That which neither threats nor exhortations had done the memory of that dreadful hour and the result of his own pitiless sentence did. Once more the terrible words of Mama-Lupa rang shrilly in his ears-- “Sacrifice! Sacrifice! The gods are wroth and nought but sacrifice can appease them!” Now the moment of sacrifice had come indeed, and _he_ was to be the living sacrifice offered up to assuage the anger of the Powers whom his own crimes had provoked against his people. The spirit of his murdered father seemed to come back and tell him of the unjust doom of those who had died by his command, and suddenly his heart melted within him. He put out his hand and took the crucifix from Valverde and pressed it to his breast, and with bowed head murmured the saving syllables. “Laus tibi Domine! Gloria, Gloria!” cried Valverde, spreading his hands out towards the heavens. “Shall there not be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth? Brother Francis, the font quickly, ere the moment of grace shall pass!” The monk immediately came forward with a silver vessel containing the holy water. Valverde signed to the penitent to kneel down, and as he did so he dipped his finger in the water and, making the sign of the Cross on the Inca’s brow, he cried in a loud, triumphant voice-- “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti, I baptize thee, Juan de Atahuallpa.[16] By the prayers of our Blessed Mother and the intercessions of the Holy Saints thou hast been brought out of the darkness of heathendom into the light of the true Faith. By the authority given me by our Holy Father the Pope, God’s vicegerent upon earth, lawful heir and successor of him to whom it was said: That whosoever he should bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and whosoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven, I now absolve thee from the sins and errors of thy past life, seeing that they were committed while thy soul was yet in darkness. That which was as scarlet hath been washed whiter than snow. Go now, son of the Church, and enter into the glory of thy new inheritance!” They were strange words with which to send one who but a few months before had been lord of wide lands and master of many millions to the ignominious death of a common malefactor, and yet not even old Carvahal was able to look upon the face of Valverde as he uttered them and doubt his perfect faith. For him the miracle of the Church’s Sacrament had been accomplished by his hands, and no man believed anything more truly than he did that the heathen soul of the Inca was at that moment as white and pure as the soul of a little child.