The Sun Virgin
Molina caught his breath. He had an almost overwhelming desire to take
her in his arms and shelter her.
He stared at her, bewildered. The rumor had swept the men that they
would not meet the Spaniards. They were the reserves. Two other
divisions were ahead. His hopes had been sinking. And Yma would be
executed for his vain act! He shuddered.... Once more she spoke.
“Unless you return with me, beloved, I will not live the day. If my
dying would serve you I would gladly offer myself. But you will be
taken surely and die also. You will not go, beloved?”
He stopped and held her gaze a moment. And she returned his look with
brimming eyes. His own eyes filled as he stood, and impulsively he drew
her to him. He kissed her and she clung to him, sobbing. And it struck
him that he would never be able to fathom the profound depths of her
beautiful emotions. Then, abruptly, he released her.
“Quick!” he ordered tersely. “I’ll go down the mountain as a courier
with a message for the rear guard. They are going down every hour. I’ve
heard their password to-day. Follow me.”
At a sharp bend in the trail Molina found his chance to turn and
retrace his steps, repeating the courier’s password when challenged.
He did not look back to see if he were followed. The girl was close on
his heels. He heard her quick joyous play of wit with the soldiers.
Passing the rear guard at last he dropped to a bowlder by the roadway
and waited.
She looked at him with a puzzled expression as she approached him and
studied his cleanly shaven face.
“How did you do it?” she whispered in awe.
He showed her his razor.
“I have wondered how you would look as one of our men, without the
beard. I had never dreamed that you could be so fair and beautiful. And
now we shall hurry or I shall surely be killed.”
Within half an hour they met the squad of armed men from the fortress
sent to secure his arrest. Yma refused to allow it.
“I am responsible,” she protested. “My life will pay for his escape. He
returns because I have asked him.”
The guard fell in respectfully behind them and the cavalier marched to
the fortress, and calmly surrendered. The _curaca_ of Caxamalca
ordered him in chains and saw that he was securely manacled in spite of
Yma’s furious protests.
Molina soothed her anger.
“It’s all in the fortunes of war, dear Yma. The _curaca_ is right
to take precautions. It’s my fault. We’ll make the best of it.”
To Congo’s terror they brought a set of chains for him. His eyes fairly
popped from their sockets. In spite of his pleading he was securely
manacled, and fastened to the wall.
Yma found the Dowager and pleaded desperately that the chains be
removed from Molina.
The Mother Queen slowly shook her head:
“I cannot interfere in such a dangerous issue,” was her firm reply.
“The Inca gave orders for his death if he should attempt escape.”
“But, dear gracious Mother,” the girl pleaded, “he returned at my
request. I am responsible. My life will pay the forfeit if he goes.”
“Your life may even now be forfeited. See that you hold him.”
The girl returned to Molina with faltering steps, her heart slowly
hardening into a grim resolution. She would use these chains now for
her own purposes.
CHAPTER XV
Before beginning the ascent of the Andes, Pizarro divided his forces,
selecting forty cavalrymen and sixty foot-soldiers under his own
command to lead. The remaining sixty-nine men he left at the base of
the _cordillera_ to await his word to advance.
He would trust no other leader with the danger of fighting a way up the
frowning ramparts that towered menacingly into the clouds above him.
The first trial came with the climb of more than a mile up the granite
walls of the first ridge. The steps were cut in solid rock. The horses
made desperate efforts to mount them. Most of the animals succeeded in
making the first quarter of a mile without stumbling. And then began
the weary drop to the knee of the foreleg, and the still more dangerous
loss of foothold in the rear.
Pizarro ordered the men to dismount and help their horses up the
stairs. In the view upward their vision seemed to end only in the
clouds.
It became necessary at last to tie the sixty horses in line while each
rider placed his shoulder against the haunches of his steed and pushed
with steady force. At the landing of the first long stairway was found
a level place dug out of the granite in its upper side, supported on
its lower by a heavy stone wall.
The rest was gratefully taken by man and beast. All had now begun to
feel the quickened heartbeat and vertigo of the higher altitude. The
air grew thin and sharp and it was necessary to take two breaths where
one had sufficed below. They had begun the climb at the elevation of
the plateau, 11,000 feet above the sea. The first resting place was
higher than the summit of Mount Blanc--and they had only begun the
ascent.
Teresa was in high glee. The exhilaration of the heights had given her
an experience of childlike ecstasy. She waved her hand toward the vast
ocean of snow-clad peaks and shouted for joy.
Pizarro warned her to conserve her strength and use the utmost care as
the climb became higher.
He gave a like warning to every soldier and urged the most careful
handling of their horses. The animals had suffered far more than the
men. Pedro de Candia’s patient mules carrying his cannon, alone seemed
at home in the wild environment. Their sure little feet had never
missed a step or slipped once.
While man and beast rested, Pizarro questioned the two native guides:
“How wide and long are these great ranges which we are crossing?”
One of them, a man of unusual intelligence, promptly answered. Opening
his arms and pointing north and south he said in awed tones:
“They stretch from the north star more than four thousand miles
southward.”
“Four thousand!” Pizarro echoed.
“More than four thousand. And in places it is more than five hundred
miles across the three _cordilleras_. Here is it three hundred
miles to the great rivers that flow eastward to the sea.”
Pressing forward for the next climb, they edged down a sharp, dangerous
incline. The path grew so narrow a single horse could scarcely pass. At
the hairpin curve before them the trail had been cut through a solid
stone cliff that hung threateningly overhead. The curve was so sharp
and the way so narrow Pizarro stationed two men with a rope stretching
around the curve against the upper wall and ordered every soldier to
hold to the improvised railing as he made the turn. Below yawned an
abyss thousands of feet in depth.
Never had a man among them seen such chaos of terrifying cliffs, peaks,
canyons and gorges. There seemed no room among them for the life of
man; no level space on which to build his home, unless he hew it out of
solid stone.
The leader suddenly came to a slender suspension bridge nearly two
hundred feet long that spanned a narrow gorge a thousand feet deep. The
adventurer gazed in wonder at the skill of primitive man as exemplified
by this slender, swaying thing. Less than three feet in width it hung
from great cables eight inches in diameter held in place by buttresses
of stone on either cliff. The cables were woven of the tough fibers of
maguey and osier.
A guide stamped his foot on the planks and waved his hand:
“Come on! The boards will bear the weight of any horse!”
Pizarro sharply commanded:
“Wait!”
He carefully crossed on foot and felt the slender structure sway back
and forth through the air at his tread and refused to risk the life
of a single horse in such an adventure. He sent Teresa and a few of
the men who were suffering from the altitude across the bridge on foot
while he picked his way down the path that led to the water’s edge.
Here, rafts were built for the foot-soldiers, and the cavalry swam the
swift current.
On the opposite shore it was necessary to halt and build a fire to dry
horses and men. The horses had begun to suffer severely from the change
in temperature and altitude.
Resuming his march, Pizarro ordered a sharp watch for lurking foes on
the high cliffs overhanging their heads.
A scout suddenly rushed to the commander.
“An army on the top of the cliff!”
“Call to arms,” the leader ordered a trumpeter.
The shrill cry rang across the gorge and echoed against the cliff.
“Where?” Pizarro sharply asked the scout.
“There on the top peak--I swear I saw him.”
“Ghosts!” jeered a trooper, gripping his musket.
“I saw him! I swear it!”
“How many men did you see?” Pizarro demanded.
“A single figure--a leader on the rock. He lifted his arm, gave a
signal of command and disappeared....”
“Yes--he disappeared!” yelled a veteran. “You blinked your eyes and he
wasn’t there....”
But he had been there. The keen eyes of the scout had seen aright. The
solitary figure on the rock was no less a personage than the Inca. At
the head of the first division of his army he had taken his position on
the heights overhanging this stretch of narrow, dangerous pathway for
the purpose of a personal inspection of the number and character of the
invading force.
A thousand picked young men under the command of Toparca had climbed to
the crest of the overhanging ridge above the invaders and stood with
stones at hand ready for his signal to start an avalanche that would
bury them forever.
The Inca counted the number of the adventurers. There were less than a
hundred men! The great beasts they called horses were formidable, but
he wished to use them. They should not be killed. Molina’s eloquent
description of their help to man had led to a firm determination to
introduce them into his kingdom.
With a light laugh at the folly of such an invasion of the vast Empire
of the Four Corners of the World he lifted his hand. A thousand
stalwart young men rose at the same moment on the summit of the ridge
and each lifted high a large stone. Every eye was fixed on their
ruler. If both uplifted hands hurled a stone, the avalanche would sweep
all below into eternity. If he lifted but one hand and waved his cloak,
it was the signal of peace and swift withdrawal to the second division
in the rear.
A single hand slowly rose and a cloak was waved. The stones were
carefully lowered and two thousand swift young feet scrambled down the
cliffs and rejoined their command.
Meanwhile with a shout of scorn for the fears of their nervous scout,
the Spaniards began again their painful march.
Pizarro himself suddenly called a halt, and every hand gripped a
weapon. The man was not a fool after all. He had seen something. They
were climbing a steep and narrow gorge. At the summit they could now
plainly see a fortress that seemed to hang above their heads.
As they cautiously approached the building, the solid stone masonry of
its massive walls could be plainly seen. From such defense a hundred
men could crush ten thousand. Pizarro dispatched two of his best scouts
to approach the fortress and learn if it were defended.
It had been recently deserted. Scraps of food on the floor indicated
that the withdrawal of men had been made within twenty-four hours.
Pizarro was overjoyed to find this evidence that his passage would not
be disputed. A storm was brewing and he decided to spend the night
in the shelter of the fortress, and sent for the rear guard under
Hernando to join him at once.
The commander inspected the defense with keen interest. The floor of
the structure was smoothed from a solid rock in part, the lower section
only being paved with flags. The upper wall was a living rock of the
mountainside. The lower wall was built of huge bowlders fitted without
mortar with a skill unequaled in the Old World.