The Bride of the Sun

“It is extraordinary,” acquiesced Oviedo. “I have made rather a study of it. At some points, the road was so steep that the horsemen had to dismount and almost drag their chargers after them. A single false step would have hurled them thousands of feet below. The defiles were then just practicable for the half-naked Indians, and think what it must have been for armored men, with the menace of an unknown enemy above them.”

“But what were the Indians doing all this time?” asked Dick, approaching in his turn.

“Nothing, señor… they were awaiting a visitor, not a foe.... Messages had been exchanged which....”

“One question,” put in the Marquis’ voice. “Do you suppose that if King Atahualpa had for one minute imagined his 50,000 men were incapable of defending him against a hundred and fifty Spaniards, that he would have behaved as he did? No, he merely felt contempt for their weakness. And he was wrong!”

“Yes, señor, he was wrong.” The bank-clerk bent his head humbly over his saddle-bow. Then, straightening himself again, he pointed to a peak towering above. “He should have appeared in those defiles, like the horseman yonder, and all would have been finished. The Sun our God would still be reigning over the Empire of the Incas!”

As he said these words, the clerk seemed to have grown to a giant. His sweeping gesture took in the whole huge mass of the Andes, making of it a pedestal for the Indian above them, sitting motionless on his horse, and watching their caravan.

“Huascar!” exclaimed Maria-Teresa.

All recognized Huascar. From that moment, until they had left the first chain of the Andes behind them, that silhouette of horse and man dominated and haunted them—sometimes behind, sometimes before, but always above them:—a promise of protection, or a menace.

II

After another night in camp, the travelers came in sight of the beautiful valley of Cajamarca, smiling below them in striking contrast to the somber mountains around. Thus did this happy valley appear to the astonished eyes of Pizarro’s men. It was inhabited in the days of the Conquistador by a race far superior to those with which the Spaniards had met on the other side of the mountains, as was clearly shown by the taste of their clothes, the cleanliness and comfort of their homes. As far as the eye could reach was a prosperous plain, watered by a wide river, abundantly irrigated by canals and subterranean aqueducts, broken up by green hedges and well-cultivated fields; for the ground was rich, and the temperate climate favorable to farming. Immediately below the adventurers lay the little city of Cajamarca, its white houses twinkling in the sunlight, like a precious stone shining in the dark girdle of the Sierra.

About a league beyond, in the valley, Pizarro could see columns of steam rising to the sky, and showing the position of the famous hot baths of the princes of Peru.

There was also a spectacle far less pleasing to the Spaniards. The lower mountain slopes disappeared under a cloud of white tents, covering an area of several miles. “We were amazed,” wrote one of the conquerors, “to find the Indians holding so proud a position, and this sight threw confusion, and even fear, into the staunchest hearts. But it was too late to turn, or to show the slightest weakness, and after carefully exploring the ground, we put on the best faces that we could, and prepared to enter Caxamarxa.”

Flowing over with such memories, and wild with excitement at finding himself in a land which he knew so well by hearsay, Uncle Francis stood up in his stirrups, and held forth interminably on the Cajamarca of his dreams. Instructed by Oviedo Runtu, he showed them the exact spot where Atahualpa and his 50,000 warriors had awaited Pizarro. Uncle Francis himself felt no fear of this huge army, massed in the hidden fastnesses of a continent discovered by Christopher Columbus just forty years before Pizarro’s wild venture. He felt like a hero of antiquity, and was quite ready to give the order to charge.

There was nobody there to tell them, though, what were the feelings of the Peruvian monarch when he saw the warlike band of Christians, banners flying, corselets and morions gleaming, debouch from the dark defile and advance into the rolling domains which until then no white man had ever seen.

Suddenly, Uncle Francis’ mule bolted, and a burst of laughter went up from the whole party. Excited by the shouts and cries, the other mules followed their leader, helter-skelter down the incline. The obvious dénouement was not long in coming. Uncle Francis’ mount, in a desperate effort to get away from the noise behind, rolled over, and the unfortunate scientist described a neat somersault. He was on his feet again almost at once, and soon set his anxious companions at rest.

“Thus it was,” he laughed, “that Pizarro won his first battle.”

Maria-Teresa and Dick appearing disposed to listen, he explained that in the Conquistador’s first fight with Incas, before he crossed the Andes, the little band of Spaniards, hard pressed, was saved by one hidalgo being unhorsed. The Incas, knowing nothing of horses or horsemanship, were so frightened that they fled, not daring to face this extraordinary animal which became two and still went on fighting.

Naturally, nobody believed him, though he was in no way drawing on his imagination. The whole story of the conquest of Peru is so extraordinary that one must forgive incredulity.

These facts, however, are vouched for by well-authenticated documents in the Royal Archives at Madrid, which Uncle Francis had taken care to study before starting for the Americas with his nephew. They were still laughing at his adventure and his story when their cavalcade reached the walls of Cajamarca.

It was nightfall as they entered the city. The first thing to arrest their attention was the enormous number of Indians in the streets, and their silence. Cajamarca, with a normal population of between twelve and thirteen thousand, certainly sheltered twice as many souls that night. And still more people were coming.

On the highroad, the Marquis’ party had successively passed file after file of Indians, plodding in the direction of their Sacred City. For Cajamarca may be called the necropolis of the Incas, and one can hardly take a step in its streets or avenues without meeting with some reminder of the splendor of a vanished empire.

It was easy to see, by the manner of the Quichuas crowding the historic roadways, that a religious pilgrimage had brought together this mass.

The amazement of the travelers, however, was as nothing to that of the inhabitants themselves, who had never before witnessed such an invasion. In the memory of living man, the Interaymi had never visibly moved the multitude in this manner. Even the great decennial fête had been rather the occasion for a general disappearance of Indians than for their appearance.

What did it all mean? The authorities were distinctly ill at ease, and the few troops massed at Cajamarca when the news came in of Garcia’s Indian revolt at the other end of the country had been put under arms. The doors of the city’s eight churches were militarily guarded, for each one of these buildings might have made a fortress. The rest of the troops had been gathered in the main square, not far from the ruined palace in which stands the stone on which Atahualpa, last King of the Incas, was burned alive.

These ruins were the goal of the Indians’ long pilgrimage over the mountains, the visit to that stone being the religious and outward pretext for this mute manifestation by a conquered race.

Don Christobal, amazed at what he saw, nervously remembered that the great Indian revolt of 1818 had been preceded by just such happenings. Were the Interaymi festivals which began next day really to be the signal for one of those revolts which the governments of Peru had long decided were no more to be feared?

As he was putting this question to himself, the Marquis caught sight of the post-office, and immediately dismounted. Dick and Maria-Teresa exchanged a smile. They were at last to know the name of the facetious sender of the Golden Sun bracelet.

They pulled up their mules, and waited with an indifferent air that was perhaps a little affected. Ten minutes later the Marquis came out.

“I have the name and address,” he said in a puzzled voice.

“And what is the name?” questioned Maria-Teresa.

“Atahualpa,” replied her father, mounting.

“So the jest continues.”—Maria-Teresa’s voice had changed a little.

“Apparently so. The clerk who received the parcel says it was brought in by an Indian, who said his name really was Atahualpa. That, after all, is possible.”

“Well, as you have the address, we might pay him a little call,” suggested Dick.

“Exactly what I was going to say.” And Don Christobal turned his mule. Uncle Francis brought up the rear, vigorously taking notes, with his book resting on the pommel of the saddle.

They crossed a rivulet racing towards an affluent of the upper Maranon, passed San Francisco, the first Christian church built in Peru, and, after the Marquis had asked his way several times, finally reached a square teeming with Indians.

On one side of this square still stood ancient palace walls. There had been the last home of the last Inca King. There he had lived in splendor, and there he died a martyr. There had been the home of Atahualpa, and there had the post-office clerk directed Don Christobal de la Torre!

III

Taken in the swirl of the crowd, the little cavalcade was gradually headed toward the ruined palace, and forced through its huge gates almost before the Marquis’ party knew what had happened.

They were now in a vast courtyard packed with Indians. Some of them, standing erect, showed the proud foreheads of chiefs, but the great majority were prostrate round a stone in the center—the stone of the martyrdom of Atahualpa.

On the far side of this stone, standing on a rude bench, was a man draped in a poncho of vivid red.... He was speaking in Quichua, while the crowd listened in reverent silence.

As the party of strangers rode into the courtyard, a sharp voice behind them interrupted the psalm-like recitation of the man in the red poncho.

“Speak Spanish, and everybody will understand,” it said.

The Marquis and Maria-Teresa turned. Behind them was their bank-clerk traveling companion, bowing as if to make them understand that he had intervened to do them a favor. Extraordinarily enough, this interruption, almost sacrilegious as it was, did not stir a man. The Indian in the red poncho paused for a moment, and continued in Spanish.

“In those days,” he said, “the Inca was all-powerful, and a vast army bowed to his will. The city was surrounded by a triple wall of stone, in the heart of which stood the citadel and the home of the Virgins of the Sun. The Inca, knowing no fear, and ignorant of all treason, allowed the white men to enter the city and received them as friends, as envoys from that other great emperor beyond the seas.

“But the leader of the Strangers, doubting the generous heart of the Inca, had divided his army into three bands, marching toward the city in battle array. Then the Inca said, ‘Since they fear our hospitality, let us all leave the city, so that peace may enter their hearts.’ Thus it was that when the Conquistador rode through our streets, he met not a living soul, and heard no sound but the stamp of his own warriors’ feet.” Here the speaker stopped, as if to gather his thoughts, and continued:

“This was at a late hour in the afternoon. The Stranger then sent an ambassador to the Inca’s camp. He sent his brother, Fernando, and twenty horsemen. The Inca received Fernando on his throne, his forehead adorned with the royal borla. He was surrounded by his officers and wives.

“The Strangers came with words of honey, and the Inca replied: ‘Tell your leader that I am fasting until to-morrow. Then will I and my chiefs visit him. Until then, I allow him to occupy the public buildings on the square, but no others. I will decide to-morrow what is meet.’

“Now it happened that after these good words, a Spaniard, to thank the Inca, put his horse through its paces, for the prince who had never seen such an animal. And several of those present having shown fear, while the Inca himself remained impassible, the Inca ordered them to be put to death, as was just. Then the ambassadors drank chicha in golden vases brought to them by the Virgins of the Sun, and returned to Cajamarca.

“When they told their leader of what they had seen, the splendor of the Inca’s camp, the number of his troops, despair entered the soldiers’ hearts. At night they saw the Inca’s camp-fires lighting up the mountain-sides, and blazing in the darkness like a multitude of stars.”