CHAPTER IV.
THE CROWNING OF ATAHUALLPA
When he reached the city the summits of the eastern mountains were already beginning to glow and glitter in the light of the still invisible dawn, but the angry glare which he had seen flaming so fiercely through the night had grown fainter and fainter until it had become so dim that the bulk of the Yavirá, rising up between it and the city, had completely hidden it from the view of those who had been in the streets and squares during the night.
As he entered the gate by which he had left he saw from the stolid calm of the guard who admitted him that no warning of the impending disaster had so far reached the men of Quito. The great city was just awakening from its slumber, for this morning every one would be abroad betimes. The news of the unheard-of crime of one whose holy office was believed to raise him above human frailty, and of the young Inca’s terrible sentence had reached every ear in the city overnight, and so every one woke early on the morning of doom.
Many, indeed, had not slept at all, for a crime so fearful as the high priest’s had been made out to be by the busy tongues of rumour was looked upon by the simple-minded folk as a presage of disaster, since, as they argued in their homely fashion, the Gods could not have permitted their chosen minister to sin if, for some cause or another, they were not grievously angry with their children.
More than this, too, vague, wild stories had ever and anon drifted up to the mountain-walled valley from the sea-borders of the West and North concerning the deeds of a strange new race of men, or demigods, as some called them, who had come from unknown lands, or perchance from the skies themselves, wafted by the winds in marvellous winged vehicles from which they could pour out thunder and flame and death--nay, it was even said that they carried the Llapa itself in their hands, and could smite with instant death all who offended or withstood them, while they themselves, mounted on mighty and terrible beasts which snorted fire and smoke from their nostrils, would fly over the earth with incredible speed. Moreover, they were made invulnerable to all weapons by clothing of white, shining stuff that neither spear nor arrow would pierce.
Some said that they were the long-foretold messengers from the Sun, fair of skin and mighty of arm, who were coming to rule over the Land of the Four Regions, and advance its borders till they included the whole habitable world and all the men that lived upon the earth. Others, again, said that they were demons which the powers of evil had let loose upon the world, armed with weapons of infernal origin, to lay it waste ere they repeopled it with their own hideous kind.
There had been strange signs in the sky, too, for flaming shapes had leapt across it, as one had done this very night, or sailed slowly through its depths, bright and terrible or pale and ghastly, like warning heralds of universal doom--and now the great Inca was dead, the grasp of the mighty conqueror was loosed from his sceptre, and his sword had been sheathed, and the first act of the new Inca had been the uttering of a sentence which doomed the noblest and holiest family in the land save his own to utter extinction and a death of torment. It was little wonder, then, that sleep had fled from many eyes in Quito that night.
When Manco reached the terrace in front of the palace he saw men already dragging and carrying beams and planks and fagots towards the centre of the square, and his heart, beating hard with the exertion of his long and swift journey, stood still in an instant, as he remembered the awful purpose to which they were destined; for the labourers were about to build the funeral pyre on which his beloved Nahua and all her dear ones were to perish amidst the torment of the flames ere the new-born day was but a few hours older--unless, indeed, some mightier power than that of the despot who had doomed them should be exerted to save them, and, if not to save them, perchance to avenge them.
Scarce knowing what he said or did, he went to the guards at the great door of the palace and sought to find admission, but all he gained was the reply, respectful and yet inexorable, that none, not even a prince of the Blood, could now enter the palace until the Inca came forth to salute the coming of his Father, the Sun. It was in vain that he commanded and besought by turns, and spoke of the anger of the Gods, and coming disaster to the city and its people. Only the formal words of blind obedience to orders answered him, and when at last he sought to force his way to the door crossed spear-shafts and lowered points showed him that he must die before he reached it.
Then at length he drew back, and in the tumult and bitter agony of his soul he paced up and down the broad terrace muttering disjointed and incoherent words, and watching with dry, aching eyes the stolid labourers silently doing their work in the square.
Beam by beam and plank by plank he saw the great scaffold rise, like the creation of some hideous magic, by the toil of many hands, and all the while the eastern peaks glowed brighter and brighter, heralding the coming of the fatal hour.
At last the guards fell back from the door of the palace and stood to their arms. A weird, low sound of song seemed to rise from all parts of the city at once, every moment growing louder and stronger and more jubilant. Then, as though called into being by some spell or miracle, troop after troop of gaily-accoutred soldiery, glittering with gold and silver and burnished copper, and clad in bright-hued uniforms, streamed out of the streets into the square and formed up in silent, orderly ranks along its sides and on the great terrace which flanked it.
Then from the Temple of the Sun and the House of the Virgins came two long processions, one of priests and the other of the Brides of the Sun, chanting the Hymn of Greeting, for this was no ordinary day; it was the morning on which the new Inca was to hail the coming of his Father and his God for the first time, and, standing in the radiance of the first beams that fell into the valley, place the imperial borla upon his brow.
The priests and virgins, entering the square from opposite sides, took their places at either end of the great terrace on which the palace stood, leaving a triangular open space narrowing towards the great doorway and opening to the eastward. Manco went and stood among the guards by the door, eagerly and yet hopelessly scanning the shining ranks of the virgins in the vain search for the face that he would willingly have given his life to see among them, and so he waited till the master of human fate throughout the valley should come forth, and the solemn ceremony which it would be death to interrupt even by a word or a gesture should be over.
And as he waited and watched the silver deepening into gold and the gold blushing into crimson behind the far-off peaks, he thought of the fiery pall that he had seen flaming above Pichincha through the darkness of the night, and in his fancy he saw it rise and spread with the blackness of the cloud and the glare of the flame till it blotted out the dawn and hung like a pall of death and desolation over the whole of the lovely valley.
Then a louder burst of song roused him from his waking dream, and he turned to the door and saw Atahuallpa, splendid in the pride of his imperial array, shining with gold and glittering with gems, come forth with a slow, stately step, his head bare and down-bent, like one going into the presence of his God, and carrying in his hands the scarlet Llautu fringed with the scarlet and gold borla, the insignia of his sovereignty and the symbol of his Divine descent.
He came out alone and walked into the midst of the vacant space. Then behind him came the High Priest of the Sun, newly appointed in Ullomaya’s place, with the chief priests attending on him. Then came Zaïma the Queen-Mother with the princesses of her household, and then Challcuchima with his brother chieftain, Quiz-Quiz, and a glittering array of the chief warriors of the realm and princes of the Sacred Blood.
As they halted each at their proper distance behind the Inca the melody of the singing suddenly stopped, a brilliant point of fire blazed for an instant beside the peak of Antisana, then the whole summit of the great mountain seemed to melt away into a sea of flame, and at the same instant every knee, from that of the Inca to that of the meanest labourer in the city, was bent to the earth in adoration.
Then in the midst of the solemn silence of the breathless multitude, Atahuallpa upturned his face towards the risen sun, and in a loud, clear, musical voice, whose words rang like the notes of a silver trumpet through the silent, crowded square, spoke for the first time the solemn Invocation to the visible shape of his Father and his God.
“O Thou whose sublime throne shines with immortal glory, with what incomparable majesty dost thou dominate the illimitable empire of the skies! When thou comest forth in thy splendour crowned with the flaming diadem of thy glory thou art the pride of heaven and the delight of the earth!
“Where now are those pale fires which flickered round the sombre brow of night? Have they sustained for an instant the attack of the shining shafts of thy heralds, or even the glance of thy glory? If thou didst not give them permission to shine on us for a little space they would remain for ever lost in the ocean of thy splendour, even as though they were not!
“Soul of the Universe, radiant and glorious, without thee the great ocean would be but a lifeless wilderness of ice, even as are the upper regions of the mountains. The earth would be but a barren desert of sand and rock, and the heavens but a gulf of darkness.
“Thou dost penetrate all elements with thy beams, and from their warmth springs life and beauty. By them the air is made sweet and fresh, the waters bright and flowing, and the land green and beautiful. Thy vital fires penetrate the womb of the earth, and she brings forth her fruits that thy children may enjoy them, for thou, O Sun, Soul of the Universe, art the giver of all the blessings of life!
“Yet if it may be that even thou, bright and glorious as thou art, art but the messenger and the minister of the Unnameable One, whose glory no mortal eyes may see, then hear the vows of our obedience and the praise of our adoration, and take them from us to Him, since we are not worthy to enter His presence.
“Thus, O Sun, I, chief of thy children, salute thee! May thy glory for ever shine unclouded upon us, and may thy blessings never cease to fall upon the homes of thy children and thine adorers!”
When the Inca ceased there was silence for a space, and he and all about him remained motionless on their knees. Then he rose and stood alone erect amidst the vast kneeling throng, raising his two hands with the Llautu poised between them high above his head. Then he brought it down slowly until the scarlet fringe rested upon his brow, and then, spreading out his arms with the palms of his hands out-turned towards the sun, he said in a loud voice--
“Thus, O Lord and Father of thy chosen people, do I crown myself in accordance with the precept of the Divine Manco, and in obedience to the will of my father and thy servant, who now sees me from the abodes of the Divine Ones, Inca and ruler supreme of thy children and my people throughout this land.
“May the glory of my reign be a reflection of thine! May thy strength be in my heart and thy light in my soul, and, even as thy blessings flow from thee to the earth and make it bright and beautiful and fruitful, so may the blessings of my just rule make the homes of my people glad and their lives full of peace and comfort!”
When he ceased there was silence again for a space, and those who were standing behind him parted to right and left, and then, from out of the great door of the palace, there came a procession of bearers in two rows, twenty on each side, carrying between them suspended on silver rods the golden throne from which Huayna-Capac had given laws and dispensed justice to his people of the North. Every one of the bearers was a prince of the royal house, for none other than princely hands might touch the throne sanctified by contact with the sacred person of the Inca.
They stopped just behind Atahuallpa, who remained standing facing the sun as though unconscious of any mortal presence near him. Then three of the oldest and noblest of the bearers came on each side of him and put their hands under his armpits and loins and feet, and, with no seeming effort, the body of the Inca rose in the air and was borne backwards till it rested in a sitting posture on the throne.
At the same instant a great shout of joy and acclamation rose up from hundreds of thousands of throats. It was thrice repeated, and then as it died away the priests and virgins raised the Song of Homage, chanting alternately in strophe and antistrophe the glories of the Inca’s ancestors and his own valiant deeds achieved in the wars of his father.
This ended, the Inca sat for a little while, as though absorbed in thought, in the midst of a perfect silence, and then he rose to his feet, and, standing on a broad, massive plate of burnished silver which formed the first step of the throne-seat, he raised his voice and addressed the assembled thousands for the first time as their crowned lord and absolute master.
He told them of the conquest of their ancient kings by his father, and reminded them how, from being their conqueror, he became their king and father and protector. How he had taken their own princess to wife, and how, sprung from that union, he united in his own veins the purest blood of the South and the North. Then he spoke of the decree by which his father had given him, the son of a Quitan mother, the lordship of the land of the North, independent and absolute, and he took the new-risen Sun to witness that, with their help, he would preserve it as he had received it to the last day of his life.
After that, with a fiercer ring in his voice, he spoke of the crime of Ullomaya, and told how he was self-convicted of seeking to rob him, their lawful Inca, prince of their own blood, of his rightful inheritance, and to make him the vassal of his brother and them the slaves of the people of the South. Then, pointing to the scaffold now surrounded with great banks of fagots, he pronounced the formal sentence ordained by the ancient law.
And now he paused for a little, and when he began to speak again his voice, though still loud and clear, was mild and gracious, and he told them how, being unwilling that the first act of his new reign should be one of severity, however just, he would delay the execution until midday in order that the interval might be passed in hearing petitions according to the ancient custom, in righting the wrongs of those who had suffered injustice, and in rewarding those whose services to the State had given them a claim upon his bounty.
This was the moment for which Manco had been waiting in breathless anxiety. Yet, so deathless is hope in the heart of a youth, that when he had heard the Inca give the respite of even a few hours it rose again and his pulses throbbed with new life. Then a sense of awe, almost of fear, came over him as he remembered again what he had seen and heard and felt the night before--the fire-sign in the sky, the warning roll of the thunder that came, not from above, but from below, the terrible words of Mama-Lupa, and the shuddering of the solid earth beneath his feet as he stood with her on the altar on Yavirá. What if the anger of the Gods should smite judge and victims alike before the hand of human vengeance closed upon its prey!