Upon the hill overlooking Cuzco was--and is to this day--the remarkable Inca fortress of the Sacsahuaman. It is a cyclopean work. On the side toward the city, the almost impregnable bluff was made fully impregnable by a huge wall twelve hundred feet long and of great thickness. On the other side of the hill the gentler slope was guarded by two walls, one above the other, and each twelve hundred feet long. The stones in these walls were fitted together with surprising skill; and some single stones were thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and six feet thick! And, most wonderful of all, they had been quarried at least twelve miles away, and then transported by the Indians to their present site! The top of the hill was further defended by great stone towers. This remarkable aboriginal fortress was in the hands of the Indians, and enabled them to harass the beleaguered Spaniards much more effectively. It was plain that they must be dislodged. As a preliminary to this forlorn hope, the Spaniards sallied out in three detachments, commanded by Gonzalo Pizarro, Gabriel de Rojas, and Hernando Ponce de Leon, to beat off the Indians. The fighting was thoroughly desperate. The Indians tried to crush their enemies to the earth by the mad rush of numbers; but at last the Spaniards forced the stubborn foe to give ground, and fell back to the city. For the task of storming the Sacsahuaman Juan Pizarro was chosen, and the forlorn hope could not have been intrusted to a braver cavalier. Marching out of Cuzco about sunset with his little force, Juan went off as if to forage; but as soon as it was dark he turned, made a detour, and hurried to the Sacsahuaman. The great Indian fort was dark and still. Its gateway had been closed with great stones, built up like the solid masonry; and these the Spaniards had much difficulty in removing without noise. When at last they passed through and were between the two giant walls, a host of Indians fell upon them. Juan left half his force to engage the savages, and with the other half opened the gateway in the second wall which had been similarly closed. When the Spaniards succeeded in capturing the second wall, the Indians retreated to their towers; and these last and deadliest strongholds were to be stormed. The Spaniards assaulted them with that characteristic valor which faltered at no odds of Nature or of man, but at the first onset met an irreparable loss. Brave Juan Pizarro had been wounded in the jaw, and his helmet so chafed the wound that he snatched it off and led the assault bareheaded. In the storm of Indian missiles a rock smote him upon his unprotected skull and felled him to the ground. Yet even as he lay there in his agony and weltering in his blood, he shouted encouragement to his men, and cheered them on,--Spanish pluck to the last. He was tenderly removed to Cuzco and given every care; but the broken head was past mending, and after a few days of agony the flickering life went out forever.