CHAPTER V.
AT THE FORTRESS GATE OF YUCAY
Although the four cavaliers found no difficulty in reconciling their complicity in the Inca’s escape to their consciences, their generosity did not therefore extend to the rest of his people. They knew from what had already happened that the little force in Cuzco would soon be called upon to fight desperately for its very existence. They knew too from their Indian spies that all the approaches to the beautiful valley were fast filling with detachments of Peruvian warriors, and finally there had come rumours that Ruminavi, the last of Atahuallpa’s great chieftains, had returned from Quito and had rallied all that remained of the four great armies of the empire and had united all the factions, Quitans and Cuscans, tribes of the Sierras and tribes of the plains, under the banner of the Last of the Incas, and devoted them to one supreme effort to crush the conquerors in the midst of their conquests.
As they were now well on the road to Yucay they held a brief council of war when they halted, and determined to spend the rest of the night and the following day in reconnoitring the approaches to the valley and discovering, as far as they could, the positions held by the Peruvian army.
The first thing they did was to collect the Cañaris and rate them soundly for permitting the Inca to escape, emphasising their reproaches, lest they should be not fully understood, with their rein-straps and the flats of their swords, promising them further that if they went back to Cuzco without the information that was needed they should every one be put to death as traitors. They then took up the march again and rode on slowly and cautiously for the best part of the night, but without discovering a sign of the enemy.
A couple of hours before dawn they halted for food and rest and then with the earliest light rode on again. The bleak uplands over which they had passed now began to slope downwards and become more fertile, and as the light increased they saw that they were approaching the entrance to a great valley walled in on all sides by huge and precipitous mountains, and by the time the sun rose they had reached a rocky ledge from which they beheld a scene whose strange and wonderful loveliness told them at a glance that this could be nothing else than the far-famed valley of Yucay.
The lower slopes of the seemingly impassable mountains were terraced into gardens which glowed with a hundred shades of green and gold, azure and scarlet. The broad plain which lay along the centre was sprinkled with villas and temples and palaces bright with colours and glittering with gold and silver, and through the midst of them rolled a broad, winding river, glittering like a wide band of molten silver in the rays of the sun, now streaming into the valley from the eastward. All along the two sides rose ridge after ridge of bare, brown mountains, apparently without a break for miles and miles, and high above these towered into the sky, one to right and one to left, two mighty snow-crowned peaks like twin Titans guarding this enchanted realm.
But the keen eyes of the Spaniards soon discovered that the valley had other guardians than these. At every bend of the river a dark fortress rose tier above tier jutting out from the hillside and completely commanding it. All along the heights there were watch-towers on which, as the light grew stronger, they could see the sun glinting on polished arms and waving plumes, and soon shrill, wailing cries rose to right and left of them and ran along the ridges until they died away in the distance, telling that the sun shining on their own armour had already betrayed their presence and that the whole valley was alert.
“A glorious spot, by the Saints!” said de Soto, as his eye ranged delighted over the lovely prospect. “A very Garden of Eden, if such might be in a heathen land, but well guarded. Methinks it would fare badly with us even if we attacked it with all our forces. Still it is our present business to find a way into it, if such there be, and that can only be where the river flows out of it. Come, let us try the sloping ground down here to the right.”
“Ay,” replied de Candia, “it were well to keep moving lest we find ourselves surrounded, but for all that I doubt not that the Inca will find a way of showing his gratitude for what we did for him last night. He must have reached the army by this time.”
“That is certain,” said de Molina, “and I for one would so far trust him that I would ride unarmed through his whole host. Ah, look yonder,” he went on, pointing ahead past a spur of rock which they had just cleared. “Yonder is the gate of Eden.”
“And the mouth of the River of Paradise!” said ben-Alcazar. “But methinks for all that the mouth of Hell for the enemy that should seek to get into it. Were those forts guarded by well-served artillery not all the Spaniards in Peru could force the entrance.”
“I, for one,” added de Candia grimly, “would pledge my life on holding it with a dozen culverins against a thousand men.”
They had now come within full view of the entrance to the valley. It was some five or six hundred yards wide. On either side rose a steeply-sloping hill and on each of these a huge fortress of black stone built in angles like the Sacsahuaman and crowned with lofty towers dominated the little level, sandy plain through which the river flowed. The stream itself was some thirty yards wide and apparently deep and swift flowing. The moment that they came in sight the loud, shrill blast of a horn rang out, and instantly thousands of warriors, armed and plumed, sprang into view. They lined the tiers of the fortresses in perfect order, and far up the terraces of the hills were swarming in a moment with their glittering ranks. The notes of the horn had hardly died away before they were taken up and echoed far along the valley, and as they went fort after fort in endless succession was manned in full view by the glittering ranks of its garrisons.
Instinctively the whole troop pulled up, horse and foot. It was the first time that the Spaniards had ever seen a Peruvian army so splendid in appearance and so impregnable in position, and it was a sight that might have inspired the boldest heart with both admiration and awe. While they were standing thus gazing at the splendid spectacle, half inclined to wheel about and make the best of their way back to Cuzco, if indeed the way were still open, de Molina threw up his right hand and cried--
“Ah, did I not tell you, Caballeros? There is the Inca himself if I mistake not. By the Saints, does he not look as goodly a figure as any Christian knight amongst us, and how well he sits that good steed of mine! See, he is waving a white scarf and beckoning to us. Come, let us forward, comrades. That means a truce at least.”
The apparition that had called forth this exclamation was that of the Inca himself. He was clad from head to foot in shining steel. Round his helmet was bound the scarlet llautu but without the imperial borla, and from it rose two lofty nodding feathers of the Coraquenque, which only the chief of the royal House might wear. In his right hand he carried a broad white scarf or kerchief, and with his left he guided his charger with perfect ease down the narrow, winding causeway which led from the rear of the fortress on to the plain. As he crossed this towards the brink of the river the Spaniards rode up to the other bank, each of them waving his scarf in reply to his signal. Then across the river there came, in the clear, high-pitched tone in which the Peruvians send their signal-cries from mountain to mountain, the words--
“Why have you followed me so far, my friends? Every moment your lives have been in danger. Do you not know that the City of the Sun is already beleaguered, and that you stand between two of my armies?”
“Cuerpo de Cristo! That is bad news!” growled de Candia. “It will be no light matter getting back to our quarters if that is so.”
“And if it be so it were well to learn the worst at once,” said de Molina. “I will go and speak with his Majesty.”
And before any of them could stay him the gallant young cavalier had leapt his horse into the stream and was swimming across. A half-suppressed cry of wonder broke from the Peruvian soldiers, and two or three companies of them, armed with bows and slings and spears, marched swiftly down out of the fortress which guarded the bank on which the Spaniards were, as though to cut off their retreat, while others marched out from the other fortress as though to close round the sacred person of the Inca. But he instantly waved them back and rode alone to a point on the bank which de Molina was rapidly nearing. As he reached it the dripping horse scrambled out of the water, and de Molina, holding out his hand, said with a laugh--
“A good morrow to your Majesty! This is a strong place and a gallant array that you have here.”
Manco took his hand and replied gravely--
“You and your comrades have done unwisely, my friend. If you had not forced me to leave you so suddenly last night I would have warned you that by sunrise this morning every pathway to it would have been filled by our warriors. Moreover, if I had not been in this part of the valley Ruminavi would certainly have taken you for spies, and my people are now so incensed against yours that you would have been slain if it had cost a thousand lives, and then,” he went on more gently, “how would you have kept your promise, and who would have saved Nahua from her doom? But now you have not a moment to lose. The higher the sun rises the greater will be the peril of your return. There is indeed only one means by which you can reach the city alive. Take this feather,” he said, pulling one of the sacred plumes from his turban. “There is not one of the Children of the Sun who would dare to touch the wearer of that. Put it in your helmet and go. With it I give you and your comrades your lives in payment for mine. Should we come to battle, still wear it and you will be harmless, however thick the fight. Tell your leader what you have seen here, and save Nahua and the queen as quickly as maybe, for soon there will be bitter and relent less war between us to the end. Now farewell. Go quickly if you would go safely.”
“Fear not for the queen and princess, friend Manco!” replied de Molina as he gripped his hand again. “If we could not bring them out of Cuzco in safety we should not ourselves return, since we four have pledged ourselves each to the other by our Christian faith and knightly honour to be hostages for them. If they are not here on this river bank before another sun has set then thou wilt see us here or know that thou hast four Spanish knights the less to fight against. And now farewell, and till we meet again in battle God speed thee!”
Then with a last clasp of the hand he pulled his horse round and plunged into the river again. As he regained the opposite bank all four turned and saluted the Inca, still resting motionless on his horse. He returned the salute, and as he did so ten thousand warriors rent the still morning air with a great cry, and thousands of burnished weapons flashed in the now ardent sunbeams.
“Was that a farewell?” said de Soto, as they turned their horses and rode away up the hill. “To my ears it sounded more like a bidding to battle, and such battle as we have not had yet. Methinks that, despite all our easy-won triumph, the real work of conquest is only just beginning.”
“For one thing,” said de Candia, “this friend Manco of ours would seem to be the only man they have so far had to lead them. He will give us trouble. Old Carvahal said to me not long since that the Governor, if he had been wise, would have treated him as he did Atahuallpa when he had the chance.”
“Carvahal is a Christian savage,” laughed ben-Alcazar. “I have ever had a presentiment that that man will die neither on a field of battle nor in his bed, good soldier and huge drinker as he is.”
The lightly-spoken words were prophetic, although their fulfilment does not come within the limits of this narrative, for there came a day seven years afterwards when the fierce old swashbuckler was dragged in a basket to the scaffold in company with the last of the Pizarros without a fear in his heart and with a homely jest on his lips.
So, talking of the chances of the war which, with de Soto, they all believed to be only now about to commence in earnest, they made their way back with all possible speed to Cuzco. The sacred feather in de Molina’s helmet was saluted again and again on the road by armed detachments of Peruvian warriors, hundreds of whom they saw, not a little to their disquiet, posted with perfect skill and knowledge of the country, so as to command all the most difficult parts of the road. They rightly guessed that where they saw hundreds there were really thousands, but although, as they well knew, part of the great debt of vengeance that they had piled up might well have been paid off on them, not a hand was raised or a spear lowered to bar their path. The instant that the sacred plume was seen the leaders of the detachments bowed their heads and ordered their men back, leaving the road clear, and so with hard riding they came shortly after sundown within sight of Cuzco. When they had nearly reached the bottom of the steep causeway that winds round the western shoulder of the great fortress, de Molina turned in his saddle and said--
“And now, Caballeros, as the Inca has kept faith with us, so, I take it, must we now keep faith with him. There is little time to be lost if all these hosts are closing about us. Are you agreed, then, that we shall go at once and perform what remains of our oath to be fulfilled?”
“Yes,” the other three replied almost in a breath.
And then de Soto dismissed the Indian escort, and the four cavaliers, entering the city, turned their horses’ heads in the direction of the palace which Hernando Pizarro had taken for his headquarters.