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The barter was concluded; I ate the potato, and he, with strange grimaces, donned a coat for the first time in his life. Think of this for an alleged descendant of the great Atahuallpa, whose robes and jewels were priceless! I offered to give the queen a feminine garment of white cotton if she would wear it, but this I could not prevail upon her to do; it was "ugly."
There he was laying deeper the foundation of the Spanish power, while he advanced the line of conquest still higher towards the north. But Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Indian monarchy, had submitted. The armies of Atahuallpa had been beaten and scattered.
Yet to remain long inactive in his present position seemed almost equally perilous. Even supposing that Atahuallpa should entertain friendly feelings towards the Christians, they could not confide in the continuance of such feelings. Familiarity with the white men would soon destroy the idea of anything supernatural, or even superior, in their natures.
Such is the portrait we have of him from the Indian and Castilian chroniclers, though the former, it should be added, were the kinsmen of Huascar, and the latter certainly bore no good-will to Atahuallpa.46 That prince received the tidings of Huascar's death with every mark of surprise and indignation.
He will go himself: he will find El Dorado and its golden Emperor; and instead of conquering, plundering, and murdering him, as Cortez did Montezuma, and Pizarro Atahuallpa, he will show him English strength; espouse his quarrel against the Spaniards; make him glad to become Queen Elizabeth's vassal tributary, perhaps leave him a bodyguard of English veterans, perhaps colonise his country, and so at once avenge and protect the oppressed Indians, and fill the Queen's treasury with the riches of a land equal, if not superior, to Peru and Mexico.
When they had met in the capital, they were surrounded by the soldiery of Quito, and butchered without mercy. The motive for this perfidious act was to exterminate the whole of the royal family, who might each one of them show a better title to the crown than the illegitimate Atahuallpa. But the massacre did not end here.
Atahuallpa wore it as he entered the city of Caxamalca at the head of his vassals and retinue on the afternoon of that fatal day when he fell into the hands of the treacherous Spaniards and, helpless to prevent it, beheld thousands of his unarmed followers slaughtered like sheep in the great square.
An eyewitness assures us that Pizarro was visibly affected, as he turned away from the Inca, to whose appeal he had no power to listen, in opposition to the voice of the army, and to his own sense of what was due to the security of the country.29 Atahuallpa, finding he had no power to turn his Conqueror from his purpose, recovered his habitual self-possession, and from that moment submitted himself to his fate with the courage of an Indian warrior.
There had been a civil war in the country, which had been divided by the great Inca, Huayna Capac, the conqueror of Quito, between his two sons, Huascar and Atahuallpa, and Huascar had been defeated and thrown into prison, and finally put to death.
When the royal procession had arrived within half a mile of the city, it came to a halt; and Pizarro saw with surprise that Atahuallpa was preparing to pitch his tents, as if to encamp there. A messenger soon after arrived, informing the Spaniards that the Inca would occupy his present station the ensuing night, and enter the city on the following morning.
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