CHAPTER VII.

FRIENDS THOUGH FOES

De Soto’s first care naturally was to seek out the Villac-Umu, and through him to convey to the queen-mother and the princess, who were already preparing themselves to meet with becoming dignity and fortitude the shameful fate from which they believed nothing could save them, the welcome news of their unexpected and indeed incomprehensible salvation. At the same time runners were dispatched to Yucay, or, to be more correct, to Chinchero, the great fortress at the entrance to the valley where the Inca had posted himself with the advance guard of his army. Their mission was to tell him that the four cavaliers had redeemed their promise, and that as soon as might be convenient for them the two royal ladies would set out from Cuzco under a suitable escort.

This they did betimes in two of the royal litters magnificently adorned with gold and jewels and feather work, and on either side of each rode one of those to whose chivalry and generosity they owed even more than life and liberty.

When the cavalcade had proceeded some two leagues or so beyond the city, and had reached the rugged plain on which Manco had made his mock escape, they saw several long, glittering files of men rapidly approaching them, and Gonzalo Pizarro, to whom the command of the escort had been given, looked round suspiciously at de Soto and said--

“Señor, your friend the Inca must have a good many men at his disposal to be able to send an army as an escort for his bride. To my eyes it has more the look of an ambush.”

“There is no need for fear, Señor,” replied de Soto, laughing, “for de Molina here carries in his morion a talisman that would take an unarmed foe scathless through all the Inca’s hosts. If it please you to bid him ride forward you shall soon see that this is so.”

“Very well,” said Gonzalo, “I shall be glad to know it. Let him go.”

So the young cavalier, who so far had been riding in moody silence on the right hand of Nahua’s litter, scarcely trusting his eyes to rest upon her, although she had drawn the curtains partly aside, touched his horse with the spurs and cantered off to meet the approaching host. As he rode on they saw file after file come into view from behind until the whole of that part of the plain seemed covered with the splendidly dressed soldiery. But the moment that the sacred feather in de Molina’s helmet became visible every file stopped motionless, then a rippling sea of fire seemed to run across the plain as the sunlight gleamed upon thousands of weapons of polished copper waved in greeting to him, and a mighty shout from thousands of throats came rolling over the plateau. Then, as though by magic, the shining files separated and swung back, and in a few moments the paved causeway was lined on either hand as far as the eye could reach with an endless array of warriors silent and rigid as bronze statues.

Between these the two litters with their escort passed at a rapid foot-pace for nearly four hours. As the cavalcade proceeded the two files behind fell into marching order on the roads, and so it went on, with an ever-increasing rearguard, until at length the huge black walls of the fortress loomed up in the distance.

“Yonder is our journey’s end, Señor!” said de Soto to Gonzalo Pizarro. “That is one of the fortresses guarding the river of which we told you. I doubt not that the Inca will meet us there and relieve us of our charge. There too you will see something of the strength of the position that we shall shortly have to force, unless indeed his Majesty takes the bolder step of besieging us in Cuzco.”

They were now on the sloping, zigzag pathway which led down towards the river, and Gonzalo’s soldierly eye had already noted that the lower they descended the worse the ground became for horses and the stronger the defences of the ravine appeared.

“I would rather his Majesty came to Cuzco, even though he came at the head of a hundred thousand men, than we should meet him here with only ten thousand at his back,” he replied. “I doubt if the world holds another so lovely a spot so ably defended.”

“So would I,” said de Soto. “It is well for us that these people have neither steel nor gunpowder. If they had they could hold this valley for years, in spite of all the soldiers Spain could send against them.”

“I believe you, Señor,” said Gonzalo, “but, mira! is not that a brave show. Look, the garrison are turning out to receive us, and yonder is our late guest, the Inca, armed cap-à-pie, and, Santiago! yonder is another clad in good steel and mounted on a piece of good Spanish horse-flesh. Por Dios, these people learn quickly! Methinks if we do not bring the war swiftly to a close we shall be conquered with our own weapons.”

“The other will no doubt be old Ruminavi--him they call Stony-Face,” replied de Soto. “Next to Huayna-Capac himself he is said to have been the greatest general in the land. The Inca warned me that we should find fighting him a graver matter than taking Atahuallpa prisoner.”

The cavalcade had now reached the last of the slopes in the roadway, and presently it turned from it on to the plain in front of the fortress. As it did so the shrill notes of trumpets and horns rang out along the mountain-sides, and instantly not only was every terrace and rampart lined with men but a vast array seemed to spring out from the ground behind the two mailed figures on the other side of the river. The stream was now bridged by a quadruple row of balsas or rafts of reeds lashed tightly together and covered with neatly-dressed planks of a size which showed that they must have come from the vast forests which clothe the eastern slopes of the Andes.

The Inca and his companion drew up at about forty paces from the river bank and remained motionless until the whole cavalcade had crossed it. The Peruvian escort, as before, separated and fell back into two files, between which the Spanish cavaliers rode, Gonzalo Pizarro at the head and the others on either side of the litters. When all had crossed Manco threw up his vizor and cantered forward alone. He pulled his horse up with admirable grace within a couple of paces of Gonzalo, and when he had saluted he held out his hand to him saying--

“Señor, you are welcome since you have come to bring me the greatest of all the treasures that our land contains. And welcome to you too, Señores,” he went on with a wave of his hand and a stately bow to either side of the litters, “since your coming proves that your tongues are as straight as your right arms are strong. For this day at least we are friends. I have been your guest,” he went on with a laugh, “now you must be mine if you will accept such hospitality as my poor palace can afford.”

“Since, as you say, there is truce between us, Señor Inca,” replied Gonzalo, “there is no reason against our accepting the honour with all due gratitude, and I trust we shall sup together none the less heartily that ere long we may be exchanging honest blows.”

The Inca bowed gravely, wheeling his charger without, as far as the Spaniards could see, so much as having glanced at the litters, the curtains of which were now closely drawn, and led the way towards the palace which formed the northern half of the fortress. The great array of warriors separated into two solid, shining masses as they approached, and old Ruminavi, sitting his horse like a statue of steel, threw up his vizor and saluted with his sword as they passed.

At the foot of a broad flight of steps leading up to a wide terrace running the whole length of the palace Manco dismounted and asked the Spanish cavaliers to do the same. Then he led the way on to the terrace. He now made a sign to the litter-bearers, who at once set their burdens down, and then for the first time he approached them. He went first to the one in which Mama-Oello was lying, and with gracious deference helped her to rise. Then he went to the other, and as Nahua rose and stood beside him a mighty shout burst from tens of thousands of throats and went echoing across the river and along the rock-walls of the valley, and at the same instant every warrior within sight of the terrace dropped on his knees and spread out his arms towards it, and Nahua’s name, uttered at the same instant by tens of thousands of lips, went up to heaven in one great cry of joy and thankfulness.

“You see, Señores,” said Manco, turning to the Spaniards, “that mine would not have been the only heart that you would have filled with darkness and sorrow had you not been as brothers rather than as enemies to one who hereafter, even if he should fall by your hands, will take none but loving memories of you with him to the Mansions of the Sun.”

Toil-worn and battle-hardened as they were the Spaniards were still men, and for the most part gentlemen, and more than one of them looked at this touching spectacle of thankful devotion through a mist which was certainly not in the clear sky or the translucent air of the Sierras, and this mist was not far from becoming veritable tears when Nahua, at a word in Quichua from Manco, left his side and went to them one after the other, beginning with de Soto, and took their rough right hands in hers and bowed her lovely head over them till her lips touched them.

It was her act of public thanks for the great service they had done her and her people, and although the army knew that ere many days were past they must meet these same men in bitter and unsparing battle every man of all the thousands within sight sprang to his feet again, waving his weapon and making the rocks and the fortress’ walls ring with his cheers. It was a moment in which a lasting peace might have been made and the greatest empire and the most perfect civilisation of the New World saved from utter and irretrievable ruin. If the majority of the Spaniards had been such men as those who were now standing with the Inca on the terrace of his palace they might have been to Peru what two centuries and a half later the English became to India. But this was not to be. They had brought with them into the land the twin curses of insatiable greed and invincible religious intolerance, and these were ere long to prove the utter undoing of both conquerors and conquered.

For the rest of that day and far into the night the Spaniards were treated with a royal and splendid hospitality worthy of the great race from which Manco sprang. They were feasted in gorgeous chambers, seated on chairs of silver, and eating and drinking from dishes and vessels of gold. They were carried in litters up to the rocky ledge beyond Chinchero, where the tableland ends and whence they could see all the glories of the lovely valley spread out laughing in the brilliant sunshine four thousand feet below them. Then, descending into the valley, they were taken without reserve from palace to palace and fortress to fortress, and at night they were amused with dances and martial displays. Then, after feasting splendidly again, they went to rest on couches of cedar and silver covered with the finest and softest furs and inclosed by bright-hued curtains of the silken vicuña wool.

The next morning they found their chargers ready groomed and caparisoned for them and their native escort drawn up to receive them in front of the terrace. As soon as the morning meal was over the trumpets and horns sounded and the garrison turned out in silent and perfect order to do honour to the departing guests, and the Inca, accompanied by Nahua and the queen, and attended by old Ruminavi, still clad in steel, and a brilliant array of his nobles, came out to bid them farewell in sight of the assembled host.

Behind the Inca came an attendant bearing a great plate of gold, on which was a heap of gems which flashed gloriously in the sunlight, and from this Manco took five long strings of emeralds and rubies, each of which in another land would have been of almost priceless value, and one of these he hung round each of the astonished Spaniards’ necks, and immediately afterwards Nahua left the side of the queen, with whom she had been standing, and went shyly up to de Molina and stood before him blushing rosy red through the pale olive of her skin.

On her upturned palms there lay a magnificent ruby cut in the shape of a heart and attached to a golden chain of exquisite workmanship. As soon as he saw it the young cavalier flushed red to the brows and, with the true instinct of a Spaniard and a cavalier, he instantly doffed his morion and dropped on one knee before her, and she took the two ends of the chain and with trembling fingers fastened them around his neck.

“That is the gift of my betrothed wife and promised queen,” said Manco, who had come to her side, “and she asks your acceptance of it as a token of the great love that we both bear you, since without you we should not have been together to-day and both of our lives would have been darkened with a great darkness until we met hereafter in the Mansions of the Sun, and therefore we both pray that our Father may keep you to wear it in honour and happiness until we shall meet you as well, no longer enemies, in the land where men do not make war upon each other.”

While he was speaking de Molina had caught Nahua’s two little hands in his and pressed them in turn gently and respectfully to his lips, as he might have done had he been kissing the hands of his own sovereign’s consort. Then he rose to his feet with his morion under his left arm and said in a voice that he had hard work to keep steady--

“Señor, I would that I could thank her Highness in her own musical speech, but since I cannot you must do it for me, and doubtless her ears will receive the words more gladly from your lips than mine. Tell her that as long as Alonso de Molina lives her gift shall be the most priceless of his possessions, even as the memory of her beauty and graciousness shall be the sweetest, if also the saddest, that life holds for him. Whether I die in battle, as is my hope, or in bed, as may be my fate, those who find me dead shall find this next to my heart.”

As he said this he took the splendid gem and pressed it to his lips, and then throwing back his scarf, he dropped it out of sight under his breastplate.

“And now, Señor,” he went on, taking the sacred plume from his morion, “there remains, alas, but this to do. To-day we are your friends and guests. To-morrow we may meet as enemies, each bound by his duty to slay the other if he can. When you gave me this you bade me wear it, and you promised me that it should bear me scathless through every battle. That, Señor, is what no soldier of Spain could accept. I may rely on no protection save the mercy of God and my own right arm. Therefore I pray you take it back, not because I would part with it, but because I must.”

“That is spoken like a true warrior and an honest man,” said the Inca as he took the feather from him. “I take back my gift since you have shown me that you cannot wear it with honour, yet should it be our fate to join battle a hundred times for each time our hands have met in friendship, before each onset I will pray to our Father that he may keep your lance and mine far apart. And now farewell, Señor, y amigo mio. The way is long and the sun is getting high. When you come to the City of the Sun give my greeting to Anda-Huillac and the rest of my people that are there, and tell them, and your people too, that it will not be long ere I shall visit them.”

So the last farewells were said and the Spaniards and their auxiliaries, escorted by a splendid array of the Inca’s own body-guard, crossed the little plain and the bridge of boats and ascended the winding causeway, ever turning to look back with regretful eyes at the brilliant throng on the terrace which stood watching them and waving their farewells until the spur of the mountain had shut them from sight. After a hard ride over the bare, bleak puna they reached Cuzco shortly after sundown and at once made their report to Don Hernando.

They found him presiding over a Council of War, and when they had delivered their report, and de Soto and Gonzalo Pizarro were beginning to urge, in the interests of both humanity and policy, that an honourable peace, or at the least a lengthy truce, should be if possible concluded with the Inca until the whole situation of affairs could be laid before the King of Spain, with a view to preventing further bloodshed and destruction, Don Hernando cut them short by saying curtly, and with no great good-humour--

“Señores, though you doubtless come with the best of intentions you yet come too late, since it hath already been decided by a great majority in full council of war to attack this revolted prince forthwith in his stronghold, and before he hath time to further increase the hosts which he means to bring against us. I regret that you were not here to take part in the deliberation, though your voices would not have been numerous enough to have changed the decision. But since you have now been twice the guests of the Inca none can know the approaches to his fastnesses so well as you, and therefore none can be better fitted to direct the expedition. It leaves at sunrise to-morrow, and I do not doubt that in furthering the work in hand you will prove yourselves at least as good friends to Spain and our holy cause as your laudable chivalry has lately led you to show yourselves such good friends to her enemies.”

Later on that night Michael Asterre became the richer by two bars of gold of the value of 500 pesos each, and Alonso de Molina became the poorer by these and by the exchange of one of the best suits of armour in the city for the iron cuirass and greaves and battered plumeless morion which had so far been the property of the stalwart man-at-arms.