Dominic Sandbrook

I can give you much more of this if this means so much to you.

And through these interpreters who are working for the Spanish, he says, I can give you more gold and silver than you could possibly dream of.

And Pizarro says, well, how much exactly?

And then this famous moment, Atahualpa.

I can fill this room with gold as high as I can reach.

And he sort of pretends to make a line on the wall.

with his hand.

And the Spanish sources say the room measured 22 feet long by 17 feet wide, and it was to be filled to a white line halfway up its height, eight feet high.

So in other words, as high as Atahualpa can reach.

Atahualpa said he would fill it with gold jars, pots, tiles, and other pieces.

He would also fill the room twice over with silver, and he would do all this within two months.

So there's a time element to this.

There's a sort of elements of jeopardy.

Pizarro can't believe this.

And he calls in one of his secretaries, a guy called Francisco de Jerez, and says, I want you to write this down, make a record.

And then he says to Atahualpa, great.

If you do this, we will let you go.

We will guarantee your life.

And you can go back off to your northern heartland of Quito in Ecuador, and you can be king in the north there.

And the Spanish are thinking, well, this is an amazing result.