So the Battle of the Valley raged on until the sun drooped towards the western ridges and the long shadows of the mountains began to fall across the river and the now bloody plain. Yard by yard the Spaniards had driven the Peruvians back under their fortress walls. Superiority of discipline and weapons had now, as ever, proved better than superiority of numbers; and although neither the Inca nor Ruminavi had been captured or even wounded, so far as was known, yet when the Peruvians at length retreated into their impregnable fastnesses and Juan Pizarro took the remains of his troop back across the stony barrier to form his camp in the middle of the plain, where he would be secure from a night attack, he was fain to confess that, if all the battles to come were to be like this one, even victory would leave the Spanish forces so weak that it would be worthless to them. Hundreds of the enemy had been slain, but more than half a score of his own men were dead, a score more were badly wounded, and no less than eleven horses would never carry a rider to battle again. Still, they had fought the enemy on his own ground and driven him back, as usual with heavy loss, and the young commander hoped all through the anxious, miserable night that followed that the lesson would prove stern enough, and that he would at least be able to go back to Cuzco with the news of a victory. But when morning dawned grey and calm over the mighty hills that seemed to shut them in from all the rest of the world, he saw what had happened the day before was only the beginning of the tragedy. The whole of the valley as far as they could see was filled with innumerable hosts which surrounded them on every side, and one despairing look about him sufficed to show him that his expedition was now nothing more than a forlorn hope. His battle-worn and wounded men had laid down in their armour beside their horses, and with the first glimmer of light all who could mount were in the saddle. There were only two ways out of the fatal valley. One was over the narrow pathway, blocked and cumbered by the stones of the fallen wall which had been pushed by the sheer weight of the men behind it out from its foundation. The other was across the river, and already the plain on the other side was filling up with regiment after regiment of the Inca’s soldiery. “I would to God I had taken thy advice yesterday, Alonso!” said Juan Pizarro, as he swung himself up into his saddle. “Those of us who get alive out of here will have but a sad tale to tell in Cuzco.”