The Inca, who was taken prisoner, quickly discovered that the ruling passion of the Spaniards was the desire of gold; he offered therefore to recover his liberty by a splendid ransom.
[Illustration] The apartment in which he was confined was twenty-two feet long, by sixteen in breadth; this he undertook to fill with vessels of gold as high as he could reach.
Pizarro closed with the proposal, and a line was drawn upon the walls of the chamber, to mark the stipulated height to which the treasure was to rise.
During this confinement, Atahualpa had attached himself with peculiar affection to Ferdinand Pizarro, and Hernando Soto; who, as they were persons of birth and education, superior to the rough adventurers with whom they served, were accustomed to behave with more decency and kindness to the captive monarch.
Soothed with this respect, he delighted in their society; but in the presence of the governor he was always uneasy and overawed, and this dread soon became mingled with contempt.
Among all the European arts, what he admired most was that of reading and writing, and he long deliberated with himself whether it was a natural or an acquired talent.

In order to determine this, he desired one of the soldiers, who guarded him, to write the name of God on the nail of his thumb.

This he showed successively to several Spaniards, asking its meaning, and to his amazement, they all, without hesitation returned the same answer.

At length Francisco Pizarro entered, and on presenting it to him, he blushed, and with some confusion was obliged to acknowledge that he could not read.
From that moment Atahualpa considered him as a mean person, less instructed than his own soldiers, nor could he conceal the sentiments of contempt with which this discovery inspired him.

He, however, performed his part of the contract, and the gold which his subjects brought in, was worth three or four hundred thousand pounds sterling.
When they assembled to divide the spoils of this innocent people, procured by deceit, extortion, and cruelty, the transaction began with a solemn invocation to Heaven, as if they expected the guidance of God in distributing the wages of iniquity.