"Then, to thy guns!"
Candia returned to the redoubt, occupied now only by his cannoneers and the sentinel.
On the plain the tent-pitching is given over, the column has regained the causeway, and is again approaching the town. In front are a multitude of sweepers, clearing the way of every pebble, fallen leaf, or twig, singing as they work. In their rear are a hundred drummers beating, in a strange cadence, long-bodied drums of varied size and pitch of tone. Following these, the imperial band of five hundred musicians, gorgeously liveried and resplendent with trappings of burnished metal, playing on trumpets, pipes, and stringed instruments of divers forms, the wild but not unmusical march sung by the sweepers. Then, at an interval, follow a thousand nobles in white tunics, bearing small mallets or hammers of copper and silver. Another interval, and a second body of nobles of higher rank, in tunics of checkered white and red, ablaze with ornaments of gold. Now, two battalions of the splendid warriors in the blue of the Incarial Guard, but without arms. Between them, and guarded by a platoon of nobles, floats the standard of the Inca. Immediately after the detachment of the guard, seated upon an open litter, or sedan, borne on the shoulders of half a score of nobles of the highest rank, and surrounded by his attendants, counsellors, and priests, is Atahualpa, a most imperial and commanding figure, as we have seen. In the rear, follows a great column of guards and nobles no less splendid than those of the van.
Treasure enough here, Pizarro, to whet the greed and nerve the arms of your ravening, plunder-hungry companions, could they but behold it from their concealment! Let us see. Twenty-five thousand ducats in the seat on which the Inca sits. Thousands more in the decorations of the sedan. Thousands more in the gem-encrusted standard, and every noble in the train wearing a small fortune on his person. Such a display never before met the eyes or brightened the dreams of your Spaniards, whom the chasqui has reported, not without truth, as huddled, panic-stricken, in some of the buildings of the town.
The pageant has passed the suburbs and is in the streets, deserted as Pizarro found them yesterday; for the exterior guards have been withdrawn, to be of use, presently, elsewhere. Now the column has entered the great square, opening its files to the right and left to permit the passage of the Inca and his suite, who move to the middle of the place and halt, the escort massing on the flanks and rear. Company after company of the guard, and body after body of the nobles, march into the plaza and take position with a celerity and precision of movement showing the highest discipline; and it is long before the rear has deployed from the narrow street. Meanwhile the Inca has looked about, at first with expectant interest, then with growing suspicion and impatience as he perceives no sign of welcome, nor any living being outside of his own following. The silence is strange, in truth, and not reassuring,—even it is ominous. The great doors facing upon the square are closed and blank. At the head of the stairway entering the redoubt two bronze muzzles overlook the plaza, but these are quite without significance. At last the Inca demands, with increasing ire at the too evident discourtesy:—
"Where are the strangers?"
As if in answer to his question a door opposite partly opens, and the dingy, gray-black figure of Father Valverde, in march-worn cassock, bearing crucifix and breviary, enters the square. A soldier follows, in complete armor. He is known to history as Hernando de Aldana—introduced and dismissed for all time by a dozen brief words. Behind him comes the malicious, spoiled renegade, Felipillo, shaking now in his Spanish boots, and scarcely fit to perform his office of interpreting.
Slowly, and with priestly dignity, the gray-black figure approaches the Inca as no man ever approached him before, with unbended knee or back, bearing no burden or symbol of one, and no doubt regarded curiously and contemptuously enough by the monarch, who is not done with considering the quality of his reception.
Father Valverde, informing the Inca that he has been ordered by his general, Pizarro, to teach him the doctrines of the True Faith, at once sets about that undertaking, expounding its tenets briefly and as convincingly, perhaps, as could have been done under the circumstances. Then, following the formula customarily used by the Spanish conquistadores, he announces the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and the temporal power of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and urgently recommends that the Inca acknowledge himself tributary to the latter, forthwith.
No doubt the father expounded the doctrines as convincingly as possible under the circumstances; and with as much effect, probably, as was expected of the perfunctory mockery by the Spaniards themselves: at any rate, not convincingly enough, but with the effect looked for and desired; for Atahualpa, firing at the suggestion of vassalage, reddens with anger, and demanding of Valverde his credentials and authority, seizes the breviary, turns its pages rapidly, then casts it upon the ground with right kingly scorn and rage.