of October, 1547, at Huarina, the bloodiest
battle ever fought in Peru, finally gained strength enough to march to
Cuzco, where Gonzalo had command of a large and splendidly equipped
army. Gasca, by promising that the obnoxious laws concerning the
Indians should be repealed, and adroitly pointing out that those who
adhered to Gonzalo were, in effect, in rebellion against their
sovereign, had so undermined the allegiance of his men that Gonzalo,
who had marched to the Valley of Xaquixaguana, found himself deserted
on the eve of the battle by all but a handful of faithful retainers.

"What shall we do?" asked one of the devoted followers.

"Fall on them and die like Romans."

"I believe I should prefer to die like a Christian," said Gonzalo
calmly.

Recognizing that it was all up with him, riding forward with Carvajal
and the rest, he coolly surrendered himself to Gasca.

Carvajal was hung, drawn and quartered.

Gonzalo, the last of the brothers, was beheaded in the great square at
Cuzco. He was magnificently arrayed as he rode to his death. His vast
estates, including the mines of Potosi, had been confiscated and all
his possessions were on his back. He met his fate with the courage of
the family. Before he {111} died he made a little address from the
scaffold. Contrasting his present poverty with his former state, he
asked those who had been his friends and who owed him anything, and
also those who had been his enemies, to lay out some of the treasure
they had gained through his family and himself in masses for the repose
of his soul. Then he knelt down before a table bearing a crucifix, and
prayed silently. At last he turned to the executioner and said:

"Do your duty with a steady hand!"

So he made a rather dramatic and picturesque exit there in the square
at Cuzco, on that sunny morning in April, 1548. His head was exhibited
at Lima with that of Carvajal. To it was attached this inscription:

"This is the head of the traitor, Gonzalo Pizarro, who rebelled in Peru
against his sovereign and battled against the royal standard at the
Valley of Xaquixaguana."

There remains but one other person whose fate excites a passing
interest, unless it be Bishop Valverde, who was killed, while on a
journey, by the Peruvians, some years before; this is the last Inca,
Manco Capac. When De Rada and his band started out to assassinate
Pizarro, one of the soldiers, named Gomez Perez, made a detour as they
crossed