Chapter XXXI

Pizarro spared no pains in giving to the dead monarch the full honors of rank at his funeral.

The Inca had renounced his faith and embraced theirs. He was entitled to Christian burial.

Perhaps Pizarro really believed the necessity for his death. Perhaps he believed that necessity urgent. He could remember the fate of his own people when the enraged chiefs of Panama had poured molten gold down their throats, crying:

“Eat, Christians! Eat your fill of gold!”

He did not propose to see such scenes reënacted in Peru. Now that the deed was done he could at least express his Christian humanity by placing flowers on the body of the dead Indian.

The body was carefully prepared for the obsequies. When stretched in solemn posture on the bier, the massive head rested on a gold embroidered pillow and he was shrouded in the most gorgeous robes of empire.

Francisco Pizarro took his place as chief mourner, wearing his magnificent uniform of Viceroy for the first time. Indeed, it was the first time since his march into Peru that he had felt safe in assuming it. There were many battles yet to be fought, but he felt his hand at last gripping the wealth and power of a mighty empire. Verily, he thought, he was an instrument in the hands of God! In his hour of triumph, with millions of gold securely locked in his chests and the crown of a kingdom on his brow, he recalled with a sense of awe the days of his lonely pitiful childhood in Spain. The “little bastard,” they had called him, and the pigs he tended had been his best friends. He could begin now to see a proud world fawning at his feet.

So it is not to be wondered that he took himself seriously.

The funeral procession had wended its way into the church, the body lay in state before the altar and the priests were celebrating the ceremony for the dead. Pizarro stood, commanding the scene, his magnificent figure sternly erect, his finely shaped head and full beard streaked with gray, expressing the dignity and new found power of his position.

A sudden commotion at the door, and the droning tones of the priests died into silence as all eyes turned. Before Pizarro realized what had happened, Yma, at the head of a hundred white-robed Virgins of the Sun, swept down the aisle, surrounded and seized the body of their lord. His wives, led by his mother, followed weeping. The Sun Virgins softly swayed from the bier and his wives rushed to the body with drawn daggers to follow their master to the grave.

A word of sharp command from Pizarro called the startled soldiers to their duty.

“Seize and drag them from the church!”

Heavy figures in clanging armor leaped forward. The weeping women and white-clad Virgins of the Sun were dragged protesting from the church.

Yma sought Pizarro.

“As servants of our Lord of the Sun we claim the right to the body of our beloved. We would embalm it and give him burial with his people in the Temple at Quito.”

The Spaniard commanded silence.

“I will give him Christian burial in holy ground--go!”

Behind the conqueror, stood his partner, Almagro, and his brothers, who had pronounced the sentence of death on the Inca.

The soldiers had instinctively refrained from laying hands on the dead sovereign’s mother. She stood with her sad eyes fixed on Pizarro. Lifting both hands above her head she solemnly prayed:

“God of the Sun, wither the Kingdom of Spain and let thy rays, as lances of death, strike the murderers of Atahualpa!”

She was allowed to walk down the aisle and out the door without molestation.

The conquerors in the absence of their interpreters wondered what she had said. They were yet to recall the scene in hours of supreme tragedy in their own lives.