Part 17

One moonlight evening--alas, a moonlight evening!--Rava had been telling him the great Peruvian classic, "Apu-Ollanta." Ollanta, the hero of the drama, born in obscurity, had risen by bravery and soldierly skill to the command of the armies of the Inca Pachacutec Yupanqui, and was his most trusted and beloved lieutenant. In an unfortunate hour he had loved and gained the love of Cusi-Coyllur, the Inca's daughter. The attachment, forbidden by the laws of Tavantinsuyu because of Ollanta's ignoble birth, was punishable with death. It was the story which has furnished a theme for poets through the ages. They loved in secret, and when at length concealment became no longer possible, Ollanta braved the laws and the Inca's wrath, and demanded Cusi-Coyllur in marriage. He was denied and banished from Cuzco, and when a child was born to the unhappy princess she was cast into prison. Ollanta hurried to his army in one of the provinces, raised his soldiers in rebellion, and led them to rescue his love. The war raged through ten long years, and after the death of Pachacutec Yupanqui, was carried on by his son. At last Ollanta, vanquished and a captive, was taken in chains to Cuzco; but the young Inca, more generous than his father, and moved by the rebel's constancy, pardoned him and led him to the dungeon of the princess. Years of confinement and sorrow had aged her prematurely, but Ollanta saw only the long-lost adored one of his youth and their child, and--well, they were married and restored to happiness and honor.

The story was long, and Rava told it with the simple candor of innocence, repeating with feeling and expression quite without consciousness of self, those passages whose beauty most appealed to her, from time to time taking up her instrument for the songs in the play. She finished, and sat with hands clasped, looking out upon the moon-lit lake, preoccupied and musing, apparently expecting no comment from Cristoval. He had listened with rapt attention, leaning forward with cheek upon his hand, less mindful of the story itself than of her low voice and the emotion on her sensitive features. He sat contemplating the calm beauty of the dark eyes, until, conscious of his gaze, she turned toward him. He roused from his reverie.

"It is a beautiful story, Nusta Rava," he said, gently drawing the _tinya_ from her lap.

There was a shadow of doubt in her look as she replied, "Didst find it so, Cristoval? It telleth little of war."

"Little of war, to be sure," he answered, failing to notice her tone; "but perhaps the better for that. I have heard its like before," he went on, fingering the strings.

"Yes?" she asked, with slight surprise.

"Yes, Nusta Rava. Why not?" responded Cristoval, in turn surprised at the slight incredulity in her voice. "Stories of hopeless love and happy endings? Why not, my dear?"

"But do you have love-stories in Castile? I thought--"

"What didst think? We have love-stories and love-songs a-many."

"Thou hast never told me one," she said, with a shade of reproach; "nor have I ever heard thee sing except of soldiers and horrid battles."

"Why, mayhap 't is true," said Cristoval, reflectively. "But I know more of such than of the other, though once--" He paused, then added with more of suppressed emphasis and resolution than seemed to be required, "I will sing thee one now, Nusta Rava!"

He was familiar with the guitar, and the _tinya_ was therefore not so strange that he could not, without difficulty, find the chords. He had, moreover, taken it up when Rava was not by, and so made its acquaintance; so that after retuning he picked out a fair accompaniment and began. His song was one of those sweet Spanish airs which breathe passion in every line, and he sang with true feeling, with the richness of voice native to his race.

Rava listened to a song utterly strange and in an unknown tongue. But music, said to be the universal language, surely is the universal language of love, and her heart beat in response to every measure. Had she been indifferent to the singer she could not have been unmoved; but her unspoken longing made her doubly vibrant to his emotion, and the close left her pale and strangely quiet.

Cristoval laid aside the _tinya_. The moon was shining full in Rava's face as she leaned back, and he glanced into eyes from which the deep melancholy had gone. They were no longer doubtful, but swimming with happiness that struggled with timidity. The song was a revelation. It had solved the riddle of this good, brave Viracocha, and had shown him a man. He was no longer the demigod, reserved, with breast invulnerable, but of flesh and blood. She did not need to know the meaning of his words. Every inflection had said more than words. Her own voice was tremulous and almost inaudible.

"It was a love-song, Cristoval?"

"A love-song," he replied, looking away.

"Then thou--then the Viracochas can love?" she faltered, after a pause.

Cristoval turned quickly. "Can love, child!" he exclaimed. "Why, what dost think us? Men without souls?"

"But I mean _love_, Cristoval," she said, with timid earnestness. "The love that is not cruel, and merciless, and savage, like that of the Viracochas at Caxamalca; nor yet--" She hesitated, and dropped her eyes.

"Nor yet?" asked Cristoval, bending forward.

She looked at him again waveringly.

"Nor yet?" he persisted. "What wouldst say?"

Her eyes fell once more. "Nor yet," she murmured, "the love that is all unselfishness, like that of a father for his child. Oh, Cristoval, I know not what I would say, but there was in the song what I thought the Viracochas could not feel."

He replied impetuously: "Thou hast thought that? Thou hast dreamed we could not love? Shall I tell thee how we can love? We can worship, Nusta Rava, and yet, hopeless, be silent until death were happiness."

She regarded him in wonder. "Hopeless, Cristoval?" she asked, in a voice so low that he barely heard it, and the question threw him off his guard. He answered it quickly and desperately, and in giving voice to the torture of his soul for weeks, forgot to be impersonal.

"Hopeless!" he repeated, turning away again. "How else? What art thou?--a princess. And I?--" He stopped. When he looked again his eyes met that in hers which a lover should be willing to give his life to see. Darkened by the moonlight, they regarded him with strange, intent abstraction, serious, gentle, and ineffably fond. This time Cristoval did not turn away. He must have been more than human--or less--to have turned away.

For an instant, as a drowning man reviews a lifetime, he had a hundred thoughts of deprecation, each a stab. He spurned them. The dross of common things faded into due perspective. The world's cares and dangers grew shadowy. His hands sought hers. As they yielded, the deep eyes deepened, and her lips parted with a sigh, almost a sob.

The _tinya_ had slipped to the ground at their feet. Rava unclasped her hands from his neck and drew back her head to look into his eyes. "Ah, Cristoval, then thou canst love?--truly, thou canst love, and dost love me?"

Cristoval kissed the upturned lips and eyes and brow. "God knoweth I love thee, Rava, and have loved thee long. I had not purposed to tell thee."

"That would have been wrong and cruel," said Rava. "Why wouldst thou not have told me?"

"I thought we must part, my own, and would have spared thee an aching heart."

"Thou wouldst have denied me the only solace for a broken heart," she sighed, clinging more closely. "But now, we shall never part, Cristoval."

"Never! Never, with the help of Heaven!" he whispered.

But at length, the leave-taking for the night. A score of leave-takings before the last wafted kiss from her doorway, and the beloved form vanished in its shadow. Then Cristoval, alone, sought to realize his happiness. In his room he raised his sword, and kissed its hilt--the soldier's cross.

Ware happiness complete! Evil hath no harbinger more sure. Their glimpse of it was fleeting, as always. Even while they dreamed it would endure, the blow was falling. One day, a second, and a third--days with hours like minutes, speeding on so quickly to the evening, the evening so quickly into night, that the lovers seemed hardly met before it was time to part again and lie in fevered longing for the dawn, each with a thousand thoughts untold. Ah, Time! Capricious, perverse and always cruel; swift as light when the moments are of joy; grudging and niggardly in their measure when mortals would have them long; but unsparing, lavish, prodigal, when thou metest hours of sorrow!

Again a moonlit evening. They had said good-night and parted. Hours had passed; Cristoval was sitting beside his lamp, whose waning light drew his thoughts back to earth; even while he contemplated its struggles it sputtered and died, leaving the room in darkness. He sighed, loath to lay aside his reverie, and stepped to the window. The moon was nearly at the full, and he leaned against the casement, looking across the placid lake to the silvered peaks beyond. He stood long, enjoying the fresh beauty of the night, his eyes among the shadows of the garden where he had crowned his life. While he mused a cloud drifted across the moon, leaving the garden a moment in obscurity. When it passed and the light returned, he was startled out of his dreaming. The details of shade and illumination had come back, but now there was something more. Near the edge of the shrubbery, half a hundred yards below, was a formless shadow not there before. Cristoval leaned forward, studying intently a curious blot on the sward, suggestive of some lurking beast, yet different. It moved, ever so slightly, and the confused outline became suddenly clear. There was the head of a warrior, stretched alertly forward, and wearing the high, conical helm of a Canare. There was the line of his crouched back. One hand and a knee were on the ground. Now there was a sparkle just above--a javelin head!--and at the same instant an arm was raised in signal. At once other shadows appeared here and there, and they slunk, half running, toward the villa.

Cristoval watched no longer. In a second he was groping for his armor. His hands were shaking, but soon corselet was on, and helmet: no time for more. Now, sword and buckler. He threw the empty scabbard on the couch as he rushed to the door. In the anteroom slept Markumi.

"Markumi! Markumi!" Cristoval whispered, shaking him.

"Yes, Viracocha," said the youth, sleepily.

"Up, Markumi! Make no sound. Quick--thy weapons, and follow!"

Markumi needed no second word. Electrified by the cavalier's voice, he was on his feet at a bound. Cristoval had not reached the door leading into the court, which he must cross to gain Rava's apartment, before the boy was beside him, grunting as he slipped the loop of the bow-string into its notch. Cristoval halted, listening. Without were movement and suppressed voices. As he put hand to the bar to open, the fastenings creaked with the weight of some one trying. Across the court came the crash of blows upon another door.

Markumi gasped, "What is it, Viracocha?"

"Devilry!" answered Cristoval. "The house is surrounded. Canares, I think." The words were not uttered before the room reverberated with a rain of strokes upon the panels before them.

"Set an arrow!" said Cristoval, in Markumi's ear. "Stand clear of the door when I throw it open. Do not follow. Keep in the darkness, and shoot low."

Markumi hurriedly set his arrow, grateful that the darkness hid his shaking legs. The cavalier released the bar and sprang back. The door flew wide, letting in a sudden flare of torches, and two half-naked forms plunged in headlong. The first ran full upon Cristoval's point. The second was shot through by Markumi. With a shout a throng filled the doorway. A javelin whizzed past Cristoval's ear; another, and another. Markumi's bow twanged, a _Canare_ fell, and the cavalier dashed forward, his buckler ringing with the quick thrusts of spears, his sword playing swift and deadly. A gasp or moan followed every lunge at the unarmored bodies. Shielding his head he pressed close upon the group, cut through, and was in the open. A pause of half a second, and he found himself the centre of a confused surging of warriors, their limbs and dark, ferocious faces illumined by the dancing light of torches. The court seemed full, resounding with the uproar from savage throats. Now a fiercer yell, and they closed. So dense the mass none dared hurl his javelin, but they pressed from all sides, and for an instant Cristoval staggered under the impact of their weapons upon his shield and mail. As they rushed, shriek upon shriek, half smothered by the walls of the opposite wing of the villa, cut to his heart with a sudden deadly chill--Rava!

The chill was followed by a flame more quick, and Cristoval became a demon. He charged into the thickest, thrusting from beneath his upraised buckler, the thin, glimmering steel finding flesh at every stroke. It flashed low, reaching its mark under lifted arms: a dull ray of light, with the velocity of light itself; a chameleon's tongue, its gleam barely seen for its fatal quickness. For a moment he seemed to struggle hopelessly. Hedged about, he labored heavily, impeded by mere weight of numbers, lacerated from elbow to shoulder by their spears, the grip of his weapon slippery with his own blood. Hands clutched to wrench his buckler from his grasp. Once it was swept aside, and he looked into the eyes of a Canare in the head-gear of a chieftain: saw the glitter of a falling axe. It fell, glanced from his helmet, and struck with stunning force upon his shoulder--by the grace of Heaven, not upon his right! The chief went down, his naked body run through, and the circle widened. A javelin glanced from the shield, and impaled a Canare beyond. Another, thrown with terrific force, shivered against his breastplate.

But for his mail the cavalier would not have lived through a dozen paces. He was breathing in gasps, his arm stiffening with its wounds. Warriors whirled around him, yielding here before the lightning blade; closing there and forcing him to fight to the rear. From the doorway Markumi had sped his last arrow and fled. Every shaft had carried death. Cristoval fought, not with hope, not in despair, but in madness to reach and save his love; in a frenzy to kill, kill, kill, while a man lived to interpose. All at once he became conscious of a growing light. The villa was afire! A torch had been set to the roof of the main building, and the thatch blazed high, a column of rosy smoke curling toward the quiet stars. Half across the court his eye caught the gleam of a morion. A Spaniard dashed from a door, followed by two others bearing a senseless form. For the first time Cristoval gave voice, and his roar overtopped the din. The first Spaniard stopped, glanced toward the struggle, then rushed forward with a shout, followed by one of the others, leaving their burden to the third. Straight to thy doom, Juan Lopez!

He sprang through the mob, sweeping the Canares from his path, and whirling aloft his halberd. Cristoval rushed upon him. The axe fell, was caught upon the buckler, and Cristoval drove his sword into the Spaniard's throat, jerked it out, and while the other tottered, drove it home again with all the force lent his arm by hate.

It was the end. While he strove to disengage his blade the Canares swept upon him. He was down. On his knees he still fought, creeping a few inches toward his beloved, then sank beneath a war club whose force even his helmet could not ward. While his brain reeled he heard the yell of triumph, growing distant to his ears, and the world ceased to be. A score of hands clutched to tear him to pieces, struck back by the second halberdier.

"Off, dogs! He is mine.--_Hola_, Duero! We have him!--A thousand _castellanos_!"

He stopped. A Canare reeled against him in a spasm of coughing, tugging at the shaft of an arrow in his chest. In another moment the Spaniard had been forced away from Cristoval by a rush of the tribesmen, and arrows and javelins whistled about him from the darkness outside the court. He heard Duero calling and swearing, a fierce yell from the gloom surrounding the villa, and a storm of missiles swept the court, whose tumult became a pandemonium.

Xilcala had been roused. One of the household had given alarm, and the flames brought the villagers on wings. The conflagration wrought its own punishment: every Canare in the court revealed by the mounting flames, the garden in blackness. A merciless hail assailed the ravagers from the obscurity, and they were seized with panic--a mere tossing herd, stampeded by a foe unseen, dropping by twos and threes beneath the deadly rain. Yells, the crackling flames, and the shouts of the invisible assailants made the garden a horror.

The halberdier fought his way to Duero's side, and they stood in consternation. The still unconscious Rava had been drawn into the doorway. With a motion to his companion Duero picked her up, and they groped through the smoke-filled building into the shrubbery in front, and were away.

Clear of the garden, they made a detour to pass the village, halting once to bind and gag the Nusta as they hurried toward the gorge. A mile beyond the town they joined a small party of Spaniards and Canares in concealment beside the road. Duero replied to their questions with a comprehensive curse. "Move, blockheads!" he roared. "Fetch the litter. Before ye finish gawping they will be upon us. Hell is uncovered, d' ye hear? Fetch the litter."

A _hamaca_ was brought, Rava thrust into it, and the curtains drawn. Two Canares took it up, and the party hurried away.

At the entrance of the gorge they crossed the stream by a bridge of twisted osiers. On the farther side they hacked with their halberds until the structure hung, a wreck, from its opposite anchorage. It would cut off the retreat of their allies, but would delay pursuit, for the torrent was unfordable. Their route was down the gorge. Toward morning they crossed and destroyed another bridge, then proceeded in security.

The conflict raged about the villa until the Canares retreated to the mountains, leaving their wounded and dead. The villagers turned to the flames, tore away the thatch, and saved the wings of the house, but of the main portion only blackened walls remained. Until Maytalca was found, imprisoned with her maids in a room remote from the flames, the capture of Rava was unknown, and Duero's party had gained several miles the start. Pursuit, delayed at the first bridge, was balked completely at the second, and forced into a circuitous mountain path before it could come again upon the raiders' trail. The flight was toward Xauxa, but by the third day the pursuers found themselves impeded by prowling Canares. Forced again to the mountain trails, the chase was hopeless.

Markumi found Cristoval, and with assistance bore him, almost lifeless, to Huallampo's villa. For the second time he was hovering upon the brink, and for days the aged healer summoned by the _curaca_ answered the villagers with a dubious shake of his head.

*CHAPTER XXI*

_*The Senora Descends upon Pedro*_

We go forward to find ourselves at Xauxa, a week subsequent to the catastrophe at Xilcala, months after Pizarro's march to Cuzco.

The town lies on the river Xauxa, a branch of the great Apurimac, in one of the many fertile valleys, or _bolsons_, that break the arid desolation of the Sierra. Pizarro had found it well defended by the immense fortress on the steeps of an adjacent mountain. He left it with a small garrison, as has appeared. With this remained the sick and incapacitated, and most of the non-combatants. Among these were Pedro, who, since the escape of Peralta, was no longer _persona grata_, and felt more secure away from the commander; Jose remained invalided by an attack of the fever; Father Tendilla, as missionary to the natives; and Rogelio, the _veedor_, who tarried for reasons best known to himself. Rogelio, however, pleaded an indisposition which, as a civil officer of the Crown and a man with a family, he could not conscientiously neglect; and from his couch in his quarters within the fortress, bade farewell in a voice of feebleness and suffering. When assured that the last company had marched he rolled out of bed and dressed in time to watch the command from the rampart as it trailed down to the town below. He shook a fist at the distant figure he knew to be Mendoza's, rubbed his hands, snuffled, and emitted a chuckle of mingled glee, triumph, and malice. An hour afterward he was haggling with Duero and Mani-mani, a sub-chief of the Canares.

For several days the garrison remained within the fortress. A fortnight later word came that Prince Manco had met Pizarro peaceably at Xaquixaguana, and had presented his claim to the throne. His right had been formally recognized, and the prince was proceeding with the Spaniards to Cuzco, where the coronation would take place straightway. Accompanying the news was his command that all hostility should cease, and soon natives and garrison were on friendly terms. Those Spaniards privileged to do so took quarters in the town, and among them was Pedro.

Pedro established his _cantina_ near the square. One afternoon he was leaning idly beside his door, watching the passers-by, with an occasional glance down the thoroughfare toward the north. A _chasqui_ had announced the day before that a small company of Viracochas was approaching, newly arrived from Panama, on the way to join Pizarro. The _cantina_ was prepared, and a roast of llama on Pedrillo's spit divided the attention which the proprietor paid to the street. The latter was interesting, for the day was a festival of some sort and the town was full of the country people, gayly clad, and notwithstanding recent calamities, in full holiday spirits. As Pedro stood he noted that the crowd was growing. By and by he observed that his establishment was drawing a deal of persistent attention. No one had stopped in front of it, but a number had passed and repassed, and one Indio, conspicuous for his dignity of bearing, had already grown familiar. He was a tall old man, wrapped in a long, colored poncho of unusual elegance, its heavy folds falling to his knees and decorated with a profusion of conventionalized forms of birds and beasts. The object of particular interest to Pedro, however, was his suite. Following close as he stalked past for the sixth or seventh time, was his wife; and in her train a numerous family ranging in age from five to eighteen years or thereabout, the eldest a maiden of comely face and figure who glanced at the cook with shy but unmistakable curiosity. The old man seemed never to see him, apparently disdaining show of interest; but his family were less scrupulous, and favored him with stares undisguised. This group was but one of many, but it was notable to Pedro by the presence of the shy though curious eighteen-year-old of the comeliness mentioned. Pedro was not unsusceptible. Having once or twice caught her eyes, he straightway experienced a responding interest.