“Go back and tell him who sent you that I am keeping a fast which will be ended this midnight. To-morrow I will come and speak with him. Till then let him remain in the lodgings that have been given him and await my pleasure with patience.” It was no very kindly greeting, and one that gave but little encouragement to those who received it. Whatever effect the strangeness of the embassy might have had on the minds of his soldiers and courtiers, it had none upon the frigid composure of the Inca himself. But the Spanish leader in the midst of his discouragement caught a gleam of interest in Atahuallpa’s eyes as he looked upon the splendidly caparisoned war-horse that stood nodding his plumed head and pawing the ground impatiently before him. Seizing the opportunity, de Soto, who was the finest horseman and best-mounted cavalier in the army, suddenly drove his spurs into his charger’s flanks, and, wheeling him sharply round, sent him careering away at full gallop over the level plain in front of the courtyard, and then, before the wondering eyes of the assembled thousands, he galloped and cantered, wheeled and caracoled and curveted in wide circles round the flanks and rear of his own motionless troop, and then, plunging in again at full gallop, he reined his charger up and pulled him back upon his haunches so close to Atahuallpa’s throne, that the foam flying from the bit was blown by the breath of his nostrils on to the skirts of his imperial robes. Faint screams broke from the lips of the frightened women about the throne, and some of the nobles shrank back in something like terror from the strange sight--a weakness for which, as the chronicles say, they paid that night with their lives--but not a muscle of Atahuallpa’s form moved. He had cast his eyes to the ground again, and did not even raise them as de Soto finished his show of horsemanship. He who had sat unmoved amidst the falling ruins of Quito might well look without disturbance upon such a spectacle, strange and even terrible as it might seem in other eyes. But when de Soto, feeling somewhat foolish after his arrogant display, had retired to his place in front of the troop, Atahuallpa looked up and made a sign with his hand, and immediately refreshments of cakes and fruit and roasted meat were brought out in dishes of silver, but these de Soto, on behalf of his men, declined with the best grace he could, for his reception had not been such as to persuade him to risk the danger of dismounting in the midst of all those armed thousands about him. Still, as the historian truthfully says, they did not hesitate to quaff the sparkling chicha from golden vases of wondrous size which were presented to them by the dark-eyed beauties of the Inca’s harem.