“May the blessing of the Unnameable, even though He be not the same god as yours, rest upon you for that good deed for ever!” exclaimed Manco, holding out his right hand.
“It may be that after all He is the same,” replied de Molina, grasping it, “and therefore I take the blessing and thank thee for it. Now for the rest of my story.
“Years ago in old Castile, before these dreams of El-Dorado had fired my soul with visions of adventure and sudden riches, I loved a maiden of my own blood and country, as fair and sweet a maid as the sun of Heaven ever shone on, the fairest of all I thought till I came hither to El-Dorado itself. Thou wilt remember, Inca, how on that first day that we came to thee as an embassy from his Highness the Governor we were led into the great square to the foot of thy throne, and how ere thou didst take thine own place thou didst lead to the seat beside thee her who hath now given herself as hostage for thee. In that moment I saw that earth held a maiden fairer far than her who till then had been my soul’s mistress, and that moment I became a traitor to my own love and a slave of thine. Since then, sleeping or waking, the vision of her beauty has never left mine eyes. Again and again without thy knowledge I have sought by every art I knew to gain her favour, and once, but a few days since, to my eternal shame I say it, I hired force to do what my arts of love had failed to do. She was taken and brought to my house. I could not speak to her as I would in her own language, although, as thou knowest, I know some little of it, and so for want of a better way I sought to bring her to my mind through the lips of the interpreter Filipillo. If I had trusted to what he said I should have taken her as willing to betray thine honour and her own, but happily, when, misled by his lies, I sought to do so, she pleaded so sweetly for herself and thee, and I, more happily still, understood so much of her pleading, that the falsehood was made plain to me. Within the hour she was back unharmed in her home, and it may do thy heart good to know that within the same hour the vile slave who had deceived me, and would have betrayed her, shrieked out his last breath under the lash.”
“It was a fate justly decreed, my friend, for now I may well call you that,” said Manco in a voice that was broken by a faint sob. “Henceforth, whether I live or die, thy name shall be one of honour among our people. What more?”
“The rest may be told in a few words. When we heard this morning of the noble sacrifice that the Princess Nahua had vowed herself to make for the sake of thee and her people, I called my comrades here together and told them all the story, and when they had heard it we plighted our honour as good Christian knights and gentlemen of Spain that in so far as in us lay, even to the shedding of our own blood, we would prevent so foul a shame from falling upon our faith and nation.
“Hernando Pizarro is our leader and captain, but only under our sovereign lord the king, than whom there is no more knightly soul in Christendom, and it would go hard with the greatest among us did he know he had consented to do so vile a thing. Moreover, we know well that it is only these ruffians of Almagro’s who have driven him to it in the hope of getting more treasure, so, though it be called treachery or what it may, we have sworn to save thee this night and thy mother and thy princess so soon as God shall put it in our way to do it. That horse which thou bestridest so well is thine. Take it as a free gift from one who is to-night thy friend and whose duty may to-morrow make him thine enemy. I speak for every Christian and good knight here. Now see, here we have come at last to a fair level plain. None know the way to Yucay better than thou dost. Those slaves ahead are but the knaves who serve him who betrayed thee the other day—nay, waste no time in words or thanks, for time is priceless. Charge through their midst and begone. We shall pursue thee for show’s sake, but thou needst not fear we shall overtake thee. Farewell, friend Manco, and begone with all speed and take thy freedom for thy sweet princess’s sake.”
As the last words left his lips de Molina whipped out his long sword and gave Manco’s charger a slash across the haunches with the flat of it. The animal bounded forward and the next moment Manco found himself in the midst of the front guard of Cañaris. His battle-axe was already unhooked and swung high in air. It came down straight and true on the skull of a warrior who was making a stab at his horse with his spear and clove him to the shoulders. The next moment he had burst through the scattering troop and the next he was free. His battle-cry rose by instinct to his lips and rang out loud and clear as he swung his bloody axe above his head in the fierce exultation of freedom. Behind him he heard the hoarse shouts of the Spaniards mingled, as he thought, with laughter as well as with the stamping of their horses’ hoofs. He looked back and saw them cantering heavily after him with the Indians labouring behind them. He put his own horse to a harder gallop. The Indians vanished in the darkness, then the shouts of the Spaniards and the echo of hoofs grew fainter and fainter and at last they too faded into the star-lit dusk, and Manco sped on alone, exulting in his new-found freedom and with the new-born hope which had driven despair out of his soul.
CHAPTER V.
AT THE FORTRESS GATE OF YUCAY
Although the four cavaliers found no difficulty in reconciling their complicity in the Inca’s escape to their consciences, their generosity did not therefore extend to the rest of his people. They knew from what had already happened that the little force in Cuzco would soon be called upon to fight desperately for its very existence. They knew too from their Indian spies that all the approaches to the beautiful valley were fast filling with detachments of Peruvian warriors, and finally there had come rumours that Ruminavi, the last of Atahuallpa’s great chieftains, had returned from Quito and had rallied all that remained of the four great armies of the empire and had united all the factions, Quitans and Cuscans, tribes of the Sierras and tribes of the plains, under the banner of the Last of the Incas, and devoted them to one supreme effort to crush the conquerors in the midst of their conquests.
As they were now well on the road to Yucay they held a brief council of war when they halted, and determined to spend the rest of the night and the following day in reconnoitring the approaches to the valley and discovering, as far as they could, the positions held by the Peruvian army.