shouts of the bystanders, and the blows of their goads and sticks. He
broke out of the line; and, not knowing his real tormentors, stood
roaring and pawing with fury. At last he put his head down as if he meant
mischief, and made a determined rush at a dainty young hidalgo who had
been doing nothing at all, but who happened to be dressed that day in a
new scarlet doublet with a montero to match. He was a brave man, and had
his tool ready in an instant. Still, it might have gone hard with him,
only that I, knowing the business, snatched a long knife from a butcher
who stood at the door of his stall, and turned the creature’s rage
against myself. I managed to keep him busy till they rescued me. I could
have killed him, of course; but I knew better. Who, I pray you, was to
pay for him if I did?”
“I hope the gentleman you rescued paid you?” Walter threw in.
“Oh yes; he behaved well to me. He would gladly have ransomed me, but
that could not be. So he lined my pocket with good gold doubloons, and
procured me every favour and indulgence in his power. But, enough of
me.—Señor Indio, your turn is come now. Slaves though we may be, we like
to thank our benefactors, and it is therefore only in reason that we
should know their names.”
“You will be little advantaged by knowing mine. Your countrymen call me
Don José Viracocha Inca.”
From the much prized Spanish title all present gathered that their Indian
friend was a person of distinction; but the rest fell unnoticed on every
ear save that of Walter, who started and looked up, with curiosity and
interest in his face.
It is not true that romance dies quickly, blighted by the frosts of cold
reality. On the contrary, no part of our being is more tenacious of life.
It partakes of the nature of perfume,—spiritual, intangible, apparently
evanescent, yet lingering strangely and mysteriously in the withered leaf
or blossom long after the bright colours have faded, and the very garden
where they bloomed has become a desolate waste. The Indian’s quaint,
high-sounding name had in it a perfume of old romance that brought back
the thoughts of Walter Grey to the familiar room where he had first read
the story of Pizarro’s daring and his guilt, and where his young heart
had first kindled over those wild, splendid dreams of the lake of Parima,
and of the golden city of Manoa. He had a hundred questions to ask the
Indian, who soon afforded him an opportunity of putting them, by passing
along the benches to distribute the contents of his fruit basket, and
stopping, as he always did, near Walter.
José briefly satisfied his curiosity. Yes, he was really a Child of the
Sun. Was he proud of his origin? An expressive smile was the answer. Did
he worship the sun? No, assuredly; he was a Christian. “But,” leaning
over Walter and whispering, “I have hopes of obtaining from the señor
commandante permission for you to come on shore. Then I will tell you of
my people; and you, in return, will tell me of yours.”
“Don José Viracocha Inca, what has moved you to show me such singular
kindness?”
José lowered his voice still further. “You are an Englishman, therefore
the Inca’s friend,” he murmured.
Walter looked up wondering. “If in any way I could reward you—,” he began.
“That you can. When you regain your freedom and go home, tell your King
what I have just said.”
He was gone ere Walter could answer that he was never likely to go home.
“Matador,” he said that night to his companion, “I am troubled about our
Indian friend. What can I do to recompense him? I shall never see my home
again—how, then, can I tell king or queen of his strange kindness and
friendship?”
“Tell it to the great King,” said the old galley-slave in reply.
XXVIII.
The King of the East.
“He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame, and pain,
Dying the death, whose signs remain,
Up yonder on the accursed tree,
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, all in all,
King of kings and Lord of lords,
As his servant John received the words,
‘I died, and live for evermore.’”
R. BROWNING.
José’s heart was glad within him. For Fray Fernando had at last obtained
permission for the slaves of the _San Cristofero_ to come by turns to
his lodging that they might make confession of their sins, and receive
private religious instruction and consolation. It is true that the señor
commandante had shrugged his shoulders rather scornfully at the request;
while the captain had hinted that the trouble the good friar was taking
about the souls of the rowers was nearly as superfluous as that of “the
over-clean Harcajo people, who wax their asses’ feet.” But both had very
good reasons for not crossing his whims, even if they had been still
more unaccountable. Nor was there really anything objectionable in his
proposal, since he made himself personally responsible for the safe
keeping of all the prisoners.
So the poor wretches were allowed to come, two and two together, to the
humble lodging of the friar; and many a fearful tale of guilt and shame
did they pour into his ear. They were a motley crew. Some of them were
Spaniards from the mother country, but a large proportion were Creoles,
and there were some Mulattoes, and even two or three Negroes amongst them.
“Poor fellows!” said José compassionately, “one can give them at least a
bath, a change of clothing, and a good meal!”
“It is easy for you, José. You only see those low wants of the body that
you can supply, or at least alleviate,” Fray Fernando answered sadly. He
was sitting at the table, his head resting upon his hands—an image of
despondency. “Who will find me a bath for those sin-stained souls—clean
raiment to cover them in God’s sight and their own—bread for their bitter
hunger of heart?”
“But, patre,” said José again, “you surely can do all that yourself.
Else, why are you a patre? Are not the Sacraments for that?”
Fray Fernando sighed. A chill misgiving, that the remedies did not after
all reach the seat of the disease, was sinking gradually into his soul.
Those degraded beings, into the core of whose hearts sin had eaten like
a canker—was any moral restoration possible for them? And without moral
restoration, could the spiritual cure he professed to work be real or
effectual? What good in giving them absolution from the blasphemies of
yesterday, when, through the partition that divided his chamber from
José’s, he could hear the new score begun almost ere they had left his
presence? Could the conscience indeed be cleansed whilst the heart and
the lips remained so fearfully unclean?
Amongst the saddest moments in a man’s life are those in which he begins
to suspect the sovereign efficacy of those remedies for the ills of
humanity in which hitherto he has trusted without question. They may not,
perhaps, have availed for him; but that, he has told himself, is his own
fault—he has not applied them rightly. An undercurrent of hope remains
that he may do so yet, or that others may do it for him. He may be dying
of thirst, yet still the waters of Shiloh go softly; his wound may ache
unhealed, yet still there is balm in Gilead. But who shall bring help or
comfort to his despairing soul if once he surmises that the fountain is
not in Shiloh, that there is no balm in Gilead, nor any physician there?
Hitherto Fray Fernando had blamed himself; he had not doubted his Church.
Her mystic sacraments brought no mystic blessing to him, only because he
did not fulfil the indispensable conditions of blessing. That they could
bring no blessing to others was a new, and, as it then seemed to him, a
still more terrible thought.
“Patre,” José resumed, little guessing what was passing in his patron’s
mind—“patre, _my_ friend comes to-day. I know you will be very kind to
him for José’s sake.”
“For _your_ sake, surely! But a galley-slave is a strange friend for Don
José—the Child of the Sun. What have you seen in this youth?”
José answered evasively, “He is so young, patre, to have suffered so
much. And he has hair like the tears of Ynty, and eyes the colour of the
cloudless sky. Moreover, he is gentle; and he never uses oaths or evil
words.”
“Ah! I have observed that myself. I know something of his story: his case
is a singular one.”
Fray Fernando was aware that Walter Grey had been a prisoner of the
Inquisition. And he surmised that the “penitence” that saved his life
was not, probably, the most sincere in the world. If he were a Dominican
friar, with heart and soul devoted to the interests of the Holy Office,
he might seek for symptoms of a “relapse”—but he was nothing of the kind;
he had no wish to meddle in such matters. Whatever he might suspect, or
even ascertain, the poor lad should be safe with him, unless he should
prove himself unworthy of favour. He said aloud: “You may trust me, José.
I will be kind to your friend.”
“Thank you, patre.—Ah! here they come. That tall, brown, bent man is
called the matador. He and the Englishman are friends.”
Fray Fernando went to the door to meet his guests, whom he welcomed with
the customary “_Pax vobiscum_.” They bowed; the old man bending low, the
younger slightly, like an English gentleman acknowledging the salutation
of an equal.
According to custom, José set a substantial meal before the visitors.
It was not, indeed, usual to partake of food before attending the
confessional; but the case of these poor half-starved galley-slaves
was peculiar, and in Fray Fernando’s judgment it required peculiar
treatment. Whilst they did ample justice to the repast, he would enter
freely into conversation with them; and endeavour, in a friendly manner,
to learn something of their history. Generally they were disposed to
be communicative; being pleased to find themselves listened to with
interest, and not without hope of future benefits. But these two were
very silent. Walter’s mind was greatly disturbed, on account of the
impending interview with the monk. Most gladly would he have avoided
the visit, if he could have done so without exciting suspicion, or
rather, without actually proclaiming himself a heretic, who refused the
sacraments of the Church. But as it happened, this scheme of his Indian
friend, devised for his special benefit, was but too likely to prove his
undoing. During the meal, he ate little and spoke less, awaiting, with
mingled feelings, the dreaded summons to the confessional.
The matador, from long habit, was silent; but his eyes often sought
the face of the monk, as if finding a strange attraction there.
Something, indeed, there was that affected him like the strain of some
half-forgotten melody, which the memory can neither wholly grasp nor let
altogether go.
Fray Fernando did not pay any particular attention to him, but observed
the young Englishman with much compassion. Guessing pretty accurately
what was passing in his mind, and willing to end his suspense, he
departed from his usual practice by giving precedence to the younger.
“I see, my young friend,” he said, “that you have finished your repast.
I will therefore hear your confession first. Come with me.” And, rising
from his seat, he led the way into the inner chamber, where was his
oratory and confessional.
Anxiously had Walter prepared himself for this hour. He had planned and
pondered, and formed many a resolution, which he dismissed, and then
formed again, as to how he should speak, how he should act, when the
important moment arrived. But now all vanished utterly from his memory. A
strength and calmness, never felt before, descended suddenly upon him. No
thought of fear occurred to him, nor indeed any thought at all save the
one which wholly filled his heart. He was called to confess. And like a
lightning flash, came those words across his mind: “He that confesseth me
before men, him will I also confess before my Father and before the holy
angels.” Repeating them over to himself, he followed Fray Fernando into
the inner room.
José kindled a light for the matador, and supplied him with tobacco, and
with a quaint cumbrous pipe covered with Indian carving. From what he had
seen of the man, he respected and liked him; but neither had any wish to
converse with the other. So they sat together in perfect silence, quite
content to wait, and to enjoy their own meditations.
They could hear the voices of the monk and his penitent plainly enough,
the thin partition being of cane covered with plaster. First, that of
the young Englishman—calm, earnest, solemn—“I desire to confess”—but
the end of the sentence escaped them. Then Fray Fernando’s voice,
earnest also,—not quite his ordinary professional tone, which was well
known to José. Then both, succeeding each other rapidly, sometimes even
mingling, as the voices of men who dispute, and rather hotly. Then a
brief sentence, mournfully spoken by Fray Fernando. Then, once more,
the voice of Walter Grey, so full, so calm, so harmonious, that José
thought he must be reciting some sweet yaravi of his native land, instead
of making confession of his sins. Then a pause, followed by some low
quiet words from Fray Fernando. These appeared to end the interview. A
movement was heard within, and in another moment Fray Fernando opened the
door. “Remember, I give you time,” they heard him say. “You are under my
instruction. I must see you as often as I can.”
Walter Grey bowed, and walked into the outer room. Released from the
hateful oar, he looked tall and stately; and in spite of his ragged
jerkin and fettered ankles, a true English gentleman—“a Child of the
Sun,” José called him in his heart. He placed himself in the seat at the
table from which the matador had just risen, and resting his face upon
his hands, seemed lost in thought.
The silence that followed was really hard for José to bear; he had
hoped such great things from this interview, and taken such pains to
procure it. Yet he respected the Englishman too much to intrude on his
meditations. He waited for some time with exemplary patience; but at
last, growing desperate from the fear of losing altogether the only
opportunity he might ever enjoy, he ventured to ask,—
“Señor Englishman, will you speak with me?”
Walter Grey started, uncovered his face, and turned his frank blue eyes
upon José, whose presence, up to that moment, he had completely forgotten.
“I should be ungrateful indeed if I would not, Don José,” he answered.
“What do you want with me?”
“I have somewhat to say to you; somewhat also to hear from your lips,”
said José, in his grave, sententious way. Then, rising from his seat, he
stood before the Englishman.
For a minute’s space each gazed at the other in silence. They were a
strange contrast—the Inca Indian and the Anglo-Saxon,—the heir of a
civilization that had played out its part in the world’s history and was
now fast fading, and the representative of the great race that held the
world’s future in its hand, and was destined to slay the slayer, and to
spoil the spoiler, of Tahuantin Suyu. It was like the morning sun looking
in through unclosed windows on the pale tinted gleam of an alabaster
lamp, accidentally left burning still—though its work was done and its
use over.
José, like Walter, had prepared diligently for this hour; but unlike him,
he did not at the critical moment forget all he had to say. Still it was
with something like hesitation that he began,—
“Señor Englishman, you inquired my name the other day—”
“And gladly do I offer my grateful thanks to Don José Viracocha Inca for
a thousand kindnesses,” Walter said heartily.
“Listen! There are three names there. _Don José_, my Spanish name, is
like that.” He unclasped his mantle and flung it from him, standing
before Walter in his simple tunic of fine white cotton, fastened at the
waist by an embroidered belt. “It is an outside garment, assumed, thrown
off, as lightly. And no dearer do I hold my Spanish manners, and tongue,
and learning. Then, there remains _Viracocha_, the name my mother gave
me when she had my first hair cut. That is my own name,—myself. It means
‘Foam of the Sea.’ Well, let that go too! Let the foam flash and fade
and die away into nothing! Who cares? It was never meant to last. But
there remains still the best, the most precious name of all.—No nobler,
I think, is spoken anywhere on earth.—That shall last, when all the rest
have perished. I am _Inca_, Child of the Sun.
“Yes, Señor Englishman, I repeat it proudly, Child of the Sun. I know
what I say. In the midst of our sorrow and degradation, I can smile
myself for very scorn at the insolent scorn of the Spaniards, who call
this a vain heathenish superstition of ours. How are children known save
by their likeness to their father? And my race bore their father’s image,
plain as the light of day. Like Ynty the glorious, they shed abroad life,
joy, fruitfulness, far and wide, wherever their sway extended. I tell
you, Englishman, in days to come, you will find our tongue spoken, our
name honoured, our laws reverenced, far away amongst wild tribes you have
not dreamed of yet. For we were great kings and mighty conquerors; and it
was our glory that we did not reign or conquer for ourselves.
“But the Spaniards came, few in number, yet so strong. Why has God given
the white man such terrible strength? They had fire-breathing clubs,
and horses, and great ships. But more than all these, they had strange
craft and cunning, wherewith they deceived us. They called themselves
messengers of God, and we believed them.” José paused sorrowfully.
“I know the story of the conquest of Peru,” Walter threw in, thinking to
spare him a painful recital.
“Peru!” José repeated with a smile. “What is Peru? That barbarous word
was not known amongst us until the Spaniards came. Yet it is meet they
should call the land by a new name. Tahuantin Suyu, the empire of my
fathers, they have never known,—and never shall they know! But again I
tell you, Señor Englishman, Tahuantin Suyu is not dead. No! though they
have laid waste her fair fields and terraced hills, and destroyed her
roads and water-courses—No! though they have steeped the land in blood,
from the Mother Sea to the White Mountains, and again from the White
Mountains to the pathless forest—No! though they have taken the true
heir of Manco Capac, and dragged him to Cuzco, and though I have seen—I
myself—his head fall beneath the Spanish axe. No!—_The Inca will reign
again._”
José’s hope was buried, but it was still there. Like the treasures of
Yupanqui, of which the secret hiding-place had been revealed to him by
Maricancha, who had himself helped to inter them, he knew where to find
it, and could produce it when he chose.
The firm conviction and the intense earnestness that breathed in his
every look and tone, impressed Walter Grey. He asked, as Fray Fernando
long ago had asked, “How know you that?”
José took up a curious, many-tinted shell which lay on the table. “There,
put that to your ear, Señor Hualter” (the nearest approach he could make
to the pronunciation of “Walter”). “Do you hear nothing?”
“I hear a murmur, like that of the ocean.”
“What does that murmur say?”
Walter smiled as he answered, “I scarcely know. Perhaps—that it has come
from the ocean, its home.”
“True,” said José. “And thus I too have put my ear to the beating heart
of my people. I hear a murmur there, never ceasing, never changing. That
murmur says, ‘The Inca shall reign again!’”
There was a pause. Walter looked at him, wondering, interested, yet
bewildered.
“Shall I tell you something else which is murmured in the heart of my
people?” José resumed. “There are dim prophecies floating here and there
amongst us, of strangers, great and brave—fair-haired, bearded, children
of light—yet to come from beyond the Mother Sea, who shall avenge our
wrongs, and help to restore our ancient dominion.”
Walter’s eyes kindled, but he did not speak.
“Señor Englishman, I read in your face that you understand me.”
“Yes—oh yes! Would that we could help you!”
“You _can_ help. All is not yet told. I have learned, by long silent
thought and study, that the Spaniards too have prophecies—strange
prophecies—telling of a king to come, and from you.”
“From us? From our nation? Do you mean an Englishman?”
“Yes. An Englishman—a Jew. A son of David, your king.”
Walter looked blank astonishment. “You are under some strange delusion,”
he said. “We are not Jews; nor was David our king.”
“You are heretics, are you not? And heretics are Jews.”
“Heretics indeed they call us; but we are not Jews. Don José, did your
padre teach you this?”
Walter’s surprise was not unmixed with amusement; but José was profoundly
earnest, and moved to his inner depths. “The patre,” he explained, “is
wise and good. But he dared not teach me, what none of his people would
wish ours to know, that there will yet be a greater king than theirs.
Nay, it may be that they themselves do not understand, or believe, that
their boasted empire is doomed one day to fall in the dust before that
great Inca of the West, who ‘shall have dominion from sea to sea, and
from the river even unto the ends of the earth!’”
A faint glimmer of light now began to break on Walter’s mind. “You are
quoting Holy Scripture,” he said.
José sought Fray Fernando’s Breviary, and opening at the Seventy-second
Psalm, he pointed to it, saying, “You will understand it, because it is
written in your own language.”
“Latin is not my language,” explained Walter, “but I can read it.” And
his eyes rested on the page, whilst his bewildered mind strove in vain to
find a clue by which to unravel José’s tangle of ideas.
José drew nearer. “Kind and good Englishman,” he entreated, “tell me who
that king is, and where I shall find him.”
Walter looked up from the book, and gazed at him intently. “Do you indeed
desire to know?” he asked.
“Does the thirsting earth desire the rain of heaven? Have I not made
a solemn vow that I will lay the cause of my people at his feet, and
implore him to do justice and judgment between us and the Spaniards?”
Walter pondered. “I fear you will be troubled, disappointed, when you
hear all,” he said at last.
“Only try me.”
“That King,” said Walter gravely, “is reigning even now; though not
in England, nor in Spain. Hearken, Don José. Long ago He came to the
people of His choice. But they rejected, insulted, slew Him. Yet He will
come again, perhaps soon; and take to Him His great power, and reign
in righteousness over all the earth, from the rising of the sun till
the going down thereof. Of that reign, all kings who have ever reigned
in righteousness and judged the poor and needy—as David and Solomon;
even, for aught I know, as your own Incas—have given the world imperfect
images, and a faint shadow. All the hopes they have awakened He will
fulfil.”
“They slew Him?—yet He will come again?” José questioned, his eyes
intently reading the face of Walter.
Then there was a pause. At length, drawing from its place in his chuspa,
or coca-bag, a little crucifix Fray Fernando had given him, he kissed it,
laid it reverently down, and made the sign of the cross upon his forehead.
“Yes, you are right,” Walter went on. “_He_ is the great King. He it
is who shall judge the people with righteousness, and the poor with
judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little
hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall
save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.”
Here he stopped suddenly; for two large, heavy tears fell from the dark
eyes of José, blotting the pages of the book.
“Why do you weep?” he asked kindly.
José’s words came slowly out of a depth of quiet despair,—
“For my lost hope. I thought there was a real king. But it is only
a mystery of the Faith.—One said so to me long ago. I ought to have
believed her.”
“O Don José, you do not understand! He is truly all—more than all—your
heart desires. And as surely as to-morrow’s sun shall rise, He will come
again, and reign upon this very earth on which we stand now, to make an
end of sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.”
“But He is the Judge of all. He is the God of the Spaniards. He takes
their part now—hereafter, perhaps?”