CHAPTER VIII.

THE COMING OF ATAHUALLPA

It may well be believed that there was but little sleep for the Spanish army in Cajamarca that night, for the tidings which de Soto and his embassy had brought back, and which it is easy to see would lose nothing in the telling, were sufficiently heavy and full of grave import to convince the lightest-minded of the adventurers that the task of the morning would be no child’s play even if it succeeded, and that if it failed, as it almost certainly must have done had the Inca taken the wise advice of Challcuchima, it would infallibly involve the ruin of every man’s hopes, and most likely the loss of his life to boot.

It were idle to say that no man thought of sleep, since old Carvahal said with truth that he never closed his eyes for a wink without opening them in fear of seeing the Peruvian legions swarming round the town. There were, indeed, some who talked almost openly of a retreat to the hills while there was yet time to escape from the city which to them seemed no better than a death-trap, and among these was Alonzo Riquelme, the king’s treasurer himself, who, strangely enough, was that same “fat man” from whom, together with the one-eyed Almagro, who had not yet come upon the scene, Atahuallpa was hereafter to pray to Pizarro for deliverance.

News of this possible defection was speedily carried to the Captain, and no sooner did he hear of it, having already made the arrangements which, according to his resolve, nothing less than a convulsion of Nature should alter, he sent for all the chief men of the little force, together with the officials of the Church and the empire, who were with him to attend to other interests than those of the mere adventurer, and when these had gathered in the banqueting-hall he stood up in his place and said to them with that grave, simple eloquence which such men as he are accustomed to use at such moments when life or death, fortune or failure, honour or infamy, all hang trembling in the balance of a brief decision--

“Gentlemen and soldiers of Spain, champions of the holy Faith and comrades who have followed me thus far through storm and calm, hunger and plenty, cold and heat, I have called you here to speak to you with such plainness as the occasion demands. To my sorrow I have heard that there are some in the army who have talked of going back.”

As he said this he fixed his eyes on Riquelme, whose official assurance quailed visibly under his cold, steady gaze. Then, after a little pause, he went on--

“Let me deal with them first. They are, few as we all are, but a few among many. You all know with what difficulty we came here, even with the friendship and assistance of the servants of Atahuallpa, false though that may have been. How much harder would it be for us all to go back even if we went united? But for a few it would be impossible, for they would not only have the hosts of the Inca to fight their way through over those long and weary leagues that we have traversed, but--in the name of God and Santiago, in the cause of his Most Catholic Majesty and our own high enterprise--I swear on the faith of a true man that one Christian sword at least, held by one Christian hand, will bar their way should they seek to tread the path of the recreant and the coward--so help me God and His holy Saints, I swear it!”

As he said this he brought his mailed glove down with a crash upon the table, and then in the silence that followed he looked from face to face awaiting an answer.

“And by all the host of Heaven thy sword shall not be the only one, Señor Capitan!” cried Carvahal. “My blade, however unworthy, shall go with thine on such a mission.”

“And mine! and mine! and mine!” went the cry down each side of the long tables as one by one the captains of the troops sprang to their feet, hand on hilt.

“As I expected, comrades,” said Pizarro quietly. “That is enough. Now let us go to business. There are none of us here who are not aware of the bold stratagem with which the most admirable Captain Cortez made himself master of the person of Montezuma of Mexico, and, through him, of his whole empire; but there is this difference between our situations. Cortez was lodged in a palace in Tenochtitlan, which was to Mexico as Cuzco is to Peru. He had with him some four hundred Spanish swords and some five thousand allies of Tlasclalan. We are here but a hundred and sixty fighting men all told. We have no allies, and this deserted city into which we have been invited savours to me far rather of the trap than the guest-chamber, wherefore it follows that we must act with the greater boldness and the more instant decision. My plans are already known to you all. I have no more to say save to bid every man who carries the fear of God and the honour of Spain in his heart to do the best that in him lies to carry this our holy enterprise to a good and happy end.”

“And the blessing of God and the benediction of His holy Church--absolution in this world and beatitude in the next--be on all who worthily fulfil that most worthy behest!” rolled in solemn tones through the vast chamber as the lean, ascetic form of Vincente de Valverde raised itself erect at the other end of the table. His hand went up with three fingers pointing to the roof. Every head was bowed in silence as he spoke. “And the curse of God and the ban of holy Church on each and all whose heart shall faint or whose hand shall fail when the time comes to strike for the glory of God and the honour of Spain. Amen!”

“Amen! Amen!” came from every bowed head at once, and so the wound, which with other treatment might speedily have proved fatal, was healed, and Pizarro, seeing that the danger was past, stood up in his place again and said--

“That is well, comrades. We have had talk enough. Let us now to prayer and watchfulness that we may be the better ready for the work that lies before us.”

With that he took up his sword, which he had laid on the table in front of him, and strode out of the hall, followed by the rest of the Council of War.

The next morning, which was the morning of the 16th of November, 1532, the sun rose up in a cloudless sky to look down upon the pleasant vale of Cajamarca, and to behold as base and bloody a deed as all the red-written history of Spain can tell of.

The houses which had been allotted to Pizarro and his troops consisted of a range of low buildings along the eastern side of the great square. Their interior was composed of spacious chambers opening by wide and lofty doorways on to the square, and within these all the troops, horse and foot, were disposed. The footmen, armed from head to foot, with sword and halbert ready to hand; the horsemen, standing by their ready-saddled steeds; and the arquebusiers with weapons loaded and matches alight. The two falconets which composed the artillery of the force, were loaded and trained, placed out of sight, one in the little fort above the town and the other in one of the houses, and yet so that their discharge would sweep the square in a diagonal direction.

Very early in the morning a man-at-arms and a trumpeter had scaled the walls of the little fort overlooking the town, and stationed themselves there to give timely warning of the Inca’s approach. The last act of the night, or, as it might better be said, the first of the morning, was the solemn celebration of the Mass, and with his own hands the Fray Valverde carried the Host from troop to troop, giving absolution for all that might be done to each man as he partook of it, and when this was over he raised the solemn chant: “_Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam Tuam!_” in which all most fervently joined, as though, as the historian puts it, “they had been a company of martyrs about to lay down their lives in defence of their faith instead of a licentious band of adventurers meditating one of the most atrocious acts of perfidy on the record of history.”

Yet, though all was ready soon after sunrise, it was nearly noon before the sentinel on the fort announced the approach of the Peruvian army along the causeway. As it advanced legion after legion deployed in orderly array over the fields on either side, covering them, as the Spanish chronicler says, as far as the eye could reach. Within the city all was anxiety and expectation, though, in obedience to the last injunctions of the Captain, no sound was made, nor did any soldier show himself outside of the guard of honour that Pizarro had appointed to receive the Inca.

Then suddenly the sentinel gave the news that the army and the escort had halted a little distance outside the city walls, and presently there came runners from Atahuallpa to inform Pizarro that it was his intention to camp in the open that night and enter the city at daybreak the following morning.

Pizarro saw in an instant that such a delay meant ruin. He knew that his soldiers were already overstrung with suspense, and that another night must prove intolerable to them, knowing that they were closely surrounded by the innumerable hosts of the Inca, even if under cover of the night the armed legions did not close in upon them and overwhelm them with a resistless flood of numbers. In this moment’s thought he had penetrated the true design of Atahuallpa. Challcuchima had renewed his entreaties in the morning, and had so far prevailed upon his master to cause the halt, which even at that last hour might have saved the Land of the Four Regions from the grasp of the invader.

Pizarro instantly called his brother Hernando to him, and sent him with de Soto and Molina to bid the Inca welcome in his name, and entreat him to come forthwith into the city, as he had prepared an entertainment for him, and had many weighty matters to discuss with him which would ill brook delay.

“Tell him that I hope to sup with him to-night,” he said as Hernando mounted his horse.

And so, as will be seen, it came to pass.

It has been well said that whom the gods would undo they first make mad, and so it must have been with the Last of the Incas, for a writer of romance would be laughed at as an outrager of all the possibilities were he to relate what followed as his own story. Yet it is but sober fact that Atahuallpa, impelled by what impulse none may know, listened with open ears to the persuasions of the treacherous embassy, and not only left the protecting shelter of his army, but set out for the city attended by an unarmed escort.

Hernando and his companions rode swiftly back to tell of their good fortune.

“It is not the least of thy services to our master that thou hast done to-day, Hernando,” said Pizarro as his brother told him of the result of his embassy, “for now truly hath the Lord delivered the heathen into our hand.”

It was nearly an hour later that their expectant eyes caught sight of the head of the Inca’s cavalcade advancing up the broad street into the square. First came a body of some two or three hundred slaves carrying brooms of feathers, with which they removed every particle of dust and dirt from the path. These were followed by a band of gaily-dressed girls, crowned with garlands and carrying baskets of flowers, which they strewed in the way, chanting songs of strange and yet sweet harmony, which the pious chronicler tells us sounded “like songs of hell” in the ears of the faithful.

Then came the advance guard, brilliant in gorgeous liveries and plumed head-dresses, and after these rank upon rank of nobles with plumed casques of burnished silver on their heads and their bodies covered with armour of golden scales from shoulder to thigh. Then a body of priests, bare-headed and robed in flowing garments of snowy whiteness. Then followed a brilliant and orderly throng of nobles and warriors blazing with gold and silver and bright-hued uniforms shining with gems, and, borne aloft in the midst of these was the open litter, gorgeous with bright and many-tinted feather work, in which Atahuallpa sat in his golden chair, blazing with gold and gems, and motionless as a statue hewn out of pale bronze.

Not a Spaniard was to be seen as the splendid pageant reached the entrance to the square. Those who came in front separated into two long lines, and between them the Inca’s bearers advanced into the great open space. As they reached the middle of it the Spanish trumpets rang out, and the guard of honour sallied forth in all the bravery of polished steel and gay caparisons to meet it.

The first salutations were exchanged with a gravity befitting the occasion, and, these being over, Vincente de Valverde, Bible in hand, and attended by Brother Joachim bearing the great crucifix on his right hand, and the interpreter Filipillo, carrying the recollection of the fair face and bright eyes of the Princess Pillcu-Cica in his heart, on his left, advanced with slow steps towards the side of the Inca’s litter.

Atahuallpa now for the first time turned his head and stared in cold surprise at this strange apparition, and Valverde, giving him little time for wonder, plunged forthwith into an exhortation long enough to have wearied out anything more sensitive than the stony indifference of the Inca. In fervent heedlessness of the fact that every word had to pass through the mind and the lips of Filipillo before it could be understood, he expounded the whole Christian faith from the Fall of Man to the mystery of Pentecost, and from thence he deduced the descent of the Pope as the successor of the Apostles, and, passing from this to the Divine right of kings under the sanction of the Vicar of Christ, he proved to the satisfaction of any good Catholic that His Majesty of Spain was the true lord and rightful owner of all the lands of the West, including Atahuallpa’s empire, since he who sat in the chair of St. Peter had given them to him. Finally, seeing at length some signs of impatience on the frowning countenance of the Inca, he held up the Bible, proclaiming it as the Word of the Most High which he and those with him were commissioned to preach in every land under the sun.

When he had at length come to an end Atahuallpa turned his eyes on to Filipillo and said--

“Speak, slave, and if thou understandest the speech of this strange creature tell me what he says that I may answer.”

Filipillo bowed himself almost to the earth, and then, standing erect again, replied--

“Son of the Sun and Lord of the Four Regions--the man who has spoken is a priest of the Strangers and the servant of a strange God whose name hath never been honoured by coming to thine ears. This God is one and three, so far as my poor senses can understand, and that makes four. Further, this God has given the whole earth to a man who reigns in a place called Rome, and he, so the priest here says, has given them that part of the earth which is illuminated by thy presence and blest by thy rule. How this may be I know not, but he says that the black thing which he holds in his hand there is the Word of his God with which He speaks His will to men.”

“Bid him give me the thing and let me hear it!” said Atahuallpa curtly.

“The Inca would fain take the holy book into his hands, Father. Doubtless the touch of it will soften his heart and open his ears,” said Filipillo in Spanish to Valverde.

The priest gladly held it out with both hands towards the litter. The Inca took it and held it to his ear for a moment or two. Then his black, heavy brows came together in an angry frown over his gleaming eyes. With a contemptuous gesture he flung the book to the ground and said to Filipillo--

“Tell the false priest that he is a liar. The thing is dumb. My land is mine, and none can give it away. If the strangers have come only to tell me such children’s tales as that let them go back whence they came while my mercy leaves them alive. I want no god but the god of my fathers, and he is yonder!”

As he said this the Inca turned his face towards the sun, now, as though for a fatal omen, as the chroniclers put it, sinking on its downward path towards the western mountains, and bowed his head, moving his lips as though in unspoken prayer.