CHAPTER VI.
“WE HAVE SWORN!”
The news that they had returned without the Inca had apparently preceded them by some means, for they met Carvahal at the door of the palace, and in answer to their greeting he looked up and said with one of his deep, growling laughs--
“So you have seen his Majesty safely home, Señores! By my faith, a right worthy Christian escort for a heathen king who was yesterday a captive! Did I not say that it would have been better to try the tight collar on him as we did on Atahuallpa? If I mistake not the lad is worth a score of Atahuallpas. I fear me it will go hard now with the lad’s mother and sweetheart. Don Hernando is in a towering rage, and I believe the punishment is to be a flogging first, and then shooting to death with arrows. It would have been greater mercy to have strangled the lad himself.”
While the old ruffian was running on in this way de Soto and his companions had flung themselves from their horses and mounted the steps.
“Is Don Hernando within?” said de Soto roughly, and seeming to take no heed of what he had said.
“He is, Señores,” replied Carvahal, bowing with a clumsy attempt at mock politeness, “and he is awaiting you in a humour that seems to have more of brimstone in it than of the milk of human kindness. You will find him in the banqueting-hall--and methinks you will find the feast already spread for you.”
Without noticing the sally the four cavaliers strode past him hands on sword-hilts, and looking more like men going to battle than soldiers about to account for a grave failure to their commander. De Soto went first, and as he entered the room Hernando Pizarro, who was sitting at a table with three or four of his officers, looked round and then started to his feet. He was a big, heavily-built man with a low, narrow brow, large and fleshy nose and mouth, and a pallid skin which the most ardent sun had been unable to tinge with bronze. His black eyes were small but very bright, and as he looked at de Soto they flashed with unmistakable anger. His voice, always unpleasing, seemed to grate roughly over his yellow uneven teeth as he said with the air of a judge addressing culprits brought up for judgment--
“How now, Señores? Where is he who was entrusted to your keeping? A tale brought by an Indian reached me to-day telling me that you had permitted his escape. I trust you come to tell me that that is false. If not, it will be my duty to show you how we deal with traitors.”
“Don Hernando,” said de Soto very quietly, as he always spoke when he had weighty words to say, “good soldiers do not draw their swords upon each other in the face of the enemy, and we have come to tell you that every moment brings the enemy closer, else there are four swords here ready for thine and those of any three friends at your choice. At proper time and place mine will be at your service. Meanwhile let me remind you with all respect that you are speaking to your peers and not to your men-at-arms. If you think otherwise we can find another use for our swords and the right arms of our friends and followers. You forget that we already have the Governor’s permission to join ourselves to his forces at Los Reyes.”
Angry as he was, Don Hernando was too shrewd not to see that this was really a serious threat. De Soto and his companions were not only very popular among the men, but they were, with the exception of the Pizarros themselves, the principal leaders of what were already called the Old Conquerers. As it was the balance of power between what were afterwards known as the Pizarro and Almagro factions was held too evenly in Cuzco just then for his liking. He knew that such a defection as this would place his party in a hopeless minority, and he knew too that the Almagrists, if they could do it with safety, would think no more of flinging him into prison, as indeed they afterwards did, and proclaiming their leader Governor of the city, than they would think of sending an arrow through a flying Indian’s body, for it must be remembered that the conquerors were not a regular army under the rigid discipline of a European camp. They were simply a body of adventurers held together by nothing but common interests and common perils, isolated in a hostile land and far removed from any centre of real authority. Their leaders were chosen by themselves, and, as the civil wars in which the two factions afterwards rent each other to pieces clearly proved, their tenure of office was by no means a secure one. No one knew this better than the titular Governor of Cuzco, and he knew, too, that if these four men chose to raise the standard of revolt and throw in their lot with the Almagrists his dead body might within an hour be lying in the streets pierced with a dozen sword-thrusts.
Such considerations as these, flashing as they did through his active mind during the pause which followed de Soto’s bold words, instantly brought back his habitual self-command and that tactful control of his feelings and manner which made him the best diplomatist and perhaps the only statesman among the Conquerors. He smiled as pleasantly as such lips as his could smile, and said with a not ungraceful wave of his hand--
“Señores, I spoke hastily and I ask your pardon. The loss of the Inca’s person is a very serious one to us. From the reports that have reached us it might even mean our ruin. It was natural, then, that the tidings should affect me deeply, but no doubt you have a report to make. If so, we are all attention. Will you be seated?”
“Señor,” replied de Soto, still in the same cold, quiet voice, “I have a somewhat strange tale to tell you for myself and these caballeros here, and after the greeting you have been pleased to give us, we would prefer not to sit in your presence lest perchance we might be taken for your guests.”
Don Hernando frowned at the coolly-spoken insult, but he was too politic not to see the danger of exasperating de Soto and his companions any further, so he simply nodded his head and waved his hand again and said--
“Very well, Señores. As you will. And now for the report.”
“What happened first,” said de Soto without any further preamble, “was this. In the darkness of the night and just as we had reached the edge of a level plain beyond the mountains, the Inca, who sits a horse as well as any Christian cavalier, suddenly spurred forward into the midst of the fore-guard of Indians. He clove the skull of one with his battle-axe, rode half-a-dozen others down, and went for his life across the plain with us hard after him. The horse he rode belonged, as you know, to the Señor de Molina here, and as you know also, five thousand pesos would not buy such a horse south of Panama. He had the better animal, and he knew the country to a yard. To be brief, he outrode us and escaped. We rode on, hoping to gain some knowledge of the position of the Indian army, which by all accounts is about to attack us. Soon after sunrise we found ourselves in the entrance to that valley of Yucay on which we had doubtless stumbled by accident in the chase, and there we found the Inca.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Hernando with just the suspicion of a sneer. “You found him and you did not bring him back--you, four Spanish cavaliers, to one puny Peruvian!”
“Señor,” replied de Soto as calmly as ever, “he who hears a tale but half told knows little of the truth of it. We were not four to one. We were more like four to forty thousand, for no sooner did the Inca show himself than the whole valley was alive with armed men. Moreover, there was a fortress on each side of us, a river in front of us, and behind us leagues of country swarming with the enemy. We had already given ourselves up for lost when the Inca waved a white scarf and made a sign that he wished to speak with us. Señor de Molina leapt his horse into the stream and swam to him. What happened, let him tell himself.”
He stepped aside, and the young cavalier strode forward, pale, angry, and defiant. But before he could speak Don Hernando waved his hand again and said--
“A moment, Señor. Your friend the Inca would seem to have forgotten that he left certain hostages with me in pledge for his return. I did not tell him what would befall them if he broke faith with me, but I will send one or two meaner prisoners that I have in my hands to him at once, to tell him that unless he is back here, alone and unarmed, by sunset to-morrow they shall be taken out at sunrise into the great square, and there, in the presence of the army, they shall be stripped and flogged and then shot to death with arrows. That is their doom, and I will abate no jot of it.”
“Then, Señor,” said de Molina, his ruddy face white to the lips, and his whole frame trembling with passion at the atrocious words, “if that is your irrevocable decision you have no need to release any of your prisoners to take the tidings of it to the Inca, for we ourselves will take it, as we have already pledged our Christian faith and knightly honour to do.”
“How? What mean you? You will take it?” exclaimed Don Hernando, staring at him in blank astonishment. “Surely, Señores, this is neither time nor place for jesting.”
“It is a jest that we are ready to put a point to with our swords, Señor,” replied de Molina, clapping his hand on his sword-hilt. “If it will please you to hear my story I will make few words of it, and my meaning shall be plain enough.
“When I met the Inca on the other side of the river he pointed out what was plain enough to see, that our lives were at his mercy. Then he told me of the pledge that he had left behind him in your hands, and he offered us our lives and liberties in exchange for those of his mother and his betrothed, and we, seeing no better way out of the business, accepted the offer.”
“How now, Señor?” cried Don Hernando angrily. “Whose authority had you to make such terms?”
“The authority of necessity, Señor,” replied de Molina, bowing slightly, “and if you know of a better you may tell us.”
“Whether I know of a better or not, I tell you that I will not recognise it!” cried Don Hernando, bringing his fist down on the table. “The lives of the women are forfeit, and they shall die unless Manco returns. I have sworn it.”
“And we have sworn, Señor,” exclaimed de Soto, stepping forward again, “that these ladies shall be sent scathless to Yucay, or that we will ourselves return according to our oath. Is that not so, Caballeros?”
The others bowed, and de Candia, placing himself between de Soto and de Molina, said in his deep, powerful voice--
“It seems to me, Don Hernando, that unless you think we are standing here lying to you, you are setting the gratification of a needless and cruel revenge against the honour and safety of four Christian knights and gentlemen of Spain. It is yet to be seen whether the Council of the Army will endure that, and if they do, whether the soldiers will. It maybe that they will think there is shame enough on our army already.”
“Is this your earnest, Caballeros?” asked Don Hernando somewhat anxiously, for he saw that the matter was now getting serious. “Have you in sober truth sworn to do so mad a thing? Is it possible you would go back and give yourselves up to this heathen?”
“Ay, by God and Santiago we will!” replied de Candia solemnly. “Our honour is pledged and our oaths are passed, and though we had to cut our way through the whole army we would do it to redeem them. Now what say you, Don Hernando? Which think you will have the more worth in the eyes of our sovereign lord when the news gets home to Spain--the honour and the lives of four cavaliers who have fought and bled for him, or the torment and death of two helpless and innocent women?”
It was an awkward situation plainly and skilfully described, and Don Hernando looked up with something very like admiration at the four cavaliers; for, making allowance for the age he lived in, and the profession he followed, he was a kindly-hearted man save when his passions were aroused, and, moreover, he was well enough skilled in the ways of the Spanish court to know how terribly black an accusation might be made against him out of such a circumstance. Still, having spoken so positively, he did not see his way to yield to such a peremptory summons, and he was looking round the table somewhat anxiously when his eye caught that of his half-brother Juan, the noblest youth and most gallant knight of all the Pizarro family. His ready wit grasped the situation instantly--the more quickly since he was entirely on the side of the four cavaliers. He rose to his feet and said, speaking to them all through de Candia--
“Caballeros, good as your motives are, and merciful as your errand is, it is yet a hard thing for one placed as my brother is in authority to turn aside from his path because he is threatened with certain pains and penalties. Nevertheless, speaking for myself, I will say as a private cavalier and not as Don Hernando’s brother, that he did not do this thing of his own will and judgment. He will not deny that the evil thought was put into his mind by that lying knave, Cepeda, who is himself a living proof of the wisdom of that decree of our august master which forbade lawyers to set foot in this land, and which has since, to my sorrow, been repealed. He, as you know, is heart and soul with the Almagrist faction, and he has no more a human heart in his breast than the mummies of the Incas which we found in the Temples of the Sun. The plan was his, and its object was not only the getting of more gold, but also the possession of the person of the Princess Nahua by himself----”
“Cuerpo de Cristo!” cried de Molina taking a couple of strides up the room and half drawing his sword from its scabbard. “What! Has that lean and scoundrelly anatomy of law and lying dared even to dream of that? Then, by the glory of God, am I the more fixed in my oath. Now, Don Hernando,” he went on, turning to the Governor, “we want you, not to yield, but to do justice. It cannot be that you knew of this thing. It cannot be that you, Governor of the city and brother of his Highness, could have entered into a league with this vile quill-driver to dishonour the promised bride of a prince who, be it remembered, received us as friends and honoured envoys.”
“It is true,” said Juan, “for I know it of my own knowledge, and so does Gonzalo here, and had you never returned we had determined that if Cepeda persisted in his intention he should not live to accomplish his infamy.”
“That is true,” added Gonzalo, with a nod; “for I was captain of the guard over the palace where the queen and princess are lodged, and the sentry told me how Cepeda went to them but to-day with an interpreter to tell them at what price he would save them from the punishment decreed against them did the Inca not return. When I heard of it I ordered him to be thrown out of the palace if he would not go for less persuasion, but he had already gone, looking as black as the gates of his future abode.”
“Then if that is so, Caballeros,” said Don Hernando, who meanwhile had been industriously reviewing all the aspects of the case, “since we do not make war on women or trade with their honour, I will willingly take back what I have said. The anger that I showed on your first entry you will doubtless take as natural in one who has lost an almost priceless prize. But now, in cooler blood, I am willing to confess that, situated as you were, you could have done only what you did, since the loss of four such gallant cavaliers to our little army would have been even graver than the loss of the Inca’s person. As you have sworn so shall you do, granted always that you will faithfully uphold me against these Almagrists.”
“Ay, that we will, Don Hernando!” exclaimed de Soto, well pleased that the seemingly difficult matter had been after all so easily settled; “and we shall do so with none the less heart and strength for that we were firmly resolved to keep our oath to Manco. That being kept we are more than ever devoted to your person and our holy cause.”
“Then, Señores,” replied Don Hernando, rising from his seat, and bowing gravely towards them, “you are at liberty, so far as your loyal duty to his Majesty permits, to provide for the present safety of the queen and the princess and their restoration to the Inca as may seem best in your eyes. But I pray you let there be no trouble with Cepeda if possible. I will answer to him for what is done, but we can afford no divisions in the camp now.”
“He is not worth an honest man’s steel,” replied de Soto as they all returned the bow, “so you may rest assured of that. In the name of my companions I thank you for permitting us to redeem our oath in peace and good fellowship. Señores, adios!”
“Adios, Señores!” replied Don Hernando and his brothers, and the four cavaliers swung round and marched with jaunty strides and cocked swords out of the palace, to the great astonishment of Carvahal, who had waited all this time for the joke of seeing them brought out under arrest.