From among the group which surrounded Pizarro stepped forward Friar Valverde and approached the Inca monarch, who, reclining in a litter raised high above the crowd on the shoulders of his attendants, waited with dignity to hear what those strangers had to say. The priest advanced with a cross in one hand and a Bible in the other and began a harangue which, clumsily translated by an Indian boy, the Inca hardly understood. But in a few moments he realised that this uncouth jargon was meant to convey an arrogant demand that he acknowledge himself a vassal of Charles V. and submit to baptism. With haughty surprise he threw down the book which Valverde tried to force into his hand--the priest shouted, "Fall on, Castilians--I absolve you," and into the helpless crowd burst a murderous fire from the doors of the houses all around. Aghast and bewildered by this display of powers which to them seemed necromantic, the survivors nevertheless manfully stood to the attack of the mail-clad horsemen who rode into the huddled mass ferociously slashing and slaughtering. The Indians strove desperately to drag the Spaniards from the horses with their naked hands, and interposed a living wall of human flesh between the murderers and their beloved sovereign. At length Pizarro's own hands snatched Atahuallpa from the litter. The Indian soldiers outside, hearing the firearms and the noise of the struggle, tried to force their way into the square, but the Spanish musketry and cannon mowed them down by hundreds, and they fled before the charges of the cavalry, dispersing in the twilight.