"Aye!" muttered Candia, the Greek captain of artillery, "pray a little, and have the other frocks at it with thee. We'll need all your supplications, and,"—to himself,—"the devil's aid besides."
The priest did not reply even with a glance. The commander had ridden a few paces in advance and was looking over the vast encampment below with as little emotion in his thin, sallow face as if the Inca's army were a flock of goats.
When the leading files of the column first caught sight of the distant encampment a shout arose and was quickly carried to the rear: "El Inca! El Inca! El ejercito del Inca!" and pikes and halberds were brandished with fierce enthusiasm. But as realization of the magnitude of the host came over them the demonstration gave place to ominous silence, and they gazed with something akin to consternation. Pizarro noticed the change, and looked back over the ranks with a barely perceptible curl of his lip. "Forward!" he said to the trumpeter, and moved down the trail.
The command wound its descent through the foothills, and at midday halted again. Pennons were affixed to lances, plumes to helmets, and the banners were uncovered and spread to the breeze. Here Cristoval demanded his horse, and, when Pedro protested, declared with emphasis that he was well, and if not well, then well enough; that in any event he would not go into the presence of an enemy borne in a litter, like a woman. So he mounted, though without his armor. The formation most favorable for action in case of attack was now adopted. The infantry and artillery were placed in the middle of the column with cavalry in front and rear; and, with a small advance guard, the army debouched upon the plain.
No hostility met the Spaniards. As on the coast, they came upon knots of the natives gathered at the roadside, and these gazed upon the glittering, bannered pageant as if stupefied. When the outskirts of the town were, reached the afternoon was late, and rain, for some time threatening, set in with dreary steadiness. To their surprise they found here no sign of life. The last group of Indios had long been passed, and as the troops plashed along the muddy highway through the suburbs they were greeted only by silence and desertion. Cots and villas were numerous, but all closed and tenantless. They marched through a desolation emphasized by every mark of recent habitation. The people had fled at their coming as from a pestilence.
At length they were in the town. Here, too, vacancy and silent thoroughfares, awakened now to unwonted echoes by the ring of horses' hoofs and the rumble of the guns on the pavements. They entered through one of the poorer quarters, where the dwellings were of bricks of sun-dried clay, heavily thatched with straw, all of a single story, substantial, and severely plain. Toward the middle of the town they passed larger buildings of heavy masonry, whose blank walls, unbroken by window or decoration, wore a dull gloom and mystery which, indeed, pervaded the very air. The gray streets, depressingly regular and paved throughout, were unrelieved by a single tree or shrub or patch of sward. Over all a sombreness profound; no sign either, of welcome or hostility; only the apathy of abandonment everywhere.
The thoroughfare opened into a great plaza. Pizarro rode to the centre to direct the deployment of the column: on the right, cavalry; in the centre, artillery and foot; on the left, cavalry again; and in the rear, the pack train. The line formed in silence—a spiritless, sullen line, rain-soaked, mud-splashed, with drooping plumes and dripping banners; and oppressed withal by yonder vast encampment and the sense of being in the toils. The march was ended.
Patrols were detailed, scouring the town and its outskirts to make sure the desertedness was not merely apparent. Pizarro assembled his officers. He began with his customary terseness:—
"Señores, I purpose sending an embassy to the Inca at once. We must know better than we can judge from the cold reception he hath seen fit to accord to us how he regardeth our coming. We must know to-night. To-morrow we will govern our actions accordingly. So do thou go, Soto, and tell him we have come. Say that we have sailed across the seas from a great prince,—God save him!—to offer service and impart to him and his people the True Faith. Put it in a courtly way, but with no servility—thou knowest how—and say that we pray he will honor us with a visit to-morrow.
"Remember that to these people we are superior beings, almost more than mortal. Carry thyself as a superior even to this emperor, and he'll not fail to credit thy assumption. Did he know our estate, do not doubt that he would hotly resent our pretension. In a word, by every look, gesture, and tone of thy voice strive to impress him. Display thy horsemanship, if there be opportunity,—he hath never seen a horse,—and hold thy chin well in the air. 'Tis important, Soto! Now go, and Dominus vobiscum. Take Felipillo and a dozen lances,—more if thou wilt."