invader, who saw that the disunion of the empire was a condition greatly in his favor in the proposed conquest; but he hoped, with all his heart, that reinforcements would come from Panamá, as his army appeared ridiculously small to attempt the subjugation of a rich and powerful monarch, whose bodyguard was composed of the best and bravest of his warriors, and numbered thousands. It is well said by the author of _The Conquest of Peru_ that “if Pizarro had stopped to calculate chances, he must inevitably have failed, as the odds were too great to be combated reason.” But sober reason is very apt to lack the element of faith, which is so powerful an agency in the conquest of empires—whether national, social, or personal. Pizarro believed that he was destined by heaven to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, and he adopted ways and means which cautious reason would have condemned, in view of the almost certain and disastrous consequences. Probably he was inspired by Cortés’s capture of Montezuma when he planned his attack on Atahuallpa; but, to one of his spirit and temperament, the means to the end could hardly have failed, even without the Mexican Conqueror’s example, which, by the way, he did not worthily imitate, as Cortés would have scorned to use the unsoldierly tactics that Pizarro employed in the capture and subsequent murder of the Inca. [Illustration: ANCIENT BRIDGE OF SANTA TERESA, CUZCO.] The prospect of getting reinforcements from Panamá appeared less and less hopeful as the months passed, until finally Pizarro decided to start on his daring enterprise with only the limited force then at his command. Leaving fifty soldiers to guard the colony, he set out with one hundred and eighty men, including sixty-seven cavalry troops, to attempt a conquest which a more cautious commander would have undertaken only at the head of a large army.