he rest of humanity is aware
of their existence.

The facts in "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" remain. They _are_ facts.
Francisco Pizarro and his men--an army of less than two
hundred--actually _did_ inflict appalling damage on the Inca armies,
even if they were outnumbered ten to one, and with astonishingly few
losses of their own. They did it with sheer guts, too; their equipment
was not too greatly superior to that of the Peruvians, and by the time
they reached the Great Inca himself, none of the Peruvians believed that
the invaders were demons or gods. But in the face of the Spaniards'
determined onslaught, they were powerless.

The assassination scene at the end is almost an exact description of
what happened. It _did_ take a dozen men in full armor to kill the
armorless Pizarro, and even then it took trickery and treachery to do
it.

Now, just to show how fair I was--to show how I scrupulously refrained
from lying--I will show what a sacrifice I made for the sake of truth.

If you'll recall, in the story, the dying Pizarro traces the Sign of the
Cross on the floor in his own blood, kisses it, and says "_Jesus!_"
before he dies. This is in strict accord with every history on the
subject I could find.

But there is a legend to the effect that his last words were somewhat
different. I searched the New York Public Library for days trying to
find one single historian who would bear out the legend; I even went so
far as to get a librarian who could read Spanish and another whose
German is somewhat better than mine to translate articles in foreign
historical journals for me. All in vain. But if I _could_ have
substantiated the legend, the final scene would have read something like
this:

Clawing at his sword-torn throat, the fearless old soldier brought
his hand away coated with the crimson of his own blood. Falling
forward, he traced the Sign of the Cross on the stone floor in
gleaming scarlet, kissed it, and then glared up at the men who
surrounded him, his eyes hard with anger and hate.

"I'm going to Heaven," he said, his voice harsh and whispery. "And
_you_, you _bastards_, can go to _Hell_!"

It would have made one hell of an ending--but it had to be sacrificed in
the interests of Truth.

So I rest my case.

I will even go further than that; I defy anyone to point out a single
out-and-out lie in the whole story. G'wan--I _dare_ ya!

(SECRET ASIDE TO THE READER; J. W. C.