"You have me in your power. Is not my life at your disposal? What better security have you for my fidelity? It is very far to my capital at Cuzco, but that you may be satisfied that I am proceeding in good faith, send some of your own people there."
The Spaniards sacked and pillaged Cuzco when they got there, taking seven hundred plates of gold from the walls of the temple dedicated to the Golden Hearted. Besides this, there were heavy cornices of gold, fountains, birds, fruit, vegetables, tables, statues, slabs, basins and panels of pure gold; which, when melted down made millions of dollars.
Never before did anybody in the wide world pay such a ransom. But Pizarro had no intention of setting the Inca free. Pretending to be very suspicious, he suddenly appeared before the Inca, and said:
"What new treason is this you are meditating against me? Me, who has been so brotherly and kind to you?"
"Why do you mock me," replied the Inca. "Am I not a captive in your hands? How could I conceive such a design as you speak of when I would be the first victim? You little know my people, if you think they would attempt such a thing against my will."
Pizarro was determined to get rid of him, so he trumped up twelve charges against him, and, after a mock trial, sentenced the helpless Inca to be burned at the stake.
When told of his fate, the poor king said to Pizarro, with tears streaming down his face:
"What have I, or my children done, that I should die like this? And from your hands—you who have received only benefit and kindness from me and my people."
The doom of the Inca was sounded by trumpet in the same square he had innocently entered to visit his strange white brother, and two hours after sunset he was led out by torch-light and burned to death.
To make sure that there was no danger of an uprising in the distant parts of the country, Pizarro sent an officer to finish collecting the ransom and find out the actual condition. While he was gone Pizarro had the Inca executed. When the officer returned, he said: