Manco watched them with fixed, aching eyes till they disappeared through the low, wide, central portal, down the spear-lined lane that opened to receive them. For a few minutes there was utter silence in the great crowded square, for the multitude was waiting for the promised tragedy of the day to begin. Then there came out of the doorway a train of bearers carrying loads of clothing, furniture, and utensils of the household, which they carried across the square and up on to the scaffold, where they laid them down; for the tremendous penalty that Ullomaya had incurred extended even to the smallest possessions belonging either to himself or any member of his family.
When this had been done and the bearers had retired, the Inca clapped his hands again. The sharp sound was heard clearly all over the square and the crowded terraces. The treble files of guards which kept the open space about the scaffold brought their spear-butts to the ground with a simultaneous crash, and then, guarded on either hand by a file of spear-men, those who were doomed to die came forth to look their last on earth and sky and sun.
There were nearly threescore of them, all clothed alike in a single garment of coarse grey cotton, and the sight of them would have melted any heart not frozen to insensibility by the pitiless chill of superstition.
Yet not a murmur of pity or sorrow came from a single breast in all the vast, silent throng, though there were old men and stalwart youths, grey-haired women stooping under the weight of years, young mothers with their last-born babies in their arms, bright-faced boys and girls who had never known an hour of real sorrow in their lives, and little toddling children who looked about them and laughed, wondering what all the splendid show was for.
But in all the piteous little throng Manco saw but one slight figure and one sweet, pale, childish face in its framing of long brown shining hair, for this was his Nahua, walking wondering to her death with her hand clasped in her mother’s.
The procession passed across the square, keeping pace with the slow, measured stride of the guards, till it stopped opposite an incline of planks which led to the floor of the scaffold. Then the doomed ones were driven up this like sheep being driven into a pen, and half the guard broke their ranks and followed them with thongs in their hands, and began silently and swiftly to bind the hands and feet of all save the very youngest. When this was done they piled a wall of fagots round the platform, and then came back down the incline, pulling the planks away and heaping fagots in their place.
Then the Inca clapped his hands once more and called Manco before him. When he had taken his place, standing in the same attitude of homage as before, he said to him in a quiet, almost kindly tone—
“Well, my brother, have you chosen? Will you carry the torch or stand amidst the fagots?”
“I will carry the torch, Lord,” Manco replied in a low, steady voice.
Atahuallpa started, and for an instant he looked at him as though he could have slain him with his own hand. Then his scowl changed swiftly to a smile and he said—