]
The struggle was desperate. For it was not that of the white man
against the defenceless Indian, but of Spaniard against Spaniard;
both parties cheering on their comrades with their battle-cries
of "El Rey y Almagro," or "El Rey y Pizarro," - while they fought
with a hate, to which national antipathy was as nothing; a hate
strong in proportion to the strength of the ties that had been
rent asunder.
In this bloody field well did Orgonez do his duty, fighting like
one to whom battle was the natural element. Singling out a
cavalier, whom, from the color of the sobre-vest on his armour,
he erroneously supposed to be Hernando Pizarro, he charged him in
full career, and overthrew him with his lance. Another he ran
through in like manner, and a third he struck down with his
sword, as he was prematurely shouting "Victory!" But while thus
doing the deeds of a paladin of romance, he was hit by a
chain-shot from an arquebuse, which, penetrating the bars of his
visor, grazed his forehead, and deprived him for a moment of
reason. Before he had fully recovered, his horse was killed
under him, and though the fallen cavalier succeeded in
extricating himself from the stirrups, he was surrounded, and
soon overpowered by numbers. Still refusing to deliver up his
sword, he asked "if there was no knight to whom he could
surrender." One Fuentes, a menial of Pizarro, presenting himself
as such, Orgonez gave his sword into his hands, - and the
dastard, drawing his dagger, stabbed his defenceless prisoner to
the heart! His head, then struck off, was stuck on a pike, and
displayed, a bloody trophy, in the great square of Cuzco, as the
head of a traitor.
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