Chapter XXXII The Storm Breaks
Pedro was asleep in his chair, but roused when Cristoval laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“Old friend,” said the latter, “we are prisoners.”
Pedro sat up, regarding his companion with incredulity. “Prisoners again, sayst thou, Cristoval?”
“Prisoners! I asked the Inca’s leave to quit the palace at once, and was denied.”
“At once! To-night?” demanded Pedro. “Well, then stew me if I’m not glad thou wast denied! Here is our supper, scarce touched. Here are two beds, immaculate. Cristoval, thou ’rt rash, hot-headed, and too impetuous by far! Now what if the Inca had given thee thy leave?”
“We should have taken it and gone,” replied Cristoval.
“Como asi! Just so,” said the cook, in a tone of reproach. “We should have taken it and gone—supperless, bedless, two wanderers by night. As for being prisoners, the news would have kept until morning, and I for one, would have slept none the worse.”
Cristoval regarded him moodily. “Gods, but thou hast philosophy, for a captive cook!”
“Philosophy!” retorted Pedro; “’t is common sense. But come! Let us fall to, and thou tell me whilst we eat.”
They fell to, and Cristoval recounted the interview. At its close Pedro remarked comfortingly: “Well, if this is durance, Cristoval, I’ve experienced worse, and so hast thou. Which bed wilt have? They’re alike. Shall we toss for it? I have a maravedi.”
“Madre! Thou’rt a cheerful cook,” returned Cristoval, glumly.
They tossed for beds, sought them presently, and while Cristoval lay restless and pondering, Pedro’s peaceful snore resounded through the halls of the Incas.
The cavalier was awakened next morning by the voice of Pedro in the outer room, addressing an attendant and apparently amending his salutation into Christian terms.
“Say, rather, ‘May the Virgin guard you’; or, more briefly, ‘Dominus vobiscum.’ Either is good, and the sooner thou learnest them the better for thy soul. Is that our breakfast? Art sure? Hast not strayed into the wrong room? Hum! Well, it hath little of the look of the prison fare I’ve—heard tell of, for a surety! Pleased with it, boy! Why, I’m pleased from crop to tail-feathers, and that’s clear through! A mere saying, my lad. Heed it not. Ah! My leg? It hath thine admiration? In my country ’t is worn as a mark of transcendent virtue. Few attain it. That will do. Just leave the door open when thou goest out.”
Presently Cristoval heard a low whistle of surprise, and Pedro stumped hurriedly to his door. “Cristoval!” whispered the cook, “Cristoval! He did it!”
“He did what?” demanded Cristoval.
“Left the door open, or I’m a scullion! Stir thyself!”
The cavalier stepped out. The door was broad open, admitting sunlight, perfume, and the sound of the fountain in the court. “Move, man, and we’re free!” exclaimed Pedro, urgently. “There is not a soul in the patio.”
“Useless, Pedro!” said Cristoval, turning away. “The place is surrounded by guards, and the valley full of troops. We should not stir five hundred yards.”
“Oh, the fiend! We can try. ’T is a flaunt in the face of Providence not to try!” He looked stealthily into the court and drew back with an exclamation. “Here cometh Mocho! Shall I throttle him?”
“No!” thundered Cristoval.
Pedro shrugged. “Amigo, thou ’rt an ass!—with asinine propensities for thorns and thistles.” He pegged across the room and seated himself with some violence, muttering, “This is what cometh of being a cook.”
Mocho entered. “My friends,” said he hastily, after their greetings, “we move in an hour toward Cuzco. The Inca hath gone to Ollantaytambo with Quehuar and Yumaquilque, who came this morning. The Antis are on the march.”
“We, my Lord Mocho!” said Cristoval. “We—Pedro and myself—are prisoners. The Inca refused liberty to leave the palace.”
Mocho shook his head with a smile. “No, Viracocha Cristoval. There was a council at dawn when the generals arrived, and the Inca hath accepted your service. In truth, you were not prisoners. The Inca could not so soon forget.”
Within the hour the two Spaniards were leading down through the park to the valley with Mocho, and the latter said, “Viracocha Cristoval, the Antis are to take the Sachsahuaman.”
Cristoval nodded. “Count us with them, Lord Mocho,” he said briefly.
A few days later a foraging party of Spanish pikemen and Cañares leaving Cuzco by the Cuntisuyu road at dawn found its way opposed outside the suburb of Chaquill-Chaca by a body of Peruvian archers. The sergeant in command halted in astonishment, then with an imprecation ordered his men forward to cut a way through. Before half-a-dozen paces had been covered a flurry of arrows whizzed into their ranks. The sergeant ordered a charge, met at quarter bow-shot by a volley, and the head of his detail melted. Another discharge, and the foragers reeled, broke, and stampeded toward the city. They dashed through the dim streets crying the alarm and reached the square just as the garrison of the Sachsahuaman rushed into it from the north in wild disorder. The fortress had been surprised by an overwhelming force, and the Spaniards had fled without a blow. A few minutes later half a score of wounded straggled in, some borne by comrades. A number had been left within the fortification, dead or captive, and others had dropped along the road. Now, from the suburbs on the west and south came the distant howling of the Cañares. A soldier burst into the sleeping-room of Hernando Pizarro, admitting with him a confusion of shouts from the square and the blare of trumpets sounding to arms.
“We are attacked!” cried the soldier. “The fortress hath fallen, and the city is surrounded.”
Hernando was out of bed at a bound. As he rushed out half-dressed, a horde of retreating Cañares swarmed into the square, some wounded, some naked, many unarmed, and all in panic, their savage clamor drowning the shouts of the Spanish officers struggling to form the companies. For a space it was a scene of madness. The Cañares, part terror-stricken by the suddenness of the attack, part infuriated by wounds and the sight of blood, whirled in the square like wild cattle, breaking the forming lines of the infantry, struck at by angry pikemen, fighting back, and howling. In a moment began a sputtering zip of arrows from outside, with here and there an answering shriek and plunge of some man hit, and the confusion rose to pandemonium. The sputtering increased; became a steady rain of missiles searching every yard of the place, their flight invisible in the twilight, making the vicious whir, or sharp, angry snap as they glanced on the pavement or from the walls, the more sinister. The Cañares broke for shelter in the halls of the palace of Viracocha, followed by the infantry and Candia’s men dragging their guns. Here the lines were hastily reformed. A few cavaliers were in the court, already mounted; but a few only, for Juan Pizarro had gone, three days before, with almost the entire strength of the horse in a fruitless pursuit of the Inca Manco, whose rescue had been reported by the battered Mendoza and his companion.
Hernando had gotten into armor in some fashion, and was now in the saddle, adjusting his helmet while he bellowed commands. His handful of cavalry clattered after him into the hail-swept square. The infantry, not two hundred of them in all, closed in behind. No hesitancy here, but grim resolution to fight whatever odds they might find; an unreserved, deadly willingness to fight, though the legions of all heathendom were arrayed against them.
For an hour the plaza roared, thundered, and trembled; was finally cleared. The warriors of the Inca had fought with courage almost superhuman, but had been met with steel, by the crushing weight of cavalry, by the fire and havoc of guns. They retreated to the streets, and the streets were swept by falconet and arquebus. They were driven to the suburbs—and the attack had failed.
But gloom, almost despair, was with the victors. Toward night, as the city grew quiet, Hernando summoned his officers in council in the square. They gathered about him, wounded, exhausted, and filthy with carnage, scowling sullenly beneath their lifted visors, morose and taciturn. The little said was scarcely heeded, their sombre glances turning to the grim walls of the Sachsahuaman, or to the hills around the city, now dark with the legions of the Inca. Hernando heard the reports of the wounded and dead, made no comment, and the council grew dumb. The storm had broken with such fury, with unexpectedness so entire, and its apparent magnitude was so great, that hearts before unknown to fear were filled with dread. The minds of the counsellors were stunned. The few words ventured by one or another were flat in their inadequacy, and were answered by silence. Hernando at last forced some phrases of encouragement, issued instructions for the disposition of what force there was, and the council gradually dissolved without words of dismissal.
Cuzco was invested. To oppose the thousands Hernando had only his infantry, a battery short of ammunition, with a thousand or more Cañares whom nothing could induce to go into action that day, and whose fidelity in the emergency was doubtful. Of the infantry, only the arquebusiers had signal superiority over the foe, and these were few, their powder limited. What fate had befallen Juan Pizarro and his troopers he feared to guess. Whether they should be able to make their way back to the city was a conjecture which gave little cheer.
As evening came on patrols were kept moving through the deserted streets, saluted with an occasional flight of arrows when they approached the suburbs, but there seemed no disposition on the part of the Peruvians to renew encounter. Night fell as calmly over the brooding mountains as if it were not curtaining the prelude of a weary length of tragedy whose last act would mean the destruction of a civilization.
For one heart within the besieged city, crushed and broken by sorrows that had searched and torn its every fibre, the rise of the sun upon the outburst of clamor of conflict saw the last flickering of the desire to live. Shocked and terrified by the tumult outside, the yells of fighting men, the roar of charging horse, and the thunder of guns—dread sounds which told her of agony and death for her beloved people—she closed her ears and prayed to die. Life was too full of horrors. Hers had been shadowed by a pall, lifted once by love, only to fall again with deepened blackness. Behind closed doors, with darkened windows, surrounded by cowering and weeping maids, she knelt through the long hours of anguish, offering up shuddering appeals to be taken away.
The Auqui Paullo came, flushed with excitement and fierce cheerfulness. He knew the dire significance of the turmoil, and bade Rava partake his own hope. The army of the Inca was afield, and deliverance at hand. Alas! no deliverance to Rava from her bondage of grief. She waved him away and wept afresh.
Late in the day came Father Valverde from his ministrations to dying Spaniards, and she knelt at his feet, imploring his prayers for her relief. The good priest, shocked at her longing for death, hastened to banish this vestige of her barbarism; prayed beside her for the renewing of her resignation; told her again of His agony and gentle patience, of the Mother bereaved, and gave her support. Once more he spoke of the saintly lives of nuns, and she listened with yearning for their holy peacefulness. He left her at last with new hope and a resolution fast growing. Rava would take the veil.
The night which closed the first day’s struggle was without alarm. The Spaniards slept beside their arms, the troopers in armor and at the picket line of their saddled steeds. Guards were doubled, and patrols kept the streets. The stars came out, but they seemed rivalled in multitude and brilliancy by the fires of the besieging army, sparkling in a vast circle on the surrounding hills, and beheld with awe by the beleaguered conquistadors.
To one Spaniard, however,—to Cristoval,—viewing them from the ramparts of the Sachsahuaman, they gave hope and promise. Beside Mocho, and followed by Pedro as closely as his wooden member would permit, he had taken part in the storming of the fortress. Later, they watched the struggle in the streets below, and Mocho pointed out the Amarucancha, beneath whose roof was Rava. With strained nerves and fevered blood the cavalier had seen the conflict raging at the very doors of the palace, hardly to be withheld from descending to join in the battle, and deterred only by the manifest impossibility of reaching its front through the masses in the streets. Sick at heart he had witnessed the repulse, but with new resolution and a solemn, whispered oath. All day he had lingered on the parapet studying the city spread out like a map below him, and at nightfall the sight of the great girdle of campfires brought fresh courage. With such a host the Inca must triumph.
The next morning news came that Manco had engaged the Spanish cavalry near Yucay. Later, that the Spaniards were in full retreat toward Cuzco, and an order was received from the Inca permitting them to enter the city. On the following day they appeared on the Chinchasuyu road, uncovered for their passage. The highway passed at the foot of a spur of the hill Sachsahuaman, and from the height Cristoval and Pedro watched the entry of the cavalcade. Had it not been for a dozen empty saddles and the litters borne by Cañares in the rear, the return might have been from a victory. Pennons fluttered, plumes tossed jauntily on helmets, and as they passed the lines a trumpeter blew a quickstep.
Shortly after the column had entered the city a chasqui arrived at the fortress announcing the approach of the Inca, and Mocho paraded his Antis to receive him. Messengers were sent to the several generals of the divisions surrounding the city, and the afternoon was spent in council with the monarch in the citadel.