So the young cavalier, who so far had been riding in moody silence on the right hand of Nahua’s litter, scarcely trusting his eyes to rest upon her, although she had drawn the curtains partly aside, touched his horse with the spurs and cantered off to meet the approaching host. As he rode on they saw file after file come into view from behind until the whole of that part of the plain seemed covered with the splendidly dressed soldiery. But the moment that the sacred feather in de Molina’s helmet became visible every file stopped motionless, then a rippling sea of fire seemed to run across the plain as the sunlight gleamed upon thousands of weapons of polished copper waved in greeting to him, and a mighty shout from thousands of throats came rolling over the plateau. Then, as though by magic, the shining files separated and swung back, and in a few moments the paved causeway was lined on either hand as far as the eye could reach with an endless array of warriors silent and rigid as bronze statues. Between these the two litters with their escort passed at a rapid foot-pace for nearly four hours. As the cavalcade proceeded the two files behind fell into marching order on the roads, and so it went on, with an ever-increasing rearguard, until at length the huge black walls of the fortress loomed up in the distance. “Yonder is our journey’s end, Señor!” said de Soto to Gonzalo Pizarro. “That is one of the fortresses guarding the river of which we told you. I doubt not that the Inca will meet us there and relieve us of our charge. There too you will see something of the strength of the position that we shall shortly have to force, unless indeed his Majesty takes the bolder step of besieging us in Cuzco.” They were now on the sloping, zigzag pathway which led down towards the river, and Gonzalo’s soldierly eye had already noted that the lower they descended the worse the ground became for horses and the stronger the defences of the ravine appeared. “I would rather his Majesty came to Cuzco, even though he came at the head of a hundred thousand men, than we should meet him here with only ten thousand at his back,” he replied. “I doubt if the world holds another so lovely a spot so ably defended.” “So would I,” said de Soto. “It is well for us that these people have neither steel nor gunpowder. If they had they could hold this valley for years, in spite of all the soldiers Spain could send against them.” “I believe you, Señor,” said Gonzalo, “but, mira! is not that a brave show. Look, the garrison are turning out to receive us, and yonder is our late guest, the Inca, armed cap-à-pie, and, Santiago! yonder is another clad in good steel and mounted on a piece of good Spanish horse-flesh. Por Dios, these people learn quickly! Methinks if we do not bring the war swiftly to a close we shall be conquered with our own weapons.”