"]
[Footnote 25: "Hecimos la guardia en la plaza, de donde se vian
los fuegos del ejercito de los Indios, lo cual era cosa
espantable, que como estaban en una ladera la mayor parte, y tan
juntos unos de otros, no pa recia sino un cielo muy estrellado."
Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms]
Yet there was one bosom in that little host which was not touched
with the feeling either of fear or dejection. That was
Pizarro's, who secretly rejoiced that he had now brought matters
to the issue for which he had so long panted. He saw the
necessity of kindling a similar feeling in his followers, or all
would be lost. Without unfolding his plans, he went round among
his men, beseeching them not to show faint hearts at this crisis,
when they stood face to face with the foe whom they had been so
long seeking. "They were to rely on themselves, and on that
Providence which had carried them safe through so many fearful
trials. It would not now desert them; and if numbers, however
great, were on the side of their enemy, it mattered little when
the arm of Heaven was on theirs." *26 The Spanish cavalier acted
under the combined influence of chivalrous adventure and
religious zeal. The latter was the most effective in the hour of
peril; and Pizarro, who understood well the characters he had to
deal with, by presenting the enterprise as a crusade, kindled the
dying embers of enthusiasm in the bosoms of his followers, and
restored their faltering courage.
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