Part 16

"I fear them, Viracocha Cristoval," she said, seriously. "They are as wolves on the track of a wounded deer. It is a tribe which hath cost the Incas most heavily to subdue, and their subjection hath never been complete. They were conquered first by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, but revolted some years ago and were repressed at terrible sacrifice of life. The tribe hath never taken kindly to our laws and institutions, and hath always resisted the benevolent efforts of the Incas to lift them from savagery. It is true, they fought with our unhappy Huascar against Atahualpa, but they were influenced, I have always thought, less by loyalty to Tavantinsuyu than by their native treachery, for they were once subject to Quito. Now they hate Quito and Cuzco alike, and I wonder not at their traitorous alliance with the invaders.--Pardon me, Viracocha Cristoval!"

"You are not talking to an enemy of Tavantinsuyu, Palla Maytalca," said Cristoval, quietly.

"I believe it," she returned, with a quick glance. "I think it hath been proven. But," she resumed, after a pause, "I dread the thought of the Canares following."

Cristoval was silent for a moment. "I should think it impossible that we could be traced by any living creature," he said, at length.

"They will search every crevice of these mountains; and the distance from here to Caxamalca is not great, Viracocha."

*CHAPTER XIX*

_*Hearts Perplexed*_

The ensuing days were such as had rarely entered into Peralta's adventurous and somewhat reckless life. The enclosing mountains seemed jealous of the intrusion even of thoughts of the outside world, and the soft air and prevailing sense of peace cast a spell to which he fell a willing subject. Save for a rumor that Pizarro had placed the imperial _llautu_ upon the head of Toparca and had begun his advance upon Cuzco, attended by his allies the Canares, ravaging as they moved, the vale was without tidings. The last of these told of the arrival of the Spaniards at Xauxa, some fifty leagues to the south, and of increasing resistance from native warriors, led, it was said, by Prince Manco, Rava's full brother and rightful heir to the throne. The devastating march of the conquistadors had passed far to the eastward, leaving a demoralization which interrupted all regular communication, and the secluded valley seemed forgotten of the world.

At first Cristoval bore the inaction with uneasiness. Until he should have placed the Nusta Rava in the protection of her brother Manco, his duty would be unfulfilled; and although he looked forward to the ultimate surrender of his guardianship with a reluctance only half confessed to himself, yet his vow to Atahualpa was paramount. Very soon, however, the impossibility of reaching Cuzco with Pizarro in the way became apparent. For the present they must remain at Xilcala, and the cavalier was forced to admit a feeling of relief.

So he surrendered to the dreamy quiet of Xilcala, growing daily more compliant. Nevertheless, the unwelcome prospective forced itself upon him with an insistence he could not always put aside. One morning he was sitting with Rava and their hostess in the hemicycle where they usually passed the warmer hours of the day, and the conversation turned, as often, upon far-away Cuzco, and their prospects of reaching it. Something called Maytalca away, and the two were left to themselves, lapsing at once into the silence without constraint privileged to close friendship and sympathy. Rava, engaged upon an embroidered trifle, glanced from time to time toward the vacant lake, or at her ruminating companion as he sat watching the intricacies of her work. At length she spoke, using the more familiar form, and having dropped, at his request, the appellation of Viracocha.

"Thou art thoughtful, Cristoval," she said, looking up from her work. "I fear idleness beginneth to burden thee."

Cristoval smiled at her genially. "To burden me, child! I would I might always bear so light a burden as this soft sunshine and thy companionship. No, I've lived through weightier cares and kept my spirits. I was but thinking of the day when it must end."

He was looking away when he concluded, and failed to see the tremor of her fingers as she resumed her task. He was silent for a moment, then continued, with a ring of sadness, "No, Nusta Rava, I could not weary of this. But it cannot last forever. When I see thee in safety, then I must go. I have thought of a friend whom I may trust to take me back to Panama--whence we sailed for thy shores. Once there," he went on, talking rather to himself than to her, "I can make my way to Spain--for I swear never again to draw sword against the people of this western world. There is no glory in it, and there are wars enough at home where honor may be won as becometh a Christian."

Rava was very still, her head bent over her work, her face colorless and dull. Alas! she thought with sudden heaviness of heart, he is but a Viracocha, and can be naught else. No thought of love but for his sword, no passion but for war. He is like his kind--less men than gods of destruction; gifted with power and wisdom, but cursed with heartlessness. But no! Surely he was not without a heart, for had he not guarded her with a tenderness unvarying and almost womanly? Assuredly not heartless in that sense at least! And there was affection of some nature in every look and intonation. She was conscious of that, for he had never striven to conceal it, and could not have done so from her had he so striven. But, ah me! it must be that his was not a human heart like hers. He was of another world, as her people said--inscrutable, unknowable. She looked up once more, searching his eyes this time with strange inquiry, and quite unconscious of her intentness. The kindliness of Cristoval's face faded into surprise.

"Why, Heaven bless thee, child!" he exclaimed. "What is in thy thoughts? Hast a question thou wouldst ask?"

She looked away, saying with a sigh, "Thou art a Viracocha, Cristoval!" and left him pondering a riddle as insoluble to him as he was to her.

Soon afterward she arose to go. He escorted her to the head of the avenue, and turned slowly back. "I am a Viracocha!" he repeated to himself a dozen times, revolving it in perplexity. "A Viracocha! Now, in the name of a saint, what meaneth she by that? Of course I'm a Viracocha--to her unlettered people; but none, in saying it, ever looked me through and through with eyes as big as if I were a genie out of a bottle in some tale of Araby! A Viracocha, quoth she! Who was this Viracocha? Ha! a heathen god, I've heard; which is to say, a devil! _Madre_! Meaneth she that I am a devil? No, bless her heart, that is far from it, I'll stake my head! H'm! I'll ask Markumi. No, I'll not! He may give this Viracocha deity a reputation that will make me repent the asking. These pagan gods are oft unsavory, the best of them. 'T is better to be in doubt. But, _ay de mi_, Cristoval, thou 'rt beyond thy depth in this business with women. It hath more of unexpectedness than a bee-stung colt."

He wandered and pondered for an hour, then gave it up, saddled his horse, and rode off down the valley.

However inscrutable Cristoval was to Rava, or however perplexing she was at times to him, their separate problems did not mar the harmony of the days in the Vale of Xilcala. They were much together, for they had neither occupation nor preoccupation to keep them apart. There were long walks along the lake or among the hills; and visits to the cottagers, to whom their beloved Nusta came as a gentle spirit of sympathy in their sorrows, or a sharer of their simple joys. There were quiet hours in the garden, often with Maytalca and the daughters of the _curaca_, Huallampo; but much of the time the Princess and Cristoval were alone, strolling the shaded paths, or sitting in the hemicycle, where Rava busied herself with some dainty fabric while Cristoval watched and mused in the intervals of fitful conversation.

Under these conditions it is less than strange that Rava should wonder, not without disappointment, that the cavalier should turn his thoughts to war and its cruel glory. And it is not more than strange that his thoughts should take this bent with growing infrequency, or that he should look forward with more and more reluctance to the time when his role of guardian must be resigned, and the days in Xilcala be of the past. For, if the difference of race, of age, of culture, combined with the brevity of their association to make difficult to each the real nature of the other, yet the circumstances and the sentiment consequent upon their lately shared dangers were favorable for a live and romantic sympathy. Upon the heart of the girl, indeed, such incidents could have but one effect.

And assuredly, if Rava was disposed to endow her champion with attributes above the human, he was little behind in his exalted estimate of her. He had been bred a soldier, and as such his experience with women had been largely limited to those of the sophisticated type accessible to men of his wandering career. His youth had been passed at the court of the Marques of Cadiz, where he had learned more of intrigue and feminine flexibility than of maidenly traits; and the rigid seclusion of the unmarried daughters of Castilian families of the better classes had inhibited anything more than contemplation of duena-fended innocence at a distance. He had passed through his callow period of fevers and deliriums engendered by stolen glances from senoritas' eyes; had sighed and sung and thrummed o' nights beneath half-open lattices and dim balconies, not always without catastrophe--once or twice with spilt blood of his own or a rival's, and usually without better reward. But his youth had flown with only uncertain notions of the charms of maidenhood, and he carried these to the wars and forgot them. He had been in love, so he had thought, many times and in many lands; but it was love that had faded to mere memories of names, fondly enough recalled, no doubt, but each dismissed with a sigh for one as deep as for another. And that is to say that he had never been in love.

It is conceivable, therefore, that Rava's delicacy, ingenuousness, and gentleness of nature, together with his consciousness of protectorship, and of her implicit faith in him, should have stirred in his strong heart the affection whose many evidences she had not failed to read. The sense of guardianship alone, to a man of his stalwart and generous temperament, would have gone far toward creating the sentiment; more than that, in addition to the attraction of her youth and beauty, he felt the charm of a graceful and high-bred mind. Her culture was not Christian, but it was culture, nevertheless. The Inca civilization was refined; more so, in many respects, than that of Spain at the period, and the children of the sovereigns and nobles were scrupulously trained in such knowledge and accomplishments as their rank demanded. And so, although Rava was unaware that the earth was round, that her continent had been discovered by one Cristoval Colon, and that Charles the Fifth was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, until she had been informed by Cristoval, yet he found her a gentlewoman and quite the intellectual equal of any he had known across the sea. She was, in fact, as he discovered, better versed in the lore of her people than were most Christian girls in the scanty knowledge then afloat in Europe. Learning was not deemed an entirely desirable possession for women in the Old World, nor were there many avenues open to them for its acquirement. Rava's lack of information in matters familiar to the cavalier was therefore not disturbing.

Of infinitely more concern was her paganism, and this Cristoval set about to correct. He found her a willing and grateful listener. Her unquestioning faith in him was broad enough to cover every word he spoke. If she accepted the fact that the earth was a sphere, she would have believed it flat again had he said so the next moment--or that it was a cube, or upside-down, or inside-out. Ah, Cristoval, it was well for this trusting heart that thine was true and chivalrous! Hadst been the Antichrist thou wouldst have had a gentle votary ready for martyrdom for her faith in thee!

Rava renounced her gods. She learned her Aves, Paternosters, and Credo, and accepted Cristoval's rosary and crucifix, nevermore to be laid aside.

"Cristoval," she said one day, "dost think my soul is saved?"

"Thy soul saved!" he replied, looking fondly down into the soft eyes. "I would that the souls of half the Christians, or mine own, were near as sure of Heaven as thine. Some day we must have thee baptized. If I could but lay hands upon the good Father Tendilla! However, that will come about. Meantime, be diligent with thy prayers, and we shall have no fear."

As we may be sure, a new bond was thus created; and Cristoval, as spiritual preceptor, took on new lustre for his grateful proselyte. The good cavalier, now relieved of fear for her soul's welfare, returned earnest thanks to the Virgin, and looked upon his ward with affection growing perilously fast.

But, alas! Rava was paying dearly for their idyl in Xilcala. At night she knelt with tears, his crucifix tight-clasped, and with a hundred prayers for every one he enjoined. And her prayers were not the litanies prescribed, but supplications such as many a maiden, borne down by the sense of love unreturned, has made before and since. Thus, through long hours she knelt, until weariness drove her to her pillow.

In the mornings the swollen eyelids were excused to the solicitous Maytalca with pleas of sleeplessness. But the settled sadness was not explained. It vanished momentarily in Cristoval's presence, to return and be noted by him in silence. He asked no question, but there was often questioning in his eyes, and asked thus it was hardest to bear. Many times when she read it she turned from him with quivering lips, and then his impulse to take her again in his arms was dangerously strong. But he forced it down relentlessly, with a whispered prayer to San Antonio of transcendent continence. Only once he took her hand, tremulous and unresisting; but the quick rising of color to her cheeks and the deepening of her eyes warned him of the frail barrier between them and peril, and he relinquished it with the faintest pressure. But that night Rava prayed without tears!

Stout-hearted Cristoval! It cost sorely to turn away from the light half veiled by those drooping lashes, but the inevitable parting was always before him. Soon he must fly Tavantinsuyu--if, by the grace of Heaven, the way should be open. If not flight, then death in the attempt; and in either event what would be left behind? The gentlest breast that ever sheltered a womanly heart torn by lifelong grief. No; he would give no further sign. The dearer the happiness now, the deeper the wound for each to carry to the grave. And what was his vow to Atahualpa? Ah, Blessed Virgin, lend thy strength!

So, while Rava wept and offered midnight prayer, Cristoval paced his room and offered none. The sunlight of Xilcala had grown dim for both. The cloud was not unnoticed by Maytalca; with a woman's intuition she divined the cause, with a woman's delicacy forbore to speak; and pressed the desolate girl in tacit sympathy, longing, but not daring to bid them both to hope. They were more constantly together than before, driven by the impulse that would not accept defeat. But alone, they walked or sat in silence seldom broken by words.

One evening, just after sunset, they were standing on the shore of the lake, watching the afterglow on the mountains. The valley was already shrouded in twilight, but the distant peaks gleamed brilliant rose against the darkening blue of the eastern sky. Alone, Cristoval would have swept the prospect with a glance and turned away; but now, as his eyes followed her guidance, he grew conscious of the beauty of creeping shadows and dying light, and echoed her quiet admiration.

They turned away at length, and walked slowly toward the villa, unconscious of the evil lurking in the growing dusk. They passed up the avenue, and a dark form rose stealthily from the shadow, parting the branches and leaning forward with the tense alertness of a cat to watch their receding steps. They disappeared, and after a moment's listening the half-naked figure skulked along the terrace, crouching to avoid the overhanging boughs, reached the enclosing wall of the garden, and was over, speeding away in the darkness like an apparition.

An hour later two Canares rose from their lair in a ravine half-way up the mountain-side to receive him. He spoke a dozen words, answered by a grunt from his companions; groped in the obscurity for his cloak, threw it over his shoulders, and the three filed out from their concealment, heading toward the lower end of the valley. Six days afterward they entered Xauxa.

Spring was now well advanced, and Xilcala grew daily more fair in fresh verdure and blossoming orchards. Stray, fragmentary rumors began to float in, borne by herdsmen on their way to pasturage in the higher Cordilleras. But the tales had reached them from mouth to mouth, and so far as they concerned the Spaniards, were tangled and over-colored. One day, however, there came news of a different order, brought by a _chasqui_, the first to enter the valley in many weeks. The first item was the death at Xauxa of the young Inca Toparca, and the burning at the stake by Pizarro of Challicuchima, the Quitoan general, on the suspicion of having poisoned the Inca. The second item, heard with greater grief by the Xilcalans, was Pizarro's advance upon Cuzco, and the defeat of the Auqui Manco in the Pass of Vilcaconga, where he had opposed the invaders. The Spaniards, it was thought by the _chasqui_, were doubtless in possession of the capital. Pizarro had left Xauxa garrisoned by a small force of infantry and several hundred Canares to serve as a base upon which to fall back if forced to retreat from Cuzco.

With the exception of Toparca's death there was nothing in the news which occasioned surprise to Cristoval. He was too familiar with Spanish prowess to doubt that Pizarro would take Cuzco. He mourned the young prince, but there was more than the intelligence itself to cause him uneasiness and depression. The seclusion of the valley seemed violated by its intrusion, and he awakened to reluctant thought of the end which must come to the half-dreamlike days, bringing uncertainties, dangers, and the parting which had grown more and more unwelcome.

The day of the arrival of the evil tidings Rava and Maytalca spent in retirement, and Cristoval was condemned to solitary wandering. His rambling did not take him far from the hemicycle, and he returned thither frequently, lingering with many a glance up the avenue; then strolled again, or lounged where he could view a certain favored seat. He often turned at fancied footfalls; a distant flutter of the garments of some maid of the Palla's household was strangely suggestive of Rava; and more than once he was deceived by a glint of bright sunlight on the foliage. Curiously, the garden seemed haunted by dim phantasms of that familiar, graceful form, and after the hundredth illusion he took himself to task: "What, Cristoval! Art a boy, to go mooning along these paths, starting at thine own conjurings? What aileth thee? Once thou wast good companion for thyself. Now thou goest about peering and stretching thy neck into the bushes like an unmated cock-pheasant. Come! Go saddle up and ride. Thou 'rt in sore need of exercise, _camarada_."

He started back with resolution. As he approached the hemicycle his steps slowed, and he halted in front of the seat where Rava had worked. There lay a forgotten skein of thread. He picked it up, contemplating it with an interest disproportionate to its importance or value. Useless to try to follow his thoughts. It was intrinsically feminine, that trifle, and the soldier succumbed to its femininity. He drew a small pouch from his bosom and placed the skein beside the half-dozen other precious trinkets it contained. He closed the pouch; reopened it hastily, removed the thread, and replaced it upon the seat where he had found it; then sprang to his feet and walked rapidly away. A half-hour later he was galloping along the lane toward the canyon by which they had approached Xilcala weeks ago.

Now the valley, stirred for a moment by the _chasqui's_ tidings, sank again into its repose. The mourning for the defeat at Vilcaconga was mitigated by confidence in ultimate victory. What enemy of Tavantinsuyu had ever triumphed? Soon a call to arms would come, and the nation would respond with overwhelming potency. All in good time.

At the villa of Maytalca the days went as before. But--were they days of growing happiness, or of more rapidly growing pain? Cristoval could not have said, nor could Rava. He had learned to interpret the evanescent light in the brown eyes that so often sought his own, but the joy it gave him was for the instant, and followed at once by a deeper pang. He turned away from the gentle face whose beauty, waxing daily more alluring under the tender burning of the soul within, would have shaken the knees of the resolution of one thrice more saintly than Cristoval. But though he told himself that the parting must be only a question of weeks, though he rode hard and invoked the good San Antonio, Cristoval found little peace.

*CHAPTER XX*

_*Hearts Revealed and Sundered*_

Now, when two human hearts are throbbing under the mysterious influence of the spell called Love, be it noted that the universe pauses in its majestic routine to take a part. Our good Mother Nature lends a more benevolent smile. The breeze touches with softer caress and gentler whispering. The trees and herbage are greener, the flowers yield a sweeter fragrance and wear an added loveliness. The Sun himself shines with brighter effulgence and more generous warmth; at his setting, paints the heavens and gray old earth in hues of unwonted brilliancy, and gives way to twilights more tender than twilights seen at other times. And the Moon--what splendor in her radiance then! and in the stars! The world--the non-human part of it, for our fellowmen are often less benignant and sometimes roughen love's pathway most lamentably--the world takes on new charms and promises things untold; conspiring with the insistent young archer and with a thousand circumstances to lure the lovers on to their silently coveted happiness. Let all mankind unite in a commanding "Nay!" yet the two hear a still voice in more urgent "Yea, yea!" and read approval in Nature's kindly face. Be their resistance never so strong in the beginning, it must surely be overcome by a fatal languor at a fatal moment, and the archer triumphs.

Often, when Cristoval sat beside her in the hemicycle in meditative silence, Rava would take up Maytalca's _tinya_[1] and sing to its accompaniment. The melodies were simple, soft, and plaintive, and she sang with the sympathy and sweetness of her nature, her voice quivering from the fulness of her heart. The music was the one thing needful to complete the agony of Cristoval's self-denial. He heard her at first with wonder, then with unaffected ravishment.

[1] Tinya = a stringed instrument something like the guitar.