But to make assurance doubly sure Pizarro had caused the Curaca to send out about half a score of his spies to go to the different divisions of the army as though they came from Atahuallpa, and these told the General and the captains of the advanced posts that the Inca had come to an agreement with the Spaniards by which they entered his service and would, for a certain payment in gold every month, help him to crush the insurrection of Manco in the South and restore his rule over the whole land. Now since this was exactly what Quiz-Quiz and Ruminavi had said in their argument with Challcuchima that he would do, and as they believed that the Spaniards had been overawed and brought to reason by the threat of cutting off all provisions and the water from the city and afterwards assailing it with overwhelming numbers, they took the cunning story as truth and contented themselves with sending messengers into the city assuring the Inca of their undying loyalty and their willingness even to fight by the side of the Strangers against the people of Cuzco, since it was his will that they should do so. These messengers, who arrived very early in the morning, were no sooner safely within the Spanish lines than they were instantly taken prisoners and kept in close confinement till the tragedy had been completed. By sunrise the whole Spanish force, now amounting to nearly four hundred men with sixty arquebuses and five pieces of cannon, were under arms and in all respects ready for battle in case at the last minute the Peruvian General should discover the fraud that had been practised upon them and attack the city. In the centre of the square a great stake had been planted, and near this were piled heaps of fagots and dried grass, for in spite of the desire of the Captain-General that his royal prisoner should die, as became his rank, by the headsman’s axe, the rest of those who had made up the majority of the court, instigated by Valverde, had overridden his scruples, and it had been decreed that if the Inca persisted in his idolatry to the last he should die by fire. But they granted that if at the last moment he recanted his errors and received the Sacrament of Baptism at the hands of the holy father he should suffer by the milder death of the garrote and his body, instead of being scattered in ashes to the winds, should receive Christian burial and all honour due to his rank.