“That I well believe,” answered Molina. “We here are but instruments. Thou art right. It is not for the tool to question the intent of the hand that uses it. Thinkest thou we shall reach the city to-night?”
As though in answer to him the trumpet at that moment sounded a halt. While they were talking a turn in the downward road had brought them in sight of a ridge of rocks out-cropping from the grass-grown mountain-side to the right hand, and looking from a little distance like the fragments of some Titan-built fortress. To the left rose a steep, scarped hill, ringed with rocks. It was a position that a hundred men, resolute and well armed, could have held against ten thousand. Even a few score of naked savages could have poured such a rain of great stones down upon the little company passing between the two fastnesses as would have left neither man nor horse unmaimed, even if alive, and the Captain-General was not a man to lead his followers into such a place without due caution.
So the halt was called while they were yet above what might have been a death-trap for them all, and scouts were sent out on either hand to feel the way, and these, after a diligent search, came back and said that they could find not so much as a mouse among the rocks. So the trumpets sounded again, and the troop, with eyes and ears alert and weapons ready, marched through the defile which, if he had had the knowledge or the will to do so, the master of the hosts encamped below might have infallibly made the end of their journey.
“El-Dorado is ours!” laughed Carvahal to Hernando de Soto, as they came out of the pass and emerged on a green, sloping plain below. “Those who left such a place as that unguarded will make but small fight for the best they have. Carramba! with the men we have here I would hold that pass against all the armies of His Catholic Majesty while my powder and shot and the stones on the hillside held out. It is but child’s play taking a castle whose defenders leave the portcullis up and forget to raise the drawbridge. Cuerpo de Cristo! who would have thought to find the gate of the Inca’s treasure-house left open like that?”
De Soto laughed a trifle bitterly, and said—
“If thou wert anything better than a blaspheming eater of fire with never a thought beyond throat-cutting and gold-getting, Carvahal, thou wouldst have seen by this that we have been welcomed into this land as friends, as envoys of a king whom these poor people look on as a god. Nay, have they not hailed us as sons ourselves of one of their gods? Did not Titu Atauchi, brother of Atahuallpa himself, greet the Captain-General down in Huamacucho yonder as Inca Viracocha, and place on his left arm the golden bracelet which none but those of Divine descent, as they think, may wear? Thou mayest believe me when I tell thee that if they had taken us for what we are we should never have come thus far alive through such a land as this, and it is thought——”
“Which makes thee ever and anon feel and speak more like a monk than a stout adventurer. Is that not so, de Soto?” growled Carvahal in reply. “Santiago! though I am not so fine a gentleman or as soft-hearted a splitter of skulls as thou or Molina yonder, who hath conversed with me more than once in such a strain, yet, in good sooth, I believe I’m the better Christian, for, on my faith as a good Catholic, I believe that the Saints who watch over our enterprise have thus blinded the eyes of these heathens so that we can do our good work the easier. How else could we few prevail against so many? It is faith thou wantest, de Soto—faith. Thou art overmuch given to reasoning, which was ever a bad thing for those whose business is rather with hard knocks than soft, smooth-sounding words.”
“Ha!” exclaimed de Soto, suddenly rising in his stirrups and looking on ahead. “What have we yonder? By my faith, a pair of forts, seemingly as well placed and as skilfully built as the best engineer could wish for. See how they command the way down to the valley from all sides! There, too, a handful of men could hold the road against a host. How much the easier, then, could the hosts of the Inca hold it against such a handful as we are! And look you—Santiago! what madness!—they are coming out from the chief one on the right hand yonder to meet us as though we were friends.”
De Soto laid a bitter emphasis on his last words, but Carvahal only slapped his thigh, and chuckled—
“Cuerpo de Cristo! Did good soldiers of the Cross ever have such luck as that! Verily the Lord hath delivered the heathen into the hands of His servants.”