ABSTRACT
THE time was now approaching when the hills of Chupas would be sprinkled with the blood of men who were born in Spain, to bear witness in future times that the herbs and stunted bushes growing on them are seedlings sprung from Spanish elements. And you ! ghosts of Tabogan captains, if one may call you such, there in the place where your deeds have laid you, gaze upon the 266fabric you have woven, and watch how your ever-binding oath is accomplished to the utmost! Ay, remember the famous Incas, with their Huayna Capac, and consider the dire vengeance being exacted for the ruin brought about in theYupanqui lineage, and whether other weapons were not called for rather than those by whose means rash men brought about and wreaked that havoc. And you Romans! who so exalt the events that occurred in your Rome during the civil wars, see how there arose another mad struggle, near the equator, so long-drawn that eleven years sped by before it ended, wherein there were not wanting its Curios, its Scaevolas, its Centalios, nor its Brutuses! For in this war, while hearts were transfixed by lance, and bullets tore by their impetuosity the entrails and the caul, as if to cast the soul out by the mouth, some gave the battle cry “Almagro!” and others “Pizarro!” but all shouted for “the King!” I know not how I shall set about relating such a horror, nor which side I can lock upon as in the right, but, after all, tyranny is a fearsome and hateful thing before the divine throne. And since I must not leave unfinished the task I have begun—though many times I have stayed my hand, and thrust the paper on one side that we might escape the sooner from such pangs—it will be necessary to relate what Lope de Idiáquez and the factor Mercado did when they left the camp which was about to become a sacrifice to its own folly. They were not a little glad to find themselves clear of it, and at once made for Guamanga.
