The Crimson Conquest 56

The Crimson Conquest 56

But gloom, almost despair, was with the victors. Toward night, as the

city grew quiet, Hernando summoned his officers in council in the

square. They gathered about him, wounded, exhausted, and filthy with

carnage, scowling sullenly beneath their lifted visors, morose and

taciturn. The little said was scarcely heeded, their sombre glances

turning to the grim walls of the Sachsahuaman, or to the hills around

the city, now dark with the legions of the Inca. Hernando heard the

reports of the wounded and dead, made no comment, and the council grew

dumb. The storm had broken with such fury, with unexpectedness so

entire, and its apparent magnitude was so great, that hearts before

unknown to fear were filled with dread. The minds of the counsellors

were stunned. The few words ventured by one or another were flat in

their inadequacy, and were answered by silence. Hernando at last forced

some phrases of encouragement, issued instructions for the disposition

of what force there was, and the council gradually dissolved without

words of dismissal.

 

Cuzco was invested. To oppose the thousands Hernando had only his

infantry, a battery short of ammunition, with a thousand or more Cañares

whom nothing could induce to go into action that day, and whose fidelity

in the emergency was doubtful. Of the infantry, only the arquebusiers

had signal superiority over the foe, and these were few, their powder

limited. What fate had befallen Juan Pizarro and his troopers he feared

to guess. Whether they should be able to make their way back to the city

was a conjecture which gave little cheer.

 

As evening came on patrols were kept moving through the deserted

streets, saluted with an occasional flight of arrows when they

approached the suburbs, but there seemed no disposition on the part of

the Peruvians to renew encounter. Night fell as calmly over the

brooding mountains as if it were not curtaining the prelude of a weary

length of tragedy whose last act would mean the destruction of a

civilization.

 

For one heart within the besieged city, crushed and broken by sorrows

that had searched and torn its every fibre, the rise of the sun upon the

outburst of clamor of conflict saw the last flickering of the desire to

live. Shocked and terrified by the tumult outside, the yells of fighting

men, the roar of charging horse, and the thunder of guns—dread sounds

which told her of agony and death for her beloved people—she closed her

ears and prayed to die. Life was too full of horrors. Hers had been

shadowed by a pall, lifted once by love, only to fall again with

deepened blackness. Behind closed doors, with darkened windows,

surrounded by cowering and weeping maids, she knelt through the long

hours of anguish, offering up shuddering appeals to be taken away.

 

The Auqui Paullo came, flushed with excitement and fierce cheerfulness.

He knew the dire significance of the turmoil, and bade Rava partake his

own hope. The army of the Inca was afield, and deliverance at hand.

Alas! no deliverance to Rava from her bondage of grief. She waved him

away and wept afresh.

 

Late in the day came Father Valverde from his ministrations to dying

Spaniards, and she knelt at his feet, imploring his prayers for her

relief. The good priest, shocked at her longing for death, hastened to

banish this vestige of her barbarism; prayed beside her for the renewing

of her resignation; told her again of His agony and gentle patience, of

the Mother bereaved, and gave her support. Once more he spoke of the

saintly lives of nuns, and she listened with yearning for their holy

peacefulness. He left her at last with new hope and a resolution fast

growing. Rava would take the veil.

 

The night which closed the first day’s struggle was without alarm. The

Spaniards slept beside their arms, the troopers in armor and at the

picket line of their saddled steeds. Guards were doubled, and patrols

kept the streets. The stars came out, but they seemed rivalled in

multitude and brilliancy by the fires of the besieging army, sparkling

in a vast circle on the surrounding hills, and beheld with awe by the

beleaguered conquistadors.

 

To one Spaniard, however,—to Cristoval,—viewing them from the ramparts

of the Sachsahuaman, they gave hope and promise. Beside Mocho, and

followed by Pedro as closely as his wooden member would permit, he had

taken part in the storming of the fortress. Later, they watched the

struggle in the streets below, and Mocho pointed out the Amarucancha,

beneath whose roof was Rava. With strained nerves and fevered blood the

cavalier had seen the conflict raging at the very doors of the palace,

hardly to be withheld from descending to join in the battle, and

deterred only by the manifest impossibility of reaching its front

through the masses in the streets. Sick at heart he had witnessed the

repulse, but with new resolution and a solemn, whispered oath. All day

he had lingered on the parapet studying the city spread out like a map

below him, and at nightfall the sight of the great girdle of campfires

brought fresh courage. With such a host the Inca must triumph.

 

The next morning news came that Manco had engaged the Spanish cavalry

near Yucay. Later, that the Spaniards were in full retreat toward

Cuzco, and an order was received from the Inca permitting them to enter

the city. On the following day they appeared on the Chinchasuyu road,

uncovered for their passage. The highway passed at the foot of a spur

of the hill Sachsahuaman, and from the height Cristoval and Pedro

watched the entry of the cavalcade. Had it not been for a dozen empty

saddles and the litters borne by Cañares in the rear, the return might

have been from a victory. Pennons fluttered, plumes tossed jauntily on

helmets, and as they passed the lines a trumpeter blew a quickstep.

 

Shortly after the column had entered the city a _chasqui_ arrived at the

fortress announcing the approach of the Inca, and Mocho paraded his

Antis to receive him. Messengers were sent to the several generals of

the divisions surrounding the city, and the afternoon was spent in

council with the monarch in the citadel.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

 

_*The Doomed City*_

 

 

About two hours after darkness had fallen Pedro appeared at Cristoval’s

door and beckoned him out. The cook’s face was grave.

 

"What is it, _amigo_?" asked Cristoval, as they stepped upon the terrace

surrounding the tower.

 

"I know not, nor can I learn; but something is afoot. Come!" He led

toward the rampart nearest the city.

 

The plain within the fortress was now covered with tents, but as they

traversed the encampment its streets were deserted. From the midst rose

the pile of the citadel, Moyoc Marca, dimly outlined in the starlight,

and showing a single lighted window below the battlements. At the edge

of the camp they passed the embers at the kitchens, and beyond these

were a few silent groups of camp attendants looking toward the south,

where presently Cristoval descried the motionless masses of the garrison

drawn up under arms and facing the ramparts. The cavalier looked about

in surprise.

 

"What is the meaning of it, Pedro?" he demanded.

 

Pedro shook his head and stumped on without reply. Passing between two

of the battalions, they reached the margin of the plain, and skirting

it, drew near the battlements. Three fires were burning brightly, and

the two Spaniards caught the pungent, resinous odor of boiling pitch

rising from kettles suspended over the flames. Between these and the

parapet was a group of officers, and a few paces in their front stood a

cloaked figure, motionless and alone. The firelight flashed on the

golden eagle of the helmet, and Cristoval recognized the Inca. Halting

at a short distance from the fires, the cavalier looked over the scene

in mystification. Again he demanded:—

 

"What is to do, Pedro? Canst guess? They are heating pitch! _Madre_!

Is there to be torture?"

 

"God knoweth!" said Pedro. "Wait!"

 

With the exception of a small party of soldiers around the kettles, no

man was moving. No word was spoken, unless by these, and their tense,

suppressed tones added to the pervading air of mystery. Two were

feeding the fires, while the rest were kneeling or bending over some

task whose nature Cristoval could not discern. Presently he saw three

or four rise to string their bows. Aside from their whispers and

muttering and the crackling of the fires, the only sound was the sighing

of the rising wind; and now, from the shadowy city far below, the sweet,

distant wail of a Spanish bugle blowing an evening call. Out in the

dark valley, beyond the dim reticulation of black streets and pale

roofs, was the great cincture of watch-fires, glimmering and twinkling

as cheerfully as if their omen were as peaceful as the stars. But the

night, even in its placidity, seemed portentous, and Cristoval felt a

sense of dread as he glanced from the kettles with their wizard-like

attendants to the silent, muffled figure of the Inca.

 

"God’s mercy, Pedro!" he whispered, with a sign of the cross, "what is

doing? What hell’s broth do they brew? Not—"

 

Pedro gripped his arm as a soldier stepped to a kettle, holding an arrow

swathed in cotton, and turned toward the Inca. The monarch made a sign,

and thrusting the missile into the boiling pitch, the archer drew it

forth and held it to the flames. It burst into instant blaze, and he

strode hastily to the parapet, set it to his bowstring, and drew until

the flame licked his hand. He shot, and with a fluttering hiss the

burning arrow soared high into the darkness, leaving a trail of falling

sparks, paused for an instant against the firmament, and fell with

ever-increasing swiftness into the city.

 

Cristoval had uttered an exclamation of horror as the meaning burst upon

him, and had taken a stride forward, to be jerked forcibly back by Pedro

with a hand over his mouth.

 

"Silence!" muttered the cook. "Dost think to hinder?"

 

"They are firing the city!" gasped the cavalier.

 

"Canst prevent it? Beware!"

 

"Rava—"

 

"Safe with Valverde! Come!" Pedro dragged him out of ear-shot of the

Inca, warning him to hold his tongue. A second arrow sped its flaming

course, then a third; and at once, from a hundred points around the

doomed capital, mounted thin pencillings of fire answering those from

the fortress and falling like a shower of meteors. Arrow after arrow

flashed out from the parapet into the surrounding gloom, and Cristoval

gazed spellbound. Below, where the first had descended, was a tiny,

wavering flame. While he watched, speechless, breathless, it grew with

every second, its base spreading rapidly with ragged outline over the

tinder-like thatch of one of the nearer buildings. Beyond, another

feeble blaze was springing, and not far from this, a third. The first

was now leaping, sending up a tenuous column of smoke which grew ruddy

momentarily, and was seized by the wind and swept away toward the

eastern hills. The flame waxed with incredible swiftness, lost its

brilliance, turned deep and angry, with a lurid veil around it, through

which darted red tongues, whipping plumes, and forked lashes. In a

moment the smoke was rolling upward in volumes, showing whirling gaps

with depths of murky incandescence, masses of black rising heavily after

eddying sprays of sparks and burning fragments of straw. Where the

first arrow had fallen was a volcano of fire with smaller craters bursting out on every hand.