It was the first watch of the night when the Spaniards and the warriors of Pochorroso invaded Tumanama's town, taking him completely by surprise, for he expected nothing. There were with him two men, his favourites, and eighty women, who had been carried off from different caciques by violence and outrage. His subjects and allied caciques were scattered in villages of the neighbourhood, for they dwell in houses widely separated from one another, instead of near together. This custom is due to the frequent whirlwinds to which they are exposed by reason of sudden changes of temperature and the influence of the stars which conflict when the days and nights are equal in duration. We have already said that these people live near the equator. Their houses are built of wood, roofed and surrounded with straw, or stalks of maize or the tough grass indigenous to the country. There was another house in Tumanama's village, and both were two hundred and twenty paces long and fifty broad. These houses were constructed to shelter the soldiers when Tumanama made war. The cacique was taken prisoner and with him his entire Sardanapalian court. As soon as he was found, the men of Pochorroso and the neighbouring caciques overwhelmed him with insults, for Tumanama was no less detested by the neighbouring caciques than that Pacra whom we have mentioned in describing the expedition to the south sea. Vasco concealed his real intentions towards the prisoner, but though he adopted a menacing attitude, he really intended him no harm. "You shall pay the penalty of your crimes, tyrant," said he; "you have often boasted before your people that if the Christians came here you would seize them by the hair and drown them in the neighbouring river. But it is you, miserable creature, that shall be thrown into the river and drowned." At the same time he ordered the prisoner to be seized, but he had given his men to understand that he pardoned the cacique. Tumanama threw himself at the feet of Vasco and begged pardon. He swore that he had said nothing of the kind, and that if anybody had, it must have been his caciques when they were drunk; for none of these chiefs understand moderation, and he accused them of using insolent language.