“But, being joined by more recruits, rashly returned to the neighborhood of Quito to offer battle. He was defeated and killed. Pizarro went back to Lima, while his lieutenant, Carbajal, hunted down and put to death every loyalist who remained under arms in southern Peru. Gonzalo’s administration lasted three years. They were golden ones to the Spanish adventurers. The marvelous silver mines of Potosí and the gold washings of southern Ecuador were discovered. _Encomiendas_ were lavishly granted; the Indians were sent back to their fields; the mining industry began that marvelous development which soon made Peru the treasure box of the world and Potosí the synonym for limitless wealth. But the dazzling sunlight of prosperity was dimmed by the shadow of Pizarro’s scaffold slowly creeping across the Atlantic and down the coast. His chief lieutenants, knowing that they had sinned past forgiveness, urged him to declare himself King of Peru, but he was at once too proud and too patriotic to fling away his right to die a loyal Spaniard. Philip, the leaden-eyed, close-mouthed despot, was regent of Spain. Bitterly chagrined that the stream of Peruvian gold had ceased to flow into the royal treasury, his vindictive heart had no mercy for the gallant soldier whose sword had helped win the riches now temporarily diverted. He selected a man after his own heart—Pedro de la Gasca, an ugly, deformed little priest, hypocritically humble, though astute and untiring, whose success as an inquisitor was a guarantee that he would be as pitiless and cruel as even Philip could wish.” This man, says Hawthorne, was—