eing the information and process drawn up, assembled the officials of
H. M. and the captains of his company and a Doctor who was then in this
army, and the padre Fray Vicente de Valverde, a religious of the order
of Santo Domingo sent by the Emperor our Lord for the conversion and
instruction of the people of these realms; after there had been much
debate and discussion over the harm and the profit that might follow
upon the continued life or the death of Atabalipa, it was resolved that
justice should be done upon him. And because the officials of H. M.
asked for it and the doctor regarded the information as sufficient, he
was finally taken from the prison in which he was, and, to the sound of
a trumpet, his treason and perfidy were published, and he was borne to
the middle of the plaza of the city and tied to a stake, while the
religious was consoling him and teaching him, by means of an
interpreter, the things of our christian faith, telling him that God
wished him to die for the sins which he had committed in the world, and
that he must repent of them, and that God would pardon him if he did so
and was baptised at once. He, [the Inca] moved by this discourse, asked
for baptism. It was at once given to him by that reverend padre who
aided him so much with his exhortation that although he was sentenced to
be burned alive, he was given a twist of rope around his neck, by means
of which he was throttled instead[9] but when he saw that they were
preparing for his death, he said that he recommended to the governor his
little sons, so that he might take them with him, and with these last
words, and while the Spaniards who stood around him said the creed for
his soul, he was quickly throttled. May God take him to his holy glory,
for he died repentant of his sins with the true faith of a Christian.
After he was thus hung, in fulfilment of the sentence, fire was cast
upon him so that a part of his clothes and flesh was burnt. That night
[because he had died in the late afternoon] his body remained in the
plaza in order that all might learn of his death, and on the next day
the Governor ordered that all the Spaniards should be present at his
interment, and, with the cross and other religious paraphernalia, he
was borne to the church and buried with as much solemnity as if he had
been the chief Spaniard of our camp. Because of this all the principal
lords and caciques who served him received great pleasure, considering
as great th