Now the wedge dissolved and spread out into a double line, and between this and the head of the Spanish column coming through the gate the Peruvian warriors were entrapped. They had no more chance against the steel-clad Spanish soldiery than a mob of children would have had against themselves, but they went down to the last man fighting and dying like heroes, and when the bloody, pitiless work was over the Gate of Sand was won, and the hitherto inviolate fortress was impregnable no longer.
CHAPTER XII.
THE FIGHT FOR THE FORTRESS
Juan Pizarro now divided his men into three companies commanded by himself, de Soto, and ben-Alcazar, and planted the archers and arquebusiers in positions from which they could rake the second terrace with their volleys, but the storming of this was harder work than the forcing of the gate had been, for the wall was high and smooth and the few and narrow openings in it had been built up almost as solidly as the wall itself. It presented an unbroken series of angles, and above these huge heaps of stones had been piled, and hence the moment a ladder was planted those who attempted to mount it were exposed to attack not only from the top but from both sides as well.
Time after time the ladders were planted, and time after time the heroic assailants were driven back bruised and maimed by the avalanches of stones that were rained upon them. Only their stout, well-tried mail and bucklers saved them from certain death, and only the knowledge that this was their last fight and that they must either conquer in it or lose all that they had fought so hard and suffered so bitterly for, sent them back and back again to the seemingly hopeless assault.
At last Juan Pizarro, seeing that isolated attacks could only end in failure, ordered all the ladders to be planted in a single angle where the ammunition of the defenders was becoming exhausted. At the same time he drew up his archers and arquebusiers on the opposite side of the lower terrace, and, while the assailants were swarming for the fiftieth time up the ladder, these sent volley after volley over their heads into the dense ranks of the defenders above.
Still, in spite of this, two of the ladders were pushed aside and sent crashing down with their load of men on to the terrace below. Carvahal had just reached the top of a fourth, panting and swearing and foaming with fury, when suddenly the ranks of the defenders divided and a tall figure clad in Spanish mail and helm, with a Spanish buckler on his left arm and a huge copper-headed mace in his right hand, strode forward and, swinging up the mace, brought it down with a frightful crash on Carvahal’s steel cap.
The grip that he had just taken of the top of the wall relaxed and, with a hoarse cry like the bellow of a wounded bull, he reeled backwards and rolled down the ladder, sweeping every man behind him off it. They tumbled in a heap to the ground with Carvahal on top of them. One was killed outright and two were maimed for life, but the old swashbuckler sat up the next minute in the midst of them, pulled off his cap to see if his head was broken, and then, finding it wasn’t, shouted—
“Cuerpo de Cristo! that was a shrewd knock for a heathen to give a good Christian. By the Saints, I thought all the fortress had fallen on me! Devil take him, I shall have a headache for a week! Come on, lads, up again! It shall never be said that Carvahal took a blow without giving it back! I’ll crack that son of Satan’s pate for him yet if God gives me strength and a fair chance at him.”
With that he scrambled to his feet again and, with the help of those who were not too badly hurt by the fall, reared up the ladder again and once more mounted first upon it. But while this was happening a footing had already been gained on top of the wall from three of the other ladders, and Juan Pizarro, de Soto, and ben-Alcazar, with stout Michael Asterre, were laying about them with their long swords and fast clearing a space on the second terrace. Foot by foot they drove the defenders back, and now the infuriated soldiery came pouring unresisted up the ladders.
“Where is he? Where is he?” howled Carvahal as he rolled over the parapet.