The virgin of the sun

by George Chetwynd Griffith

In the City of the Sun the long weary months had been filled with days and nights of horror. The splendid capital of El-Dorado on which de Soto and his companions had gazed in awe-mingled wonder on that first memorable morning was now a wilderness of blackened and fire-wasted ruins. Day after day the legions of the Inca had flung themselves into its approaches, only to be beaten back with fearful slaughter by the little band of desperate heroes, now less than two hundred strong, who held their camp in the midst of the great square surrounded by the blackened ruins of the palaces and temples which they had first seen glowing with gay colours and shining with gold and silver.

Every night the countless watchfires had blazed up in undiminished numbers on the hills about the city and on the towers of the great fortress which loomed dark, threatening, and unscaleable above it. Every hour arrows and darts headed with blazing fire-balls had soared through the air and fallen on the thatched roofs of the buildings and into the fast-emptying magazines of grain, which, saving the horses killed in battle, were all that now stood between the besieged and starvation.

Scarcely a day had passed but one or more severed Spanish heads were flung from the battlements of the fortress into the city to tell Hernando Pizarro and his men in what terrible fashion the Inca was keeping his oath, and at last Don Hernando, forgetting all knightly honour and humanity in his desperation, sent out an envoy to say that if he received such another message he would slay every prisoner in his hands.

As it happened, the Inca was absent at the time on one of those raiding expeditions which afterwards made his name a terror to every Spaniard in the land, and Ruminavi sent back his messenger’s head as an answer. Within an hour the Princess Lalla-Cica and her companions, whom de Soto had so far, even in the midst of all these horrors, contrived to defend from injury, were brought out into the square, and there, in full sight of the garrison of the fortress, they died the death that had been decreed to Nahua and the Queen-mother.

Scarcely had their shame and torment ended than a general assault was made on all sides of the city, and the Peruvian warriors poured in, column after column, through the streets blocked with charred timbers and strewn with the rotting corpses which throughout the siege had been filling the air with poison and plague. Through these they fought their way with little check, for the narrow streets were too choked and cumbered for the horses to work with any good effect. But no sooner did they reach the entrances to the square than the cannon and musketry roared out, and the silver balls and bullets—for iron was now too precious to use for such purposes—tore their way through their crowded ranks, mowing them down by scores, and then came the thundering charges of the war-beasts, the onslaught of the swift-striking, deep-biting steel, and the end was the same as it had ever been—hundreds slain at the cost of a few wounded men and horses and one or two dead of the iron-clad soldiery of Spain.

It was a victory for Don Hernando and his companions, as every fight had been when the Peruvians had once come within range of the artillery and musketry and made themselves a fair mark for the irresistible charges of the cavalry. But the same thing had happened day after day, week after week, and month after month, as the great tragedy of the Conquest drew to its climax, and every day fresh hosts had replaced the slain without, and every night death and wounds and sickness had made the muster-roll of the defenders shorter and shorter.

“We must make an end of this somehow, comrades,” said Don Hernando, when they were holding a council the night after the grand assault, “or by the Saints it will surely make an end of us! Here we are, cut off from all succour, with scarce a hundred and fifty fighting-men, and not fourscore horses that are fit for work. Every day we grow fewer and weaker, and every day these heathens seem to grow more and stronger. Those we slay lie in the streets and poison us with plague, so that we do but bring sickness on ourselves by slaying them, while at every onset there come back ten for every one we kill. The loss of one man and a horse is to us greater than a thousand men to them. They have the whole country to draw their supplies from; we have only what is here in the city, and that, as you know, cannot last many days longer. When that is gone we must fight our way out or starve. It is manifest that no help can come to us from outside. Almagro is far away in Chili, my brother, the Governor, is no doubt beleaguered in Los Reyes. If he could have sent us succour he would have done. If he has sent it the troops have doubtless been cut off and perished among the mountains. That is our condition, comrades. Now what is your counsel upon it?”

The assembled cavaliers, who were sitting and standing round a smoky fire in the middle of the wretched camp, looked at one another for a few moments in gloomy silence. They had eaten their last scanty meal from vessels of gold, and the whole camp was littered with gold and silver flagons and dishes, ornaments and chains and bars into which others had been melted down, and yet, battle-worn and sore stricken with plague and famine, they themselves looked scarcely less wretched than that other company which some seven years before had grubbed for worms and sea-snails on the desolate shores of Gallo. At length Pedro de Leon, one of the Almagrist faction, spoke, and said in a sullen, angry voice—

“So far as I can see, Señor, and as many others think with me, this much-boasted city of El-Dorado hath been little better than a gold-baited death-trap to us. True we eat and drink from vessels of gold, yet we are dying of famine by inches. Therefore my counsel is that, while we have yet a little life left in us, and before all our powder is burnt or our horses die of wounds and starvation, we should leave this accursed place and make shift to fight our way to the coast.”

“It would be as easy to fight thy way to Heaven, friend!” growled Carvahal, whose huge form seemed to thrive as well on famine as on plenty. “Depend upon it, if men well fed and well found have not been able to fight their way from Los Reyes here, we shall never fight ours to Los Reyes, and, since one place is as good as another to die in, why take the trouble to go elsewhere to do it?”