The Crimson Conquest 6

The Crimson Conquest 6

CHAPTER IV*

 

_*The Inca’s Encampment*_

 

 

Six weeks later the Army of the Conquest was descending the eastern

slope of the Maritime Cordillera into the interior valley of Caxamalca.

Here, Pizarro learned, the Inca Atahualpa lay with fifty thousand

warriors.

 

The march over the mountains had been one of toil and hardship, but the

few Peruvians encountered had displayed nothing but hospitality. Two

embassies from the Inca had met the invaders, bearing presents and

assurances of welcome. The messages were translated by a young native,

called by the soldiers Felipillo, who had been picked up on a former

expedition, taught the Spanish language, many Spanish vices, and

retained as interpreter. Through him the commander sent courteous

replies, and, while neglecting no precaution, marched with a sense of

security always.

 

To Cristoval, stretched helpless on his rude litter, the first few days

had been torture. Later, however, a halt was made at a mountain village

whose friendly _curaca_, or governor, proffered the use of his sedan

with native bearers. They were hardy, sure-footed mountaineers, and

thereafter Cristoval swung along with little discomfort. Halts were

frequent, and some were protracted, for Pizarro hoped for reënforcements

from San Miguel if ships should come from Panama, whither his partner,

Almagro, had sailed in quest of fresh recruits. He tarried in vain, but

the halts were favorable to Cristoval. His rugged health, aided by the

bracing mountain air and the vigilant care of Pedro, hastened his

recovery; and by the end of October his wounds were healed, though he

had yet to regain his strength. He bore his inactivity with what

patience there was in him, but with no prevision of the gratitude he

should one day feel for those very wounds.

 

The Fifteenth of November saw the last day’s march in the mountains.

The column had for hours trailed down a rocky gorge, which at last

opened upon a full panorama of the valley of Caxamalca. It stretched

out far below, a fertile and verdant plain, checkered with fields,

damaskeened with the silver of rivulets and canals for irrigation, and

traversed throughout its length by a fair river. Near its centre,

gleaming in its setting of green, lay the town of Caxamalca, surrounded

by orchards and gardens, and groves of willows, quinuars, and mimosas,

in whose shelter could be descried the tinted walls of the cottages and

villas of the suburbs.

 

Involuntarily, when the scene burst upon him, Pizarro reined his horse.

His trumpeter sounded a halt, and De Soto, whose troop was in advance,

rode up beside him, joined straightway by the officers of the staff.

They surveyed the valley with amazement. Pizarro was the first to

speak.

 

"_Maravilloso_!" he exclaimed. "Ha! Señores, what say you to it? Have

your eyes ever beheld a fairer vale? Did I not know better, I could

think myself in Andalusia—but, _Santa Madre_!—look beyond the river—at

those hills!"

 

"Tents, as I live!" ejaculated De Soto, "and by the ten thousand."

 

"By the soul of me!" growled Hernando Pizarro, the eldest of the

commander’s four brothers. "Methinks, Francisco, thy dreams of conquest

have overreached. Ho! good Father," he continued, turning with a grin to

Valverde, the square-jawed chaplain of the expedition, "I’ll presently

call upon thee for a shrift. Meanwhile, do thou pray a little."

 

"Aye!" muttered Candia, the Greek captain of artillery, "pray a little,

and have the other frocks at it with thee. We’ll need all your

supplications, and,"—to himself,—"the devil’s aid besides."

 

The priest did not reply even with a glance. The commander had ridden a

few paces in advance and was looking over the vast encampment below with

as little emotion in his thin, sallow face as if the Inca’s army were a

flock of goats.

 

When the leading files of the column first caught sight of the distant

encampment a shout arose and was quickly carried to the rear: "_El Inca!

El Inca! El ejercito del Inca!_" and pikes and halberds were brandished

with fierce enthusiasm. But as realization of the magnitude of the host

came over them the demonstration gave place to ominous silence, and they

gazed with something akin to consternation. Pizarro noticed the change,

and looked back over the ranks with a barely perceptible curl of his

lip. "Forward!" he said to the trumpeter, and moved down the trail.

 

The command wound its descent through the foothills, and at midday

halted again. Pennons were affixed to lances, plumes to helmets, and

the banners were uncovered and spread to the breeze. Here Cristoval

demanded his horse, and, when Pedro protested, declared with emphasis

that he was well, and if not well, then well enough; that in any event

he would not go into the presence of an enemy borne in a litter, like a

woman. So he mounted, though without his armor. The formation most

favorable for action in case of attack was now adopted. The infantry

and artillery were placed in the middle of the column with cavalry in

front and rear; and, with a small advance guard, the army debouched upon

the plain.

 

No hostility met the Spaniards. As on the coast, they came upon knots

of the natives gathered at the roadside, and these gazed upon the

glittering, bannered pageant as if stupefied. When the outskirts of the

town were, reached the afternoon was late, and rain, for some time

threatening, set in with dreary steadiness. To their surprise they

found here no sign of life. The last group of Indios had long been

passed, and as the troops plashed along the muddy highway through the

suburbs they were greeted only by silence and desertion. Cots and

villas were numerous, but all closed and tenantless. They marched

through a desolation emphasized by every mark of recent habitation. The

people had fled at their coming as from a pestilence.

 

At length they were in the town. Here, too, vacancy and silent

thoroughfares, awakened now to unwonted echoes by the ring of horses’

hoofs and the rumble of the guns on the pavements. They entered through

one of the poorer quarters, where the dwellings were of bricks of

sun-dried clay, heavily thatched with straw, all of a single story,

substantial, and severely plain. Toward the middle of the town they

passed larger buildings of heavy masonry, whose blank walls, unbroken by

window or decoration, wore a dull gloom and mystery which, indeed,

pervaded the very air. The gray streets, depressingly regular and paved

throughout, were unrelieved by a single tree or shrub or patch of sward.

Over all a sombreness profound; no sign either, of welcome or hostility;

only the apathy of abandonment everywhere.

 

The thoroughfare opened into a great plaza. Pizarro rode to the centre

to direct the deployment of the column: on the right, cavalry; in the

centre, artillery and foot; on the left, cavalry again; and in the rear,

the pack train. The line formed in silence—a spiritless, sullen line,

rain-soaked, mud-splashed, with drooping plumes and dripping banners;

and oppressed withal by yonder vast encampment and the sense of being in

the toils. The march was ended.

 

Patrols were detailed, scouring the town and its outskirts to make sure

the desertedness was not merely apparent. Pizarro assembled his

officers. He began with his customary terseness:—

 

"Señores, I purpose sending an embassy to the Inca at once. We must

know better than we can judge from the cold reception he hath seen fit

to accord to us how he regardeth our coming. We must know to-night.

To-morrow we will govern our actions accordingly. So do thou go, Soto,

and tell him we have come. Say that we have sailed across the seas from

a great prince,—God save him!—to offer service and impart to him and his

people the True Faith. Put it in a courtly way, but with no

servility—thou knowest how—and say that we pray he will honor us with a

visit to-morrow.

 

"Remember that to these people we are superior beings, almost more than

mortal. Carry thyself as a superior even to this emperor, and he’ll not

fail to credit thy assumption. Did he know our estate, do not doubt

that he would hotly resent our pretension. In a word, by every look,

gesture, and tone of thy voice strive to impress him. Display thy

horsemanship, if there be opportunity,—he hath never seen a horse,—and

hold thy chin well in the air. ’Tis important, Soto! Now go, and

_Dominus vobiscum_. Take Felipillo and a dozen lances,—more if thou

wilt."

 

The captain saluted, and, turning his horse, cantered to his troop to

select a following for the perilous mission. In a few minutes, with

fifteen chosen cavaliers, he was clattering down the street. Pizarro

looked after him, and said, turning to his brother:

 

"Hernando, take twenty more and go with him. He hath too few."

 

The second detachment followed at a gallop.

 

Pizarro briefly surveyed the place. The plaza was enclosed on three

sides by low stone buildings, thatched like the others, with great doors

opening upon the square. At the western end, toward the Inca’s

encampment, rose a redoubt or citadel, overlooking the country and

commanding the plaza, from which it was entered by a flight of steps.

Hither Pizarro rode, dismounted, and ascended to the _terre-plein_,

followed by his officers. Here he could view the Inca’s position with

the intermediate plain and its river. The road followed by De Soto led

over a causeway extending from the town to the bank of the stream, and

from time to time the watchers caught glimpses of the cavalcade, until

it was finally lost to sight.

 

It was twilight when the detachment returned, but the dusk could not

conceal its gloom. The result of the mission had not been cheering. De

Soto and Hernando Pizarro dismissed their detail, and hastened to the

commander to report the interview.

 

Cristoval was in his quarters in one of the large buildings on the