Manco and his host hung upon the starving
city, fell with deadly fury upon the parties that were driven by hunger
to sally out for food, and harassed the survivors incessantly. All the
outlying Spanish colonists had been massacred, and matters grew daily
darker.

Francisco Pizarro, beleaguered in Lima, had beaten off the Indians,
thanks to the favorable nature of the country; but they hovered always
about. He was full of anxiety for his men at Cuzco, and sent out four
successive expeditions, aggregating four hundred men, to their relief.
But the rescue-parties were successively ambushed in the mountain
passes, and nearly all were slain. It is said that seven hundred
Spaniards perished in that unequal war. Some of the men begged to be
allowed to cut through to the coast, take ship, and escape this deadly
land; but Pizarro would not hear to such abandonment of their brave
countrymen at Cuzco, and was resolved to stand by them and save them, or
share their fate. To remove the temptation to selfish escape, he sent
off the ships, with letters to the governors of Panama, Guatemala,
Mexico, and Nicaragua detailing his desperate situation and asking aid.

At last, in August, Manco raised the siege of Cuzco. His great force was
eating up the country; and unless he set the inhabitants to their
planting, famine would presently be upon him. So, sending most of the
Indians to their farms, he left a large force to watch and harass the
Spaniards, and himself with a strong garrison retired to one of his
forts. The Spaniards now had better success in their forays for food,
and could better stave off starvation; but the watchful Indians were
constantly attacking them, cutting off men and small parties, and giving
them no respite. Their harassment was so sleepless and so disastrous
that to check it Hernando conceived the audacious plan of capturing
Manco in his stronghold. Setting out with eighty of his best horsemen
and a few infantry, he made a long, circuitous march with great caution,
and without giving the alarm. Attacking the fortress at daybreak, he
thought to take it unawares; but behind those grim walls the Indians
were watching for him, and suddenly rising they showered down a perfect
hail of missiles upon the Spaniards. Three times with the courage of
despair the handful of soldiers pressed on to the assault, but three
times the outnumbering savages drove them back. Then the Indians opened
their sluice-gates above and flooded