wrung from them, conceived such a hatred of the metal that they threw
all they had wholesale into the sacred waters. It is said that some
Indians, goaded beyond endurance, taunted their conquerors and told them
to search at the bottom of the lake, where they would find gold. They
had no idea that the Spaniards would actually attempt this, but this the
_conquistadores_ did, and were digging in order, apparently, to drain
the water off when the sides fell in and put an end to the attempt. It
is said that even then they procured a large amount of gold and some
magnificent emeralds.

[Illustration: DEATH OF ATAHUALPA.

The final tragedy as shown in a seventeenth-century engraving.]

As may well be imagined, it was people such as these who suffered most
of all from the violence of the strange, pale beings who had descended
into their midst to subdue them, first of all by means of the sword, and
then by the ceaseless wielding of the more intimate and degrading thong.
Since, notwithstanding all that has been urged to the contrary, the
average Spaniard of those days--even those of his number who had to do
with the Americas--was provided with the ordinary sentiments and
passions of humanity, it was inevitable that in the course of the
oppression and warfare waged against the natives some devoted being
should sooner or later rise up to espouse the cause of the Indians.

This intermediary, of course, was Bartolomé de las Casas, so widely
known as the Apostle of the Indies. There are many who fling themselves
heart and soul into a cause of which they know nothing, and who, from
the sheer impetus of good-hearted ignorance, cause infinite mischief.
The case of Las Casas was different. Before he took up his spiritual