The virgin of the sun

by George Chetwynd Griffith

A score of archers and half as many arquebusiers had come up with the ladders and mantlets, and these Juan Pizarro posted on a little eminence on the other side of the stream about forty paces away, with orders to keep the terrace and wall clear while a company of sappers attacked the pile of stones in the gateway with their picks and crowbars.

The pain of his wounded jaw had been so great that he had been forced to discard his helmet and trust entirely to his buckler, yet, in spite of this, he led the first party up to the assault as coolly as though he had been encased from head to foot in mail of proof.

Before they had reached the gate the alarm had spread over the whole vast fortress, and the three terraces were already alive with armed men. A storm of missiles, arrows, javelins, and stones was rained down upon the sappers as they advanced to the attack, but the next moment the roar of the arquebuses rolled out, and the heavy balls, directed by the light of the fires, plunged into the crowded masses of men. Then came the hissing flight of the long, steel-headed arrows and the short, heavy, crossbow bolts, which did almost as much execution as the bullets. Under cover of this fire the mantlets were pushed forward, and under them pick and lever and crowbar went to work on the stones.

A little higher up one of the scaling-ladders had been planted against the outer wall, and up this began to crawl a dark stream of mail-clad men, headed by Sebastian ben-Alcazar with his buckler close down over his head, and a long, broad-bladed dagger between his teeth.

Four times was the ladder planted against the wall, and four times did the gallant Spanish Moor climb to the top of it through a storm of missiles, only to be flung down again when he had almost reached the top. The fifth time a well-directed volley from the archers swept the wall clear for a moment and in that moment he made good his footing. He struck down two warriors with his dagger, and then, drawing his heavy broadsword, he set his back against the inside of the wall and valiantly held the place he had won until a dozen more had scrambled up the ladder and planted themselves beside him.

Then, shoulder to shoulder and with bucklers interlaced, they went like a moving wall of iron along the terrace towards the gate, hewing down all who opposed them with the swift, swinging strokes of their good Toledo blades. Meanwhile the sappers had been doing their work well, and the Peruvian warriors, gallant as they were, were recoiling before the well-directed arrow-flights and the volleys of the ever-dreaded fire-arms. Presently a great stone was prised out from below and sent rolling down into the valley followed by an avalanche of others, and at last the gate was clear.

“Dios y Santiago! Make way there for God and Spain, ye heathens!” roared old Carvahal, flinging his huge bulk first into the breach. “To me, comrades, to me! Carrai! there goes another heathen soul to Hell!” he shouted again as he struck out with his heavy blade at the first of a stream of warriors that had poured down into the gateway, and the splendidly attired Peruvian rolled over with severed shield arm and head split to the jaws.

Close behind Carvahal came Hernando de Soto and Juan Pizarro followed by a score of men shouting the familiar war-cry. For some minutes they were checked by the solid mass of warriors which had poured down from the second terrace to oppose them, and so close was the press that they could scarcely find room to use their weapons. They were even driven back a few feet by the sheer weight of the crowd descending upon them; but meanwhile ben-Alcazar and his comrades had been hacking and hewing away at the Peruvian flank, more ladders had been planted against the outer wall; the archers and arquebusiers had left their position as soon as there was danger of their volleys injuring friends as well as foes, and they too had joined in the desperate escalade.

Again and again the ladders were hurled away from the wall by the ever-increasing throngs of warriors who came pouring down from the upper terraces, and again and again they were up-reared, until, one by one, the climbing columns of men gained the summit of the first rampart and made good their footing. Some drew their weapons and turned fiercely on the swarming defenders while others dragged the ladders up in readiness for the assault on the second line. Before long ben-Alcazar had nearly forty men behind him, and, forming these into a solid wedge of steel and iron, he drove them deep into the flank of the column that was still holding the assailants of the gate in check.

For a few moments it stuck fast as though locked in and overwhelmed by the swarm of men into which it had driven itself. Then the wedge began to move slowly forward again, and then the column burst asunder, half of it scattered flying up the slope and the other half fast shut in between the wedge and the gate.