d that during
the darkness the Inca armies had moved round and through the town and
were gathered by the ten thousand in dense battalions upon the farther
side of the plain.

Now we took council together and in the end decided not to attack as we
had proposed, but to await their onslaught on the rocky ridge up which
they must climb. So we commanded that our army, which was marshalled
in three divisions abreast and two wings with the Yuncas as a reserve
behind, should eat and make ready. In the centre of our main division,
which numbered some fifteen thousand of the Chanca troops, and a little
in front of it, was a low long hill upon the highest point of which
I took my place, standing upon a rock with a group of captains and
messengers behind me and a guard of about a thousand picked men massed
upon the slopes and around the hill. From this high point I could see
everything, and in my glittering armour was visible to all, friends and
foes together.

After a pause, during which the priests of the Chancas and of the Yuncas
behind us sacrificed sheep to the moon and the many other gods they
worshipped, and those of the Quichuas, as I could see from my rock, made
prayers and offerings to the rising sun, with a mighty shouting the Inca
hosts began to advance across the plain towards us. Reckoning them with
my eye I saw that they outnumbered us by two or three to one; indeed
their hordes seemed to be countless, and always more of them came on
behind from the dim recesses of the city. Divided into three great
armies they crept across the plain, a wild and gorgeous spectacle,
the sunlight shining upon the forest of their spears and on their rich
barbaric uniforms.

A furlong or more away they halted and took counsel, pointing to me with
their spears as though they feared me. We stood quite still, though
some of our generals urged that we should charge, but this I counselled
Huaracha not to do, who desired that the Quichuas should break their
strength upon us. At length some word was given; the splendid "rainbow
Banner" of the Incas was unfurled and, still divided into three armies
with a wide stretch of plain between each of them they attacked, yelling
like all the fiends of hell.

Now they had reached us and there began the most terrible battle that
was told of in the history of that land. Wave after wave of them rolled
up against us, but our battalions which I had not trained in vain stood
like rocks and slew and slew an