At this period the number of men commanded by Pizarro and Almagro was fewer even than the band with which they entered Peru.  When it came to the knowledge of the Spaniards that the country of their desire was in reality so formidable an Empire, Pizarro sailed to Spain in search of reinforcements, and returned accompanied by his brothers and by a force of 180 men.  It was on Pizarro’s arrival in America that the first serious breach occurred between Almagro and himself.  This was brought about by the arrangements which Pizarro had concluded in Spain, and in which Almagro considered, doubtless rightfully, he had not been fairly dealt with by his partner.

After a while a truce was patched up between the pair, and in 1531 an expedition, carried in three small vessels, set sail for the South.  The troops were landed on the Peruvian coast, and they marched inland, defeating such small forces as endeavoured to oppose their progress.  The valour and greed of the little army were every day becoming more deeply stirred by the trophies of gold and silver which they captured as they went.  Fate was fighting strongly in favour of these desperate Spaniards.  No circumstances could have been better adapted to successful invasion than those which obtained when Pizarro and Almagro entered the country, although these adventurous spirits knew nothing of this at the time.  The land was divided against itself, for the first time in the comparatively short Inca history.  Atahualpa and Huasca, the two sons of the recently dead Inca, Huana Capac, were engaged in a fierce struggle for the throne.

This in itself was something of a shock to the devout subjects of the Inca race, looking as they did upon the Imperial Children of the Sun as superhuman beings.  It was thus a war of demigods waged by doubting and diffident mortals.  The arrival of the Spaniards increased, of course, the drama of the situation.  At the period of their advent Huasca was obtaining the worst of the struggle, and, seeing the possibility of salvation in the arrival of the newcomers, he sent to these beseeching their help.  It can be imagined with what avidity Pizarro seized upon this pretext to enter into the domestic affairs of the nation.  Atahualpa unconsciously helped to play the fate of the unfortunate Inca race still further into the hands of the Spaniards.  Learning of the warlike might of the white man, he also sent an embassy of friendship to Pizarro, and a little later, in 1532, he started out in order to effect his first meeting with the strangers.  This took place at Caxamalca.

[Illustration:  THE DEFEAT OF THE PERUVIANS OUTSIDE CUZCO.

From a seventeenth-century engraving.]

In an evil moment for himself Atahualpa had determined to do his utmost to impress these foreigners from overseas with the evidence of his wealth and power.  His body was covered with golden plates, armour, and decorations which shone with a strange brilliance as they flashed back the rays of the sun from its worshipper.  He was attended, moreover, by a chosen company of nobles, whose adornments, although by comparison less splendid, were sufficient to cause the Spaniards’ eyes to start from their heads with wonder and freshly-awakened lust.