Such falsehood and treachery on the part of a warrior so well proved is but one of many incomprehensible incidents in this most wonderful of all conquests. At every step the student of this last dark period of the history of the Incas is confronted and bewildered by events which, according to European ideas, ought never to have happened. At one time he sees the Inca princes and nobles acting like warriors and statesmen, at others like children and cowards. No doubt it would be possible to find many plausible reasons for their extraordinary conduct, but to seek and find such is the business of the philosophical historian. The romancer has nothing to do with them.
The first result of the secession of the army of Quito was the arrest of Challcuchima by the Spaniards after they had invited him as a guest to Cajamarca to be present at the obsequies of his murdered master. They then compelled him to accompany them on their triumphal march to Cuzco, whither they set out some five hundred strong, inflamed to intoxication by the splendid accounts of the incredible wealth of the city which had been brought back by de Soto and his companions.
On the road Quiz-Quiz with his own forces and those that had been Challcuchima’s beset the advancing conquerors at all the most difficult points on the way, and more than once came near to overwhelming them, but again and again the courage and discipline of the Spaniards, aided by their irresistible weapons, triumphed over all difficulties and dangers, though not without considerable cost both in men and horses, till at last in a great battle on the plain of Jauja the army of Quito was cut to pieces and scattered in fragments over the mountains. These fragments gradually came together again, and Quiz-Quiz led them back to Quito, and there at length his treachery was rewarded by a miserable death under the knives and spears of his own mutinous soldiers.
The Spaniards lost no time in turning this victory to the best advantage, and to the speedy clearing of their own road to universal dominion. Immediately after the battle Pizarro sent an embassy to Cuzco informing Manco of the defeat and dispersal of the rebels, and greeting him as Inca and lord of the whole land. At the same time he accused Challcuchima of treasonable correspondence with Quiz-Quiz during the march, and of attempting to lead the Spanish forces into an ambush. Like his master, he was convicted before he was judged, and the Captain-General, to the anger of de Soto and all the better minded of the cavaliers, condemned him to die by fire at the stake. The old warrior met his fate as became a prince and a soldier. Up to the last moment before the torch was applied to the fagots which his own countrymen piled round him, Valverde sought to do with him as he had done with Atahuallpa; but the brother of Huayna-Capac was made of sterner stuff than his son. His last words were—
“I do not understand the religion of the white men. They come with words of peace and kindness on their lips, and with their hands they do deeds of violence and cruelty and treachery. My place is waiting for me in the Mansions of the Sun. Let me go quickly back into the presence of my Father.”
And so he died, unmoved by the torment of the flames, and with the name of his ancient deity upon his lips. Only one of the great chieftains of the nation was now left, old Ruminavi, or Stony-face, of whom more hereafter.
The embassy to Manco bore speedy fruit, for while the Spanish army was resting in the verdant plain of Jauja the young Inca returned with it in brilliant state to thank Pizarro for his destruction of the Usurper and his rebel force, and to enter into a formal alliance with him. The wily Spaniard received him with open arms and all honour. The troops who were really his conquerors were drawn up to receive him as though he had really been a sovereign and independent prince, and the guns which had wrought such havoc in the ranks of his countrymen woke the echoes of the guardian hills of Jauja with salutes in his honour.
The united forces then returned to Cuzco, and here Manco-Capac, in the capital of his ancestors, was proclaimed and crowned Inca with all the stately ceremonial that had been practised of yore. The Spaniards formed his guard of honour, and did homage with his own nobles, but there was one difference. Instead of taking the imperial borla from the hands of Anda-Huillac, the Villac-Umu, High Priest of the Sun, he received it from the hands of him who was in fact Viceroy of the Spanish Emperor and now doubly his own conqueror.
After this had been done, and the sovereignty of Charles V. had been proclaimed at sound of trumpet in the Metropolis of the Inca’s, Pizarro’s brother Hernando returned from his mission to Spain, bringing with him the King’s patent appointing the Conqueror Governor of the country covered by his conquests, and raising him to the rank of Marquis, thus making the base-born adventurer a grandee of Spain.
But Hernando also brought less welcome tidings of other armies of adventurers steering for the golden shores of El-Dorado. Alvarado, one of the bravest of the captains of Cortez, had already landed, others were coming, and it behoved him to see to his position. Worse than all, when Hernando arrived in Peru from Panama, it was found that the Emperor had given Almagro permission to conquer the country to the south of Pizarro’s territory for a distance of two hundred leagues, and rule over it independently. The fatal upshot of this was that Almagro and his men at once took their revenge for what they had considered the unfair distribution of the spoils at Cajamarca by taking advantage of the imperfect measurements of the country and claiming that Cuzco fell outside the jurisdiction of Pizarro, and therefore within that of Almagro.