ascended the scaffold. His face was calm and his step firm. He was not
unworthy of his royal ancestors, who had ever braved death dauntlessly
on the battle-field. Yet Tupac Amaru, still in the morning of his days,
keenly felt the injustice of his doom. Looking down upon the sea of
upturned dusky faces, he raised his fettered right hand, with the palm
open, then slowly lowered it again, mutely commanding silence.
And silence, sudden and complete, fell upon that great wailing multitude.
It was “as if there had not been one soul left alive in the whole city.”
So was obeyed the Inca’s last command.
“Let it be proclaimed to all the world,” said Tupac Amaru, “that I have
done no wrong, and that I die only because it is the pleasure of the
tyrant.”
Then he knelt down on the scaffold, clasped his hands, and raised his
eyes to heaven. “O God!” he cried, in his native tongue, “behold how mine
enemies rob me of my blood!”
There was a minute’s pause; then the silent gliding forward of a hooded,
black-robed figure; then the gleam and flash of steel. Then a wail of
anguish—the cry of a great nation’s broken heart—that arose from the
crowded square of Cuzco, and swept on and on till it reached the most
secluded hut of the distant Andes. The last sands of the glorious dynasty
of Manco Capac had run out. There was no more an Inca.
The murder of young Tupac Amaru deserves to be remembered, not because it
was the most cruel of the misdeeds of the conquerors of Tahuantin Suyu,
but because of the innocence of the victim, and because of the hopes
that were buried in his grave. How, after that day’s tragedy, could the
Indians continue to cherish in secret the fond belief that the true heir
of Manco Capac reigned still in the wild forests of Vilca-pampa, and that
one day he would issue thence in victorious might to recover the throne
of his fathers?
Yet hope is hard to kill. It may lie in seeming death, and be laid in the
grave; but if inspired by love it will rise again, partaking of love’s
immortality. There was no more an Inca. But not the less did the Indians
whisper to each other, “The Inca will come again.” Only henceforward the
restoration of the loved dynasty became not so much a political hope as
an article of religious faith.[31]
XV.
The Golden City.
“How princely are thy towers,
How fair thy vales, thy hills how beautiful!
The sun, who sheds on thee his parting smiles,
Sees not in all his wide career a scene
Lovelier, nor more exuberantly blest
By bounteous earth and heaven. The very gales
Of Eden waft not from the immortal bowers
Odours to sense more exquisite than those
Which breathing from thy groves and gardens now
Recall in me such thoughts of bitterness.
The time has been when happy was their lot
Who had their birthright there; but happy now
Are those who to thy bosom have gone home.”
SOUTHEY.
The voice of José’s white-haired guide mingled in the great wail that
rose from the square of Cuzco. Then the old man bowed his head and wept,
José also weeping with him.
“Come home with me,” said the Indian noble at last, as the crowd began
slowly to disperse.
“We are kinsmen,” José answered, and told his name, then briefly
recapitulated his pedigree.
“I also am of Viracocha’s ayllu,” said the Indian. “My name is
Yupanqui.[32] And here,” he added presently, “is my house.” For
Yupanqui’s dwelling, like most of the palaces of the Inca nobility who
resided at Cuzco, opened on the great square.
José followed his conductor into a low, one-storied building, formed of
massive blocks of stone fitted into each other with wonderful accuracy.
The doorway, wide near the ground, sloped gradually inwards, the lintel
being considerably narrower than the threshold. A kind of passage brought
them to a court, into which many similar doors opened, each leading to a
separate chamber. This arrangement was rendered necessary by the absence
of windows.
The old Inca conducted his guest into one of these chambers, which was
spacious, and adorned with richly-coloured hangings of llama’s wool.
There were also niches in the walls, containing a few ornaments of gold
and silver—not many, for Spanish cupidity must not be tempted: the less
men had, or were thought to have, the better for them in those days. On
the ground were seated a group of women of all ages, weeping and wailing,
and making sore lamentation for the Inca.
On a raised seat in the midst were two young girls dressed in robes of
pure white, bordered with yellow, woven of vicuña wool, soft and fine
as silk. Their black and glossy hair hung over their shoulders in long
plaits, while the symmetry of their slight, graceful forms, and the dark
beauty of their delicate features, fully justified the admiration of the
high-born cavaliers of Spain for these daughters of the Sun. A delicious
sensation stole over the heart of José: it was as though he heard the
spirit-music of the desert of Achapa, which surprises the weary traveller
at sunset, coming he knows not whence, and passing he knows not whither.
He stood apart, a silent spectator. The conversation between the old
Indian, his grandchildren, and their attendants, gradually revealed
to him much of their history. He came to understand that one of these
girls had been destined to occupy the high position of Coya (empress,
or chief wife) to the murdered Inca. But some time elapsed before he
could tell which, since the grief of both seemed equal. When the younger,
still almost a child, clasped her small hands, and raising her dark,
tearful eyes to heaven, prayed God to avenge their prince, José said
within himself, “Surely this was the Inca’s choice. No marvel,—she is
surpassingly lovely.” But he was mistaken. Soon afterwards, turning to her
sister, who sat silent, her face for the most part hidden in her robe,
she said, “Sumac,[33] my sister, above all things I pity you that you
cannot die with him, as they used to do in the old days—the good ones.”
Then Sumac raised her head, and in a low, quiet voice made
answer:—“Indeed, Coyllur,[33] that would be very sweet to me now. But—I
am afraid.”
“Afraid!” Coyllur repeated in evident surprise; for never had the
Children of the Sun been known to fear death for, or with, those they
loved. “Afraid!—Of what?”
“Of the Lord Christ—that if I come to the gate when He has not called, He
will not let me in.”
“Then they also are Christians,” thought José.
But Coyllur, who evidently did not quite understand her sister, presently
resumed, in tones of passionate grief, yet with a kind of rhythm in
her sweet voice, that made the words half a song, “Alalau! my sister,
my heart is very sad for thee. For thou shouldst have sat on the
golden throne beside our prince and lord; sharing his dominion and his
splendour, as Quilla, the spouse of the great Ynty, shares the glory of
the sky with the lord of day. And, hereafter, thou shouldst have had thy
place on the awful thrones in the Curi-cancha,[34] where sit the Incas
and the Coyas of days gone by, each with the royal robe, the llautu, and
the sceptre; and the grand, calm face, sealed with the majesty of death,
that changes not throughout the ages.”[35]
“Nay, but, Coyllur,” Sumac’s low voice interrupted, “do not talk thus. I
never cared for being Coya; I never thought that he was Inca; I only knew
that he was good and brave. Had he been a yanacona,[36] all would have
been the same.”
But here José’s attention was diverted from the conversation by the
hospitable cares of Yupanqui, which were not forgotten or omitted even
in that hour of overwhelming sorrow. The old Inca caused an attendant
to bring him two golden cups, of exactly the same size and shape. These
he filled with chica, and having given one to José with his right hand,
emptied the other himself. José, out of courtesy, did likewise; but he
declined other refreshment, for it was meet that all who loved the Inca
should keep solemn fast that day.
The next morning he told his host that it would be necessary for him
to go in search of “the patre,” whom he had lost in the crowd on the
preceding day.
“No great loss,” the old Indian remarked dryly. “If you want patres, you
can find them here, all kinds—black, white, and gray. They swarm like
ants, building their nests on the ruins of our fathers’ palaces.”
José explained that his patre was very unlike the others, and paid a
grateful tribute to the benefits he had received from him.
“He did well to make a Christian of you,” Yupanqui admitted, with the
sad tolerance of despair. “I also took care to have my grandchildren
baptized. But for myself, I am too old to learn the white man’s religion.”
“My soul is ofttimes cut in two about these things,” José acknowledged
candidly. “Yet the white man’s faith seems good to me, and I truly
believe all that the patre has taught me of its mysteries.”
“So say my kinsmen and my grandchildren. They have been taught by the
Holy Virgins, and Sumac often prays me to listen to their words. But I
answer that what was good enough for the kings and heroes who were my
forefathers is good enough for me. When I die, I would rather go where
they are than to the cold, strange heaven of the Spaniard.—Do you know
where to find your patre?”
“I know that he intended to go to the house of a great Spanish lord, the
owner of the land where we dwelt—Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano.”
“Him he will not find here. His wife is our kinswoman, aunt to the
children yonder.”
“How that? She is a daughter of Huayna Capac.”
“So was their mother, dead these twelve years. They are of Viracocha’s
ayllu through their father, my only son—dead also; of Huayna Capac’s
through their mother. Don Marcio is a good man, for a Spaniard. He
prayed the viceroy, on bended knees, to spare the Inca’s life. When all
was vain, he would not see the crime he could not prevent. He and the
princess his wife are far away.”
“What shall I do then to find the patre? Must I stand in the street and
watch for him? He is sure to pass some time.”
Even the phlegmatic Indian could not forbear a grave smile at the
expedient José’s ignorance in the ways of cities suggested. “You might
watch for him until the great flood comes again,” he said. “Nay, like
always goes to like. Seek him at the house where the monks of his sort
live.”
“He is a gray friar, of the Order of St. Francis.”
“One of my servants shall bring you to their house. It is built, like the
rest, on the ruins of an Inca palace.”
“I long to walk through the city. I have been dreaming of it all my life.”
“Dreaming is dangerous in these days,” said the old Inca. “Yesterday’s
scaffold was no dream, but dreaming brings a man to that,—or worse.”
“There be many things worse,” José remarked. “What Sayri Tupac did, for
instance.”
“Well said, Child of the Sun,” Yupanqui answered, with grave approval.
“Come, we will walk through the city together.”
Under the guidance of his new friend, José traversed the great square,
the “pleasant hill” of the Incas, through the centre of which the
Huatanay flowed, crossed by numerous footbridges of stone. Then he
ascended the height of Sachsahuaman, and explored, with mingled pride in
the past and bitter indignant sorrow for the present, the ruins of the
great Inca fortress. He made Yupanqui point out to him the spot whence
his grandfather flung himself into the Colcampata. Thence they looked
down on the whole city, which lay beneath them spread out like a map.
“There,” said the old Indian—“there once stood the glorious Curi-cancha,
glittering with gold and gems. What you see now is the temple and house
of the Black Monks. Yet the wall on one side is still standing. Look, you
may know it by its dark colour.”
“But the grand golden door and cornice, the massive golden vases, the
emerald-studded sun—”
“You see all the spoiler has left,” Yupanqui interrupted gloomily.
“Yonder was the palace of our father, Viracocha. The Christians have
built their great temple on its ruins. Those lofty buildings are all
theirs. They take our houses, that have better walls than they can make,
and set their outlandish towers and balconies upon them, as if the roofs
that sheltered princes and heroes were not good enough for them.”
All this, and much more, was poured into the ears of José, while his eyes
were feasted (a mournful festival!) with all that remained of the glories
of the City of the Sun. When, after traversing nearly the whole town
under Yupanqui’s guidance, he reached at last the gate of the Franciscan
monastery, his heart was more full than ever of the wrongs of Tahuantin
Suyu and the crimes of the white man.
The door-keeper informed José that Fray Fernando had left Cuzco that
morning; then asked if he were Don José Viracocha Inca, and on receiving
his answer handed him a billet from the monk. This informed him that
Fray Fernando, on reaching the Franciscan monastery, found a summons
awaiting him from the prior of his order at Lima. The command did not
brook delay; but it was a fortunate circumstance that Don Marcio Serra’s
country residence lay almost in his way, so that he need not forego the
opportunity of obtaining speedy justice for the poor negroes at Cerro
Blanco. He added, that as he did not yet know whither the prior might
intend to send him, it seemed best for his dear son José to remain with
the friends he was certain to find or make at Cuzco amongst his own
people, till he should write directing him to rejoin him, which he would
not fail to do as speedily as he might.
José keenly regretted this sudden and unexpected separation from his
beloved patre. Yet, dearly as he loved Fray Fernando, that love opposed,
after all, but a feeble barrier to the fascination with which his own
race was once more drawing him into its bosom. The spell of its memories,
full of glory—of its wrongs, its hopes, its passions—was laid upon him
more strongly than ever. Day after day did he spend wandering up and down
the streets and squares of the ancient city, the home of his fathers,
examining, with the eager eye of enthusiasm, the ruins of temple, palace,
and fortress, until he knew almost their every stone by heart. Then he
would return to Yupanqui’s house, to drink enchantment of another kind,
as he listened to the sweet Quichua songs of the young princesses,
interchanged his store of national legends with theirs, admired their
skilful spinning and weaving, or aided them in their more graceful work
of fashioning artificial flowers from thin plates and wires of gold and
silver.
He soon became aware that the dwelling of Yupanqui was a gathering-place
for those of the Inca family residing at Cuzco who still in their hearts
detested the rule of the Spaniards; as was the palace of Prince Paullu
on the Colcampata for those who cheerfully accepted the present state of
things. Yupanqui’s guests would drop in—usually by twos and threes—to
share the frugal evening meal of the family, who, like all the Incas,
only ate twice a day—in the early morning, and again at sundown. When,
after they had partaken of the boiled maize seasoned with red pepper,
the bitter herbs, and the charqui, chica was brought in, each would dip
his finger in his cup and sprinkle a few drops in the air by way of
thanksgiving. Then, as they drank together, their conversation was sure
to turn upon the former days that were better than these, and the crimes
and cruelties of the Spaniards. José soon made friends amongst them, and
ere long was on terms of the closest intimacy with his dusky cousins, Don
Fernando, Don Juan, and Don Diego, whom however, he always called by more
uncouth and less familiar ancestral names.
They had all accepted the outward badges of Christianity; indeed, the
rites of their old religion were now forbidden by the conquerors.
Yupanqui was almost the only person who contrived to evade their laws; or
else his disobedience was connived at by the authorities through special
favour. But in fact nearly all the Inca Indians had received the new
faith, not only willingly, but joyfully. José, himself a heathen in his
early childhood, and of late well-nigh moved to cast off Christianity
again by the enormities he had witnessed in its professors, felt and
expressed some astonishment at the unaffected (though unenlightened)
devotion of his kinsmen. But an old Inca, named Maricancha, an intimate
friend of Yupanqui’s, and certainly no well-wisher of the Spaniards, took
him gravely to task for his irreverence. “You must indeed have been
bred in the desert, young man,” he said, “if you never heard the last
charge of the great Huayna Capac, when, in dying, he left his peace with
us. These were his words, hearken well to them: ‘In a few years after my
death a new nation will invade you, and they shall become your lords and
masters. Wherefore I charge you to serve them as men; for _their Law is
better than yours_.’ It was because of these words (confirmed by many
omens of strange significance,[37] which I will relate to you at a more
convenient season), that, when the Spaniards came to us, we received them
as messengers from heaven. We thought them the sons of Viracocha, who
appeared to your father in the plains of Chita; wherefore to this day
many of us call them Viracochas. And we would not hurt or offend them
in any wise, but obeyed them, and believed all they told us. In truth,
we were never conquered,—we were betrayed. Even at Caxa-marca, when
they fell upon us without cause and without warning, in the midst of a
peaceful discourse, and slew us by thousands, was there one of us that so
much as raised his hand against them? Those who stood around Atahualpa
(whom they esteemed for their Inca) shielded him with their own bodies,
and died in silence like the rest, but never struck a blow. Since then
the Spaniards have heaped upon us misery after misery. They themselves,
we suspect now, are the children, not of Pacha-camac, but of Supay.
Still, their Law is good and true, and it is the will of Pacha-camac that
we should receive it.”
Yet these Indians had but a very imperfect knowledge of the faith they
professed so heartily. It had not been difficult for them to pass from
one religion of forms and ceremonies and outward observances to another.
Their children were sprinkled with water instead of having their first
hair cut; their youths were confirmed instead of being belted; they kept
fasts and festivals with different names and at rather different seasons,
but much in the same manner as their fathers; they offered cakes and
flowers to the Madoña instead of to Quilla; and whereas they had been
used to pay homage to canopas and huacas, they now adored equally
numerous santos and santas. Little had been done by their instructors to
stir their intellects; less to touch their hearts. Instead of the bread
of life, for which they asked, the conqueror gave them a stone.
It could not have been otherwise. God honours not hands like those of
the conquistadors of Peru to build His spiritual temple; nor lips like
those of the notorious Valverde, the first bishop of Cuzco, to carry His
message of peace and good-will to men. But it would be unjust to forget
that amongst the Spaniards there were some, both Churchmen and laymen,
who not only deplored in secret, but dared to denounce openly, the crimes
and cruelties of their compatriots. All honour to these truly noble
men, who, if they could not redeem the Spanish name from infamy and the
Spanish race from just retribution, at least delivered their own souls.
In rebuking the sins of their countrymen, they bear mournful and emphatic
witness to the conquered race, that they were a people singularly apt to
learn, if their conquerors had only been as apt to teach. “If God in past
times,” writes one such large-hearted Spaniard,[38] “had granted them men
who with Christian zeal would have given them a full knowledge of our
holy religion, they were a people very open to good impressions, as their
works testify, which remain to this hour.” But the burning anathemas
that fell from the lips of divine love against those “hypocrites who
shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, neither going in themselves
nor suffering them that are entering to go in,” belong not alone to the
scribes and Pharisees of old;—they are the portion of all who tread in
their footprints.
XVI.
A Star.
“And I—my harp should prelude woe—
I cannot all command the strings;
The glory of the sum of things
_Will_ flash along the chords, and go.”
TENNYSON.
Eight or nine months have glided by, all too swiftly, since José
Viracocha became an inmate of Yupanqui’s home, and no tidings from Fray
Fernando have reached him yet.
One afternoon he turned his steps as usual to the cheerful apartment
where the princesses, or _nũstas_, were to be found. The maidens were
seated near the open door; for the daylight was precious, and not too
large a share fell to the lot of the Children of the Sun in dwellings
built by themselves. Sumac was diligently at work on some golden flowers.
Coyllur’s hand was upon her much-loved tinya—the national Peruvian guitar
of seven chords. Both were still dressed in soft, fine robes of gray,
the Incas’ mourning, for the head of their royal house; but Coyllur wore
ornaments that Sumac had discarded. Bands of gold, interwoven with her
beautiful hair, relieved its glossy blackness; which was still further
set off by a simple yet tasteful wreath of red and white begonias.
Both sisters looked up as José entered; but Sumac immediately resumed
her work, without the slightest change of expression in her worn and
sorrowful face, while Coyllur’s large dark eyes beamed with redoubled
lustre, and a visible blush kindled her features through their soft,
dusky hue. José saw no one but her. He approached, and, with tender
reverence in his look and manner, laid at her feet a small fowling-piece.
But the young lady glanced rather doubtfully at this token of homage.
“Are you quite sure, Viracocha,” she asked, “that his mother is not still
inside?”
She merely meant to inquire whether the gun was not still loaded;
the Peruvians styling the spiritual essence which they believed to
inhabit most inanimate things their “mama,” or mother; and Coyllur, not
unnaturally, supposing the charge the spirit of the gun.
“Coyllur nũsta must know that her slave Viracocha would turn the
fire-breathing club ten thousand times against his own breast, rather
than suffer it to hurt a hair of her head,” was José’s answer.
“Viracocha should turn the fire against the enemies of his people.”
“Perhaps, one day—if a star shines on his path to guide him.”
The star beamed brightly enough upon him at that moment: though Coyllur’s
lips were sealed by pride and maidenly reserve, she was too young and
artless to silence the mute eloquence of her eyes.
“How do you prosper in your attempt to teach your companions the use of
that terrible weapon?” she asked presently.
“Well, nũsta. The difficult part of the undertaking was to teach myself
first. That done, the rest is easy enough.”
“I hope the place chosen for your exercise is—_safe_?”
“Safe as the rocks of the Antis. It is the field of Quepaypan, which,
you know, is a good league from the city. Few save our own people ever
come near it; and for fear of any surprise, we have scouts stationed all
around at convenient distances.”
“You should by all means procure a horse. A man looks so brave and noble
upon horseback.”
“You are always right, nũsta. At present, however, that would be
dangerous. We can learn to use our guns, and no Spaniard the wiser; but a
troop of ‘los Indios’ on horseback would scarcely be an agreeable sight
to my lord the Viceroy—at least in his present temper.”
“The bloodthirsty Toledo? May he live to see many sights less agreeable.”
“Ay, nũsta; but the time is not come. You remember the words of the wise
Pacha-cutec—‘Impatience is the sign of a base mind.’”
Here Sumac’s voice, low and soft as the cooing of a dove, broke in with
the request,—
“Wilt thou help me, sister? Thy fingers shape the delicate maize-ears
more deftly than mine.”
“Chachau, since you wish it, my Sumac. But why such haste with the work?”
“I promised the flowers this evening to the nuns of Santa Clara.”
“I am tired of the nuns of Santa Clara,” said Coyllur petulantly. “I
think they would have us work for them like yanaconas.”
“Nay, Coyllur, they are very good to us; they teach us the holy faith.
Besides,” she added, in a somewhat lower tone, “you know how kind the
lady abbess has been in persuading her kinsman the Viceroy to close his
eyes for the present to—to what we are all sorry for.”