“WE HAVE SWORN!”
The news that they had returned without the Inca had apparently
preceded them by some means, for they met Carvahal at the door of the
palace, and in answer to their greeting he looked up and said with one
of his deep, growling laughs--
“So you have seen his Majesty safely home, Señores! By my faith, a
right worthy Christian escort for a heathen king who was yesterday a
captive! Did I not say that it would have been better to try the tight
collar on him as we did on Atahuallpa? If I mistake not the lad is
worth a score of Atahuallpas. I fear me it will go hard now with the
lad’s mother and sweetheart. Don Hernando is in a towering rage, and I
believe the punishment is to be a flogging first, and then shooting to
death with arrows. It would have been greater mercy to have strangled
the lad himself.”
While the old ruffian was running on in this way de Soto and his
companions had flung themselves from their horses and mounted the
steps.
“Is Don Hernando within?” said de Soto roughly, and seeming to take no
heed of what he had said.
“He is, Señores,” replied Carvahal, bowing with a clumsy attempt at
mock politeness, “and he is awaiting you in a humour that seems to
have more of brimstone in it than of the milk of human kindness. You
will find him in the banqueting-hall--and methinks you will find the
feast already spread for you.”
Without noticing the sally the four cavaliers strode past him hands on
sword-hilts, and looking more like men going to battle than soldiers
about to account for a grave failure to their commander. De Soto went
first, and as he entered the room Hernando Pizarro, who was sitting at
a table with three or four of his officers, looked round and then
started to his feet. He was a big, heavily-built man with a low,
narrow brow, large and fleshy nose and mouth, and a pallid skin which
the most ardent sun had been unable to tinge with bronze. His black
eyes were small but very bright, and as he looked at de Soto they
flashed with unmistakable anger. His voice, always unpleasing, seemed
to grate roughly over his yellow uneven teeth as he said with the air
of a judge addressing culprits brought up for judgment--
“How now, Señores? Where is he who was entrusted to your keeping? A
tale brought by an Indian reached me to-day telling me that you had
permitted his escape. I trust you come to tell me that that is false.
If not, it will be my duty to show you how we deal with traitors.”
“Don Hernando,” said de Soto very quietly, as he always spoke when he
had weighty words to say, “good soldiers do not draw their swords upon
each other in the face of the enemy, and we have come to tell you that
every moment brings the enemy closer, else there are four swords here
ready for thine and those of any three friends at your choice. At
proper time and place mine will be at your service. Meanwhile let me
remind you with all respect that you are speaking to your peers and
not to your men-at-arms. If you think otherwise we can find another
use for our swords and the right arms of our friends and followers.
You forget that we already have the Governor’s permission to join
ourselves to his forces at Los Reyes.”
Angry as he was, Don Hernando was too shrewd not to see that this was
really a serious threat. De Soto and his companions were not only very
popular among the men, but they were, with the exception of the
Pizarros themselves, the principal leaders of what were already called
the Old Conquerers. As it was the balance of power between what were
afterwards known as the Pizarro and Almagro factions was held too
evenly in Cuzco just then for his liking. He knew that such a
defection as this would place his party in a hopeless minority, and he
knew too that the Almagrists, if they could do it with safety, would
think no more of flinging him into prison, as indeed they afterwards
did, and proclaiming their leader Governor of the city, than they
would think of sending an arrow through a flying Indian’s body, for it
must be remembered that the conquerors were not a regular army under
the rigid discipline of a European camp. They were simply a body of
adventurers held together by nothing but common interests and common
perils, isolated in a hostile land and far removed from any centre of
real authority. Their leaders were chosen by themselves, and, as the
civil wars in which the two factions afterwards rent each other to
pieces clearly proved, their tenure of office was by no means a secure
one. No one knew this better than the titular Governor of Cuzco, and
he knew, too, that if these four men chose to raise the standard of
revolt and throw in their lot with the Almagrists his dead body might
within an hour be lying in the streets pierced with a dozen
sword-thrusts.
Such considerations as these, flashing as they did through his active
mind during the pause which followed de Soto’s bold words, instantly
brought back his habitual self-command and that tactful control of his
feelings and manner which made him the best diplomatist and perhaps
the only statesman among the Conquerors. He smiled as pleasantly as
such lips as his could smile, and said with a not ungraceful wave of
his hand--
“Señores, I spoke hastily and I ask your pardon. The loss of the
Inca’s person is a very serious one to us. From the reports that have
reached us it might even mean our ruin. It was natural, then, that the
tidings should affect me deeply, but no doubt you have a report to
make. If so, we are all attention. Will you be seated?”
“Señor,” replied de Soto, still in the same cold, quiet voice, “I
have a somewhat strange tale to tell you for myself and these
caballeros here, and after the greeting you have been pleased to give
us, we would prefer not to sit in your presence lest perchance we
might be taken for your guests.”
Don Hernando frowned at the coolly-spoken insult, but he was too
politic not to see the danger of exasperating de Soto and his
companions any further, so he simply nodded his head and waved his
hand again and said--
“Very well, Señores. As you will. And now for the report.”
“What happened first,” said de Soto without any further preamble, “was
this. In the darkness of the night and just as we had reached the edge
of a level plain beyond the mountains, the Inca, who sits a horse as
well as any Christian cavalier, suddenly spurred forward into the
midst of the fore-guard of Indians. He clove the skull of one with his
battle-axe, rode half-a-dozen others down, and went for his life
across the plain with us hard after him. The horse he rode belonged,
as you know, to the Señor de Molina here, and as you know also, five
thousand pesos would not buy such a horse south of Panama. He had the
better animal, and he knew the country to a yard. To be brief, he
outrode us and escaped. We rode on, hoping to gain some knowledge of
the position of the Indian army, which by all accounts is about to
attack us. Soon after sunrise we found ourselves in the entrance to
that valley of Yucay on which we had doubtless stumbled by accident in
the chase, and there we found the Inca.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Hernando with just the suspicion of a sneer. “You
found him and you did not bring him back--you, four Spanish cavaliers,
to one puny Peruvian!”
“Señor,” replied de Soto as calmly as ever, “he who hears a tale but
half told knows little of the truth of it. We were not four to one. We
were more like four to forty thousand, for no sooner did the Inca show
himself than the whole valley was alive with armed men. Moreover,
there was a fortress on each side of us, a river in front of us, and
behind us leagues of country swarming with the enemy. We had already
given ourselves up for lost when the Inca waved a white scarf and made
a sign that he wished to speak with us. Señor de Molina leapt his
horse into the stream and swam to him. What happened, let him tell
himself.”
He stepped aside, and the young cavalier strode forward, pale, angry,
and defiant. But before he could speak Don Hernando waved his hand
again and said--
“A moment, Señor. Your friend the Inca would seem to have forgotten
that he left certain hostages with me in pledge for his return. I did
not tell him what would befall them if he broke faith with me, but I
will send one or two meaner prisoners that I have in my hands to him
at once, to tell him that unless he is back here, alone and unarmed,
by sunset to-morrow they shall be taken out at sunrise into the great
square, and there, in the presence of the army, they shall be stripped
and flogged and then shot to death with arrows. That is their doom,
and I will abate no jot of it.”
“Then, Señor,” said de Molina, his ruddy face white to the lips, and
his whole frame trembling with passion at the atrocious words, “if
that is your irrevocable decision you have no need to release any of
your prisoners to take the tidings of it to the Inca, for we ourselves
will take it, as we have already pledged our Christian faith and
knightly honour to do.”
“How? What mean you? You will take it?” exclaimed Don Hernando,
staring at him in blank astonishment. “Surely, Señores, this is
neither time nor place for jesting.”
“It is a jest that we are ready to put a point to with our swords,
Señor,” replied de Molina, clapping his hand on his sword-hilt. “If
it will please you to hear my story I will make few words of it, and
my meaning shall be plain enough.
“When I met the Inca on the other side of the river he pointed out
what was plain enough to see, that our lives were at his mercy. Then
he told me of the pledge that he had left behind him in your hands,
and he offered us our lives and liberties in exchange for those of his
mother and his betrothed, and we, seeing no better way out of the
business, accepted the offer.”
“How now, Señor?” cried Don Hernando angrily. “Whose authority had
you to make such terms?”
“The authority of necessity, Señor,” replied de Molina, bowing
slightly, “and if you know of a better you may tell us.”
“Whether I know of a better or not, I tell you that I will not
recognise it!” cried Don Hernando, bringing his fist down on the
table. “The lives of the women are forfeit, and they shall die unless
Manco returns. I have sworn it.”
“And we have sworn, Señor,” exclaimed de Soto, stepping forward
again, “that these ladies shall be sent scathless to Yucay, or that we
will ourselves return according to our oath. Is that not so,
Caballeros?”
The others bowed, and de Candia, placing himself between de Soto and
de Molina, said in his deep, powerful voice--
“It seems to me, Don Hernando, that unless you think we are standing
here lying to you, you are setting the gratification of a needless and
cruel revenge against the honour and safety of four Christian knights
and gentlemen of Spain. It is yet to be seen whether the Council of
the Army will endure that, and if they do, whether the soldiers will.
It maybe that they will think there is shame enough on our army
already.”
“Is this your earnest, Caballeros?” asked Don Hernando somewhat
anxiously, for he saw that the matter was now getting serious. “Have
you in sober truth sworn to do so mad a thing? Is it possible you
would go back and give yourselves up to this heathen?”
“Ay, by God and Santiago we will!” replied de Candia solemnly. “Our
honour is pledged and our oaths are passed, and though we had to cut
our way through the whole army we would do it to redeem them. Now what
say you, Don Hernando? Which think you will have the more worth in the
eyes of our sovereign lord when the news gets home to Spain--the
honour and the lives of four cavaliers who have fought and bled for
him, or the torment and death of two helpless and innocent women?”
It was an awkward situation plainly and skilfully described, and Don
Hernando looked up with something very like admiration at the four
cavaliers; for, making allowance for the age he lived in, and the
profession he followed, he was a kindly-hearted man save when his
passions were aroused, and, moreover, he was well enough skilled in
the ways of the Spanish court to know how terribly black an accusation
might be made against him out of such a circumstance. Still, having
spoken so positively, he did not see his way to yield to such a
peremptory summons, and he was looking round the table somewhat
anxiously when his eye caught that of his half-brother Juan, the
noblest youth and most gallant knight of all the Pizarro family. His
ready wit grasped the situation instantly--the more quickly since he
was entirely on the side of the four cavaliers. He rose to his feet
and said, speaking to them all through de Candia--
“Caballeros, good as your motives are, and merciful as your errand is,
it is yet a hard thing for one placed as my brother is in authority to
turn aside from his path because he is threatened with certain pains
and penalties. Nevertheless, speaking for myself, I will say as a
private cavalier and not as Don Hernando’s brother, that he did not do
this thing of his own will and judgment. He will not deny that the
evil thought was put into his mind by that lying knave, Cepeda, who is
himself a living proof of the wisdom of that decree of our august
master which forbade lawyers to set foot in this land, and which has
since, to my sorrow, been repealed. He, as you know, is heart and soul
with the Almagrist faction, and he has no more a human heart in his
breast than the mummies of the Incas which we found in the Temples of
the Sun. The plan was his, and its object was not only the getting of
more gold, but also the possession of the person of the Princess Nahua
by himself----”
“Cuerpo de Cristo!” cried de Molina taking a couple of strides up the
room and half drawing his sword from its scabbard. “What! Has that
lean and scoundrelly anatomy of law and lying dared even to dream of
that? Then, by the glory of God, am I the more fixed in my oath. Now,
Don Hernando,” he went on, turning to the Governor, “we want you, not
to yield, but to do justice. It cannot be that you knew of this thing.
It cannot be that you, Governor of the city and brother of his
Highness, could have entered into a league with this vile quill-driver
to dishonour the promised bride of a prince who, be it remembered,
received us as friends and honoured envoys.”
“It is true,” said Juan, “for I know it of my own knowledge, and so
does Gonzalo here, and had you never returned we had determined that
if Cepeda persisted in his intention he should not live to accomplish
his infamy.”
“That is true,” added Gonzalo, with a nod; “for I was captain of the
guard over the palace where the queen and princess are lodged, and the
sentry told me how Cepeda went to them but to-day with an interpreter
to tell them at what price he would save them from the punishment
decreed against them did the Inca not return. When I heard of it I
ordered him to be thrown out of the palace if he would not go for less
persuasion, but he had already gone, looking as black as the gates of
his future abode.”
“Then if that is so, Caballeros,” said Don Hernando, who meanwhile had
been industriously reviewing all the aspects of the case, “since we do
not make war on women or trade with their honour, I will willingly
take back what I have said. The anger that I showed on your first
entry you will doubtless take as natural in one who has lost an almost
priceless prize. But now, in cooler blood, I am willing to confess
that, situated as you were, you could have done only what you did,
since the loss of four such gallant cavaliers to our little army would
have been even graver than the loss of the Inca’s person. As you have
sworn so shall you do, granted always that you will faithfully uphold
me against these Almagrists.”
“Ay, that we will, Don Hernando!” exclaimed de Soto, well pleased that
the seemingly difficult matter had been after all so easily settled;
“and we shall do so with none the less heart and strength for that we
were firmly resolved to keep our oath to Manco. That being kept we are
more than ever devoted to your person and our holy cause.”
“Then, Señores,” replied Don Hernando, rising from his seat, and
bowing gravely towards them, “you are at liberty, so far as your loyal
duty to his Majesty permits, to provide for the present safety of the
queen and the princess and their restoration to the Inca as may seem
best in your eyes. But I pray you let there be no trouble with Cepeda
if possible. I will answer to him for what is done, but we can afford
no divisions in the camp now.”
“He is not worth an honest man’s steel,” replied de Soto as they all
returned the bow, “so you may rest assured of that. In the name of my
companions I thank you for permitting us to redeem our oath in peace
and good fellowship. Señores, adios!”
“Adios, Señores!” replied Don Hernando and his brothers, and the four
cavaliers swung round and marched with jaunty strides and cocked
swords out of the palace, to the great astonishment of Carvahal, who
had waited all this time for the joke of seeing them brought out under
arrest.