The virgin of the sun

by George Chetwynd Griffith

Thus it happened that Atahuallpa’s messenger, without knowing it, was stealthily followed until he reached an outpost of the army and delivered his message. Then, as he was coming back to the city to tell the Inca that his command had been obeyed, he was seized and brought before the Curaca, who at once took him to Pizarro, and he sternly questioned him through Filipillo, who, following his usual policy, so translated his answers that Pizarro, at length losing patience, ordered him to be tortured until he gave such answers as were required.

At the same time he ordered that every kinsman and friend of Atahuallpa’s in the city should be placed under close arrest. Then these also one by one were either stretched on the rack or forced to submit to the torment of the slow-match, all of which they bore with the fortitude of their race, until the extremity of the agony overcame their reason; and then from their frantic cries and incoherent babblings Filipillo, whose evil soul had delighted in the hideous work for the sake of the revenge that it gave him, made up a tale of accusations against Atahuallpa which left his fate no longer in doubt.

As it happened, there was a Doctor of Laws among those who had followed the fortunes of Almagro, no doubt being attracted, if not by the prospect of gold-getting for himself, at least by that of making spoil, after the manner of his kind, out of the disputes of rude and ignorant men placed suddenly in possession of such wealth as people of the same stamp in the Old World had never dreamt of. So by the help of this man, Martin de Zarate by name, the mock court which was to try a prisoner already condemned and to deliver a judgment already determined upon was constituted in due legal form, and so far was the solemn farce of justice pushed that an advocate was given to Atahuallpa to plead the cause of one already lost.

But there stood against the Inca an advocate more potent than all the doctors of Spain, and this was Filipillo, the only one of the interpreters in the camp who had sufficient skill and knowledge of both tongues to conduct the business of the court as regarded the accusations and pleadings of the accused, whom he, by his falsehood and treachery, had done so much to entrap in the fatal mesh from which he now saw there was no escape.

But Atahuallpa, as though divining that his last days had come and that it behoved him to bear himself as the son of his great father should do, suddenly threw off the stupor which up to now had seemed so strangely to paralyse his mind, and bore himself in a fashion worthy his ancient race and his own fame as a warrior and a prince. When he was first arraigned before his judges, and Filipillo, blinking maliciously at him out of his still swollen and half-blinded eyes, translated the deed of indictment and asked him, as the mouthpiece of the court, what answer he had to make, he drew himself up and crossed his manacled hands upon his breast and replied, with more dignity than he had ever spoken with from his golden throne—

“Tell thy masters, slave, that I know that my doom is already decided, though I have done nothing that one betrayed, oppressed, and ill-used as I have been might not have done and yet go blameless. They have taken my gold and given me their faith. They have broken it without ruth or shame to me and mine, and now, that they may the better steal my country and make my people slaves, they are going to kill me. Since my armies have failed me and all my friends and servants have deserted me, there is nothing left for me but to die in accordance with the decree of the Unnameable. To His judgment I bow, but not to theirs. The will is His and theirs is but the hand, for the sins that I die for they have never seen. There can be no tribunal in this land high enough to judge one who is himself the law, and even were their justice pure it would be polluted in passing through so foul a channel as those lying lips of thine. Tell thy masters what I have said. Tell them also that, since they have assured themselves beforehand of my guilt, there is nothing left for them but to tell me the manner of my death. Now I have spoken, and not even their torments shall bring more useless words from me.”

So saying he turned his head away and looked out of an open window near him over the green valley and the terraced mountains beyond, with their rugged, broken heights piercing the blue and cloudless sky, and from that moment to the end of his trial he never spoke again or seemed to take any interest in the proceedings on which his life depended. It was in vain that Pizarro ordered Filipillo to put question after question to him, threatening and promising by turns. The fallen Inca had wrapped himself in unbending dignity and unbreakable silence, and neither word nor sign of interest in what was going on could be drawn from him. At length Valverde, who had long lost all patience, said angrily—

“Señores, how much longer shall we suffer this heathen to trifle with us? We have made others speak, why not he as well?”

“Ay,” added Almagro, with an evil twinkle in his one eye, “the reverend father is right. I warrant that a very brief trial of the match or the thumbscrew, or maybe a few minutes on the rack, would speedily open his Majesty’s lips and loosen his royal tongue.”

“No, Caballeros, while I have a voice in the matter, no,” said the Captain-General, shaking his head and looking as some thought almost sorrowfully at the prisoner. “It seems to me that the Inca hath already suffered enough at our hands, unless of course the finding of this honourable court be that he is guilty of the crime imputed to him, in which case let the just penalty fall upon him, but let us not forget, Señores, that, whatever his fault may be, he is a crowned monarch, and that it would ill-please the tender mercy and high chivalry of his Most Catholic Majesty to learn that soldiers of his had put the indignity of torture upon a brother sovereign.”