A GENTLEMAN OF SPAIN
That night, 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.