It was a dash, now, for life. Cristoval noted the interval before the trot behind broke into a gallop. Weighted by his armor, his speed was slow, and he heard the Antis pass him in the darkness. The street was clamoring with the din of hoofs, nearing every instant. He stumbled over a prostrate form and almost fell; recovered, and sped on. The fleet Antis had left him far behind, and he was flying alone with death at his back. Now the troop was almost upon him. He was lost!—No! A doorway! He flung himself into its shadow headlong, and the charging column went past with a roar that shook the earth. By the grace of Heaven, he had not been seen. Or, if seen by the foremost troopers, those behind had forced them past, and for a moment he was safe. For a moment only, for infantry would follow; and as the last files thundered by he staggered to his feet and hurried after.
Ahead was the broad thoroughfare where he had stood with Rimachi, and in its light he could see the glint of the helmets of the troop. An instant, and they had vanished into the darkness beyond. Could he cross the lighted space unseen? He was panting with the weight of his steel and the previous exertion, and his pace slackened. When he reached the corner he was stumbling and plunging with weariness, and he paused to breathe and reconnoitre before venturing to cross. Toward the Tullamayu he heard the uproar of the still receding troop, and a glance up and down the lighted street showed him that all had kept on in that direction. But behind was the rushing of many feet. The infantry were following. He dashed across the open, conscious of the fierce glare in the north, already perceptibly more intense, and gained the farther obscurity. He remembered the open doorways, and struggled forward with desperation. As he turned into the shelter of one of them at last, a glance over his shoulder showed him morions gleaming in the firelight at the crossing.
He had strength to swing the ponderous door and place the bar, but no more, and sank down beneath armor that weighed a ton. He lay straining to suppress his heavy breathing that he might listen for the approach of the infantry. He heard them presently, and rose to his knees, gripping his sword. They seemed so long in passing that he fancied they were gathering about the door; and expecting every instant to hear it assaulted, he gained his feet, praying for new strength to fight. But they passed, and the street grew quiet. Still he hearkened, minute after minute, for sounds which might indicate whether the Antis had been struck, until, after what must have been an hour, he heard the troop straggling by on its return to the square. An interval, and a party of the infantry tramped by in the same direction, and he surmised from the smallness of the number that it had divided into squads to search the streets. After this, a welcome silence.
Exhausted, desperate at the catastrophe which had so abruptly blocked his project, the cavalier entered the court to seek the fountain whose plash had been torturing his thirst. The place, evidently one of the numerous palaces, was quite deserted. Doors stood open upon dark chambers, but there was neither light, sound, nor sign of life, and he traversed the dusky courts in solitude.
CHAPTER XXXIV
In the Burning Palace
On the rampart of the Sachsahuaman, apart from his generals, wrapped in his cloak, and shrouded more impenetrably by something which forbade approach; a dark silhouette against a sky wilder and more terrible than words can describe; unspeakably solemn before the havoc wrought at his command, stood the Inca. In his grim silence and immobility, in his relentless wielding of a power little less absolute than that of a god, he took on the sinister majesty of the spectacle his fiat had created.
When flame followed the fall of the first arrow, he had buried his face in his cloak. Slowly lowering his arm, he had looked on with countenance inflexible as bronze while destruction progressed in leaps and bounds. After this, not the tremor of a muscle. To his nobles, quailing and awe-stricken at the sublime horror of the scene, he was never before so much a king.
Such his aspect. For the emotions sternly repressed, but racking him to the soul—what words! The sacred city, the favored of the Sun, the home and the monument of the loving care of a mighty line of monarchs, perishing under his hand. The city whose splendor had been the work of generations of great kings; for whose glory countless thousands of their subjects had toiled, had fought, had died, given by him to demolition!—doomed by the mandate of one who had received the llautu from the profane hand of a ravager; who had suffered the scorn of an ignoble band of licentious and greedy invaders and had lived; who had worn fetters like a criminal and had lain in prison under the eyes of scoffing guards! That he—O, Inti!—that he, still wearing the marks of his bonds like a released slave, should be the destroyer! Could Cuzco but have fallen beneath the hand of a hero, even an enemy, and could he have fallen with it, its defender, he had been worthy to take his place with the shades of his ancestors. But he had himself led the enemy to its palace doors, had seen them plunder its temples, ravish its vestals, and befoul its most sacred spots. And now he was giving Cuzco to the flames! Would the Sun ever rise upon him again?
Ah—but—could he dare to address a prayer to that god while Cuzco remained unpurged? By the great Inti, the fire should do its purifying work! From cottage, palace, and temple, the stench of the Viracocha should be burned! Should the last wall be levelled to the earth, the last stone of its streets upturned, no vestige of their defilement should remain. Cuzco would rise again, and the Viracochas be forgotten. Let the dead Incas look on whilst he wiped out the stain of the ancient city's dishonor and his own!