and see him, for the love of God? Ask him also to bring ‘sa majestad,’
for the man seems to be dying.”
“I will waken the patre,” said José. “Tell me the name of the sick man.”
“He is called the matador.”
Fray Fernando came forth from the inner room. “I have heard all,” he
said, looking greatly agitated. “You need not have asked the name. I knew
it.”
Quickly and silently he made the necessary preparations. No wonder that
José, in his ignorance, looked with trembling awe upon the little silver
box, which he was taught to believe actually contained his Creator
and his God! Upon this occasion, however, the thought flashed through
his mind—“Was the King of whom Señor Hualter spoke really there? If
so, how could He be ‘gone away into heaven’?” But it soon gave place
to a reflection of a more practical kind,—“The patre has had no food
since yesterday forenoon. If he goes forth fasting he may take the
calenture.—Patre,” he said aloud, “I pray you drink at least some of this
chica ere you go.”
Fray Fernando shook his head. “I shall communicate with him,” he said.
Nothing more was spoken until they were on their way, Fray Fernando
bearing the precious viaticum, and José the little silver bell with which
he failed not to warn bystanders to show fitting reverence.
Then Fray Fernando said, “If it be possible to remove him, we must do it.”
“What becomes of galley-slaves when they are ill?” José asked.
Fray Fernando sighed. “The only place for them is the hold,” he said.
“And that is so dark, and withal so horribly unclean, that, I have heard,
many die at the oar rather than enter it.”
“Surely the chihuayhua flower, the emblem of pity, does not grow on your
side of the Mother Sea,” said José with quiet bitterness.
“But sometimes there is leave given to bring them on shore to the prison,
or to some hospital,” Fray Fernando resumed.
“This man shall come on shore, and neither to prison nor hospital,” José
answered determinately. “Here we are, patre. Look, there stands the
captain by the helm. I am to deal with him, you understand? But he must
bring me to his cabin. I can do nothing within earshot of his men.”
So successfully did José deal with the captain of the _San Cristofero_,
that in less than an hour the sick man was taken gently from the dark
and horrible hole into which he had been thrown to die, placed on a rude
litter made out of a couple of spare planks covered with José’s mantle,
and borne carefully to the lodging of Fray Fernando.
“You succeeded marvellously—how did you manage?”—the monk asked of José,
so soon as he had rendered Melchior the cares his situation immediately
demanded, and had seen that he was slumbering from exhaustion.
“I had, in the clasp of my yacollo, a certain magic stone, which I did
but show the captain, and the sight of it bowed his heart at once.”
“And what said he to you?”
“Many things, which seemed utter unreason. Such as these: ‘Pray devoutly
and hammer on stoutly.’ That ‘the golden load is a burden light,’ and
that he was not like the tailor of Campijo, or Campillo, or some such
place, who wrought for nothing, and found his customers in thread.”
“What answer made you to his litany of proverbs?”
“None; save to give him that glimpse of the magic stone. And to tell him
I knew the poor fellow was dying (which in truth I know not at all); and
that if he died on shore, there would be no man the wiser—but one man the
wealthier. But had I known these were proverbs, I might have favoured him
in return with one of ours, from the lips of the wise Inca Pacha-cutec:
‘Anger and passion may be cured; but folly is incurable.’ And of all the
follies under God’s heaven, the worst, as I think, is that of the white
men, who will do nothing for pity and for mercy, for the fear of God and
the love of man; but everything for gold and silver, or for children’s
toys of coloured or sparkling stones.”
Fray Fernando sighed. “You have done well, José,” he said. “But I fear
the deliverance has come too late.”
“Nay, patre. Our people indeed die easily; but the white man is strong,
and he clings to life as the lianas cling to the forest trees. With care
and God’s blessing, I think we may save him yet.”
XXXI.
The Years that the Canker-worm hath Eaten.
“Tell him, when he is a man, to reverence the dreams of his
youth.”
SCHILLER.
Melchior del Salto felt as if heaven had begun already for him. It was
no wonder. His limbs, freed from their galling fetters, lay in luxurious
rest on a couch of vicuña-skin; his toil-worn, well-nigh crippled frame
was stretched at ease the whole day long; and his ears, so sadly used to
blasphemies and cries of pain, had only to drink in the gentle tones of
Fray Fernando, or the quiet words of José. He was very happy, and deeply
thankful. Still, he did not recover. He had no disease; he was only worn
out—“used up.” It was time. Sixteen years was a good term of service at
the oar, even for a strong man.
Melchior’s strength had been failing for more than a year; though the
lengthened swoon, that drew attention to the fact, was caused by the
agitation of his interview with Fray Fernando. He afterwards told his
foster-brother that deliverance from bondage had come to him just at the
right moment: not too soon, else he might have had to return to a strange
unfamiliar world, like a ghost come back from the dead; not too late,
since it was good to rest for a little while, ere he went forth on his
journey to that home wherein he should rest for ever.
Only one regretful thought troubled the calm of those declining hours.
And at last, one day, when José had gone to Lima, and Fray Fernando alone
was sitting by his side, the secret sorrow found words.
“Do you want anything, my brother?” the monk asked tenderly, noticing
that Melchior’s eyes were fixed upon him with an earnest inquiring gaze.
“Nothing, Señor Don Alfonso. Except what I am trying to find, and cannot.”
“Perhaps I could find it for you.”
“Would to God you could!” Melchior answered with a mournful smile. “I am
looking, in that worn, old face of yours, for the dear, young, noble face
my heart so loved and reverenced in the days gone by.”
“Then indeed you look in vain, my brother. Don Alfonso Garçia de Fanez is
dead and buried long ago; and he who sits here is only Fray Fernando, the
Franciscan friar.”
“But this I would fain know, señor, and my brother—where is Don Alfonso
buried, and what has he left behind him? He should not have passed away
without mark or remembrance. For he was made for great things.”
“So seemed many another who has come to ruin, as he.”
“There was no other like Don Alfonso.—Nay, let me speak, señor. In the
galleys I spoke but little, and very soon I shall speak no more. You were
the passion, the idol, of my boyhood and my youth. And even now I do not
wonder. You learned with ease all that other men learn with pain. You
knew a thousand things I had never dreamed of, yet you knew all I knew
also. You did all that I could do, and better than I.”
“You say too much for me, Melchior.”
“I say the truth, señor. Always you made us feel that you were more than
you did; that the ready stroke and spring at the bull-feast, the thrust
and parry in the tilting-ring, were but earnests given of great deeds yet
to be. O brother, brother, do you not remember all those old talks in the
orange-grove by the river-side? All those plans, that came to nothing?
How you were to raise a corps of volunteers, and help to rend Ireland
(that fair jewel, you called it) from the crown of the English usurper?
And how you were then to settle and colonize, taking me with you, and
getting for me also a grant of land among the saffron-kilted kernes? My
brother Francisco was to be our priest, and Miguel and Ruy to till the
ground.”
“Dreams—all dreams!” Fray Fernando answered sadly. “They are no more to
me now than the tales José loves to tell us of his Inca forefathers.”
“But, señor, my brother, you yourself told me long ago that the dreams
of youth are the flowers, the doings of manhood the fruit. Woe for the
flowers that they have fallen, and left no fruit behind!”
“The tree was blighted, and is dead. Whence, then, could the fruit come?”
“That work was mine. There, señor, is the thought that wrings my heart.”
“Put that thought away from you, dear and generous brother,” Fray
Fernando eagerly interposed. “It was not your work; it was my fate.”
“What do you mean by that word ‘fate,’ señor? I am a poor ignorant man,
yet I know this: it was no fate that happened to me, but the will of God.
How much more you—wise, learned, and a churchman!”
“I am learned in nothing, Melchior, save in sorrow.—But this is
ungrateful,” he added presently. “God has healed my worst sorrow in
giving you back to me.”
“He will heal the rest too,” said Melchior. “And though the flowers faded
so long ago, I think the fruit will come yet.”
Fray Fernando sighed. Then his own secret trouble rose half
unconsciously to his lips. “I am not at peace with God,” he said. “I have
trifled with His grace in His sacraments.”
“I know but one way of making peace with God, señor. That is through
Christ. He is our way, and He is our peace.”
Fray Fernando looked somewhat surprised. “How do you know that,
Melchior?” he asked.
“Because, Señor Don Alfonso, I have trod the way, and I have found the
peace.”
Just then José entered, carrying a pataca, or covered native basket,
from which he produced some articles of food and other things that he
had purchased in the city. Amongst them was a flask of wine from the old
country, which he gave to Melchior, saying, “My Father smiled upon the
fruits of your native land, and they have sent their best juices hither
to make sick men well.”
“Don José, you are very good to me,” said Melchior gratefully.
“I ought to be good to everyone to-day,” José answered, as he seated
himself, and loosed the fastening of his yacollo, which was now a simple
golden pin—his mother’s tupu—instead of a large and lustrous emerald,
Yupanqui’s gift. “I have heard such good tidings. But I ought first
to tell you, patre, that I failed to do your errand at the Franciscan
monastery. The monks would not trust me with the Book, without a written
order from yourself.”
Fray Fernando had sent to request the loan of a copy of the Vulgate.
Perhaps his motive for this request might have been found in certain
conversations he had lately held with Walter Grey, who was now permitted
to come to him three times a week for religious instruction.
José went on: “Whatever may have caused their hesitation, it was scarcely
the value of the Book, since I offered to leave them my gold bracelet in
pledge for it. I think they feared I might do myself or some one else
a mischief with it, as if it were a carbine or musket. It reminds me,
patre, of the old times in Cerro Blanco, when I stood in such awe of your
Breviary, believing that a spirit dwelt in it, which spoke to you when
you read it.”
Then Melchior said reverently, “It is quite true, Don José, that a Spirit
dwells in the Book you were to have brought to-day; and He will speak to
you, if you read it with prayer and humility.”
“You are making pictures, Melchior,” José answered readily.—“I see.” He
himself was quite as anxious for the Book as Fray Fernando, because he
thought it would tell him of his King.
“But you have not yet told us the good tidings, José,” Fray Fernando
resumed presently.
José’s black eyes kindled with a vivid inward fire, but no other feature
of his face showed emotion, and his voice was calm, even low, as he
spoke. “Some Spanish soldiers have just come back to Lima from the
country of the Chunchos, which you call the Montaña. They have brought
with them—sore wounded and sick unto death—Don Ramon de Virves. It was
at his own earnest request they brought him so far, for he thought to
embark for Spain. But he will never see Spain again. God has visited his
iniquities on his head.”
“Take care, José,” said Fray Fernando gravely. “Long ago the wise man
said, ‘Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be
glad when he stumbleth: lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, and
He turn away His wrath from him.’”
“Who is Don Ramon de Virves?” Melchior asked with interest.
José turned to him and answered, still in the same low quiet voice, “When
I was a child I dwelt with my kindred in a little green spot in the great
southern desert—a ‘paucar,’ we call it. One day that Don Ramon de Virves
came thither with his Spaniards. We were mostly women and children; we
neither could fight with them, nor desired to do it. So we gave them to
eat and to drink, and let them lie down in our huts to sleep. But while
we slept they arose, drew their Spanish steel, and slew all—men, women,
and little children—without remorse or pity.[48] That was their way of
‘reducing’ Indians to the obedience of the crown of Spain and the faith
of Christ. Yet it was well for those who died. Thrice more unhappy were
the two spared—my mother and I. Bound and guarded, we watched the flames
that burned our home to ashes. But the Children of the Sun know how to
die. When night came again, my mother kissed me, and said, ‘Pacha-camac
cares for the wild beasts on the mountain,[49] he will also care for
thee, my child.’ Then she bade me go to sleep. When I awoke, she was
dead. I am a man now, and I thank God that she won her freedom thus;
but I was a child then, and I wept and wailed over her lifeless form in
the bitterness of my anguish. Yet I too would have died, rather than
be Don Ramon’s slave, if the patre had not bought me. Judge whether or
no _I_ have cause to rejoice that Don Ramon is dying now in pain and
misery—forsaken of God and man.”
“José, my son José!” Fray Fernando interposed, in a tone of grieved
surprise. “Remember that vengeance belongs to God, not to us. To Him we
ought to leave it.”
“I have left it to Him,” José answered calmly, “and He has taken it.”
“But did you never hear,” said Melchior, raising himself and looking
earnestly at the Indian youth—“did you never hear that our blessed Lord
Himself, when He hung on the cross, prayed for His murderers, and said,
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’?”
“No?” José said, interrogatively, and with a perplexed, discomfited look.
“How can you say ‘No,’ José?” Fray Fernando asked, a little jealous
perhaps for his reputation as instructor. “You have heard it a hundred
times. And what says the Paternoster,—almost the first thing I taught
you?”
José struggled with a thought he did not choose to admit, and putting it
from him with an effort, answered doggedly, “It says, ‘Thy kingdom come.’”
“It says also, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us.’”
“And,” Melchior added, “none have part in the kingdom that is to come
save those whose trespasses are forgiven.”
José received these sharp arrows of truth without remonstrance, but
without acquiescence. He bore their sting as he would have borne physical
pain—silent and unmoved, though keenly sensible. In any other case he
would have been very angry with the hands that winged them; but he knew
not how to feel anger towards a dying man like Melchior, still less
towards the patre. But how unreasonable, how unjust, how cruel the
requirement!
_Whose_ requirement? That he did not ask himself just yet. With a
lowering brow and a heart full of bitterness he went forth; nor did
either Melchior or Fray Fernando see him again that night.
XXXII.
Walter Grey’s Advice.
“Forgive!—for ’tis sweet to stammer one letter
From the Eternal’s language: on earth it is called ‘Forgiveness.’”
LONGFELLOW (_from the Swedish_).
José Viracocha was not at all more vindictive than other men. He
inherited from his ancestors no implacability of disposition, no burning
thirst after vengeance. On the contrary, it was their special glory—a
glory that ought to last when other glories fade away—that they saw the
beauty of fair Mercy, and wooed and won her to sit beside them on their
golden throne. Many a deed of generous magnanimity had place amongst his
cherished traditions. He could not remember the first time he had heard
how the Inca Mayta caressed and fed the little children of his enemies;
how the Inca Huayna Capac taught and acted upon the noble maxim, “We
ought to spare our foes, for they will soon be our subjects.” But he
had now come to a point at which these traditions could not help him.
Although the clemency a monarch extends to despairing suppliants at his
feet is a fair thing to look upon, and very grateful to eyes fatigued
with the monotonous crimson of battle-fields and massacres, still it is
_not_ the forgiveness of keen and cruel personal injuries. As surely as
the crystal rings when struck, so surely does human nature respond, with
the sharp cry of hatred, to the stroke of wrong. There is only _One_ Hand
whose touch can bring peace and make silence there.
José could not forgive Don Ramon: he had no wish to do it—his soul rose
in rebellion at the very thought. He saw clearly all that it involved.
If he pardoned Don Ramon, he must pardon also all his enemies, with all
their injuries, public and private. He must pardon Don Francisco Solis;
and him he hated quite as bitterly as he hated Don Ramon. And there
were times when his resentment against both paled and faded before the
intensity of his indignation against the spoilers of Tahuantin Suyu. Them
also—even _them_—he must pardon! Impossible!
Yet a suspicion, gradually becoming a conviction, was stealing over his
heart. It was no other than the King whom he sought—the Divine Monarch
and Deliverer, the great Inca of the East—who required this thing of him,
who demanded it as the test of his allegiance. If, instead, He had but
asked his life-blood!
In his sore dismay and perplexity, he bethought himself of Walter Grey,
to whom he was becoming every day more strongly attached, and to whose
comfort he ministered in every possible way. Walter would give him the
English view of the matter; and that, most probably, would be the true
one. So, after Walter’s next visit to Fray Fernando, José returned with
him to the beach; and standing before him as he rested for a little in
the welcome shade of a rock, he briefly acquainted him with the strange
demand that had been made upon him.
“If,” he said, “I proposed stabbing the man through the back, or setting
fire to the house where he lies wounded, I could understand the King
having somewhat to object. Nor, indeed, would the Incas have approved
such practices. But to bid me forgive him from my heart! How can it
matter what I feel there? Whose business is that, save my own?”
“It is God’s business, José;—and the King is God.”
“I know it,” said José reverently.
“God sees your heart, reads it through and through, claims it for His
own.”
José lay down on the sand, and turned his face away from Walter. At last
he said,—
“I almost wish I had never met you, Señor Hualter.”
“And why that, Don José?”
“You trouble me. Better not to know the King, than to know Him and not to
obey Him; and He is hard, _hard_ to obey.”
“Oh no!”
“But yes. I know now why none of the Spaniards really obey Him, though
they pretend to do it,—They cannot. Nor can I; I am afraid of Him.”
“You ought not. He loves you, He died for you;—and He only wants you to
be like Him.”
“Well, if need were, I could die for Him. But” (a tremor shook his whole
frame; not violent—none of his movements were that—but telling of intense
repugnance) “this thing I cannot do;—I will not. What use to try? I could
never forgive that man, unless I were taken to pieces and made over
again.”
“‘Except a man be born again,’” said Walter Grey, “‘he shall in no wise
enter into the kingdom of God.’”
“Who says that?”
“The King Himself.”
“I do not understand.—Stay, I do!” he added, after a thoughtful pause.
“I remember the patre said those words to me. He told me they meant my
baptism. He said I was born then into the Christian Church.”
“You remember your baptism?” asked Walter.
“Of course I do; I was ten years old.”
“What did you feel? Did you receive a new heart, and begin a new life
then?”
“In one way, yes. I felt great love for the patre, who, I thought, was
claiming me for his own by certain mystic rites and ceremonies; and I
gave myself up to him very gladly. But as for thoughts of God or the
Church, I had none. Until long afterwards, I worshipped my Father the
Sun.”
“It is very plain that you still need to be born of water and the Spirit,
and to receive the new heart which God alone can give you. And He will.
You have only, on your part, to ‘give yourself up to Him very gladly,’ as
you did to the padre.—Don José,” said Walter Grey, starting up suddenly,
“I could talk to you for hours; but I dare not linger. Look yonder! The
sun touches the sea already; and ere it sinks, I am bound to be on board.
There is not a moment to waste; the sunsets are so rapid here. Wonderful,
like everything else in this wonderland of yours!”
“I am with you, Señor Hualter,” said José, suiting the action to the word.
As they walked along together, Walter remarked: “I dare not make the
captain angry by delay, lest he should deny me leave another time; and
few other times may be left to me now, Don José. The Commandante returns
from Cuzco to-morrow, and it is whispered he has orders for us. I fear we
may be sent to some distant shore, where I shall never see your face or
that of Fray Fernando again. It is so lonely on board, now the matador is
gone; though, God knows, my heart rejoices at his deliverance. Farewell,
Don José!”
Next morning José said to Fray Fernando: “Patre, I am going to the city
to visit some of my people. Will you give me a letter to the monks, and I
will bring you back the Book you want?”
“Willingly, my son. But, I pray of thee, come back thyself as speedily as
thou canst; for since yesterday there are five men ill of the calenture,
and two of the Creoles from San Domingo are dying, as I fear.”
“I will hasten.”
“Hasten thine errands in the city—not thy footsteps by the way; for the
heat is fearful to-day, and I would not have thee get a sunstroke.”
“No fear of that. My Father never hurts his own; he only smites the
Spaniards,” said José, as he started at a brisk pace on his seven miles’
walk.
His assertion was not strictly true, however; for the burning sun of Lima
proved fatal to many of the Inca family exiled by Spanish tyranny from
Cuzco and its neighbourhood, and forced to take up their residence on the
hot, unhealthy coast.
That day José brought back with him in triumph a formidable-looking
volume. Fray Fernando laid it aside until the evening; but when the door
of their humble dwelling was barred for the night, and the lamp was
lighted, he set it on the table before him, and began to read. Melchior
prayed him to read aloud, translating the Latin into Spanish as he read.
There were few things which he could have refused Melchior; so he turned
from the Epistles of St. Paul (which he had been exploring to test the
accuracy of Walter Grey’s quotations, and to discover, if possible, some
key to the perplexities they awakened), and, rightly judging that the
Gospels were the best food for the unlearned, he found the opening page
of the New Testament, and began to read “The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God.”
No man had ever two more attentive hearers. Melchior was soon to know
more than even that Book could tell of Him whom his soul loved. Yet
every word it revealed was precious. What if, ere long, he should drink
from the fountain-head? Hitherto only a few drops in a tiny cup had been
borne to his thirsting lips; therefore for the present it was joy enough
to stoop over the running stream and drink, and give God thanks for the
draught.