THE FIGHT FOR THE FORTRESS
Juan Pizarro now divided his men into three companies commanded by
himself, de Soto, and ben-Alcazar, and planted the archers and
arquebusiers in positions from which they could rake the second
terrace with their volleys, but the storming of this was harder work
than the forcing of the gate had been, for the wall was high and
smooth and the few and narrow openings in it had been built up almost
as solidly as the wall itself. It presented an unbroken series of
angles, and above these huge heaps of stones had been piled, and hence
the moment a ladder was planted those who attempted to mount it were
exposed to attack not only from the top but from both sides as well.
Time after time the ladders were planted, and time after time the
heroic assailants were driven back bruised and maimed by the
avalanches of stones that were rained upon them. Only their stout,
well-tried mail and bucklers saved them from certain death, and only
the knowledge that this was their last fight and that they must either
conquer in it or lose all that they had fought so hard and suffered so
bitterly for, sent them back and back again to the seemingly hopeless
assault.
At last Juan Pizarro, seeing that isolated attacks could only end in
failure, ordered all the ladders to be planted in a single angle where
the ammunition of the defenders was becoming exhausted. At the same
time he drew up his archers and arquebusiers on the opposite side of
the lower terrace, and, while the assailants were swarming for the
fiftieth time up the ladder, these sent volley after volley over their
heads into the dense ranks of the defenders above.
Still, in spite of this, two of the ladders were pushed aside and sent
crashing down with their load of men on to the terrace below. Carvahal
had just reached the top of a fourth, panting and swearing and foaming
with fury, when suddenly the ranks of the defenders divided and a tall
figure clad in Spanish mail and helm, with a Spanish buckler on his
left arm and a huge copper-headed mace in his right hand, strode
forward and, swinging up the mace, brought it down with a frightful
crash on Carvahal’s steel cap.
The grip that he had just taken of the top of the wall relaxed and,
with a hoarse cry like the bellow of a wounded bull, he reeled
backwards and rolled down the ladder, sweeping every man behind him
off it. They tumbled in a heap to the ground with Carvahal on top of
them. One was killed outright and two were maimed for life, but the
old swashbuckler sat up the next minute in the midst of them, pulled
off his cap to see if his head was broken, and then, finding it
wasn’t, shouted--
“Cuerpo de Cristo! that was a shrewd knock for a heathen to give a
good Christian. By the Saints, I thought all the fortress had fallen
on me! Devil take him, I shall have a headache for a week! Come on,
lads, up again! It shall never be said that Carvahal took a blow
without giving it back! I’ll crack that son of Satan’s pate for him
yet if God gives me strength and a fair chance at him.”
With that he scrambled to his feet again and, with the help of those
who were not too badly hurt by the fall, reared up the ladder again
and once more mounted first upon it. But while this was happening a
footing had already been gained on top of the wall from three of the
other ladders, and Juan Pizarro, de Soto, and ben-Alcazar, with stout
Michael Asterre, were laying about them with their long swords and
fast clearing a space on the second terrace. Foot by foot they drove
the defenders back, and now the infuriated soldiery came pouring
unresisted up the ladders.
“Where is he? Where is he?” howled Carvahal as he rolled over the
parapet.
“Whom seekest thou, fire-eater?” laughed de Soto, leaning on his sword
during a brief pause in the fight.
“That heathen knave in Christian clothing! That iron clad son of
Belial who gave me that crack over the pate and made me see more stars
than the good God ever created!” he growled, looking about him in the
dim light for his foe. “If I mistake not he is none other than
Ruminavi the General, old Stony-face as they rightly call him.
Carrajo! I will see whether his head too be made of stone when I get
near enough to whet my blade upon it.”
“It will not be stone but good Spanish steel that thou wilt whet thy
blade on,” said Juan Pizarro, “for that, as thou hast said, was old
Ruminavi, and thou mayest thank the Saints that it was not the Inca
himself, for, judging what he did in the Battle of the Valley, thick
and all as thy skull may be, he would have smashed it like an
egg-shell. But come, Señores,” he went on, addressing the others,
“minutes are worth much now, and we have yet another wall to scale and
after that the citadel to storm, and, see, the heathens are gathering
to the fight again! So far we have done well, yet I would give
something to hear Hernando’s guns from the gap of the road yonder.”
“And I would give more to see your head covered by a good steel
morion, Señor Juan,” said de Soto. “There are two or three down
yonder who have done with theirs for ever. Why not take one of them?
It might mean the difference between life and death for you to-night,
and the worst part of the battle has to come yet, for these gallant
heathens, if I mistake not, will fight while one of them can strike a
blow.”
“I have a good buckler, de Soto, and that must suffice,” he replied,
speaking with some little difficulty, “for with this wounded jaw of
mine I could not bear the chin-piece, and if I have to die I may as
well do it comfortably as any other way.”
“And yet this is not a matter in which one may take too many chances,”
growled Carvahal, rubbing his head. “Carramba! if it had not been for
this steel cap of mine methinks I should by this time have been
looking for the coolest spot in Purgatory. Cuerpo de Cristo! where is
the scoundrel who gave me this headache?”
“By Allah and all the Saints!” shouted ben-Alcazar, “thou wilt not
have long to wait, Carvahal. See, here he comes and at the head of a
goodly array too! On guard, Señores, on guard!”
He had scarcely spoken when they turned and saw coming along the
terrace a solid phalanx of men with long spears levelled at the
charge, swinging on at a steady, measured run, led by Ruminavi
whirling his huge mace and shouting the old battle-cry of the Incas.
Carvahal, who was standing a little in advance of the others, put his
buckler up and his head down, and with his sword shortened in his
right hand ran like a charging bull at Ruminavi. But the old warrior
had fought too many fights in that style to be taken unawares. As
Carvahal rushed blindly on he stepped aside with the lightness of a
youth, and as he passed brought his mace down between his shoulders,
and with a cry that was half a gasp and half a groan Carvahal stumbled
and fell, and the next moment the first rank of the spearmen had leapt
over his body and flung themselves on the Spaniards.
Even now, if it had only been man to man and weapon to weapon, the
assault would have been repelled, for, in spite of their tough armour
and long swords, the rush of the well-drilled spearmen drove the
Spaniards back and huddled them into a heap. But just at the critical
moment, as they were being crushed up against a terrace wall by the
sheer weight of the column that had hurled itself against them, there
rang out far to the rear a hoarse roaring shout--
“Dios y Santiago! lay on for God and Spain--lay on!” and then came the
ever-dreaded thunder of horses’ hoofs, mingled with yells of terror
and screams of pain and the fierce clink--clink--clink of smiting
steel.
The charging spearmen stopped in the very moment of victory, as though
paralysed by the dreaded sound. In vain Ruminavi, who had already
smitten ben-Alcazar lifeless to the ground and broke Michael Asterre’s
sword-arm with a blow of his mace, alternately cursed and cheered them
on. Three or four arquebusiers scaled the wall and levelled their
pieces. The “thunder-pipes” belched out their flame and smoke, and the
balls, fired at less than five paces, tore through rank after rank of
the close-packed spearmen and completed the panic. They broke their
formation and ran, some leaping over into the terrace below, others
swarming like cats up the third wall, but most of them going down
pierced and slashed by the Spanish steel.
Meanwhile a troop of Don Hernando’s horse had come tearing along the
terrace, riding down and trampling over a crowd of fugitives before
them, and in the fast-closing gap between the Spanish horse and foot
stood Ruminavi, still unwounded yet seemingly devoted to certain
death.
For one brief instant he stood and looked from one to the other, and
then, just as de Soto ran forward, as he thought, to save his life by
making him prisoner, the wary old warrior darted under the cover of
the upper wall and then, as the first horse came up to him, he put his
buckler over his helmet, took a well-meant sword-stroke harmlessly
upon it, and at the same moment brought his mace round with such a
savage swing on the horse’s forelegs that the bones snapped under it
like twigs, and horse and man rolled over in a helpless heap with the
next rider and horse on top of them. Two more swift strokes of the
terrible mace drove the steel of their caps into the skulls of the two
fallen riders, and then the gallant old warrior, grasping one of a
dozen hands held out to him over the upper wall, swung himself up as
lightly as a lad of sixteen and disappeared into the darkness.
“Santiago! that was well met, Señor,” said Juan Pizarro to Cieza de
Leon, who was leading the troop of horse. “Another minute and we
should have been over the wall. It is well for us that these heathens
have only two good men to lead them, and that only one of them seems
to be here. That old Stony-face as they call him fights as if all the
devils of Gadara were in him.”
“Ay, and by the Saints he nearly sent me down a steeper place than I
could ever climb up again. Carrajo! has no one killed the heathen yet?
First he tries to hammer what brains I have down my throat, and then
he knocks the breath out of me like the wind out of a burst bladder.”
“Why, Carvahal,” laughed de Soto, as the old swashbuckler hobbled out
from the midst of the fallen horses and men with one hand behind his
back and the other rubbing his huge paunch, “art thou not dead yet? I
should be loth to believe that thou wert born to be hanged----”
“Go hang thyself, babbler!” said Carvahal between a snarl and a gasp.
“Is this time to crack jokes on a comrade’s misfortunes? Carrajo,
Caballeros, what are we standing here for? Is this a battle or a
dancing party, and where has that infernal heathen vanished to again?
Ah! that was poor ben-Alcazar, was it? Well, well, it is the fortune
of war and the good God will be able to see now whether he was better
Christian or Moslem. For myself as a good Christian I have always had
my doubts of him.”
“Buenos noches, Señores! How goes the battle your way?” said the deep
voice of Don Hernando, who now rode up at the head of a second troop
of horse. “For our part we have cleared the two lower terraces and
driven the heathen, or such as we have left alive, either on the
plain, where I have posted a troop to look after them, or up yonder to
their citadels---- How now, Juan? What art thou doing here without thy
helmet? Art mad, lad, to come into a fight like this bareheaded?”
“I have but a scratch and a bruise or two so far, brother,” said Juan,
with a good attempt at a laugh, “and this jaw of mine is so sore and
stiff that I could not bear a chin-piece on it, and what is the use of
a leader who cannot cheer his men on? But enough of me for the moment.
What we have done is as thou seest. We have forced the gate and
cleared the two terraces, though, it grieves me to say it, not without
loss. Still, here we are and there is the citadel yet to be taken.
What say you? Shall we attack forthwith ere the heathen have time to
recover themselves?”
“Ay, that were best,” replied Don Hernando, “when you start a savage
running keep him going, and we may as well scale the wall while it is
yet unguarded.”
While this conversation had been going on between the two leaders the
archers and crossbow-men of the two parties had been busy collecting
the arrows and bolts which they had shot, pulling and cutting them out
of the flesh of those they had slain with them, and so Don Hernando,
now taking the chief command, ordered them to scale the third
undefended wall and spread themselves out in skirmishing order on the
little plain above it. After them went the musketeers, of whom there
were now five-and-twenty, and then Don Hernando, leaving half a score
of mounted men to watch the horses and keep the terrace clear,
dismounted and led the rest of his men, to the number of over sixty,
to the final assault on the citadel.
While they were clearing the wall and dragging the ladders after them
the archers, crossbow-men, and musketeers had been advancing slowly
across the little plain towards the citadel, driving the now
disheartened Peruvians before them. For generations the great fortress
had been rightly believed to be impregnable. Horde after horde of the
savage tribes of the east had dashed themselves to fragments against
its triple walls and until now no enemy had ever yet set foot even
upon its first terrace, and yet here a mere handful of these
unconquerable strangers stood triumphant on its topmost tier. To them
it was the work of demons rather than of men, and, following as it did
upon unnumbered defeats and only a single victory, it was little
wonder that in such a moment the hearts of the bravest failed them.
The three Spanish ranks advanced almost without resistance to the
walls of the central citadel. The other two towers had been deserted,
but round the base of the central one the remnants of the garrison
were drawn up ten or twelve deep in a solid human wall of desperate,
though it might be despairing valour, and its three terraces and
broad, flat roof were filled with men who had there taken their last
stand ready to die to a man for the country and the homes which they
could no longer save.
But however desperate their valour and resolution they were of little
avail against the well-proved science of Don Hernando and his
lieutenants. Though there were others amongst the Conquerors who could
have led a charge more brilliantly or fought a pitched battle in the
open against overwhelming odds with better chance of success than he,
yet when it came to such an attack as this, where skill and caution
were equally needed, he was without a rival.
The moon had risen now and in the clear air of that elevated region
the light was quite bright enough for accurate aim either with bow or
arquebus, so he planted his force in three lines arranged in a
semicircle about the citadel, which, as has been said before, stood
close to the perpendicular face of the fortress overlooking the city.
In front were the musketeers lying down with their pieces levelled at
the close ranks beneath the walls. Behind them was the line of
cavaliers and troopers armed with their long swords, battle-axes, and
pikes, and behind them again were the archers and crossbow-men; and
the plan of the battle was this:--
First the musketeers sent a murderous volley into the ranks round the
base. Then, while they reloaded, the second line charged past them to
increase with axe and pike and sword the havoc which the musket-balls
had wrought, and while they were doing this the third rank sent their
volleys of arrows and bolts into the crowded masses on the terraces.
Then when the musketeers had reloaded Don Hernando gave the signal for
the second rank to disengage itself and retire behind them, and as the
defenders rushed forward they were met by yet another volley of balls,
and hard after these came the charging steel again.
Thus, volley after volley and charge after charge were made and ever
the close and well-directed flights of bolts and arrows rained with
deadly effect upon the impotent defenders of the citadel whose feeble
weapons were useless at a range at which the Spanish long-bows and
arbalests were almost as deadly as modern rifles.
To such a fight there could be but one end, and so the time came when
the last volley of musketry and the last charge of the sword and pike
rent asunder the ranks of the defenders at the base and scattered
their remnants weaponless and terror-stricken over the plain. Then Don
Hernando bade his musketeers stand up and use their resting-forks so
that they could play on the terraces of the citadel and he kept them
and the archers and crossbow-men at this work until every bullet and
arrow and bolt had been shot away. Then he ordered up the ladders and
the last assault began.
All this time Ruminavi had been striding up and down the roof of the
citadel exhorting his warriors to stand fast and die as he had sworn
to do, in battle rather than in that slavery to the Strangers which
was now the only alternative. Though ever erect himself and passing by
some miracle scathless through the storm of missiles, he had kept his
men crouching behind the parapets so that as many of them as possible
might remain for the last struggle, and this struggle when it came was
a bitter one, for now the fight was hand to hand, weapon to weapon,
and man to man.
Again and again the ladders were planted and again and again they were
hurled back to fall with their human load on the thronging assailants
beneath, and a good half-score of Spaniards had fought their last
fight by the time the last rampart was gained, and more than twice as
many more had been disabled by wounds or broken limbs. But still, rung
by rung, they went up the ladders and terrace by terrace the last
stronghold of the Incas was stormed until at length one of the ladders
was firmly hooked on the parapet of the roof itself.
Juan Pizarro, pushing Cieza de Leon aside and swearing that a Pizarro
should be first on the roof, sprang on to the ladder with his dagger
between his teeth. As he did so Don Hernando fought his way, to the
foot, shouting in a voice hoarse with anxiety and the passion of
battle--
“Down, Juan, down! Come back! Come back! Come down, I pray thee--nay,
I command thee, come down! Ah! Mother of God, there is that accursed
heathen again!”
And so saying he sprang up the ladder after Juan, who, unheeding his
brother’s prayers and command, was already more than half-way to the
parapet. After him went de Soto and then Carvahal. Juan reached the
top first and as he put his hand on the parapet to clamber over, the
gigantic form of Ruminavi towered high above it and the great mace
went up. Instantly Juan’s buckler covered his head, and, lying flat on
the ladder, he crawled up another step. He let go the parapet,
snatched the dagger from his mouth and made a swift thrust at
Ruminavi’s side. But in the uncertain light he missed the joint and
the Spanish blade shivered to splinters on the Spanish mail. The next
instant the mace came down, and with a dull, rending crash Juan’s
buckler burst asunder under the irresistible shock of the blow. The
bones of the arm that held it were crushed to pulp and Juan’s body,
doubled up like a half-empty sack, pitched on to his brother’s
shoulders and fell with a dead, heavy thud on the terrace below.
“God curse thee, thou hast killed the gentlest knight in Christendom!”
roared Don Hernando as he rushed up the ladder and sprang over the
parapet at Ruminavi before he could bring his mace up again. “Take
that to Hell with thee!” he shouted again as he swung his long blade
round and dealt a sweeping sword-stroke at the old warrior.
But Ruminavi saw it coming and sprang back so that the point only
grazed his armour. The next instant Don Hernando was striding across
the roof with de Soto and Carvahal hard after him. Meanwhile, too,
another ladder had been hooked on and another stream of eager
assailants were pouring on to the roof. Don Hernando, de Soto and
Carvahal rushed together at Ruminavi while the new-comers were
striking down the few defenders left, but not one of them could pass
the circle which the terrible sweeps of the great mace made about him.
Don Hernando’s sword was knocked flying from his grasp, another stroke
took de Soto on the right shoulder and sent him reeling back among his
followers. Then Carvahal ran in and took the head of the mace full on
his jaw.
“Carrajo!” he howled, reeling back and spitting out a mouthful of
blood and broken teeth. “The curse of God upon thee and thy stolen
steel!” And then he ran in again with a savage, sweeping stroke of his
broad blade at Ruminavi’s thigh.
But again the Spanish steel was met by the Spanish mail and the edge
turned harmless off it and again Carvahal took a blow of the mace on
his left shoulder which paralysed his buckler-arm and made even his
mighty bulk tremble and reel backwards.
By this time every other defender of the roof had been cut down or
pierced through and through with sword and pike-thrusts, and now old
Ruminavi was the only defender left. Don Hernando had picked up an axe
in place of his lost sword, de Soto had shifted his sword to his left
hand, and de Leon and a dozen more Spaniards were making ready for a
last rush at the gallant old warrior.
And now Ruminavi saw that the end had come. One swift glance over the
corpse-strewn roof showed him that he alone was left, another at his
closing enemies showed him that the trust he had so desperately
defended was lost at last. He ran back to the parapet overlooking the
city and leapt upon it and for the last time turned and looked round
on his foes.
“Save him! Save him! He is too gallant a man to die!” shouted Don
Hernando springing forward towards him.
The great mace swung round again and then like a stone from a catapult
it whistled through the air, and taking Don Hernando full on the
breast it sent him reeling backwards and hurled him prone on the roof.
The next moment old Ruminavi drew himself up erect and, still without
turning his back on his foes, sprang into the air. The next he was
lying smashed out of all human shape on the stones five hundred feet
below.
The Spaniards rushed forward and leant over the battlements peering
down into the fearful abyss. Then de Soto stood up and made the sign
of the Cross and said in a choked, husky voice--
“Heathen or not, comrades, a stark warrior and a good patriot! May God
receive his gallant soul in peace. Amen!”
EPILOGUE
It is one of the misfortunes of the romancer who devotes himself to
the re-telling of a story which has already been recorded by the pen
of History that he cannot deal with his characters as he would with
those who are purely the creation of his own fancy. Here or there a
date or an incident may be altered, and to a certain extent he may put
such words as he pleases into the mouths of those whom he has recalled
from the grave to play their parts upon the stage which he has
reconstructed for them. But with this the license which he may
legitimately use is exhausted. To push his privileges beyond this
point would be to utterly destroy the verisimilitude of his narrative
by bringing it into flat contradiction with the known facts of
history.
Thus I am well aware that in the present instance the unities of
Romance would demand that not Ruminavi, but Manco-Capac, should have
died that gallant death on the citadel of the Sacsahuaman, or, better
still, have brought back a great host with him from the South and
overwhelmed his conquerors in the hour of their victory. But the
circumstances narrated by the chroniclers of the Conquest, some of
whom were actually present, are substantially as they have been given
here. The gallant Manco was far away when the last assault was made,
although even had he been present the final result, although it might
have been deferred, could hardly have been different in the end. And
yet as it happens it is this very fact which makes it possible for the
romancer to bring the tale of the Conquest of Peru to a close with at
least a plausible assumption that in the end poetic justice was done.
With the fall of the Sacsahuaman the Siege of Cuzco virtually ended.
It is true that after the seed-time Manco came back and once more
encompassed the city with innumerable legions, but meanwhile the
Spaniards had stripped the surrounding country bare, not only of the
remaining stores of grain, but also of the remnants of the Peruvian
flocks and herds. Almagro’s men, too, were marching back from Chile,
and reinforcements at length were pushing their way through the
mountain defiles from the cities of the coast, and ship-load after
ship-load of adventurers from Panama and Nicaragua were landing on the
doomed shores of Peru. So in the end the gallant Manco, seeing his
legions starving by thousands around him, was forced to yield to
famine if not to the Spaniards, and finally raised the siege.
From Cuzco he retired into the fastnesses of Yucay and the impregnable
fortress of Ollantay-Tambo. Here expedition after expedition was sent
against him, only to be cut off to a man or hurled back in defeat and
disaster. Then the well-earned vengeance of Eternal Justice fell hard
and heavy on those iron Conquerors who for lust of riches had outraged
every canon of human and Divine law. The gold that they came to seek
proved their ruin when they had found it. Faction turned against
faction, and comrade against comrade, and fiercer fights by far were
fought between Spaniard and Spaniard than had ever been fought between
Spaniard and Peruvian, and to-day there is not a rood of ground on all
the South American continent over which the golden banner of Spain
flies.
Of those of the Conquerors who have figured in these pages only one
reaped any earthly reward for his labours, and this was the gallant
and gentle knight Hernando de Soto, who, after the Civil Wars married
a noble Inca princess, whom he took with him as his bride to Spain and
presented at the Court of the Great Emperor. Of the rest, Alonso de
Molina, as we have seen, died with his head on the breast of his
well-beloved enemy and rival in love. Juan Pizarro died a soldier’s
death on the citadel of the Sacsahuaman. His brother Gonzalo, taken in
revolt against his lawful sovereign, lost his head on the block.
Carvahal, after winning himself the title of “the Demon of the Andes,”
was dragged to the scaffold in a basket and there hung, drawn, and
quartered under the sentence of the victorious Viceroy. Pedro de
Candia was murdered on the bloody field of Chupas by Almagro his own
commander, and Almagro himself, taken prisoner in Cuzco by Don
Hernando, was garroted in prison after abjectly begging his life from
his conqueror. And Don Hernando himself went home to Spain only to be
flung into a dungeon, in which he languished for twenty weary
years--the last of his ever-famous family--to be released in the
evening of his days, and to watch from the sad eminence of a hundred
years of life the ruin of the great enterprise in which he had borne
so conspicuous and, on the whole, so honourable a part.
Of the fate of Manco there are two stories told. One by the Spaniards,
which says, that after years of successful guerrilla warfare, during
which he made his name a terror to the conquerors of his country, he
fell slain, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies, in an obscure
combat. The other, be it legend or truth as you will, is found in the
traditions of the fallen people, who still revere his name as that of
the last champion of their lost liberties.
In an unknown and almost inaccessible valley hidden away somewhere in
the vast ranges of the Vilcañota, surrounded by ice-crowned peaks and
vast snowfields towering far up into the cloudless sky, he at length,
with a remnant of the Children of the Blood, found a refuge, and there
to this day the ancient Inca Empire survives, awaiting the day of
vengeance, and ruled over by a lineal descendant of the last bearer of
the Divine Name, and of her who was once the fairest and noblest of
the Virgins of the Sun.
In this happy uncertainty we may take farewell of Manco and Nahua, and
turn our eyes for a moment to the City of the Kings. There, in a room
in his own palace, lies an old battle and travel-worn man of nearly
three-score years and ten, pierced by the swords of those to whom he
had opened the long-locked gates of El-Dorado. His life-blood is
dripping from a wound in his throat on to the floor. He turns over on
his side and with his finger traces a cross in his own blood. Then he
kisses it, and, as his trembling lips shape the one word “Jesu,”
another sword pierces him, this time to the heart, and his head drops
down and he dies. And this is the end of that iron-souled Conqueror
who had fought so many a bitter battle with Destiny and who, with the
sword that was to win an empire for others, had traced that Line of
Fate on the desolate sands of Gallo.
THE END
ENDNOTES
[1] _Tavantinsuyu_] “The Land of the Four Regions” (North, South,
East, and West). The name Peru was not known to the Incas. It was an
invention of the Spaniards, and of obscure, indeed, unknown origin.
[2] _the doom of those who disobey_] All disobedience to the direct
commands of the reigning Inca was punished by death because he was
considered to be the incarnation of Divinity; hence disobedience to
him was sacrilege. There is, however, no instance on record of this
crime having been committed.
[3] Nothing less than this appalling penalty was the punishment decreed
by the Inca laws to those who disobeyed the commands or deliberately
thwarted the will of the crowned Son of the Sun.
[4] _by the coming of our Father_] The rising of the sun was thus
alluded to.
[5] _Coya_] Queen, or wife-royal, as distinguished from those who
formed the harem of the Sovereign. The Incas held exactly the same
views on the subject of sister-marriage as the Pharaohs did.
[6] _the brilliant Chasca_] The Incas’ name for the planet Venus. They
called her in their poems “the bright-haired handmaid of the Sun.”
[7] _the yellow fringe on his brow_] The mark of social differences.
Those not of the pure Inca race wore black, those of the blood-royal
yellow, and the crowned Inca scarlet mingled with gold threads.
[8] This portent was actually seen over the city of Cuzco shortly
before the Conquest.
[9] _Llapa_] A generic term used by the Incas to denote all or any of
the manifestations of thunder-storms, earthquakes, meteors, and
similar phenomena.
[10] _The golden mask shall never cover thy face_] The faces of the
royal mummies were covered with a golden mask moulded to the features.
[11] It is said that more than 700 members of Huayna-Capac’s Household
sacrificed themselves in various places on his death, but some
authorities hold that this savage custom had been abolished by the
later and more enlightened Incas.
[12] It was said that nearly 40,000 inhabitants of the Valley of Quito
perished in the earthquake which occurred about this time. It is, of
course, a matter of history that Atahuallpa escaped.
[13] According to one who took some share in this hideous day’s work,
this was absolutely the only wound inflicted on a Spaniard.
[14] The Spanish chroniclers have recorded that Atahuallpa felt the,
to him, unspeakable dishonour of this proposal even more keenly than
his own captivity and all the indignities that it entailed.
[15] _roaring torrent of the “Great Speaker”_] The Apu-Rimac, one of
the head-waters of the Amazon. It flows through this gorge with a
constant dull roar.
[16] _I baptize thee, Juan de Atahuallpa_] It was the evening of the
Feast of St. John. Hence the new “convert’s” name.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Frontispiece by Stanley L. Wood.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ conquerers/conquerors,
spearmen/spear-men, war-beasts/war beasts, etc.) have been preserved.
Plain text edition only: note markers are given in [square] brackets.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnotes to endnotes.
Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings and a missing period.
[Book I/Chapter III]
Change “and he looked up to see what new _horrow_ was coming” to
_horror_.
[Book I/Chapter IV]
“A _wierd_, low sound of song seemed to rise from” to _weird_.
[Book I/Chapter V]
“Yet not a _murmer_ of pity or sorrow came from a single” to
_murmur_.
“from a single breast in all the vast, silent, throng” delete
comma after _silent_.
“Manco replied in a low, steady _vaice_” to _voice_.
[Book I/Chapter VI]
“the last of them had died away in a long, wailing, scream.” delete
the comma after _wailing_.
[Book II/Chapter I]
“than when we started. _and_ as for that green yonder” to _And_.
“Atahuallpa, by all accounts, is a base-born _ursurper_ and ruthless”
to _usurper_.
[Book II/Chapter IV]
“I feel as though I were hanging _‘twixt_ Heaven and earth” to
_’twixt_.
[Book II/Chapter V]
“_Cajarmarca_ was, for the time being, a city of the dead” to
_Cajamarca_.
[Book IV/Chapter VI]
“We rode on, hoping to gain some _knowlege_ of the position” to
_knowledge_.
“exchange for those of his mother and and his betrothed” delete
one _and_.
[Book IV/Chapter XII]
“the Spanish long-bows and _arbalasts_ were almost as deadly” to
_arbalests_.
[End of text]