De Soto took command a few days later, and the force marched to the Cathedral, where solemn High Mass was celebrated and the sacrament partaken of by every soldier. The two brigantines for the expedition rode at anchor off the town; before midday they were standing out to sea. You may learn, Reader, from history, how Pizarro, strengthened by De Soto’s reënforcement, descended upon the Peruvian city of Tumbez, and how he found it in ruins, the result of a civil war between the two heirs of the Inca Huayna Capac. The old monarch had left his domain to be divided between the princes Atahualpa and Huascar, fatuously hoping that either would be content with less than the whole. For five short years the brother kings had reigned in peace. Atahualpa, younger of the two, was son to a princess of Quito, a kingdom conquered by his grandfather. He was an ambitious and warlike ruler, and to him fell Quito as Huayna Capac’s bequest. To the elder brother, Huascar, fell Cuzco, the ancient capital, and the southern part of the empire. Huascar was the son of the legitimate wife of Huayna Capac, a woman of the Inca blood; and although a wise and generous king, he was inferior to Atahualpa in aggressive energy. Causes were not long wanting for war. Huascar was vanquished, and when Pizarro landed at Tumbez, was prisoner in the fortress of Xauxa. Thus much, briefly, Pizarro learned concerning the country he was invading, and that Atahualpa with his victorious army lay at the interior town of Caxamalca, some three hundred miles to the southward. You may read, furthermore, how the Spaniard, tarrying not long at ruined Tumbez, marched down along the coast, peaceably for the most part, by rigid restraint of his men, and was hospitably welcomed by the wondering natives. Three weeks he marched, proclaiming the temporal sovereignty of the King of Spain, the spiritual sovereignty of the Pope of Rome, unfolding his banners, and formally recording as acknowledgment of vassalage the acquiescence of the Peruvians to manifestoes of whose sense they had no inkling. Fine hardihood! With a handful of men—fewer than two hundred and fifty—Pizarro was invading an empire of whose civilization and warlike character there was ample evidence. He was calmly laying claim to the realm of a prince whose power he could not guess! Toward the end of May he halted in the fertile vale of Tangarala, near the sea, and announced his purpose to build a town. And build a town he did! He pressed the natives into service, and they quarried the stone and hewed the timber for buildings as solid as his own intrepidity. He named the place San Miguel. Four months were consumed in establishing this base. On the twenty-fourth of September the Army of the Conquest took up its march to meet the legions of the Inca. The command, reduced by the number left at San Miguel, mustered seventy horse, one hundred infantry, and two small pieces of artillery.