Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/192

Rh the Inca there and then to abjure the religion of his ancestors, receive baptism, and submit to the sovereignty of the King of Spain. On these conditions he might continue to reign. Otherwise he must look for every kind of disaster.

Atahualpa was literally stupefied. Much of the discourse, no doubt, he failed to follow, but what he did understand filled him with indignation. He answered that he reigned over his peoples by hereditary right, and could not see how a foreign priest could dispose of lands that were not his. He should remain faithful to the religion of his fathers, "especially," he added, as he pointed to the crucifix grasped by the monk, "since my god, the Sun, is at any rate alive; whereas the one you propose for my acceptance, as far as I gather, is dead." Finally, he desired to know whence his interlocutor had derived all the strange things that he had told him. "Hence!" cried Valverde, holding out his missal. The Inca, who had never seen a book in all his life, took this object, so new to him, in his hands, opened it, put it to his ear, and finding that it said nothing, flung it contemptuously on the ground.