# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Huascar's Prophecy

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HUASCAR'S PROPHECY
YEARS had gone by since Huanya Capac, last of the Incas, had donned the jewelled sash and lifted the rainbow banner of kingship. The festivities attending his enthronement lasted for many days, and included many dances in the Garden of Delights at Yucay, a dozen miles from Cuzco, where sacred birds were kept among flowers of gold and silver plate and leaves of emerald, where nobles bathed in tubs of gold, and where dancing-girls went before the Inca, strewing fresh blossoms for his sandalled feet. Peace and plenty were in the land, but their end was near, for Pizarro and his prayer-pattering rapscallions were on their way toward the new world. Huanya Capac had marched to Quito,—the city where the invading Caras, descending the River of the Emeralds in the year 1000, had built great temples to the sun and moon, the one with its disk of gold flashing reflections on the priests, the other with its plaque of silver that repeated the beams of the rising moon. Here the last of the Incas worshipped, and here the people worshipped him. At the end of ​his reign he left the empire, not to the true heir, Huascar, but to him jointly with his brother, Atahualpa. It was soon evident that no throne is large enough for two. The brothers quarrelled, and Atahualpa, being the stronger and more ambitious, soon gained the ascendency over Huascar, who was a man of gentle nature. Then came the Spaniards, who robbed the Incas of everything except their title, which they would allow only one of them to wear. The wicked brother saw that the kingship was slipping from his grasp. He resolved to hold it at the cost of crime. His retainers seized Huascar and drowned him in the Andamarca. Before he was cast into the river Huascar cried to his tyrant brother, who stood scowling on the bank, "What you do to me the white man will do to you. He will soon avenge me."
Not long afterward Pizarro had imprisoned Atahualpa, in spite of his many friendly services. "Let me go," begged the king, "and I will cover the floor of this cell with gold."
Pizarro shook his head.
"Let me go, and I will fill this cell with golden vessels, as high as I can reach."
"That is well. You shall have your liberty when your people have brought the gold."
It took a long time to collect such a quantity of treasure. Pizarro took it as fast as it came in; then, alleging that his prisoner had plotted against ​him, he condemned him to die at the stake in the square of Caxamalca. As a concession to morality, the victim was urged to become a Christian, and as a reward for changing his faith was told that he might enjoy a death by strangling instead of burning. The Inca allowed himself to be baptized, and after passing from the hands of the priests to those of the garroter he became a public show in death. Then a requiem mass was sung for him. During the service the people rushed into the church, that they might be killed at his side by the Spaniards, and so reach the sun in his company. But death was waiting for a third one of the actors in this tragedy, and it came swiftly. Jealous of the master thief, some of his followers broke into the house of Pizarro, and although he mortally wounded one, he had his own quietus at the instant. With finger dipped in his own blood the bravo wrote the word "Jesus" on the floor, and died as he tried to kiss it. Not one human being remained in that house to mourn.