phic shape the results of this dazzling windfall, we
may tabulate the list, giving each share in its value in dollars
to-day:--

To the Spanish Crown $1,553,623
" Francisco Pizarro 462,810
" Hernando Pizarro 207,100
" De Soto 104,628
" each cavalryman 52,364
" each infantryman 26,182

All this was besides the fortunes given Almagro and his men and the
church.

This is the nearest statement that can be made of the value of the
treasure. The study of the enormously complicated and varying currency
values of those days is in itself the work for a whole lifetime; but the
above figures are _practically_ correct. Prescott's estimate that the
_peso de oro_ was worth eleven dollars at that time is entirely
unfounded; it was close to five dollars. The mark of silver is much more
difficult to determine, and Prescott does not attempt it at all. The
mark was not a coin, but a weight; and its commercial value was about
twenty-two dollars at that time.

VII.

ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH.

But in the midst of their happiness at this realization of their golden
dreams,--and we may half imagine how they felt, after a life of poverty
and great suffering, at now finding themselves rich men,--the Spaniards
were rudely interrupted by less pleasant realities. The plots of the
Indians, always suspected, now seemed unmistakable. News of an uprising
came in from every hand. It was reported that two hundred thousand
warriors from Quito and thirty thousand of the cannibal Caribs were on
their way to fall upon the little Spanish force. Such rumors are always
exaggerated; but this was probably founded on fact. Nothing else was to
be expected by any one even half so familiar with the Indian character
as the Spaniards were. At all events, our judgment of what followed must
be guided not merely by what _was_ true, but even more by what the
Spaniards _believed_ to be true. They had reason to believe, and there
can be no question whatever that they did believe, that Atahualpa's
machinations were bringing a vastly superior force down upon them, and
that they were in imminent peril of their lives. Their newly acquired
wealth only made them the more nervous. It is a curious but common
phase of human nature that we do not realize half so much the many
hidden dangers to our lives until we have acquired somet