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Pandas Cookbook
Theodore Petrou
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Pandas Cookbook
Copyright © 2017 Packt Publishing
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure
the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information
contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or
implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and
distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to
be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
ISBN 978-1-78439-387-8
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Copy Editor
Theodore Petrou Tasneem Fatehi
Reviewers
Sonali Dayal
Project Coordinator
Kuntal Ganguly
Manthan Patel
Shilpi Saxena
I’d also like to thank Sonali Dayal, whose constant feedback helped
immensely in structuring the content of the book to improve its
effectiveness. Thank you to Roy Keyes, who is the most exceptional
data scientist I know and whose collaboration made Houston Data
Science possible. Thank you to Scott Boston, an extremely skilled
pandas user for developing ideas for recipes. Thank you very much
to Kim Williams, Randolph Adami, Kevin Higgins, and Vishwanath
Avasarala, who took a chance on me during my professional career
when I had little to no experience. Thanks to my fellow coworker at
Schlumberger, Micah Miller, for his critical, honest, and instructive
feedback on anything that we developed together and his constant
pursuit to move toward Python.
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 rake the second
terrace with their volleys, but the storming of this was harder work
than the forcing of the gate had been, for the wall was high and
smooth and the few and narrow openings in it had been built up
almost as solidly as the wall itself. It presented an unbroken series of
angles, and above these huge heaps of stones had been piled, and
hence the moment a ladder was planted those who attempted to
mount it were exposed to attack not only from the top but from both
sides as well.
Time after time the ladders were planted, and time after time the
heroic assailants were driven back bruised and maimed by the
avalanches of stones that were rained upon them. Only their stout,
well-tried mail and bucklers saved them from certain death, and only
the knowledge that this was their last fight and that they must either
conquer in it or lose all that they had fought so hard and suffered so
bitterly for, sent them back and back again to the seemingly
hopeless assault.
At last Juan Pizarro, seeing that isolated attacks could only end in
failure, ordered all the ladders to be planted in a single angle where
the ammunition of the defenders was becoming exhausted. At the
same time he drew up his archers and arquebusiers on the opposite
side of the lower terrace, and, while the assailants were swarming
for the fiftieth time up the ladder, these sent volley after volley over
their heads into the dense ranks of the defenders above.
Still, in spite of this, two of the ladders were pushed aside and
sent crashing down with their load of men on to the terrace below.
Carvahal had just reached the top of a fourth, panting and swearing
and foaming with fury, when suddenly the ranks of the defenders
divided and a tall figure clad in Spanish mail and helm, with a
Spanish buckler on his left arm and a huge copper-headed mace in
his right hand, strode forward and, swinging up the mace, brought it
down with a frightful crash on Carvahal’s steel cap.
The grip that he had just taken of the top of the wall relaxed and,
with a hoarse cry like the bellow of a wounded bull, he reeled
backwards and rolled down the ladder, sweeping every man behind
him off it. They tumbled in a heap to the ground with Carvahal on
top of them. One was killed outright and two were maimed for life,
but the old swashbuckler sat up the next minute in the midst of
them, pulled off his cap to see if his head was broken, and then,
finding it wasn’t, shouted—
“Cuerpo de Cristo! that was a shrewd knock for a heathen to give
a good Christian. By the Saints, I thought all the fortress had fallen
on me! Devil take him, I shall have a headache for a week! Come
on, lads, up again! It shall never be said that Carvahal took a blow
without giving it back! I’ll crack that son of Satan’s pate for him yet
if God gives me strength and a fair chance at him.”
With that he scrambled to his feet again and, with the help of
those who were not too badly hurt by the fall, reared up the ladder
again and once more mounted first upon it. But while this was
happening a footing had already been gained on top of the wall from
three of the other ladders, and Juan Pizarro, de Soto, and ben-
Alcazar, with stout Michael Asterre, were laying about them with
their long swords and fast clearing a space on the second terrace.
Foot by foot they drove the defenders back, and now the infuriated
soldiery came pouring unresisted up the ladders.
“Where is he? Where is he?” howled Carvahal as he rolled over the
parapet.
“Whom seekest thou, fire-eater?” laughed de Soto, leaning on his
sword during a brief pause in the fight.
“That heathen knave in Christian clothing! That iron clad son of
Belial who gave me that crack over the pate and made me see more
stars than the good God ever created!” he growled, looking about
him in the dim light for his foe. “If I mistake not he is none other
than Ruminavi the General, old Stony-face as they rightly call him.
Carrajo! I will see whether his head too be made of stone when I
get near enough to whet my blade upon it.”
“It will not be stone but good Spanish steel that thou wilt whet thy
blade on,” said Juan Pizarro, “for that, as thou hast said, was old
Ruminavi, and thou mayest thank the Saints that it was not the Inca
himself, for, judging what he did in the Battle of the Valley, thick and
all as thy skull may be, he would have smashed it like an egg-shell.
But come, Señores,” he went on, addressing the others, “minutes
are worth much now, and we have yet another wall to scale and
after that the citadel to storm, and, see, the heathens are gathering
to the fight again! So far we have done well, yet I would give
something to hear Hernando’s guns from the gap of the road
yonder.”
“And I would give more to see your head covered by a good steel
morion, Señor Juan,” said de Soto. “There are two or three down
yonder who have done with theirs for ever. Why not take one of
them? It might mean the difference between life and death for you
to-night, and the worst part of the battle has to come yet, for these
gallant heathens, if I mistake not, will fight while one of them can
strike a blow.”
“I have a good buckler, de Soto, and that must suffice,” he replied,
speaking with some little difficulty, “for with this wounded jaw of
mine I could not bear the chin-piece, and if I have to die I may as
well do it comfortably as any other way.”
“And yet this is not a matter in which one may take too many
chances,” growled Carvahal, rubbing his head. “Carramba! if it had
not been for this steel cap of mine methinks I should by this time
have been looking for the coolest spot in Purgatory. Cuerpo de
Cristo! where is the scoundrel who gave me this headache?”
“By Allah and all the Saints!” shouted ben-Alcazar, “thou wilt not
have long to wait, Carvahal. See, here he comes and at the head of
a goodly array too! On guard, Señores, on guard!”
He had scarcely spoken when they turned and saw coming along
the terrace a solid phalanx of men with long spears levelled at the
charge, swinging on at a steady, measured run, led by Ruminavi
whirling his huge mace and shouting the old battle-cry of the Incas.
Carvahal, who was standing a little in advance of the others, put
his buckler up and his head down, and with his sword shortened in
his right hand ran like a charging bull at Ruminavi. But the old
warrior had fought too many fights in that style to be taken
unawares. As Carvahal rushed blindly on he stepped aside with the
lightness of a youth, and as he passed brought his mace down
between his shoulders, and with a cry that was half a gasp and half
a groan Carvahal stumbled and fell, and the next moment the first
rank of the spearmen had leapt over his body and flung themselves
on the Spaniards.
Even now, if it had only been man to man and weapon to weapon,
the assault would have been repelled, for, in spite of their tough
armour and long swords, the rush of the well-drilled spearmen drove
the Spaniards back and huddled them into a heap. But just at the
critical moment, as they were being crushed up against a terrace
wall by the sheer weight of the column that had hurled itself against
them, there rang out far to the rear a hoarse roaring shout—
“Dios y Santiago! lay on for God and Spain—lay on!” and then
came the ever-dreaded thunder of horses’ hoofs, mingled with yells
of terror and screams of pain and the fierce clink—clink—clink of
smiting steel.
The charging spearmen stopped in the very moment of victory, as
though paralysed by the dreaded sound. In vain Ruminavi, who had
already smitten ben-Alcazar lifeless to the ground and broke Michael
Asterre’s sword-arm with a blow of his mace, alternately cursed and
cheered them on. Three or four arquebusiers scaled the wall and
levelled their pieces. The “thunder-pipes” belched out their flame
and smoke, and the balls, fired at less than five paces, tore through
rank after rank of the close-packed spearmen and completed the
panic. They broke their formation and ran, some leaping over into
the terrace below, others swarming like cats up the third wall, but
most of them going down pierced and slashed by the Spanish steel.
Meanwhile a troop of Don Hernando’s horse had come tearing
along the terrace, riding down and trampling over a crowd of
fugitives before them, and in the fast-closing gap between the
Spanish horse and foot stood Ruminavi, still unwounded yet
seemingly devoted to certain death.
For one brief instant he stood and looked from one to the other,
and then, just as de Soto ran forward, as he thought, to save his life
by making him prisoner, the wary old warrior darted under the cover
of the upper wall and then, as the first horse came up to him, he put
his buckler over his helmet, took a well-meant sword-stroke
harmlessly upon it, and at the same moment brought his mace
round with such a savage swing on the horse’s forelegs that the
bones snapped under it like twigs, and horse and man rolled over in
a helpless heap with the next rider and horse on top of them. Two
more swift strokes of the terrible mace drove the steel of their caps
into the skulls of the two fallen riders, and then the gallant old
warrior, grasping one of a dozen hands held out to him over the
upper wall, swung himself up as lightly as a lad of sixteen and
disappeared into the darkness.
“Santiago! that was well met, Señor,” said Juan Pizarro to Cieza de
Leon, who was leading the troop of horse. “Another minute and we
should have been over the wall. It is well for us that these heathens
have only two good men to lead them, and that only one of them
seems to be here. That old Stony-face as they call him fights as if all
the devils of Gadara were in him.”
“Ay, and by the Saints he nearly sent me down a steeper place
than I could ever climb up again. Carrajo! has no one killed the
heathen yet? First he tries to hammer what brains I have down my
throat, and then he knocks the breath out of me like the wind out of
a burst bladder.”
“Why, Carvahal,” laughed de Soto, as the old swashbuckler
hobbled out from the midst of the fallen horses and men with one
hand behind his back and the other rubbing his huge paunch, “art
thou not dead yet? I should be loth to believe that thou wert born to
be hanged——”
“Go hang thyself, babbler!” said Carvahal between a snarl and a
gasp. “Is this time to crack jokes on a comrade’s misfortunes?
Carrajo, Caballeros, what are we standing here for? Is this a battle
or a dancing party, and where has that infernal heathen vanished to
again? Ah! that was poor ben-Alcazar, was it? Well, well, it is the
fortune of war and the good God will be able to see now whether he
was better Christian or Moslem. For myself as a good Christian I
have always had my doubts of him.”
“Buenos noches, Señores! How goes the battle your way?” said
the deep voice of Don Hernando, who now rode up at the head of a
second troop of horse. “For our part we have cleared the two lower
terraces and driven the heathen, or such as we have left alive, either
on the plain, where I have posted a troop to look after them, or up
yonder to their citadels—— How now, Juan? What art thou doing
here without thy helmet? Art mad, lad, to come into a fight like this
bareheaded?”
“I have but a scratch and a bruise or two so far, brother,” said
Juan, with a good attempt at a laugh, “and this jaw of mine is so
sore and stiff that I could not bear a chin-piece on it, and what is
the use of a leader who cannot cheer his men on? But enough of me
for the moment. What we have done is as thou seest. We have
forced the gate and cleared the two terraces, though, it grieves me
to say it, not without loss. Still, here we are and there is the citadel
yet to be taken. What say you? Shall we attack forthwith ere the
heathen have time to recover themselves?”
“Ay, that were best,” replied Don Hernando, “when you start a
savage running keep him going, and we may as well scale the wall
while it is yet unguarded.”
While this conversation had been going on between the two
leaders the archers and crossbow-men of the two parties had been
busy collecting the arrows and bolts which they had shot, pulling
and cutting them out of the flesh of those they had slain with them,
and so Don Hernando, now taking the chief command, ordered them
to scale the third undefended wall and spread themselves out in
skirmishing order on the little plain above it. After them went the
musketeers, of whom there were now five-and-twenty, and then Don
Hernando, leaving half a score of mounted men to watch the horses
and keep the terrace clear, dismounted and led the rest of his men,
to the number of over sixty, to the final assault on the citadel.
While they were clearing the wall and dragging the ladders after
them the archers, crossbow-men, and musketeers had been
advancing slowly across the little plain towards the citadel, driving
the now disheartened Peruvians before them. For generations the
great fortress had been rightly believed to be impregnable. Horde
after horde of the savage tribes of the east had dashed themselves
to fragments against its triple walls and until now no enemy had
ever yet set foot even upon its first terrace, and yet here a mere
handful of these unconquerable strangers stood triumphant on its
topmost tier. To them it was the work of demons rather than of men,
and, following as it did upon unnumbered defeats and only a single
victory, it was little wonder that in such a moment the hearts of the
bravest failed them.
The three Spanish ranks advanced almost without resistance to
the walls of the central citadel. The other two towers had been
deserted, but round the base of the central one the remnants of the
garrison were drawn up ten or twelve deep in a solid human wall of
desperate, though it might be despairing valour, and its three
terraces and broad, flat roof were filled with men who had there
taken their last stand ready to die to a man for the country and the
homes which they could no longer save.
But however desperate their valour and resolution they were of
little avail against the well-proved science of Don Hernando and his
lieutenants. Though there were others amongst the Conquerors who
could have led a charge more brilliantly or fought a pitched battle in
the open against overwhelming odds with better chance of success
than he, yet when it came to such an attack as this, where skill and
caution were equally needed, he was without a rival.
The moon had risen now and in the clear air of that elevated
region the light was quite bright enough for accurate aim either with
bow or arquebus, so he planted his force in three lines arranged in a
semicircle about the citadel, which, as has been said before, stood
close to the perpendicular face of the fortress overlooking the city. In
front were the musketeers lying down with their pieces levelled at
the close ranks beneath the walls. Behind them was the line of
cavaliers and troopers armed with their long swords, battle-axes,
and pikes, and behind them again were the archers and crossbow-
men; and the plan of the battle was this:—
First the musketeers sent a murderous volley into the ranks round
the base. Then, while they reloaded, the second line charged past
them to increase with axe and pike and sword the havoc which the
musket-balls had wrought, and while they were doing this the third
rank sent their volleys of arrows and bolts into the crowded masses
on the terraces. Then when the musketeers had reloaded Don
Hernando gave the signal for the second rank to disengage itself and
retire behind them, and as the defenders rushed forward they were
met by yet another volley of balls, and hard after these came the
charging steel again.
Thus, volley after volley and charge after charge were made and
ever the close and well-directed flights of bolts and arrows rained
with deadly effect upon the impotent defenders of the citadel whose
feeble weapons were useless at a range at which the Spanish long-
bows and arbalests were almost as deadly as modern rifles.
To such a fight there could be but one end, and so the time came
when the last volley of musketry and the last charge of the sword
and pike rent asunder the ranks of the defenders at the base and
scattered their remnants weaponless and terror-stricken over the
plain. Then Don Hernando bade his musketeers stand up and use
their resting-forks so that they could play on the terraces of the
citadel and he kept them and the archers and crossbow-men at this
work until every bullet and arrow and bolt had been shot away. Then
he ordered up the ladders and the last assault began.
All this time Ruminavi had been striding up and down the roof of
the citadel exhorting his warriors to stand fast and die as he had
sworn to do, in battle rather than in that slavery to the Strangers
which was now the only alternative. Though ever erect himself and
passing by some miracle scathless through the storm of missiles, he
had kept his men crouching behind the parapets so that as many of
them as possible might remain for the last struggle, and this struggle
when it came was a bitter one, for now the fight was hand to hand,
weapon to weapon, and man to man.
Again and again the ladders were planted and again and again
they were hurled back to fall with their human load on the thronging
assailants beneath, and a good half-score of Spaniards had fought
their last fight by the time the last rampart was gained, and more
than twice as many more had been disabled by wounds or broken
limbs. But still, rung by rung, they went up the ladders and terrace
by terrace the last stronghold of the Incas was stormed until at
length one of the ladders was firmly hooked on the parapet of the
roof itself.
Juan Pizarro, pushing Cieza de Leon aside and swearing that a
Pizarro should be first on the roof, sprang on to the ladder with his
dagger between his teeth. As he did so Don Hernando fought his
way, to the foot, shouting in a voice hoarse with anxiety and the
passion of battle—
“Down, Juan, down! Come back! Come back! Come down, I pray
thee—nay, I command thee, come down! Ah! Mother of God, there
is that accursed heathen again!”
And so saying he sprang up the ladder after Juan, who, unheeding
his brother’s prayers and command, was already more than half-way
to the parapet. After him went de Soto and then Carvahal. Juan
reached the top first and as he put his hand on the parapet to
clamber over, the gigantic form of Ruminavi towered high above it
and the great mace went up. Instantly Juan’s buckler covered his
head, and, lying flat on the ladder, he crawled up another step. He
let go the parapet, snatched the dagger from his mouth and made a
swift thrust at Ruminavi’s side. But in the uncertain light he missed
the joint and the Spanish blade shivered to splinters on the Spanish
mail. The next instant the mace came down, and with a dull, rending
crash Juan’s buckler burst asunder under the irresistible shock of the
blow. The bones of the arm that held it were crushed to pulp and
Juan’s body, doubled up like a half-empty sack, pitched on to his
brother’s shoulders and fell with a dead, heavy thud on the terrace
below.
“God curse thee, thou hast killed the gentlest knight in
Christendom!” roared Don Hernando as he rushed up the ladder and
sprang over the parapet at Ruminavi before he could bring his mace
up again. “Take that to Hell with thee!” he shouted again as he
swung his long blade round and dealt a sweeping sword-stroke at
the old warrior.
But Ruminavi saw it coming and sprang back so that the point
only grazed his armour. The next instant Don Hernando was striding
across the roof with de Soto and Carvahal hard after him.
Meanwhile, too, another ladder had been hooked on and another
stream of eager assailants were pouring on to the roof. Don
Hernando, de Soto and Carvahal rushed together at Ruminavi while
the new-comers were striking down the few defenders left, but not
one of them could pass the circle which the terrible sweeps of the
great mace made about him. Don Hernando’s sword was knocked
flying from his grasp, another stroke took de Soto on the right
shoulder and sent him reeling back among his followers. Then
Carvahal ran in and took the head of the mace full on his jaw.
“Carrajo!” he howled, reeling back and spitting out a mouthful of
blood and broken teeth. “The curse of God upon thee and thy stolen
steel!” And then he ran in again with a savage, sweeping stroke of
his broad blade at Ruminavi’s thigh.
But again the Spanish steel was met by the Spanish mail and the
edge turned harmless off it and again Carvahal took a blow of the
mace on his left shoulder which paralysed his buckler-arm and made
even his mighty bulk tremble and reel backwards.
By this time every other defender of the roof had been cut down
or pierced through and through with sword and pike-thrusts, and
now old Ruminavi was the only defender left. Don Hernando had
picked up an axe in place of his lost sword, de Soto had shifted his
sword to his left hand, and de Leon and a dozen more Spaniards
were making ready for a last rush at the gallant old warrior.
And now Ruminavi saw that the end had come. One swift glance
over the corpse-strewn roof showed him that he alone was left,
another at his closing enemies showed him that the trust he had so
desperately defended was lost at last. He ran back to the parapet
overlooking the city and leapt upon it and for the last time turned
and looked round on his foes.
“Save him! Save him! He is too gallant a man to die!” shouted Don
Hernando springing forward towards him.
The great mace swung round again and then like a stone from a
catapult it whistled through the air, and taking Don Hernando full on
the breast it sent him reeling backwards and hurled him prone on
the roof. The next moment old Ruminavi drew himself up erect and,
still without turning his back on his foes, sprang into the air. The
next he was lying smashed out of all human shape on the stones
five hundred feet below.
The Spaniards rushed forward and leant over the battlements
peering down into the fearful abyss. Then de Soto stood up and
made the sign of the Cross and said in a choked, husky voice—
“Heathen or not, comrades, a stark warrior and a good patriot!
May God receive his gallant soul in peace. Amen!”
EPILOGUE
It is one of the misfortunes of the romancer who devotes himself to
the re-telling of a story which has already been recorded by the pen
of History that he cannot deal with his characters as he would with
those who are purely the creation of his own fancy. Here or there a
date or an incident may be altered, and to a certain extent he may
put such words as he pleases into the mouths of those whom he has
recalled from the grave to play their parts upon the stage which he
has reconstructed for them. But with this the license which he may
legitimately use is exhausted. To push his privileges beyond this
point would be to utterly destroy the verisimilitude of his narrative
by bringing it into flat contradiction with the known facts of history.
Thus I am well aware that in the present instance the unities of
Romance would demand that not Ruminavi, but Manco-Capac,
should have died that gallant death on the citadel of the
Sacsahuaman, or, better still, have brought back a great host with
him from the South and overwhelmed his conquerors in the hour of
their victory. But the circumstances narrated by the chroniclers of
the Conquest, some of whom were actually present, are
substantially as they have been given here. The gallant Manco was
far away when the last assault was made, although even had he
been present the final result, although it might have been deferred,
could hardly have been different in the end. And yet as it happens it
is this very fact which makes it possible for the romancer to bring
the tale of the Conquest of Peru to a close with at least a plausible
assumption that in the end poetic justice was done.
With the fall of the Sacsahuaman the Siege of Cuzco virtually
ended. It is true that after the seed-time Manco came back and once
more encompassed the city with innumerable legions, but
meanwhile the Spaniards had stripped the surrounding country bare,
not only of the remaining stores of grain, but also of the remnants of
the Peruvian flocks and herds. Almagro’s men, too, were marching
back from Chile, and reinforcements at length were pushing their
way through the mountain defiles from the cities of the coast, and
ship-load after ship-load of adventurers from Panama and Nicaragua
were landing on the doomed shores of Peru. So in the end the
gallant Manco, seeing his legions starving by thousands around him,
was forced to yield to famine if not to the Spaniards, and finally
raised the siege.
From Cuzco he retired into the fastnesses of Yucay and the
impregnable fortress of Ollantay-Tambo. Here expedition after
expedition was sent against him, only to be cut off to a man or
hurled back in defeat and disaster. Then the well-earned vengeance
of Eternal Justice fell hard and heavy on those iron Conquerors who
for lust of riches had outraged every canon of human and Divine
law. The gold that they came to seek proved their ruin when they
had found it. Faction turned against faction, and comrade against
comrade, and fiercer fights by far were fought between Spaniard
and Spaniard than had ever been fought between Spaniard and
Peruvian, and to-day there is not a rood of ground on all the South
American continent over which the golden banner of Spain flies.
Of those of the Conquerors who have figured in these pages only
one reaped any earthly reward for his labours, and this was the
gallant and gentle knight Hernando de Soto, who, after the Civil
Wars married a noble Inca princess, whom he took with him as his
bride to Spain and presented at the Court of the Great Emperor. Of
the rest, Alonso de Molina, as we have seen, died with his head on
the breast of his well-beloved enemy and rival in love. Juan Pizarro
died a soldier’s death on the citadel of the Sacsahuaman. His brother
Gonzalo, taken in revolt against his lawful sovereign, lost his head on
the block. Carvahal, after winning himself the title of “the Demon of
the Andes,” was dragged to the scaffold in a basket and there hung,
drawn, and quartered under the sentence of the victorious Viceroy.
Pedro de Candia was murdered on the bloody field of Chupas by
Almagro his own commander, and Almagro himself, taken prisoner in
Cuzco by Don Hernando, was garroted in prison after abjectly
begging his life from his conqueror. And Don Hernando himself went
home to Spain only to be flung into a dungeon, in which he
languished for twenty weary years—the last of his ever-famous
family—to be released in the evening of his days, and to watch from
the sad eminence of a hundred years of life the ruin of the great
enterprise in which he had borne so conspicuous and, on the whole,
so honourable a part.
Of the fate of Manco there are two stories told. One by the
Spaniards, which says, that after years of successful guerrilla
warfare, during which he made his name a terror to the conquerors
of his country, he fell slain, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies,
in an obscure combat. The other, be it legend or truth as you will, is
found in the traditions of the fallen people, who still revere his name
as that of the last champion of their lost liberties.
In an unknown and almost inaccessible valley hidden away
somewhere in the vast ranges of the Vilcañota, surrounded by ice-
crowned peaks and vast snowfields towering far up into the
cloudless sky, he at length, with a remnant of the Children of the
Blood, found a refuge, and there to this day the ancient Inca Empire
survives, awaiting the day of vengeance, and ruled over by a lineal
descendant of the last bearer of the Divine Name, and of her who
was once the fairest and noblest of the Virgins of the Sun.
In this happy uncertainty we may take farewell of Manco and
Nahua, and turn our eyes for a moment to the City of the Kings.
There, in a room in his own palace, lies an old battle and travel-worn
man of nearly three-score years and ten, pierced by the swords of
those to whom he had opened the long-locked gates of El-Dorado.
His life-blood is dripping from a wound in his throat on to the floor.
He turns over on his side and with his finger traces a cross in his
own blood. Then he kisses it, and, as his trembling lips shape the
one word “Jesu,” another sword pierces him, this time to the heart,
and his head drops down and he dies. And this is the end of that
iron-souled Conqueror who had fought so many a bitter battle with
Destiny and who, with the sword that was to win an empire for
others, had traced that Line of Fate on the desolate sands of Gallo.
THE END
ENDNOTES
1
Tavantinsuyu] “The Land of the Four Regions” (North, South,
East, and West). The name Peru was not known to the Incas. It was
an invention of the Spaniards, and of obscure, indeed, unknown
origin.
2
the doom of those who disobey] All disobedience to the direct
commands of the reigning Inca was punished by death because he
was considered to be the incarnation of Divinity; hence disobedience
to him was sacrilege. There is, however, no instance on record of
this crime having been committed.
3
Nothing less than this appalling penalty was the punishment
decreed by the Inca laws to those who disobeyed the commands or
deliberately thwarted the will of the crowned Son of the Sun.
4
by the coming of our Father] The rising of the sun was thus
alluded to.
5
Coya] Queen, or wife-royal, as distinguished from those who
formed the harem of the Sovereign. The Incas held exactly the same
views on the subject of sister-marriage as the Pharaohs did.
6
the brilliant Chasca] The Incas’ name for the planet Venus. They
called her in their poems “the bright-haired handmaid of the Sun.”
7
the yellow fringe on his brow] The mark of social differences.
Those not of the pure Inca race wore black, those of the blood-royal
yellow, and the crowned Inca scarlet mingled with gold threads.
8
This portent was actually seen over the city of Cuzco shortly
before the Conquest.
9
Llapa] A generic term used by the Incas to denote all or any of
the manifestations of thunder-storms, earthquakes, meteors, and
similar phenomena.
10
The golden mask shall never cover thy face] The faces of the
royal mummies were covered with a golden mask moulded to the
features.
11
It is said that more than 700 members of Huayna-Capac’s
Household sacrificed themselves in various places on his death, but
some authorities hold that this savage custom had been abolished
by the later and more enlightened Incas.
12
It was said that nearly 40,000 inhabitants of the Valley of Quito
perished in the earthquake which occurred about this time. It is, of
course, a matter of history that Atahuallpa escaped.
13
According to one who took some share in this hideous day’s
work, this was absolutely the only wound inflicted on a Spaniard.
14
The Spanish chroniclers have recorded that Atahuallpa felt the,
to him, unspeakable dishonour of this proposal even more keenly
than his own captivity and all the indignities that it entailed.
15
roaring torrent of the “Great Speaker”] The Apu-Rimac, one of
the head-waters of the Amazon. It flows through this gorge with a
constant dull roar.
16
I baptize thee, Juan de Atahuallpa] It was the evening of the
Feast of St. John. Hence the new “convert’s” name.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Frontispiece by Stanley L. Wood.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. conquerers/conquerors,
spearmen/spear-men, war-beasts/war beasts, etc.) have been
preserved.
Plain text edition only: note markers are given in [square]
brackets.
[End of text]
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