The virgin of the sun

by George Chetwynd Griffith

“Since, as you say, there is truce between us, Señor Inca,” replied Gonzalo, “there is no reason against our accepting the honour with all due gratitude, and I trust we shall sup together none the less heartily that ere long we may be exchanging honest blows.”

The Inca bowed gravely, wheeling his charger without, as far as the Spaniards could see, so much as having glanced at the litters, the curtains of which were now closely drawn, and led the way towards the palace which formed the northern half of the fortress. The great array of warriors separated into two solid, shining masses as they approached, and old Ruminavi, sitting his horse like a statue of steel, threw up his vizor and saluted with his sword as they passed.

At the foot of a broad flight of steps leading up to a wide terrace running the whole length of the palace Manco dismounted and asked the Spanish cavaliers to do the same. Then he led the way on to the terrace. He now made a sign to the litter-bearers, who at once set their burdens down, and then for the first time he approached them. He went first to the one in which Mama-Oello was lying, and with gracious deference helped her to rise. Then he went to the other, and as Nahua rose and stood beside him a mighty shout burst from tens of thousands of throats and went echoing across the river and along the rock-walls of the valley, and at the same instant every warrior within sight of the terrace dropped on his knees and spread out his arms towards it, and Nahua’s name, uttered at the same instant by tens of thousands of lips, went up to heaven in one great cry of joy and thankfulness.

“You see, Señores,” said Manco, turning to the Spaniards, “that mine would not have been the only heart that you would have filled with darkness and sorrow had you not been as brothers rather than as enemies to one who hereafter, even if he should fall by your hands, will take none but loving memories of you with him to the Mansions of the Sun.”

Toil-worn and battle-hardened as they were the Spaniards were still men, and for the most part gentlemen, and more than one of them looked at this touching spectacle of thankful devotion through a mist which was certainly not in the clear sky or the translucent air of the Sierras, and this mist was not far from becoming veritable tears when Nahua, at a word in Quichua from Manco, left his side and went to them one after the other, beginning with de Soto, and took their rough right hands in hers and bowed her lovely head over them till her lips touched them.

It was her act of public thanks for the great service they had done her and her people, and although the army knew that ere many days were past they must meet these same men in bitter and unsparing battle every man of all the thousands within sight sprang to his feet again, waving his weapon and making the rocks and the fortress’ walls ring with his cheers. It was a moment in which a lasting peace might have been made and the greatest empire and the most perfect civilisation of the New World saved from utter and irretrievable ruin. If the majority of the Spaniards had been such men as those who were now standing with the Inca on the terrace of his palace they might have been to Peru what two centuries and a half later the English became to India. But this was not to be. They had brought with them into the land the twin curses of insatiable greed and invincible religious intolerance, and these were ere long to prove the utter undoing of both conquerors and conquered.

For the rest of that day and far into the night the Spaniards were treated with a royal and splendid hospitality worthy of the great race from which Manco sprang. They were feasted in gorgeous chambers, seated on chairs of silver, and eating and drinking from dishes and vessels of gold. They were carried in litters up to the rocky ledge beyond Chinchero, where the tableland ends and whence they could see all the glories of the lovely valley spread out laughing in the brilliant sunshine four thousand feet below them. Then, descending into the valley, they were taken without reserve from palace to palace and fortress to fortress, and at night they were amused with dances and martial displays. Then, after feasting splendidly again, they went to rest on couches of cedar and silver covered with the finest and softest furs and inclosed by bright-hued curtains of the silken vicuña wool.

The next morning they found their chargers ready groomed and caparisoned for them and their native escort drawn up to receive them in front of the terrace. As soon as the morning meal was over the trumpets and horns sounded and the garrison turned out in silent and perfect order to do honour to the departing guests, and the Inca, accompanied by Nahua and the queen, and attended by old Ruminavi, still clad in steel, and a brilliant array of his nobles, came out to bid them farewell in sight of the assembled host.

Behind the Inca came an attendant bearing a great plate of gold, on which was a heap of gems which flashed gloriously in the sunlight, and from this Manco took five long strings of emeralds and rubies, each of which in another land would have been of almost priceless value, and one of these he hung round each of the astonished Spaniards’ necks, and immediately afterwards Nahua left the side of the queen, with whom she had been standing, and went shyly up to de Molina and stood before him blushing rosy red through the pale olive of her skin.

On her upturned palms there lay a magnificent ruby cut in the shape of a heart and attached to a golden chain of exquisite workmanship. As soon as he saw it the young cavalier flushed red to the brows and, with the true instinct of a Spaniard and a cavalier, he instantly doffed his morion and dropped on one knee before her, and she took the two ends of the chain and with trembling fingers fastened them around his neck.