The Inca raised his eyes quickly and made as though he would speak, but he remembered his promise and closed his lips again.
“The terms are these,” the high priest continued in a low, sad tone that told Manco only too clearly what was coming. “In the first place a guard of his own men mounted on their war-beasts are to go with thee, and if the treasure is not found they are to slay thee. But so great are their fears of being surrounded in the city and cut off by our armies, and so much greater are their fears and jealousies of each other, that only a very few will be spared, and these Ruminavi will be ready to deal with at the proper time and place. But the second condition is harder than this. It is that thy mother the queen and the Princess Nahua shall give themselves up into his hands to be dealt with as he may see fit shouldst thou not return. Thou wilt not return, son of Huayna-Capac, for thou hast already sworn the oath that may not be broken. They too have sworn it, and so, whatever may befall, thy feet have but one path to tread, and that path lies hence to Yucay. Now, Manco-Capac, I have spoken, and it is for thee to remember thy name and blood and rank.”
While Anda-Huillac had been saying these last words the blood had left Manco’s cheeks and the pale bronze of his skin had turned to a sickly yellow grey. His eyes, opened to their widest extent, showed the white all round the black, gleaming eyeballs. His white, strong teeth were clenched, and his lips, drawn back from them, gave them almost the appearance of a wild animal’s fangs. The countenance which was wont to look so kingly and noble now looked horrible. It was like the face of a corpse with living eyes glaring out of it.
Mama-Oello uttered a cry of terror and, rising from her seat, flung herself weeping on his breast and moaning that he was already dying. The touch of her hand and the sound of her voice recalled its wonted strength to the manhood which had staggered under the stroke of these terrible tidings. The life came back to his features and motion to his limbs as he returned her embrace. For a few brief moments of weakness he mingled his tears with hers, and then, drawing himself up, he put her gently but firmly away from him. As he did so he saw her reel. In an instant he had her in his arms and had laid her on a couch which stood against one of the walls. Then, drawing himself up again, he faced Anda-Huillac and said in a hard, dry, unnatural voice which the high priest hardly recognised as his—
“If the frail daughters of our Father can dare so greatly, is there anything that his sons should not dare? Come, Anda-Huillac, I have looked my last on those I love. To look upon them again might make a craven of me even now. Henceforth I am no longer a man. I will tear out of my heart every human passion save hate and revenge, and the oath that I have sworn I repeat once more, that it may bind me never, so long as my arm can strike a blow, to spare a Spanish man, woman, or child whose life it is given me to take, and as He who sees all things knows the righteousness of my vengeance, so may He help me to take it! Now let us go to this Spanish butcher and tell him lies like his own, and then may the gods grant that I may never look upon his face again until the hour in which I shall ask his innocent victims’ blood at his hands! Come, let us go, for the sooner this thing is done the better.”
And so saying, and without even one backward look at the prostrate form on the couch, he gripped the high priest by the arm and almost dragged him out of the chamber.
CHAPTER IV.
A GENTLEMAN OF SPAIN
That night, soon after sunset, a body of five cavaliers, preceded and followed by a score of native auxiliaries of the Cañaris tribe, left the city by the causeway leading to the north-west across the Sierras in the direction of the lovely valley of Yucay—once the scene of the gorgeous revels of a long line of absolute monarchs, and now the mustering-ground of the last of their armies.
Four of the cavaliers were old acquaintances, Hernando de Soto, Pedro de Candia, Sebastian ben-Alcazar, and Alonso de Molina. The moment that they had heard of the terms that Hernando Pizarro had made with the Inca they had gone to him and not only volunteered themselves for the service, but had practically demanded that it should be entrusted to them and to no others. They had asserted that, after the Pizarros themselves, they stood highest in rank and honour in the old army of the Conquerors, that Almagro’s men were not to be trusted since they had shown themselves traitors already to the Governor by supporting their leader in his claim to a part of his territory, and that if they once set eyes on the treasure they would be quite capable of murdering the Inca and claiming that they had themselves discovered the gold, in which case their comrades in Cuzco would be certain to insist on the lion’s share of it, if not indeed the whole, saving only the royal fifth.
Hernando Pizarro, who, according to the chroniclers of the Conquest, always seemed to have been more kindly disposed towards the conquered people than any other of the Spanish leaders—which, after all, is not saying very much—had seen the force of this logic and consented, and he had also consented, after some further persuasion, to permit Alonso de Molina to lend the Inca one of his chargers, so that he might be spared the indignity of going on foot among the native guards.