The virgin of the sun

The morning of the Twentieth of October, in the Year of Grace Fifteen Hundred and Twenty-seven, broke, as many another morning had done, slowly and most drearily over a little d...

The sun had set over Quito, “the City of the Great Ravine,” but high above the night that had fallen upon the valley rounded tops and pinnacles of rock, gleaming domes of snow a...

Ullomaya and those who followed him stopped suddenly on the threshold of what was now in truth the death-chamber of the Inca, and bent their heads and remained for a moment in r...

While Challcuchima was soliloquising thus to himself over the dreadful secret that he had discovered, a youth, who could scarce have seen his fifteenth year, was walking with sl...

When he reached the city the summits of the eastern mountains were already beginning to glow and glitter in the light of the still invisible dawn, but the angry glare which he h...

By law and custom alike it was his right to claim the first audience, for, saving only the Inca himself, he stood highest in rank, even as he was noblest in descent, among all t...

He found her standing bound beside her mother, leaning her head against her breast, and looking with fixed, dazed eyes blankly at the wall of fagots in front of her. In an insta...

When the sound of the first myriad-voiced cry had died away the spell of a great silence fell upon the multitude. The torches smoked and smouldered out harmlessly on the ground,...

In the late afternoon of a day towards the end of October, in the year 1532, a little company of horse and foot, attended by some twoscore Indian bearers, was plodding slowly an...

The order had scarcely left the Captain’s lips ere those in the vanguard had already set about obeying it, and it was passed down the line, each rank forming up as it went by, f...

But while the level beams of the sinking sun were still glancing redly across the low hills that bordered the wilderness to seaward runners came in on the eighth day bringing th...

The next morning, while the dew yet lay on the grass and the higher slopes and peaks of the Eastern mountains were yet cut off from the lower by a shadowy sea of mist, every cav...

It was a good hour or more, so steep and difficult is that downward road, before the zone of frozen mist was passed through, and the vanguard of the little army halted, transfix...

No reception could well have been more different from the anticipations of the adventurers than that which awaited them in the first of the cities of the Incas that they had so...

The matter of the embassy to Atahuallpa having been thus decided, but little time was wasted in carrying it into execution. While Pizarro and his captains had been debating the...

It may well be believed that there was but little sleep for the Spanish army in Cajamarca that night, for the tidings which de Soto and his embassy had brought back, and which i...

“Anathema! Anathema! Shall the word of God be trodden under-foot of the heathen?” cried Valverde, his voice rising almost to a scream as he plunged forward with both hands outst...

Nearly a week had passed since the massacre--for not even the Spanish chroniclers themselves have the hardihood to describe it as a battle--and Atahuallpa, but a few days ago th...

Very soon after the capture of Atahuallpa had been accomplished, and when Challcuchima had withdrawn his regiments into the mountains, whither the Spaniards, by reason of the sm...

With the first gleam of dawn Pizarro’s envoys set out on their already bootless errand to Andamarca. He made no secret of their object during an interview which he had that day...

The two sentries, knowing the peculiar position in which Filipillo stood, as it were, between the Inca and his captors, contented themselves with laughing at his escape, and the...

At such a juncture as this it needed all the clear insight and instant decision of the true leader of men to decide upon the best course of action. The all too successful strata...

At the moment when the Spanish cavaliers arrived on the brow of the hill overlooking Cuzco, Manco-Capac was walking with Nahua up and down a broad, paved path in a vast garden w...

The ceremony of proclaiming the young prince Inca-Regent and Protector was brief and simple, though by no means without a due impressiveness. Escorted by a procession of the Pri...

In Cajamarca the days grew rapidly into weeks, and events multiplied quickly, but the cavaliers did not return from Cuzco, nor was any more news heard of them than the meagre ti...

That night the utmost precautions were taken to prevent surprise and rescue. The guards at all points of entrance to the city were doubled, and the difficult roads that led down...

Many months had passed, and many grievous misfortunes had fallen upon the Children of the Sun since Atahuallpa had been done to death in the square of Cajamarca. De Soto and his...

It was after sunset one day early in the year 1535, and the young Inca Manco, the titular ruler of the Land of the Four Regions, was sitting moody and disconsolate in a chair, w...

“Why has she gone? Why has she spoken to me in such a manner? It is the first time that her lips have ever spoken any but loving words to me. What is this new trouble that is ab...

That night, soon after sunset, a body of five cavaliers, preceded and followed by a score of native auxiliaries of the Cañaris tribe, left the city by the causeway leading to th...

Although the four cavaliers found no difficulty in reconciling their complicity in the Inca’s escape to their consciences, their generosity did not therefore extend to the rest...

The news that they had returned without the Inca had apparently preceded them by some means, for they met Carvahal at the door of the palace, and in answer to their greeting he...

De Soto’s first care naturally was to seek out the Villac-Umu, and through him to convey to the queen-mother and the princess, who were already preparing themselves to meet with...

That same night, when the last of the escort had returned, the bridge was taken up out of the river and all the dispositions for the defence of the valley against an attacking f...

Within ten minutes of this decisive pronouncement Alonso de Molina had once more led his little troop of scouts across the river, followed closely by the whole company. But scar...

Nearly five months had passed since Juan Pizarro and Hernando de Soto had ridden at the head of twenty-eight wounded and wearied men, the sole survivors of the terrible Battle o...

While the Spaniards were holding their council in the camp in the great square, Manco and Ruminavi were holding another no less momentous in one of the chambers of the central t...

Juan Pizarro now divided his men into three companies commanded by himself, de Soto, and ben-Alcazar, and planted the archers and arquebusiers in positions from which they could...