Picking up the sacred volume, the friar hastened to Pizarro, told him what had been said, and cried out,— "Do you not see that while we stand here wasting our breath in talking with this dog, full of pride as he is, the fields are filling with Indians? Set on, at once; I absolve you." Pizarro waved a white scarf in the air, the signal agreed upon. A gun was fired from the fortress. Then, with the Spanish war-cry of "St. Jago and at them!" Pizarro and his followers sprang out into the square. From every avenue of the great building they occupied poured armed men, horse and foot, and rushed in warlike fury upon the Indians. Taken utterly by surprise, the latter were hurled back in confusion. Their ranks rent by the balls from cannon and musketry, hundreds of them trampled under foot by the fierce charges of the cavalry, pierced by lances or cut down by swords, they were driven resistlessly back, falling in multitudes as they wildly sought to escape. The massacre went on with especial intensity around the Inca, his nobles, none of them armed, struggling with what strength they could in his defence. "Let no one who values his life strike at the Inca!" shouted Pizarro, fearing his valued prize might be slain in the wild tumult. Fiercer still grew the struggle around him. The royal litter swayed back and forth, and, as some of its bearers were slain, it was overturned, the monarch being saved from a fall to the ground by Pizarro and some others, who caught him in their arms. With all haste they bore him into the fortress and put him under close guard. With the capture of the Inca all resistance was at an end. The unarmed Peruvians fled in terror from the fearful massacre. The soldiers in the fields were seized with panic on hearing the fatal news, and dispersed in all directions, pursued by the Spanish cavalry, who cut them down without mercy. Not till night had fallen did Pizarro’s men cease the pursuit and return at the call of the trumpet to the bloody square of Caxamalca. In that frightful massacre not less than two thousand victims, perhaps many more, were slain, the most of them unarmed and helpless. That night Pizarro kept his word, that he would sup with Atahualpa, but it was a supper at which he might well have drunk blood. The banquet was served in one of the halls facing the great square, then thickly paved with the dead, the monarch, stunned by the calamity, sitting beside his captor at the dread meal. Let us now go forward to a still more spectacular scene in that strange drama, one which proved that the Spaniards had truly at length reached the "land of gold." The Inca was not long a prisoner before he discovered the besetting passion of the Spaniards, their thirst for gold. A party was sent to pillage his pleasure-house, and brought back a rich booty in gold and silver, whose weight and value filled the conquerors with delight.