these are very beautiful,” said the nun, as she removed the fine cotton
cloth that covered the basket, and took out, with admiring carefulness,
the golden stalks of maize, with their rich golden grains sheathed in
broad leaves of silver, and ornamented with tassels of delicate silver
thread.
“San Martin. Was he the good man who, you told me, gave his cloak to the
beggar? Will he be pleased with our flowers, do you think, mother? I am
glad. But, mother, I want to make some now for our Lord Christ Himself.
May I?”
“When it comes near Easter time, you shall. But now, dear child, the
Lady Abbess bade me tell you she would fain you wrought a few for us,
that we might send them to Spain, as an offering to the Mother House at
Valladolid.”
“You shall have them, mother,” said the girl. “But I would like, best of
all, to make some to give to our Saviour.”
“Give Him your heart, my child. That gift will please Him more than any
other,” said the nun, as she kissed her affectionately. “Now I must
hasten, or I shall have to do a penance for coming late to prayers.”
XVIII.
At Home.
“Trust!—the blessed deathly angels
Whisper Sabbath hours at hand.
By the heart’s wound when most gory
By the longest agony,
Smile!—behold, in sudden glory
The Transfigured smiles on thee!
And ye lifted up your head,
And it seemed as if He said—
‘My beloved, is it so?
Have ye tasted of my woe?
Of my bliss ye shall not fail.’
He stands brightly where the shade is,
With the keys of Death and Hades.”
E. B. BROWNING.
It was midday. Sumac lay sleeping, or seeming to sleep, on a low couch,
called a pununa. A favourite attendant sat near, converting a little heap
of wool into delicate threads by means of a spindle which she turned with
a curiously-carved handle, and looking from time to time, with a mute and
wistful sorrow, on the wasted face of her beloved nũsta.
It has been said that some women “have no language at all for their
profoundest experiences, except to pine away and die.” Of such was
Sumac. We have little right to look down from the proud height of our
“Aryan” or “Caucasian” superiority upon our dusky brethren and sisters,
as though their love and sorrow, compared with ours, “were as moonlight
unto sunlight, or as water unto wine.” Well have the race to which Sumac
belonged asserted their claim to the love that proves itself stronger
than death. Of Sumac’s own kindred was the Inca girl, Manco’s young wife,
who endured every torture the Spaniards could invent without groan or
murmur, and died at last smiling—because she died for him. Which of us
could do more for earthly, not to say for heavenly love? And frail and
shadowy as Sumac looked, within her slight frame there dwelt a spirit
capable of the same devotion.
Viracocha entered the room gently through the open door, opposite to
which Sumac’s couch had been placed. He was now dressed in full Inca
costume. Above his uncu, with its belt of embroidered cloth, he wore a
short mantle of vicuña wool, white and very fine, and adorned with a
broad yellow border. On his head was a stately cap or coronal of egret’s
feathers, bearing underneath the much-prized sacred cord of yellow and
carnation, the insignia of the Children of the Sun. Viracocha was “a very
handsome youth, well-shaped, and of a lovely countenance, as were all
the other Incas.”[39] His chest was broad, his limbs slight, his head
well-formed and graceful, his complexion a comely olive-brown; the oval
face smooth as a maiden’s, yet thoroughly manly in expression—the parted
lips revealing snow-white teeth—the nose aquiline—the eyes black and
piercing, but capable of the tenderest softness—the black hair worn short
according to custom, but very abundant and beautifully fine and glossy.
No wonder that such a youth was considered a highly ornamental addition
to the numerous and splendid religious processions, upon the effect
of which the Spanish friars seem to have placed their main reliance
for the conversion of the Indians. He was also received into the best
Spanish society Cuzco afforded, and pronounced by the Dons whom he
enjoyed the privilege of meeting at the house of Doña Beatriz Coya and
elsewhere, “_Homo tan formal y complida que Nosotros_”—(As formal and
well-bred a man as Ourselves)—a high eulogium from Spanish lips. The
Inca’s son was a gentleman as truly as any European prince or noble. He
had not to learn courtesy from the Spaniards; he had but to translate
its outward expression from the language of one set of observances into
that of another. Moreover, Viracocha was born a poet; and the perilously
sensitive and susceptible organization has its compensating advantages.
At least, it enables a man to adapt himself to circumstances, not
hypocritically affecting what he does not feel, but throwing himself
readily into different forms of feeling. Ministering to Fray Fernando,
pleading with unaffected eloquence the cause of his people, planning
their deliverance, making love to Coyllur, taking part in a Corpus
Christi procession, or exchanging Castilian courtesies in pure Castilian
speech with the gentlemen of the Viceroy’s suite, Viracocha was still,
for the time being, “a whole man to that one thing,” doing it with all
his heart, and consequently doing it well. But this, though it was not
hypocrisy, might yet easily become so.
All this time he is standing motionless, patiently waiting to be assured
whether Sumac sleeps or not. At last his patience is rewarded—the girl
opens her large languid eyes, and looks the question she does not need to
speak.
“Dear nũsta, I have not been successful,” said Viracocha gently, as he
came to her side, “although I preferred my request to the great mother of
all the holy virgins.”
“To the Mother Abbess?”
“Yes. I entreated her, for the love of God, to allow Sister Maria to come
and see you. But she refused me. She says it is against their law for any
holy virgin to leave the house.”
“So near—only a few steps from their garden gate to this!” said Sumac
plaintively.
“The Mother said that to permit it would be a great sin. But to speak
plainly, nũsta, I think she is no better than an ugly old toad. If sin
there be, what should hinder her doing penance?”
The Lady Abbess, it must be owned, had not been particularly courteous to
Viracocha, whom she regarded as her nephew’s rival; nor very anxious to
grant the request of which he was the bearer from the sister of Coyllur,
who had of late bestowed sundry spirited rebuffs on that young nobleman.
“Then I shall never see Mamallay again!” said Sumac sadly, large
tears gathering in her eyes. Presently she spoke to the attendant,
“Amancaes,[40] bring me my book.”
Sumac possessed a book, which she regarded with half-superstitious awe
as a wonderful and mysterious treasure, and with intense affection as
the gift of her beloved “Mamallay.” It was a small, brown, well-worn
volume—“The Sum of Christian Doctrine,” by Fray Constantino Ponce de la
Fuente. Sister Maria had taught her to read, but she was far from perfect
in the art; and if she had been, much that the book contained was quite
beyond her comprehension.
She took it reverently in her thin hands and opened its first page. Some
faded writing was there, upon which she pressed her lips fondly once and
again. Then, showing it to Viracocha—“That is Mamallay’s name,” she said;
“the name she had before she became a holy virgin.”
With some difficulty Viracocha read the name, which was traced faintly,
in a delicate female hand—“Doña Rosa de Merçedes y Guevara.”
“Yes, that was her name—Rosa. It is the name of a fragrant flower that
grows beyond the Mother Sea,—they say nothing like it was ever seen in
our country till the Spaniards brought it over. The book was made by a
good man—a great speaker, who used to tell the people to be good, as
the Dominicans do in the great church on saints’ days. Mamallay loved
his words; she says no one else ever spoke to her heart as he did. But
afterwards he did something wicked: I know not what, I only know they
put him in prison. Yet the book is very good, and full of words about
our Lord. His name comes often. I cannot read the hard words; but I
can read _that_, and it does me good.” She paused to take breath, then
resumed—“But you are wise, Viracocha. You know the white man’s learning.
So I wish you, when I go away, to have my book for your own. My other
things (they are not many) my grandfather will have, and Coyllur. But my
book shall be yours, because you can read it, and because I love you,
brother.”
“I thank you, dear nũsta. But I hope you will live a long time yet.”
“It is not best for me to live. The Lord Christ knows that. How good
He is! He saw me standing, all this time, outside the gate. He knew I
longed—oh, how sorely!—to go in. But I would not until He called; no, I
would not! Now He has called. Mamallay said so the last day I saw her.
She told me His words,—‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.’ His own words, Viracocha!”
But Viracocha cared not for them just then. He did not labour, nor was he
heavy laden.
Sumac presently resumed—“My brother, since I have grown too weak to walk
to the convent garden, I have much time for thinking. And as I think,
things grow clear to me. Best it seems to me now that you should wed my
sister.”
“That is my dearest hope—one day.”
“But, Viracocha, life is too short to be waiting for ‘one day.’ Why not
ask my grandfather to give her to you now?”
Viracocha’s black eyes became coals of fire, and his cheek burned through
its olive hue;—but he was silent.
“Well?”—Sumac whispered.
“Ask him to give me Chasca, the evening star, from the sky! No,
nũsta,—no! Not till I shall have done that which may give me right to
claim a boon so priceless.”
“What is it you want to do?” the dying girl asked wistfully.
“Nũsta, you know.”
“I am not sure I do, you talk of so many strange things. Yet I can guess.
You want to cross the Mother Sea, Viracocha.”
“_Arri! arri!_[41] And to come back with an English army, sent by the
great King, to restore the Inca. And then, as the deliverer of my people,
to kneel and claim Coyllur nũsta.”
“Viracocha! Viracocha!” said the dying girl, raising herself upon her
couch, and looking with imploring earnestness into his face,—“I know
where that will end. And I know, too, how the Spanish steel wounds—not
the flesh it falls on—_that_ pang was short, thank God!—but the heart
that loves. One of us is enough to bear that, Viracocha; do not lay it
upon Coyllur.”
“God knows I would not cause her a pang for all that earth contains.”
“I see great sorrows, like great clouds, hanging over you,” Sumac went on
sadly. “That Spaniard wants to have Coyllur.”
“_Aucca!_ I will fight him some day, and with his own weapons. The
Spaniards shall see for once how an Inca can use them. The first time
I met him, he would fain have struck me with his whip.” (For the young
cavalier whom José had encountered the day of his arrival in Cuzco,
proved to be no other than Don Francisco Solis de Toledo; a circumstance
which intensified their mutual distrust and dislike.) “It was—that,
however, does not matter now,” said José, checking himself suddenly as he
remembered _what_ had taken place that very day.
“But he will not fight you, Viracocha. He knows better He will have you
killed. The Spaniards do what they please. They are strong.”
“God is stronger, Sumac nũsta.”
“He is,” Sumac answered quietly. “But He did not bid you fight Don
Francisco; nor go in search of the English.”
“That I question. I believe He calls me to seek the great King who will
deliver the poor when he crieth.”
Here the conversation was brought to a close by the entrance of Coyllur,
who had been visiting her aunt, and brought to her sister delicious
Spanish sweetmeats flavoured with orange-flower water, the gift of that
kind-hearted lady.
Never again had Viracocha opportunity for quiet talk with Sumac. From
that time she grew rapidly worse. Pain and weakness claimed her for their
own. She bore them very patiently, and faced the quickly-approaching end
with a calmness more gentle and tender than the usual stoicism of her
race.
Almost to the last the frail wasted fingers sought the familiar work, and
feebly twisted the threads of golden wire. If Coyllur or her attendants
remonstrated, she would say, “You know they are for the Lord Christ. They
must be ready for Easter.”
They were ready for Easter. They filled a place among the glittering
decorations of the high altar in the Church of Santa Clara. But ere the
Easter bells began to ring, the gentle Inca girl had closed her eyes upon
a world she was little loath to leave.
Every rite of the creed she professed had been duly afforded her. She
confessed, communicated, and had extreme unction with all the proper
forms, but with a very misty and imperfect apprehension of what was being
done for her. If these things cannot help, neither may they hinder, the
soul that trusts in God’s mercy through Christ. As the dew ascends from
earth to heaven, unbidden, uncontrolled by man, so poor Sumac’s simple
prayer ascended straight to the throne of God—“Good Lord Christ, take me
to Thyself.”
Old Yupanqui, who hid a broken heart beneath a coldly impassive exterior,
could not refuse his beloved grand-daughter’s last request—that he would
receive Christian baptism. Accordingly he submitted to the rite on
Whitsunday—though with little comprehension of its significance.
“I will do what she wished,” he said to Viracocha. “And after all, if I
were now to go and dwell with my fathers in the Mansions of the Sun, they
might not know me, or they might look upon me with scorn, because we are
not what we were, in the old days when they ruled the land.”
“At least, my father,” Viracocha answered, “you cannot doubt it would be
well for all of us to follow whither she is gone.”
XIX.
The Star Shines.
“From the beautiful face of my love,
They call her Coyllur.
It was by reason of her beauty
A harmonious name.
Like the moon in its splendour
Is her bright forehead,
When it shines in brilliancy
In the highest heaven.”
_From “Ollantā,” an Ancient Inca Drama._
Coyllur’s grief for her sister was poignant. The girls were tenderly
attached to each other, and had never since infancy been separated for
a single day. Sumac’s sorrow bound them only more closely together; and
during her long illness Coyllur had waited on her with the most assiduous
affection. She was in consequence little able to bear the severe fasts
and strict seclusion which the Peruvian customs imposed upon mourners;
and erelong old Yupanqui began to look with keen apprehension on her
drooping form—dreading, not without reason, lest the last joy and solace
of his declining years should be taken from him. Viracocha’s alarm was
not less than his.
Both welcomed the gentle authority with which Doña Beatriz Coya
insisted on removing her niece to her own more cheerful dwelling. For
the Inca buildings, admirable as they were for “simplicity, symmetry,
solidity,”[42] and wonderfully fitted to resist the ravages of time and
the shocks of earthquakes, were rather dull places of abode for ladies.
It was new life to Coyllur to welcome the flood of sunshine through
the strange luxury of windows; or, seated in the pleasant balcony,
to contemplate at her ease the never-ending marvels of the square
below. There the stately church processions wound along with all their
glittering show; there the Spanish soldiers mustered in shining armour;
and, best of all, there rode the splendid, haughty Spanish cavaliers,
managing their noble steeds with consummate ease and grace, not quite
unconscious of the dark eyes that were watching them with interest.
Moreover, Coyllur nũsta had a pretty sleeping-chamber in her aunt’s
house, which boasted a window also. It was pleasant, in the delicious
tropical nights, to lie waking on a couch draped with dainty stuffs
from Spain, and to listen the while to sweet music—more scientific and
harmonious than that of the ruder instruments of her native land—from the
guitar attuned by a skilful hand to the melodies of Spain.
Had such reached the ear of Viracocha, they would have moved him to
indignant sorrow. Better far for both had he laid Sumac’s warning to
heart and acted upon it; but sentiments of honour, which ruled his soul
as absolutely as that of any “preux chevalier” of the Old World, utterly
forbade his claiming the prize he longed for until he had won it by some
deed of signal merit. Nor would Yupanqui, in all probability, much as he
loved him, have allowed his suit if preferred too soon.
While awaiting the opportunity for this, he bent all his energies to the
task of making himself worthy of Coyllur. The grand-daughter of the great
Huayna Capac stood very near that golden throne, which, though it existed
in imagination only, was about the most real thing in earth or heaven to
José Viracocha.
He studied diligently, learning “the Humanities,” as taught in Europe,
from a Dominican monk, and the more mysterious and difficult science of
the Quipus from an aged Indian, who had been a Quipu-comayoc[43] in the
days of the Incas. He procured one of the rare and costly maps of the
period, which, full of blunders as it was, yet gave him a better idea
of the world he lived in than he had before. Lastly, he became a more
accomplished marksman with the Spaniards’ own formidable weapon than many
of the Spaniards themselves, and learned to compete successfully with the
best of them in fencing and cane-playing.
All this time he had not forgotten Fray Fernando. Not a day passed in
which the man who for more than seven years had been to him as a father
was not present to his thoughts. Warm and grateful affection, not unmixed
with reverential compassion for sorrows vaguely guessed, gathered around
his image. Yet not the less did Viracocha belong to his own people and to
Coyllur. His place and his work were with these, not with the Spaniards.
It may seem strange that he did not try to communicate with Fray Fernando
by letter, since he could write very well; but the idea of writing a
letter was so foreign to all his habits and associations, that it never
occurred to him. And had he thought of it, whither was he to send the
letter when written? Even if the monk’s present address had been known to
him, only half of the difficulty would have been obviated; for under the
Spanish government no regular system of posts had replaced the admirable
and efficient chasquis of the Incas.
Shortly after Coyllur’s departure to the house of her aunt, Viracocha
left Cuzco on a mysterious errand. The Spaniards were informed he was
going to visit his friends and kinsfolk at Nasca. And not even amongst
themselves did the Indians speak freely of his objects or destination.
Only the initiated knew that he was to pass in disguise up and down the
country, to ascertain the real state of the minds of his people, and
to reawaken slumbering hopes of the restoration of the Incas. He had
also to give signs and pass-words, to collect and transmit tidings, and
to arrange secret meetings; but all these things were shrouded in the
greatest possible mystery.
He may have had something both to ascertain and to command on the subject
of the hoards of gold and silver which were buried by the Indians at the
conquest, to be disinterred whenever a prince of their own race should
require them, and not till then. But whatever might be doubtful about
Viracocha’s mission, one thing at least was certain,—the young envoy went
forth taking his life in his hand.
Ere he left Cuzco, he paid a farewell visit at the mansion of Doña
Beatriz Coya. And here, on entering the low and sloping doorway which
formed part of the original Inca building—the ground-floor of the present
mansion—he encountered his rival, Don Francisco Solis, who was just
passing out. They exchanged a cold and haughty salutation; each regarding
the other with cordial hatred. Viracocha saw the Spanish knight vault
lightly into the saddle of his noble steed, held for him at the door by a
mulatto page, and for the hundredth time envied him his mastery over the
proud and beautiful creature. Then turning, he sought the apartment where
Coyllur was to be found; and as fortune favoured him, she was alone.
His lips at last unsealed by the approaching separation, and the
consciousness that he was about to hazard all for the cause dearest to
the hearts of both, he said a thousand things in the soft musical “lengua
del Inca,” which would not bear translation. The hour was rapturous,
but all too brief, and bounded by that terrible parting. Already he
had risen from his place at her feet, and received the pretty Spanish
“Vaya con Dios,” which she added to the Quichua “Paccaricama,” when his
eye rested on a pair of perfumed Spanish leather gloves, embroidered
with seedling pearls, lying beside the guitar, her aunt’s recent gift.
Instinct revealed the donor: he saw in them the homage of his rival, and
the countenance of Viracocha fell.
Coyllur noticed the change, and said, not without confusion, “They are
pretty, Viracocha. He would leave them;—but I do not value them.”
“They are not worthy to touch the pure hands of my nũsta,” said
Viracocha, with a scornful glance at the dainty trifles. “No Child of the
Sun is ever adorned with pearls, since they cannot be obtained without
risk of life.” (A beautiful trait, recorded by Garçilasso de la Vega of
his Inca forefathers.)
But Coyllur thought not of the old Incas, her forefathers—she thought
only of the young Inca standing before her, whose looks were far more
eloquent than words.
“I care nothing for such Spanish trumpery,” she said, as, taking the
gloves, she flung them from the open window, over the balcony, down into
the square beneath.
Viracocha’s countenance softened—brightened into restful assurance. “It
is well,” he answered. “Now I go. Will my nũsta give me a token—a flower
to keep for her sake?”
And selecting, from a vase which lay before her on the table, a rich
crimson tintin, or passion-flower, Coyllur placed it in the hand of
Viracocha, who kissed it and laid it in his bosom. So they parted.
XX.
The Star Sets.
“Untrue! untrue! O morning star—O mine!
That sitteth secret in a veil of light
Far up the starry spaces—say untrue!
Speak but so loud as doth a Tyrrhene moon
To wasted waters.”
E. B. BROWNING.
About ten months afterwards, Viracocha came back. He bent his steps,
in the first instance, to the dwelling of Yupanqui. But there all was
changed, except the familiar walls,—those adamantine Inca walls, which
still defy the hand of time, and the far less gentle touch of man.
Even these, however, were hardly visible through the heaps of stones,
of timber, and of mortar that lay around them. With these materials, a
second story, after the Spanish fashion, was being added to the Inca’s
house. A Spanish master-builder was overlooking the work, and directing
the labours of a crowd of Indians and negroes. But no one could give
Viracocha any information about the former occupants of the dwelling.
Turning away from them, he crossed the square towards the mansion of Doña
Beatriz Coya. On one of the stone footbridges he encountered Sumac’s old
attendant, Amancaes. The poor woman threw herself at his feet, and kissed
his dress. He raised her, spoke a few kindly words of greeting, and
asked for news of the household.