The Romance of Golden Star ...

by George Chetwynd Griffith

  CHAPTER XI

  HOW WE TOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN

  Although Hartness was a much taller and broader man than the Spaniard,his long, loose overcoat fitted him well enough for the occasion, andwhen he had put on his shako, and wrapped his scarf about his neck so asto hide his fair beard, he was disguised enough to pass in the darknessfor one of the enemy. We now took the two soldiers who had been with theofficer and visited all the posts. We found four of the sentries whocould not return the password and were therefore enemies. These wedisarmed and bound instead of killing them, for I could see that what Ihad done had pleased my friend but little, though he saw that in such adesperate venture as ours it was necessary to use desperate measures.

  When we had gone the rounds and made sure of all, we buried the two deadmen, and took our prisoners into one of the caves under the carvedstones. Then I posted my men so as to guard all the approaches from thecity to the Rodadero, and after that I went with Hartness to the hiddenhole by the Sayacusca, and showed him how the way to the Hall of Goldwas opened. I did this so that the secret might be in good and safehands if I should fall in battle, and so that he should be able toproperly protect the welfare of Ruth and Golden Star, and fulfil mypromises to himself and the professor.

  When I had turned the stone and showed him the chain, I pulled it up andsupported it as I had done before, only this time I used the carbinewhich had belonged to the sentry I had killed, and to the stock of thisI fastened a long rope which Tupac had hidden there by my orders. Thisrope I stretched out along the ground, hiding it as well as I could, ina straight line away from the Sayacusca. The end I led into the entranceof one of the many passages or tunnels which ran under the carvedstones. By the time I had done this the water had all flowed away, andHartness said to me,--

  'Are you going to leave the entrance to your treasure-house open likethat for His Excellency to walk into to-morrow?'

  'Yes,' I said, 'but it is only half open. Unless the door below is opentoo there is no way out or in save this and the channel through whichthe waters flow, so that His Excellency will not find much down there.'

  'I see,' he said, 'a trap, and not one that I should care to see afriend of mine walk into. But you don't mean to drown them all like ratsin a hole, do you?'

  'I cannot tell that yet,' I said. 'If we can take them alive we may doso, but unless they yield to us they shall yield to the water. Now,everything is ready, and we have only to wait. Come and sleep for alittle and I will keep watch, and then I will sleep and you shall watch.It will not be daylight for six hours yet, and we can do nothing moretill then.'

  We went to the cavern in which I had hidden the end of the rope, and helay down on the soft, clean sand, and, soldier-like, was fast asleepalmost as soon as he had lain down. I left him there, and made the roundof the guards and spoke with the men, telling them as much as it wasnecessary for them to know of my plans for the next day, and allowedhalf of them to take two or three hours' rest, with their arms ready athand, while the others watched, and then I went back to Hartness andtold him to wake me in three hours, and soon was fast asleep in hisplace. He came and woke me at daylight and told me that everything wasstill quiet and that the sentries were all in their places.

  Then, when we had breakfasted on the food that we had brought with usfrom the fortress, we called in all the sentries save the two by theGate of Sand, and hid them among the stones and bushes, all within aneasy rifle-shot of the entrance to the water-cavern. I bade the two Ihad left by the gate tell the Governor that all was well, and, when hehad ridden by, to mix with the soldiers and tell those who were for meto separate from the others as soon as they heard my signal-cry, andthen to wait for the English captain.

  For nearly an hour we sat and watched for the coming of the enemy, andthen at last we saw a troop of horse come up out of the valley round theend of the fortress. After them came some officers on horseback, withthe Governor riding at their head, and then another troop of horse, inall about three hundred men. The first troop, led by the Governor andhis officers, came on towards the Sayacusca, and the others halted andspread themselves out along the ridge that runs round it. When they sawthe empty hole and the steps leading down into the darkness, they allcrowded round, peering down into it. Then two lanterns were lighted andsome of them went down.

  They had all dismounted from their horses and were indulging theircuriosity without suspicion. I waited till they were nearly all in mytrap, and then came the moment to close it. My long, wailing cry rangout loud and shrill through the hollow, and was taken up by my men inhiding, and in an instant all was confusion. I heard my name shoutedfrom one to the other, and saw more than half of the troopers in thehollow leave their ranks and gallop away towards the plain. Then I tookaim at a trooper who was watching the officer's horses, and fired. Thebullet struck his horse, and it reared up and threw him, and then felland lay kicking on the ground. At this all the others took fright andbroke loose and galloped away in all directions. At the same instant therifles of my men began cracking all round, and saddle after saddle wasemptied as the bullets found their marks.

  'I'm going to catch one of those horses,' said Hartness suddenly to me,'then I'll ride out and bring those other fellows up and show them whatto do. That'll be more in my line than this sort of work. Good-bye; youwill see or hear of me again before long.'

  The next moment he was gone, and I had not fired many more shots beforeI saw him, mounted on one of the officers' horses, galloping through thehollow towards the ridge. All this time none of my men had shownthemselves, and the constant stream of shots coming from all sides ofthem had thrown the Governor's troops into utter confusion. The officerswere shouting orders which no one listened to, the horses were gallopingwildly about, rearing and plunging with the pain of their wounds, andmany of the soldiers had already taken to flight, believing, in theirpanic, that the hollow was full of hidden enemies.

  We kept up the fire from our hiding-places until we heard shouts andcheers coming from the ridge, and I looked and saw Hartness with a drawnsword in his hand, leading a body of some hundred and fifty troopersdown into the hollow.

  Now I saw that we should be able to end the battle quickly, so I sent upmy signal-cry again and called for my own men to come out. Then I pulledthe rope and released the chain, and ran out towards my men, shouting tothem to close round the entrance to the water-cavern and shoot all whotried to get out. Some three or four sought to escape and were shot, andthen the rest, seeing my men running at them with the bayonet, and theother troopers coming up, led by a stranger, lost heart, and crowdedback into the cleft, firing their revolvers wildly as they went.

  The next moment we heard cries of terror coming up out of the darkness,mingled with the rushing of water, and the Governor, followed by aboutsix of his officers, came leaping up the steps to find a line ofbayonets drawn up across the mouth. With the waters surging up behindthem, and the bayonets in front of them, there was nothing for them butsurrender or death.

  Hartness, who had now dismounted, ordered the men to fall back a pace,and, as they did so, he went through the line with his sword in one handand a revolver in the other, and said to the Governor,--

  'Senor, will you yield or go back down yonder?'

  'We must yield,' said the Governor, 'since there is no choice. But whoare you, and what are you, an Englishman, doing here in arms against theGovernment?'

  'Who I am matters nothing just now,' he replied, 'and as for yourGovernment, it no longer exists. That must be enough for you. Now,senores, give up your swords and revolvers quietly and no harm shallcome to you. You, Senor Prada, give your sword to this caballero here,who is the Inca Vilcaroya and lawful ruler of this country.'

  The Governor turned and stared at me, dumb with amazement at thesestrange words, and all the others stared too, for, like him, they hadno doubt heard the legend of my strange fate. He drew his sword, and ashe did so I covered him with my revolver, and extended my hand to takeit. He held the hilt out to me with a tremb
ling hand. I took it insilence, and then I turned from him and said to my men,--

  'Bring these Spaniards out and bind them safely, then follow me to theSeat of the Incas.'

  When they saw that the victory was with us, and that the Governorhimself was our prisoner, together with many of the chief of hisofficers, those of the soldiers who had not been for me when they camewere glad enough now to secure themselves by shouting my name andobeying my orders, and when I moved away towards the seat, they followedme, laughing and cheering, well pleased to see their hated mastersprisoners in their midst.

  The great carved rock which is called the Inca's Seat is, as I havealready said, a great rounded mass of stone rising up from the plain ofthe Rodadero, and carved into many seats. On the top there are threebroad seats, the middle one higher than all the rest, and it was herethat my forefathers had sat to watch the building of the great fortress,and sometimes to give audience to their people.

  Now I sat on it, and the soldiers drew themselves up round the rock,with the prisoners in the midst of them, and I spoke to them, and toldthem freely of the strange things that had happened to me, and how I hadcome back to the Land of the Four Regions to drive out their oppressorsand restore the just and gentle rule of my ancestors. Then I had theGovernor brought up and stood before me, and bade Francis Hartness comeand sit on my right hand and speak to him for me, and by his lips I toldhim that unless the city was surrendered to me before evening he and allhis officers should die, and all the houses of the Spaniards in the cityshould be given to the flames and no pity shown to any man, woman orchild of them, for as they had treated my people so I had sworn to treatthem unless they yielded.

  You may think how troubled he was at hearing such words as these, sincehe knew from what he had seen that there was conspiracy and treacheryamong his own men, and he had no knowledge of how far this had gone, orwhich of his men he could trust, and so this man, who but a few hoursbefore had been master of the whole valley, and had looked upon theIndios, as he called them, as little better than slaves, now answered mehumbly enough and prayed me not to murder him when he was helpless in mypower. And to this I answered him that the blood of my people had beencrying out for many generations against his people, and that this wasthe day not of mercy but of vengeance, and that I would do as I had saidunless the city were delivered to me.

  Then I descended from the seat and mounted the Governor's horse, andafter I had sent a company of twelve men to ride quickly down to thecity and go through all the streets, shouting my name as a signal totell my people that all was well, and that the moment for them to riseagainst their oppressors had come, I took my place beside Hartness atthe head of our little army, and with our prisoners well guarded closebehind us we set out on our way back to Cuzco.

  As we approached the city we heard the sound of the church-bells beingrung wildly, and looking down, we could see the streets and squares fullof people, and as we got nearer still we heard the cracking of riflesand the shouts and cries of men in conflict.

  'There is either a fight or a riot going on down there,' said Hartnessto me, 'and if many of the soldiers remain faithful to the Governmentthere'll be some bloodshed before to-night. Have you any idea how manythere are?'

  'There were more than two thousand soldiers in the city yesterday,' Isaid, 'and out of these more than half have already taken my gold andsworn faith to me. Of the rest many are wavering, and when they see wehave taken the Governor prisoner I think they will come over.'

  'Very likely,' he said; 'but how about those machine-guns in thebarracks? There are three Gatlings and two Maxims, and if they keepthose and work them properly they'll just sweep the streets and squaresclear, you know.'

  'I have promised fifty pounds' weight of gold for each of them,' I said;'and, more than that, there should be no ammunition for them by thistime if what the sentries told us is true.'

  'Yes,' he said, 'if we can get hold of that, or even the best part ofit, I don't think there will be much danger. However, as everythingdepends on that, I think we had better go straight to the Cuartel first.If we have that we have Cuzco.'

  We entered the city by the street of El Triunfo, and made our waystraight to the great Plaza. As we rode along three abreast we weregreeted by joyful cries from the crowds of Indians who parted to leave away for us through the midst of them. Tupac and his comrades had donetheir work well, and all night the people had been thronging into thecity from the surrounding country. All the shops and houses of theSpaniards were already shut up, and although none knew the truth of whatwas happening, all thought that the revolution had already broken out inCuzco and so had made themselves as safe as they could.

  A little way from the entrance to the great square we came upon Tupac atthe head of some two hundred of the men of San Sebastian, armed withknives and guns and pistols of all sorts which they had taken during thenight from the towns and villages around, where they had been doing thework I had bidden them do. He told me that there were more than athousand soldiers in the city waiting only for me to show myself to killtheir officers and come over to us, and that the others would fightwithout heart, if they fought at all, now that the Governor wastaken--for half of the people of Cuzco were for the Government and halffor the Revolution, and so the city would be divided against itself andall would be confusion as soon as the fighting began.

  He also told me that the official who is called the Sub-Prefect hadbrought out two of the machine-guns and had planted them at each end ofthe terrace in front of the cathedral, and made a proclamation thatunless everyone left the streets within an hour he would have themcleared with bullets.

  When I told this to Hartness he said,--

  'Then we must have those two guns first. Tell Tupac to break his men upinto little bands of about half-a-dozen each and send them round intoall the streets leading to the square, and tell everyone that isn'tarmed to keep out of the way if they don't want to get hurt. Then youride on with the prisoners and a guard of fifty men, and let them beready to shoot sharply. Tell them to aim at the knees and not to emptytheir magazines too fast. I'll look after the guns. They won't fire onyou for fear of killing the Governor and the rest. Now, forward!'

  I did as he said. Tupac's men broke up and disappeared as though bymagic. I took the reins of the horse on which the Governor was bound andbade half-a-dozen of my men to do the same with the others. Then two andtwo we trotted into the square, Tupac running along by my horse's head.It was covered with groups of people all talking and looking andpointing about them, and on the terrace before the cathedral there weretwo companies of soldiers, one at each end, drawn up behind amachine-gun.

  As soon as the people saw me ride in with the Governor bound beside me agreat shout went up and many came running towards me, but I waved themback and shouted to them to leave the square and guard all the streetsleading into it. I did this so that those who understood me, and weretherefore friends, might escape out of harm's way before the guns beganto fire.

  Then I drew my revolver and put it to the Governor's head and bade Tupactell him to order the men away from the guns, and that if a shot wasfired he should be the first to die.

  So, as there was no help for it, he did so, and called to the officersto come down and speak with him, but instead of obeying they shoutedsome orders to their men and I saw them making ready to fire the guns,for, as we found out afterwards, they were men who would have joined therevolution when it broke out.

  But before the guns could be trained on us Hartness's troop swung roundinto the square. The twenty foot soldiers sent a volley along theterrace, firing low as he had told them, and killing and wounding nearlyhalf of the men at the guns. Then there came a rattling volley from thecavalry and another from my own men, and then, with a great shout and aclattering of hoofs, Hartness leapt his horse up the steps at the endof the terrace, where the street slopes up nearly level with it at theback by the cathedral, and charged down on the rear of the enemy just asthe gun was swung round.

  As he did thi
s I led my men round to the other end of the terrace, whereI saw that the men had begun fighting among themselves, and thus I knewthat some of them were our friends and were seeking to prevent theothers from training the gun on us. I halted, and ordered thirty of mymen to dismount and take the gun, which they did with very littletrouble, for the others, seeing how they were outnumbered, either threwdown their arms and ran away, or surrendered. Two of the officers werekilled and another one taken prisoner.

  Meanwhile Hartness had cleared the other end of the terrace, and takenthe other gun after killing nearly every man who had defended it. Butscarcely had this been done than we heard the rattle of drums and thesound of bugles, and saw two columns of men marching at the double outof the Plaza Del Cabildo, where the barracks are, and the other past theChurch of the Jesuits, which is at the other end of the square.

  'Are those friends or enemies, or both?' Hartness asked me, when he hadordered the two guns to be trained, one on each of the columns, and satdown behind one of them himself.

  'If there are friends among them,' I said, 'they know what to do, andwhen they have done it you can fire.'

  Even as I spoke the two columns seemed to break up. Scores of men brokeout of the ranks, shouting my name and cheering, and these all rantogether towards the fountain in the middle of the square. The reststopped in wonder and confusion, their officers shouting furiously atthem, and ordering them to fire on the deserters. Some obeyed, others,when they saw the guns trained on them, ran away and hid themselves indoorways, and then Hartness gave the order to fire.

  Instantly every sound was drowned by the terrible voices of themachine-guns. Hartness glanced once along the barrel of his, and thensent a torrent of bullets full into the middle of the broken column thathad come down from the Plaza Del Cabildo. Then he moved it a little fromside to side, and then stopped. When the smoke had drifted away I sawthat there was not a living being in that corner of the square, onlyhuddled heaps of corpses and bodies of animals. Then he turned the gunon the other corner into which the other gun was firing, and soon not aman or an animal was left alive there also.

  When the firing ceased there were none left in the square but those whohad declared for us. Hartness immediately formed these into two columns.He led one of them, with one gun at the head, into the street past theChurch of the Jesuits, and I led the other with the second gun into theother street leading to the Cuartel, and up these two streets we foughtour way into the Plaza Del Cabildo, in which we could hear more fightingalready going on.

  When we at last gained the square we found a furious fight going on infront of the Cuartel between one body of men who were defending thebuilding and another that was attacking it, but which of these werefriends or foes we did not know until Tupac, heedless of the flyingbullets, ran out shouting in Quichua that Vilcaroya had come. Shouts andcheers from the Cuartel soon told us that our friends had got possessionof it, and after the city was won I learned that when the two columnshad started, leaving a third drawn up in the square before the Cuartel,those who were for us, remembering what I had said about the gold that Iwould give for the machine-guns and the ammunition, had broken theirranks and made a rush for the doors to secure the three guns which werein the courtyard, and so the fight had begun, they seeking to hold theCuartel against the others until help came.

  As soon as I knew which were our enemies, by their bullets comingsinging about our ears, I had the gun trained on them, and gave the wordto fire. But no sooner had it begun to rain its tempest of death than weheard the other one speak from the other end of the square, and such astorm of bullets swept across the Plaza that before many moments hadpassed there was not a man or beast left alive in it.

  Then, when the firing ceased again, those who had held the Cuartel, andhad taken shelter in it as soon as the machine-guns began to play, threwopen the doors to us and came out to welcome us, and Francis Hartnessand I clasped hands as victors, and for the time being, at least,masters of the ancient City of the Sun, for with the Cuartel we hadtaken all the arms and ammunition stored up in Cuzco, including thethree Gatling guns and the two Maxims; and more than this, the whole ofthe native population of the valley was in our favour.

  The fighting was now over, save for conflicts that were going on indifferent parts of the city between the Spaniards and the Indians, and Iat once had the Governor brought before me in the Cuartel and told himby the lips of Hartness to write a proclamation surrendering the city tous and ordering all the officials to come in and make their submissionbefore sundown, threatening fire and sack to every Spanish house if itwas not done. This he did, knowing well what would befall him if herefused. At the same time Hartness made a proclamation in my name inEnglish and Spanish promising perfect freedom and security to allforeign merchants in the region that was under our command.

  It was then about mid-day, and when I had given Francis Hartness fullauthority to act in my name as Governor of the city, which, speakingfluent Spanish as he did, he could do better than I, I took a guard offifty men and went with Tupac back to the Rodadero, and took ten of themen into the Hall of Gold and bade them carry out as much as they could,so that I might keep my promise to the soldiers who had been faithful tome, and while they were doing this I went with Tupac to Djama's cell andfound him wailing and crying like a little child, and beating his handson the golden wall of his prison and praying most piteously for a sightof the daylight and a breath of the fresh air of heaven.

  The Spaniard, when he heard us coming, began to shriek and scream, and Ibade Tupac tell him that I would gag him for a day and a night if he didnot cease his cries. But to Djama I told what had happened, and howCuzco was already mine, and promised I would let him out for a littlewhile the next day if he would keep silence for half-an-hour, andhearing this, he ceased his cries, and I went on to the throne-room totake the news of our victory to Ruth and Golden Star.