enjoy all the sunshine it was in his power to give him. And whether the
light and the fresh air, aided perhaps by the child’s superstition,
really worked a cure, or whether nature, left to herself, simply rallied
her well-nigh exhausted powers, it is certain that José’s health
improved, though slowly, and with many variations.
He seemed now as anxious to talk Spanish as he had previously been to
avoid it. Fray Fernando gladly encouraged this propensity; the more so as
he was now desirous of learning all the child could tell him about his
own history.
One day as he sat with him in the sunshine he said to him, “You call
yourself Yntip Churi, Child of the Sun. Are you, then, a kinsman of the
Inca, Atahualpa, the same the conquistadors slew at Caxa-marca?”
But the child’s weak frame trembled at the question, which seemed to him
an insult. “Oh no, no!” he answered. “Thank Ynty, I am not. Atahualpa was
not Inca, he was _aucca_—how call you it?—coward—traitor. He slew the
true Inca, Huascar, the great Huayna Capac’s lawful son.”
“But Atahualpa was also the son of Huayna Capac, was he not?” asked the
puzzled monk, who could not boast of much acquaintance with the history
of the conquered race.
“Yes,” eagerly explained the little partizan. “But what did that matter?
His mother was not _Coya_;[3] she was not even a Child of the Sun.
She was only a daughter of the King of Quito, whom Huayna Capac Inca
conquered. Huayna Capac was brave and gentle; and he was wont to say that
he never refused a woman anything. So she made him promise to give the
kingdom of his fathers to her son. And having that, he wanted all. Hence
the cruel war, and the death of Huascar, the true Inca. _Alalau!_[4]
never did Children of the Sun slay one another until then.”
“And who taught you these things, my child?”
“Mamallay—my mother.”
The Inca’s child was no barbarian; he was the heir of a civilization,
unique indeed and partial, but genuine. No inconsiderable heritage of
high heroic memories had fallen to his lot. And up to the hour when
he fell into Don Ramon’s hands his education had been carried on with
unremitting industry. It is true that the arts of reading and writing
were unknown to him; and, unacquainted with figures, he could only
perform a few simple calculations by means of knots on a cord. But
instead of these more mechanical acquirements, he had the lessons of a
passionate-hearted, enthusiastic mother, who filled his young imagination
day by day with the spirit-stirring legends of his race. These were to
him religion, literature, fairy tales, all in one. No Hebrew boy, “exiled
from Zion’s rest,” could have yearned more fondly towards Jerusalem than
he did towards Cuzco, the sacred city, where were the stately palaces
of his kindred, the golden temple of the Sun, and the thrones of the
beneficent Inca kings, his adored forefathers. No young Italian patriot
could have learned to love his country with more passionate ardour than
glowed in his heart for Tahuantin Suyu. It was by this name, meaning “the
four provinces,” that he always called the empire of the Incas: Peru was
a word unknown to him; it owed its origin to a blunder of the Spaniards.
The strange sorrows that had fallen upon his young life—his kindred
slain; his home in ruins; his mother setting herself free by death; he
himself left desolate, a slave to the hated Spaniard—only served so to
enamel those pictures of past glory, that the fragile vase upon which
they were painted might indeed be shattered, but not a single line or hue
of them could ever be effaced.
Fray Fernando was not slow in resuming the conversation. He wished,
if possible, to discover in what manner and degree his _protégé_ was
connected with the royal family; and how he happened to be found in a
place so remote as one of the little isles of verdure that dotted the
great desert of the southern coast.
“Are you, then, related to Huascar?” he asked.
“All the Children of the Sun are one family,” answered the boy. “But we
are not of Huayna Capac’s children. We are of Viracocha’s _ayllu_.”[5]
“Viracocha? Who was he? I have never heard of him.”
“Never heard of Viracocha the Fair-haired!” exclaimed the child in great
astonishment. “Almost the greatest of the Incas! The whole world is
filled with his renown. And,” he added proudly, after a moment’s pause,
“I am his son!”
“His renown has not reached Spain, however,” said Fray Fernando with a
smile.
“I will tell you all about him,” said José, nothing loath to recount
a story dear to his heart, and as familiar in all its details to his
memory as the simplest Scripture narrative would be to a well-instructed
European child of his age. “He was the seventh Inca after Manco Capac.”
And here he paused again with doubtful look; so strange was the ignorance
displayed by his benefactor, that he would not now have been astonished
if the monk had asked, “And who was Manco Capac?”
Fray Fernando knew that, however. “I have heard,” he said, “that the
founder of your monarchy, falsely called a Child of the Sun, taught
agriculture and the useful arts to a people whom he found sunk in
barbarism.”
“Our Father the Sun pitied the poor ignorant people, and he sent his
children to teach them” said José, telling the tale as it had been told
to him, and as indeed it is still usually told to us. “Manco Capac taught
the men to sow and reap and build houses; and Mama Ocella, his wife,
taught the women to spin and weave. Moreover, they both taught every one
to be just and gentle, and to keep the five great laws:—‘Do not be idle;
Do not lie; Do not steal; Do not commit adultery; Do not kill.’ The Incas
who reigned after him, his sons and sons’ sons, did likewise. They built
temples, and schools, and forts; they made good roads and inns, and great
water-courses, that the earth might be watered and bring forth fruit,
and that every one might have food to eat. And they ploughed the land
with their own hands, that the poor man might not say the prince bade him
do that which he would not do himself. They let no man want; they did
justice to all; they were called the friends of the poor. That was the
name best loved by the Inca—‘Friend of the Poor.’”
“But were they not also great warriors and conquerors?” asked Fray
Fernando, thinking of the enormous tract of country over which the Inca’s
sway extended at the time of the Spanish conquest.
“Yes; they spread the dominion of the Sun far and wide—partly because
they were brave warriors, partly because men saw that it was good to obey
them, for all their subjects had peace and plenty. Often wild tribes
would send messengers to the Incas, asking them to rule over them and to
teach them. But even to those who fought against them they were kind and
gentle; many times offering them pardon and friendship, and sparing them
and showing them mercy whenever they could.
“At length there came an Inca called Yahuar,[6] who was not such a
brave warrior as his fathers. He was a man sad of heart; always fearing
evil. Now it happened that his son, the young Auqui,[7] behaved himself
perversely, and the Inca was very wroth with him. He drove him from his
palace and his court, and from beautiful Cuzco, the golden city; and he
bade him tend the sacred llamas amongst the lonely plains of Chita. But
he was a youth of much—silence, thought[8]—how call you it? He used to
lie for hours on the green grass beside one of the little seas where the
water-fowl dip their white wings, and look up into the far blue sky,
thinking—always thinking.
“One midsummer noon he was lying thus. Everything was still and quiet;
not a breeze waving the long grass, not a tiny insect’s wing stirring
the air. Behold! suddenly a bright figure stood before him. His dress
was whiter than snow; his hair was like the tears of Ynty; his face was
as a morning without clouds. The Auqui stood up upon his feet, and made
low obeisance to him. Then the spirit spake, and said that his name was
Viracocha; that he also was a Child of the Sun; and that he had come
to reveal to his brethren that all the fierce nations round, who hated
their mild laws and gentle manners, had banded together to destroy them,
to waste their fields, and to lay Cuzco level with the ground. ‘Go,’ he
said, ‘and tell these things to thy father. But as for thyself, be brave
and strong; for I will not forsake thee; and to thee it is given to
deliver thy people.’”
“What! Did he become the deliverer—he, the outcast, the evil-doer?” Fray
Fernando asked, with a sudden flash of interest.
“He did as he was told,” the child answered simply. “He went to Cuzco
and gave his message. At first the Inca would not believe him; but too
soon he found that his words were true. The barbarous tribes, many as
the waves of the sea, fierce as the pumas of the mountain, were sweeping
down on the sacred city. Some of them were rebels; some had never yet
been tamed or conquered. The old Inca was afraid of them, and fled away
weeping towards the desert. But the Auqui stood forth brave and strong in
the hour of need. He unfurled the great rainbow banner of the Incas; and
he bade all who loved the Children of the Sun follow him to the fight.
“Then there was a battle, fierce and long. Thousands died on ‘the field
of blood;’ for so the place has been called ever since. But the Children
of the Sun prevailed at last, and put the wild hosts of the league to
flight. There was no one who could withstand the conquering Auqui.”
“What did he then with the vanquished?”
“What should he do? Was he not a Child of the Sun? As soon as the fight
was over he passed himself throughout all the plain, giving strict
command that the dead should be buried, the wounded enemies succoured
and cared for, the captives set free. And when, afterwards, the wives
and children of the rebels came to meet him, carrying green branches and
imploring his mercy, he said to them, ‘It was your husbands and fathers
who offended, not you. And since I have already pardoned them, what have
you to fear? Go in peace.’ Then he bade food to be given them, and great
care to be taken of the widows and orphans of those who were slain in
the battle. As for the chief of the rebels, he restored him to his place
and his rule; and those tribes served the Incas loyally from that time
forth.”[9]
“A good ending to your story,” said the monk, smiling.
“It is not quite the end,” José answered. “The Auqui came in triumph
to the place where his father was. Then the old Inca took from his
head the _llautu_—the sacred crimson fringe—and the black and white
wing-feathers of the cora-quenque, and he put them on the head of the
brave young Auqui; and he bade his captains bear him aloft in the golden
chair, and salute him as mighty Inca, Child of the Sun, Friend of the
Poor. Thenceforward the Auqui reigned gloriously. He took to himself
the name of the bright spirit that appeared to him on the plains of
Chita—Viracocha, ‘foam of the sea.’ He built a beautiful temple in his
honour. The work was long, and took many years to finish; but he saw it
finished, for he reigned until his hair was white as the snow of the
Andes.
“It is told of him, moreover, that after he was settled in his kingdom,
he went forth to do reverence to the Sun, as the Incas used, at the
great feast of Raymi. He stood in the court of the temple before all the
people, wearing the beautiful _uncu_[10] of blue wrought with golden
threads, and the long mantle glittering with golden beads. But instead
of making low obeisance to the glorious Ynty, he held himself erect,
and even dared to raise his eyes to the awful burning face of our great
Father.
“‘O Inca,’ said the high priest, ‘what you do is not good! You give the
people strange thoughts, and cause them to wonder at you.’
“‘Is there any one,’ asked Viracocha, ‘who dares to bid me go whither he
will?’
“‘How could any one be so bold?’ the priest answered.
“‘But if I bid one of my servants go here or there, will he disobey me?’
asked the Inca again.
“‘He will most certainly obey thee, Capac Inca, even unto death,’ the
priest replied.
“‘Then,’ said the Inca, ‘I perceive that there must be some greater Lord
whom our Father the Sun reveres, and at whose command he travels every
day from one end of the heavens to the other.’
“And also the great Viracocha’s son, Pacha-cutec the Wise, and other of
the Incas, in their hearts adored Pacha-camac, the Maker of the World,
the eternally young, who created all things, even our Father the Sun.”[11]
Here the boy ended his story, the latter part of which had evidently
been taught him word for word, with especial care, as a religious lesson
of high importance. Of course, it is not to be supposed that he related
it exactly as here set down. He experienced much difficulty in finding
suitable Spanish equivalents for the familiar Quichua phrases, and made
many verbal blunders in the attempt. He managed, however, not only to
make himself intelligible to the monk, but to give him not a little food
for thought.
On another occasion Fray Fernando asked the child how his parents came to
fix their residence in so remote a spot as an oasis in the wild desert
of Achapa. It was night, and they were enjoying the welcome blaze of a
cheerful fire in Fray Fernando’s cell. The Indian boy, who loved the
warmth, was seated close to the fire on his mat of vicuña skin; and his
brown face glowed in the ruddy light, as he looked up to answer his
benefactor’s question. “My father and mother,” he said, “with other Inca
children who lost their parents in the war, were taken to the desert
for safety by the faithful servants of their houses. There they grew up
and married; but most of them afterwards went away to join our brave
Inca Manco in the forests of Vilca-pampa.—Manco? Don’t you know he was
Huascar’s brother, and rightful Inca after him? Don’t you remember how
bravely he fought the Spaniards? Our _ayllu_—that is, Viracocha’s—were
true to him to a man. In the last great fight at Cuzco, it was my
mother’s father who defended the strongest of the three forts to the
very end against the Spaniard. Long did he stand almost alone upon the
wall, and strike down with his club every Spaniard who tried to scale
it. But they mounted the wall at last, in many places at once, and
sought to surround and take him alive. Then he sprang to the edge of the
battlement, wrapped his mantle round his head, and flung himself down the
precipice into the Colcampata. He would not live to serve the Spaniard.
And he was right.”
Fray Fernando began to feel uneasy. The child’s enthusiasm was of a kind
that might one day become dangerous. But he was too wise to fan the flame
by contradiction. He merely asked, “What became of your father? Did he,
when he grew up, join your Inca in his exile?”
“No; but he went forth from our little _paucar_[12] to see the great
world, and to try if anything yet remained which a Child of the Sun might
do there. I do not remember his going—it was a long time ago; but I well
remember the day Chaqui—that was the servant who went with him—came back
alone. Chaqui told my mother that my father had gone to help the men of
Chili, who were still fighting bravely against the Spaniards. And there
he died in battle. My mother wept, and taught me to weep for him. But we
were glad that he died fighting with the cruel Spaniards.”
“José, I am a Spaniard.”
“No, you are a patre. You are good.” And he stroked the monk’s hand
caressingly. “But,” he resumed, “Chaqui told us more. He told us that our
brave Inca Manco was dead. Some Spaniards who had run away from their
own people took shelter in his wild forest-home at Vilca-pampa. Being
Inca, and Friend of the Poor, he was kind to them, and received them, and
gave them food. One of them paid his kindness by slaying him. _Aucca!_
After that, Manco’s son, Sayri Tupac, had the right of wearing the sacred
_llautu_. But to him the Spaniards sent messengers of his own kindred,
who gave him many soft words and fair promises, until at last he agreed
to go to their new city in the vale of Rimac,[13] there to give up to the
stranger his claim to the throne of Tahuantin Suyu.” The boy said this
with a bowed head, and in a low sad voice, as one who keenly felt the
shame of such a surrender.
He went on,—“Chaqui told us that when the Inca made the black marks that
meant to say he gave up the kingdom, he wept, and taking in his hand the
velvet cloth that covered the table, he said, ‘Behold, the whole of this
cloth belonged to my fathers, and now they satisfy me with a thread of
the silken fringe!’ But when my mother heard that, she was very wroth.
She said he was no Child of the Sun, and his tears were worthless. And
Chaqui answered her,—‘But what could he do?’ ‘He could die,’ she said.
‘He _is_ dead,’ Chaqui told us then. The Spaniards gave him broad lands,
and gold and silver, and they allowed him to live in the beautiful
valleys where the homes of his fathers were. But nothing could make him
happy; no, not even the fair palace of Yucay, the loved home of my father
Viracocha, with the fruits and flowers of its wondrous gardens, some
real, some still more beautiful, wrought out of the tears of Ynty; and
its cool baths and fountains, where the water flows from the mouths of
great silver llamas and dragons. The Inca pined away and died, for his
heart was broken.” And José ended his tale, and sat in gloomy silence
watching the embers, which were dying too.
“Then, I suppose there is no Inca now,” was Fray Fernando’s not very
prudent remark.
“Oh yes,” said José eagerly. “There is always the Inca. There is still
Manco’s youngest son, Tupac Amaru. And he will take from Spanish hands,”
José continued, with kindling eyes, “not one thread of the crimson
fringe, not one grain of the golden treasures of his fathers. He lives
free in the forests of Vilca-pampa. Him we love, and him we will obey.”
There was another silence. Then José said thoughtfully, “When I was a
little child I used to think that the Children of the Sun reigned yet
at Cuzco, and that as soon as I was a man I should go thither, and see
the Inca in his golden chair, and the palaces and temples, and hear
the happy songs, and join in the dances at the great feasts. But now
I know that the Spaniards have swept everything away, like the great
earth-overturning flood.[14] Still, for all that, one day _the Inca will
reign again_.” This was said with no outburst of childish feeling, but
with a quiet slow gravity, born of intense conviction. That belief was
the thing that lay deepest in the young child’s heart.
“How know you that?” asked Fray Fernando, a little surprised.
“Yachani—I know,” was all José would say in reply.
It was not one solitary childish voice alone that whispered, “The Inca
will reign again.” For long years and years was that fair hope cherished,
and held close to the heart of an oppressed people, to keep it from
breaking in its helpless misery. The herdsman who tended the llamas on
the hills of his fathers for the food of the cruel stranger, the slave
who wove their fleeces into beautiful fabrics for his clothing, or dug
gold and silver out of the earth to minister to his luxuries, alike
consoled themselves under toil and starvation, under stripes and torture,
with that sweet whisper of hope, “The Inca will reign again.” The Indian
mother who sang to her babe, in cradle-songs sadder than requiems,—
“Seeking through the whole world
I should not meet my equal in misery;
Accursed be the night I was born;”[15]
yet taught him, as he grew, to look up to that faint star of promise, the
only one that beamed on their darkness,—“The Inca will reign again.”
Nor even, when the long slow years had “rolled into the centuries,”
was the light of that star extinguished. Still the hearts of the
people yearned “with quenchless love profound” after their beneficent
Incas,—after the kings who were the friends of the poor. It is not yet
one hundred years since men—and women—died cheerfully, in heroic despair,
with the word on their lips, “We have no king but our Inca.”
Very beautiful is this tenacity of love, of faith, of hope for the
future, born of the memories of the past. Are not such instincts true
prophecies, though in a different sense from any of which the poor
untaught Indians could dream?
VI.
Viracocha Visits His Brethren.
“But what hast thou lacked with me, that, behold, thou seekest
to go to thine own country And he answered, Nothing: howbeit
let me go in any wise.”
1 KINGS xi. 22.
More than six years have passed away, producing little outward change in
any of the inhabitants of Cerro Blanco whom we know by name, except in
the Indian boy, who has grown a fine handsome stripling. His patron is
well satisfied with his development, both mental and physical. This is
fortunate, for with nothing else, either within or without himself, is
poor Fray Fernando satisfied. His position at the mining-colony becomes
increasingly uncomfortable. Passing disagreements with Diego Rascar have
deepened and widened into a standing feud. The Spaniards and Creoles take
part with Diego, while the negroes count for nothing, with the exception
of Pepe, and he has his own reasons for bearing a grudge against the
padre. This is particularly hard, since the padre’s real offence is that
he has espoused the cause of the black men against the white. “A pity it
is,” Diego sometimes says, “that this holy man never knows when to shut
his eyes.”
During the last six years Fray Fernando has been growing every day more
incapable of shutting his eyes to wrong and oppression. The old practice
of “passing by on the other side,” so safe, so easy, and so convenient,
has become not only distasteful, but impossible to him. If a man chooses
to act, even once, the part of the good Samaritan, he must accept the
cost. He will find that he cannot, if he would, descend again to the
_rôle_ of the priest and the Levite.
But in proportion as Fray Fernando’s own heart became softer, it seemed
to him that the hearts around him grew harder. He thought that the whites
were sinking gradually to the level of the negroes, their barbarous
half-caste families being even more degraded than themselves. In the
blacks he saw no change worth speaking of, save a change for the worse
in Pepe, who, on account of his strength, intelligence, and usefulness
in managing the other slaves, was petted and pampered by Diego, and
allowed to indulge his vicious propensities without a check. Often did
the mournful words of the prophet ring in the ears of Fray Fernando: “I
have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain.”
And he could not take refuge in the strong confidence of faith, and add,
“Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.” Fray
Fernando thought his work nothing—words written on water, lines traced on
sand. Or, if remembered at all, he believed it would only go to swell the
vast amount of his sin, that burden already greater than he could bear.
But for the Indian youth, at least, he had not laboured in vain. Long ago
José had displaced the clumsy Pepe as acolyte, to the great satisfaction
of every one, Pepe himself alone excepted. He knew the “Doctrina de la
Fé” as well as any intelligent Spanish lad of his age. He was diligent
in the repetition of prayers, and the performance of every other
religious duty enjoined on him. He had learned to read and write, and
Fray Fernando was beginning to teach him Latin—a necessary labour, if
the accomplishment of reading was to be of any use to him, as the few
books his patron possessed were in that language. José learned quickly,
for his memory was remarkably good, and the similarity between Latin
and Spanish, which contrasted delightfully with the utter and perplexing
difference between Spanish and Quichua, made the task a comparatively
light one.