Between these the two litters with their escort passed at a rapid foot-pace for nearly four hours. As the cavalcade proceeded the two files behind fell into marching order on the roads, and so it went on, with an ever-increasing rearguard, until at length the huge black walls of the fortress loomed up in the distance.
“Yonder is our journey’s end, Señor!” said de Soto to Gonzalo Pizarro. “That is one of the fortresses guarding the river of which we told you. I doubt not that the Inca will meet us there and relieve us of our charge. There too you will see something of the strength of the position that we shall shortly have to force, unless indeed his Majesty takes the bolder step of besieging us in Cuzco.”
They were now on the sloping, zigzag pathway which led down towards the river, and Gonzalo’s soldierly eye had already noted that the lower they descended the worse the ground became for horses and the stronger the defences of the ravine appeared.
“I would rather his Majesty came to Cuzco, even though he came at the head of a hundred thousand men, than we should meet him here with only ten thousand at his back,” he replied. “I doubt if the world holds another so lovely a spot so ably defended.”
“So would I,” said de Soto. “It is well for us that these people have neither steel nor gunpowder. If they had they could hold this valley for years, in spite of all the soldiers Spain could send against them.”
“I believe you, Señor,” said Gonzalo, “but, mira! is not that a brave show. Look, the garrison are turning out to receive us, and yonder is our late guest, the Inca, armed cap-à-pie, and, Santiago! yonder is another clad in good steel and mounted on a piece of good Spanish horse-flesh. Por Dios, these people learn quickly! Methinks if we do not bring the war swiftly to a close we shall be conquered with our own weapons.”
“The other will no doubt be old Ruminavi—him they call Stony-Face,” replied de Soto. “Next to Huayna-Capac himself he is said to have been the greatest general in the land. The Inca warned me that we should find fighting him a graver matter than taking Atahuallpa prisoner.”
The cavalcade had now reached the last of the slopes in the roadway, and presently it turned from it on to the plain in front of the fortress. As it did so the shrill notes of trumpets and horns rang out along the mountain-sides, and instantly not only was every terrace and rampart lined with men but a vast array seemed to spring out from the ground behind the two mailed figures on the other side of the river. The stream was now bridged by a quadruple row of balsas or rafts of reeds lashed tightly together and covered with neatly-dressed planks of a size which showed that they must have come from the vast forests which clothe the eastern slopes of the Andes.
The Inca and his companion drew up at about forty paces from the river bank and remained motionless until the whole cavalcade had crossed it. The Peruvian escort, as before, separated and fell back into two files, between which the Spanish cavaliers rode, Gonzalo Pizarro at the head and the others on either side of the litters. When all had crossed Manco threw up his vizor and cantered forward alone. He pulled his horse up with admirable grace within a couple of paces of Gonzalo, and when he had saluted he held out his hand to him saying—
“Señor, you are welcome since you have come to bring me the greatest of all the treasures that our land contains. And welcome to you too, Señores,” he went on with a wave of his hand and a stately bow to either side of the litters, “since your coming proves that your tongues are as straight as your right arms are strong. For this day at least we are friends. I have been your guest,” he went on with a laugh, “now you must be mine if you will accept such hospitality as my poor palace can afford.”