This inflexible spirit of Pizarro was shown still more strongly when, in the little island of Gallo, he drew the line on the sand which was to separate him and his handful of followers from their country and from civilized man. He trusted that his own constancy would give strength to the feeble, and rally brave hearts around him for the prosecution of his enterprise. He looked with confidence to the future, and he did not miscalculate. This was heroic, and wanted only a nobler motive for its object to constitute the true moral sublime. Yet the same feature in his character was displayed in a manner scarcely less remarkable when, landing on the coast, and ascertaining the real strength and civilization of the Incas, he persisted in marching into the interior at the head of a force of less than two hundred men. In this he undoubtedly proposed to himself the example of Cortés, so contagious to the adventurous spirits of that day, and especially to Pizarro, engaged as he was in a similar enterprise. Yet the hazard assumed by Pizarro was far greater than that of the conqueror of Mexico, whose force was nearly three times as large, while the terrors of the Inca name--however justified by the result--were as widely spread as those of the Aztecs. It was, doubtless, in imitation of the same captivating model that Pizarro planned the seizure of Atahualpa. But the situations of the two Spanish captains were as dissimilar as the manner in which their acts of violence were conducted. The wanton massacre of the Peruvians resembled that perpetrated by Alvarado in Mexico, and might have been attended with consequences as disastrous if the Peruvian character had been as fierce as that of the Aztecs. But the blow which roused the latter to madness broke the tamer spirits of the Peruvians. It was a bold stroke, which left so much to chance that it scarcely merited the name of policy. When Pizarro landed in the country, he found it distracted by a contest for the crown. It would seem to have been for his interest to play off one party against the other, throwing his own weight into the scale that suited him. Instead of this, he resorted to an act of audacious violence which crushed them both at a blow. His subsequent career afforded no scope for the profound policy displayed by Cortés, when he gathered conflicting nations under his banner and directed them against a common foe. Still less did he have the opportunity of displaying the tactics and admirable strategy of his rival. Cortés conducted his military operations on the scientific principles of a great captain at the head of a powerful host. Pizarro appears only as an adventurer, a fortunate knight-errant. By one bold stroke he broke the spell which had so long held the land under the dominion of the Incas. The spell was broken, and the airy fabric of their empire, built on the superstition of ages, vanished at a touch. This was good fortune, rather than the result of policy.