De Molina went out and presently returned with a silver cup three parts full of water. “Now,” said Pizarro, taking the cup in his hand, “you, Filipillo, ask His Majesty which of these powders he will drink in this water.” The interpreter did as he was bidden, and Atahuallpa, taking his hands from his eyes, stared in stony silence first at him and then at Pizarro and his companions, but neither spoke nor moved a muscle of his countenance. “Well?” said Pizarro again. “I have seen innocence look more innocent than that, yet if they be poisons it would scarce become us to do His Majesty to death by force in such a manner. Take a little of all the powders, mix them in the water, and you, boy, tell the old woman to choose between drinking it and being burnt at the stake to-morrow morning at sunrise.” Valverde instantly took the office of mixing the powders, while Filipillo translated the order to the Palla with certain additions of his own which speedily proved to her that her case was hopeless. “Give me the drink!” she said. “Since I have failed to save my Lord as I would have done, and since the day of doom has come for the Children of the Sun, let me no longer live in a land that is made vile by so foul a thing as thou art--yet shall thy death when it comes be worse than mine, for I die old and at my life’s end, and thou shalt die while thou art yet young with every desire of thy heart unfulfilled.” Filipillo shrank back as though smitten by the force of her bitterly spoken words, and the next moment Valverde held the cup to her lips. Avila, who was holding her right hand, released it. She took the cup and with an unfaltering hand put it to her lips and drank a little. Then, with a swift motion, she dashed the rest of its contents full in Filipillo’s face, crying out-- “There is thy baptism of death, accursed one! Now go and ask thy princess if she will look with favour on thee.” The next moment a swift and fearful change passed over her. Her limbs grew stiff and her face grey and rigid, her jaws came together with a sharp snap and her eyes, fixed in their sockets wide open and staring, glared at Pizarro for one never-to-be-forgotten moment, and then, like a figure of wood or stone, she leaned forward without the bend of a joint and fell at his feet face downwards on the floor. At the same moment scream after scream of agony rang through the room, and Filipillo, with his hands clasped over his eyes and face, ran, bent double with torment, blindly about the chamber, butting his head against the bodies of the Spaniards and stumbling from them against the walls, till at last he fell down writhing and shrieking on the floor, and tearing at his eyes and mouth with his nails.