Meanwhile Atahualpa had fared very well at the hands of his captors. Much as they had reason to distrust, and did distrust, the treacherous Indian, they treated him not only humanely but with the utmost kindness. He lived in luxury with his family and retainers, and was much associated with the Spaniards. They seem to have been trying their utmost to make him their friend,--which was Pizarro's principle all along. Prejudiced historians can find no answer to one significant fact. The Indians came to regard Pizarro and his brothers Gonzalo and Juan as their friends,--and an Indian, suspicious and observant far beyond us, is one of the last men in the world to be fooled in such things. Had the Pizarros been the cruel, merciless men that partisan and ill-informed writers have represented them to be, the aborigines would have been the first to see it and to hate them. The fact that the people they conquered became their friends and admirers is the best of testimony to their humanity and justice. Atahualpa was even taught to play chess and other European games; and besides these efforts for his amusement, pains was also taken to give him more and more understanding of Christianity. Notwithstanding all this, his unfriendly plots were continually going on. In the latter part of May the three emissaries who had been sent to Cuzco for a portion of the ransom got back to Caxamarca with a great treasure. From the famous Temple of the Sun alone the Indians had given them seven hundred golden plates; and that was only a part of the payment from Cuzco. The messengers brought back two hundred loads of gold and twenty-five of silver, each load being carried on a sort of hand-barrow by four Indians. This great contribution swelled the ransom perceptibly, though the room was not yet nearly filled to the mark agreed upon. Pizarro, however, was not a Shylock. The ransom was not complete, but it was enough; and he had his notary draw up a document formally freeing Atahualpa from any further payment,--in fact, giving him a receipt in full. But he felt obliged to delay setting the war-captain at liberty. The murder of Huascar and similar symptoms showed that it would be suicidal to turn Atahualpa loose now. His intentions, though masked, were fully suspected, and so Pizarro told him that it would be necessary to keep him as a hostage a little longer. Before it would be safe for him to release Atahualpa he knew that he must have a larger force to withstand the attack which Atahualpa was sure at once to organize. He was rather better acquainted with the Indian vindictiveness than some of his closet critics are.