CHAPTER VIII.

SENTENCE OF DEATH

In Cajamarca the days grew rapidly into weeks, and events multiplied quickly, but the cavaliers did not return from Cuzco, nor was any more news heard of them than the meagre tidings of their arrival and reception which had been brought by Filipillo, who, in accordance with Manco’s wish, had been sent back at once with the escort. This had, unhappily, given the interpreter still further means of mischief-making, for he had brought back to Pizarro a cunningly-concocted story of a plot, which he had himself hatched, between Manco and Atahuallpa, and this had at length forced the Captain-General into a course which he had long been contemplating, and to which he was now strongly urged by his old comrade Almagro, who had arrived from the coast with some hundred and fifty men. This was to bring the Inca to trial for the murder of Huascar and for plotting the overthrow of the Spanish authority.

His brother Hernando, too, had returned from Pachacamac, followed by a train of thirty-five bearers, each carrying as much gold as he could stagger under. Meanwhile, too, streams of treasure from the other coast and inland towns had been flowing steadily into Cajamarca, and now the golden tide in the Banqueting Hall of the House of the Serpent was at length approaching the mark that the Inca had set for it.

But the higher it rose the more remote grew the chances of Atahuallpa’s freedom. The coming of Almagro and his men had put a new face on the whole situation. The sight of the treasure heaped up in the House of the Serpent and scattered so lavishly about the city had roused the gold-lust fiercely within them. They began to clamour loudly for the division of the spoils that they had had no share in winning, and, as was but natural, Pizarro’s own men, who had borne the burden and toil of which it was the reward, began to demand the payment of their shares into their own keeping. But again it was plain that the treasure could not be divided until the ransom had been completed and the Inca released--that is, if he was ever to be released at all.

Sitting after sitting of the court that had been constituted to try Atahuallpa had been held, and at each one of them his guilt had been more and more openly urged, until even Pizarro himself had come to look upon his death as the shortest way out of all difficulties. There were three whose voices were raised with ever-increasing insistence to this end, and these were Almagro, Riquelme, and Vincente de Valverde, each of whom had his own reasons for such a course. At length Pizarro yielded to them, and this he did the more readily and with the better conscience as authentic reports of the gathering of great armies from all parts of the Empire were now coming in every day, each one of which added more and more colour of truth to the story which Filipillo had brought with him from Cuzco.

So it came about that at the last council it was resolved to melt the treasure down, to send the King’s fifth to Spain under the care of Hernando Pizarro, and to impeach Atahuallpa on the various counts that had already been formulated against him. How immense the treasure already was may be seen from the fact that the King’s fifth alone amounted to a million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, five hundred and thirty-nine pesos of pure gold, which in modern English money is over three hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling.

With this huge sum Hernando Pizarro, with an escort of twenty horse and a long train of Indian bearers, started out for the coast. The most of the simple folk believed that the others would soon follow and that their Inca would be immediately set free. But Atahuallpa had no such delusion, for when the Captain’s brother went into his prison-room to bid him farewell he shook his head mournfully and said, with the air of a man who believes himself already doomed--

“I am deeply grieved to see you go, for you are a good man and would be my friend and see justice done to me; but I know that when you are gone that fat man and that one-eyed man and that other one who is always seeking to make me worship his strange gods will most certainly kill me.”

Then Hernando Pizarro shook his head too and sought to reassure him, saying that he was going to the great king who was lord and master of all the Spaniards, and that he would see justice done to him. And then he took leave of him as quickly as he could, for he knew that his fate was already sealed, and was eager to get away out of so black a business.

No sooner had he gone than Atahuallpa, feeling now that if he remained in the power of the Spaniards his fate was sealed, and knowing that he could be no worse off whatever happened, suddenly resolved to do that which Challcuchima had so earnestly prayed him to do the night before he was taken prisoner, and in taking this resolve he gave his worst enemies among the Spaniards the one pretext that was now wanting to them. It may have been that at this last hour, when face to face with his fate, the old warrior spirit burnt up afresh within him, and he resolved that if he must die he would do so in the midst of battle and massacre rather than be slain like a felon after a mock judgment, and that at least he would not leave the world without the knowledge that some of his enemies had paid for the indignities they had put upon him with their lives.

The fifth day after the departure of Hernando Pizarro he managed, after four days of watching and waiting for an opportunity, to dispatch a knot of the fringe of the borla--which he still wore even with his chains in mournful mockery of his former imperial state--to Quiz-Quiz and Ruminavi, with orders to march instantly with every regiment at their command upon the city, first laying waste the whole country about it, and after that to fall upon it with fire and sword and avenge his insulted honour, even if rescue of his person was impossible.

Now the Curaca of Cajamarca, which was one of the cities that had owed allegiance to Huascar and had about a year before been seized by Atahuallpa, had never borne him any goodwill, and through the agency of Filipillo he had become a firm ally of the Spaniards, deceived, as many others of his simple race were, by their promises of kindness and protection. He had made it his business to organise a small army of spies, who had kept close watch on the movements of every one who had access to the Inca and afterwards left the city.

Thus it happened that Atahuallpa’s messenger, without knowing it, was stealthily followed until he reached an outpost of the army and delivered his message. Then, as he was coming back to the city to tell the Inca that his command had been obeyed, he was seized and brought before the Curaca, who at once took him to Pizarro, and he sternly questioned him through Filipillo, who, following his usual policy, so translated his answers that Pizarro, at length losing patience, ordered him to be tortured until he gave such answers as were required.

At the same time he ordered that every kinsman and friend of Atahuallpa’s in the city should be placed under close arrest. Then these also one by one were either stretched on the rack or forced to submit to the torment of the slow-match, all of which they bore with the fortitude of their race, until the extremity of the agony overcame their reason; and then from their frantic cries and incoherent babblings Filipillo, whose evil soul had delighted in the hideous work for the sake of the revenge that it gave him, made up a tale of accusations against Atahuallpa which left his fate no longer in doubt.

As it happened, there was a Doctor of Laws among those who had followed the fortunes of Almagro, no doubt being attracted, if not by the prospect of gold-getting for himself, at least by that of making spoil, after the manner of his kind, out of the disputes of rude and ignorant men placed suddenly in possession of such wealth as people of the same stamp in the Old World had never dreamt of. So by the help of this man, Martin de Zarate by name, the mock court which was to try a prisoner already condemned and to deliver a judgment already determined upon was constituted in due legal form, and so far was the solemn farce of justice pushed that an advocate was given to Atahuallpa to plead the cause of one already lost.

But there stood against the Inca an advocate more potent than all the doctors of Spain, and this was Filipillo, the only one of the interpreters in the camp who had sufficient skill and knowledge of both tongues to conduct the business of the court as regarded the accusations and pleadings of the accused, whom he, by his falsehood and treachery, had done so much to entrap in the fatal mesh from which he now saw there was no escape.

But Atahuallpa, as though divining that his last days had come and that it behoved him to bear himself as the son of his great father should do, suddenly threw off the stupor which up to now had seemed so strangely to paralyse his mind, and bore himself in a fashion worthy his ancient race and his own fame as a warrior and a prince. When he was first arraigned before his judges, and Filipillo, blinking maliciously at him out of his still swollen and half-blinded eyes, translated the deed of indictment and asked him, as the mouthpiece of the court, what answer he had to make, he drew himself up and crossed his manacled hands upon his breast and replied, with more dignity than he had ever spoken with from his golden throne--

“Tell thy masters, slave, that I know that my doom is already decided, though I have done nothing that one betrayed, oppressed, and ill-used as I have been might not have done and yet go blameless. They have taken my gold and given me their faith. They have broken it without ruth or shame to me and mine, and now, that they may the better steal my country and make my people slaves, they are going to kill me. Since my armies have failed me and all my friends and servants have deserted me, there is nothing left for me but to die in accordance with the decree of the Unnameable. To His judgment I bow, but not to theirs. The will is His and theirs is but the hand, for the sins that I die for they have never seen. There can be no tribunal in this land high enough to judge one who is himself the law, and even were their justice pure it would be polluted in passing through so foul a channel as those lying lips of thine. Tell thy masters what I have said. Tell them also that, since they have assured themselves beforehand of my guilt, there is nothing left for them but to tell me the manner of my death. Now I have spoken, and not even their torments shall bring more useless words from me.”

So saying he turned his head away and looked out of an open window near him over the green valley and the terraced mountains beyond, with their rugged, broken heights piercing the blue and cloudless sky, and from that moment to the end of his trial he never spoke again or seemed to take any interest in the proceedings on which his life depended. It was in vain that Pizarro ordered Filipillo to put question after question to him, threatening and promising by turns. The fallen Inca had wrapped himself in unbending dignity and unbreakable silence, and neither word nor sign of interest in what was going on could be drawn from him. At length Valverde, who had long lost all patience, said angrily--

“Señores, how much longer shall we suffer this heathen to trifle with us? We have made others speak, why not he as well?”

“Ay,” added Almagro, with an evil twinkle in his one eye, “the reverend father is right. I warrant that a very brief trial of the match or the thumbscrew, or maybe a few minutes on the rack, would speedily open his Majesty’s lips and loosen his royal tongue.”

“No, Caballeros, while I have a voice in the matter, no,” said the Captain-General, shaking his head and looking as some thought almost sorrowfully at the prisoner. “It seems to me that the Inca hath already suffered enough at our hands, unless of course the finding of this honourable court be that he is guilty of the crime imputed to him, in which case let the just penalty fall upon him, but let us not forget, Señores, that, whatever his fault may be, he is a crowned monarch, and that it would ill-please the tender mercy and high chivalry of his Most Catholic Majesty to learn that soldiers of his had put the indignity of torture upon a brother sovereign.”

“And moreover,” chimed in Riquelme, in his soft, official voice, “methinks there is but little need, even if such a thing might be permitted, to which I, as the servant of his Majesty, could never consent. Have we not proof enough already--nay, have not the Inca’s own words convicted him of contumacy? Has he not defied us and laughed our careful justice to scorn? Have not all the witnesses spoken against him, and since none have spoken for him, not even himself, is it not best that we should deliberate forthwith on our judgment, and when arrived at consider the best means of putting it into effect?”

Pizarro, who all this time had been looking at the unmoved, averted face of the Inca, now glanced round the table at which they were sitting, and, reading approval in the faces of all present, he said in a tone which plainly showed how weary he was of the whole base business and how glad he would be to see it ended--

“Very well, Señores, since that seems to be the wish of all of you, so be it. Let the Inca be conducted back to his apartment.”

The captain of Atahuallpa’s guard saluted, and then touched him on the shoulder. The touch seemed to waken him out of a dream, for all this time he had never taken his eyes off the distant hills beyond which, as he knew, thousands of his faithful subjects were encamped, or it might be even now on their way to attempt his rescue. A little shudder seemed to run through his frame at the touch. He turned and saluted his judges with a gesture full of royal dignity, and without a word followed his guards from the room.

As might be expected, the court did not take long in finding its verdict, and within an hour Atahuallpa was found guilty of crimes enough to have sent half-a-dozen men to their death if judged by such a tribunal. He was guilty of fratricide in procuring the death of Huascar; of treason and conspiracy against the Spaniards and their sovereign as rightful lord of the country; of wasting, embezzling, and misapplying its revenues after the Spaniards had entered into possession of it. Further, he was guilty of idolatry and concubinage; and lastly, as though to fitly cap the solemn farce, he was convicted of prosecuting unjust wars to the injury and oppression of his country and its people!

“And now, Señores,” said Pizarro, when these formidable counts had at length been agreed to, “since the finding of the court is ‘guilty’ it remains but to pass sentence. Señor Zarate, what says the law in such matters?”

“The court,” replied the Doctor, rising and speaking in a pompous, inflated tone, “hath by the laws of Leon and Castille discretion to pass on one found guilty of so many grave offences two sentences at least. Should its judgment incline rather to mercy than justice it may pass sentence of a fine proportionate to the means of the culprit and banishment to some place of safe keeping. Should it, on the other hand, see in these heinous crimes no room for the exercise of mercy that would be compatible with the safety and good order of these realms, then the only sentence that it can pass will be death by such means as may be considered best merited by the crimes of the condemned.”

“But is there not a third course?” said Pizarro, as though even as this last moment he shrank from soiling his hands with the blood of his captive. “Is not this a somewhat hasty proceeding, Señores? I confess that of late my mind has somewhat misgiven me as to our competence to do this thing. Hath not, after all, the Inca a right to be tried, as every other man hath, by his peers? and if so, would not a more proper course be to pronounce the lighter sentence and send our prisoner, with a due statement of this process that we have held, to the government at Panama, so that either final judgment may be pronounced by the Viceroy or the Inca may be sent to Spain to receive his sentence from the august lips of our master the Emperor?”

In this wise and temperate proposition lay the Inca’s last hope of justice or even of life, but when, after a heated discussion, it was put to the vote only five out of the fifteen members of the court voted in favour of it. Valverde, Almagro, Riquelme, and Zarate all spoke vehemently in favour of death, and in the end their arguments and the veiled threats which they did not scruple to use so far prevailed with the Captain-General that when the vote had been given he, although with manifest reluctance, ordered his secretary to affix his signature to the death-warrant. The five dissentients, to their everlasting credit, not only refused to sign, but afterwards drew up a formal protest against the haste and injustice of the act which was about to be done, and this document has to-day an honourable resting-place among the archives of Spain.

As soon as the fatal parchment had been signed Pizarro took Filipillo with him and went himself to the Inca to acquaint him with his doom and make him ready to die on the morrow. Atahuallpa heard it with the dignity and composure which proved how fully he had already resigned himself to the inevitable, but this did not prevent him from reproaching Pizarro, albeit with mildness and dignity, for this shameful breach of all his promises and his treachery in first taking the ransom and then consenting to his murder. These reproaches, well merited as they were, did not reach Pizarro’s ears as the doomed Inca spoke them, for the malice of Filipillo, still unsatisfied even by the knowledge that by the light of the next sun he would see Atahuallpa done to death, translated them so that they became the vilest opprobrium, which, being uttered, as Pizarro saw it was, without passion or violence, appeared to him doubly insulting on account of the scorn and contempt which the Inca’s manner seemed to display.

So in the end he fell into a violent passion and, swearing that Atahuallpa should have no further aid or protection from him, strode from the room after ordering the guards on pain of their lives to let no one come near the Inca with the exception of Valverde, who had piously undertaken to prepare him for his end, and not to lose sight of him until the moment that he should be led out to execution. Filipillo took his opportunity to stay behind for a moment, and going up to the Inca, who had thrown himself on to his couch and buried his face in his hands, he whispered in his ear--

“Would it not have been better, Lord, to have accepted my service and given me the Princess in payment of it? To-morrow I shall ask the chief of the Strangers for her, and he will not refuse me.”

Atahuallpa sprang from his couch to his feet, his face flushed purple-red and his blood-shot eyes aflame with sudden fury, and before Filipillo had time to slip out of his reach he had grasped him round the body with his chained hands and with a single effort of his great strength lifted him to arm’s length above his head and hurled him like a stone from a catapult through the doorway, where he fell between the two guards and lay stunned and bleeding as one dead on the stone pavement.