Part 10

They had all accepted the outward badges of Christianity; indeed, the rites of their old religion were now forbidden by the conquerors. Yupanqui was almost the only person who contrived to evade their laws; or else his disobedience was connived at by the authorities through special favour. But in fact nearly all the Inca Indians had received the new faith, not only willingly, but joyfully. José, himself a heathen in his early childhood, and of late well-nigh moved to cast off Christianity again by the enormities he had witnessed in its professors, felt and expressed some astonishment at the unaffected (though unenlightened) devotion of his kinsmen. But an old Inca, named Maricancha, an intimate friend of Yupanqui’s, and certainly no well-wisher of the Spaniards, took him gravely to task for his irreverence. “You must indeed have been bred in the desert, young man,” he said, “if you never heard the last charge of the great Huayna Capac, when, in dying, he left his peace with us. These were his words, hearken well to them: ‘In a few years after my death a new nation will invade you, and they shall become your lords and masters. Wherefore I charge you to serve them as men; for _their Law is better than yours_.’ It was because of these words (confirmed by many omens of strange significance,[37] which I will relate to you at a more convenient season), that, when the Spaniards came to us, we received them as messengers from heaven. We thought them the sons of Viracocha, who appeared to your father in the plains of Chita; wherefore to this day many of us call them Viracochas. And we would not hurt or offend them in any wise, but obeyed them, and believed all they told us. In truth, we were never conquered,—we were betrayed. Even at Caxa-marca, when they fell upon us without cause and without warning, in the midst of a peaceful discourse, and slew us by thousands, was there one of us that so much as raised his hand against them? Those who stood around Atahualpa (whom they esteemed for their Inca) shielded him with their own bodies, and died in silence like the rest, but never struck a blow. Since then the Spaniards have heaped upon us misery after misery. They themselves, we suspect now, are the children, not of Pacha-camac, but of Supay. Still, their Law is good and true, and it is the will of Pacha-camac that we should receive it.”

Yet these Indians had but a very imperfect knowledge of the faith they professed so heartily. It had not been difficult for them to pass from one religion of forms and ceremonies and outward observances to another. Their children were sprinkled with water instead of having their first hair cut; their youths were confirmed instead of being belted; they kept fasts and festivals with different names and at rather different seasons, but much in the same manner as their fathers; they offered cakes and flowers to the Madoña instead of to Quilla; and whereas they had been used to pay homage to canopas and huacas, they now adored equally numerous santos and santas. Little had been done by their instructors to stir their intellects; less to touch their hearts. Instead of the bread of life, for which they asked, the conqueror gave them a stone.

It could not have been otherwise. God honours not hands like those of the conquistadors of Peru to build His spiritual temple; nor lips like those of the notorious Valverde, the first bishop of Cuzco, to carry His message of peace and good-will to men. But it would be unjust to forget that amongst the Spaniards there were some, both Churchmen and laymen, who not only deplored in secret, but dared to denounce openly, the crimes and cruelties of their compatriots. All honour to these truly noble men, who, if they could not redeem the Spanish name from infamy and the Spanish race from just retribution, at least delivered their own souls. In rebuking the sins of their countrymen, they bear mournful and emphatic witness to the conquered race, that they were a people singularly apt to learn, if their conquerors had only been as apt to teach. “If God in past times,” writes one such large-hearted Spaniard,[38] “had granted them men who with Christian zeal would have given them a full knowledge of our holy religion, they were a people very open to good impressions, as their works testify, which remain to this hour.” But the burning anathemas that fell from the lips of divine love against those “hypocrites who shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, neither going in themselves nor suffering them that are entering to go in,” belong not alone to the scribes and Pharisees of old;—they are the portion of all who tread in their footprints.

XVI.

A Star.

“And I—my harp should prelude woe— I cannot all command the strings; The glory of the sum of things _Will_ flash along the chords, and go.”

TENNYSON.

Eight or nine months have glided by, all too swiftly, since José Viracocha became an inmate of Yupanqui’s home, and no tidings from Fray Fernando have reached him yet.

One afternoon he turned his steps as usual to the cheerful apartment where the princesses, or _nũstas_, were to be found. The maidens were seated near the open door; for the daylight was precious, and not too large a share fell to the lot of the Children of the Sun in dwellings built by themselves. Sumac was diligently at work on some golden flowers. Coyllur’s hand was upon her much-loved tinya—the national Peruvian guitar of seven chords. Both were still dressed in soft, fine robes of gray, the Incas’ mourning, for the head of their royal house; but Coyllur wore ornaments that Sumac had discarded. Bands of gold, interwoven with her beautiful hair, relieved its glossy blackness; which was still further set off by a simple yet tasteful wreath of red and white begonias.

Both sisters looked up as José entered; but Sumac immediately resumed her work, without the slightest change of expression in her worn and sorrowful face, while Coyllur’s large dark eyes beamed with redoubled lustre, and a visible blush kindled her features through their soft, dusky hue. José saw no one but her. He approached, and, with tender reverence in his look and manner, laid at her feet a small fowling-piece. But the young lady glanced rather doubtfully at this token of homage.

“Are you quite sure, Viracocha,” she asked, “that his mother is not still inside?”

She merely meant to inquire whether the gun was not still loaded; the Peruvians styling the spiritual essence which they believed to inhabit most inanimate things their “mama,” or mother; and Coyllur, not unnaturally, supposing the charge the spirit of the gun.

“Coyllur nũsta must know that her slave Viracocha would turn the fire-breathing club ten thousand times against his own breast, rather than suffer it to hurt a hair of her head,” was José’s answer.

“Viracocha should turn the fire against the enemies of his people.”

“Perhaps, one day—if a star shines on his path to guide him.”

The star beamed brightly enough upon him at that moment: though Coyllur’s lips were sealed by pride and maidenly reserve, she was too young and artless to silence the mute eloquence of her eyes.

“How do you prosper in your attempt to teach your companions the use of that terrible weapon?” she asked presently.

“Well, nũsta. The difficult part of the undertaking was to teach myself first. That done, the rest is easy enough.”

“I hope the place chosen for your exercise is—_safe_?”

“Safe as the rocks of the Antis. It is the field of Quepaypan, which, you know, is a good league from the city. Few save our own people ever come near it; and for fear of any surprise, we have scouts stationed all around at convenient distances.”

“You should by all means procure a horse. A man looks so brave and noble upon horseback.”

“You are always right, nũsta. At present, however, that would be dangerous. We can learn to use our guns, and no Spaniard the wiser; but a troop of ‘los Indios’ on horseback would scarcely be an agreeable sight to my lord the Viceroy—at least in his present temper.”

“The bloodthirsty Toledo? May he live to see many sights less agreeable.”

“Ay, nũsta; but the time is not come. You remember the words of the wise Pacha-cutec—‘Impatience is the sign of a base mind.’”

Here Sumac’s voice, low and soft as the cooing of a dove, broke in with the request,—

“Wilt thou help me, sister? Thy fingers shape the delicate maize-ears more deftly than mine.”

“Chachau, since you wish it, my Sumac. But why such haste with the work?”

“I promised the flowers this evening to the nuns of Santa Clara.”

“I am tired of the nuns of Santa Clara,” said Coyllur petulantly. “I think they would have us work for them like yanaconas.”

“Nay, Coyllur, they are very good to us; they teach us the holy faith. Besides,” she added, in a somewhat lower tone, “you know how kind the lady abbess has been in persuading her kinsman the Viceroy to close his eyes for the present to—to what we are all sorry for.”

“_I_ at least am not sorry that our grandfather will not profess what he does not believe. But give me that silver wire, and I will help you; though I had rather the flowers were for the Inca’s garden than for the shrine of Saint—I forget his name.—Viracocha, will you take the tinya, and play and sing for us while we work?”

José complied; all the more readily because he had a very fine “yaravi” to sing, which he had just composed in praise of his own bright star. But his performance on this occasion was brought to a premature close by the entrance of Yupanqui, who was accompanied by two chosen friends of Inca race—Maricancha and Rimac.

Yupanqui looked upon José with that peculiar tender fondness which the old sometimes feel for the young, in whom they see their own youth reproduced, and through whom they hope to realize their own lost hopes and ineffectual longings. He marked the budding attachment between his young favourite and his grandchild even before they had become aware of it themselves; and he watched its progress with interest and satisfaction.

If the conversation, previous to his entrance and that of his friends, had been sufficiently dangerous—treasonable, in fact, to Spanish ears—it became ten times more so afterwards. Since the death of Tupac Amaru, the Indians of Inca race had been exposed to much unjust suspicion, and to many persecutions from the Spaniards; treatment which, of course, aggravated feelings of bitterness where such already existed, and excited them in other cases. Some faint, floating rumour of a defeat recently sustained at sea by the Spaniards, had just reached Cuzco. In this the Indians secretly triumphed, greatly exaggerating its importance. Much discussion followed as to who the victorious enemies could be. Yupanqui and his friends had the vaguest possible ideas on the subject. No fable could have been told them too wild or too monstrous for their faith.

José, who was just one degree less ignorant than the others, was listened to as an oracle. It seemed a favourable opportunity for propounding his cherished theory about the bearded, pale-faced strangers and their great King. Not that he had hitherto been altogether silent on this topic, so dear to his heart; but never before had he spoken of it so freely.

Yet the hopes that made the young, ardent heart of José throb and bound, but faintly stirred the pulses of the aged men, whose spirits had been crushed by nearly forty years of cruel oppression. They had learned to bow beneath the yoke with sullen endurance; not acquiescent, not resigned, but sorrowfully convinced of their own helplessness and the power of the conquerors. It would not be quite true to say that they had ceased to look for deliverance; but they looked passively, with tearful, weary eyes, in which the light of hope was well-nigh quenched. Maricancha expressed the feelings of all when he said,—

“These are fine words, my son Viracocha; but the Spaniards are not conquered, nor like to be, in our day. Everything bows before them. They are strong. God is on their side, and fights for them.”

“I doubt that,” José answered. “But the maize takes long to ripen, and God’s plans may take longer.”

“If what the Spaniards tell us of His plans be true, He means them to possess the whole earth.”

“No, no, my fathers!” José cried with energy; “never think that. Is it not written in their own Sacred Book that the great King—who is no Spaniard, believe me—shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth? that all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him? He is the mighty King, the great Inca of the East, to whom I look, and in whom I hope for deliverance. Oh, that I could but find Him!” he concluded, in tones of thrilling earnestness.

“I know who He is,” said a soft, hesitating voice. All turned towards Sumac, with eyes full of curiosity and interest. “Viracocha told us those sacred words one day,” she continued; “and they were sweet in our ears as the song of the tuya and wonderful as the spirit-music of Achapa. So I kept them in my heart, and asked the nuns of Santa Clara what they meant.” Here she paused.

“Well, my child, and what said they?” Yupanqui asked.

Sumac crossed herself reverently. “Sister Maria told me that the great King is no other than the Lord Christ himself, the Son of God,”—she said.

But a chorus of grieved, protesting voices drowned her words. These men, so willing to hear about the Christian religion, so ready to embrace it, had yet learned from their instructors little more than a vague and awful dread of Him who is its centre. They had been told of the pity and tenderness of “Our Lady,” “the Mother of God.” But of His pity they had never heard, save as shown through her intercession; from Him directly they expected none. Every one except José, who remained silent, uttered some exclamation expressive of disbelief or disappointment.

“He is the Judge!” “He is the God of the Spaniards, who gave them our land and our people!” “He it is who will cast us into everlasting fire if we neglect to have the sacraments and pay the priests!” “Ay, truly!—If it were St. Christopher or St. James, one might understand. But the Son of God Himself! How terrible!”

Much more was said. But it is too painful to record such words. Indeed, they were not words so much as inarticulate cries—the cries of blind men, groping in the dark bewildered, and striking ignorantly against the Hand that would have saved and guided them—if they had but known!

“Sumac, my child—my dove! apple of my eye! daughter of my heart! what grieves thee?”—It was old Yupanqui who spoke, in the words of endearment and tenderness so richly supplied by the gentle _lengua del Inca_; for Sumac had slipped down from her seat, and was crouching on the floor, with her mantle thrown over her head, weeping quietly.

The girl’s slight frame thrilled to the caressing touch of the old man, and taking his hand, she pressed it to her lips, saying with deep emotion, “Oh, my father! do not let them speak so of Him—of Him—who died for us!”

“For the Spaniards!” said Maricancha bitterly.

“For us also,” repeated Sumac—her voice increasing in strength, and her eyes beaming softly through her tears;—“yes—for us also, the Children of the Sun, to take away our sins.”

“The Children of the Sun do not sin, my darling,” said Yupanqui. “But pay thy devotions as thou wilt to thy favourite God; no one shall speak a word against Him.”

“He is the one God, grandfather. There is no other.”

“No other god! What canst thou mean, my child? For whose altar are those flowers of thine? Every one knows the Christians honour hosts of gods called santos and santas, besides the great goddess, the queen of heaven. But worship whom thou wilt, my treasure, and may all gods comfort thee.” Yupanqui, and indeed every one else, had grown very tender, not to say reverent, towards Sumac, since the great sorrow had fallen upon her life.

The girl rose, carefully gathered up the completed flowers, and glided softly from the room. Coyllur seemed to hesitate for a moment whether to follow her; but the attraction of the dreams and aspirations that were being eagerly discussed by her countrymen proved too strong, and she remained.

XVII.

In the Convent Parlour.

“Why should I live? Do I not know The life of woman is full of woe? Toiling on, and on, and on, With breaking heart and tearful eyes, And silent lips, and in the soul The secret longings that arise, Which this world never satisfies! Some more, some less, but of the whole Not one quite happy,—no, not one!”

LONGFELLOW.

Accompanied by a female attendant, who carried a little basket containing the golden flowers, Sumac crossed the great square, and shortly afterwards entered by a side-door the gardens which had formerly belonged to the Virgins of the Sun, but which were now appropriated to the nuns of Santa Clara. The stately terraces, faced with dark stone, and reaching down to the banks of the Huatanay, had once been adorned with all the flowers of that prolific clime, in their rich variety of form and colouring. And it is said that rarer flowers, silver pale or golden, wrought by the skilful hands of the Virgins of the Sun, mingled with the scarlet salvias, the crimson fuchsias, the variegated calceolarias, and the many-tinted orchids, looking as if they had grown up with them side by side. But now such flowers as these were esteemed too highly—not for the art that fashioned, but for the metal that composed them—to be left exposed to the changes of the elements. The terraces were beginning already to fall into ruin; and while some of the hardier flowers grew luxuriantly in sweet tangled thickets, others had perished, or become poor and scanty, under the less careful hand of the stranger.

When they entered the garden, the old Indian domestic resigned her basket to her young mistress, and then sat down on one of the terrace steps to wait, crooning a Quichua song.

Sumac slowly climbed the hill to the convent door. Even the short walk had wearied her, and the steep ascent tried her powers still further. Her breath came and went, and two or three times she stopped to rest. Reaching the door at last, she found it open, and entered.

“Tell my mother, Lucia wants her,” she said in Spanish to a novice whom she happened to meet; for Sumac and Coyllur had been taught Spanish by the nuns. They had also their Christian names, used seldom amongst themselves, but often in their intercourse with the Spaniards. Sumac’s was Lucia, Coyllur’s Victoria.

The novice, to whom she was well known, led her at once into a parlour, saying, “I will tell Sister Maria.”

Sumac waited a while, first seated on a bench, then standing to gaze, with much admiration, on a very indifferent painting, in her eyes a wonderful work of art, representing Christ blessing the little children.

Ere long a worn and faded woman, in a dark serge robe, entered the room. She was not young, she was not beautiful—perhaps she had never been so; but when she looked at the Indian girl, there was a yearning, motherly tenderness in her face, which it may be the angels think a fairer thing than what we call beauty.

As she folded the slight form in an affectionate embrace, she exclaimed sorrowfully, “My poor child is almost a shadow now. I sometimes fear, Lucia, that you will soon vanish from our sight altogether.”

“And what if I do, mother?” asked the girl, seating herself beside her, and gazing fondly into her dim blue eyes with dark ones that were all too perilously bright. “Since they slew the Inca, I have not wished to live. Tell me, mother, is that also sin?”

Sister Maria sighed, as she answered, “It is always sin, my child, if we love the creature more than the Creator.”

Sumac crossed herself, and pointed to the picture. “You told me He takes away sin; you said He died for our sins on the cross.”

Amidst much darkness, ignorance, and confusion, that one grand and simple truth had found its way, like healing balm, into the crushed heart of the Indian girl; for Sister Maria, having learned that truth herself, was able to teach it. In early days—days far off, and tenderly remembered now—some pure and unadulterated drops of the water of life had fallen to her lot through the ministrations of the celebrated Fray Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, in Seville. Many years since then had she lived “in a dry and thirsty land where no water is,” yet, like the lotus flower, she had treasured up a little store of the precious liquid, enough to quench the thirst of a weary wanderer in the desert. Thus it was that, happily, one poor mourner was not bid to look, as too many were, for comfort, to the “Madre Dolorosa,” our Lady of Sorrows, but to the Man of Sorrows Himself, who is also the Lord of Life and Glory.

Half unconsciously, Sister Maria murmured a few lines of the noble old Latin hymn, “Dies Iræ.”

“What do those words say, mother?” Sumac asked.

The nun gave a free Spanish translation of them, somewhat resembling ours:—

“Think, O Saviour, for what reason Thou endured’st earth’s pain and treason Do not lose me in that season.”

But Sumac did not approve.

“That does not seem a good prayer, mother,” she said. “How could He lose me? He is God.”

“Keep that faith, my child,” replied the nun, a little sorrowfully.

_She_ was conscious of many a keen pulsation of fear, not that He would lose her, but that she might somehow lose Him, which would be the same thing practically. But why should she cast the shadow of her own doubt upon her pupil’s more simple trust?

Sumac broke the pause that followed. “Mother, I have now a great sin, I am afraid,” she said, in faltering tones.

Upon a few occasions—very few—Sumac and Coyllur had attended confession. They had been gently dealt with; yet they both hated it. Coyllur was nearly driven to open rebellion by the requirement; while to Sumac it was a dreaded and formidable ordeal. Yet she liked well to pour her simple confessions into the ear of her chosen teacher and friend; her “mother,” as the motherless girl—motherless almost since the dawn of memory—loved to call her.

“What is this sin, my daughter?” asked the nun, tenderly taking and holding the small, brown, transparent hand.

“I have much sin, because it hurts me that Coyllur and Viracocha love each other,” was Sumac’s faltering acknowledgment.

“What, my child! And do they?” asked the nun, with a perceptible start.

“Yes,” said the Indian girl, surprised in her turn at her friend’s surprise. “It is right. He is noble, beautiful, and good; and he is one of our own.”

“How far has the matter gone? Does Coyllur really care for him? Is anything settled?” asked Sister Maria, with much more eagerness than might have been expected from her. She pitied the conquered race, and would fain spare them one wrong more, if she could.

Sumac looked at her, wondering. “Mother,” she said, “surely you do not wish Coyllur to be a holy virgin? I might, if I live; but never Coyllur. She is too bright, too glad. She is like the little tuyas that go singing all the day from bough to bough. God, when He made her, meant her to be always happy, I am sure.”

“May it indeed be so,” said the nun. “No, Lucia, I do not wish to see her undertake the religious life; she has no vocation for it. But, my child, does Prince Paullu know what you have told me now? or even your aunt, Doña Beatriz Coya?”

“My grandfather will tell Paullu when it is necessary,” Sumac answered, not without a look that betrayed the distrust and dislike which even her gentle heart harboured towards the Inca who made himself the willing tool of the Spaniard. “My aunt,” she added, “must be well aware of it already; they are both often at her house. And, in sooth, they never go there that I am not filled with fear lest Viracocha should fight with some Spanish caballero for paying attention to my sister.”