing gravity.
In the midst of the turmoil caused by the return of the commissioners
from Cuzco, Pizarro received a startling message from San Miguel.
Almagro had just landed from three vessels, a hundred and fifty
foot-soldiers, and fifty cavalry. This force was sufficient, if the
fiery little partner was so inclined, to dispute his supremacy in
Peru. And if Almagro still cherished a grudge--and there were many
reasons for fearing that he did--Pizarro might have to fight his own
countryman for the huge store of yellow metal piling higher each day in
his treasure house. Almagro should have reported long before with the
first recruits. That he had waited to equip three ships and organize an
expedition as formidable as his own was significant.
There were men in the garrison at San Miguel who had deserted Pizarro
at the crucial moment. The stories of his great fortune had driven
these weak ones to desperation. That they would whisper ugly things in
Almagro’s ears he could not doubt. They had hastened to do precisely
this.
The leader of these deserters did not hesitate to warn Almagro and his
secretary Perez in no uncertain terms:
“Pizarro speaks smooth words, but he hates you with a deadly enmity.
Trust yourself in his power and you are lost.”
“Trust myself in his power!” the little adventurer exploded. “I trust
myself in no man’s power. My force is equal to his. I’ll know how to
take care of myself.”
To widen the breach Almagro’s ambitious secretary, Perez, had sent
a secret letter to Pizarro declaring in blunt language that Almagro
asked nothing of him, and would give him no coöperation. He had come to
establish a colony and government of his own.
This disturbing news arrived but an hour after Pizarro had received the
first word of his partner’s arrival.
It presented a crisis of the gravest importance. The life of every man
in his triumphant expedition was at stake. Every ounce of gold--the
result of daring--was threatened. With the unerring instinct of a true
leader of men Pizarro instantly decided on his course of action.
He called his own secretary and dictated a letter to Almagro breathing
in every line the best spirit of their old days of suffering and mutual
hardships:
“_Dear Comrade: I have just heard of your landing with the greatest
joy. I salute you as my equal partner in the most glorious enterprise
ever set on foot by daring men. My first stroke has been a miracle.
My good fortune is yours. We have only begun the work. We are yet
in peril. We need every soldier and every horse you can command. My
faith in you as my old comrade and partner was never stronger. I
refuse to believe the foolish statement of your secretary that you
have broken our agreement and intend to set up a rival government.
Hasten to Caxamalca. Your old friend will receive you with open arms
and equal authority._
“_Francisco Pizarro._”
Almagro’s answer to this generous letter was characteristic of the man.
He bored his secretary through with an ugly light from his one eye.
“What’s this I hear of word to Francisco Pizarro that I will set up a
rival government?”
“I only wrote what I thought your interests demanded.”
“Without my knowledge!”
“I anticipated your wishes.”
“Well, my man, you’ll not do that again.”
He called his guard and pointed to Perez.
“This fool is guilty of treason. Call my men to arms and hang him to
the nearest limb.”
The trembling secretary was led to execution and Almagro marched to
Caxamalca. Had Pizarro’s shrewd diplomacy triumphed once more?