The virgin of the sun

by George Chetwynd Griffith

When he reached the city the summits of the eastern mountains were already beginning to glow and glitter in the light of the still invisible dawn, but the angry glare which he had seen flaming so fiercely through the night had grown fainter and fainter until it had become so dim that the bulk of the Yavirá, rising up between it and the city, had completely hidden it from the view of those who had been in the streets and squares during the night.

As he entered the gate by which he had left he saw from the stolid calm of the guard who admitted him that no warning of the impending disaster had so far reached the men of Quito. The great city was just awakening from its slumber, for this morning every one would be abroad betimes. The news of the unheard-of crime of one whose holy office was believed to raise him above human frailty, and of the young Inca’s terrible sentence had reached every ear in the city overnight, and so every one woke early on the morning of doom.

Many, indeed, had not slept at all, for a crime so fearful as the high priest’s had been made out to be by the busy tongues of rumour was looked upon by the simple-minded folk as a presage of disaster, since, as they argued in their homely fashion, the Gods could not have permitted their chosen minister to sin if, for some cause or another, they were not grievously angry with their children.

More than this, too, vague, wild stories had ever and anon drifted up to the mountain-walled valley from the sea-borders of the West and North concerning the deeds of a strange new race of men, or demigods, as some called them, who had come from unknown lands, or perchance from the skies themselves, wafted by the winds in marvellous winged vehicles from which they could pour out thunder and flame and death—nay, it was even said that they carried the Llapa itself in their hands, and could smite with instant death all who offended or withstood them, while they themselves, mounted on mighty and terrible beasts which snorted fire and smoke from their nostrils, would fly over the earth with incredible speed. Moreover, they were made invulnerable to all weapons by clothing of white, shining stuff that neither spear nor arrow would pierce.

Some said that they were the long-foretold messengers from the Sun, fair of skin and mighty of arm, who were coming to rule over the Land of the Four Regions, and advance its borders till they included the whole habitable world and all the men that lived upon the earth. Others, again, said that they were demons which the powers of evil had let loose upon the world, armed with weapons of infernal origin, to lay it waste ere they repeopled it with their own hideous kind.

There had been strange signs in the sky, too, for flaming shapes had leapt across it, as one had done this very night, or sailed slowly through its depths, bright and terrible or pale and ghastly, like warning heralds of universal doom—and now the great Inca was dead, the grasp of the mighty conqueror was loosed from his sceptre, and his sword had been sheathed, and the first act of the new Inca had been the uttering of a sentence which doomed the noblest and holiest family in the land save his own to utter extinction and a death of torment. It was little wonder, then, that sleep had fled from many eyes in Quito that night.

When Manco reached the terrace in front of the palace he saw men already dragging and carrying beams and planks and fagots towards the centre of the square, and his heart, beating hard with the exertion of his long and swift journey, stood still in an instant, as he remembered the awful purpose to which they were destined; for the labourers were about to build the funeral pyre on which his beloved Nahua and all her dear ones were to perish amidst the torment of the flames ere the new-born day was but a few hours older—unless, indeed, some mightier power than that of the despot who had doomed them should be exerted to save them, and, if not to save them, perchance to avenge them.

Scarce knowing what he said or did, he went to the guards at the great door of the palace and sought to find admission, but all he gained was the reply, respectful and yet inexorable, that none, not even a prince of the Blood, could now enter the palace until the Inca came forth to salute the coming of his Father, the Sun. It was in vain that he commanded and besought by turns, and spoke of the anger of the Gods, and coming disaster to the city and its people. Only the formal words of blind obedience to orders answered him, and when at last he sought to force his way to the door crossed spear-shafts and lowered points showed him that he must die before he reached it.

Then at length he drew back, and in the tumult and bitter agony of his soul he paced up and down the broad terrace muttering disjointed and incoherent words, and watching with dry, aching eyes the stolid labourers silently doing their work in the square.

Beam by beam and plank by plank he saw the great scaffold rise, like the creation of some hideous magic, by the toil of many hands, and all the while the eastern peaks glowed brighter and brighter, heralding the coming of the fatal hour.