CHAPTER IV
The Inca's Encampment
Six weeks later the Army of the Conquest was descending the eastern slope of the Maritime Cordillera into the interior valley of Caxamalca. Here, Pizarro learned, the Inca Atahualpa lay with fifty thousand warriors.
The march over the mountains had been one of toil and hardship, but the few Peruvians encountered had displayed nothing but hospitality. Two embassies from the Inca had met the invaders, bearing presents and assurances of welcome. The messages were translated by a young native, called by the soldiers Felipillo, who had been picked up on a former expedition, taught the Spanish language, many Spanish vices, and retained as interpreter. Through him the commander sent courteous replies, and, while neglecting no precaution, marched with a sense of security always.
To Cristoval, stretched helpless on his rude litter, the first few days had been torture. Later, however, a halt was made at a mountain village whose friendly curaca, or governor, proffered the use of his sedan with native bearers. They were hardy, sure-footed mountaineers, and thereafter Cristoval swung along with little discomfort. Halts were frequent, and some were protracted, for Pizarro hoped for reënforcements from San Miguel if ships should come from Panama, whither his partner, Almagro, had sailed in quest of fresh recruits. He tarried in vain, but the halts were favorable to Cristoval. His rugged health, aided by the bracing mountain air and the vigilant care of Pedro, hastened his recovery; and by the end of October his wounds were healed, though he had yet to regain his strength. He bore his inactivity with what patience there was in him, but with no prevision of the gratitude he should one day feel for those very wounds.
The Fifteenth of November saw the last day's march in the mountains. The column had for hours trailed down a rocky gorge, which at last opened upon a full panorama of the valley of Caxamalca. It stretched out far below, a fertile and verdant plain, checkered with fields, damaskeened with the silver of rivulets and canals for irrigation, and traversed throughout its length by a fair river. Near its centre, gleaming in its setting of green, lay the town of Caxamalca, surrounded by orchards and gardens, and groves of willows, quinuars, and mimosas, in whose shelter could be descried the tinted walls of the cottages and villas of the suburbs.
Involuntarily, when the scene burst upon him, Pizarro reined his horse. His trumpeter sounded a halt, and De Soto, whose troop was in advance, rode up beside him, joined straightway by the officers of the staff. They surveyed the valley with amazement. Pizarro was the first to speak.
"Maravilloso!" he exclaimed. "Ha! Señores, what say you to it? Have your eyes ever beheld a fairer vale? Did I not know better, I could think myself in Andalusia—but, Santa Madre!—look beyond the river—at those hills!"
"Tents, as I live!" ejaculated De Soto, "and by the ten thousand."
"By the soul of me!" growled Hernando Pizarro, the eldest of the commander's four brothers. "Methinks, Francisco, thy dreams of conquest have overreached. Ho! good Father," he continued, turning with a grin to Valverde, the square-jawed chaplain of the expedition, "I'll presently call upon thee for a shrift. Meanwhile, do thou pray a little."