it to his ear, and saying contemptuously 'this tells me nothing,' flung it angrily away. Then, with a countenance flushed with emotion, he made answer to such portions of the address as he had been able to comprehend. He would be no man's tributary, he said; and as for the great priest beyond the waters, he must be mad to talk of giving away countries which he had never seen. Nor would he change his faith. The God of the Christians, according to their own account, had been slain by his own creatures, but the eternal Sun, the great Deity of Peru, still shone on his glorious and beneficent course through the firmament. Excited by the insults he had received, he declared that the Spaniards should render a strict account of their doings in his territories. The discomfited friar, seeing the ill success of his eloquence, picked up the book, bowed his head, and hastened to Pizarro. 'Did you see what passed?' he cried-'while we waste time in fooleries and arguments with this dog, full of pride, the square is filling with Indians. Set on them at once! I absolve you.' The fatal gun, the signal of slaughter, was fired, and the Spaniards, horse and foot, rushed furiously from their lurking-places. Taken by surprise, utterly unarmed, and bewildered by the unwonted discharge of artillery and fire-arms, the unhappy victims were slaughtered without the slightest means of resistance. The nobles, with affecting devotion, flung themselves before their master, to receive the blows of the murderers, and, by clinging to the legs of their horses, and striving to pull the riders from their saddles, for some time kept back the press from his person. But they died by hundreds around him, and Pizarro, darting through the throng, seized his captive with his own hand. A most wanton and merciless slaughter was still kept up, and did not cease till the shades of night blinded the assassins, and

"The hand which slew till it could slay no more
Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore.'

Within less than an hour, four thousand of the unarmed and harmless multitude that had so gaily entered the square, with their songs and their holiday attire, lay murdered on the pavement. A more atrocious and unprovoked massacre is not recorded in history. Not one of the Spaniards had received an injury."*

Atahuallpa, with true Indian stoicism, despite this tremendous reverse and all its appalling concomitants, maintained his accustomed

* Discoverers, &c., of America.

serenity. As he sat at supper with the victor, he remarked simply, "It is the fortune of war," but no expression of emotion escaped his statue-like lips, or betrayed itself in the usual stern gravity of his face. The next day, the prisoners, of whom a great number had been taken, after having been compelled to cleanse the square and bury the corpses of the victims, were mostly dismissed. Numbers, however, were retained by the Spaniards as attendants; and the army of the inca, terrified at the seizure of their sovereign and the massacre of the nobles, gradually melted away and dispersed without any attempt to avenge the outrage. The plunder of the city and the camp was exceedingly valuable, and it is said that in the royal magazines the quantity of fabrics delicately wrought in wool was suf ficient to freight several ships.

1

The captive inca espied a hope in the greediness for gold with which he saw the invaders possessed; and he offered, if Pizarro would release him, to cover the floor of the apartment in which they stood with gold. Seeing the indecision of his captor, he redoubled his offers, and standing on tiptoe, pledged himself to fill it with the precious metal as high as he could reach. Pizarro, hoping, at least, to secure a portion of this magnificent bribe, at once accepted the proposition, and a line, nine feet from the floor, was drawn around the room, which was twenty-two feet long and seventeen broad. A smaller apartment was also to be twice filled with silver, and a solemn contract, assuring the inca his liberty on payment of this unheardof ransom, was drawn up. He issued orders, forthwith, to his officers, that the golden ornaments from the palaces and temples throughout the empire, should be sent to Caxamalca.

The ill-fated Huascar, who was confined in a city not far distant, now, by alluring offers, endeavoured to secure the favour of the Spaniards, hoping by their means to rēgain the throne; but Atahuallpa, with a dark and cruel policy, availing himself of the power yet remaining in his hands, avenged the attempted intrigue by an order for his secret execution. He was privately drowned in the river Andamarca, and his brother, acting the part almost invariably selected by the royal authors of such deeds, affected deep sorrow, and laid all the blame on his officers.

CHAPTER VI.

THE EXPEDITION TO PACHACAMAC.-THE SPOILS OF CUZCO DIVISION OF IMMENSE TREASURE. THE ATROCIOUS TRIAL, SENTENCE, AND MURDER OF ATAHUALLPA.-HYPOCRISY OF PIZARRO.-REFLECTIONS.-FATE OF THE MURDERERS.

HERNANDO PIZARRO, with a small force, was now dispatched to Pachacamac, the Peruvian Mecca, a hundred leagues distant. On the way he was struck with admiration at the massive excellence of the road, the innumerable herds of llamas which pastured in the hills, and the frequent signs of industry and dense population. The treasures of the temple, however, had been removed by the priests, and the only satisfaction he had was in the destruction of their most venerated idol. He also ("in default of a better," he modestly remarks) made a sermon to the people, and taught them the sign of the cross, as a charm against the devil. He then marched to Xauxa, where a portion of the Peruvian army lay encamped, under Challcuchima, the inca's chief general; and that commander, to secure whose person the Spaniard was anxious, willingly accompanied him to Caxamalca. In spite of Indian stoicism, the old chief was affected to tears at the sight of his imprisoned master. "Would that I had been here!" he exclaimed; "this would not then have happened.”

Great quantities of gold, in plates or wrought into ornaments, continued to pour into the Spanish camp; and, at the instance of Atahuallpa, Pizarro dispatched a small embassy to Cuzco, to secure the treasures of that ancient capital of the incas. Borne on the shoulders of the natives for six hundred miles, these emissaries, apparently a coarse and brutal-minded set, arrived at the city, where they were bewildered with the splendour of its treasures-though not to such an extent as to preclude their instant seizure of all that appeared portable. Seven hundred plates of gold were stripped from the Temple of the Sun alone, and with eight hundred Indians. laden with gold and silver, they took their way back to the Spanish camp. Meanwhile, Almagro, with a reinforcement of two hundred men, had arrived at San Miguel, and on learning the startling events which had transpired, hastened, with his command, to the camp at Caxamalca. (February, 1533).