The Crimson Conquest: A Romance of Pizarro and PeruHudson, Charles B. (Charles Bradford)
History
The Crimson Conquest: A Romance of Pizarro and Peru
Hudson, Charles B. (Charles Bradford)
Peru -- History -- Conquest, 1522-1548 -- Fiction
Rava heard the brief struggle with palpitating heart: the crash of the
fall of the armored man, the mad gallop of the horse, and then only the
roaring of the torrent. She rose from her knees. There was no sign of
Cristoval or his adversary, and only distant hoof-beats to vary the
monotonous din of the stream. She leaned against the rock, weak and
shaking. For a moment she stood with straining ears. The gallop had
died away, and she was alone. Minute after minute fled, and at last she
could endure no longer. Unheeding the pain of every step, she sped to
the trail. No slightest evidence of life. She ran a few steps down the
canyon, halted trembling, and turned to the jutting rock. Here she
stopped and looked down, transfixed. There lay a man in armor,
inanimate; beside him the form of Cristoval, face upward and marred by a
stream of blood from his forehead. She tottered, and parted her lips to
scream, but her voice failed. How she descended from the path she never
knew; but in a moment she was kneeling with his head in her lap, calling
his name in agony, and wiping away the crimson stream. She thought of
the water, and in a second was carrying it in her hands and bathing his
face, praying, praying for a sign of animation. Tears blinded her while
she worked, hurrying to and from the edge of the torrent, dashing the
too meagre handfuls into the still face, chafing his wrists, beating the
nerveless hands, sobbing and moaning his name. He lay without a quiver.
She thought she looked upon death, and her fear became wild, frenzied
despair. She cast a shuddering look of horror at the grim desolation
surrounding her, and threw herself upon him, her hands at his throat, on
his cheeks, in his hair, wailing his name in the extremity of mortal
anguish.
He sighed. Ah, merciful Sun!—most beneficent Inti! She stifled her sobs
and brushed away her tears that she might see. His eyelids trembled,
and now a moan, most faint, barely audible, but—he lived! More water,
and more, and when she came again his eyes were open, blankly at the sky
at first, then at her. She wept for joy, pressing his hands to her
bosom, while he regarded her vaguely, striving to arrange his muddled
thoughts.
"Courage!" murmured Cristoval, and closed his eyes again, to be startled
to his senses by a shriek from the girl. De Valera had moved, and was
feebly groaning. Cristoval turned his head at the sound, and the sight
of his fallen enemy aroused him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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