The Crimson Conquest: A Romance of Pizarro and Peru

by Charles B. Hudson

When at length the sky was graying and he turned away, facing his generals, but seeing none of them, they beheld a countenance aged as by years since he had last spoken. In a night the torture of mind and heart had moulded lines usually beaten in only by the blows of long and hard experience.

At the door of his apartments he dismissed his attendants with a word. But, alas! a king before men, alone he was a mortal man. He knelt and prayed for tears. Resting upon his shoulders, with the burden of an empire, was now the weight of a monstrous tragedy; but upon his heart, the unutterable sorrow of a brother and a lover. Within that dread circle of fire were loved ones, and among them the sweetest of consorts. No man looked upon his grief. No man but can know what his grief must have been.

The sun rose upon a scene of devastation shorn of its splendor. Around the city was a belt of blackened ruins from which rolled a volume of smoke which partly obscured the fiercer burning within. To the westward, the direction from which the wind had blown, this district was broad. The fire had been driven rapidly across the suburbs toward Cuzco proper, and the houses being largely of adobe, the destruction was complete. Below the fortress, in the quarter of the palaces, the fire had to fight its way across the wind, and its advance had been less swift. Here the buildings were of stone, and through breaks in the murk were visible walls intact, surrounding desolate courts with charred skeletons of trees. To the east the city was hidden in the huge surging cloud drifting sluggishly off toward the mountains. From the ramparts little could be seen of the fire except occasional glimpses of flame through the rifts; and as Pedro stumped to and fro on the parapet, fuming and praying, harassed by fears, he could only guess at the perils by which Cristoval was surrounded. Before the sun had lifted above the mountains the Antis began straggling in, smoked, scorched, and many of them wounded, bearing the tale of their encounter. Ten or more did not return. Rimachi was one of the last to come, and having reported to Mocho, the latter sought the cook with the news of the probable fate of the cavalier. Pedro made no reply, but turning with his face painfully twitching, he hastened to his quarters—to be seen no more that day.

Once more to Cristoval. Assuring himself that he was the sole occupant of the building, he explored the several courts for its exits, and found, in the rear, the door of a passage which led to the broad street he had recently crossed. This might serve as a line of retreat. Patrols were still moving in the streets, and fixing the location of the passage among the intricacies of dark chambers and courts, he sought next, like a prudent soldier, for the kitchens and larder. This quest was difficult, for the operation of making a light, even could he have found a lamp, would have demanded more time than he could spare. Trusting to his sense of smell, blunted though it was by smoke, he wandered from one room to another, his steps, the rustle of his armor, and the clank of his sword rousing uncanny echoes from the lofty walls of stone. At last he stumbled upon a table still spread with an abandoned supper, and groping among the viands, he hastily made a meal.

A glance at the sky from the court showed a noticeable advance of the fire, though the direction of the wind held it in check and carried the sparks and brands off to the eastward. While he stood he heard the clatter of troopers in the street; but it died away presently, and he made his way to the postern. At the end of the passage he reconnoitred the street, now more brightly illumined than before, and was about to leave his hiding, when two horsemen trotted into the light and halted at the crossing, their lance-heads glittering in the firelight. They were too near to leave a possibility of his quitting the passage unseen. Furthermore, he recognized the unwelcome fact that they were there en vedette, and would remain. Evidently, the attack upon the patrol had made the Spaniards vigilant. Cristoval set his teeth. Here was a situation, by the fighting saint! Trapped in a building which would be afire before many hours, with a prospective choice of being burned alive, or run through by a Spanish lance in the effort to escape! For a bad quarter of an hour he watched the troopers with an interest his countrymen had seldom roused in him before, consigning them in vigorous whispers to divers painful fates, until, observing one of them hitch himself in his saddle into a lounging seat, he gave it up and groped back into the palace.

There was one other exit: the door by which he entered. The darkness of that street might favor. He would try it. In the main court nearest the entrance was the fountain, a pool of some ten feet in diameter with steps descending to the water a yard below the level, and surrounded by seats and parterres full of shrubbery. He stopped there and drank deep, for the fire and cinders would not out from his throat. Then to the door. He laid aside his buckler and put hand to the bar. Cautiously now, Cristoval; for with sentinels near, this business should be of an inconspicuous kind. The timber stuck slightly, then yielded, slipped from his grasp, and fell with a crash loud as the crack of doom.

It was answered at once by the sound of a horse spurred to a trot, and snatching up his buckler, Cristoval retreated to the parterres. He gained the shelter just as the trooper pushed open the door. He rode in and halted near the entrance; peered about in the obscurity, called twice or thrice, then rode slowly about the enclosure, looking into the darkness of the open doors. Cristoval watched him, praying that he might push on into the interior courts, or that he might dismount. In the latter event he should find what he sought with a vengeance, and that horse would change owners. But the trooper soon returned, scanning the parterres as he passed. At the entrance he halted and surveyed the place again, only half satisfied. Finally he rode out. Cristoval followed cautiously, to have a look at the street. No hope there. The soldier had taken position a few yards away, and there remained, while the prisoner returned to the fountain and had another bad quarter of an hour. There was no choice but to stay where he was and pray that the sentinels might be withdrawn at daylight, or be driven from their posts by the approaching fire. Then, provided he was not roasted to death in the meantime, he might escape.

He sat through the night, going at intervals to the doors in faint hope, returning with disquietude more profound, to watch the relentless nearing of the conflagration. At last came the dawn, more depressing in its ghastly light than the night. He stretched himself beneath the shrubbery. As the morning advanced the wind veered farther to the south, and this, he hoped, would retard the progress of the fire in his direction until the evening.

Cristoval was blessed with a sanguine temperament, and was, moreover, like most men who follow peril, a fatalist. Death had stood so often beside him, and had so often withheld the blow, that he had lost the appreciation of danger while he could look forward to another minute of life. Now, there were hours before him, at least, and faith that good fortune or resourcefulness would open a way of deliverance. Therefore, why not be comfortable while comforts were at hand? He remembered the spread table. He crept from concealment, went to the door for another look at the sentinels, and entered the dining-hall. He had seated himself when he perceived that the tableware was silver. He rose abruptly. "Oho! that meaneth the tenant will return, else the tenant is not a Spaniard." He selected a generous double handful of the victuals and returned to the fountain. Going to another chamber, he brought forth a rug which he deposited beneath the thickest of the shrubbery, and there made his breakfast calmly.

Now began a weary watch, broken by short spells of uneasy sleep and startled awakenings. Once, roused by voices in the court and hurried steps, he saw two Cañares, evidently servants, enter the dining-hall. They came out with the silver, just as a cavalier, a stranger to Cristoval, emerged from another room with a bundle of papers and wearing apparel. The man was in full armor and looked haggard and anxious, but seemed intent only upon the movements of the Cañares, whom he ordered impatiently to hasten. He followed them out at length, and again the court was quiet. After a glance at the whirling bank of smoke to the north, Cristoval stretched himself out once more and soon was slumbering.