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We attempted to swim across, when I felt my strength failing me. Huascar was bravely buffeting the stream by my side. Suddenly the bank was lined with troops. They shouted to us, and let fly a cloud of arrows at the Inca. He stopped swimming. I endeavoured to drag him on; but as I grasped at him he sank below the water. The shouts grew louder. I awoke.
But unfortunately she could not enjoy the fruits of her victory, for, at the very moment when the Peruvian surrendered, the Huascar, having picked up the survivors of the Esmeralda's crew, made her appearance beyond the western end of the island which forms the south side of the bay of Iquique.
Close by this city the Inca, Atahualpa, lay encamped with an army, for a civil war between him and his brother Huascar had just ended in the defeat and imprisonment of the latter. Desperate was the situation of the small body of Spanish soldiers, when, in the late afternoon of the 15th of November, 1532, they marched into Caxamalca, which they found empty of inhabitants.
There was little time for conversation, however, for the Huascar, as though in revenge for the damage inflicted by her puny enemy, again discharged her whole broadside or at least so much of it as was still capable of being fired; and the marksmanship was so excellent that every missile again struck the Covadonga, while at the same moment the Union again started firing with her bow-guns, and a 100-pounder shell struck the gunboat full upon the stern, blowing a huge hole in it, killing four men, and shooting away the ensign-staff and flag.
The news brought by the Magellanes very soon filtered through the fleet, and was to the effect that her skipper had been sent from Valparaiso to inform the admiral that the Peruvian President Prado intended to leave Callao, on the night of May 16, for Arica, in the paddle-transport Oroya; and that he was to be accompanied by the Independencia, Huascar, Chalaco, and Limena.
The two lads were fortunately spared a close view of this harrowing sight, and their attention was speedily diverted from the catastrophe by a further commotion behind the mole, when, looking through their glasses, they saw that the Peruvians, encouraged apparently by the damage wrought by the Maranon, had got a couple of tugs alongside the old monitors Manco Capac and Atahualpa, and were towing them out close to the Huascar; their ironclad sides being more capable of resisting the latter's shells than the Maranon's wooden hull.
The Almirante Cochrane did not reply for several minutes, but silent and grim as death itself, she held steadily on her course toward the monitor. Then, when she had approached to within a distance of a little over a mile, she in turn opened fire with both her forward turret-guns on the Huascar, and the battle of Angamos had begun in real earnest.
The Huascar, however, paid no attention, and at last the British ships opened fire on her. The Shah was a fast cruiser armed with heavy guns, but was wholly unarmoured, while the Amethyst was only a small sloop, also unarmoured.
He was still the Inca, if only by the right of sword, and the forces of his generals were sufficiently great to render it impossible for the son of Huascar, named Manco Capac, who had escaped the massacre of his kinfolk and who was the legitimate heir to the throne, to claim the crown.
The buildings were covered with a shining plaster, both white and coloured, and there was a spacious stone reservoir in the courtyard, which remains to this day, and is called 'The Inca's Bath. The Court was filled with Indian nobles, and Atahuallpa himself sat upon a low stool, distinguished from the rest by the crimson fringe upon his forehead, which he had worn since the defeat of his brother Huascar.
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