As soon as the fatal parchment had been signed Pizarro took Filipillo with him and went himself to the Inca to acquaint him with his doom and make him ready to die on the morrow. Atahuallpa heard it with the dignity and composure which proved how fully he had already resigned himself to the inevitable, but this did not prevent him from reproaching Pizarro, albeit with mildness and dignity, for this shameful breach of all his promises and his treachery in first taking the ransom and then consenting to his murder. These reproaches, well merited as they were, did not reach Pizarro’s ears as the doomed Inca spoke them, for the malice of Filipillo, still unsatisfied even by the knowledge that by the light of the next sun he would see Atahuallpa done to death, translated them so that they became the vilest opprobrium, which, being uttered, as Pizarro saw it was, without passion or violence, appeared to him doubly insulting on account of the scorn and contempt which the Inca’s manner seemed to display. So in the end he fell into a violent passion and, swearing that Atahuallpa should have no further aid or protection from him, strode from the room after ordering the guards on pain of their lives to let no one come near the Inca with the exception of Valverde, who had piously undertaken to prepare him for his end, and not to lose sight of him until the moment that he should be led out to execution. Filipillo took his opportunity to stay behind for a moment, and going up to the Inca, who had thrown himself on to his couch and buried his face in his hands, he whispered in his ear-- “Would it not have been better, Lord, to have accepted my service and given me the Princess in payment of it? To-morrow I shall ask the chief of the Strangers for her, and he will not refuse me.” Atahuallpa sprang from his couch to his feet, his face flushed purple-red and his blood-shot eyes aflame with sudden fury, and before Filipillo had time to slip out of his reach he had grasped him round the body with his chained hands and with a single effort of his great strength lifted him to arm’s length above his head and hurled him like a stone from a catapult through the doorway, where he fell between the two guards and lay stunned and bleeding as one dead on the stone pavement. CHAPTER IX. “SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE!” That night the utmost precautions were taken to prevent surprise and rescue. The guards at all points of entrance to the city were doubled, and the difficult roads that led down the mountains towards the fortress where Atahuallpa was spending his last night on earth were strictly guarded. But the most potent safeguard of all for the Spaniards was the full moon which rose high in the cloudless heavens, filling the valley with a flood of light and making the mountain-paths stand out white and clear, so that no human shape could pass along them without being instantly seen.