The imprisoned chieftain raised his arm to a white line that ran high around the wall of his chamber or cell. "I will fill this room up to that line with gold," he said—"gold as pots and vases, gold as nuggets and as dust. I will fill this room, also, twice over with silver, in addition. That shall be my ransom, and it shall be completed in two months' time."
The offer, naturally, was accepted. "Have no fear," said Pizarro. The Inca sent swift messengers to Cuzco, the capital, hundreds of miles to the south, along the rugged Cordillera, with orders that two thousand Indians should bring the golden vessels from the temples and the palaces.
One of the remarkable institutions of the Inca Empire was the system of posts, established along the famous roads. Relays of postmen or runners were kept stationed at the tambos or post-houses. When a message was despatched, the runner ran his section at full speed, shouting out the message to the next waiting postman, who immediately proceeded to cover his stage in the same way; and thus the message was conveyed with the utmost speed for hundreds of miles.
Stores of gold began to arrive—vases, jars, pots, some weighing as much as twenty-five pounds each of the precious metal. The Spaniards one day saw a remarkable spectacle upon the precipitous mountain track, on the farther side of the valley—a line of golden pots, borne on llamas, gleaming in the sun, coming to Cajamarca for the royal ransom.
The promise of the Inca was fulfilled. The ransom was made good. Did the Spaniards fulfil their part? For the answer we may point to the final scene, when Atahualpa, at first condemned by his captors—especially the priest—to be burnt to death, was strangled, after a mock trial in the plaza—infamously done to death, on what was probably a trumped-up charge of intended treachery.
The only bright spot on this foul page of Spanish history is in the circumstance that twelve of the Spaniards, among them Hernando de Soto, protested vigorously against the deed. But Pizarro and the false friar Valverde, and others, were resolved upon it, and nothing moved them.
PIZARRO, THE CONQUISTADOR.
Vol. I. To face p. 240.