See Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia,
tom. III. p. 199.]
The struggle now became fiercer than ever round the royal litter.
It reeled more and more, and at length, several of the nobles who
supported it having been slain, it was overturned, and the Indian
prince would have come with violence to the ground, had not his
fall been broken by the efforts of Pizarro and some other of the
cavaliers, who caught him in their arms. The imperial borla was
instantly snatched from his temples by a soldier named Estete,
*25 and the unhappy monarch, strongly secured, was removed to a
neighbouring building, where he was carefully guarded.
[Footnote 25: Miguel Estete, who long retained the silken diadem
as a trophy of the exploit, according to Garcilasso de la Vega,
(Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 1, cap. 27,) an indifferent authority
for any thing in this part of his history. This popular writer,
whose work, from his superior knowledge of the institutions of
the country, has obtained greater credit, eve in what relates to
the Conquest, than the reports of the Conquerors themselves, has
indulged in the romantic vein to an unpardonable extent, in his
account of the capture of Atahuallpa. According to him, the
Peruvian monarch treated the invaders from the first with supreme
deference, as descendants of Viracocha, predicted by his oracles
as to come and rule over the land. But if this flattering homage
had been paid by the Inca, it would never have escaped the notice
of the Conquerors.
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