Pizarro saw in an instant that such a delay meant ruin. He knew that his soldiers were already overstrung with suspense, and that another night must prove intolerable to them, knowing that they were closely surrounded by the innumerable hosts of the Inca, even if under cover of the night the armed legions did not close in upon them and overwhelm them with a resistless flood of numbers. In this moment’s thought he had penetrated the true design of Atahuallpa. Challcuchima had renewed his entreaties in the morning, and had so far prevailed upon his master to cause the halt, which even at that last hour might have saved the Land of the Four Regions from the grasp of the invader. Pizarro instantly called his brother Hernando to him, and sent him with de Soto and Molina to bid the Inca welcome in his name, and entreat him to come forthwith into the city, as he had prepared an entertainment for him, and had many weighty matters to discuss with him which would ill brook delay. “Tell him that I hope to sup with him to-night,” he said as Hernando mounted his horse. And so, as will be seen, it came to pass. It has been well said that whom the gods would undo they first make mad, and so it must have been with the Last of the Incas, for a writer of romance would be laughed at as an outrager of all the possibilities were he to relate what followed as his own story. Yet it is but sober fact that Atahuallpa, impelled by what impulse none may know, listened with open ears to the persuasions of the treacherous embassy, and not only left the protecting shelter of his army, but set out for the city attended by an unarmed escort. Hernando and his companions rode swiftly back to tell of their good fortune. “It is not the least of thy services to our master that thou hast done to-day, Hernando,” said Pizarro as his brother told him of the result of his embassy, “for now truly hath the Lord delivered the heathen into our hand.” It was nearly an hour later that their expectant eyes caught sight of the head of the Inca’s cavalcade advancing up the broad street into the square. First came a body of some two or three hundred slaves carrying brooms of feathers, with which they removed every particle of dust and dirt from the path. These were followed by a band of gaily-dressed girls, crowned with garlands and carrying baskets of flowers, which they strewed in the way, chanting songs of strange and yet sweet harmony, which the pious chronicler tells us sounded “like songs of hell” in the ears of the faithful.