Part 19

Just then José entered, carrying a pataca, or covered native basket, from which he produced some articles of food and other things that he had purchased in the city. Amongst them was a flask of wine from the old country, which he gave to Melchior, saying, “My Father smiled upon the fruits of your native land, and they have sent their best juices hither to make sick men well.”

“Don José, you are very good to me,” said Melchior gratefully.

“I ought to be good to everyone to-day,” José answered, as he seated himself, and loosed the fastening of his yacollo, which was now a simple golden pin—his mother’s tupu—instead of a large and lustrous emerald, Yupanqui’s gift. “I have heard such good tidings. But I ought first to tell you, patre, that I failed to do your errand at the Franciscan monastery. The monks would not trust me with the Book, without a written order from yourself.”

Fray Fernando had sent to request the loan of a copy of the Vulgate. Perhaps his motive for this request might have been found in certain conversations he had lately held with Walter Grey, who was now permitted to come to him three times a week for religious instruction.

José went on: “Whatever may have caused their hesitation, it was scarcely the value of the Book, since I offered to leave them my gold bracelet in pledge for it. I think they feared I might do myself or some one else a mischief with it, as if it were a carbine or musket. It reminds me, patre, of the old times in Cerro Blanco, when I stood in such awe of your Breviary, believing that a spirit dwelt in it, which spoke to you when you read it.”

Then Melchior said reverently, “It is quite true, Don José, that a Spirit dwells in the Book you were to have brought to-day; and He will speak to you, if you read it with prayer and humility.”

“You are making pictures, Melchior,” José answered readily.—“I see.” He himself was quite as anxious for the Book as Fray Fernando, because he thought it would tell him of his King.

“But you have not yet told us the good tidings, José,” Fray Fernando resumed presently.

José’s black eyes kindled with a vivid inward fire, but no other feature of his face showed emotion, and his voice was calm, even low, as he spoke. “Some Spanish soldiers have just come back to Lima from the country of the Chunchos, which you call the Montaña. They have brought with them—sore wounded and sick unto death—Don Ramon de Virves. It was at his own earnest request they brought him so far, for he thought to embark for Spain. But he will never see Spain again. God has visited his iniquities on his head.”

“Take care, José,” said Fray Fernando gravely. “Long ago the wise man said, ‘Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him.’”

“Who is Don Ramon de Virves?” Melchior asked with interest.

José turned to him and answered, still in the same low quiet voice, “When I was a child I dwelt with my kindred in a little green spot in the great southern desert—a ‘paucar,’ we call it. One day that Don Ramon de Virves came thither with his Spaniards. We were mostly women and children; we neither could fight with them, nor desired to do it. So we gave them to eat and to drink, and let them lie down in our huts to sleep. But while we slept they arose, drew their Spanish steel, and slew all—men, women, and little children—without remorse or pity.[48] That was their way of ‘reducing’ Indians to the obedience of the crown of Spain and the faith of Christ. Yet it was well for those who died. Thrice more unhappy were the two spared—my mother and I. Bound and guarded, we watched the flames that burned our home to ashes. But the Children of the Sun know how to die. When night came again, my mother kissed me, and said, ‘Pacha-camac cares for the wild beasts on the mountain,[49] he will also care for thee, my child.’ Then she bade me go to sleep. When I awoke, she was dead. I am a man now, and I thank God that she won her freedom thus; but I was a child then, and I wept and wailed over her lifeless form in the bitterness of my anguish. Yet I too would have died, rather than be Don Ramon’s slave, if the patre had not bought me. Judge whether or no _I_ have cause to rejoice that Don Ramon is dying now in pain and misery—forsaken of God and man.”

“José, my son José!” Fray Fernando interposed, in a tone of grieved surprise. “Remember that vengeance belongs to God, not to us. To Him we ought to leave it.”

“I have left it to Him,” José answered calmly, “and He has taken it.”

“But did you never hear,” said Melchior, raising himself and looking earnestly at the Indian youth—“did you never hear that our blessed Lord Himself, when He hung on the cross, prayed for His murderers, and said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’?”

“No?” José said, interrogatively, and with a perplexed, discomfited look.

“How can you say ‘No,’ José?” Fray Fernando asked, a little jealous perhaps for his reputation as instructor. “You have heard it a hundred times. And what says the Paternoster,—almost the first thing I taught you?”

José struggled with a thought he did not choose to admit, and putting it from him with an effort, answered doggedly, “It says, ‘Thy kingdom come.’”

“It says also, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.’”

“And,” Melchior added, “none have part in the kingdom that is to come save those whose trespasses are forgiven.”

José received these sharp arrows of truth without remonstrance, but without acquiescence. He bore their sting as he would have borne physical pain—silent and unmoved, though keenly sensible. In any other case he would have been very angry with the hands that winged them; but he knew not how to feel anger towards a dying man like Melchior, still less towards the patre. But how unreasonable, how unjust, how cruel the requirement!

_Whose_ requirement? That he did not ask himself just yet. With a lowering brow and a heart full of bitterness he went forth; nor did either Melchior or Fray Fernando see him again that night.

XXXII.

Walter Grey’s Advice.

“Forgive!—for ’tis sweet to stammer one letter From the Eternal’s language: on earth it is called ‘Forgiveness.’”

LONGFELLOW (_from the Swedish_).

José Viracocha was not at all more vindictive than other men. He inherited from his ancestors no implacability of disposition, no burning thirst after vengeance. On the contrary, it was their special glory—a glory that ought to last when other glories fade away—that they saw the beauty of fair Mercy, and wooed and won her to sit beside them on their golden throne. Many a deed of generous magnanimity had place amongst his cherished traditions. He could not remember the first time he had heard how the Inca Mayta caressed and fed the little children of his enemies; how the Inca Huayna Capac taught and acted upon the noble maxim, “We ought to spare our foes, for they will soon be our subjects.” But he had now come to a point at which these traditions could not help him. Although the clemency a monarch extends to despairing suppliants at his feet is a fair thing to look upon, and very grateful to eyes fatigued with the monotonous crimson of battle-fields and massacres, still it is _not_ the forgiveness of keen and cruel personal injuries. As surely as the crystal rings when struck, so surely does human nature respond, with the sharp cry of hatred, to the stroke of wrong. There is only _One_ Hand whose touch can bring peace and make silence there.

José could not forgive Don Ramon: he had no wish to do it—his soul rose in rebellion at the very thought. He saw clearly all that it involved. If he pardoned Don Ramon, he must pardon also all his enemies, with all their injuries, public and private. He must pardon Don Francisco Solis; and him he hated quite as bitterly as he hated Don Ramon. And there were times when his resentment against both paled and faded before the intensity of his indignation against the spoilers of Tahuantin Suyu. Them also—even _them_—he must pardon! Impossible!

Yet a suspicion, gradually becoming a conviction, was stealing over his heart. It was no other than the King whom he sought—the Divine Monarch and Deliverer, the great Inca of the East—who required this thing of him, who demanded it as the test of his allegiance. If, instead, He had but asked his life-blood!

In his sore dismay and perplexity, he bethought himself of Walter Grey, to whom he was becoming every day more strongly attached, and to whose comfort he ministered in every possible way. Walter would give him the English view of the matter; and that, most probably, would be the true one. So, after Walter’s next visit to Fray Fernando, José returned with him to the beach; and standing before him as he rested for a little in the welcome shade of a rock, he briefly acquainted him with the strange demand that had been made upon him.

“If,” he said, “I proposed stabbing the man through the back, or setting fire to the house where he lies wounded, I could understand the King having somewhat to object. Nor, indeed, would the Incas have approved such practices. But to bid me forgive him from my heart! How can it matter what I feel there? Whose business is that, save my own?”

“It is God’s business, José;—and the King is God.”

“I know it,” said José reverently.

“God sees your heart, reads it through and through, claims it for His own.”

José lay down on the sand, and turned his face away from Walter. At last he said,—

“I almost wish I had never met you, Señor Hualter.”

“And why that, Don José?”

“You trouble me. Better not to know the King, than to know Him and not to obey Him; and He is hard, _hard_ to obey.”

“Oh no!”

“But yes. I know now why none of the Spaniards really obey Him, though they pretend to do it,—They cannot. Nor can I; I am afraid of Him.”

“You ought not. He loves you, He died for you;—and He only wants you to be like Him.”

“Well, if need were, I could die for Him. But” (a tremor shook his whole frame; not violent—none of his movements were that—but telling of intense repugnance) “this thing I cannot do;—I will not. What use to try? I could never forgive that man, unless I were taken to pieces and made over again.”

“‘Except a man be born again,’” said Walter Grey, “‘he shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God.’”

“Who says that?”

“The King Himself.”

“I do not understand.—Stay, I do!” he added, after a thoughtful pause. “I remember the patre said those words to me. He told me they meant my baptism. He said I was born then into the Christian Church.”

“You remember your baptism?” asked Walter.

“Of course I do; I was ten years old.”

“What did you feel? Did you receive a new heart, and begin a new life then?”

“In one way, yes. I felt great love for the patre, who, I thought, was claiming me for his own by certain mystic rites and ceremonies; and I gave myself up to him very gladly. But as for thoughts of God or the Church, I had none. Until long afterwards, I worshipped my Father the Sun.”

“It is very plain that you still need to be born of water and the Spirit, and to receive the new heart which God alone can give you. And He will. You have only, on your part, to ‘give yourself up to Him very gladly,’ as you did to the padre.—Don José,” said Walter Grey, starting up suddenly, “I could talk to you for hours; but I dare not linger. Look yonder! The sun touches the sea already; and ere it sinks, I am bound to be on board. There is not a moment to waste; the sunsets are so rapid here. Wonderful, like everything else in this wonderland of yours!”

“I am with you, Señor Hualter,” said José, suiting the action to the word.

As they walked along together, Walter remarked: “I dare not make the captain angry by delay, lest he should deny me leave another time; and few other times may be left to me now, Don José. The Commandante returns from Cuzco to-morrow, and it is whispered he has orders for us. I fear we may be sent to some distant shore, where I shall never see your face or that of Fray Fernando again. It is so lonely on board, now the matador is gone; though, God knows, my heart rejoices at his deliverance. Farewell, Don José!”

Next morning José said to Fray Fernando: “Patre, I am going to the city to visit some of my people. Will you give me a letter to the monks, and I will bring you back the Book you want?”

“Willingly, my son. But, I pray of thee, come back thyself as speedily as thou canst; for since yesterday there are five men ill of the calenture, and two of the Creoles from San Domingo are dying, as I fear.”

“I will hasten.”

“Hasten thine errands in the city—not thy footsteps by the way; for the heat is fearful to-day, and I would not have thee get a sunstroke.”

“No fear of that. My Father never hurts his own; he only smites the Spaniards,” said José, as he started at a brisk pace on his seven miles’ walk.

His assertion was not strictly true, however; for the burning sun of Lima proved fatal to many of the Inca family exiled by Spanish tyranny from Cuzco and its neighbourhood, and forced to take up their residence on the hot, unhealthy coast.

That day José brought back with him in triumph a formidable-looking volume. Fray Fernando laid it aside until the evening; but when the door of their humble dwelling was barred for the night, and the lamp was lighted, he set it on the table before him, and began to read. Melchior prayed him to read aloud, translating the Latin into Spanish as he read. There were few things which he could have refused Melchior; so he turned from the Epistles of St. Paul (which he had been exploring to test the accuracy of Walter Grey’s quotations, and to discover, if possible, some key to the perplexities they awakened), and, rightly judging that the Gospels were the best food for the unlearned, he found the opening page of the New Testament, and began to read “The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

No man had ever two more attentive hearers. Melchior was soon to know more than even that Book could tell of Him whom his soul loved. Yet every word it revealed was precious. What if, ere long, he should drink from the fountain-head? Hitherto only a few drops in a tiny cup had been borne to his thirsting lips; therefore for the present it was joy enough to stoop over the running stream and drink, and give God thanks for the draught.

José, meanwhile, had not yet drunk; though he was sore athirst, and the water was near him. From the day when he learned who the King was from Walter Grey, until that other day when the summons to forgive his enemies smote him to the heart, José had occupied somewhat the position of a devout Jew “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” looking with earnest faith for a national Messiah, a great Redeemer and Deliverer, who should save his beloved people from all their enemies. Such a Deliverer he was prepared to welcome and to obey, even to the death. But now a lightning flash, scathing and burning while it illumined, had revealed to him the necessity of another deliverance, hitherto undreamt of,—a personal deliverance from sin. He was learning that the Son of God must be sought as the Saviour of the soul, or He will not reveal Himself as the King of the nations. Even the question, “Will He restore the Incas?” was postponed, of necessity, until their child found an answer to that other question, “Will He receive _me_, and make me over again, so that I can serve and please Him?”

He who read was seeking as earnestly as those who listened. Fray Fernando’s difficulties were far more complex than those of José. He needed everything—truth, peace, light, pardon. There were times when the last seemed the most pressing need of all. If each had tried to condense his longings into a single prayer, that of Fray Fernando would probably have been, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin;” and that of José, “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” Though it is likely José would soon have added, “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion” (meaning what stood for Zion in his mind); “build thou the walls of Jerusalem.”

XXXIII.

The King Found.

“He came to me in Power; I knew Him not. He came to me in Love; and my heart broke; And from its inmost depths there rose a cry— ‘My Father, oh, my Father, smile on me!’ And the great Father smiled.”

_Night and the Soul._

A quiet month glided by, bearing the _San Cristofero_ away to more northern shores; and slowly—almost imperceptibly—drifting another bark, long tossed by storms, towards the haven of welcome rest. So gradually was Melchior sinking, that although Fray Fernando watched him, hour by hour, with the devoted love of a brother born for adversity, and José with tender kindness, it was probable that the coming Visitant, the shadow of whose presence any stranger might readily have seen in his face, would take them both by surprise. The more accustomed they grew to the pleasant office of tending him, reading to him, talking with him, the less they seemed to think that all must have an end, and that shortly.

By this time they had read the Gospels through—and not once or twice. They had read the Epistles also; they had explored the narratives and prophecies of the Old Testament; they had even, to José’s intense delight, made some acquaintance with “the book of the Golden City,” as he called the Apocalypse. But always they turned back to the Gospels with fresh wonder, interest, and joy. What one of them, at least, found therein, will appear in the following conversation.

It was a close and sultry afternoon. Fray Fernando had gone out to perform the duties of his office towards some poor fever-stricken mariners, who lay in a rude shed on the beach, called by courtesy the Hospital. José sat beside Melchior, gently fanning him, and, as he did so, chanting in a low harmonious voice some melody of his people.

“Ancha Incay Hocca?” Melchior repeated, opening his eyes with a smile. “If I were you, Don José, I would rather sing a psalm than those heathen words.”

“The words I sing are a psalm to me,” José answered; “but if they trouble you I will stop.”

“Oh no. But I did not think there were any psalms or sacred songs as yet rendered into your tongue.”

“Nor are there, so far as I know. These are words from a Play which my fathers used to act before the white men came.”

Melchior heard him with indifference. What were plays to a dying man? He had done with “vain shows;” where he was going all would be real. Still he felt that a little interest in what interested his Indian friend was the least proof he could give of his gratitude for a thousand benefits; so, when José said, “Shall I tell you about it?” he answered promptly, “If you please, Don José.”

José, with evident pleasure, began his story. “There was once,” he said, “a great and brave chieftain, whose name was Ollantā. He rebelled against his lord the Inca; he took for himself the province given him to rule over; and he slew those who were sent against him. For he would fain obey no lord, but be lord and Inca over all himself. But, after a long time and a grievous war, in which many men were killed, he was overcome and made prisoner; and his friends, who aided him in his rebellion, were taken also. With their hands bound and their eyes bandaged, they were led to Cuzco. Then, at last, the bandage was taken away. Behold! they stood in the presence of the sole Inca. He sat on his golden throne, the high priest on his right hand, the great general whose valour had won the victory, on his left; and standing around him, like stars around the sun, all his glorious court. He looked awful in his majesty. Right sternly he asked the trembling captives, ‘Why have you done this thing?’ But they only bowed their heads and answered, ‘Father, we have nothing to say.’ Then the Inca turned to the high priest, ‘What do these men deserve?’ he asked. Too well the high priest knew the answer, but his lips refused to utter it. ‘The Sun has given me a merciful heart,’ he said. So the Inca looked from him to the victorious general, whose heart was cast in a harder mould. And he spoke out boldly, ‘Inca, these men have slain our fathers; they must die. Let them be tied to stakes driven into the ground, and let their servants, who fought for them, be made to march over their bodies. Then let those servants also be slain with arrows.’ Then the Inca looked upon the captives; and his face was sad and stern; ‘You have heard your sentence,’ he said.—‘Take them away.’ And the servants wept and wailed and made sore lamentation. But Ollantā and his friends spake never a word; for they knew that their doom was just. As they had sown, they must reap. Only they looked up to the glorious Sun, and around them on the fair earth, as men who take their farewell look of all.

“Then once more spake the Inca. ‘Stay,’ he said. ‘Unbind those men. They shall not die, but live. Ollantā, I forgive thee.’ And turning to the guards that stood around, he added, ‘Bring the golden helmet, the mace, and the arrows.’ (These were the signs of Ollantā’s forfeited honours.) ‘Give them back to him. And to his friends likewise restore their maces of office, their arrows, and their bracelets.’ Moreover, forasmuch as pardon is not complete without trust restored, he said to him, ‘Ollantā, thou shalt govern Cuzco for me when I go forth shortly upon my warlike expedition to Collasuyu.’ And he sealed all with the generous word, ‘I shall go with joy; leaving, to govern here, my faithful Ollantā.’

“Oh, my friend! Ollantā’s eyes were dry at the terrible death-sentence; but I tell you he wept then! Ollantā never knelt at the Inca’s feet to implore his life; but I tell you, when the Inca forgave him thus, he flung himself in the dust before him, and swore to be his slave for ever! And, at last, the grateful, reverent love that overflowed his heart, found voice in the words I sang just now.

‘O Inca! this is too much For a man who is nothing. Mayest thou live a thousand years. I am as thou makest me; Thou dost give me succour: Crippled, thou makest me stand; Fallen, thou raisest me up; Poor, thou enrichest me; Blind, thou givest me sight; Dead, thou restorest life;— Thou, indeed, teachest me to forget.’”[50]

“What, Don José, are you weeping at your own tale?” asked Melchior, wondering at the emotion that filled the eyes and well-nigh choked the voice of José.

The Indian dashed the unbidden drops away. “Not often do we weep, we Children of the Sun,” he said. “Yet Ollantā wept at the Inca’s pardon; for his heart grew soft within him, like the heart of a little child. And I too—O Melchior, can you not read the meaning of my tale? Listen, then. I am Ollantā, the rebel. I did not know my King, my Inca. I would not obey Him; I fought against Him; I wanted to be lord and ruler myself, and to do my own will, not His. But He conquered me, and took me, and led me step by step, as it were with bandaged eyes. And now, at last, the bandage is taken away. I have seen Him. First _there_,” indicating with rapid gesture the Book on the table; “then _here_,” laying his hand on his heart. “He has pardoned me—pardoned, blessed, restored; made me His free, happy servant; told me to live and work for Him.

‘O Inca! this is too much For a man who is nothing. I am as thou makest me; Thou dost give me succour: Crippled, thou makest me stand; Fallen, thou raisest me up; Poor, thou enrichest me; Blind, thou givest me sight; Dead, thou restorest life;— Thou, indeed, teachest me to forget.’

Ranti! Ranti! Capac Inca! Huacchacuyac!”

There was a long silence, filled with happy thought. Then, at last, Melchior asked gently, “What of Don Ramon de Virves _now_, Don José?”