The Spaniards were nearly mad with joy because now they said:
"All our fond dreams are about to be realized." They were in such a good humor that they gave the natives some glass beads and some live chickens. When they turned the rooster loose, he crowed, and then the simple natives clapped their hands in glee, and asked:
"What is it saying?"
It sounded as if the rooster said:
"How do you do, sir!" which the natives thought was very funny indeed. Then they wanted to know what the cannon said. One of the men set up a target and fired at it shivering the board into fine splinters. The loud noise, the flash of smoke and powder, frightened the poor natives nearly to death. Some of them fell flat on their faces, and others ran into the woods as fast as they could go, screaming:
"Our good Manco-Capac is coming back to us angry."
That night the old men huddled the terrified people together and said to them:
"Do you remember when the comet flamed through the sky; when the earthquake shook the land, and there was a rainbow around the moon?"
"I well remember," said one of the old men, "that a thunderbolt fell on one of the Incas' royal palaces setting it on fire, and I saw an eagle chased by several hawks hovering in the air over Cuzco. Our king saw it too, and while he looked at it the eagle fell dead at his feet."
"It is no use to resist these strangers," said an envoy from the Inca, who had arrived in time to hear the last statement. "Seven years ago when the father of our king died, he called his son to his bedside and told him that white and bearded strangers were coming to overturn the Empire. And as you know, our great oracle has foretold the return of Manco-Capac at the close of the twelfth dynasty of the Incas. That day is at hand, so do not quarrel with the strangers."