rds, had not they themselves been forced by
starvation to raise the siege.

In June, 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in
a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and
killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The
benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the
conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its
former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery
and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors of
these wrongs reached Spain, and a commissioner was sent out to inquire
into them; but before his arrival Pizarro died by violence in his own
Ciudad de los Reyes, "City of the Kings,"--now Lima,--which he had
founded in 1535.

His death was worthy of his life. Attacked in his own house by the
avengers of Almagro, he fought furiously, and cut down three of his
assailants; but fell, overcome by numbers, and pierced by as many
blades as met in the body of Caesar. His last word was "Jesu!" and his
last act, to stoop and kiss the symbol of a cross which he traced with
his finger on the bloody floor.

Thus lived and died one of the most extraordinary men of his time,
indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of
such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified
presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of
indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose;
avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even
in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon
himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it
would command. He founded settlements and cities, and was lavish in
his expenditures upon public works; no doubt ambitious of building up
a new empire on the ruins of the one he had destroyed. But he
exhibited none of the great qualities of a born ruler and lawgiver; in
the coarseness of his moral nature, a swineherd to the last. He never
married, but by a daughter of Atahualpa he had a daughter, who
survived him. In his native town of Truxillo her descendants are still
to be found, with the mingled blood of the conqueror and of the last
of the Incas in their veins.

[Signature of the author.]

GASPARD DE COLIGNI

By PROFESSOR CREASY

(1517-1572)

[Illustration: Burning of a house. [TN]]

There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation s