hope—a hope first whispered cautiously to Don Alfonso, but so eagerly
shared by him that the flame was fanned to sevenfold strength. The
suburb of the city where Melchior lived was close to the prison of the
Inquisition, and took its name from it—the Triana. Though the Holy
Office, for wise purposes, keeps its proceedings secret as possible,
things must needs ooze out sometimes, and men will talk about them.
At the particular time of which I speak, there was much indignation,
especially in the neighbourhood of the Triana, called forth by the
robberies and cruelties of the head-jailer, Gaspar Benevidio—a wretch
abhorred of God and man, and afterwards righteously punished by his
superiors. The Triana suburb abounded in lawless characters, many of
whom, being of Moorish blood, were not particularly zealous for the
Catholic Faith or the Holy Inquisition. Whenever Gaspar Benevidio went
abroad, men scowled and laid their hands on their daggers, and women
cursed him as he passed. Some of Melchior’s friends of the bull-ring were
often heard to murmur, ‘’Twere a better deed to send a lance through a
hard heart than through a tough hide.’ ‘But what use in that?’ Melchior
would say. ‘That would save no one. If now we were to attack the Triana,
God only knows what we might accomplish!’
“This was the project hinted to Don Alfonso. And he answered promptly,
‘Do all that is in thine heart. I am with thee, according to all that
is in thine heart.’ Then they laid their scheme. In the midst of their
madness they were prudent in details. They organized the conspirators,
armed them, concerted signals, even corrupted some of the lower
officials within the castle. At last came the night agreed upon.[28]
Melchior and Don Alfonso headed the rioters—the latter disguised in his
foster-brother’s clothes, to save the honour of his noble house. There
was an hour of fierce excitement, of wild fighting, of frenzied hope—then
confusion, terror, despair. It was madness all—from first to last! As
soon, José, might your people stand victorious against the might of
Spain, as force or fraud prevail to rescue one captive from the dungeons
of the Triana.”
It was well, perhaps, that the monk could not see the “dark lightning”
that flashed from José’s eyes as he said, “Madness is strong, patre.
_Did_ they not rescue any?”
“None. The morning light found the rioters broken, scattered, flying.
Most of them were themselves soon made prisoners of the Inquisition.
Spite of all precautions, Don Alfonso’s share in the matter was
suspected; but his family sheltered him, and placed him in concealment.
Of course, his career was ruined, his prospects blighted. And if _that_
had been but all! But besides his share in the riot, a great and guilty
secret lay upon his heart. He knew that in the conflict his hand had
dealt a mortal blow to an alguazil of the Inquisition. That was a crime
to rank with heresy itself. Like heresy, blood could not wash it out—fire
must burn its stains away.”
“I do not understand, patre,” José said, half shuddering.
The friar’s answer was slow and faltering. “I mean, the punishment
was—_death by fire_!”
“Horrible!” cried José. “Was Don Alfonso saved?”
“From _that_ doom, yes. His relatives managed to procure for him, under
a feigned name, a passage in a vessel bound for these unknown shores.
It was the best they could do; and he was grateful for it—more than
grateful, because they did not hate and curse him, though he had sinned
against the Holy Inquisition. Father and mother blessed the wanderer—the
last comforting memory left him to cling to.”
Fray Fernando was silent, until at last José asked, “Where, all this
time, was Melchior?”
“Don Alfonso often inquired after him; and was assured that he was safe,
and in hiding. But he believed too easily. In due time he embarked. The
vessel dropped down lightly from Seville to San Lucar, a port on the
coast; where she lay at anchor waiting for merchandize. Don Alfonso,
standing at her side, gazed listlessly, through the golden evening light,
on the quiet waters, and the low green shore, where the herds of oxen
were browsing peacefully. From the shore came a little boat, with a
passenger, whom business or pleasure had detained in Seville, and who,
not to lose his passage, had ridden hard from the city. On board, he met
an acquaintance, with whom he discussed the news of the day, walking up
and down the deck, within earshot of Don Alfonso. But he heeded little;
till at last a word was spoken that thrilled his soul. ‘To-day is taking
place the great and long-expected _Auto-da-fé_.’”
“The—_what_, patre?”
José had to repeat his question. The monk seemed unwilling or unable to
answer.
“What is an _Auto-da-fé_?”
“A solemn sacrifice,” Fray Fernando said at last; and he said no more.
“Let me make an end,” he resumed presently. “The stranger named the
names of the victims, as he had heard them from his uncle, a Dominican.
Happily, Juanita was not amongst them. I suppose she died in prison.
There were some notorious heretics, several foreigners. And at last—”
“Patre, what ails you? Are you ill?” asked José, who was himself
trembling at the vague, imperfectly understood horrors of the tale.
“No,” said the monk, lifting up his hand with a forbidding gesture, as
José, now thoroughly alarmed at what the firelight revealed of his looks,
seemed about to spring to his side.
He continued, though with evident effort:—“At last Don Alfonso heard
the words ‘Melchior del Salto also is to be burned alive.’ The sky grew
black, and the earth reeled around him. Yet, gathering all his strength,
he held himself from swooning, that he might hear the end.—‘Why _that_
doom for him—never once suspected of heresy?’—The voices seemed to
come from a great distance, but the words were clear and distinct.—‘He
dealt a mortal blow to an alguazil of the Holy Office. The thing was
proved beyond dispute. The poor man lived two days; and though he had
not seen the face of his assailant, he swore to the dress, discerned by
the torchlight. Nor did the prisoner deny the fact.’—At that word, Don
Alfonso fell senseless. Better had he died thus,—save for his unhappy
soul!”
“Patre,” said José, with decision, “you shall tell me no more such
stories. This one is killing you.”
Fray Fernando wrestled in silence with some strong emotion ere he
answered:—“What is begun shall be ended. José, that man did not die. When
consciousness returned, he would fain have thrown himself from the ship,
and rushed back to Seville. But too late! All was over now, all gone—save
blackened ashes. So he let the winds and waves bear him onward where they
would, with broken heart, and memory filled evermore with the image of
the brother who died for him.”
“Did he kill himself?” asked José, whose race parted with life too
lightly.
“No. He feared God, against whom, in His ministers, he had sinned most
grievously. But he carried the mark of Cain on his brow—the doom of Cain
in his heart. ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, Thou
hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from Thy face
shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.’”
“Poor, unhappy man! Does he live yet, patre?”
“It may be. To me it seems that, were he near death, he ought to confess
his deed. Not simply to a priest, for his soul’s sake, but also to
some faithful friend, who for love of him would cross the sea, and, by
revealing the truth, clear away the stain of infamy from the name of him
who died in his stead.”
“A faithful friend, who for love of him would cross the sea!” José
repeated. “Has he such, patre? Then there is hope for him yet.”
It was some time before Fray Fernando answered. When he did, his voice
was choked and faltering, like the voice of one that wept. “Your words
are wise,” he said. “Perhaps wiser than you think. Never ask me more of
this, José. Never speak of it, to me or to another.”
“You may trust me, patre.”
“I do. Now lie down and sleep.”
José lay down obediently. But the command to sleep was more easily
given than obeyed. Never in his life had he been more thoroughly awake.
His mind was full of new, bewildering, fearful thoughts. What was this
_Auto-da-fé_—this sacrifice, which seemed a horrible execution? Did
Christians then offer human sacrifices? Where and how had the patre
known the Melchior—and, still more, the Don Alfonso—of his tale? Was he,
perchance, the faithful friend of the unhappy young nobleman? Or—at last
there flashed unbidden on his mind another thought, so frightful that he
drove it away with all the force of his will, loathing himself for having
allowed it even to enter his imagination.
XIII.
The Doctors.
“But where is the iron-bound prisoner, where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?”
CAMPBELL.
“Patre,” said José, as soon as the sun had risen, “will it please you now
to permit me to run to the nearest dwellings and seek for food?”
Fray Fernando did not refuse the desired permission; and José, delighted
to obtain it, first made his patient as comfortable as he could, then
started on his errand.
In a few hours he returned, accompanied by a party of five or six
Indians, whom, with much apparent satisfaction and some ceremony, he
ushered into Fray Fernando’s presence, saying, “Here, patre, are the
doctors.”
The men were comfortably clothed, after the native fashion, in tunics,
short trousers, and mantles, with bright-coloured turbans, or caps, on
their heads. But they looked worn and haggard, as men who followed a
toilsome calling. Each had a kind of wallet strapped on his shoulders by
a cord of maguey. The foremost of the group unbound his, and laid it at
the feet of Fray Fernando, in token of his respect and desire to serve
him.
But Fray Fernando naturally hesitated to receive medical advice from
those whom he accounted mere barbarians; and expressed as much to José.
The latter assured him, however, that the doctors were very wise—very
skilful. “They spend many months together in the forests,” he said,
“collecting herbs and plants of great healing virtue. Then they travel
through the whole country, giving them in exchange for food or clothing,
and making the sick men well. This knowledge has been handed down to them
from the grandfathers of their grandfathers.”[29]
Upon this, Fray Fernando, thinking it probable they would not poison him,
and perhaps also thinking it little matter if they did, consented to
allow one of them to examine him; which he did by feeling his pulse, not
at the wrist, but at the top of the nostrils, and under the eyelids.
José was soon informed in Quichua, which he translated into Spanish for
the patient’s benefit, that the patre’s disease was the _sorachi_, an
ailment to which travellers in those mountainous districts are liable.
But the worst of the attack seemed to be over. The patient would be the
better for pursuing his journey as soon as he felt at all able to do so.
By the time he reached the plain he would probably be as well as ever.
For his headache, he was to take a draught of herbs, and to use the
powdered leaf of the _sayri_, a supply of which the doctor produced from
his wallet. This was, in fact, the tobacco of modern Europe, which the
Peruvians only employed as a medicine. José having hinted, however, that
food was just then more needful to them than medicine, all the wallets
were explored, and a sufficient quantity of parched maize, chuñu, and
charqui (dried meat) was produced to make an abundant meal for the whole
party. A portion of the latter was carefully cooked for Fray Fernando;
but José and the other Indians did not use so much ceremony with their
own food.
When the repast was finished, the “doctors” had some further conversation
with their countryman; then they strapped up their wallets, and prepared
to go their own way, from which they had been diverted by José’s earnest
entreaties that they would come to the aid of his sick friend. Fray
Fernando asked José what recompense he ought to bestow on them. But José
told him none was needed. “They are very glad to serve you,” he said,
“because you are my friend.” There was no arrogance or assumption in
this: it was the simple truth. The words, “Yntip Churi” (Child of the
Sun), had a magic in them to bow all hearts in Tahuantin Suyu. Fray
Fernando, however, gave the doctors a few silver coins, which were
thankfully accepted; and they parted with mute demonstrations of respect
and good-will.
When they were gone, José silently prepared and administered the
prescribed remedies, replenished the fire, gathered together and put
aside the food that had been left. That done, he sat down, and looked at
Fray Fernando with the air of a person who had tidings, heavy tidings, to
communicate.
“Of what are you thinking, José?” the monk inquired. He rather expected
that José would urge him to get up, and to make some effort to resume his
journey.
But José’s thoughts were very differently occupied.
“Before they went away the doctors told me something,” he said.
Fray Fernando asked rather languidly what it was.
“Nothing good,” José answered sadly. “Another crime for the Spaniards,
another wrong for the children of my people. The Inca is a captive.”
“Whom do you mean by the Inca?” Fray Fernando might be excused for
asking, since seven years had passed since José named in his hearing
the exiled prince whose right it was to wear the llautu. Moreover, much
confusion was created in Spanish minds by the fact that _all_ the male
descendants of Manco Capac were permitted to assume the cognomen of Inca.
“Whom should I mean but the sole Inca, Tupac Amaru? The viceroy has sent
an army to Vilca-pampa. They have made him prisoner, and led him to
Cuzco. Patre,” José continued, with scarce an effort to conceal his deep
anxiety, “you understand your own people. Tell me what they will do with
him.”
“How can I tell you, José?” Fray Fernando answered. And in truth it would
have been hard for him to tell. But he knew something of the Viceroy
Toledo, the kinsman of the notorious Alva, a stern, determined man,
little likely to have taken the trouble of making the Inca a captive
without a settled purpose and still less likely to shrink from executing
that purpose, whatever it was.
“Three things are possible,” José continued, thoughtfully. “The Spaniards
may desire to wring from us yet more of those treasures they covet so
madly. They are wise. If for the usurper, Atahualpa, we filled the great
hall of Caxa-marca breast high with gold, we will not do less, sorely as
they have robbed us since, for the true heir of Manco Capac. But my heart
misgives me they have worse thoughts than that. They may keep him in
captivity, or even send him beyond the Mother Sea. Either way, it would
be his death; for his spirit is brave and free, like the condor of the
mountain.”
Fray Fernando knew there was yet another course possible to the
Spaniards, but he did not care to name it.
José continued, “I can tell you at least what they will _not_ do with
him. What they did with Sayri Tupac. To no deed renouncing the rights of
his birth will the hand of Tupac Amaru be ever set.”
“When we arrive at Cuzco we shall learn all,” Fray Fernando said. “And,
José, I will try to pursue the journey. I see we cannot remain here.”
“The doctors have left food enough to last us for to-day, patre.
To-morrow, I hope, with God’s help, you will be able to travel a little.”
An expectation that was happily fulfilled. But Fray Fernando was still
too weak to proceed far. He succeeded, however in reaching a little
Indian village, where rest and refreshment were readily obtained.
Ten or twelve leagues of very mountainous country had yet to be traversed
before Cuzco could be reached. It was not until the evening of the third
day that the still invalided monk, with his Indian companion, stood at
last upon one of the heights which overlook the ancient City of the Sun.
Cuzco nestles at the head of a fair and fertile valley, which forms an
angle between two mountain ranges. José, whose demeanour all day had
been solemn and reverent, like that of one about to participate in some
religious rite, long gazed in silence on the scene spread out before
him. But Cuzco was not only the sacred city of his dreams; it was also
the first city he had ever seen. The mass of buildings confused and
bewildered him, until at last he turned with a sigh of relief to the
snowy peak of Vilcañota, which rose majestically above the hills that
bounded the valley on the other side. Yet he soon turned back again to
gaze upon the city of his fathers—the home of his imagination, the goal
of his longings. “And was _that_ indeed the city? Was that beautiful
Cuzco, the centre and the heart of Tahuantin Suyu?” Here seemed only
shapeless masses of building, tangled mazes of streets, and the flash of
a river here and there amidst a wilderness of thatched roofs and tumbled
heaps of stone. Nothing was like what he expected.
All at once, however, his eye kindled, his whole countenance lighted up.
He laid one hand on Fray Fernando’s arm, and with the other pointed to
a rocky eminence on the north side of the city. It was crowned by three
great semicircular walls of massive masonry, one within the other; and
again within these were three lofty towers, built of light-coloured
stone. “Look there!” he cried in rapture. “Yonder is the great fortress
of Sachsahuaman, built by my renowned forefathers. Yes, it is; ofttimes
have I heard it described. Every wall, every tower, I know already.” Long
and fondly did his eye rest upon them; then he slowly turned his gaze to
the other buildings, as if he would learn to understand them also, and
imprint them on his memory. He felt no longer a stranger, but a child—a
child going to his father’s home.
Yet he entreated Fray Fernando to defer his entrance into Cuzco until the
following day, that the Sun himself might welcome them to his own city.
Fray Fernando looked on this as an instance of the childishness which
seemed strangely interwoven in the tangled web of José’s character with
manly sense and feeling. Still, he granted the request, and all the more
readily because he was very weary, and comfortable Indian dwellings were
close at hand, in which they might rest for the night.
XIV.
The Last Inca.
“Oh, there was mourning when you fell,
In your own vales a deep-toned knell,—
An agony, a wild farewell!
But that hath long been o’er.
“Rest, with your still and solemn fame,—
The hills keep record of your name;
For never can a touch of shame
Darken the buried brow.”
HEMANS.
The next morning our travellers descended the hill, and soon found
themselves within the precincts of the royal city.
As frequently happens, neither experienced just the emotions he expected.
José was so confused and bewildered by the crowds which filled the
street to overflowing, and thronged past him on every side, that he
scarcely made an effort to look about him, and actually stood close to
the temples and palaces he had dreamed of all his life without seeing
them. His first impression was that the whole population of the city
was escaping from some terrible calamity—a fire, an earthquake, or
a flood. But recollecting that he had never seen a city before, and
could not therefore be sure that this was not its ordinary condition,
his apprehensions subsided, and he determined to hold his peace for
the present. His fears, however, revived when he began to observe the
downcast, tearful faces of the Indians, of whom the crowd was chiefly
composed. Nor was he reassured on discovering that they were shared by
his more experienced companion.
“José,” said the monk, “something very extraordinary must be going
forward here. Ask one of the Indians what it is.”
Instead of making the inquiry at once from the next in the crowd, José
managed to mount a large stone belonging to one of the Indian buildings
which the Spaniards were demolishing, and from this vantage-ground
surveyed the street. Noticing amongst the throng a white-haired,
venerable-looking Indian, who wore around his head a cord of vicuña wool
dyed carnation and yellow (the distinguishing badge of the Incas), he
made his way, with much difficulty, towards the spot where he stood. But
just as he was beginning to address him, a loud cry of terror drowned his
voice, and he saw the Indians around scattering in all directions. Some
hid themselves in the adjacent lanes and houses, the rest rushed wildly
hither and thither—trampling upon each other in their panic.
The cause soon appeared. A young Spanish cavalier, dressed in shining
armour, and mounted on a high-mettled horse, was spurring in hot haste
through the crowded street, little regarding the lives and limbs of “los
Indios.” In any thoroughfare such a circumstance would have caused alarm
and confusion, but it created a fearful panic amongst a people who had
not yet overcome their superstitious dread of the “huge earth-shaking
beast” that obeyed the white man.[30]
José at first gave way with the rest. But he had seen horses in Nasca,
and being naturally courageous, had successfully endeavoured to overcome
his fear of them. Recovering self-possession, he looked about him, and
observed that a poor little Indian child, who had been thrown down in
the confusion, was lying almost beneath the horse’s hoofs. To snatch it
from its perilous position, and deposit it safely in the nearest of a
dozen pair of arms, stretched out simultaneously to receive it, was a
minute’s work. In the next, José’s hand was laid boldly upon the rein of
the reckless rider. “Have a care how you ride, señor caballero,” he said
in Spanish; “we have all lives and limbs to lose, worth as much in God’s
sight as your own.”
The youth, for he was no more—a very handsome young Spaniard, with fine,
haughty, aristocratic features, dark, curled hair, and the first down on
his blooming cheek—cast a look of amazement upon “El Indio,” who dared
to remonstrate with him, and in such good Castilian. Then, flushing with
anger, he raised his riding-whip. “Curse your insolence!” he cried. “Let
go my rein, you Indian dog.”
Don José Viracocha Inca had not come to the city of his fathers to be
treated as a slave. He instantly snatched the whip from the hand of
the Spaniard, whose keenly-tempered blade leaped the next moment from
its scabbard and flashed in the sunlight. Fatal consequences might
have followed, had not one from the crowd laid a strong hand on José’s
shoulder, and, partly by force, partly by a few words—brief, but of
momentous import—whispered in his ear, drawn him away from the scene of
conflict. The whip fell to the ground, and one of the bystanders picked
it up and gave it to its owner; who spurred on to the great square, lest
he should incur a severe rebuke from his senior officer, and still more,
lest he should miss the tragedy about to be enacted there.
Meanwhile José turned a blank, terrified face to the old Indian with
the fillet of vicuña wool—for he it was whose friendly violence had
extricated him from his perilous position.—“_The Inca?_” he repeated;
“what is it you say of the Inca?”
“I say of you, that you are a brave youth, but that this is no time to
show it, when the eye of every man in Cuzco is dim with tears for the
Inca.”
“The Inca?—Do I hear aright? Speak once again, my father.”
“While I speak, they are leading the Inca to his death in yonder square.”
“Alalau! Dare they do such a deed?—even the Spaniards?—What is his crime?”
“He has refused to touch Spanish gold,” said the old man bitterly. “From
hands red with his people’s blood he would accept nothing. So at last
they give him the one gift he cannot refuse—the stroke that sends him to
the mansions of his Father the Sun.”
To José it seemed as if the sun itself had suddenly become black in
the heavens. To him the Inca was as truly a part of the unchanging and
unchangeable order of things as the light that ruled the day. Gladly
would he have laid down his own head on the block instead of his.
“Let me look on his face,” he exclaimed at last; “I have never seen him.”
“Come,” said the other briefly; and together they threaded their way
through the crowd to the great square.
In the old times, when the Inca made his royal progress, the spots where
his golden litter rested took a new name from that auspicious hour. Eager
thousands thronged around, rending the air, and, as the historian says,
“bringing down the birds” with their joyful acclamations; and a happy man
was he who was so favoured as to behold the face of his prince and lord.
_Now_, instead of the golden throne, there was a grim scaffold draped
with black; instead of shouts of joy, there were groans and lamentations,
and “noise of weeping loud.” Yet the devotion of the nation’s heart
burned on unquenched. Because the homage rendered was not born of fear,
but of love, it survived all outward change, all circumstance and pomp
of golden thrones, and armed guards, and costly apparel, and was poured
forth, only more richly than ever, at the feet of the despoiled and
fettered captive on his way to death.