Then Pizarro, who of all men knew best how to turn a moment of enthusiasm to good account, sprang into the saddle, swung his blade above his head and, half turning towards his little army, cried-- “Ay, praise to the Lord, for in His strength we shall conquer, though of ourselves we be but few and weak. Mount and forward, gentlemen. Yonder dawns the morning of salvation for us which shall end the long night that we have passed through together. Forward, and God be with us!” As he said this he turned his horse a little to the right and rode past where Valverde stood with the crucifix still raised above him by the strong arms of Brother Joachim. As he passed it he lowered the sword which ere long was to drink so deeply of innocent blood, and made the sign of the Cross with the hilt, and the priest blessed each man of the troop as he went by with bended head and crossing himself. When all had passed he and Brother Joachim mounted their mules and took their places in the rear, and so those whom they believed to be the sons of the god Viracocha passed from the wondering gaze of the first of the Children of the Sun who had beheld them, and went on their way to El-Dorado. There is no room to tell here of all that befell them day by day on that first march of theirs, for this is not the story of their journeyings--of which you may learn better from the pens of those who made them--but rather of the things that they did when the end of the march had at length brought them to the scene of their triumphs and their crimes. They passed through Caxas and Huamacucho, finding them as de Soto had said, and being entertained with the simple and yet bounteous hospitality of the kindly-hearted people who were soon to whisper their names to each other as words of more than mortal terror. They were surrounded by sights as strange as Christian eyes had ever seen, though not yet by things as terrible as those which the soldiers of Cortes had seen a few years before far away in Mexico on the other side of the central line of the earth. Everywhere they beheld the signs of perfect peace and order, though but a few days’ marches to the eastward the earth had trembled not many weeks before beneath the tread of countless hosts rushing to the conflict out of which was to spring the doom of Atahuallpa and the Children of the Sun, and which Ullomaya the priest had spoken by the bedside of the great Huayna-Capac in far-off Quito.