The Captain-General accepted the invitation with many courtesies and assurances of friendship, and that night the Spaniards slept softer and fared better than they had done for many a weary day and night, albeit the prudence of Pizarro found excuses for planting sentries and making sufficient provision against surprise, for he was a man who never of his own free will gave odds to Fate. The next morning with the first glimmer of light the trumpet sounded, and, horse and foot, the little army marched out and mustered on the slope beyond the fort, watched with wondering and admiring eyes by their simple hosts. Then the Fray Valverde prayed before them, and pointed his prayer with a sermon which, as Carvahal said after, was both long and strong for the stomachs of breakfastless men shivering in a keen wind on a bleak hillside. Then came breakfast, and after that the ranks were formed for the march to the city. Before the trumpet sounded Pizarro spoke a few brief, weighty words to them, telling of the dangers that possibly awaited them, of the risk of treachery, and the enormous advantage of numbers that the Inca could use against them if once he took them for enemies. He gave them three watchwords--silence, watchfulness, and obedience, and then he rode to the head of the column and the downward march began. With every mile the beauties of the valley opened out in ever-increasing splendour before them, but the weight and magnitude of the enterprise whose crucial hour was now so near seemed to press heavily upon their hearts and dim their eyes to the wonders that were multiplying about them. The valley that they were entering seemed a very paradise on earth, and yet, for all that they knew, it might for them be the end of their earthly journeying and the grave of all their hopes of El-Dorado. As the column wound round the base of a green wooded hill whose summit was crowned with a building, half fort, half palace, constructed of the wonderful Inca masonry, they came in sight of the gate by which they were to enter the city. Then Pizarro waved his hand, the trumpets rang out brazen and jubilant, and, with banners waving and the bright morning sun gleaming on plate and mail and shining weapons and harness, this little handful of invaders of a mighty empire marched forward towards the gate.