He now showed a similar friendly disposition
towards his successor, Manco. He caused the Peruvian prince to
be liberated from confinement, and gradually admitted him into
some intimacy with himself. The crafty Indian availed himself of
his freedom to mature his plans for the rising, but with so much
caution, that no suspicion of them crossed the mind of Hernando.
Secrecy and silence are characteristic of the American, almost as
invariably as the peculiar color of his skin. Manco disclosed to
his conqueror the existence of several heaps of treasure, and the
places where they had been secreted; and, when he had thus won
his confidence, he stimulated his cupidity still further by an
account of a statue of pure gold of his father Huayna Capac,
which the wily Peruvian requested leave to bring from a secret
cave in which it was deposited, among the neighbouring Andes.
Hernando, blinded by his avarice, consented to the Inca's
departure.
He sent with him two Spanish soldiers, less as a guard than to
aid him in the object of his expedition. A week elapsed, and yet
he did not return, nor were there any tidings to be gathered of
him. Hernando now saw his error, especially as his own
suspicions were confirmed by the unfavorable reports of his
Indian allies. Without further delay, he despatched his brother
Juan, at the head of sixty horse, in quest of the Peruvian
prince, with orders to bring him back once more a prisoner to his
capital.
That cavalier, with his well-armed troops, soon traversed the
environs of Cuzco without discovering any vestige of the
fugitive.
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