CHAPTER IV.

ACROSS THE RAMPARTS OF EL-DORADO

The next morning, while the dew yet lay on the grass and the higher slopes and peaks of the Eastern mountains were yet cut off from the lower by a shadowy sea of mist, every cavalier and man-at-arms had already breakfasted and was out in the square of Zaran, looking to his arms or making his charger ready for the momentous march that was to begin that day.

They had gathered up and hidden away the fragments of gold and silver which the simple-minded people had brought the night before as fodder for their strange beasts, and by this means every man of them left Zaran the richer by a good many pesos’ worth of the coveted metals than he was when he came into it.

They had learnt much during their brief stay in the little frontier town that had whetted still further their already keen appetites for the wealth and the wonders of El-Dorado, and trusty guides had been given them, and when all was ready for the departure the Curaca with his chief officials came out to bid the sons of Viracocha good-speed, and these, after greetings and presents of meat and drink had been bestowed upon the parting guests, went before them down the smoothly-paved street which led to the gate of the town and out through this on to the little grassy plain which stretched for half a league or so from the walls along the river bank.

Here they saw a strange sight, yet one which they and their children and their children’s children have had good cause to remember from that day to the day of their deaths, generation after generation, even until now. Once clear of the town Pizarro, riding, as was his wont, at the head of the troop, raised his right hand, and every man stopped and every horse was reined in. Then the deep voice of the Captain rolled out--

“Halt, my brothers and companions in the Faith! Ere we go farther let us give thanks to Him who hath brought us thus far through so many and great dangers, and let us pray for that aid and countenance without which our human strength will in vain carry us farther.”

Then every man who was afoot dropped on his knees where he stood, and every cavalier swung himself from the saddle and knelt down likewise by the left fore-foot of his horse with the bridle on his arm, and crossed his hands upon his breast, the Captain kneeling by his charger in front of them all. Then there came out from the midst of the kneeling throng Vincente de Valverde followed by one Brother Joachim, a stalwart Friar of the Order of St. Francis, bearing a tall cross of black wood on which hung the white effigy of his Master, and as Valverde took his stand in front of Pizarro, he raised this in his great arms high above his head, and then the priest lifted his voice and prayed, and while his prayer, in the melodious monkish Latin, rose sweetly upon the still morning air the Curaca and the head-men of the town, with all the throng that had followed them from the gate, first looked about them in wonder, and then, as though drawn by some strange, unknown influence, all their eyes were turned upon the figure of the White Christ upon the cross, and whispers ran from lip to lip as they said wondering to each other--

“Is this, then, the god of the sons of Viracocha? Was it not said that he should come back, even as these have come to us, clad in armour of silver and armed with the lightnings? Why, then, does he hang bleeding and naked as he does yonder?”

Now when Velverde had finished his prayer he saw them looking askant at each other and gazing ever and anon at the crucifix and heard their murmurs, and, though he could not understand what they said, he read their looks of wonder truly enough and knew how to draw an omen of happy augury from them. With a swift motion he flung wide apart the hands that had been crossed upon his breast and cried in a loud voice--

“See, soldiers of the Cross, how gracious a sign hath been vouchsafed to us, even here at the gates of the land we have come to conquer for God and His holy Church! Was it not said of old: ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me’? Behold how the eyes of the heathen are already fixed upon the holy emblem of our Faith! Truly a day shall come when by your valour and devotion the darkness shall be taken away from this land, when its false gods shall be cast down and men’s hearts shall know and their eyes shall see no other God than Him who liveth and reigneth world without end! _Laus Domine! Laus Domine!_ Praise Him, ye children of His and soldiers of His Cross, for in this sign shall ye conquer!”

Then with one accord every man, from the Captain to ribald old Carvahal himself, sprang from his knees to his feet, every sword leapt from its scabbard, and every pike and partisan was waved aloft, and as the hoarse, deep-toned shout, “_Laus Domine! Laus Domine!_” rolled forth from every warrior’s throat the first sun-burst of the morning streamed over the eastern mountains and flashed in a thousand rays on the gleaming blades and points of the weapons.

Then Pizarro, who of all men knew best how to turn a moment of enthusiasm to good account, sprang into the saddle, swung his blade above his head and, half turning towards his little army, cried--

“Ay, praise to the Lord, for in His strength we shall conquer, though of ourselves we be but few and weak. Mount and forward, gentlemen. Yonder dawns the morning of salvation for us which shall end the long night that we have passed through together. Forward, and God be with us!”

As he said this he turned his horse a little to the right and rode past where Valverde stood with the crucifix still raised above him by the strong arms of Brother Joachim. As he passed it he lowered the sword which ere long was to drink so deeply of innocent blood, and made the sign of the Cross with the hilt, and the priest blessed each man of the troop as he went by with bended head and crossing himself. When all had passed he and Brother Joachim mounted their mules and took their places in the rear, and so those whom they believed to be the sons of the god Viracocha passed from the wondering gaze of the first of the Children of the Sun who had beheld them, and went on their way to El-Dorado.

There is no room to tell here of all that befell them day by day on that first march of theirs, for this is not the story of their journeyings--of which you may learn better from the pens of those who made them--but rather of the things that they did when the end of the march had at length brought them to the scene of their triumphs and their crimes.

They passed through Caxas and Huamacucho, finding them as de Soto had said, and being entertained with the simple and yet bounteous hospitality of the kindly-hearted people who were soon to whisper their names to each other as words of more than mortal terror.

They were surrounded by sights as strange as Christian eyes had ever seen, though not yet by things as terrible as those which the soldiers of Cortes had seen a few years before far away in Mexico on the other side of the central line of the earth. Everywhere they beheld the signs of perfect peace and order, though but a few days’ marches to the eastward the earth had trembled not many weeks before beneath the tread of countless hosts rushing to the conflict out of which was to spring the doom of Atahuallpa and the Children of the Sun, and which Ullomaya the priest had spoken by the bedside of the great Huayna-Capac in far-off Quito.

Everywhere, too, throughout the valleys and towns they saw the wealth of field and mine and the triumphs won by patient labour spread about them with lavish hand. The fields were green and golden with bounteous crops. In the groves of fruit-trees the branches bent beneath the weight of their luscious harvest. Gold and silver seemed to be in as common use as brass and iron were in Spain, and the people, clad in their bright-coloured stuffs of many hues and decked with jewels such as only princes wore in Europe, seemed to be living lives as calm and cloudless as the endless summer which smiled down from the changeless skies above them.

Many another hand than old Carvahal’s closed ever and anon itchingly on sword-hilt or pike-handle at the sight of all this; and often passions less holy than the ardour of conquest, to say nothing of the service of the Church, stirred in many a grim warrior’s breast, for the daughters of this strange and childlike people were very fair and dainty to look upon with eyes which, like theirs, had starved so long for the sight of woman’s beauty.

But the orders of the Captain were very strict, and, what was more, he obeyed them himself, for the greatest honour that can be accounted to Francisco Pizarro is accorded to him by those who truthfully say that he never asked a follower of his to dare or do that which he would not do himself, or forego delights which he himself would not go without.

Only once on that long march did any man seek to break the bonds of this iron discipline, and this was done by one Pedro Navarro, a man-at-arms who, on the morning that the army left Huamacucho, was accused by one of the headmen of the town of having offered violence and insult to his daughter.

Pizarro instantly put off the march until the accusation was made good in due form. Then in the presence of the army and the townspeople he called the offender before him and said--

“Pedro Navarro, hast thou come hither to serve God and His Saints or to pander to thine own evil lusts? What need hadst thou to leave Panama if thy desire was to bear thyself as a lecher and a doer of base violence rather than as a soldier of the Cross? Till thou hast repented, thou art not worthy to bear the arms or wear the garb of a soldier of Spain.”

Then, looking round among the cavaliers, his eyes lighted on Carvahal, and some thought that the shadow of a grim smile was visible under his beard as he beckoned to him and said--

“Come hither, Carvahal. I know of no hands fitter than thine to punish one who hath demeaned himself as this man hath. Let two of his fellows strip him of his arms and clothes, ay, even to his shoes, and do thou tie him to thy stirrup till thy mercy shall see fit to let him loose, and should he give signs of lagging on the march doubtless thou wilt find means at hand to bring him back to good marching order.”

To this Carvahal consented readily enough, for sinners punish sinners with as much gusto as thieves chase thieves, and all that day he dragged the naked, limping wretch by his side, stumbling over the steep stony road with swollen and bleeding feet, his bare back blistered by the scorching sun and his tongue, unslaked by a single drop of water, hanging out black and baked between his parted teeth, and when he was like to faint he roused him with his spurred heel to hear a homily on St. Anthony or a sermon that it would have done the Devil good to listen to.

It was a sore punishment enough, and Pedro Navarro was more dead than alive when the evening halt was called. And yet, not long after, this same man threw himself in the way of a spear that was aimed at his Captain’s throat, so well did Francisco Pizarro know how to lead men like dogs and yet, like dogs, make them love him the better for his chastening of them.

Huamacucho was passed on the fourth day from Zaran, and on the night that the penance of Pedro Navarro was ended the sun set, as it seemed to these voyagers in a strange land, over the confines of two worlds. All day the narrow path, winding round hillspurs and threading mountain-sides midway between Heaven and the depth of unmeasured valleys and gorges, had led upward and ever upward.

At some of the turnings they had looked back and seen valley after valley, divided by their parting ridges, sloping and falling away down into illimitable distances until their eyes lost themselves in a dim, far-off haze beyond which, as they well knew, lay the desert coast and the blue Sea of the South. At others, looking upward, they saw ridge after ridge and range after range, each one barer and bleaker than the one below it, towering ever up and up like the steps of some titanic stairway which seemed to reach from earth to Heaven, and ever and anon from some ’vantage point of better view they saw far, beyond and above the highest of these, twinkling points of gleaming white, whiter than the cloud-sprays drifting in the mid-most heaven, so high and far away that it seemed as though they had as little kinship with the earth as the clouds themselves.

There was not a faint heart in all the company, for none such would have come thus far; but, as day after day they mounted higher and higher, and as hour after hour the awful solitude of those lonely wildernesses encompassed them more and more closely about, there was not a heart among them that did not feel the weight of the Unknown pressing in upon him.

“By the faith of a soldier and a Christian,” said Carvahal as he rounded one of the hillspurs on the forenoon of the seventh day, riding beside Alonso de Molina, “methinks much more of this would pass human endurance. Look at yonder line of snow and ice sharp-edged against the sky! Hast thou ever seen the purity of such whiteness as that on earth? Doth it not seem as though this ever upward mountain road would take us rather to the gates of Heaven than to those of El-Dorado? Santiago! it would need but little faith to see the gleam of the Gates of Pearl amidst yon peaks of snow and ice--may my good St. Francis pardon me for naming things earthly and heavenly in one breath!”

The young cavalier looked at him with a grave face, but with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, and said--

“In good truth, Carvahal, this is a land of strange and mighty marvels that we are coming into, and the best proof of that is that I have never heard thee speak with such reverence of anything in any other land. Even now I feel as though I were hanging ’twixt Heaven and earth, and yet Filipillo had it from the guides this morning that, ere we descend into the valley in which Cajamarca lies, we must even pass between those same shining peaks and pyramids, and, from all they tell, nothing that we have yet seen or done will compare with the labour or the soreness of it.”

“The holy Saints forfend!” said Carvahal, making a show of crossing himself, “for even El-Dorado might be too dearly won or even Heaven itself--may the Saints again forgive me--what blasphemy am I talking! Surely the strange air of this heathen land hath set my old wits a-wandering. Yet well might such a journey daunt the firmest mind.”

He was right; for they, first of all Europeans, were beginning to experience that strange disorder of mind and body which is only known to those who have travelled long at great elevations, and as they went ever higher and higher their sufferings increased even as their wonder and their fear did. Men who would have charged a host single-handed at the call of faith or duty reined up their trembling steeds on the brink of frightful precipices with hands that shook as though they had never held lance or sword, and their eyes gazed blankly down into the awful voids and their hearts fluttered in their labouring breasts like the hearts of little children left alone in the darkness.

Then, at length, they passed through the region of burning sun and piercing wind which lay above the soft summer of the valleys into the eternal winter that reigns unbroken through the centuries on its everlasting thrones of ice and snow.

There indeed they thought themselves wanderers beyond the limits that God had set to human life. Before and behind and around them towered the vast white shapes that seemed like the guardians of the portals of some other world into which no human foot had ever ventured. The icy blasts smote them with the keenness of sword-edges, and they and their labouring, shivering beasts gasped agonisingly for breath in the thin, frozen air.

At night cavalier and charger, man and brute, huddled together for warmth, for those awful wastes held neither tree nor shrub to furnish fuel for a fire. Their commonest duties seemed to them like the labour of slaves, and once a man-at-arms who sought to warm himself by running down a hill-slope fell prone ere he had gone fifty paces, with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth and ears, and his eyes starting out of his head. When they went to take him up he was already dead and the blood that had come from him frozen hard.

Still through all they pressed on, for their Captain, ever the last to rest and the first to move, had but one word on his lips, and that was “onward,” and there was not a man among them who would have dared the shame of retreat or the bitterness of the reproach with which Pizarro would have bade him go back.

And so, as old Carvahal and the great Pedro de Candia had often used the little breath they had to spare in saying, since there is no staircase, however high, but must have a top step, they came at length to a curved ridge of grey-brown grass that sloped between two ice-crowned pinnacles of rock, and here, standing, as it seemed, upon the very roof-tree of the world, they saw before and behind them only downward slopes.

Here Pizarro called a halt that was right welcome to every man and beast in the troop, and, calling Filipillo and the guides to him, he held a short conference with them. And when this was over he faced his pinched and starving, shivering followers, who had gathered in little huddled groups about him, and said in a voice that sounded strangely unlike his own in the thin, dry, cold air--

“Comrades, by the grace of God and with the help of His Holy Mother and the blessed Saints, we have won our way through the terrors of this wilderness to the threshold of the new land which shall be ours. The labours of the upward way are over. Henceforth our steps trend downwards from these fearsome solitudes, forsaken of man, if not of God since His arm has protected us even here, once more into the haunts of men and the home of warmth and sunshine. Did yonder snow-cloud break ye would see through it your first glimpse of the Land of Promise!”

As he said this he pointed with his right hand downward towards a tumbling sea of frozen mist which rolled in ghostly, silent billows along the mountain-side, and even as he spoke a storm-gust swept down from the upper ridges and rent asunder the heavy snow-laden clouds above them. Through this the sun, already beginning to sink towards the west, shone with a sudden stream of warmth and radiance. The mists at their feet parted, and through the changing rifts their longing eyes caught distant glimpses of tree-clad slopes and level, verdant plains cut by shining streams far, far away below them, and in the midst, for one brief instant, they saw a city so far away that it looked like a home of pigmies, yet with a gleam as of gold on its domes and roofs.

“Cajamarca! Cajamarca! Yonder is the Inca’s city!” piped Filipillo in his thin, shrill voice, starting forward and pointing down towards it.

“El-Dorado! El-Dorado!” shouted Carvahal in a hoarse, cracked voice, scrambling back into his saddle. “Santiago! we have won our way through this frozen hell. Now let us get down to Paradise, since in this heathen country God’s order is changed and Hell stands above Heaven.”

“El-Dorado! El-Dorado!” ran like an echo from lip to lip--and, as the whole troop moved forward and downward, the rifts in the snow-mist closed again and shut out the vision from their eyes.