Part 9

Yet he entreated Fray Fernando to defer his entrance into Cuzco until the following day, that the Sun himself might welcome them to his own city. Fray Fernando looked on this as an instance of the childishness which seemed strangely interwoven in the tangled web of José’s character with manly sense and feeling. Still, he granted the request, and all the more readily because he was very weary, and comfortable Indian dwellings were close at hand, in which they might rest for the night.

XIV.

The Last Inca.

“Oh, there was mourning when you fell, In your own vales a deep-toned knell,— An agony, a wild farewell! But that hath long been o’er.

“Rest, with your still and solemn fame,— The hills keep record of your name; For never can a touch of shame Darken the buried brow.”

HEMANS.

The next morning our travellers descended the hill, and soon found themselves within the precincts of the royal city.

As frequently happens, neither experienced just the emotions he expected. José was so confused and bewildered by the crowds which filled the street to overflowing, and thronged past him on every side, that he scarcely made an effort to look about him, and actually stood close to the temples and palaces he had dreamed of all his life without seeing them. His first impression was that the whole population of the city was escaping from some terrible calamity—a fire, an earthquake, or a flood. But recollecting that he had never seen a city before, and could not therefore be sure that this was not its ordinary condition, his apprehensions subsided, and he determined to hold his peace for the present. His fears, however, revived when he began to observe the downcast, tearful faces of the Indians, of whom the crowd was chiefly composed. Nor was he reassured on discovering that they were shared by his more experienced companion.

“José,” said the monk, “something very extraordinary must be going forward here. Ask one of the Indians what it is.”

Instead of making the inquiry at once from the next in the crowd, José managed to mount a large stone belonging to one of the Indian buildings which the Spaniards were demolishing, and from this vantage-ground surveyed the street. Noticing amongst the throng a white-haired, venerable-looking Indian, who wore around his head a cord of vicuña wool dyed carnation and yellow (the distinguishing badge of the Incas), he made his way, with much difficulty, towards the spot where he stood. But just as he was beginning to address him, a loud cry of terror drowned his voice, and he saw the Indians around scattering in all directions. Some hid themselves in the adjacent lanes and houses, the rest rushed wildly hither and thither—trampling upon each other in their panic.

The cause soon appeared. A young Spanish cavalier, dressed in shining armour, and mounted on a high-mettled horse, was spurring in hot haste through the crowded street, little regarding the lives and limbs of “los Indios.” In any thoroughfare such a circumstance would have caused alarm and confusion, but it created a fearful panic amongst a people who had not yet overcome their superstitious dread of the “huge earth-shaking beast” that obeyed the white man.[30]

José at first gave way with the rest. But he had seen horses in Nasca, and being naturally courageous, had successfully endeavoured to overcome his fear of them. Recovering self-possession, he looked about him, and observed that a poor little Indian child, who had been thrown down in the confusion, was lying almost beneath the horse’s hoofs. To snatch it from its perilous position, and deposit it safely in the nearest of a dozen pair of arms, stretched out simultaneously to receive it, was a minute’s work. In the next, José’s hand was laid boldly upon the rein of the reckless rider. “Have a care how you ride, señor caballero,” he said in Spanish; “we have all lives and limbs to lose, worth as much in God’s sight as your own.”

The youth, for he was no more—a very handsome young Spaniard, with fine, haughty, aristocratic features, dark, curled hair, and the first down on his blooming cheek—cast a look of amazement upon “El Indio,” who dared to remonstrate with him, and in such good Castilian. Then, flushing with anger, he raised his riding-whip. “Curse your insolence!” he cried. “Let go my rein, you Indian dog.”

Don José Viracocha Inca had not come to the city of his fathers to be treated as a slave. He instantly snatched the whip from the hand of the Spaniard, whose keenly-tempered blade leaped the next moment from its scabbard and flashed in the sunlight. Fatal consequences might have followed, had not one from the crowd laid a strong hand on José’s shoulder, and, partly by force, partly by a few words—brief, but of momentous import—whispered in his ear, drawn him away from the scene of conflict. The whip fell to the ground, and one of the bystanders picked it up and gave it to its owner; who spurred on to the great square, lest he should incur a severe rebuke from his senior officer, and still more, lest he should miss the tragedy about to be enacted there.

Meanwhile José turned a blank, terrified face to the old Indian with the fillet of vicuña wool—for he it was whose friendly violence had extricated him from his perilous position.—“_The Inca?_” he repeated; “what is it you say of the Inca?”

“I say of you, that you are a brave youth, but that this is no time to show it, when the eye of every man in Cuzco is dim with tears for the Inca.”

“The Inca?—Do I hear aright? Speak once again, my father.”

“While I speak, they are leading the Inca to his death in yonder square.”

“Alalau! Dare they do such a deed?—even the Spaniards?—What is his crime?”

“He has refused to touch Spanish gold,” said the old man bitterly. “From hands red with his people’s blood he would accept nothing. So at last they give him the one gift he cannot refuse—the stroke that sends him to the mansions of his Father the Sun.”

To José it seemed as if the sun itself had suddenly become black in the heavens. To him the Inca was as truly a part of the unchanging and unchangeable order of things as the light that ruled the day. Gladly would he have laid down his own head on the block instead of his.

“Let me look on his face,” he exclaimed at last; “I have never seen him.”

“Come,” said the other briefly; and together they threaded their way through the crowd to the great square.

In the old times, when the Inca made his royal progress, the spots where his golden litter rested took a new name from that auspicious hour. Eager thousands thronged around, rending the air, and, as the historian says, “bringing down the birds” with their joyful acclamations; and a happy man was he who was so favoured as to behold the face of his prince and lord. _Now_, instead of the golden throne, there was a grim scaffold draped with black; instead of shouts of joy, there were groans and lamentations, and “noise of weeping loud.” Yet the devotion of the nation’s heart burned on unquenched. Because the homage rendered was not born of fear, but of love, it survived all outward change, all circumstance and pomp of golden thrones, and armed guards, and costly apparel, and was poured forth, only more richly than ever, at the feet of the despoiled and fettered captive on his way to death.

With hands bound, and halter round his neck, the son of Manco Capac ascended the scaffold. His face was calm and his step firm. He was not unworthy of his royal ancestors, who had ever braved death dauntlessly on the battle-field. Yet Tupac Amaru, still in the morning of his days, keenly felt the injustice of his doom. Looking down upon the sea of upturned dusky faces, he raised his fettered right hand, with the palm open, then slowly lowered it again, mutely commanding silence.

And silence, sudden and complete, fell upon that great wailing multitude. It was “as if there had not been one soul left alive in the whole city.” So was obeyed the Inca’s last command.

“Let it be proclaimed to all the world,” said Tupac Amaru, “that I have done no wrong, and that I die only because it is the pleasure of the tyrant.”

Then he knelt down on the scaffold, clasped his hands, and raised his eyes to heaven. “O God!” he cried, in his native tongue, “behold how mine enemies rob me of my blood!”

There was a minute’s pause; then the silent gliding forward of a hooded, black-robed figure; then the gleam and flash of steel. Then a wail of anguish—the cry of a great nation’s broken heart—that arose from the crowded square of Cuzco, and swept on and on till it reached the most secluded hut of the distant Andes. The last sands of the glorious dynasty of Manco Capac had run out. There was no more an Inca.

The murder of young Tupac Amaru deserves to be remembered, not because it was the most cruel of the misdeeds of the conquerors of Tahuantin Suyu, but because of the innocence of the victim, and because of the hopes that were buried in his grave. How, after that day’s tragedy, could the Indians continue to cherish in secret the fond belief that the true heir of Manco Capac reigned still in the wild forests of Vilca-pampa, and that one day he would issue thence in victorious might to recover the throne of his fathers?

Yet hope is hard to kill. It may lie in seeming death, and be laid in the grave; but if inspired by love it will rise again, partaking of love’s immortality. There was no more an Inca. But not the less did the Indians whisper to each other, “The Inca will come again.” Only henceforward the restoration of the loved dynasty became not so much a political hope as an article of religious faith.[31]

XV.

The Golden City.

“How princely are thy towers, How fair thy vales, thy hills how beautiful! The sun, who sheds on thee his parting smiles, Sees not in all his wide career a scene Lovelier, nor more exuberantly blest By bounteous earth and heaven. The very gales Of Eden waft not from the immortal bowers Odours to sense more exquisite than those Which breathing from thy groves and gardens now Recall in me such thoughts of bitterness. The time has been when happy was their lot Who had their birthright there; but happy now Are those who to thy bosom have gone home.”

SOUTHEY.

The voice of José’s white-haired guide mingled in the great wail that rose from the square of Cuzco. Then the old man bowed his head and wept, José also weeping with him.

“Come home with me,” said the Indian noble at last, as the crowd began slowly to disperse.

“We are kinsmen,” José answered, and told his name, then briefly recapitulated his pedigree.

“I also am of Viracocha’s ayllu,” said the Indian. “My name is Yupanqui.[32] And here,” he added presently, “is my house.” For Yupanqui’s dwelling, like most of the palaces of the Inca nobility who resided at Cuzco, opened on the great square.

José followed his conductor into a low, one-storied building, formed of massive blocks of stone fitted into each other with wonderful accuracy. The doorway, wide near the ground, sloped gradually inwards, the lintel being considerably narrower than the threshold. A kind of passage brought them to a court, into which many similar doors opened, each leading to a separate chamber. This arrangement was rendered necessary by the absence of windows.

The old Inca conducted his guest into one of these chambers, which was spacious, and adorned with richly-coloured hangings of llama’s wool. There were also niches in the walls, containing a few ornaments of gold and silver—not many, for Spanish cupidity must not be tempted: the less men had, or were thought to have, the better for them in those days. On the ground were seated a group of women of all ages, weeping and wailing, and making sore lamentation for the Inca.

On a raised seat in the midst were two young girls dressed in robes of pure white, bordered with yellow, woven of vicuña wool, soft and fine as silk. Their black and glossy hair hung over their shoulders in long plaits, while the symmetry of their slight, graceful forms, and the dark beauty of their delicate features, fully justified the admiration of the high-born cavaliers of Spain for these daughters of the Sun. A delicious sensation stole over the heart of José: it was as though he heard the spirit-music of the desert of Achapa, which surprises the weary traveller at sunset, coming he knows not whence, and passing he knows not whither.

He stood apart, a silent spectator. The conversation between the old Indian, his grandchildren, and their attendants, gradually revealed to him much of their history. He came to understand that one of these girls had been destined to occupy the high position of Coya (empress, or chief wife) to the murdered Inca. But some time elapsed before he could tell which, since the grief of both seemed equal. When the younger, still almost a child, clasped her small hands, and raising her dark, tearful eyes to heaven, prayed God to avenge their prince, José said within himself, “Surely this was the Inca’s choice. No marvel,—she is surpassingly lovely.” But he was mistaken. Soon afterwards, turning to her sister, who sat silent, her face for the most part hidden in her robe, she said, “Sumac,[33] my sister, above all things I pity you that you cannot die with him, as they used to do in the old days—the good ones.”

Then Sumac raised her head, and in a low, quiet voice made answer:—“Indeed, Coyllur,[33] that would be very sweet to me now. But—I am afraid.”

“Afraid!” Coyllur repeated in evident surprise; for never had the Children of the Sun been known to fear death for, or with, those they loved. “Afraid!—Of what?”

“Of the Lord Christ—that if I come to the gate when He has not called, He will not let me in.”

“Then they also are Christians,” thought José.

But Coyllur, who evidently did not quite understand her sister, presently resumed, in tones of passionate grief, yet with a kind of rhythm in her sweet voice, that made the words half a song, “Alalau! my sister, my heart is very sad for thee. For thou shouldst have sat on the golden throne beside our prince and lord; sharing his dominion and his splendour, as Quilla, the spouse of the great Ynty, shares the glory of the sky with the lord of day. And, hereafter, thou shouldst have had thy place on the awful thrones in the Curi-cancha,[34] where sit the Incas and the Coyas of days gone by, each with the royal robe, the llautu, and the sceptre; and the grand, calm face, sealed with the majesty of death, that changes not throughout the ages.”[35]

“Nay, but, Coyllur,” Sumac’s low voice interrupted, “do not talk thus. I never cared for being Coya; I never thought that he was Inca; I only knew that he was good and brave. Had he been a yanacona,[36] all would have been the same.”

But here José’s attention was diverted from the conversation by the hospitable cares of Yupanqui, which were not forgotten or omitted even in that hour of overwhelming sorrow. The old Inca caused an attendant to bring him two golden cups, of exactly the same size and shape. These he filled with chica, and having given one to José with his right hand, emptied the other himself. José, out of courtesy, did likewise; but he declined other refreshment, for it was meet that all who loved the Inca should keep solemn fast that day.

The next morning he told his host that it would be necessary for him to go in search of “the patre,” whom he had lost in the crowd on the preceding day.

“No great loss,” the old Indian remarked dryly. “If you want patres, you can find them here, all kinds—black, white, and gray. They swarm like ants, building their nests on the ruins of our fathers’ palaces.”

José explained that his patre was very unlike the others, and paid a grateful tribute to the benefits he had received from him.

“He did well to make a Christian of you,” Yupanqui admitted, with the sad tolerance of despair. “I also took care to have my grandchildren baptized. But for myself, I am too old to learn the white man’s religion.”

“My soul is ofttimes cut in two about these things,” José acknowledged candidly. “Yet the white man’s faith seems good to me, and I truly believe all that the patre has taught me of its mysteries.”

“So say my kinsmen and my grandchildren. They have been taught by the Holy Virgins, and Sumac often prays me to listen to their words. But I answer that what was good enough for the kings and heroes who were my forefathers is good enough for me. When I die, I would rather go where they are than to the cold, strange heaven of the Spaniard.—Do you know where to find your patre?”

“I know that he intended to go to the house of a great Spanish lord, the owner of the land where we dwelt—Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano.”

“Him he will not find here. His wife is our kinswoman, aunt to the children yonder.”

“How that? She is a daughter of Huayna Capac.”

“So was their mother, dead these twelve years. They are of Viracocha’s ayllu through their father, my only son—dead also; of Huayna Capac’s through their mother. Don Marcio is a good man, for a Spaniard. He prayed the viceroy, on bended knees, to spare the Inca’s life. When all was vain, he would not see the crime he could not prevent. He and the princess his wife are far away.”

“What shall I do then to find the patre? Must I stand in the street and watch for him? He is sure to pass some time.”

Even the phlegmatic Indian could not forbear a grave smile at the expedient José’s ignorance in the ways of cities suggested. “You might watch for him until the great flood comes again,” he said. “Nay, like always goes to like. Seek him at the house where the monks of his sort live.”

“He is a gray friar, of the Order of St. Francis.”

“One of my servants shall bring you to their house. It is built, like the rest, on the ruins of an Inca palace.”

“I long to walk through the city. I have been dreaming of it all my life.”

“Dreaming is dangerous in these days,” said the old Inca. “Yesterday’s scaffold was no dream, but dreaming brings a man to that,—or worse.”

“There be many things worse,” José remarked. “What Sayri Tupac did, for instance.”

“Well said, Child of the Sun,” Yupanqui answered, with grave approval. “Come, we will walk through the city together.”

Under the guidance of his new friend, José traversed the great square, the “pleasant hill” of the Incas, through the centre of which the Huatanay flowed, crossed by numerous footbridges of stone. Then he ascended the height of Sachsahuaman, and explored, with mingled pride in the past and bitter indignant sorrow for the present, the ruins of the great Inca fortress. He made Yupanqui point out to him the spot whence his grandfather flung himself into the Colcampata. Thence they looked down on the whole city, which lay beneath them spread out like a map. “There,” said the old Indian—“there once stood the glorious Curi-cancha, glittering with gold and gems. What you see now is the temple and house of the Black Monks. Yet the wall on one side is still standing. Look, you may know it by its dark colour.”

“But the grand golden door and cornice, the massive golden vases, the emerald-studded sun—”

“You see all the spoiler has left,” Yupanqui interrupted gloomily. “Yonder was the palace of our father, Viracocha. The Christians have built their great temple on its ruins. Those lofty buildings are all theirs. They take our houses, that have better walls than they can make, and set their outlandish towers and balconies upon them, as if the roofs that sheltered princes and heroes were not good enough for them.”

All this, and much more, was poured into the ears of José, while his eyes were feasted (a mournful festival!) with all that remained of the glories of the City of the Sun. When, after traversing nearly the whole town under Yupanqui’s guidance, he reached at last the gate of the Franciscan monastery, his heart was more full than ever of the wrongs of Tahuantin Suyu and the crimes of the white man.

The door-keeper informed José that Fray Fernando had left Cuzco that morning; then asked if he were Don José Viracocha Inca, and on receiving his answer handed him a billet from the monk. This informed him that Fray Fernando, on reaching the Franciscan monastery, found a summons awaiting him from the prior of his order at Lima. The command did not brook delay; but it was a fortunate circumstance that Don Marcio Serra’s country residence lay almost in his way, so that he need not forego the opportunity of obtaining speedy justice for the poor negroes at Cerro Blanco. He added, that as he did not yet know whither the prior might intend to send him, it seemed best for his dear son José to remain with the friends he was certain to find or make at Cuzco amongst his own people, till he should write directing him to rejoin him, which he would not fail to do as speedily as he might.

José keenly regretted this sudden and unexpected separation from his beloved patre. Yet, dearly as he loved Fray Fernando, that love opposed, after all, but a feeble barrier to the fascination with which his own race was once more drawing him into its bosom. The spell of its memories, full of glory—of its wrongs, its hopes, its passions—was laid upon him more strongly than ever. Day after day did he spend wandering up and down the streets and squares of the ancient city, the home of his fathers, examining, with the eager eye of enthusiasm, the ruins of temple, palace, and fortress, until he knew almost their every stone by heart. Then he would return to Yupanqui’s house, to drink enchantment of another kind, as he listened to the sweet Quichua songs of the young princesses, interchanged his store of national legends with theirs, admired their skilful spinning and weaving, or aided them in their more graceful work of fashioning artificial flowers from thin plates and wires of gold and silver.

He soon became aware that the dwelling of Yupanqui was a gathering-place for those of the Inca family residing at Cuzco who still in their hearts detested the rule of the Spaniards; as was the palace of Prince Paullu on the Colcampata for those who cheerfully accepted the present state of things. Yupanqui’s guests would drop in—usually by twos and threes—to share the frugal evening meal of the family, who, like all the Incas, only ate twice a day—in the early morning, and again at sundown. When, after they had partaken of the boiled maize seasoned with red pepper, the bitter herbs, and the charqui, chica was brought in, each would dip his finger in his cup and sprinkle a few drops in the air by way of thanksgiving. Then, as they drank together, their conversation was sure to turn upon the former days that were better than these, and the crimes and cruelties of the Spaniards. José soon made friends amongst them, and ere long was on terms of the closest intimacy with his dusky cousins, Don Fernando, Don Juan, and Don Diego, whom however, he always called by more uncouth and less familiar ancestral names.