CHAPTER V.

TO THE CITY OF THE SUN

At such a juncture as this it needed all the clear insight and instant decision of the true leader of men to decide upon the best course of action. The all too successful stratagem of Filipillo, although it had failed in its object as regards himself and his own desires, had so far entrapped Atahuallpa in the snares of his own scheming as to give Pizarro sufficient reason for changing his honourable captivity into a more sternly-guarded durance.

On the other hand the death of Huascar, although it had closed one road to him, had opened another. True, he could now no longer arrogate to himself the office of mediator between Atahuallpa and his brother, but he had now got the Inca of Quito under the shadow of a charge of murder, which, if it suited his plans, he might press even to the death. Then, too, there was the young prince, Toparca, whom he had captured with Atahuallpa’s retinue, and he, so far as he could learn, stood next in succession to the throne of the Incas of Quito.

But there was one other who, if the pure descent alone were counted, stood nearer still, and this was Manco-Capac, own brother to the murdered Huascar, who had an even closer title, now that Huascar was dead, than Atahuallpa himself.

Now between the two possible claimants there was this difference in Pizarro’s eyes. Toparca was a poor lad, weak-willed and indolent, a piece of already wetted clay that could be easily moulded into any shape that his masters might wish for, while Manco, by all accounts, was made of sterner stuff, since, as has already been said, he had withdrawn his own regiments into the mountain fastnesses beyond Cuzco, and had seemingly prepared for a struggle to the death either with the invaders themselves or the Army of the North should the captive Inca ally himself with the Strangers.

For a day and a night the Captain took counsel, chiefly with himself, although he held more than one conversation with those for whose judgment he had some respect, and the result of this was that he did three things.

First he had the young Prince Toparca placed in a safe lodging, and took care that no one should pass between Atahuallpa and himself without the intervention of one or more of his own men. Second, he dispatched his brother Hernando with twenty horse and a sufficient number of Indian followers to the great temple of Pachacamac, which was reputed to be one of the greatest of the treasure-houses of the Incas as well as the shrine of their chief deity. This he was to despoil, not only of its treasures, but also of the repute of sanctity with which it was encircled. Third, as he knew nothing beyond mere hearsay of Cuzco, the true City of the Sun, or the disposition of its inhabitants, he determined to send, under the sanction and with the authority of Atahuallpa, an embassy which, like the envoys of Joshua of old, should spy out the weakness or strength of the land as the case might be.

For this embassy he chose Hernando de Soto, Pedro de Candia, Alonso de Molina, and Sebastian ben-Alcazar as being, after his own brothers, the most trusty of the cavaliers in his train, but he was forced to delay their departure for nearly a fortnight on account of the pitiable state into which the interpreter Filipillo had been cast by the potency of the poison which Mama-Zula, with the last gesture of her life, had flung into his face.

Not enough of it had gone into his mouth to poison him, but for five days he had lain in great agony and almost at the point of death, and, moreover, what had gone into his eyes had well-nigh destroyed them, and so far blinded them that he never afterwards saw anything clearly; which in itself was something of a just punishment for his double treachery and the presumption which had prompted him to look with unworthy longing upon the beauty of the Princess Pillcu-Cica.

It was necessary that he should accompany the embassy for two reasons, since he was the only one who knew enough of Spanish and Quichua to bring back an intelligible account, and, moreover, after what he had been guilty of, there was no telling what Atahuallpa might cause to be done to him, even in the strict captivity in which he was now placed.

For reasons best known to himself Atahuallpa, from whom Pizarro, with true state-craft, had carefully kept his own knowledge of Huascar’s death, not only consented to the dispatch of the embassy, but sent one of his own secretaries with it with authority to procure for it the same conduct over the royal roads and the same entertainment at the resting-places on the way as he would himself have exacted. It may be that he saw in this a means of hastening the collection of his own ransom, or it may have been that he had deeper designs, but the truth is that, like many other incomprehensible things that he did, he here again played completely into the hands of his enemies.

So it came about that, some ten days after Hernando Pizarro had started to Pachacamac by way of the northern coast-road, de Soto and his three comrades departed with their retinue southward through the central valleys between the two great ranges of the Andes on their way to the City of the Sun.

They had been told that a great part of the way was almost impossible for horses, and further that the bridges over the many rivers they would have to cross were made only for foot-passengers, and would break down under the weight of such heavy beasts. More than this, the journey with horses would be very long and tedious, as well as not a little dangerous, so after due deliberation it was decided that they should leave their chargers behind them and make use of the litters and relays of bearers which the Inca had provided for them; and on the morning of the thirteenth day after the death of Mama-Zula--whose body had been burnt the next morning in the plaza to satisfy the scruples of the Fray Valverde--they took their places in their strange vehicles and started for the South.

For twelve leagues they were conveyed down the valley with what was to them incredible ease and swiftness. At every three leagues there was a rest-house, where the relays of bearers were changed. They did not know then that they were being borne by the same bearers who carried the royal litter, men who had been trained from generation to generation to the same work, and who knew that the penalty of even a stumble was death, and so they marvelled as much at the ease of their progress as they did at the splendour of their entertainment, the richness of the country, and the absolute order which everywhere prevailed.

Of this last they had an example as they crossed the pass leading over a transverse range of mountains out of the valley of Cajamarca. At the narrowest and steepest part, where the hills rose up like walls on either side, and where ten resolute men might have held the road against a thousand, they found themselves suddenly surrounded, front and rear and all along the rocks on both sides, by a multitude of men armed with bows and arrows, slings and lances and swords and axes of polished, tempered copper.

Perforce a halt was called, and after the first parleyings were over an old warrior, glittering from head to foot with gold and jewels and gaily-coloured feather-work, came down the pass and spoke with the Inca’s secretary. It was Challcuchima himself, who all this time had been keeping watch and ward over the passes leading out of the valley, determined to let none of the hated strangers escape from it with their lives. Yet when the Inca’s envoy had showed him the thread of intertwisted scarlet and gold which was the token of his authority, and had explained to him the purpose of the embassy, so strong was the loyalty bred in his blood through many generations, that he pressed it to his forehead and gave it back, saying--

“Strange though it seems to me, yet it is well, since my Lord the Son of the Sun has said it. Not on me or my children be the evil if it comes! As for me I have heard and seen, and it is enough.”

Then, without deigning to look at the Spaniards, who had alighted from their litters and got their weapons ready against any possible trouble, he turned and walked slowly up the pass, followed by his attendants. A few moments later the soft, singing notes of some reed instrument sounded on both sides of the road, and the soldiers who had barred the way vanished as rapidly and as silently as they had appeared.

“A strange country and a strange people!” said de Soto to Alonso de Molina as they were getting back into their litters. “Knowest thou any land in Europe where a captive king would be so well obeyed? It is well for us that they do not fight as well as they obey.”

“It may be,” he replied gravely, “that they have not fought well because they have obeyed too well. To tell thee the truth, de Soto, there is more strangeness about these people than I like to see. Such order and obedience could not be found anywhere else in the world. It is no common genius of rulership or kingly wisdom that hath founded such a state as this. Who are we that we should bring disorder in a land where such good order reigns?”

“That smacks somewhat of treason, de Molina,” laughed de Candia, who was standing by. “I know not what that rascally Friar of ours would say if he heard thee, and yet there is much in thy words which a plain soldier can scarcely fathom.”

“That may well be so,” said de Soto shortly; “but come, Caballeros, we are not out of the wood yet. Who knows what this little parley may have meant, or what there is yet to befall us between here and Cuzco. Let the event prove itself, and let us get out of this ill-favoured spot with what speed we may.”

“That is sound advice,” said ben-Alcazar, “and yet to me there seems but little need for suspicion, whatever there may be for due caution, for never did I see or hear of so strange a people as this. Methinks even the holy father himself might take a few lessons worth the learning from them or some of their priests, whatever their creed may be, in the matter of Christian charity, and especially that doctrine which tells him who is smitten on one cheek to turn the other to his enemy, for surely never did a people give good for evil as these poor folk have done to us.”

“There spoke the old infidel blood in thee, ben-Alcazar!” said de Soto, with a laugh that he would not have let into his voice had the Fray Valverde been within hearing. “But come, let us onward. I would rather rest to-night in another of those fair valleys than up here among these chilly mountains.”

So they got back into their litters and the bearers lifted the long, pliant, silver-shod poles to their shoulders, and once more they started off southward at the easy, swinging trot which, after their labours on horseback and afoot over the mountains from the sea, seemed in truth the very luxury of locomotion.

Thus they went on, making the most marvellous journey that men of their race had ever made in the world, for the space of eight days.

Down between the two vast ranges towering far into the sky on either hand they went, ever at the same swift, rhythmic pace. Some of the mountains were huge, bald rounded domes of brown rock, some tapered up into pointed pyramids, and others were broken into clusters of fantastic shape. Others, again, as they went southward, towered up above the nearer ranges, far-off pinnacles of ice and domes of snow ever rising higher and higher and coming nearer and nearer; but the lower slopes, walling in the valleys through which they travelled, were green with verdure or golden with rustling maize, and cut out into countless terraces, each one of which was as carefully tended as a garden.

On the bleaker uplands they could see vast flocks of llamas, the only beast of burden which this strange people possessed, and smaller herds of vicuñas, which yielded the wool that was spun into textures as fine and soft as silk. Each night they were lodged in the tambos, or rest-houses, welcomed with a silent, stately deference which showed them that their entertainers held no ordinary rank in the land of the Inca, and their fare was such as might have been offered to princes.

Indeed, such sumptuous treatment did they receive that, as Alonso de Molina said towards the end of the journey, there seemed to be something of shame in taking it all as they did from the hands of one who had suffered such treatment from them as Atahuallpa had.

There were no signs to show that this lovely and wonderful land had but lately been swept by the tempest of civil war. Everything was in perfect order, and every man, woman, and child seemed contented with what Heaven and the Inca had bestowed. They passed strong fortresses fully garrisoned, and guarding narrow passages and gorges which looked impregnable if well defended, and they crossed broad, swift-flowing rivers by swinging bridges held up by cables which, huge as they were, looked like threads when stretched across the vast abysses, and so at last they came to the greatest of all these bridges, which hung in mid-air from rock-wall to rock-wall, looking frail and slender as a spider’s web as it hung more than a hundred feet above the dark, swift-flowing and hoarsely roaring torrent of the “Great Speaker.”[15]

As their litters were borne across it the whole fabric swung to and fro over the abyss with a pendulous motion like that of some huge hammock swayed by the wind which swept through the gorge; and though de Soto and his companions were men of well-proved courage there was a prayer for safety on the lips of each as they began the crossing and one of thankfulness when they got to the other side.

“I have seen nothing more like the Bridge of Jehennan, which, according to the faith of my fathers, stretches from this world to the next across the Gulf of Hell, than that!” said ben-Alcazar, when they stood on the little platform from which the bridge sprang on the Cuzco side, and where they had dismounted to take a better look at the wonderful structure.

“There would be little else than Hell for the unbeliever who fell unshriven from it,” growled de Candia sententiously, yet with a grim smile at ben-Alcazar, whose near relationship to the arch-enemies of the Cross was a somewhat serious joke in the army, and one over which there had been a certain amount of blood-letting before he had got convinced that no reproach was meant by it.

“Ay, and I for my part would not give much for the unshriven soul even of a good Catholic who chanced to fall from the middle of it while his hands were yet red and his blade wet with innocent blood,” he retorted, paying de Candia back in kind. “By the beard of the Prophet, as my fathers used to swear, I would give no more for his soul than I would for the chance of finding his body.”

“Well hit, ben-Alcazar!” laughed de Molina as they got back into their litters. “Even de Candia’s big carcase would be as sadly to seek there as charity for the heathen in Valverde’s breast.”

From the bridge the narrow yet perfectly paved and smoothed road ran ever upward round huge mountain buttresses overhanging fearful abysses, out of which the voices of the torrents rose like the whispering of spirits guarding these gloomy and lifeless regions. They rose higher and higher into wildernesses ever bleaker and bleaker, till at length they reached the beginning of the topmost pass of the journey, running between two colossal mountains which rose, snow-capped, and glacier-clad, many thousands of feet on either hand, fitting sentinels to guard the enchanted realm into which they were about to enter.

On the eighth night they rested at a tambo about three leagues to the southward of the pass, and about a league farther on they could see that the road rose up again on to a broad broken plateau, but beyond this they could see no other hills or mountains.

They were roused very early the next morning, and found their first meal prepared for them, although it was barely yet dawn. But they had been so well treated, and the journey had been made with such marvellous expedition, that they thought it best to ask no questions, and getting into their litters, they were well on their way again before sunrise.

It was plain to them that their bearers and attendants were making unusual haste for some reason, for they swung up the long, steep, winding path at a marvellous speed. Then suddenly on the crest of the ridge they stopped and set the litters down.

“How now!” exclaimed de Soto, leaping to his feet and looking about him. “Ah! madre de Dios! was ever such a sight seen in the world before?”

“By Allah!--that is, I should say, all the Saints!” said ben-Alcazar, coming to his side. “It might be one of the valleys of Paradise itself. Are the wonders of this land never to cease for us? I, for one, am beginning to doubt whether I am still on earth.”

“This, then,” said de Molina, ranging his eyes over the vast and lovely prospect before them, and drawing in a deep breath of the keen, fresh morning air--“this can be nothing else than Cuzco itself, the City of the Sun!”

“Ay, that is so, comrade,” said de Candia; “and look you, yonder comes the Sun himself to show us his royal city in all its splendour.”

As he spoke the swiftly rising sun blazed out suddenly over the peaks of the huge mountain wall that stretched along to the eastward of the valley, and in an instant earth and sky were blazing with light. All their retinue faced with one movement to the east, and, spreading their arms wide apart, gazed upward for a moment with raptured eyes and then bowed low in worship of the rising symbol of their Father and their God, and in the midst of them the four Christians stood erect, gazing in speechless wonder at the glory of the scene spread out below them, and looking, for the first time Christian eyes had ever looked, upon the visible and splendid reality of the long-sought, long-dreamed of El-Dorado, the Place of Gold.