As they
contrasted all this with their own diminutive force, too far
advanced, as they now were, for succour to reach them, they felt
they had done rashly in throwing themselves into the midst of so
formidable an empire, and were filled with gloomy forebodings of
the result. *24 Their comrades in the camp soon caught the
infectious spirit of despondency, which was not lessened as night
came on, and they beheld the watch-fires of the Peruvians
lighting up the sides of the mountains, and glittering in the
darkness, "as thick," says one who saw them, "as the stars of
heaven." *25
[Footnote 23: Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms. - Xerez, Conq.
del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p. 196.]
[Footnote 24: "Hecho esto y visto y atalayado la grandeza del
ejercito, y las tiendas que era bien de ver, nos bolvimos a donde
el dicho capitan nos estaba esperando, harto espantados de lo que
habiamos visto, habiendo y tomando entre nosotros muchos acuerdos
y opiniones de lo que se debia hacer, estando todos con mucho
temor por ser tan pocos, y estar tan metidos en la tierra donde
no podiamos ser socorridos." (Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms.)
Pedro Pizarro is honest enough to confirm this account of the
consternation of the Spaniards. (Descub. y Conq., Ms.) Fear was
a strange sensation for the Castilian cavalier. But if he did
not feel some touch of it on that occasion, he must have been
akin to that doughty knight who, as Charles V. pronounced, "never
could have snuffed a candle with his fingers.
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