Pizarro spared no pains in giving to the dead monarch the full honors
of rank at his funeral.
The Inca had renounced his faith and embraced theirs. He was entitled
to Christian burial.
Perhaps Pizarro really believed the necessity for his death. Perhaps he
believed that necessity urgent. He could remember the fate of his own
people when the enraged chiefs of Panama had poured molten gold down
their throats, crying:
“Eat, Christians! Eat your fill of gold!”
He did not propose to see such scenes reënacted in Peru. Now that the
deed was done he could at least express his Christian humanity by
placing flowers on the body of the dead Indian.
The body was carefully prepared for the obsequies. When stretched
in solemn posture on the bier, the massive head rested on a gold
embroidered pillow and he was shrouded in the most gorgeous robes of
empire.
Francisco Pizarro took his place as chief mourner, wearing his
magnificent uniform of Viceroy for the first time. Indeed, it was the
first time since his march into Peru that he had felt safe in assuming
it. There were many battles yet to be fought, but he felt his hand
at last gripping the wealth and power of a mighty empire. Verily, he
thought, he was an instrument in the hands of God! In his hour of
triumph, with millions of gold securely locked in his chests and the
crown of a kingdom on his brow, he recalled with a sense of awe the
days of his lonely pitiful childhood in Spain. The “little bastard,”
they had called him, and the pigs he tended had been his best friends.
He could begin now to see a proud world fawning at his feet.
So it is not to be wondered that he took himself seriously.
The funeral procession had wended its way into the church, the body lay
in state before the altar and the priests were celebrating the ceremony
for the dead. Pizarro stood, commanding the scene, his magnificent
figure sternly erect, his finely shaped head and full beard streaked
with gray, expressing the dignity and new found power of his position.
A sudden commotion at the door, and the droning tones of the priests
died into silence as all eyes turned. Before Pizarro realized what had
happened, Yma, at the head of a hundred white-robed Virgins of the
Sun, swept down the aisle, surrounded and seized the body of their
lord. His wives, led by his mother, followed weeping. The Sun Virgins
softly swayed from the bier and his wives rushed to the body with drawn
daggers to follow their master to the grave.
A word of sharp command from Pizarro called the startled soldiers to
their duty.
“Seize and drag them from the church!”
Heavy figures in clanging armor leaped forward. The weeping women and
white-clad Virgins of the Sun were dragged protesting from the church.
Yma sought Pizarro.
“As servants of our Lord of the Sun we claim the right to the body of
our beloved. We would embalm it and give him burial with his people in
the Temple at Quito.”
The Spaniard commanded silence.
“I will give him Christian burial in holy ground--go!”
Behind the conqueror, stood his partner, Almagro, and his brothers, who
had pronounced the sentence of death on the Inca.
The soldiers had instinctively refrained from laying hands on the dead
sovereign’s mother. She stood with her sad eyes fixed on Pizarro.
Lifting both hands above her head she solemnly prayed:
“God of the Sun, wither the Kingdom of Spain and let thy rays, as
lances of death, strike the murderers of Atahualpa!”
She was allowed to walk down the aisle and out the door without
molestation.
The conquerors in the absence of their interpreters wondered what she
had said. They were yet to recall the scene in hours of supreme tragedy
in their own lives.