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avarice* and therefore to regain his liberty he offered 
them an enormous ransom* He was confined in an 
apartment twenty-two feet long and sixteen feet broad* 
and such were the riches of the Inca* that he offered to 
fill this room with vessels of gold as high as he could 
reach* if Pizarro would restore him to liberty* and lines 
were drawn upon the walls of his prison to mark the 
height to which the treasure was to rise* Atabalipa per- 
formed his promise, and the immense mass of precious 
metal amounted to the value of 400,000/. ! When 
the conquerors assembled to share the spoils of this 
innocent people* their chaplain* Vincent Valverde* com- 
menced with an invocation to heaven, as if they ex- 
pected the guidance of God in distributing the wages of 
their iniquity— thus mixing with their other infamous 
acts, that of impiety itself. They divided the spoils 
according to the dignity of their ranks ; about 8000 
pesos* or 10,000/. sterling, falling to the share of a 
common horse soldier. But their infamous proceedings 
did not end here : when the injured Atabalipa insisted 
on their fulfilling the promise they had made of setting 
him at liberty* his just demand was met with scorn and 
derision. 
Pizarro, by a breach of faith which can scarcely be 
equalled in history, not only refused to give him his 
liberty, but* immediately after dividing his immense 
treasures among the freebooters of his band, actually 
instituted a mock trial against his defenceless captive- 
one of the charges in which was, that he had excited his 
subjects to take up arms against the Spaniards — the 
