The Inca supped that night with the Spanish commander and his officers, as had been promised. Cristoval, the only officer fit for duty after the day’s work, had been detailed as commander of the exterior guard, glad to be relieved of the need of sitting at table with his comrades after so base a massacre, which, in his enforced role of spectator, he had seen in its full horror. He was a soldier, and possibly not less callous to bloodshed and suffering than many others of his calling, but never had he beheld butchery so wanton and unhindered. Had he been a participant—and now he fervently thanked God for preventing it—he would have been less impressed by its enormity. He must even have shared in some degree the infection of ferocity, until he should have realized, as had De Soto, the uselessness of the slaughter and revolted. But compelled to look on in cool blood, he had sickened. He sickened more at the brutal exultation, and at the ghastly sights in the square. A battlefield he could have surveyed unmoved. This slaughter-pen horrified him. When his detail was formed he marched it away, grateful to Heaven that his post was remote alike from the jubilation of the soldiers and from the sounds and tainted air of the plaza. At a villa beside the road along which the Inca had entered the town, he halted his command. The place had been broken into the evening before for use as a guard-house, and while his sergeant was making up his reliefs, Cristoval took a lantern and walked through the vacant rooms. They showed at every step the marks of the vandalism of yesterday’s guard, and he explored gloomily the ruin of what had been a handsome dwelling. Tapestries before the doors had been torn down for beds. Quaintly carved furniture had been used for firewood; fragments of tableware were scattered everywhere, with curiously fashioned bronze and brass vessels crushed by the heels of the soldiers. More precious articles had been sought, as was evident in the disorder of every apartment, in broken chests, and doors with battered fastenings. Cristoval ordered a room cleared and prepared for his vigil. Just after midnight, having returned from his rounds, he heard a challenge from the sentinel in front of the villa, then the voice of Pedro, and in a moment the cook stumped across the court and knocked. Cristoval called to him to enter, and he came in, followed by his boy, laden with what Pedro guessed would be welcome at midnight to any officer of any guard. "_Tibi bene dico!_" quoth Pedro, "and may the night be without alarms. I have brought thee good cheer, Cristoval, lest hunger contend with vigilance. _Stomachus plenus vigiliam longam contrahit_—which is to say that a full stomach shorteneth a long watch. Cæsar, I believe." Pedro grinned benignly upon the cavalier, who arose and greeted him with warmth.