their dead bodies the next day. It did not
do to show cowardice in the presence of the Inca! They had been
summarily executed by Atahualpa's order. Yet, I cannot think the Inca
a man of surpassing bravery after all. Certainly he was not a man of
sufficient ability worthily to hold the scepter of so great an empire.
He made a frightful mistake in not stopping the invaders where it would
have been easy for him to do so, in the narrow defiles of the
mountains, and he did not even yet seem to have decided in his own mind
how he should treat them. To be sure, according to some accounts, he
looked upon them as belonging to the immortal gods, but there have been
men brave enough in the defence of land and liberty to defy even the
immortal gods! A vast deal of sympathy, indeed, has been wasted upon
Atahualpa. Without doubt the Spaniards treated him abominably, and for
that treatment the wretched monarch has claims to our consideration,
but for his personal qualities or his past record, none. Helps
explains his name as derived from two words meaning, "sweet valor!"
Markham affirms that the words mean "A chance, or lucky, game-cock!"
Neither appellation, in view of {79} Atahualpa's history can be
considered as especially apt or happy.

Much dissatisfied and thoroughly perturbed, De Soto and Hernando
Pizarro returned to the city. Long and serious were the deliberations
of the leaders that night. At length they arrived at a momentous
decision, one for which they have been severely and justly censured,
but which under the circumstances was the only possible decision which
insured their safety. They had no business in that country. They had
come there with the deliberate intention of looting it without regard
to the rights of the inhabitants, and in that purpose lay the seeds of
all their subsequent crimes, treachery, murder, outrage and all other
abominations whatsoever. No surprise need be felt therefore, that they
determined upon the seizure of the person of the Inca. The example of
Cortes with Montezuma was before them. I have no doubt that his
amazing exploits in Mexico had been talked over frequently by every
camp-fire in the New and the Old World, and many bold spirits had
longed for an opportunity to emulate his doings. The Spaniards in Peru
had already learned enough of the local conditions to realize that with
the person of the Inca they could control the government. To seize him
was black treachery, of cou