Part 11

“He could not be so mad as to fight with a Spaniard! Lucia, my child, if there be still time, if remonstrance still avails—it is for her sake I speak, and for his—”

“But what is it you would say, my mother?” Sumac asked, with momentarily increasing agitation. “It _is_ too late; they love each other. Who could be so cruel as to sunder them? What have you heard? What do you know?”

“I _know_ nothing, my child;”—which was true: at least, Sister Maria only knew that the Mother Abbess was a kinswoman of the Viceroy, Don Francisco de Toledo; that three proud and needy young cavaliers—the nephews of both—were waiting in Cuzco for whatever fortune and their powerful kinsfolk might send them; and that the youngest and proudest of the three had cast his fiery dark eyes on the sweet face of Coyllur, and sworn to have her for his bride. And woe betide the Indian slave who should dare to cross the path of his master, the white man!

However, there were still a hundred possibilities in the future. Some one might change—something might happen; at all events, the trembling form, the eager parted lips, the wistful anxious eyes of her best-loved pupil were more at that moment to poor Sister Maria than any distant dangers that might menace Coyllur and Viracocha. To turn her thoughts from the subject that alarmed her, she asked,—

“But, my Lucia, why should it hurt _you_ that they love each other?”

“I don’t know,” faltered Sumac, her head drooping more and more, until at last her face was quite overshadowed by her long and beautiful hair; “I can’t tell. Only, mother,” she added, looking quickly up into the nun’s kind sorrowful eyes, “my heart pains me—_here_. It is hungry—it is empty—it is tired. When Viracocha speaks low and soft to Coyllur, it says within me—‘_You_ will never hear such words any more, Sumac—never any more!’ O mother, mother! there be many voices sweet to others; one voice only was sweet to Sumac,—but it will never speak again! Dark and evil it seems to me that he is dead, and that I am left alive.”

And Sumac laid herself, like a tired child, in her friend’s pitying arms, and wept. It was not often that she spoke such words or wept such tears. If she had, she might have lived longer. Sister Maria mingled her tears of sympathy with the hot and passionate drops of Sumac’s bitter sorrow. At last she said,—

“Lucia, my child, would you desire to change your lot for that of Coyllur now?”

It was rather a strange question for a nun to ask. But Sister Maria had been a woman before she became a nun; and in spite of conventual life and discipline, the woman’s heart throbbed in her bosom still.

“Oh no, no! Mother, don’t you remember that _I_ was to have been the sole Inca’s bride?”

“Is it, then, because you esteem it so great an honour to be, as you call it, Coya—”

“Oh, hush, mother! what use is all that? Indeed, I never heeded such words when they spoke them; and I think there is much talk like the mountain snow, that melts when you take it in your hand. But, mother, you know I saw him. Once he laid aside the llautu, and the crimson tunic, and the white wing-feathers of the cora-quenque, and he put on the dress of a poor man, and came unknown to Cuzco, that he might look upon the city of his fathers;—that he might look too upon this poor face of mine, that has no beauty now. And then he said—he said—No, mamallay, I will not tell what he said—not even to you. Those words are all my own; they are the one thing poor Sumac has in this dark, cold world. Had he bidden me then, I would have gone forth gladly to the wild desert with him—for was he not the Inca? But he did not; he told me he would come again. He _did_ come again—you know how. They would not let me see him. Perhaps it was best; my face might have troubled him—might have shadowed with a thought of pain the noble calm of the look he wore, as beseemed him, to the last. It does not matter now—for me. I ought not to weep;—you tell me I may pray for him. And he received Holy Baptism,—most gladly, as they say. Moreover, he left his cause to God;—Christ is God.”

After one more gush of passionate tears came a sudden change of tone:

“Give _him_—give _his_ memory up for Viracocha! Give the emerald of the mine for one of those green leaves in the garden yonder! Not that Viracocha is not good and brave. I love him well,—as my brother. But there are ten thousand green leaves for one green stone, mother.”

“So you think your own portion the best, and would rather keep it, with all its sorrow? Well, my child, I believe you are right,” said the woman’s heart of Sister Maria. “Though, of course, earthly love is nothing, compared with heavenly—mere dust and dross,” the nun interposed. “Still, God knows,” the woman said, taking up the parable again, “it is less bitter to have once been loved, truly and nobly, and then to have been separated by man’s hate and cruelty, than to find the trusted false, and to see what looked like gold fade away into tinsel.”

Sumac looked up, with interest and curiosity in her tearful eyes. The old wound ceased to throb, while she wondered whether some similar scar might not be found beneath the serge robe of a holy virgin.

“I scarcely know whether I ought to tell you foolish old stories,” said the nun, as the colour mantled to the roots of her thin hair, touched with gray. “Of course, all is past and gone—and no matter now. It seems as if it happened to some different person, long ago, in another life. Yet, not so long, after all. It is not easy in the convent to tell how time passes. I make strange mistakes sometimes. I think I have told you that I was born and brought up in Seville.”

“Seville! That is the great city beyond the Mother Sea, like Cuzco here,” said Sumac, who had heard José talk of Seville.

“Not just like Cuzco; for there be many cities as great, or greater, in the Old World—though Seville is a fair city certainly.”

“Viracocha has told us of it. His patre, Fray Fernando, was born there. And I think he must be the best and kindest Spaniard that ever lived. Viracocha loves him more than any one on earth, save Coyllur.”

“It was in Seville that I spent my happy childhood. Father and mother, sisters and brothers, all loved me, the youngest, and made a little queen of me. It was that they were good and tender, not that I was beautiful. Even when I was young and gay, I do not think my face was as lovely as many other faces in my native land. You might see a hundred fairer any day on the Prado. Still, God had given me the fair hair people care for in my country, I suppose because it is not often seen; and these dim eyes were what men called _zarca_. They said I stole their azure from the sky. What idle tales to tell you now! All the saints forgive me! Our Lady, with the seven swords in her breast, be merciful to me! What has tempted me to talk thus to thee, poor child, whom I should be seeking to edify?”

“But, you know, I want to hear what happened,” said Sumac innocently.

“_Nothing_ happened, Lucia; and that was just the trouble that made the blue eyes grow dim, and took the gold from the hair you see so dull and scanty. That was the trouble too that, God be thanked, made me think of Him. Then I remembered Fray Constantino’s sermons, that we used to go and hear in the great church; and then, at last, I gave Him all that was left of my poor life.”

“But was there no one—,” Sumac began, then stopped. “I don’t know the right Spanish words to use,” she said apologetically.

“Yes,” Sister Maria confessed, with a faint flush on her faded cheek. “One there was who praised the blue eyes like the rest, but did not look like the rest when he praised them. Wherever I went, there he was, with that great brow and earnest face—saying so much in one word, looking so much in one glance. He was the only son of a very proud and noble, though not wealthy, family. And I thought—. But I am speaking idle words again. I will only tell you that, all at once, he vanished—without word, without sign. It was said that he had gone away to seek his fortune in this strange New World. If so, at least he might have bowed or looked farewell. He never came again. I never heard what became of him; and I shall never hear on this side the grave.”

“You may be sure he was killed in battle, mother,” said Sumac, tenderly suggesting what seemed to her the most honourable and enviable fate.

“I know not. I only know that I was very sinful and very miserable. I thought more of him than of God. I prayed all the saints to send him back; and I had my heart full of wicked thoughts about them, because they did not, or could not. Then other troubles came: my kind and tender parents died, my brothers were scattered over the world, my sisters were married—not all happily. One brother, my favourite, was killed in Flanders, fighting against the heretics.”

“I know.—The English?”

“It did happen, strangely enough, that he fell by the hand of an Englishman. Then my proud heart broke at last. I gave up earthly hope, and turned, as I have told you, to God for comfort. My child, He does comfort the sorrowful, He does bind up the broken heart; though He takes more than a day to do His work.”

“He is good,” said Sumac gently. Then hearing the sound of a bell, which she knew was meant to summon the nuns to prayer, she rose to go. Remembering her basket of flowers, she took it up, and put it in her friend’s hand. “Here are flowers for the holy saint, mother,” she said. “I am so stupid that I have forgotten his name.”

“San Martin, my child; whose feast we celebrate to-morrow. Truly, Lucia, these are very beautiful,” said the nun, as she removed the fine cotton cloth that covered the basket, and took out, with admiring carefulness, the golden stalks of maize, with their rich golden grains sheathed in broad leaves of silver, and ornamented with tassels of delicate silver thread.

“San Martin. Was he the good man who, you told me, gave his cloak to the beggar? Will he be pleased with our flowers, do you think, mother? I am glad. But, mother, I want to make some now for our Lord Christ Himself. May I?”

“When it comes near Easter time, you shall. But now, dear child, the Lady Abbess bade me tell you she would fain you wrought a few for us, that we might send them to Spain, as an offering to the Mother House at Valladolid.”

“You shall have them, mother,” said the girl. “But I would like, best of all, to make some to give to our Saviour.”

“Give Him your heart, my child. That gift will please Him more than any other,” said the nun, as she kissed her affectionately. “Now I must hasten, or I shall have to do a penance for coming late to prayers.”

XVIII.

At Home.

“Trust!—the blessed deathly angels Whisper Sabbath hours at hand. By the heart’s wound when most gory By the longest agony, Smile!—behold, in sudden glory The Transfigured smiles on thee! And ye lifted up your head, And it seemed as if He said— ‘My beloved, is it so? Have ye tasted of my woe? Of my bliss ye shall not fail.’ He stands brightly where the shade is, With the keys of Death and Hades.”

E. B. BROWNING.

It was midday. Sumac lay sleeping, or seeming to sleep, on a low couch, called a pununa. A favourite attendant sat near, converting a little heap of wool into delicate threads by means of a spindle which she turned with a curiously-carved handle, and looking from time to time, with a mute and wistful sorrow, on the wasted face of her beloved nũsta.

It has been said that some women “have no language at all for their profoundest experiences, except to pine away and die.” Of such was Sumac. We have little right to look down from the proud height of our “Aryan” or “Caucasian” superiority upon our dusky brethren and sisters, as though their love and sorrow, compared with ours, “were as moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto wine.” Well have the race to which Sumac belonged asserted their claim to the love that proves itself stronger than death. Of Sumac’s own kindred was the Inca girl, Manco’s young wife, who endured every torture the Spaniards could invent without groan or murmur, and died at last smiling—because she died for him. Which of us could do more for earthly, not to say for heavenly love? And frail and shadowy as Sumac looked, within her slight frame there dwelt a spirit capable of the same devotion.

Viracocha entered the room gently through the open door, opposite to which Sumac’s couch had been placed. He was now dressed in full Inca costume. Above his uncu, with its belt of embroidered cloth, he wore a short mantle of vicuña wool, white and very fine, and adorned with a broad yellow border. On his head was a stately cap or coronal of egret’s feathers, bearing underneath the much-prized sacred cord of yellow and carnation, the insignia of the Children of the Sun. Viracocha was “a very handsome youth, well-shaped, and of a lovely countenance, as were all the other Incas.”[39] His chest was broad, his limbs slight, his head well-formed and graceful, his complexion a comely olive-brown; the oval face smooth as a maiden’s, yet thoroughly manly in expression—the parted lips revealing snow-white teeth—the nose aquiline—the eyes black and piercing, but capable of the tenderest softness—the black hair worn short according to custom, but very abundant and beautifully fine and glossy.

No wonder that such a youth was considered a highly ornamental addition to the numerous and splendid religious processions, upon the effect of which the Spanish friars seem to have placed their main reliance for the conversion of the Indians. He was also received into the best Spanish society Cuzco afforded, and pronounced by the Dons whom he enjoyed the privilege of meeting at the house of Doña Beatriz Coya and elsewhere, “_Homo tan formal y complida que Nosotros_”—(As formal and well-bred a man as Ourselves)—a high eulogium from Spanish lips. The Inca’s son was a gentleman as truly as any European prince or noble. He had not to learn courtesy from the Spaniards; he had but to translate its outward expression from the language of one set of observances into that of another. Moreover, Viracocha was born a poet; and the perilously sensitive and susceptible organization has its compensating advantages. At least, it enables a man to adapt himself to circumstances, not hypocritically affecting what he does not feel, but throwing himself readily into different forms of feeling. Ministering to Fray Fernando, pleading with unaffected eloquence the cause of his people, planning their deliverance, making love to Coyllur, taking part in a Corpus Christi procession, or exchanging Castilian courtesies in pure Castilian speech with the gentlemen of the Viceroy’s suite, Viracocha was still, for the time being, “a whole man to that one thing,” doing it with all his heart, and consequently doing it well. But this, though it was not hypocrisy, might yet easily become so.

All this time he is standing motionless, patiently waiting to be assured whether Sumac sleeps or not. At last his patience is rewarded—the girl opens her large languid eyes, and looks the question she does not need to speak.

“Dear nũsta, I have not been successful,” said Viracocha gently, as he came to her side, “although I preferred my request to the great mother of all the holy virgins.”

“To the Mother Abbess?”

“Yes. I entreated her, for the love of God, to allow Sister Maria to come and see you. But she refused me. She says it is against their law for any holy virgin to leave the house.”

“So near—only a few steps from their garden gate to this!” said Sumac plaintively.

“The Mother said that to permit it would be a great sin. But to speak plainly, nũsta, I think she is no better than an ugly old toad. If sin there be, what should hinder her doing penance?”

The Lady Abbess, it must be owned, had not been particularly courteous to Viracocha, whom she regarded as her nephew’s rival; nor very anxious to grant the request of which he was the bearer from the sister of Coyllur, who had of late bestowed sundry spirited rebuffs on that young nobleman.

“Then I shall never see Mamallay again!” said Sumac sadly, large tears gathering in her eyes. Presently she spoke to the attendant, “Amancaes,[40] bring me my book.”

Sumac possessed a book, which she regarded with half-superstitious awe as a wonderful and mysterious treasure, and with intense affection as the gift of her beloved “Mamallay.” It was a small, brown, well-worn volume—“The Sum of Christian Doctrine,” by Fray Constantino Ponce de la Fuente. Sister Maria had taught her to read, but she was far from perfect in the art; and if she had been, much that the book contained was quite beyond her comprehension.

She took it reverently in her thin hands and opened its first page. Some faded writing was there, upon which she pressed her lips fondly once and again. Then, showing it to Viracocha—“That is Mamallay’s name,” she said; “the name she had before she became a holy virgin.”

With some difficulty Viracocha read the name, which was traced faintly, in a delicate female hand—“Doña Rosa de Merçedes y Guevara.”

“Yes, that was her name—Rosa. It is the name of a fragrant flower that grows beyond the Mother Sea,—they say nothing like it was ever seen in our country till the Spaniards brought it over. The book was made by a good man—a great speaker, who used to tell the people to be good, as the Dominicans do in the great church on saints’ days. Mamallay loved his words; she says no one else ever spoke to her heart as he did. But afterwards he did something wicked: I know not what, I only know they put him in prison. Yet the book is very good, and full of words about our Lord. His name comes often. I cannot read the hard words; but I can read _that_, and it does me good.” She paused to take breath, then resumed—“But you are wise, Viracocha. You know the white man’s learning. So I wish you, when I go away, to have my book for your own. My other things (they are not many) my grandfather will have, and Coyllur. But my book shall be yours, because you can read it, and because I love you, brother.”

“I thank you, dear nũsta. But I hope you will live a long time yet.”

“It is not best for me to live. The Lord Christ knows that. How good He is! He saw me standing, all this time, outside the gate. He knew I longed—oh, how sorely!—to go in. But I would not until He called; no, I would not! Now He has called. Mamallay said so the last day I saw her. She told me His words,—‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ His own words, Viracocha!”

But Viracocha cared not for them just then. He did not labour, nor was he heavy laden.

Sumac presently resumed—“My brother, since I have grown too weak to walk to the convent garden, I have much time for thinking. And as I think, things grow clear to me. Best it seems to me now that you should wed my sister.”

“That is my dearest hope—one day.”

“But, Viracocha, life is too short to be waiting for ‘one day.’ Why not ask my grandfather to give her to you now?”

Viracocha’s black eyes became coals of fire, and his cheek burned through its olive hue;—but he was silent.

“Well?”—Sumac whispered.

“Ask him to give me Chasca, the evening star, from the sky! No, nũsta,—no! Not till I shall have done that which may give me right to claim a boon so priceless.”

“What is it you want to do?” the dying girl asked wistfully.

“Nũsta, you know.”

“I am not sure I do, you talk of so many strange things. Yet I can guess. You want to cross the Mother Sea, Viracocha.”

“_Arri! arri!_[41] And to come back with an English army, sent by the great King, to restore the Inca. And then, as the deliverer of my people, to kneel and claim Coyllur nũsta.”

“Viracocha! Viracocha!” said the dying girl, raising herself upon her couch, and looking with imploring earnestness into his face,—“I know where that will end. And I know, too, how the Spanish steel wounds—not the flesh it falls on—_that_ pang was short, thank God!—but the heart that loves. One of us is enough to bear that, Viracocha; do not lay it upon Coyllur.”

“God knows I would not cause her a pang for all that earth contains.”

“I see great sorrows, like great clouds, hanging over you,” Sumac went on sadly. “That Spaniard wants to have Coyllur.”

“_Aucca!_ I will fight him some day, and with his own weapons. The Spaniards shall see for once how an Inca can use them. The first time I met him, he would fain have struck me with his whip.” (For the young cavalier whom José had encountered the day of his arrival in Cuzco, proved to be no other than Don Francisco Solis de Toledo; a circumstance which intensified their mutual distrust and dislike.) “It was—that, however, does not matter now,” said José, checking himself suddenly as he remembered _what_ had taken place that very day.

“But he will not fight you, Viracocha. He knows better He will have you killed. The Spaniards do what they please. They are strong.”

“God is stronger, Sumac nũsta.”

“He is,” Sumac answered quietly. “But He did not bid you fight Don Francisco; nor go in search of the English.”

“That I question. I believe He calls me to seek the great King who will deliver the poor when he crieth.”

Here the conversation was brought to a close by the entrance of Coyllur, who had been visiting her aunt, and brought to her sister delicious Spanish sweetmeats flavoured with orange-flower water, the gift of that kind-hearted lady.

Never again had Viracocha opportunity for quiet talk with Sumac. From that time she grew rapidly worse. Pain and weakness claimed her for their own. She bore them very patiently, and faced the quickly-approaching end with a calmness more gentle and tender than the usual stoicism of her race.

Almost to the last the frail wasted fingers sought the familiar work, and feebly twisted the threads of golden wire. If Coyllur or her attendants remonstrated, she would say, “You know they are for the Lord Christ. They must be ready for Easter.”

They were ready for Easter. They filled a place among the glittering decorations of the high altar in the Church of Santa Clara. But ere the Easter bells began to ring, the gentle Inca girl had closed her eyes upon a world she was little loath to leave.

Every rite of the creed she professed had been duly afforded her. She confessed, communicated, and had extreme unction with all the proper forms, but with a very misty and imperfect apprehension of what was being done for her. If these things cannot help, neither may they hinder, the soul that trusts in God’s mercy through Christ. As the dew ascends from earth to heaven, unbidden, uncontrolled by man, so poor Sumac’s simple prayer ascended straight to the throne of God—“Good Lord Christ, take me to Thyself.”

Old Yupanqui, who hid a broken heart beneath a coldly impassive exterior, could not refuse his beloved grand-daughter’s last request—that he would receive Christian baptism. Accordingly he submitted to the rite on Whitsunday—though with little comprehension of its significance.

“I will do what she wished,” he said to Viracocha. “And after all, if I were now to go and dwell with my fathers in the Mansions of the Sun, they might not know me, or they might look upon me with scorn, because we are not what we were, in the old days when they ruled the land.”

“At least, my father,” Viracocha answered, “you cannot doubt it would be well for all of us to follow whither she is gone.”

XIX.

The Star Shines.

“From the beautiful face of my love, They call her Coyllur. It was by reason of her beauty A harmonious name. Like the moon in its splendour Is her bright forehead, When it shines in brilliancy In the highest heaven.”

_From “Ollantā,” an Ancient Inca Drama._