CHAPTER IV.
HOW MAMA-ZULA DARED THE ORDEAL
The two sentries, knowing the peculiar position in which Filipillo stood, as it were, between the Inca and his captors, contented themselves with laughing at his escape, and they were the more content because they had no mind to call out the guards and engage in a matter of explanations which might have kept them a good hour or so beyond the time of their stated duty.
It was a dark, cloudy night, and Filipillo’s swiftly-moving form had traversed the plaza and he had reached the entrance to Pizarro’s quarters before any of the soldiers lounging about the square had noticed him. The crossed halberds again barred his way. He stopped breathless and panting in front of the sentry-guarded door.
“How now, lad, how now? Whither in such haste?” growled one of them, who was the same Michael Asterre who had plucked the borla from Atahuallpa’s brow. “Is the Foul Fiend behind thee, or dost thou expect some fair Inca princess waiting for thee inside?”
“Let me to his Highness the Captain at once, I pray you,” he gasped. “It is a matter of life or death!” he went on, using the same words that he had used to the sentries on the other side of the square only a few yards away, and yet measuring, as it proved, the interval between the fall of one empire and the establishment of another. “Let me in, or else go one of you and tell his Highness that I must speak with him at once. Quick, quick, if you are true servants of your master!”
Michael Asterre gripped him by the shoulder and turned him round so that the light from a torch burning in a copper socket in the doorway fell upon his face. He stared at him for a moment or so and then said to his fellow-sentry--
“There is earnest in the lad’s face, Andreaz, whether it be honest earnest or no, and so I will risk a breach of duty and take him to the Captain. Do thou call up one of those idlers about the square and let him mount guard with thee till I come back. Now come along, boy. The Captain has already gone to rest and for the sake of thy worthless skin I hope thy tidings will merit the trouble of awakening him. Come on!”
With that, still gripping Filipillo by the arm, he led him into the house and to the door of Pizarro’s sleeping-chamber, which was also guarded by a sentry. A woollen curtain hung across the doorway, and through it could be seen the faint glow of a light burning in the room. The sentry brought his halberd to the charge and said--
“What would you? By strict orders no one passes here to-night.”
“Orders or no orders,” said Asterre, “I have made bold to bring this lad here. He came running across the plaza from the house where the Inca is lodged, out of breath and babbling about matters of life or death, and seeing that he is his Highness’s own interpreter, I make bold to bring him to him.”
Before the sentry at the door could reply they heard a quick, heavy tread on the floor of the room inside, the curtain was pulled away and Pizarro himself stood in the opening.
“What is this I hear about life and death?” he said shortly. “Thou, Asterre, hast left thy post, and thou, Filipillo--from the Inca’s house! what does this mean? Come in, boy, and thou, Asterre, back to thy post. We shall see whether his tidings are grave enough to excuse thee from thy breach of duty.”
Asterre, who had not forgotten the Captain’s words when, a few days before, he had torn the borla from the Inca’s brow, saluted and fell back somewhat abashed. Pizarro caught Filipillo by the arm and pulled him into the room, letting the curtain fall behind him. The interpreter looked in a half-dazed way about him, coming thus suddenly from the darkness into the light. He soon saw that the Captain, instead of having retired to rest, was holding a council, for, standing and seated about the room, were the chiefs of the adventurers, Pedro de Candia, Riquelme, the king’s Assessor, Alonso de Molina, Carvahal, now sober and sententious, Hernando Pizarro, Juan, the youngest scion of that famous family, Hernando de Soto, Pedro de Mendoza, and the priest Vincente de Valverde.
“Now, lad, what is this that thou wouldst tell us about at such an untimely hour of the night?” said Pizarro in a low tone, bringing Filipillo into the middle of the room.
The boy seized his hand and dropped on one knee before him, and said--
“It is treachery, master----”
“Hush!” whispered Pizarro, who, as has been said before, was a man who never knowingly gave away chances in the desperate game that he was playing against Destiny. He loosed himself from the boy’s grasp and went to the door again.
“Ciezo,” he said to the sentry, “go and join the guard at the outer door, and send round word for every man to awake and hold himself in readiness instantly, in case he’s wanted.”
The sentry saluted and tramped away, and Pizarro, coming back into the room, said--
“Señor de Candia, and you, de Molina, do me the kindness of crossing your swords over the doorway, and see to it that no one comes within earshot of the room. It may be that this is a serious matter. Now, boy, stand up and speak shortly and to the point, for we have no time to waste.”
Filipillo rose from his knee, and facing the Captain with an air of unwonted assurance which no doubt he thought justified by the gravity of the tidings he brought, said--
“Master, I have sought to serve you well so far, and I know that you are strong to protect your servants as well as generous to reward them. I have just come from the House of the Serpent, from which I escaped at the peril of my life. A strange woman, an ancient witch, one of the heathen priestesses from the great temple of Pachacamac down by the sea-shore, has this night come to Cajamarca, and is even now in audience with the Inca. She is deeply skilled in poisons, and between them they have made a plot to set Atahuallpa free by poisoning the meat and drink of my Lord and all his brave followers.
“Knowing that, in a certain measure, I have gained the confidence of your Lordship, the Inca sought to win me over by promises of gold and rank--nay, he even promised to give me one of the princesses of the Blood for my wife if I would secretly put this poison which the Palla, Mama-Zula, would give me into the cooking-pots and drinking-vessels of my Lord and his followers, and when I refused Atahuallpa would have strangled me with his own hands, but I escaped and fled hither with all speed to tell my Lord of his danger.”
“Humph!” said Pizarro, stroking his beard and looking steadily into Filipillo’s eyes. “That is a story which at another time and in another place I should much misdoubt, but here it will be none the worse for the proof. Caballeros,” he went on, turning to the others, “this is a matter which, true or false, brooks but little delay. Buckle on your swords and come with me. We will sift this to the bottom at once. What say you, Hernando?”
“As you say,” replied his brother. “Let us front the accuser with the accused.”
“There is no faith to be found in the heathen,” said Valverde the next moment. “It was but to be expected that, being conquered by arms, the Inca should seek to regain what he had lost by foul treachery and murder.”
“Powers of light and darkness!” growled Carvahal. “Treachery and murder! That was well put. May I have such an advocate as the holy father when my own good and bad deeds come to be assessed! Cuerpo de Cristo! I thought I was somewhat of a liar myself, but until the holy father and that heathen lad shall have settled which of the two is the greater, I will henceforth call myself a speaker of the truth. Well, let us go.”
“There are lies and lies, friend Carvahal,” whispered Riquelme, who was standing close beside him and heard the soliloquy, “and surely thou hast heard by this time of the end that justifies the means.”
“I know but one end and that is my sword-point, and as long as I can swing good steel I will see to it that it well justifies all the means that I may have to employ!” replied Carvahal with a chuckle, as he followed the Captain and the rest out of the room.
They left the house, Filipillo walking between Pizarro and his brother Hernando, and marched across the square to the House of the Serpent. By this time Asterre had given his message, the drum had beat to quarters, and every Spaniard in the city, drunk or sober, was standing to his arms as best he could.
Scarcely fifteen minutes had passed from Filipillo’s flight from the Inca’s sleeping-chamber to his return with Pizarro and his captains. Without any ceremony, and not even being announced, the Spaniards marched with heavy steps straight into the Inca’s presence. They found him seated in his chair, his face buried in his hands, and the Palla standing beside him speaking to him in vehement accents.
“There she is, Master, the priestess, the witch, the poisoner!” cried Filipillo as they entered. “She is even now telling the Inca to dissemble with you until her plot shall be executed.”
Mama-Zula turned as he spoke and faced them, her old eyes blazing again with the angry fires of youth, and her hands suddenly thrown up above her head.
“Ah, slave and son of a slave!” she cried shrilly, “so thou hast returned with thy new masters to whom thou hast betrayed thy Lord. Truly his doom lies heavy upon him since his life is at the mercy of so base a thing as thou art!”
“What is that, she says?” said Pizarro.
“She says, Master,” he replied, “that though I may have saved you from her poisons, and though you may slay her and the Inca too, yet none can save you from the tempest of spears that is about to burst upon you.”
“Take her and search her, some of you,” said Pizarro shortly. “Let us see if she has brought her poisons with her.”
He looked round at his followers as he said this. They were men of a hard and cruel age, men with but little mercy or gentleness in their hearts, and all, saving Vincente, who had incited them to it, had wetted their steel with innocent blood but a few days before; yet it seemed that this was a business but little to their liking; still it had to be done, and Pizarro, seeing their hesitation, smiled one of his grave almost sorrowful smiles, and said--
“Caballeros, I know it is mean work for soldiers’ hands to do, yet it must be done if we would know the truth. De Candia and de Molina, go you and guard the Inca yonder so that he does no harm to himself or any other. De Mendoza and Avila, take hold of the witch, if so she be, and Holy Father, since it may be yours to exorcise the evil spirit in her hereafter, your hands will be most fitting to make the search.”
So this was done, though by no means willingly, Atahuallpa remaining seated all the while in the stoical silence of despair, and when the search was over Vincente had found some half-score of little bags of finely-dressed leather concealed about the Palla’s garments, and when these were opened they were found to contain fine powders of greyish-white and red-brown colours.
Mama-Zula, seeing that all was hopeless, had relapsed into silence and bore the degrading ordeal with the stoical resignation of her race, and when the search was over she stood between her two captors, looking at the little bags of powder in Valverde’s hands with an angry glow in her eyes and a smile of scornful defiance on her thin, withered lips.
“Such things, Caballeros, may be carried for good purposes or ill,” said Pizarro drily, when the angry murmurs that had greeted this discovery had died away. “These may be harmless and healing medicines, simples such as these Indians have ever been renowned for the use of. So, too, they may be poisons intended for the deadly use which Filipillo here has warned us of. We have the proof at hand. Fetch a goblet of water one of you.”
De Molina went out and presently returned with a silver cup three parts full of water.
“Now,” said Pizarro, taking the cup in his hand, “you, Filipillo, ask His Majesty which of these powders he will drink in this water.”
The interpreter did as he was bidden, and Atahuallpa, taking his hands from his eyes, stared in stony silence first at him and then at Pizarro and his companions, but neither spoke nor moved a muscle of his countenance.
“Well?” said Pizarro again. “I have seen innocence look more innocent than that, yet if they be poisons it would scarce become us to do His Majesty to death by force in such a manner. Take a little of all the powders, mix them in the water, and you, boy, tell the old woman to choose between drinking it and being burnt at the stake to-morrow morning at sunrise.”
Valverde instantly took the office of mixing the powders, while Filipillo translated the order to the Palla with certain additions of his own which speedily proved to her that her case was hopeless.
“Give me the drink!” she said. “Since I have failed to save my Lord as I would have done, and since the day of doom has come for the Children of the Sun, let me no longer live in a land that is made vile by so foul a thing as thou art--yet shall thy death when it comes be worse than mine, for I die old and at my life’s end, and thou shalt die while thou art yet young with every desire of thy heart unfulfilled.”
Filipillo shrank back as though smitten by the force of her bitterly spoken words, and the next moment Valverde held the cup to her lips. Avila, who was holding her right hand, released it. She took the cup and with an unfaltering hand put it to her lips and drank a little. Then, with a swift motion, she dashed the rest of its contents full in Filipillo’s face, crying out--
“There is thy baptism of death, accursed one! Now go and ask thy princess if she will look with favour on thee.”
The next moment a swift and fearful change passed over her. Her limbs grew stiff and her face grey and rigid, her jaws came together with a sharp snap and her eyes, fixed in their sockets wide open and staring, glared at Pizarro for one never-to-be-forgotten moment, and then, like a figure of wood or stone, she leaned forward without the bend of a joint and fell at his feet face downwards on the floor.
At the same moment scream after scream of agony rang through the room, and Filipillo, with his hands clasped over his eyes and face, ran, bent double with torment, blindly about the chamber, butting his head against the bodies of the Spaniards and stumbling from them against the walls, till at last he fell down writhing and shrieking on the floor, and tearing at his eyes and mouth with his nails.
“Take him out and wash that vile stuff from his face, and see if you can give him some ease,” said Pizarro in a voice that had but little pity in it. “Santiago, Caballeros! that was a narrow escape for us! We should soon have changed El-Dorado for a land where gold has but little value had any of that devil’s mixture got into our meat or drink. De Candia, it is time we had done with courtesies so far as His Majesty is concerned. Henceforth he is not our guest but our prisoner. I charge thee strictly to see to it that he is placed forthwith in chains, and removed to the fort on the hill yonder. After this none of his people, not even his wives or women, must have speech with him save in the presence of two trusty guards at least. To-morrow we will inquire further into this matter and see what is to be done.”
And the first news that the morrow brought came by the envoys who had been dispatched to Andamarca, and they brought the tidings that on the night before they arrived Huascar, the Inca of the South, had been put to death in accordance with the secret and urgent orders of Atahuallpa.