“The court,” replied the Doctor, rising and speaking in a pompous, inflated tone, “hath by the laws of Leon and Castille discretion to pass on one found guilty of so many grave offences two sentences at least. Should its judgment incline rather to mercy than justice it may pass sentence of a fine proportionate to the means of the culprit and banishment to some place of safe keeping. Should it, on the other hand, see in these heinous crimes no room for the exercise of mercy that would be compatible with the safety and good order of these realms, then the only sentence that it can pass will be death by such means as may be considered best merited by the crimes of the condemned.” “But is there not a third course?” said Pizarro, as though even as this last moment he shrank from soiling his hands with the blood of his captive. “Is not this a somewhat hasty proceeding, Señores? I confess that of late my mind has somewhat misgiven me as to our competence to do this thing. Hath not, after all, the Inca a right to be tried, as every other man hath, by his peers? and if so, would not a more proper course be to pronounce the lighter sentence and send our prisoner, with a due statement of this process that we have held, to the government at Panama, so that either final judgment may be pronounced by the Viceroy or the Inca may be sent to Spain to receive his sentence from the august lips of our master the Emperor?” In this wise and temperate proposition lay the Inca’s last hope of justice or even of life, but when, after a heated discussion, it was put to the vote only five out of the fifteen members of the court voted in favour of it. Valverde, Almagro, Riquelme, and Zarate all spoke vehemently in favour of death, and in the end their arguments and the veiled threats which they did not scruple to use so far prevailed with the Captain-General that when the vote had been given he, although with manifest reluctance, ordered his secretary to affix his signature to the death-warrant. The five dissentients, to their everlasting credit, not only refused to sign, but afterwards drew up a formal protest against the haste and injustice of the act which was about to be done, and this document has to-day an honourable resting-place among the archives of Spain.