The hardy Indian encountered his
enemy several times in the rough passes of the Cordilleras. He was
usually beaten, and sometimes with heavy loss, which he repaired with
astonishing facility; for he always contrived to make his escape, and so
true were his followers, that, in defiance of pursuit and ambuscade, he
found a safe shelter in the secret haunts of the sierra.
Thus baffled, Pizarro determined to try the effect of pacific overtures.
He sent to the Inca, both in his own name, and in that of the Bishop of
Cuzco, whom the Peruvian prince held in reverence, to invite him to
enter into negotiation.25 Manco acquiesced, and indicated, as he had
formerly done with Almagro, the valley of Yucay, as the scene of it. The
governor repaired thither, at the appointed time, well guarded, and, to
propitiate the barbarian monarch, sent him a rich present by the hands of
an African slave. The slave was met on the route by a party of the Inca's
men, who, whether with or without their master's orders, cruelly
murdered him, and bore off the spoil to their quarters. Pizarro resented
this outrage by another yet more atrocious.
Among the Indian prisoners was one of the Inca's wives, a young and
beautiful woman, to whom he was said to be fondly attached. The
governor ordered her to be stripped naked, bound to a tree, and, in
presence of the camp, to be scourged with rods, and then shot to death
with arrows.
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