The Romance of Golden Star ...
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Title: The Romance of Golden Star ...
Author: George Chetwynd Griffith
Illustrator: Alfred Pearse
Release date: December 23, 2006 [eBook #20173]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021
Language: English
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THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
by
GEORGE [CHETWYND] GRIFFITH[-JONES]
Reprint Edition 1978 by Arno Press Inc.
Reprinted from a copy in The Library of the University of California,
Riverside
Editorial Supervision: Marie Stareck
THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR
[Illustration: Hail, Son of the Sun!
_Page 78._
THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR.
_Frontispiece._]
THE ROMANCE OF GOLDEN STAR ...
by
GEORGE GRIFFITH
Author of
'The Angel of the Revolution,'
'Olga Romanoff,' 'The Outlaws
of the Air,' 'Valdar the Oft-Born,'
'Briton or Boer?' Etc., Etc.
Illustrated by Alfred Pearse
_'To that Son of the Sacred Race
who for Honour and Faith and
Love shall take the hand of a
pure virgin of his own holy blood
and with her pass fearless through
the Gate of Death into the shadows
which lie beyond shall be given the
glory of casting out the Oppressor
and raising the Rainbow Banner
once more above the Golden Throne
of the Incas. On that Throne he
shall sit and wield power and mete
out justice and mercy to the Children
of the Sun when the gloom
that is falling upon the Land of
the Four Regions shall have passed
away in the dawn of a brighter
age.'_
--THE PROPHECY CONTAINED
IN THE ANCIENT LEGEND
OF VILCAROYA-INCA AND
GOLDEN STAR, HIS SISTER-BRIDE.
London: F. V. White & Co....
14 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. 1897
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PAGE
HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY 1
A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT 16
CHAPTER I
BACK THROUGH THE SHADOWS 32
CHAPTER II
BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD 47
CHAPTER III
IN THE HALL OF GOLD 66
CHAPTER IV
THE SISTER STARS 86
CHAPTER V
HOW DJAMA DID HIS WORK 105
CHAPTER VI
THE WAKING OF GOLDEN STAR 124
CHAPTER VII
IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI 145
CHAPTER VIII
HOW THE SOUL OF GOLDEN STAR CAME BACK 168
CHAPTER IX
THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA 188
CHAPTER X
ON THE RODADERO 209
CHAPTER XI
HOW WE TOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN 230
CHAPTER XII
QUEEN AND CROWN 250
CHAPTER XIII
HOW DJAMA PAID HIS DEBT 262
CHAPTER XIV
THE RE-KINDLING OF THE SACRED FIRE 271
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
ALFRED PEARSE
PAGE
'HAIL, SON OF THE SUN!' _Frontispiece_
'AM I ONLY DREAMING THAT THE DEATH-SLEEP IS OVER?' 26
THE DAGGER-POINT DROPPED TILL IT WAS WITHIN AN INCH
OF GOLDEN STAR'S BREAST 119
THEY THRUST HIM IN WITH HIS ARMS STILL BOUND 205
IT HAD SMITTEN HIM TO THE HEART 228
NOW THE MOMENT FOR THE GIVING OF THE SIGN HAD COME 280
The Romance of Golden Star
PROLOGUE
I
HIS HIGHNESS THE MUMMY
'Ah, what a thing it would be for us if his Inca Highness were really
only asleep, as he looks to be! Just think what he could tell us--how
easily he could re-create that lost wonderland of his for us, what
riddles he could answer, what lies he could contradict. And then think
of all the lost treasures that he could show us the way to. Upon my
word, if Mephistopheles were to walk into this room just now, I think I
should be tempted to make a bargain with him. Do you know, Djama, I
believe I would give half the remainder of my own life, whatever that
may be, to learn the secrets that were once locked up in that withered,
desiccated brain of his.'
The speaker was one of two men who were standing in a large room,
half-study, half-museum, in a big, old-fashioned house in Maida Vale.
Wherever the science of archæology was studied, Professor Martin Lamson
was known as the highest living authority on the subject of the
antiquities of South America. He had just returned from a year's
relic-hunting in Peru and Bolivia, and was enjoying the luxury of
unpacking his treasures with the almost boyish delight which, under such
circumstances, comes only to the true enthusiast. His companion was a
somewhat slenderly-built man, of medium height, whose clear, olive skin,
straight, black hair, and deep blue-black eyes betrayed a not very
remote Eastern origin.
Dr Laurens Djama was a physiologist, whose rapidly-acquired fame--he was
barely thirty-two--would have been considered sounder by his
professional brethren if it had not been, as they thought, impaired by
excursions into by-ways of science which were believed to lead him
perilously near to the borders of occultism. Five years before he had
pulled the professor through a very bad attack of the calentura in
Panama, where they met by the merest traveller's chance, and since then
they had been fast friends.
They were standing over a long packing-case, some seven feet in length
and two and a-half in breadth, in which lay, at full length, wrapped in
grave-clothes that had once been gaily coloured, but which were now
faded and grey with the grave-dust, the figure of a man with hands
crossed over the breast, dead to all appearances, and yet so gruesomely
lifelike that it seemed hard to believe that the broad, muscular chest
over which the crossed hands lay was not actually heaving and falling
with the breath of life.
The face had been uncovered. It was that of a man still in the early
prime of life. The dull brown hair was long and thick, the features
somewhat aquiline, and stamped even in death with an almost royal
dignity. The skin was of a pale bronze, though darkened by the hues of
death. Yet every detail of the face was so perfect and so life-like
that, as the professor had said, it seemed to be rather the face of a
man in a deep sleep than that of an Inca prince who must have been dead
and buried for over three hundred years. The closed eyes, though
somewhat sunken in their sockets, were the eyes of sleep rather than of
death, and the lids seemed to lie so lightly over them that it looked as
though one awakening touch would raise them.
'It is beyond all question the most perfect specimen of a mummy that I
have seen,' said the doctor, stooping down and drawing his thin, nervous
fingers very lightly over the dried skin of the right cheek. 'On my
honour, I simply can't believe that His Highness, as you call him, ever
really went to the other world by any of the orthodox routes. If you
could imagine an absolute suspension of all the vital functions induced
by the influence of something--some drug or hypnotic process unknown to
modern science, brought into action on a human being in the very prime
of his vital strength--then, so far as I can see, the results of that
influence would be exactly what you see here.'
'But surely that can't be anything but a dream. How could it be possible
to bring all the vital functions to a dead stop like that, and yet keep
them in such a state that it might be possible--for that's what I
suppose you are driving at--to start them into activity again, just as
one might wind up a clock that had been stopped for a few weeks and set
it going?'
'My dear fellow, the borderland between life and death is so utterly
unknown to the very best of us that there is no telling what frightful
possibilities there may be lying hidden under the shadows that hang over
it. You know as well as I do that there are perfectly well authenticated
instances on record of Hindoo Fakirs who have allowed themselves to be
placed in a state of suspended animation and had their tongues turned
back into their throats, their mouths and noses covered with clay, and
have been buried in graves that have been filled up and had sentries
watching day and night over them for as long a period as six weeks, and
then have been dug up and restored to perfect health and strength again
in a few hours. Now, if life can be suspended for six weeks and then
restored to an organism which, from all physiological standpoints, must
be regarded as inanimate, why not for six years or six hundred years,
for the matter of that? Given once the possibility, which we may assume
as proved, of a restoration to life after total suspension of animation,
then it only becomes a question of preservation of tissue for more or
less indefinite periods. Granted that tissue can be so preserved, then,
given the other possibility already proved, and--well, we will talk
about the other possibility afterwards. Now, tell me, don't you, as an
archæologist, see anything peculiar about this Inca prince of yours?'
The professor had been looking keenly at his friend during the delivery
of this curious physiological lecture. He seemed as though he were
trying to read the thoughts that were chasing each other through his
brain behind the impenetrable mask of that smooth, broad forehead of
his. He looked into his eyes, but saw nothing there save a cold, steady
light that he had often seen before when the doctor was discussing
subjects that interested him deeply. As for his face, it was utterly
impassive--the face of a dispassionate scientist quietly discussing the
possible solution of a problem that had been laid before him. Whether
his friend was really driving at some unheard-of and unearthly solution
of the problem which he himself had raised, or whether he was merely
discussing the possible issue of some abstract question in physiology,
he was utterly unable to discover, and so he thought it best to confine
himself to the matter in hand, without hazarding any risky guesses that
might possibly result in his own confusion. So he answered as quietly as
he could:
'Yes, I must confess that there are two perhaps very important points of
difference between this and any other Peruvian mummy that I have ever
seen or heard of.'
'Ah, I thought so,' said Djama, half closing his eyes and allowing just
the ghost of a smile to flit across his lips. 'I thought I knew enough
about archæology and the science of mummies in general to expect you to
say that. Now, just for the gratification of my own vanity, I should
like to try and anticipate what you are going to say; and if I'm wrong,
well, of course, I shall only be too happy to be contradicted.'
'Very well,' laughed the professor; 'say on!'
'Well, in the first place, I believe I'm right in saying that all
Peruvian mummies that have so far been discovered have been found in a
sitting posture, with the legs drawn close up to the body by means of
bindings and burial-clothes, so that the chin rested between the knees,
while the arms were brought round the legs and folded over them. Then,
again, these mummies have always been found in an upright position,
while you found this one lying down.'
'Quite so, quite so!' said the professor. 'In fact, I may say that no
one save myself has ever discovered such a mummy as this among all the
thousands that have been taken out of Peruvian burying-places. And now,
what is your other point?'
'Simply this,' said Djama, kneeling down beside the case, and laying his
hands over the abdomen of the recumbent figure. 'In the case of all
mummies, whether Egyptian or Peruvian, it was the invariable practice of
the embalmers to take out the intestines and fill the abdominal cavity
with preservative herbs and spices. Now, this has not been done in this
case. Look here.'
And deftly and swiftly he moved the dusty, half-decayed coverings from
the body of the mummy, while the professor looked on half-wondering and
half-frightened for the safety of his treasure.
'That has not been done here. You see the man's body is as perfect as it
was on the day he died--to use a conventional term. Now, am I not
right?'
'Yes, yes; perfectly right,' answered the professor, who felt himself
fast losing his grip of the conversation which had taken so strange a
turn. 'But what has all this got to do with the most unique mummy that
ever was brought from South America? Surely, in the name of all that's
sacred, you don't mean--'
'My dear fellow, never mind what I mean for the present,' replied Djama,
with another of his half smiles. 'If I mean anything at all, the meaning
will keep, and if I don't it doesn't matter. Now, do you mind telling me
exactly how and where you came across this extraordinary specimen
of--well, for want of a better term--we will say, Inca embalming?'
'Yes, willingly,' said the professor, glad to get back again on to the
familiar ground of his own experiences. 'I found it almost by accident
in a little valley about four days' ride to the westward of Cuzco. I was
on my way to Abancay across the Apurimac. My mule had fallen lame, and
so I got belated. Night came on, and somehow we got off the track
crossing one of the Punas--those elevated tablelands, you know, up among
the mountains--and when the mule could go no farther we camped, and the
next morning I found myself in an almost circular valley, completely
walled in by enormous mountains, save for the narrow, crooked gorge
through which we had stumbled by the purest accident. The bottom of this
valley was filled by a little lake, and while I was exploring the shores
of this I saw, hidden underneath an overhanging ledge of rock, a couple
of courses of that wonderful mortarless masonry which the Incas alone
seemed to know how to build. I had no sooner seen it than all desire of
getting to Abancay or anywhere else had left me. I made my arriero turn
the animals loose for the day, and then I sent him back to a village we
had passed through the day before to buy more provisions and bring them
to me.
'As soon as he had got out of sight I set to work to get some of the
stones out and see what there was behind them. I knew there must be
something, for the Incas never wasted labour. It was hard work, for the
stones were fitted together as perfectly as the pieces of a Chinese
puzzle; but at last I got one out and then the rest was easy. Behind the
stones I found a little chamber hollowed out of the rock, perfectly
clean and dry, and on the floor of this I found, without any other
covering than what you see there, the mummy of His Highness lying on
what had once been a bed of soft Vicuña skins, as perfect and as
lifelike as though he had only crept in there twelve hours before, and
had laid down for a good night's rest.
'You may imagine how delighted I was at such a find. I hardly knew how
to contain myself until my man came back. I put the stones back into
their places as well as I could, and when Patricio returned the next day
I had the animals saddled up, and started off in a hurry to Cuzco. There
I had this case made, bought two extra mules, brought them to the
valley, packed up my mummy, took it back to Cuzco, and from there to the
railway terminus at Sicuani and took it down by train to Arequipa, where
I left it in safe keeping until I had finished the rest of my
exploration. Then I went back, took it down to Mollendo, got it on board
the steamer, and here it is.'
'And you didn't find any traces of other treasure-places, I suppose, in
the valley?' said Djama, who had listened with the most perfect
attention to the professor's story.
'No, I didn't, though I must confess that one side of the cave in which
I found this was walled up with the same kind of masonry as there was in
front of it; but, to tell you the truth, the Peruvian Government has
such insane ideas about treasure-hunting; and the life of a man who is
believed to have discovered anything worth stealing is worth so little
in the wilder districts of the interior, that I was afraid of losing the
treasure I had got, perhaps for the sake of a few little gold ornaments
which I might have dug out of the hill, and so I decided to be content
with what I'd found.'
'H'm!' said the doctor. 'Well, you may have been wise under the
circumstances; I daresay you were. But we can see about that afterwards.
Meanwhile there is something else to be talked about.'
He stopped suddenly, took a quick turn or two up and down the room, with
his hands clasped behind him and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he
went to the door, opened it, looked out, shut it and locked it, and then
came back again and sat down without a word in his chair, staring
steadily at the impassive face of the mummy in the packing-case.
'Why, what's the matter, doctor?' said the professor, a trifle sharply.
'You don't suppose I am afraid of anyone coming to steal my treasure, do
you?'
'My dear fellow,' said Djama, looking him straight in the eyes, and
speaking very slowly, as though his mind was doing something else
besides shaping the thoughts to which he was giving utterance, 'I don't
for a moment suppose that there are thieves about, or that, if there
were, any burglar with a competent knowledge of his profession would
think of stealing your mummy, priceless as it may prove to be. I locked
the door because I don't want to be interrupted. I want to talk to you
about a very important matter.'
'And that is?'
'Mephistopheles.'
'WHAT?'
'Gently, my friend, gently, don't get excited yet. You will want all
your nerves soon, I can assure you. Yes, I am quite serious. You know
that in the good old days, when people still believed in His Majesty of
Darkness, such a speech as the one you remember making a short time ago
was quite enough to call up one of his agents, armed with full powers to
make contracts and do all necessary business.'
'Look here, Laurens, if you go on talking like that, I shall begin to
think you have gone out of your mind.'
'My dear fellow, to be quite candid with you, I don't care two pins what
you think on that subject. I have been called mad too many times for
that. Now, suppose, just for argument's sake, that I were
Mephistopheles, and staked my diabolic reputation on the statement that
in that thing you possess a possible key to those lost treasures of the
Incas, which ten generations of men have hunted for in vain, what kind
of a bargain would you be inclined to make with me on the strength of
it? Half the rest of your life, I think you said, and as that wouldn't
be very much good to me, suppose we say the half of any treasures we
may discover by the help of our silent friend there? Eh?--will that suit
you?'
'Are you really serious, Djama, or are you only dreaming another of
these wild scientific dreams of yours?' exclaimed the professor, taking
a couple of quick strides towards him. 'What connection can there
possibly be between a mummy, about four centuries years old, and the
lost treasures of the Incas?'
'This man was an Inca, wasn't he?' said the doctor, abruptly, 'and one
of the highest rank, too, from what you have said. He lived just about
the time of the Conquest, didn't he--the time when the priests stripped
their temples, and the nobles emptied their palaces of their treasures
to save them from the Spaniards? Is it not likely that he would know
where, at anyrate, a great part of them was buried? Nay, may he not even
have known the localities of the lost mines that the Incas got their
hundredweights of gold from, and of the emerald mines which no one has
ever been able to find? Why, Lamson, if these dead lips could speak, I
believe they could make you and me millionaires in an hour. And why
shouldn't they speak?'
'Don't talk like that, Djama, for Heaven's sake! It is too serious a
thing to joke about,' said the professor, with a half-frightened glance
in his set and shining eyes. 'I should have thought you, of all men,
knew enough of the facts of life and death not to talk such nonsense as
that.'
'Nonsense!' said the physiologist, interrupting him almost angrily; 'may
I not know enough of the facts of life and death, as you call them, to
know that that is _not_ nonsense? But there, it's no use arguing about
things like this. Will you allow this mummy of yours to be made the
subject of--well, we will say, an experiment in physiology?'
'What! the finest and most unique huaca that was ever brought to
Europe--'
'It would only be made finer still by the experiment, even if it failed.
I know what you are going to say, and I will give you my word of honour,
and, if you like, I'll pledge you my professional reputation, that not a
hair of its head shall be injured. Let me take it to my laboratory, and
I promise you solemnly that in a week you shall have it back, not as it
is now, but either the body of your Inca, as perfect as it was the day
he died, or--'
He stopped, and looked hard at his friend, as if wondering what the
effects of his next words would be upon him.
'Or what?' asked the professor, almost in a whisper.
'Your Inca prince, roused from his three-hundred-year sleep, and able
to answer your questions and guide us to his lost mines and treasure
houses.'
'Are you in earnest, Djama?' the professor whispered, catching him by
the arm and looking round at the mummy as though he half thought that
the silent witness in the packing-case might be listening to the words
which, if it could have heard, would have had such a terrible
significance for it. 'Do you really mean to say in sober earnest that
there is the remotest chance of your science being able to work such a
miracle as that?'
'A chance, yes,' replied Djama, steadily. 'It is not a certainty, of
course, but I believe it to be possible. Will you let me try?'
'Yes, you shall try,' answered the professor in a voice nothing like as
steady as his. 'If any other man but you had even hinted at such a
thing, I would have seen him--well, in a lunatic asylum first. But
there, I will trust my Inca to you. It seems a fearful thing even to
attempt, and yet, after all, if it fails there will be no harm done, and
if it succeeds--ah, yes, if it succeeds--it will mean--'
'Endless fame for you, my friend, as the recreator of a lost society,
and for both of us wealth, perhaps beyond counting. But stop a
moment--granted success, how shall we talk with our Inca _revenant_?
Have I not heard you say that the Aymaru dialect of the Quichua tongue
is lost as completely as the Inca treasures?'
'Not quite, though I believe I am now the only white man on earth who
understands it.'
'Good! then let me get to work at once, and in a week--well, in a week
we shall see.'
II
A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT
Laurens Djama dined with the professor that night, and the small hours
were growing large before they ended the long talk of which their
strange bargain, and the still stranger experiment which was to result
from it, formed the subject. The next day the packing-case containing
the mummy was transferred to Djama's laboratory, and then for a whole
week neither the professor nor any of his friends or acquaintances had
either sight or speech of him.
Every caller at his house in Brondesbury Park was politely but firmly
denied admittance on professional grounds, and three letters and two
telegrams which the professor had sent to him, after being himself
denied admittance, remained unanswered.
At last, on the Thursday following the Friday on which the mummy had
been sent to the laboratory, the professor received a telegram telling
him to come at once to the doctor. Three minutes after he had read it he
was in a hansom and on his way to Kilburn, wondering what it was that he
was to be brought face to face with during the next half hour.
This time there was no denial. The door opened as he went up the steps,
and the servant handed him a note. He tore it open and read,--
'_Come round to the laboratory and make a new acquaintance who will
yet be an old one._'
His heart stood still, and he caught his breath sharply as he read the
words which told him that the unearthly experiment for which he had
furnished the subject had been successful.
The doctor's laboratory stood apart from the house in the long, narrow
garden at the back, and as he approached the door he stopped for a
moment, and an almost irresistible impulse to go away and have nothing
more to do with the unholy work in hand took possession of him. Then the
love of his science and the longing to hear the marvels which could only
be heard from the lips that had been silent for centuries overcame his
fears, and he went up to the door and knocked softly.
It was opened by a haggard, wild-eyed man, whom he scarcely recognised
as his old friend. Djama did not speak; he simply caught hold of the
sleeve of his coat with a nervous, trembling grasp, drew him in, shut
the door, and led him to a corner of the room where there was a little
camp bed, curtained all round with thin, transparent muslin, through
which he could see the shape of a man lying under the sheets.
Djama pulled the curtain aside, and said in a hoarse whisper,--
'Look, it has been hard work, and terrible work, too, but I have
succeeded. Do you see, he is breathing!'
The professor stared wide-eyed at the white pillow on which lay the head
of what, a week before, had been his mummy. Now it was the head of a
living man; the pale bronze of the skin was clear and moist with the dew
of life; the lips were no longer brown and dry, but faintly red and
slightly parted, and the counterpane, which was pulled close up under
the chin, was slowly rising and falling with the regular rhythm of a
sleeper's breathing. He looked from the face of him who had been dead
and was alive again to the face of the man whose daring science and
perfect skill had wrought the unholy miracle, and then he shrank back
from the bedside, pulling Djama with him, and whispering,--
'Good God, it is even more awful than it is wonderful! How did you do
it?'
'That is my secret,' whispered Djama, his dry lips shaping themselves
into a ghastly smile, 'and for all the treasures that that man ever saw,
I wouldn't tell it to a living soul, or do such hideous work again. I
tell you I have seen life and death fighting together for two days and
nights in this room--not, mind you, as they fight on a deathbed, but the
other way, and I would rather see a thousand men die than one more come
back out, of death into life. You see, he is sleeping now. He opened his
eyes just before daybreak this morning--that's nearly ten hours ago--but
if I lived ten thousand years I should never forget that one look he
gave me before he shut them again. Since then he has slept, and I stood
by that bed testing his pulse and his breathing for eight hours before I
wired you. Then I knew he would live, and so I sent for you.'
The professor looked at his friend with an involuntary and unconquerable
aversion rising in his heart against him; an aversion that was half
fear, half horror, and then he remembered that he himself had a share in
the fearful work which had been done--a work that could not now be
undone without murder.
With another backward look at the bed, he said, in a whisper that was
almost a smothered groan,--
'When will he wake?'
Before Djama could reply, the question was answered by a faint rustle,
and a low, long-drawn sigh from the bed. They looked and saw the Inca's
face turned towards them, and two fever-bright eyes shining through the
curtains.
'He is awake already, two hours sooner than I expected,' said Djama, in
a voice that he strove vainly to keep steady. 'Come, now, you are the
only man on earth who can talk to him. Let us see if he has come back to
reason as well as to life.'
'Yes, I will try,' said the professor, faintly. He took a couple of
trembling steps. Then the lights in the room began to dance, the
whitewashed walls reeled round him, and he pitched forward and fell
unconscious by the side of the bed.
When he came to himself he was lying on the floor of the laboratory, out
of sight of the bed, behind a great cupboard, glass-doored and filled
with bottles. Djama was kneeling beside him. A strong smell of ammonia
dominated the other smells peculiar to a laboratory, and his brow was
wet with the spirit that Djama was gently rubbing on it with his hand.
'What have I been doing?' he said, as, with the other's assistance, he
got up into a sitting position and looked stupidly about him. 'It isn't
true, that is it, I really saw--Good God no, it can't be; it's too
horrible. I must have dreamt it.'
'Nonsense, my dear fellow, nonsense! I should have thought you would
have had better nerves than that. Come, take a nip of this, and pull
yourself together. There is nothing so very horrible about it for you.
Now, if you had had the actual work to do--'
'Then it _is_ true! You really have brought him back to life again? That
was him I saw lying on the bed?' He looked up at Djama as he spoke with
a half-inquiring, half-frightened glance. His voice was weak and
unsteady, like the voice of a man who has been stunned by some terrible
shock, and is still dazed with the fear and wonder of it.
'Yes, of course it was,' said Djama; 'but I can tell you, I should have
hesitated before I introduced you so suddenly, if I hadn't thought that
the nerves of an old traveller like you would have been a good deal
stronger than they seem to be. It's a very good job that His Highness
was only about half conscious himself when you collapsed, or you might
have given him a shock that would have killed him again.'
'Again?' said the professor, echoing the last word as he got up slowly
to his feet. 'That sounds queer, doesn't it, to talk of killing a man
_again_? I am more sorry than I can say that I was weak enough to let my
feelings overcome me in such a ridiculous fashion. However, I am all
right now. Give me another drain of that brandy of yours, and then let
us talk. Is he still awake?'
'No, he dozed off again almost immediately, and you have been here about
ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Do you think you can stand another
look at him?'
'Oh, certainly,' said the professor, who, as a matter of fact, felt a
trifle ashamed of himself and his weakness, and was anxious to do
something that would restore his credit. He followed the doctor out into
the laboratory again, and stood with him for some moments without
speaking by the Inca's bedside. He was sleeping very quietly, and his
breathing seemed to be stronger and deeper than it had been. He had
slightly shifted his position, and was lying now half turned on his
right side, with his right cheek on the pillow.
'You see he has moved,' whispered Djama. 'That shows that muscular
control has been re-established. We shall have him walking about in a
day or so. Ah! he is dreaming, and of something pleasant, too. Look at
his lips moving into a smile. Poor fellow, just fancy a man dreaming of
things that happened three hundred years ago, and waking up to find
himself in another world. I'll be bound he is dreaming about his wife or
sweetheart, and we shall have to tell him, or rather you will, that she
has been a mummy for three centuries. Look now, his lips are moving; I
believe he is going to say something. See if you can hear what it is?'
The professor stooped down and held his ear so close that he could feel
on his cheek the gentle fanning of the breath that had been still for
three centuries. Then the Inca's lips moved again, and a soft sighing
sound came from them, and in the midst of it he caught the words,--
'_Cori-Coyllur, Nustallipa, Ñusta mi!_'
Then there came a long, gentle sigh. The Inca's lips became still again,
shaped into a very sweet and almost womanly smile, as though his vision
had passed and left him in a happy, dreamless slumber.
'What did he say?' whispered Djama. 'Were you able to understand it?'
'Yes,' said the professor, 'yes, and you were right about the subject of
his dream. Come away, in case we wake him, and I will tell you.'
They went to the other end of the laboratory, and the professor went on,
still speaking in a low, half-whisper,--
'Poor fellow, I am afraid we have incurred a terribly heavy debt to him.
What he said meant, "Golden Star, my princess, my darling!" So you see
you were right, but poor Golden Star has been dead three hundred years
and more--that is, at least, if his Golden Star is the same as the
heroine of the tradition.'
'What tradition?' asked Djama.
'It's too long a story to tell you now, but if she is the same, then our
Inca's name is Vilcaroya, and he is the hero of the strangest story,
and, thanks to you, the strangest fate that the wildest romancer could
imagine. However, the story must keep, for I wouldn't spoil it by
cutting it short. The principal question now is--what are we going to do
with him? We can't keep him here, of course?'
'No, certainly not,' replied Djama, with knitted brows and faintly
smiling lips. 'His Highness must be cared for in accordance with his
rank and our expectations. I shall have him taken into the house and
properly nursed.'
'But what about your sister? You will frighten her to death if you take
in a living patient that has been dead for three hundred years.'
'Not if we manage it properly; there will be no need to tell Ruth the
story yet, at anyrate. I'll tell her that I am going to receive a
patient who is suffering from a mysterious disease unknown to medical
science. I'll say I picked him up in the Oriental Home in Whitechapel,
and have brought him here to study him, and you and I must smuggle him
into the house and put him to bed some time when she is out of the way.
Then I'll instal her as nurse; in fact, she will do that for herself;
and as there is no chance of her learning anything from him, we can
break the truth to her by degrees, and when His Highness is well enough
to travel we'll all be off to Peru and come back millionaires, if you
can only persuade him to tell you the secret of his treasure-houses.'
That night the doctor and the professor took turns in watching by the
bedside of their strange patient, whose slumber became lighter and
lighter until, towards midnight, he got so restless and apparently
uneasy that Djama considered that the time had come to wake him and see
if he was able to take any nourishment. So he set the professor to work,
warming some chicken broth over a spirit lamp, and mixing a little
champagne and soda-water in one glass and brandy and water in another.
Meanwhile, he filled a hypodermic syringe with colourless fluid out of a
little stoppered bottle, and then turned the sheet down and injected the
contents of the syringe under the smooth, bronze skin of the Inca's
shoulder. He moved slightly at the prick of the needle, then he drew
two or three deep breaths, and suddenly sat up in bed and stared about
him with wide open eyes, full, as they well might be, of inquiring
wonder.
The professor, who had turned at the sound of the hurried breathing, saw
him as he raised himself, and heard him say in the clear and somewhat
high-pitched tone of a dweller among the mountains,--
'Has the morning dawned again for the Children of the Sun? Am I truly
awake, or am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over? Where is
Golden Star, and where am I? Tell me--you who have doubtless brought me
back to the life we forsook together--was it last night or how many
nights or moons ago?'
The words came slowly at first, like those of a man still on the
borderland between sleep and waking; but each one was spoken more
clearly and decisively than the one before it, and the last sentence was
uttered in the strong, steady tones of a man in full possession of his
faculties.
'Come here, Lamson,' said Djama, a trifle nervously; 'bring the soup
with you, and some brandy, though I don't think he needs it. Do you
understand what he said?'
[Illustration: "Am I only dreaming that the death-sleep is over?"
_To face page 26._]
'Yes,' replied the professor, coming to the bedside with a cup of soup
in one hand and a glass of brandy and water in the ether. Both hands
trembled as he set the cup and the glass down on a little table. He
looked at the Inca like a man looking at a re-embodied spirit, and said
to him in Quichua,--
'I am not he who has brought you back to life, but my friend here, who
is a great and skilled physician, and master of the arts of life and
death. You are in his house, and safe, for we are friends, and have
nursed you back to health and waking life after your long sleep.'
'But Golden Star,' said the Inca, interrupting him with a flash of
impatience in his eyes. 'Where is she--my bride who went with me into
the shades of death? Have you not brought her, too, back to life?'
The professor stared in silence at the strange speaker of these strange
words, which told him so plainly that the old legend of the death-bridal
of Vilcaroya-Inca and Golden Star was now no legend at all, but a true
story which had come down almost unchanged from generation to
generation. Then an infinite pity filled his heart for this lonely
wanderer from another age, whose friends and kindred had been dead for
centuries, and whose very nation was now only a shadowy name on a
half-forgotten page of history.
'What does he say?' said Djama, breaking in upon his reverie. 'I suppose
he wants to know where he is, and what has become of that sweetheart of
his he was dreaming about?'
'Yes,' replied the professor; 'but you won't understand properly until I
have told you the story. Poor fellow! I suppose we shall have to tell
him the ghastly truth. Good Heavens! fancy telling a man that his wife
has been dead for three hundred years or more! Look here, Djama, this
business can't stop here, you know. What a fool I was, after all, not to
see if there wasn't another chamber beside the one I found him in! Of
course there must be, and I have no doubt she is lying there at this
present moment. We shall have to go and find her, and you must restore
her as you have done him. Phew! where is it all going to end, I wonder!'
'And suppose we can't find her, or suppose I fail, even if I can bring
myself to undertake that horrible work all over again?' said Djama,
looking almost fearfully at the Inca, who was still sitting up in the
bed glancing mutely from one to the other, as though waiting for an
answer to his question. Then, keeping his voice as steady as he could,
the professor told him the story of his resuscitation, addressing him by
his own name and ending by asking him if he remembered when he and
Golden Star had devoted themselves to die together, as the tradition
said they had done.
'Yes, I remember!' said Vilcaroya, with brightening eyes and faintly
flushing cheeks. 'How could I forget it? It was when the bearded
strangers from the north had come and taken the usurper Atahuallpa
prisoner in the midst of his conquering host at Cajamarca. It was after
the Inca Huascar had been slain by stealth with a traitor's knife. It
was on the night of the feast of Raymi, when our Father the Sun had left
the Sacred Fleece unkindled, and when was fulfilled the prophecy that
the night should fall over the land of the Children of the Sun. Now,
tell me, you who speak the language of my people, how long have I been
sleeping?'
Instead of replying directly, he offered the Inca the cup of broth, and
asked him first to take the nourishment that he must need so greatly
after his long fast, telling him that it was needful to prevent him
losing his new-found strength again. When he had eaten and drunk a
little, then he would tell him what he could.
He took the broth and a little bread obediently, and while he was eating
and drinking, the professor translated what he had said to the doctor.
When he had finished, Djama looked at the Inca, sitting there taking
food and drink like any other human being, and with evident relish, too,
and said,--
'That happened in 1532--three hundred and sixty-five years ago! It
sounds utterly incredible, doesn't it, and yet there he is, eating and
drinking and talking with us just like any other man. I can hardly
believe the work of my own hands, and I am beginning to half wish I had
never begun it. Just imagine the awful loneliness to which we shall have
condemned this poor fellow, supposing we can't find his Golden Star and
restore her to him! Still perhaps you had better tell him the truth at
once. I think he can stand it. He has been a long time coming round, but
I don't think there is much the matter with him now.'
Then the professor told Vilcaroya the, to him, so terrible truth, that
of all men in the world he was the most lonely, separated as he was from
all that he had known and loved by an impassable gulf of nearly four
long centuries--that his well-loved Golden Star was but a memory known
to few, a name in a vague tradition; that the resting-place, even of her
mummy, was unknown, and that all that the darkest prophecy could have
foretold had in very truth fallen upon the land of the Incas and the
Children of the Sun.
Vilcaroya heard him to the end in silence; then, raising his hands to
his forehead, he bowed his head and said,--
'It is the will of our Father, foretold by the lips of his priests, but
other things were foretold which shall be fulfilled as well as these.
Golden Star is not dead; she only sleeps as I did. If I have awakened,
why shall not she? I know where she lies--where Anda-Huillac swore to me
they would lay her. Come, let us go! I will take you to the place, and
you shall restore her to me, warm and living and loving as she was when
I kissed her good-bye in the Sanctuary of the Sun, and I will give you
treasures of gold and silver and jewels such as you have never dreamed
of in exchange for her.'
THE STORY OF VILCAROYA
CHAPTER I
BACK THROUGH THE SHADOWS
As the time passes between dreaming and waking, so for me did the long
years pass, flowing like a smooth and silent stream seen from afar, out
of the darkness that fell so slowly and so sweetly over my eyes that
night when I sank into the death-trance beside Golden Star, my beloved,
in the bridal chamber that they made for us in the Temple of the Sun,
into the light that shone into them when they opened upon a scene so
different, and saw a white, haggard face bending over me, and two black,
burning eyes looking into them.
Then I closed them again and slept, and when I woke again there were two
faces looking at me, both white and full of fear and wonder, and I saw
two beings who seemed very strange to me, such as I had never seen among
the Children of the Sun, standing by the couch on which I lay, and one
of them fell down as though sore stricken, and I tried to think what
this could mean, and, thinking, fell asleep again.
Then I dreamt a long, sweet dream of the days that I now know were far
past, when I, Vilcaroya, son of the great Huayna-Capac, lived in the
Land of the Four Regions, a prince among princes, a warrior and a child
of the Sacred Race, whose blood had flowed unmixed through many
generations from the divine fountain of life and light, our Father the
Sun. I dreamt of Golden Star, and the days when I loved her in timid
silence, for she was the fairest of all our race, and so, as it seemed
to me, destined to no less a lot than the motherhood of a long line of
Incas, in whom should live and grow to ever greater splendour the
glories of the race that owned no earthly origin.
I called her in my dream, but she made no answer. I saw her lying by my
side in that well-remembered chamber, with the shadowy forms of the
priests standing about us as I had seen them long before; but, alas! she
lay still with closed eyes and lips which seemed to have forgotten how
sweetly they once could smile. I whispered her name, mingled with many a
loving word, into her ear, and still she moved not. I put my arms about
her and kissed her, and instantly I shrank back shivering with a fear
unspeakable, for the form that should have been so warm and soft and
yielding, was chilled and pulseless and rigid, as though some foul magic
had changed it into stone, and the lips that should have given me back
kiss for kiss were still and cold and senseless.
Then I saw, as it seemed with half-closed eyes, that dear shape of hers
being borne away from me, while I, longing to snatch her from the hands
of those who were robbing me of her, yet lay helpless on the couch,
without strength to move or speak, until all grew dim around me, and I
felt myself raised by invisible hands, and borne far away through the
darkness--and so my dream melted away into the night of sleep.
Then, yet again, I woke and saw the two strange men that I had seen
before, and one came and spoke to me kindly in my own tongue, and called
me by my own name, and gave me food and drink, and told me in a few, but
to me terrible, words that the dreams I had dreamed were dreams
indeed--dreams of a time that was long gone by, of things that had
passed away, perchance for ever, and men and women whose names were only
memories.
Thus did I come from the evening of one age into the morning of another,
falling asleep in the prime of my strength and manhood, and waking again
even as I had fallen asleep--though those who had closed my eyes had
been dead for many generations, and the name of our ancient race was
but a bitter memory to the sons and daughters of my own land amidst the
mountains.
Then I went forth into the wondrous new world into which I had awakened,
the world which you who read this hold so common, and which I found
crowded with wonders so many and marvellous that if it had not been for
the loving care of her who guided my first footsteps on my new journey,
as she might have guided those of a little child, my re-awakening reason
must soon have been quenched in the night of madness.
Many and strange as were the things that happened to me during the first
days and months of my awakening, there is little need that I should now
write of them at any length. Yet something I must say of them in order
that the still stranger things of which I shall have to tell may be the
better understood.
And first I must tell of her whose gentle hand led me from weakness to
strength, and guided my unwonted footsteps through the mazes of that new
wonderland in which I had awakened, and from whose lips I learnt the
first words that I spoke of the strong and stately English speech in
which I am striving so lamely and imperfectly to write down the story of
my new life.
This was Ruth, the sister of Djama, whose smile was the first ray of
sunshine that shone into my second life, and whose laugh was so sweet
and gladsome, that when it first sounded in my ears, like an echo from
the dear dead past, I named her forthwith Cusi-Coyllur, which in English
means Joyful Star--after that royal maiden of my own race who loved the
handsome rebel Ollantay, and, refusing all others, waited for him in the
House of the Virgins of the Sun until he came in triumph to claim her.
She came with us to the south, rejecting all contrary counsel and
braving the labours of the long, toilsome journey, so that she might be
the first woman to welcome Golden Star back into the world of life.
Yet what words can I find in this new speech that I have yet but half
learnt to tell fitly of her beauty and sweet graciousness, and of all
the magic which made her seem in my eyes like an angel that had come
down from the Mansions of the Sun to greet me in a world in which I was
a stranger? Better that you who may read what I write should learn to
know her for yourself through the sweetness and grace of her own words
and deeds, as I shall strive, however unworthily, to tell of them. So,
then, let it be.
But there is another of whom I must say something before I go on to tell
of my return to my own land--now, alas! mine no longer--and that is
Francis Hartness, a captain among the warriors of the English, and a
friend of him who was called the professor, because of his learning--he
who had helped Djama to bring me back into the world of living men.
He was a man of about thirty years, tall of stature and strong of limb,
brief of speech and straight of tongue, with eyes as blue as the skies
which shine on Yucay, and hair and beard golden and bright as the rays
which flow from the smile of our Father the Sun. Him we met by chance
one evening in the square of the town which is called Panama, named,
they told me, after that older city, whence the conquerors of my people
sailed to ravish the realms of Huayna-Capac. There was peace in his own
land and all the neighbouring countries, and so he was journeying to the
region which is now called South America, where the descendants of the
Spaniards are nearly always fighting among themselves over the spoils of
my people, to see what work he could find to keep his sword from
rusting.
As he was greatly skilled in that strange, new warfare of flame and
thunder and far-smiting bolts, which had but begun to be when our Father
the Sun hid his face from the eyes of his children, I took counsel with
Joyful Star--who was ever my wisest as well as my most faithful guide
in all things--and we together told him my story as we went south, and
after that I had asked him if he would help me in the task which I was
going to essay, which was nothing less than the taking back of the land
of my fathers, and the raising of the children of my people to the
ancient glories of that state which I alone of living men remembered. To
this, after some shrewd questioning, he consented--for it was a
desperate venture, such as his brave heart loved--and when he had given
me his hand on it, and promised, after the simple fashion of his nation,
to be true to me in peace and war, I told him of the means that I could
employ to gain my end, and how I would use that lust of gold which had
led to the ruin of my people, so that it should conquer the children of
their conquerors and give me back the empire that had been my father's.
At Panama we took ship again and travelled swiftly and straightly south,
driven by that wondrous power which had come into the world to serve men
like a tireless giant since I had fallen asleep; and day after day on
the southward voyage I walked alone up and down the deck, or stood
gazing, rapt in thought, at the desert foreshore along which the steamer
was running, and at the great masses of the dark brown barren mountains,
as they towered range beyond range till they overtopped the clouds
themselves and stood serene and sharply outlined against the blue
background of the upper sky.
Behind those mighty, rock-built ramparts lay the well-loved,
well-remembered land over which my fathers had ruled in the days of
peace, before the stranger and the oppressor had come. On the other side
of them I knew that I was now fated to find only the poor fragments of
the great cities and stately pleasure-houses that I had known in all
their strength and beauty--only the silent and deserted ruins of the
mighty fortresses which had guarded the confines of our lost empire, and
were the portals through which the Children of the Sun had marched to
unvarying conquest.
I thought, too, of the broad, green, level plain of Cajamarca,
surrounded by its guardian ramparts of terraced hills; of the long,
verdant valley of Cuzco with its hundred towns and villages nestling
amidst the foliage which shaded their streets and squares, and looking
out over the level fields of the valley and the countless tiers of
terraces that rose green and gold with maize, or glowing with flowers,
to the summits of the hills; and of that earthly paradise of Yucay,
wherein the Gardens of the Sun, the golden shrines of my ancient faith,
and the wondrous pleasure-palaces of many generations of Incas had
glowed in almost heavenly beauty, embosomed in green and gold and
scarlet in the midst of inaccessible mountains which themselves were
overtopped by the mighty peaks of eternal snow that I had so often seen
glimmering white and ghostly in the moonlight, like guardian spirits
round an enchanted realm, on many a night of delicious revelry now far
past and lost in the swift flood of the years that had rolled by since
then.
It was to the poor remnants of all these glories that I was
returning--returning to find, as they had told me, the homes of my
ancestors laid waste and the descendants of my people the slaves of
strangers. The desolation which it had taken centuries to accomplish
would be to me but the swift, magical change of a day and a night and a
morning.
Think, you who read, of the dread and the horror of it! I had seen the
last day of the stately empire of my fathers the Incas! I had fallen
asleep and I had awakened, and now, on the morrow of my sleep, I was
coming back to the silent and ghastly ruins which the slow, pitiless
work of the years and centuries had left behind it!
But over the gulf of these same centuries the hand of my Father the Sun
was swiftly stretched out to help and uphold me, for no sooner did I
again tread that soil which had once been sacred to Him, than my
fainting heart grew strong with the memory of that ancient prophecy
which I had come to fulfil, and of which this new life of mine was of
itself a part fulfilment. If one part, and that not the least, had
already been made good, then why not the rest?
Far away behind those towering tiers of mountains lay Golden Star in
that resting-place to which she had been borne with me, sleeping soundly
in the impassive embrace of their mighty arms; and within the
safe-keeping of those arms lay, too, that uncounted treasure, that vast
legacy which the long-dead leaders of my people had bequeathed to me for
the sacred purpose of restoring those glories which all men, save
myself, believed to be but a dream of the distant past, that
incomparable inheritance of which I was the sole lawful heir on earth,
and which I was coming to share with Golden Star when I had once more
raised the Rainbow Banner above the restored throne of the divine Manco.
As I thought of all this, the blood that had lain stagnant through the
long years of my magical death-sleep began to pulse like living fire
through my veins. My new life with all its marvels became glorified into
a waking vision of new conquests and re-won empire. The past was a dream
both sweet and bitter in its vivid memories, but still a dream that had
been dreamt and was done with. The present and the future were
realities, golden and glorious with a hope justified by the miracle that
had made them possible. I had learnt enough of the new age in which I
had awakened to know that the lust of gold which had brought the
conqueror and the oppressor into the land of the Children of the Sun
burnt every whit as fiercely in the hearts of the men who were living
now as it had done in theirs, and that lust, as I had told Hartness and
the others, should now work for me and for the redemption of my people
so that that which had been their ruin should yet prove their salvation.
Thus, through the long sunny days and cool, starlit nights did I,
Vilcaroya, last of the Incas, muse and dream until I once more stood in
the Land of the Four Regions, hale and strong, and burning with the
ardour of my sacred mission, ready to dare and do all things, and to use
without ruth or scruple that dread power which would so soon lie within
my hands to fulfil my oath and Golden Star's, and to accomplish the work
that I had come through the shadows of death to do.
So I came back to the shores of that well-loved land of mine which, by
the reckoning of the new time into which I had come, had been for more
than three hundred years the sport and prey of the generations of
strangers and oppressors who had followed those first conquerors of the
Children of the Sun, whose coming had sounded the hour of doom and ruin
through the length and breadth of that glorious land of green plains and
verdant valleys, of terraced hills and towering mountains, which had
once been our empire and our home.
From the mean coast town of wooden houses where the railway begins we
travelled ever upward over great, grey, sloping deserts, and by rugged
ravines with steep, broken walls of red earth and ragged rock; through
range after range of mountains that were all strange and hateful to me,
until we swung round the shoulder of a great crag-crowned mountain, and
I saw across a vast plain, into which range after range of lesser hills
sloped down, the crystal-white peaks of the snow-mountains towering far
beyond the clouds into the blue sky above them.
Then I knew that I was coming nearer to the land that had once been
mine, and ere many hours had passed we stopped in a great city which
still bore its old name of Arequipa, the Place of Rest, which my own
ancestors had given to it. It was no longer the place of palaces and
pleasure-houses, of flowery gardens and leafy woods that I had seen it,
but above it still gleamed the white snow-fields and shining peaks of
Charchani and Pichu-Pichu, and between the two great white ranges still
towered the vast, black, snow-crowned cone of Misti, the smoke-mountain,
rising sheer in its lonely grandeur twelve thousand feet above the
sloping plain on which the city lay.
As I looked at it again for the first time after so many years, I asked
the professor, as we all called him, if, since I had been asleep, the
mountain had been rent asunder again as it had been in the olden times,
long before the Spaniards came to seek gold and blood in the Land of the
Four Regions. He was very learned in such matters, even as Djama, his
friend, was learned in secrets of life and death, and when he told me
that the fires within it had slept for more years than men could
remember, I was glad. Yet I said nothing of my inward joy, for had I
told them all that I knew about the valley of black sand and yellow rock
that was hidden behind the far-off wall of snow which shone so whitely
against the blue of the midway heaven, it might have been many a long
day before we had again set out on our journey towards the place that
was the goal at once of my hopes and fears.
We stayed seven days in Arequipa, making our last preparations for the
work that lay before us and then we went on again by train to Sicuani,
in the valley of the Vilcañota. Then from Sicuani we journeyed on by
road, riding on mules through a land that was lovely even in my eyes,
though its loveliness was to me only the beauty of ruin and decay, for
this was the heart and centre of that vanished empire whose glories no
living eyes but mine had ever seen.
I saw wildernesses where there had been gardens, and gaunt, treeless
mountains lying bare to the glare of the sun. Lakes that had shone
encircled with gardens now spread out dull and stagnant over the
neglected fields. A few ragged fragments of grey clay walls still rose
from the green plain of Cacha, where I had last seen, in all its glory
of gold and rainbow colours, the holy Temple of Viracocha; and the great
guardian fortress of Piquillacta, which I had seen stretching its
impregnable length and rearing its unscalable height from mountain to
mountain across the entrance to the once lovely valley of Cuzco, lay, a
huge ragged mass of towering ruins, splendid even in decay.
As we passed through the one half-choked portal that still lay open, I
thought, with heavy heart and bowed-down head, of the great fortress as
I had seen it in the glory of its pride and strength, of the gallant
warriors that had defended it, and the gay processions that I had seen
winding in and out of its stately gates, making its hoary walls ring
with songs and laughter, and, farther on, as we rode along the valley on
that sad and yet eager three days' march of ours, I saw, on the
hill-spurs about me, the black and ragged ruins of the fair cities and
stately temples and palaces that I had seen crowded with happy throngs,
bright with gold and colours, and so fair and strong that no man could
have dreamed of the ruin the oppressor had brought upon them.
And so, journeying amidst all these sad memories through a land which,
for me, was peopled with the ghosts of my long-dead friends and kindred,
we came out at length on the broad, green Plain of the Oracle, and there
before me, still nestling under her guardian hills, lay, glimmering
white and grey under the slanting sun-rays, all that was left of what
had once been Cuzco, the City of the Sun and the home of his children.
Then, as I lifted my eyes and gazed upon it through the rising mist of
my tears, I bowed my bared head towards it and swore, in the sadness and
silence of my desolate heart, that, to the full extent of the power
which I believed was soon to be mine, I would take life for life and
blood for blood, and I would give sorrow for sorrow and shame for shame,
until I had paid to the full the debt which the long years of plunder
and cruelty and oppression had heaped up against those who, from
generation to generation, had brought this shame and ruin on the once
bright home of the Children of the Sun.
CHAPTER II
BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD
I shall not weary you who perchance may some day read this story of mine
by dwelling on the sorrow and shame that filled me as I entered the
foul, unlovely streets, and saw the filthy refuse in the squares of the
city that I remembered so pure and bright and beautiful; nor yet by
telling of the feelings that possessed me when I saw the poor remains of
our desecrated temples, the places where our vanished palaces had stood,
and the dismantled ruins of that mighty fortress of Sacsahuaman, which I
had last seen standing palace-crowned and throned in all its grandeur
high up above the city.
All this and more you who read must picture for yourselves, for I have
greater things to tell of than the poor sorrows of a wanderer who had
left his own age and his own kindred far behind him, and who had come
back into a strange world to find his country a wilderness, and the
children of his people the slaves of strangers.
It had been settled amongst us that, for the purpose for which we had
come, it would be necessary to hire a house that should be at once
commodious for our work, sufficiently removed from the city for privacy,
and capable of defence against intruders if need be. The professor,
being already known in Cuzco as a man of science and seeker after
antiquities, and possessing, moreover, a special permit from the
Government in Lima to travel and dwell in the interior, and make such
searches as he thought fit, undertook the business of finding such a
house. He made many journeys in quest of what he sought, and on these
journeys Djama always accompanied him, since he had to see that the
house chosen contained a chamber suitable for that precious work which
he had undertaken to do in return for the share of treasure that I was
to give to him.
And while these two were absent I at times wandered about the city with
Joyful Star and Francis Hartness, who, it was plain to see, already
looked with eyes of love and longing on her beauty, as in good truth I
myself could have done had I dared, and could I have forgotten that
older love of mine who still lay cold in her death-sleep in the cave by
the lake yonder, over the mountains to the westward, whither I had
already cast so many longing glances. But at other times I left them to
go upon my own ways, for I had work on hand which, for the present, did
not concern them.
I had by this time met and conversed with many of my people in their own
language, which was that of the labouring classes of my own times, and
from them I had learned that at a village called San Sebastian, through
which we had passed, about two leagues to the south of the city, there
still dwelt many families of Ayllos--that is to say, the descendants of
those of the old noble Inca lineage, who had been permitted by their
conquerors to settle here. So one morning I went to visit an old
Indian--as they now called all our people--named Ullullo, with whom I
had made acquaintance, and at his house I dressed myself in the native
fashion--in an old shirt and short trousers, with sandals on my feet,
and a broad-brimmed, fringed hat on my head, and covered myself with a
faded poncho, and together we went on foot to San Sebastian, I looking
no different from the rest of the Indians who were passing to and fro
upon the road.
I had already seen, while riding through the village, that the people
were different to those of all other villages that we had come through
on the way. They were taller of stature, prouder of carriage, and
fairer of face. The blood showed red in their cheeks through the light
brown of their skin, and these signs had told me that if any remnant of
the pure Inca race was left these must be they; and I was soon to have
proof that it was so, although the children of those who had lived in
palaces were now dwelling in huts of mud and reeds.
Ullullo led me first to the house of a man named Tupac Rayca, who was
chief among the Indians of the town. He was great-grandson of that
ill-fated Tupac-Amaru, who, as you know, had revolted many years before
against the oppressors of his race, and for this, after being forced to
watch the torture and murder of his wife in the square of Cuzco, had
himself been torn limb from limb by horses.
We found him alone in a bare room in one of the better houses of the
village. As he stood up to salute us it needed but a glance to tell me
that in his veins at least the ancient blood of our race flowed well
nigh as purely as it did in my own. Had it not been for the meanness of
his clothing and the dull, brooding look on his noble features--the
stamp of generations of oppression--I could have pictured him with the
yellow Llautu[A] on his brow, the golden image of the Sun on his
girdled tunic, and the rainbow banner in his hand, standing amongst the
guards of the great Huayna-Capac himself.
I asked Ullullo to leave us alone for a little while, and when he had
gone I stepped forward, and, drawing myself up to my full height, I
looked him in the eyes, and said in the tongue that was spoken only by
those of the divine Inca race,--
'Tell me, Tupac-Rayca, does a remnant of the Children of the Sun still
dwell in the Land of the Four Regions, and are they still faithful to
the traditions of their race, and the faith of their ancestors?'
As the words left my lips he staggered back a pace or two with his hands
clasped to his forehead, staring at me from under them as though--as in
very truth I was--some spirit of the past stood re-embodied before him.
Then, coming forward again and scanning me eagerly from head to foot, he
whispered in the same tongue--by the Lord of Light how those familiar
accents thrilled my ears as I heard them again after so long!
'Who are you--a stranger--that comes in the image of those long dead, to
ask me such a question in the tongue that may only be spoken when none
save those of the Blood are present?'
'One who is of the Blood himself!' I answered, taking a stride towards
him, and stretching out my hand. 'Fear not, Tupac-Rayca, son of him that
suffered, I am a friend, and have come from afar to work as a friend
with you and others of the Blood that may still be left in the land,
with a great and holy purpose of which you shall know ere long.'
He grasped my hand and bowed over it in silence for a while. Then he
stepped back and looked at me again, murmuring,--
'Can it be so? Has the divine Manco come back from the Mansions of the
Sun to save the remnant of his children, or has Vilcaroya broken the
bonds of his death-sleep and come to fulfil the oath he swore with
Golden Star before the altar in the Sanctuary? I know all the Children
of the Blood that are left in the land, and I have never seen your face
before, yet you are of the Blood. Who are you--Lord?'
The last word seemed forced from his lips by some power other than his
own will, and it sounded most pleasant to me, for it told me that,
without knowing my name, and seeing me only as a stranger, he had
recognised the stamp of my divine ancestry, and this promised well for
the progress of the work I had in hand. I answered him kindly, and yet
as one speaking to another who is scarce his equal, and said,--
'My name matters not now or here, Tupac, for we are but two, and I
might lie to you, and you would have no proof of my truth or falsehood.
But if you will do as I bid you, to-night you shall know and all shall
be made plain and with ample proof. Are you willing to give me your
aid?'
He picked up a rude hoe that stood in a corner of the room, and laying
it across his shoulder after the manner of one who bears a burden, bowed
his head and answered,--
'The Son of the Sun has but to speak, and I and all his slaves will
obey.'
What he had done was an act of homage, which, in the olden time, was
paid only to him who wore the imperial Llautu, and proved to me how
faithfully the old traditions had been preserved in secret.
'That is well said, Tupac,' I replied, speaking now as a sovereign might
speak to a faithful subject, 'and in the days to come fear not that I
shall forget this, your first act of unasked-for homage. Now, hear me.
Are there twenty men of the Blood in this village--men who are faithful
and can be trusted even to the death?'
'There are five hundred here, Lord, and as many thousands within the
valley, whose blood has flowed pure from the olden times, unpolluted by
a single stain of Spanish dirt. What would you with them?'
'I asked not for hundreds or thousands,' I said, right glad at heart to
hear such good tidings. 'For the present I need but a score, so do you
choose me twenty of the noblest blood and the best judgment, and an hour
before midnight let them be with you on the plain behind the
Sacsahuaman. Let them come well provided with torches or candles, and
tools, levers, and hammers and spades. Tell them what has passed between
us, but nothing of the guesses that you may have made in your own mind
while we have been talking, and leave the rest to me. Can you do that?'
'It shall be done, Lord,' he answered, still bending before me with the
shaft of the hoe across his shoulders, 'and we will wait and toil in
patience till the Son of the Sun shall please to reveal himself to the
eyes of his servants.'
'Nor shall you have to wait long,' I said. 'Now put that off your back
and take my hand again, for we are not Inca and servant yet, only two
men of the Blood, and brothers of a fallen race who are joined together
to perform a holy work. Now farewell, Tupac, till to-night. Choose your
companions well, and fear not but that your services and your
faithfulness shall have their due reward.'
He put his hand humbly and tremblingly into mine, bowing low over it,
and so I left him, standing there with bent head, not daring to look up
until the door closed behind me. Then Ullullo and I went back into the
city, and as we crossed the great square on our way to Ullullo's house,
I saw my four English friends standing among the market people by the
fountain in the centre. We passed close to them, and I heard my name
spoken by Joyful Star to her brother, who answered her and said,--
'I daresay we shall find he is making friends again with some of these
filthy Indian compatriots of his.'
I hated him from that moment for his bitter words, and swore in my heart
that some day he should pay for them, for I loved my people, and pitied
them in their misery and degradation. I stopped beside them, and my
heart was beating hard as I listened for what Joyful Star would say, and
I have remembered her words, even as I have remembered his. She looked
at him with the light of anger in her eyes and said,--
'For shame, Laurens! I couldn't have believed that you would have said
such a thing. If you belonged to a race that had been enslaved and
plundered by these brutes of Spaniards and Peruvians for three centuries
and a half, do you think you would be any better than these poor
fellows? And, besides, whatever they are, they are Vilcaroya's people,
and he is our friend.'
I could have fallen on the stones and kissed her feet for those sweet
words of hers, and I moved away quickly for fear I should betray myself,
and went with a swelling heart and mingled tears of love and anger in my
eyes to old Ullullo's house, where I changed my clothes again, and then,
as it was nearly dinner time, which, as you know, is in the evening in
Spanish countries, I went back to the house where we were lodging,
wondering what they would think if they could have understood the words
that had passed between Tupac-Rayca and myself.
When I met them again I saw that they would willingly have learned what
had become of me during the day, but I answered their inquiries by
telling them nothing more and yet a great deal less than the truth, and
saying that I had spent the day revisiting old scenes, and learning what
I could of the present condition of my people. This satisfied them
outwardly at least, though I saw a look in Djama's eyes which told me
that he suspected more of the truth than it suited my purpose to tell
him.
Then our conversation turned to the matter of procuring a house, such as
I have spoken of, and the professor told me that he had heard of a
hacienda, well built and solid, and standing in its own domain, about
three leagues across the valley to the westward, on a secluded little
plain among the hills, which would serve our purpose excellently; but
the owner of it wished to sell it, and 'with the stupidity of these
Peruvians,' as he said, would not hire it out to us but would only sell
it, and the price was twenty thousand soles, or dollars of Peru, which
was two thousand pounds in English money.
'It is a great pity,' said the professor, when he had finished telling
me about it, 'for it doesn't seem as though there was another house in
the neighbourhood of Cuzco that would suit our purpose, and this one
would do perfectly.'
'Of course, if the fellow won't let it there's no use thinking any more
about the matter, for two thousand pounds is entirely out of the
question. It seems to me that the expedition will be quite expensive
enough without the luxury of buying houses at fancy prices.'
It was Djama who spoke. No one else at our table could have spoken like
that. I heard him in silence, for I could not trust myself to speak for
the anger that was rising within me. I saw Joyful Star raise her eyelids
and look at him with a swift glance that meant much; but she, too, said
nothing; and then, looking at me, he spoke again and said,--
'Of course, if His Highness'--for so he always spoke of me when no
strangers were present--'would just unlock one of those treasure-houses
of his, the matter would be easy enough, but I suppose that's outside
the contract.'
I still kept silence, knowing as I did what the night was to bring
forth. But Francis Hartness answered for me, and said,--
'I don't think you can quite put it that way, Djama, if you'll excuse me
saying so. If I am not mistaken, it has been clearly understood that the
first treasure-house to be unlocked is the one that holds Vilcaroya's
greatest treasure--his wife--and what you say seems to suggest--'
'It is enough!' I said, unconsciously speaking in my growing anger in
the same imperious tone that I had used but a few hours before to Tupac.
'Let the house be bought. I will charge myself with the cost, and I will
be the debtor of my friends no longer.'
They stared at me as I spoke, for hitherto I had spoken to them as a
child rather than as a man; as an inferior, rather than as an equal. I
saw a smile that was not pleasant to look upon pass swiftly over Djama's
mouth, but he kept silence, and the professor said to me,--
'Are you really in earnest, Vilcaroya? You know, according to our
bargain, we have no claim on you until our part of the work is done.
None of us have any desire to learn your secrets.'
'I am not talking of secrets,' I said, breaking into his speech, 'and
one of my race does not speak to make a liar of himself. What I say I
can do and will, for I wish the work to begin at once. Do you think I
have not waited long enough for my beloved, my sister and my wife?'
'Your what!' cried Joyful Star, rising suddenly from her seat, and
staring at me with fixed and wide-opened eyes. 'Your sister! Oh,
Vilcaroya, surely this is not true!' and as she said this I saw her
cheeks grow pale and her lips tremble.
'Yes,' I answered, 'it is true. Why should I lie to my new sister and
friend, Joyful Star? Golden Star was the daughter of my father, the
great Huayna-Capac, though our mothers were not the same.'
I had no time to finish my speech, for with a look of unutterable horror
in her eyes, which pierced me to the heart and seemed to sever it in
twain, she cried,--
'Oh, no, no! that is too horrible! I don't want to hear any more. I will
go back to England to-morrow. Laurens, come to my room; I want to speak
to you at once.'
So saying, she went to the door and opened it and went out, followed by
her brother, who looked at me as he passed me with a look which I never
forgot or forgave, for it was like the words that I had heard him say to
her in the square.
'What is this?' I said to the professor when the door had closed behind
them. 'What have I said or done that Joyful Star should look with
horror upon me and say such cruel words?'
I saw him exchange glances full of meaning with the English soldier
before he answered me; and then, leaning his arms on the table in front
of him, he said, in that quiet, calm voice of his,--
'My dear Vilcaroya, it is a very strange thing, and, as far as Miss
Djama is concerned, perhaps, a very great pity that this has never come
out before, for without knowing it you have given her a shock that may
have very painful consequences. No, don't interrupt me now, for the
sooner I can make you understand the meaning of your words to her the
better. It is this way: we know, of course, that in your day and among
your people sister-marriage was held to be the most sacred of all
marriages. We know that from such a marriage only might spring the
wearer of the imperial Borla, but to us the idea is so unutterably
horrible and revolting that of all the crimes that could be committed by
one of our race that would be the most fearful. It cannot even be
discussed amongst us, and yet you, in the most perfect innocence, have
spoken of it in the presence--Good Heavens, Hartness! what is to be
done? Do you think Miss Djama was really in earnest when she talked of
going back to England to-morrow? It is impossible--it would ruin
everything!'
I kept silence, for my sorrow and wonder were too great for words, but I
listened eagerly for what Francis Hartness would say in reply.
'She was in earnest when she spoke,' he said, as quietly as the
professor had spoken; 'but, if the doctor has as much sense as I give
him credit for, she will have seen the thing in a different light by
this time. Of course, she has read Prescott, and she really knows as
much about the marriage customs of the ancient Incas as we do. In fact,
to tell you the truth'--and as he said this I saw him frown, and an
angry light came into his eyes that I had never seen in them before--'I
really can hardly understand how, knowing that as she does know it, she
can have been as horrified as she certainly was. She knows perfectly
well that Vilcaroya has come at a single step, as it were, from his age
into ours, and so must have brought all the ideas and beliefs of his
time and his people with him. Depend upon it, a little reflection will
very soon show her that, horrible and all as the idea must naturally
have appeared to her at the first shock of hearing it, from Vilcaroya's
point of view there is nothing in it but what is perfectly natural and
proper. Now, to my mind, the matter is much more sad and serious for
Vilcaroya himself than for anyone else.'
As he said this he turned from the professor to me and went on,
addressing me in a tone so frank and kindly that ever afterwards I
looked upon him as my friend and my brother,--
'It's not a pleasant thing for me to say, and it must, of course, be a
very painful one for you to hear; still, it has got to be said some time
or other, and, unless I am wrong in what I think of you, I believe you
are man enough to hear it and to agree with me that it had better be
said now than later on, when the saying of it might be tenfold more
painful both to you and us.'
'Say on,' I said shortly. 'Your tongue is straight and your eyes look
into mine as those of a friend should look. I am listening.'
'I would wish for no better friend than you, Vilcaroya, after that, for
I know what you mean. Now, what I have to say is this. We know, of
course, that you look upon yourself as doubly married to this love of
yours, who is dead and, like you, may yet be alive again. You are bound
to her, not only by a marriage which, in the time that it took place,
was perfectly lawful and natural, but also by the oath that you took
together. But you have come back to the world in another age and among
another people, and now that form of marriage is looked upon by all
civilised humanity, not only as unlawful, but, as the professor has just
said, unnatural and horrible beyond conception.
'Therefore, if Golden Star is restored to life, for you to love her,
save as a brother, or for you to consummate the union which, as you have
told us, began and ended before the altar of the Sun, would be to make
not only yourself, but your--your sister, Golden Star, as well, looked
upon with horror and loathing by every civilised man and woman who knew
your story. I am speaking strongly, because it is necessary.
'You might succeed in all your aims, you might realise every ambition of
your life, and yet I tell you it is Heaven's own truth, that if you took
Golden Star to sit beside you on the throne of the Incas as your wife
and queen, you would place her upon a pinnacle of infamy which men would
spit upon and women turn their backs on. The reward of all your labours,
the price of all your treasures, no matter how great they might be,
would be nothing but a curse that would fall heavily on you, but a
thousand times more heavily on the woman whom you have loved best in all
the world.'
He stopped, and they both sat and looked at me in silence, awaiting for
me to answer him. As for me, I felt my spirit wandering over a bare
wilderness where all was dark.
I knew that he had spoken truth, strange as the truth seemed to me, for
no man could have heard his voice and seen the steady light in his
eyes, without knowing that he was a true man, and so spoke the truth.
The moments passed, and I could still find no words to say. Then the
silence was broken by the opening of the door, and Djama came in and
said,--
'My sister wishes you to excuse her coming back to the table. Of course,
I have explained matters to her, and I think she now sees them in a
different light, but for some reason or other she seems strangely
shaken. You know how extremely sensitive she is, and so, as her doctor,
as well as her brother, I have sent her to bed. She wasn't really fit to
come back after what has happened, and a night's rest will be the best
thing in the world for her. I suppose you two have explained things to
His Highness as well, eh?'
'Yes,' I said, rising from my seat. 'It has been explained to me. I do
not understand all now, but I must think, and think alone, so I will
go.'
Then I went to Francis Hartness and held out my hand to him and said,
after the fashion of the English,--
'Good-night, Captain Hartness. You have wounded me sorely with your
words, yet you have spoken them as only a friend could speak them. From
now till the day of my death or yours, Vilcaroya Inca is your friend,
and all his people are your servants.'
Then I took my hand from his, and bowing farewell to the others, walked
swiftly out of the room and got my cloak, and went out into the city to
think in silence by myself over the strange and terrible things that I
had heard, and to calm my spirit before I went to do the work which, in
a few hours, would be awaiting me on the hills behind the Sacsahuaman.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The yellow Llautu, or fringed turban of wool, worn on the brows, was
the distinguishing mark of the sacred Inca race. The scarlet was worn
only by the reigning Inca--'Son of the Sun.' Its fringe, called the
'borla,' was mingled with threads of gold.
CHAPTER III
IN THE HALL OF GOLD
I went first to Ullullo's house and changed my clothing, so that I might
the more easily lose myself among the hundreds of Indians about the
streets of the city, for something told me that Djama might make an
attempt to discover the meaning of what I had said about the house by
following me and learning, if possible, the secret of my movements; for
he must have known that, being without money as I was, save for the few
dollars that the professor had lent me, it would not be possible for me
to do as I had said, unless one, at least, of the hiding-places of the
old treasures was within easy reach so that I could take sufficient gold
out of it by the next day to fulfil my promise.
When I changed my clothes I put a dagger into my belt, and a revolver,
which Francis Hartness had already taught me how to use, into a case
slung at my hip, and hidden by my jacket and the long folds of my
poncho. Then I went back into the great square, and across it up the
street in which we had our lodgings. As I passed the house I saw Djama
standing in the archway leading into the courtyard, smoking a cigar. I
turned and looked him in the face as I went by, slouching and trailing
my sandalled feet after the fashion of the natives. He looked at me, but
I saw no recognition in his eyes. Then as I walked on there came a
thought to me.
I hurried to Ullullo's house once more and brought him back with me,
telling him on the way what I wanted him to do for me. When we reached
the house again we saw Djama standing in the courtyard, and Ullullo,
doing as I had bid him, went in to him, and told him in Spanish, which I
could not speak, that if he would give him ten dollars he should learn
the secret of my goings and comings, and where I was to find the gold
with which to pay for the hacienda. Djama instantly promised him the
money, as I thought he would, and Ullullo told him to be at the end of
the street which is now called El Triunfo at eleven o'clock that night.
He was to come alone, for if anyone came with him he would learn
nothing. As you will soon see, I had two objects to serve in doing this.
When Ullullo came back and told me that Djama would be there, I bade
him wait for me at the same place and hour, and then I went away alone
out of the city and up a path which led towards the mountains to the
north. There, alone and in silence, I communed with my own soul, at
first in sorrow, yet slowly becoming more and more peaceful in heart,
even as one who is told that he is to die on a certain day first rages
against his doom and then learns to contemplate with calmness that which
there is no hope of escaping. The words of the professor and Francis
Hartness had shown me that in the world to which I had returned my
sister Golden Star could now never be my wife and queen, and the more I
pondered on what they had said, the more plainly it appeared to me that
this was the truth, however bitter it might seem.
Yet there was something else in my heart, although at that time I did
not dare even to let my inmost thoughts dwell upon it, which in some way
dulled the pain of the blow that had fallen upon me, and reconciled me
to the parting which in one sense must now be eternal. The longer I
pondered the more deeply did that look of horror which I had seen in the
eyes of Joyful Star burn into my soul, and the more clearly did the
words that she had spoken ring in my ears. She had said that it was
horrible and that it was impossible, and she was to me as one of those
bright angels who, according to our ancient faith, awaited the heroes
and sages of our race in the Mansions of the Sun--a being so far above
me that I could look upon her only as a mortal might look from afar upon
a daughter of the Celestials.
Thus, musing in silence and solitude on the wild mountain-side, now
looking back into my distant past, and now hazarding a glance into the
fast-approaching future, the hours slipped by quickly for me, and I
heard the bells of the churches--bells which they had told me had been
cast out of the copper and gold and silver that our conquerors had taken
from our temples and palaces--chiming the half-hour before eleven.
So I turned back to the city, and made haste to the place where Djama
and Ullullo would be waiting for me. I found them there talking
together, and without discovering myself to Djama, I told Ullullo in
Quichua to follow me with the Englishman. Then I went on swiftly along
the rivulet of Tullamayo, past the terrace of Rocca Inca, and along the
smooth, dark wall of what had once been the Yachahuasi, or College of
the Youths, and so out of the city and the gorge of the little river
Rodadero. Then, with the two still following me a few yards behind, I
climbed the lower terraces of the Colcompata, or the Granaries, where
the divine Manco built his first palace, and then on up the hillside to
the Tiupunco, or Gate of Sand, which led through the fragments of what
had once been the outer wall of the great fortress, and so on to the
little level pampa of the Rodadero, which was my meeting-place with
Tupac.
Now as I went I began to sing one of our ancient songs, which was the
signal that I had agreed upon with Tupac, and presently, one after
another, silent, stealthy forms crept out from the angles of the great
zig-zag wall and came towards me. One of them, taller than the rest,
threw an iron bar that he was carrying across his shoulders, and came
and stood before me with bowed-down head, waiting for me to speak. I
knew that it was Tupac, and I said to him,--
'Are the Children of the Sun ready to do the bidding of his Son?'
'They are, Lord!' he replied. 'Here are twenty who have sworn by the
heart of the divine Manco to do all things lawful and unlawful, even to
the death, at the bidding of him who shall prove himself to be the true
heir of the royal Llautu.'
'It is good,' I said, 'and the proof shall soon be given. Now, take the
stranger yonder; do him no harm, but bind his eyes so that he cannot
see, and tie his hands behind him. Then follow me.'
Instantly the stealthy forms closed around Djama. Not a word was spoken
save his startled, angry exclamation, which was soon stifled, and then
they brought him along after me, I going first and Tupac following close
behind me. Like a string of shadows we moved across the plain past the
great carved rock which is still called the Inca's Seat, and over the
ridge of the Sliding Stones and down into the valley beyond, which is
thickly strewn with great rock-masses carved into seats, and altars, and
baths, and chambers, of which no man knows the origin, and which were
ancient when Manco-Capac and Mama-Occlu first came into the land.
The greatest of these is a high white rock carved all over into steps
and seats and altars and basins, which are said to have been made to
catch the blood of the living sacrifices that were offered up here by a
race of men whose name has been forgotten. It is called in our language
the Sayacusca, or Tired Stone, for an old tradition says that ages ago
it was brought from the mountains by the toil of ten thousand men, and
when it reached its present place it rolled over and killed three
hundred of them, and could never be moved again upon its journey.
On the south side of this there is a great cleft from the top to the
bottom, and up the sides of this cleft are the two halves of a stairway,
which was carved there before some earthquake rent the stone in twain,
and under this is a deep dark pool of water. At the entrance to the
cleft I stopped and beckoned to the others to come round me. Then I told
them that they were about to see that which no man then alive on earth
had ever seen, and made all swear by the Glory of the Sun that each and
every one of them would slay without pity him who revealed anything seen
or heard that night, even though he were his own brother, or his own
father, or his own son. As for Djama, they held him there bound and
blindfolded amongst them, and when he tried to speak they stopped his
mouth at my bidding, for I had told them that I would be answerable for
him, since I had brought him here for my own purposes.
Then I made two of the men stretch a cord tightly across the mouth of
the cleft close down to the ground, and to the middle of this I tied
another cord, and stretched it out straight twelve foot-lengths from the
centre, and here I bade them clear away the bushes, and dig. Then axe
and hoe and spade went to work. In that clear air, and under that
cloudless sky, the stars gave light enough to work by, and soon a space
had been cleared, and a round hole about three feet across was being dug
down through the loose, rocky soil.
When it was about half the depth of a man the spades struck on the solid
rock below, and could go no farther. When Tupac told me of this, I, who
had been standing by the cleft, looking--full of strange thoughts--down
into the dark pool of water, called the man who had been digging out of
the hole, and, taking an iron bar from Tupac, I dropped into it.
I sought about the bottom with my hands for a few moments till I found
the outline of a squared stone that had been let into the rock. In the
centre of this I found a hole, out of which I picked the dirt with my
dagger. Then, putting the end of my iron bar into it, I pulled, and the
stone turned over on a hinge, leaving an opening half its size. Down
this I thrust my arm, and found a chain of copper which hung down into a
deep well below. I pulled this with all my strength until something gave
way at the bottom, then I drew the chain up, and cast my iron bar under
it across the hole. As I did this, I heard the deep, smothered roar of
waters rushing away far below me into the bowels of the earth.
Then I got out of the hole and went back to the cleft. I lit a candle
and looked down at the pool. It was no longer stagnant now, but seething
and eddying like a whirlpool. I beckoned to Tupac, who was standing a
little way behind me, and as he came and looked over my shoulder I
pointed down into the dark gulf, out of which the bottom was rapidly
falling, and said,--
'See, the waters are opening the way by which the Son of the Sun shall
go into his kingdom. Watch now, and listen!'
'Son of the Sun and Lord of the Four Regions, it is true!' he whispered
as the waters eddied round faster and faster, and gurgled and rattled
down into some unknown abyss. Soon they vanished altogether, leaving
only a dark, black, and seemingly fathomless cavern in the place where
they had been. I waited until the sound of the last gurgle had died away
in the depths, and then I turned to Tupac and said,--
'The way is open. Tell Ullullo to bring the lantern and light it. There
must be no other light. You and the rest follow me, and let two strong
men bring the stranger.'
He did as I bade him, and when I had lit the lantern I cast its rays
about the gulf beneath me till I found the continuation of the broken
stairway above, and then picking my way carefully down the dank, slimy
steps, I led the way into the heart of the rock, the rest following,
guided by the spreading ray of light in front of me.'
I counted fifty steps, and then stopped and turned sharply to the right.
The fiftieth step ended against a wall of rock, still dripping with the
water that was running down from the arched roof of the chamber. I
measured ten spans with my hand from the wall where the steps ended,
and made a mark with my dagger on the rock. Then from the floor I
measured eight spans in a line across the mark. Where the eighth span
ended I made another mark, and with the help of my lantern I found a
silver socket let into the rock. It was a plate with a hole in the
centre large enough to admit the iron bar which I had brought for the
purpose. I put it in, and whispering to Tupac to help me, we gripped the
bar, and after two or three hard pulls felt it coming towards us.
A great slab of rock, which fitted into the wall with all the perfection
that our old Inca masons could give it, turned on a central hinge,
leaving a space that two men could have walked through abreast.
'Go in,' I said to Tupac, 'and let all follow you.'
He obeyed, and standing by the opening with a ray of my lantern shooting
across it, I watched them file past one by one until all had gone in.
Then I followed, and as I crossed the threshold set my shoulder against
the edge of the slab and pushed it back into its place.
Now I covered my lantern with my poncho and cried aloud in the
darkness,--
'Let the torches be got ready, but let no light be struck till that
which is to be revealed may be seen.'
A low murmur answered me, and then, still keeping my lantern hidden, I
felt my way along the wall, treading softly as a mountain lion
approaching its prey, until I had counted forty paces. The fortieth
brought me to a doorway, through which I turned. Five paces more brought
me to another turning, ten more to the end of the passage, and then I
uncovered my light and found myself in a little square chamber hewn out
of the rock and surrounded with stone chests covered with lids of
copper.
In the centre of the chamber stood a smaller one, all of metal. I set my
lantern down on one of the others so that the light fell across this
one; then I raised the lid, and there before me lay, perfect as they had
been on the day when Anda-Huillac, last High Priest of the Sun, had laid
them there, the imperial robes and insignia that had last been worn by
the ill-fated Huascar, son of the great Huayna-Capac.
Quickly throwing off the mean garments that I wore, I dressed myself in
them. Then, binding the golden sandals on my feet, and clasping the long
mantle emblazoned in gold and jewels with the symbols of the Sun and his
sister-wife the Moon across my shoulders, I wound the scarlet Llautu
around my head, with the crimson fringe of the Borla interlaced with
gold falling upon my brow, and then, closing the chest, I took up my
lantern and went back along the passages I had traversed.
In the middle of the last one I put my lantern down with the glass
against the wall, and feeling my way into the doorway, which opened on
to the chamber in which the others were awaiting me, I cried, in a voice
that echoed strangely through the great chamber,--
'Let the torches be kindled, and let the Children of the Sun look upon
their Lord!'
I heard a shuffling of feet and a whispering of many voices. Then lights
were struck, and I stepped back quickly into the shadow of the doorway.
I saw the glow of light grow into a glare that was flashed back in a
thousand many-coloured rays from the walls of the chamber. I heard a
deep, low cry of wonder, and then I strode out into the midst and
said,--
'I am he who went into the shadows at the bidding of our Father the Sun,
and by his will I have returned to bring deliverance to his children!'
For one moment of affrighted amazement they stared wide-eyed at me
standing there before them, as though Huayna-Capac himself had returned
from the Mansions of the Sun to resume his sceptre and his crown. Then,
with one accord, they sank on their knees before me, holding their
torches above their bent heads and murmuring,--
'Hail, Son of the Sun and deliverer of his children, who hast come to
bring the daylight back to the long-darkened Land of the Four Regions!'
I looked at them and saw Djama standing erect, still bound and
blindfold, in the midst of them. I went through the kneeling forms to
him, and taking the bandage from his eyes stepped back, and while he was
blinking at the light of the torches, said to him in English,--
'Look about you, Laurens Djama, and tell me if you believe now that I,
the friend of the filthy Indians whom you despise, can do that which I
have said?'
He was still half dazzled by the glare of the torches and the thousand
rays of many colours that were flashing about him. Wherever his
wondering glance fell it saw great golden plates covering the walls,
thick-set with jewels, and in front of him, piled up against the end
wall of the chamber, a shining heap of gold bars in the shape of a
pyramid reaching to the roof of the chamber, and on either side of this,
half way up, was a great image of the Sun, like to that which in the
olden times stood above the altar in the sanctuary of the great temple
of Cuzco, each with its centre fashioned as a human face, with great
flashing diamonds for eyes, with lips of rubies, and long pendants of
emeralds hanging from the ears, and all round a hundred curving rays of
gold edged and lined with jewels.
He stared about him, open-eyed and open-mouthed with amazement. Then his
eyes fell on me, and he started forward and stared me in the face for a
moment. Then he gasped,--
'Vilcaroya, is it you, or am I dreaming? Where have you brought me to?'
'To one of the treasure-houses that you so longed to see,' I said, 'so
that you might see and believe that I told you no idle tale, and that I
can perform my promise if you can perform yours.'
Then I turned my back on him and went to the foot of the pyramid, and,
taking my place in front of it, I said to those who still knelt before
me in silence,--
'Let those of his children who are faithful to their Father the Sun rise
and come without falsehood in their hearts, and say if they now believe
that that which was foretold long ago, when the darkness fell over the
land, has in very truth come to pass.'
They rose from their knees and came towards me in a half circle,
carrying their torches. They stopped about five paces from me, looking
at me through a little space with wondering eyes full of worship. Then
they bowed their heads again, and Tupac came from the midst of them,
and, casting himself prone at my feet, yet not daring even to touch my
sandals, said in a broken voice,--
'Son of the Sun, heir of heaven and lord of earth, we have seen thy
wisdom and thy majesty. None but one of thy royal line--nay, none but
thee, oh, Vilcaroya, son of Huayna-Capac, and brother of Huascar, last
of the Incas, could have known the secret that thou hast brought with
thee from the past into the present. We are thy children and thy slaves,
and all the men of the Blood that are left in the Land of the Four
Regions shall hail thee lord as we do, and own no other master save
thee, Vilcaroya Inca, from now until the hour when their father, the
Lord of Life, shall call them back to the Mansions of the Sun. We are
thine, and we will serve thee, ourselves and our wives and our children,
as our fathers served thy father in the days when there was yet peace
and happiness in the land.'
'And if ye are but faithful,' I said, 'and if the Lord, my father, who
rules the day, and his sister, my mother, who rules the night, shall
give me strength and wisdom to use the power that is mine, I will give
you back peace and happiness, and the stranger and the oppressor shall
be driven from the land, and the homes of the Children of the Sun shall
again be full of light. Rise now, Tupac, and let ten of the men give
their torches to the others and make ready to do my bidding.'
He rose, and it was done. Then I called Djama to me and said,--
'What you have seen here to-night is a dream. When your eyes open again
on the outer world, remember what I have said. Your hand has brought me
from the grave to the throne, and you must obey me as these do. Let me
but know that you have spoken one word, even to Joyful Star herself,
concerning what you have seen here to-night, and I will show you how an
Inca deals with one who dares to disobey him. Keep silence and have
patience, and perform that which you have promised, and you shall go
back to your own land loaded with gold and jewels. Fail, and the
fragments of your body shall be sent north and south and east and west
throughout the Land of the Four Regions, and your name shall be one of
shame in the ears of my people for ever.'
For a moment he looked me in the eyes, and I saw his lips moving as
though he was striving to shape some answer to my words. Then his face
grew grey, and his knees shook as he stood. Then I called to Tupac, and
bade him bind his eyes again and lead him away, and as soon as his sight
was taken from him I bade the ten men who had given up their torches
take off their ponchos and fill them with as many of the golden bars as
each one could carry, and when this was done, I ordered all the torches
save one to be extinguished. This one I took, and went with it into the
passage where I had left my lantern. Then I dashed it against the wall
and vanished into the darkness.
I took my lantern, and hiding the light carefully, went back to the
little chamber, where I took off my robes and sandals and the imperial
Llautu, and put them back into the chest. Then I put on my mean attire
again and went back into the Hall of Gold. Signing to the others to
follow me, I turned the stone door on its pivot again, and watched them
file past me as before. Then, going out last, I closed the portal after
me and lighted them up the steps with my lantern.
When we all once more stood in the open air by the cleft I went to the
hole and released the chain. Instantly the roar of waters broke out
again, and I bade them fill the hole up and put turf over it, and
trample it down and scatter the bushes over it; and that being done, we
took our way back again across the plain towards the fortress, still
leading Djama blindfold in our midst.
We took him by the gate of Viracocha into the fortress, across its upper
part, where the three crosses stood, and down on to the zigzag road
which leads into the eastern part of the city, and there we unbound his
eyes, and I bade him go to the house and make ready to receive me early
in the morning, telling our friends that I should arrive with some
packages of Indian merchandise and metals from one of my mines, for, as
I should have told you before, I had come to Cuzco in the character of
an owner of mines who had lived long in Europe and had returned to
supervise the working of my property.
I and Tupac and his companions then went back into the hills, and
without entering the city made our way by twos and threes into the
village of San Sebastian. We met at Tupac's house, and there I explained
to them as much of my plans and purposes as I thought fit for them to
know, and showed them that the time was not yet come for them to make
use of the treasures that I would share with them. But to each man I
gave two pounds' weight of gold to be left in Tupac's care till it could
be taken into the cities of the south and there changed for silver
coins. Then I had a list made of their names, and promised them, after
reminding them of their oaths, that when I once more sat on the throne
of the divine Manco, their fidelity should be well remembered.
The next morning we loaded the gold in bales of the coca-leaf, great
quantities of which are taken every day into Cuzco, upon four mules, and
these I sent to our house while I went back with Ullullo and put on my
English clothing. Then I followed, and found that the bags of coca had
already arrived. They were carried up to my own room, and there, in the
presence of Djama and Joyful Star, the professor and Francis Hartness, I
took out the gold ingots and built them up in a pyramid before them.
I could see from their amazement that, whether from fear or faith, Djama
had obeyed me, and said nothing of what he had seen during the night. As
for me, I said but little. I gave them the gold, and that day the
professor and Djama, acting as my agents, sold it to some of the
merchants of Cuzco as the product of my mines. The price was more than
twice as much as was needed for the hacienda, so with the rest I
discharged my debt and made myself once more a free man.
There is no need for me to dwell upon our dealings with the owner of the
hacienda, and therefore it will suffice for me to say, before ten days
more had passed the purchase-money had been paid, we had taken up our
abode there, and installed Joyful Star as housewife, with faithful
servants chosen by myself from among the Children of the Blood. Djama,
who had been strangely silent and reserved with all of us since the
lesson I had taught him in the Hall of Gold, had taken possession of the
chamber which was devoted to his uses, and had put all his apparatus in
order for the great work that was to be done there.
So on the fourteenth day, such was the power of my gold and of my
longings, all things were ready, and at daybreak on the fifteenth day we
rode at the head of our little mule train out of the courtyard of the
hacienda on our way to the resting-place of Golden Star.
CHAPTER IV
THE SISTER STARS
For five long days we travelled slowly and toilfully on our way from the
valley of Cuzco to that other where Golden Star lay sleeping beside the
lake. Over high plains and pleasant valleys, through deep, dark gorges
and ravines, to whose lowest depths the sun but seldom reaches, and then
but for an hour or two, along narrow pathways cut into the living rock
on the mountain side, with precipices on one hand falling thousands of
feet into the dark abysses, where the torrents roared and foamed, and on
the other the great rock-walls of the mountain soaring up into the sky
yet more thousands of feet above us.
I saw the mighty crests of Saljantai and Umantai rising snow-crowned
from earth to heaven, unchanged in their eternal grandeur since the
long-distant day on which I had last beheld them. I rode with saddened
heart past the ruins of Lima Tambo, remembering how fair and stately a
city it had been in the days before the plunderer and the oppressor
came. We toiled slowly over the great, sharp-ridged range which parts
the waters of the Vilcamayo from those of the Apurimac--the 'Great
Speaker'--then, descending again by the gorge of the river which is now
called the Rio de la Banca, we came to the long bridge which swings in
mid-air from rock to rock across the chasm through which the Great
Speaker rolls his swift, roaring flood.
Its cables were loosened and its floorway broken, for, like all things
else in the land, the Spaniards had suffered it to fall well nigh to
ruin; and, as I led Joyful Star across it by the hand, I thought of what
it had been in the olden times, when not a rope or a stick was suffered
to be out of place, and when the Son of the Sun had been borne across it
in his golden travelling litter, with long processions of his adoring
people going before and behind him, strewing his way with flowers, and
waking the echoes of these gloomy gorges with the melody of their songs
and laughter.
From here we journeyed on, ever facing the setting sun, for two days
more, still winding higher and higher up into the mountains, until at
length, on the third evening, I, riding alone many yards in front of
the others, found the sign that I was looking for--a rock with three
seats carved on the top of it--and turned my mule from the track and
rode over the rough, stony ground up the side of the mountain until what
looked from the road a single rock-built peak opened into two. I
beckoned to the others to follow me, and when they came up I said to the
professor,--
'Do you know where you are now? Have you ever been here before?'
He looked about him and shook his head, saying,--
'This may have been the place where we got off the road when my mule
gave out, but I don't recognise it. Do you mean that we are near the
valley?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Do you not remember seeing yonder two peaks from the
shore of the lake near where you found me?'
He looked at them for a moment, and then said,--
'Yes, I remember them; but they don't look the same, and I don't believe
I could find my way back into the valley from here to save my life. It's
very strange how I can have forgotten it so completely.'
I smiled as he said this, knowing that I had brought them purposely many
miles out of the way by which he had found the valley by accident, for
I had no desire that the way should be known to any but myself and those
I had chosen from among the remnant of the Children of the Blood. Then I
bade them follow me again, and once more rode on alone ahead, for, as
you may well believe, I was too full of my own thoughts and hopes and
fears to be in any mood for conversation, even with Joyful Star herself.
They, too, talked but little, and as we rode on in the deepening gloom
amid the solemn silence and the gaunt grandeur of the mountains, their
words became fewer and fewer, till at length thought took the place of
speech, and the silence was broken by no sound save the patter of the
mules' feet and the rattle of stones under their iron-shod hoofs.
Hour after hour I led them on, turning from valley to valley on the road
that was visible only to my own eyes, and ever rising higher and higher
towards the twin peaks that now stood out dark and sharp against the
starry sky. At last, when our watches were nearly marking ten o'clock, I
stopped before a cliff covered with bushes and creeping grasses, and
calling Tupac to me, I bade him seek for an opening under these.
He groped about among the bushes for a while, and then suddenly, with a
short cry of surprise, he vanished, as it seemed, through the face of
the rock itself. I dismounted and followed him, and found him standing
behind the bushes, facing a square doorway cut in the rock and lined
with masonry. Behind it, and closing it completely, was a great slab of
dressed stone. Down the sides of the doorway were two square pillars of
stone, and in the middle of one, to the left hand, three little lines
had been cut about a finger's breadth apart, but so faintly that only
one who knew they were there could find them.
I stretched a string across from the middle one of these to the
right-hand pillar, and where the string ended in the centre of the
pillar I felt with my finger-tips and found a little circle about as big
round as an English two-shilling piece. Tupac had in his hand the iron
rod that I had used on the Rodadero. I took it from him, and, pressing
the end against the circle, told him to push with me, and, to his
wonder, the rod sank, seemingly, into the solid stone, forcing out a
bolt which had been fitted so cunningly into the pillar that the end of
it looked no more than a circle traced on the face of it.
When we had pushed the rod in about six inches I bade Tupac help me to
pull it round towards the door. The pillar turned on a central hinge as
we did so, and the great stone slab swung back by its own weight, which
we had thus released, opening the entrance to a tunnel high enough for a
man to walk through erect. This tunnel sloped somewhat sharply upwards,
and looking up it I could see, shining in the clear sky beyond the upper
entrance, the stars that I knew were reflected in the still waters of
the little lake by which Golden Star was sleeping the sleep out of which
we had come to wake her.
As the passage was not large enough for the mules to go through with
their burdens, I bade my men unload them and carry their loads through
into the valley. Then we followed, leading our own animals by the
bridle, and after us the cargo-mules were driven through. The load of
one of them was a long, narrow case of wood like that in which the
professor had taken my own dead body to London, but this was thickly and
softly padded inside with wool, and lined with white linen, and at one
end was a little pillow of the softest down, on which the head of Golden
Star would soon be resting.
As soon as we were all standing outside the upper mouth of the tunnel I
looked at Joyful Star and said,--
'Is not this a fitting resting-place even for the daughter of kings? Are
not the stars bright in the heavens and on the bosom of the lake? Are
not the mountains great, and strong, and silent? Do they not guard her
couch well, and does not the snowy peak of Umantai yonder point the
straight way to the Mansions of the Sun, where the soul of Golden Star
is even now waiting for the arts of your brother to call it back to
earth as he called mine?'
'Yes,' she said, looking about her, first at the stars and then at the
vast shapes of the mountains which loomed huge and dim on every side.
'Yes, Vilcaroya, it is a good place for sleep, but--is not the world
beyond a good place to wake in? Have _you_ not found it so?'
I caught the gleam of her eyes in the starlight as she looked towards me
saying this, and, by the glory of the Sun, had we stood alone where we
were, I might have forgotten all save the knowledge that I was the
lawful lord of all this land, and that she was there in the midst of it
with me. For the instant I had gone back to my old life, with all its
old-world thoughts and customs, and then, before I could answer her, my
dreaming soul was called back to the present by the cold, quiet voice of
her brother saying,--
'I don't think that very many would find the world an unpleasant place
to wake in, either for the first or second time, if they could also wake
up lord of illimitable treasures as Vilcaroya here has done. But come,
Your Highness, and you, professor, it is getting late. Don't you think
it is time to be thinking about camping?'
The matter-of-fact words scattered my dreams in an instant, and I woke
from them into the present. I bade Tupac have the animals tethered and
fed, and the tents we had brought with us pitched in the most sheltered
place he could find; and while they were doing this, and Djama and the
others were busy seeing that the work was done to their satisfaction, I
went to Ruth and said--my words, which I strove so hard to keep steady,
trembling with I know not how many mingled passions,--
'Will Joyful Star come with me and see the place where her sister and
mine is lying, waiting to come forth and greet her?'
'Your sister, Vilcaroya?' she said, turning her face up to me so that
the starlight shone upon its fairness and lost itself in the lustrous
depths of her eyes. 'Do you mean your sister only--not--your--'
'No,' I said, 'not my wife, for I have thought upon your words and
pondered them deeply; and though they wounded me sorely at first, yet
now I see that they were wise and just, like all the other words that
Joyful Star has spoken to me. I have learned that lesson, like many
others which you have taught me. That bridal of ours is already to me a
dream of the long-lost past, the vision of a time that is dead and a
people that is no more. When Golden Star wakes, if she ever does, I will
greet her as a sister and a friend, as one of my own people who has
come back to me out of my own times, and she shall help me in the work
that I swore with her to do--but that is all; and I will find others of
the Blood who shall sit upon the restored throne of my ancestors, and be
the parents of the generations of Incas that shall come after me.'
'What do you mean, Vilcaroya?' she said, in a voice that was half angry
and half fearful. 'Do you mean--no, I cannot say it--for I am sure you
do not mean that.'
'How could that be?' I answered, guessing her meaning. 'Is it not _you_
who have taught me the ways and thoughts of the world into which I have
come back? No, what I mean is that I am not the only one now alive in
whose veins the old blood of the Incas flows. Tupac, yonder, is the son
of the son of the son of that Tupac-Amaru who died torn asunder in the
square of Cuzco, because he had dared to raise the Rainbow Banner in the
Land of the Four Regions, and called the Children of the Sun to revolt
against their oppressors. He, more blessed than I who am his lord, has
both wife and child, and if the prophecy is to be fulfiled, and I am to
reign in the City of the Sun, then I will take his firstborn and
instruct him in all the lore of our people and the duties of their
ruler, and if he proves worthy he shall wear the Llautu after me.'
She looked up at me again as I ceased speaking, just one swift, bright
glance that seemed to pierce to the most secret depths of my soul, and
read the unuttered thoughts that were hidden there, thoughts which I did
not dare to speak even to myself in the loneliest hour of my musings.
Then she looked down again, and side by side we walked in silence round
the shore of the lake until I stopped in front of a great black cliff
that jutted out from the mountain side and hung impending over the dark,
still waters of the lake. I pointed into the black shadows in which its
base was hidden, and said,--
'There lies Golden Star, and there I lay beside her through all the long
years that were to pass from the night when I pledged my troth with her
before the Altar of the Sun until this night when I stand with you,
Joyful Star, a new being in a new world, before her resting-place.'
'Is it really true?' she said, stopping as she spoke, and staring
straight before her into the darkness. 'Is it really true that you, who
are standing alive and strong here beside me, lay there under that great
rock for all those years, while ten generations of men and women were
born, and lived and died, and the whole world changed again and again?
And is the Golden Star lying in there now really the Golden Star you
have told me so much of, and I have thought about until she seems to me
more like some living friend that I have known and loved, than a dead
body that has been in the grave for more than three hundred years? Is it
really true, Vilcaroya, or have we all only been dreaming some wild
dream, like that Frankenstein story that I was telling you the other
day?'
As she spoke she laid her hand for a moment upon my arm, as though to
satisfy herself that I was really made of human flesh and blood, and not
a phantom standing beside her in the starlit darkness.
Scarce knowing what I did, I laid my own hand, warm and strong and firm,
upon hers. For an instant I felt it tremble beneath mine. I would have
given all the boundless wealth that I knew was mine for the courage to
close upon it a grasp that it could not have escaped if it would. My
heart seemed to swell as though it would burst in my breast, my tingling
blood ran fire, and wild words rose choking to my lips. Then her hand
slipped away from under mine. Once more I saw her eyes shine in the
starlight, and then I knew that I had learned the last and greatest
lesson that Joyful Star could teach me.
I knew now why to think of Golden Star as my wife and my queen, filled
me with the same untold horror which I had heard that night thrill in
the tones of her who stood beside me, for now I--the son of a lost race
and a long-past age--loved this daughter of the new time. For good or
evil, for hope or despair, I was hers until I went again, and for the
last time, into the shadows through which I had already passed, and
then--yes, there he was, this tall, stalwart, golden-haired son of her
own race and her own time, whose eyes I had seen looking love into hers!
He was coming towards us round the lake with his long, easy, swinging
strides, this man who was already my friend, and who would one day be
the captain of my armies. For one blind moment of madness I thought how
completely I had him and the others in my power; of the lonely, unknown
valley where we stood; of the men who were already my slaves, and who
looked upon me as a god. I thought, too, of the dark, deep waters of the
lake, and the secrets that they held for me alone. How well they could
hide others for me, too! What if Golden Star never awoke? Would she not
be as well lying there in the peace of her endless sleep as coming back
into the world, perhaps to love in vain and to suffer as I was doomed to
suffer?
The shadowy forms of the mountains began to waver and reel around me;
the stars danced up and down in the sky, and a red mist seemed to swim
before my eyes. Then, through the hoarse, dull murmur that was sounding
in my ears, I heard the sweet, low voice of Joyful Star saying,--
'Ah, Captain Hartness, I suppose you have been wondering what had become
of us! I am afraid I have been neglecting my household duties, and you
have been attending to them for me, but really I could not resist coming
here with Vilcaroya. Look, that is where Golden Star is lying, in a cave
under that great rock down there where those dark shadows are. Doesn't
it look cold and lonely and eerie?'
'Yes,' he answered, with a laugh that did not sound to me like his own.
'But I don't suppose that matters very much now to Her Highness any more
than it did to Vilcaroya. But, to descend to less romantic matters, I
have come to tell you that the affairs of our temporary household are
already in order, supper is ready, and we are all ravenously hungry, and
I suppose you are about the same. This mountain air puts an edge on
one's appetite like a razor's.'
'Supper--yes, I had forgotten all about it, thinking of poor Golden Star
lying there all alone in the darkness. Of course, I am desperately
hungry, now that you remind me of it. Come, Vilcaroya, I am sure you are
hungry too. Another night alone won't matter much to poor Golden Star
after all these years. You can dream of her to-night, as I suppose we
all shall, and to-morrow we shall see her. Oh, how I wonder what she
will be really like!'
As Joyful Star said this in a voice that was half sad and half merry,
she turned away towards Francis Hartness, and I followed her with some
light words on my lips and many heavy thoughts in my heart, and we
walked together to the tents, talking of the things that were to be done
on the morrow.
The next morning I was afoot before the stars had begun to pale in the
coming dawn. I had not slept for two hours together through the night,
yet, waking and sleeping, many dreams had come to me. I had been back to
the past among my people, living again that strange old life, with all
its light and colour and gaiety, which was now every day becoming more
and more like a vision that had been told to me by some other dreamer.
I had talked with Golden Star, seeking to teach her the lesson that my
dear instructress of the new time had taught me, and had awakened half
mad with the perplexities of my divided love--the love of the past that
was dead and of the present that was alive. I had seen my sister-bride
come forth out of her tomb to greet me, clothed in her bridal robes,
with the dust of the grave in her hair and on her face. I had clasped
her in my longing arms and kissed the dust from her lips, and while I
yet held her in my embrace her form had grown cold and stiff again.
Then, in the agony of my sorrow, I had strained her to my breast, and,
under the pressure of my arms, she had crumbled in my grasp and fallen,
a little heap of grey bones and dusty garments, at my feet.
Once more I had awakened with my gasping cry of horror still sounding in
my ears, and then, not daring to seek sleep again, I had risen and gone
out to watch for the rest of the night before her grave under the rock.
There they found me when they came from the camp at daybreak. I went
back with them, and our hasty morning meal was eaten and drunk almost in
silence, for we were all too busy with our thoughts to have leisure for
conversation, and my friends, knowing how much that day's work must mean
to me, respected my unspoken feelings, and left me to the silent company
of my own hopes and fears.
Breakfast over, we took our lanterns and tools and went to the rock,
followed by Tupac and two of my men carrying the coffin-like case in
which Golden Star's body was to be laid. Under the rock was a long heap
of loose stones which the professor had wisely piled up in front of the
upright courses of masonry through which he had broken into my
resting-place. He scanned them eagerly to see if they had been
disturbed since his visit, and told us that they had not. Then I bade
Tupac and the men clear them away, which they speedily did, laying bare
the courses of stone behind them, still standing as the professor had
re-built them after taking out my body.
A few minutes' more work opened a passage large enough for a man to walk
in, stooping. As if by a common instinct they all stepped aside and
looked at me. I saw what they meant, and, turning the light of my
lantern into the entrance, I walked back, a living man, into the grave
where I had lain dead while ten generations of men had lived and died. I
saw the place where I had lain, for a few mouldering scraps and shreds
of cloth and furs still lay where my bed had been. Then I flashed my
lantern round the walls of the cavern, and on the side along which my
own couch had been spread by Anda-Huillac and his brother priests I
found what they had told me to seek while I was preparing to fulfil the
oath that I had sworn with Golden Star.
It was a wedge of stone fitted in to a crevice in the wall and left
rough and jagged at its outer end, so that one who did not know its true
purpose would have taken it to be nothing more than a natural projection
in the rough side of the cavern.
With a mallet that I had brought with me I struck the end of the wedge
softly above and below until it was loosened in its socket. Then,
standing to one side, I struck it harder. It dropped from its place, and
the same instant a part of the cavern wall swayed outwards and fell with
a rumbling crash across the floor.
For a moment I stood breathless and motionless on the threshold of
Golden Star's grave. Then, with trembling hands, I turned the light of
my lantern into the inner chamber, and as the dust that the falling
stone had raised fell slowly back to the ground I saw through the
particles dancing in the lantern rays the dim outline of a human form
lying on a couch of skins.
Still, not daring to set a foot within that sacred place, I stood in the
doorway and let the light fall full upon the figure. A glance showed me
that so far all was well. No profaning hand had disturbed the peace and
sanctity of her long slumber. She lay there as perfect in form and
feature as she had lain beside me that night in the little chamber in
the Sanctuary of the Sun.
Then I thought of Joyful Star. Hers should be the first eyes after mine
to look upon that dead loveliness. So I turned and went out to where
they were all standing round the outer entrance, and, taking no notice
of the others, replying nothing to their half-whispered questions, I
went to Ruth and, holding out my hand for her, said,--
'Come, Joyful Star, and see the sister that the Lord of Life made long
ago in the image that you now wear.'
She said nothing, but, with a look of wondering question, put her hand
into mine and I turned to lead her to the entrance.
Djama, with a sudden exclamation, took a step forward as though he would
stop her, but Francis Hartness put his hand on his shoulder, saying,--
'I think you had better let them go alone. There is no fear for your
sister with all of us here so near; and if what Vilcaroya says is true,
why should she not see her first?'
Djama drew back, though with no very good grace, and I went into the
inner chamber, helping Ruth over the fallen stones. Then I flashed my
light on Golden Star's face and said,--
'Did I not tell you truly that the Lord of Life made her in the same
image as yours?'
I heard her utter a little gasping cry of wonder, and then I saw her
slip forward on to her knees beside Golden Star's pillow, and as the
light fell upon the two faces--the living and the dead--the likeness
between them was so perfect, save for the golden gleam of Joyful Star's
hair and the lustrous blackness of the tresses that framed my dead
love's face, that they seemed to me as sisters, one watching over the
slumbers of the other.
'It is more than wonderful, and it is surely more than chance!' said
Joyful Star, in a tone that was almost a whisper, and turning towards me
her white face and the eyes into which the loving tears of pity were
already springing. 'Why did you not tell me of this before, Vilcaroya?'
'Because,' I said, 'the arts of the priests might not have done for her
what they did for me, and I might have found here that which your eyes
should never have looked upon. But now--is she not beautiful, even as
you are?'
The bright blood came swiftly back into her cheeks as I said this, and,
without answering me she stooped, and with gentle hands put back the
tresses from Golden Star's forehead, and, bending over her, laid her
warm, sweet lips on the cold, smooth brow that I had last seen crowned
with the marriage-garland in our bridal chamber in the Sanctuary.
CHAPTER V
HOW DJAMA DID HIS WORK
I can tell you but little of what followed the taking of the body of
Golden Star back to the hacienda, for neither I nor any of the others,
save only Djama himself, witnessed the secret mysteries of his strange
and fearful art. I could tell you of their wonder when, after I had
bidden Tupac bring the case into the cavern and he and I and Joyful Star
had gently and reverently raised her from her couch and laid her in it,
we carried her out into the daylight. How they stood around the open
case and looked, half in wonder and half in fear, from her dead, cold
face to the living likeness that was bending over it. How they praised
her beauty and marvelled at the forgotten arts that had preserved so
perfect a likeness of life in one who for more than three centuries and
a half had neither drawn breath nor known a thrill of feeling.
I could tell you, too, with what loving and anxious care that precious
burden was borne over plain and valley and mountain in a litter that we
had brought with us for the purpose, and how at last we laid her in all
her calm, unconscious loveliness on the great table which stood in the
middle of the chamber in which Djama was to do his work. But here my
story must cease for the time, for Djama made it an unalterable
condition that he should do the work that only he could do in absolute
solitude. Only thus, he said, would he, or could he, perform the task
upon whose issue the completion of Golden Star's life on earth, if it
was ever to be completed, depended.
He told us plainly that a single interruption should be fatal to her and
all our hopes. He would not even permit his sister to enter the room
until he should call for her. I was bitterly loath to yield--to leave
her who had been so dear to me powerless and unconscious in the hands of
a man whom I had already learned to hate, although not only did I owe my
own new life to him, but on him alone rested all my hopes of seeing
Golden Star once more restored to life and health, and the beauty that
had been peerless ages before Joyful Star had reached the perfection of
her young womanhood.
How did I know what unholy arts he might use to rekindle the
long-quenched life-flame in that fair shape of hers? How could I do
more than guess vaguely and fearfully at the awful mysteries that might
be enacted in the silence and solitude of that fast-closed chamber in
which, day and night, he would remain alone with her, the living with
the dead, like the potter with his clay, until it should please him to
use the dreadful power that was his, and call her back from death to
life, perhaps--and oh! how horrible the thought was to me!--to be the
slave of the man who, by his unearthly art, had made himself the master
of her new life.
Yet, think of it, brood over it as I would, there was no help for it.
He, and he alone, could exert the power that would loose the bonds of
death in which she lay enchained. Unless he had his will she would
remain as she was, perhaps until the Last Day came, and the Lord of Life
called all his children, living and dead, back to the Mansions of the
Sun; and so we yielded, since there was nothing else to be done.
On the evening of the day that we returned to the hacienda, he busied
himself making the last preparations for his work. Then he came out of
the room and locked the door, and, after eating his dinner almost in
silence, went to bed, taking the key with him, and telling us that on no
account must he be awakened. All that night and the next day and the
next night we neither saw nor heard anything of him; but on the morning
of the second day, the door of his bedroom was open and his bed was
empty, but the door of the room in which Golden Star lay was still fast
shut and locked.
How the time passed I cannot tell you. Joyful Star, seemingly more
self-possessed than any of us, took up her household duties, and went
about them with a quick, quiet industry that surprised and shamed us.
But we three men wandered about aimlessly, now alone and now together,
communing with our own thoughts or talking with each other always of the
same thing--of what was going on in that chamber, where, as we knew from
the faint sounds that every now and then came through the closed door,
the master of the arts of life and death was performing his awful task.
The first day and night came and went, then the second, and still the
door remained closed, and Djama gave no sign. But the professor sought
to comfort me and soothe our impatience by telling me how long the same
work had lasted before I was recalled to life. I had sought also to
distract my thoughts by talking with him and Francis Hartness of all
that was to be done for the deliverance of my people, and the
realisation of my dreams of empire when Djama's task should be over.
But it was useless, for fear and suspense kept my mind bound as though
with invisible chains, and, do what I would, my thoughts went back and
back again to dwell upon the unknown secrets of that closed and silent
room. Then I tried to draw Joyful Star into conversation about the
thoughts which I knew were filling both our hearts; but though she
listened to me she would say nothing herself, and I soon saw that with
her the subject was forbidden, and the work not to be talked of till, in
success or failure, it was ended.
For the first two nights no sleep came to my eyes, but the third night
my weariness was too much for me, and scarcely had my aching head fallen
on the pillow than slumber, filled with broken dreams and visions of
things unutterably horrible, came upon me. In the midst of one of
them--I know not what it was, save that no human words could paint the
horror of it--I woke up with a cold, damp hand upon my shoulder, and
heard Djama's voice, hoarse and trembling, saying to me,--
'Get up and dress, Vilcaroya; I have something for you to see and to
hear. Make haste, for there is not much time to be lost.'
I looked up, and saw him standing by my bed with a light in his hand,
ghastly pale, and staring at me with black, burning eyes, which seemed,
as they looked into mine, to take my will a prisoner, and draw my very
soul towards him.
'What is it?' I said, in the broken words of one just roused from sleep.
'Is it over--have you succeeded? Is she alive? Have you come to take me
to her?'
'The work is not done yet,' he said. 'I have come for you to see it
finished. Make haste, I tell you, if you want to see what you have been
waiting so long for.'
I needed no second bidding. I sprang out of bed, and dressed myself with
swift, though trembling, hands. Then I thrust my feet into a pair of
soft slippers, such as Djama himself wore, and then I followed him from
the room out on to the balcony that was built round the house over the
inner courtyard. We went down into the court and into the dining-room,
and through that down a long, narrow passage out of which opened the
room that had held all our hope and fear and wonder for so long.
He unlocked the door, and motioned to me to go in. He followed me, and
locked the door behind us. I looked about the room, which was dimly lit
by two shaded lamps. The table on which we had laid Golden Star was
empty. Many strangely-shaped things, that I knew not the use of were
scattered about. The air was hot and moist, and filled with a faint,
sweet odour. At the opposite end from the door, which was covered by a
screen, I saw in one corner a bath--from which white, steamy fumes were
rising--and in the other stood a little, narrow, curtained bed, such as
I had first awakened in.
Djama caught me by the arm, and half led, half dragged me to the
bedside. Then with his other hand he parted the curtains and pointed to
the pillow. I felt his burning eyes fixed upon me as I looked and saw
the sweet fair face of Golden Star lying in the midst of her dusky
tresses, which lay spread out on the pillow, cleansed from the dust of
the grave, and soft and shimmering as silk.
I started forward, and, with my face close to hers, scanned every
feature, and listened, but in vain, for the soft sound of her breathing.
Her skin was clear and moist; I could see the thin, blue veins in her
eyelids, and the moisture on her lips. I laid my hand gently on her
cheek. It was soft and smooth, but still cold as death.
Then a fierce, unreasoning anger came into my heart. I sprang back and
seized Djama by the shoulders, and, looking with fierce, hot eyes into
his, I whispered hoarsely,--
'Have you brought me here to mock me? She is not alive--she is but a
fair image of death. Tell me that you have failed and I will strangle
you, liar and cheat that you are!'
He looked back steadily into my eyes and smiled, and said, in a voice
that had not the slightest tremor of fear,--
'If I fail you may strangle me, and welcome; but I have not failed yet,
Vilcaroya. It is for _you_ to say now whether Golden Star is to awake or
not.'
'What do you mean?' I said, letting go my grip on his shoulders, and
recoiling a pace from him.
'You shall hear what I mean,' he said. 'But you must hear patiently and
quietly, and think well on what I say, for in your answer to what I ask
you will also answer the question whether Golden Star is to awake to
life and health, or to be put back in that case yonder and buried, to
rot away into corruption like any other corpse.'
'Say on, I am listening,' I said. My lips were dry, and the grip of a
deadly fear seemed to be clutching at my heart and draining the last
drop of blood from it.
'Listen well, then,' he said. He paused for a moment as though to
collect his thoughts, and make words ready to express them. Then he went
on. 'You see, I have undone the work that your priests did three hundred
and sixty years ago. Your Golden Star is now neither dead nor alive. She
is lying on the narrow borderland that divides life from death, and for
an hour from the time I left this room she will remain there--if I
choose. At the end of that time she will pass beyond the border, and no
earthly power, not even mine, could call her back. But at any time
before the hour has expired I can complete the work that I have begun. I
can bring the breath back to her body; I can set the blood flowing
through her veins. You shall see her eyes open and her lips smile, and
you shall hear her speak to you as though she had only awakened out of
sleep. This I can do, and I will, if you will do what I am going to ask
you.'
'What is it?' I whispered. 'Tell me quickly that I may know. You are
master here. I can only listen and obey.'
He smiled as I said this, a smile that it was not good for an honest man
to look upon, and went on, speaking now rapidly and earnestly,--
'When I did this work for you, I did it as a student and a man of
science, who was making the greatest experiment of his life. I believed
that I had solved one, at least, of the secrets of life and death. I
watched and noted every change that came over you. I marked every
symptom and measured every step of your return from death into life, but
I did all this as a student inquiring into the mysteries of Nature, as
an observer watching the working out of a great problem, and with no
more feeling than if I had been dissecting a corpse. But this time it
has been different. I began this work with the cold and passionless
deliberation of one who toils only to learn and to succeed. But
afterwards--come here and look at her, and you will understand me
better. She is a woman, and she is beautiful, and here, for two days and
two nights, she has lain under my hands and my eyes. I have given her
beauty back to her, and if that beauty is to live it must be mine. Do
you understand me, Vilcaroya?'
What could I say, what could I do to answer this man whom I hated, and
yet who held the power of life and death for Golden Star in his hands?
The vague fear that had smitten me when he began to speak had taken its
worst shape now. I looked at him with hate and horror staring out of my
eyes. Again and again I tried to speak, but my lips only moved and
trembled without making any word. But he read my thoughts, and smiled
that evil smile of his again and said, in a low voice which seemed to
have the echo of a laugh in it,--
'I see you hate me, as I have often thought you did, and that is why I
have brought you here to tell you this. That is why I would not complete
my work till you had sworn, as you yet shall do if you would see Golden
Star alive again, that what I have brought back out of the grave shall
be mine and mine only.'
These last words of his let loose my anger and unchained my tongue. I
gripped him by the arm, and in a whisper that had a strange hissing
sound, I said,--
'But that is _not_ all! What do you think your life would be worth if
you left her to die? Have you forgotten what I said to you in the cave
beneath the Rodadero? Do you not know that this very night I could have
you carried, gagged and bound, over the mountains and back to the grave
that we took Golden Star out of? Do you not know that I could lay you
there with food and drink beside you that you could not touch, and a
lamp whose light would show them to you, and then wall up the entrance
again, and leave you there to think of your fate till you went mad and
died of hunger and thirst? Do you not know that I could chain you to a
rock and light a fire about you, and watch you burn limb by limb till
you shrieked your life out in lingering agony? Would this be better than
going back to your own land loaded with treasure that would make you
richer than you have ever dreamed of being? Now, _I_ have spoken, and it
is for you to answer me.'
Before I had done speaking he had taken a chair and seated himself
astride it, with his arms resting on the back and his chin on his arms,
and was looking at me with white, set face, and steady, dark, shining
eyes. When I had finished there was a little silence between us, and
then he spoke, and the first time I ever felt fear in either of my lives
was when I heard those cold, cruel, carefully-measured words of his,--
'That is well said, Vilcaroya. I am glad you have spoken plainly, for
now we understand each other; but I don't think you quite realise the
difference between your power and mine. You have, or think you have, the
brute force, the strength of numbers, and the slavish devotion of your
people on your side, and you threaten to use that power to put me to a
lingering and torturing death unless I withdraw my demands and do as you
wish me. In that, however, you are quite wrong. I am as much the master
of my own life as I was once of yours, and still am of Golden Star's.
Without moving hand or foot I could kill myself as I sit here before
you, so your threats of torture are nothing more than empty words. It is
only a matter of simple life or death. If I live, Golden Star will live.
If I die, she will never draw the breath of life--but what I have said,
I have said. She shall only live as my promised wife, bound to me by the
most sacred oath that you can swear. You cannot consummate your own
marriage with her, because in the modern world that is impossible. You
are refusing simply because, for some reason or other, you dislike me
personally, but I don't propose that that shall stand in my way. As for
your treasures, their value has utterly changed for me. A week ago, I
frankly confess that I would have sold my soul, if I thought I had one,
for them. Now, without her, they would only make the world a golden
mockery to me, for I tell you, Vilcaroya, that I, who have never loved
living woman yet, love that beautiful shape of inanimate flesh as that
old sculptor we have told you of loved his statue. Every hour that I
have been alone in this room with her this strange love of mine has
grown. First it was only scientific curiosity, then physical admiration,
then something else. I don't know what it is, for it is beyond the reach
of my analysis, but I know enough of it to call it love, and I tell you
it is such love as only a man of my nature and pursuits is capable of.
Unsatisfied, it would consume me and kill me, and I would rather die
quickly than slowly. Now--once more--shall Golden Star and I live or
die?'
How was I to answer such a speech as this? I heard him in silence to the
end, my eyes held fast by his, and my spirit sinking as though beaten
down by the pitiless force of those cold words of his. And in the
meantime a great truth had been dawning in my mind. Force had ceased to
rule in this new world, and intellect had taken its throne. I was the
inferior of this man, whose trained mind was the heir of the generations
that had toiled and fought while I had slept. I was little better than a
savage before him, and I knew it, and he knew it, and, bitter as the
thought was to me, yet it was only the truth. I was conquered, and a new
gleam in his eyes told me that he had read my thoughts before I had
spoken them.
Then, while I stood hesitating before him, his white, hard-set face
softened, and his lips melted into a smile that was almost as sweet as a
woman's. It was that that saved me, for it reminded me of Ruth, and the
recollection of her told me that I loved even as Djama did. The very
thought of her put new blood into my heart. The words of yielding and
submission died unuttered on my lips. I raised my head, which I had
bowed down in dejection, and looked at him steadily again. Then I said
slowly, and in the voice of a man who does not speak twice,--
'I have thought, and I will speak for the last time. I will swear by the
sacred glory of the Lord of Light that Golden Star shall be yours, upon
two conditions.'
'Conditions!' said he, bringing his dark brows down till they made a
straight black line over his eyes. 'What are they?'
[Illustration: The dagger-point dropped till it was within an inch of
Golden Star's breast.
_To face page 119._]
'These,' I said. 'You love and I love. First, then, you must win the
love of Golden Star, and, secondly, you must give me your sister, Joyful
Star, if I can win her love.'
'My sister Ruth to _you_! Is that your earnest, Vilcaroya, or are you
only trying my patience?'
The bitter, coldly-spoken words cut into my soul as the lash of a whip
cuts into the flesh. I could have slain him as he sat there sneering at
me, but it was a time for words, not deeds; and so, mastering my anger
as best I could, I took two swift strides to Golden Star's bedside, and,
snatching my dagger out of the sheath of the belt which I had put on
when I had dressed, I turned and faced him, and said,--
'I am not jesting. As you love I love, and by the glory and majesty of
my Father the Sun I tell you if you do not say yes I will do with this
dagger what all your art will never repair, and then, if I must do that,
I will kill you too; and before to-morrow night has passed Joyful Star
shall be with me where none can find her. Now, what is your answer--yes,
or no?'
He looked at me and then at the dagger hanging in my hand, point
downwards, over the breast of Golden Star. Then his eyes fell upon the
still loveliness of her face. He knew that if he moved the dagger would
fall. His face, flushed a moment before, grew grey and pale again at the
sound of my words, and then I saw that he had not lied to me when he
said that his life would be worthless without her. Twice, thrice, his
lips moved without shaping a word. Then the words came. They were dry
and broken and trembling, for in the strength of my own love I had now
conquered my conqueror, and he said,--
'Yes, since it must be so. My sister for your sister. Well, I suppose
it's a fair exchange. We hate each other, you and I, but that's an
accident of fate. Take away your dagger. I know when I am beaten, and I
am beaten now. Will you swear that oath of yours again?'
'Yes,' I said, 'and you?'
I still kept the dagger within a span of Golden Star's heart, for I
still had but little trust in his faith. He rose from his chair,
throwing it over as he did so, and stood up and faced me, saying,--
'There is no need for oaths either from you or me. We have both too much
to lose to break faith. Put up your dagger and come away, and in ten
minutes from now you shall hear Golden Star draw the first breath of her
new life, and see her eyes open and look at you. That would be worth
more than any oath I could swear, wouldn't it?'
'Yes,' I said, 'but that is not all or enough. If you broke faith with
me after that, I should have to shed blood--my sister's and yours. Now I
need only make her life impossible. I will stop here. Go you and wake
your sister and bring her here. Then we will say more.'
'Bring Ruth here!' he cried, staring at me as though he wished, as no
doubt he did, that the fierce light in his eyes could blast and wither
me where I stood. 'Bring her here to see what no human eyes but mine
have ever seen. Bring her here to listen to what you have said--and if
her, why not Lamson and Hartness as well?'
'You may bring all, if you please,' I said, 'but Joyful Star must come,
no matter what she hears or sees. I have spoken--now go, or Golden Star
shall never wake again.'
He took a half pace towards me, with clenched hands and set teeth,
crouching like a mountain lion about to spring on its prey. The dagger
point dropped till it was only an inch from Golden Star's breast. If he
had made another step I would have driven it home. He read in my eyes
that I would do so, and he stopped. Then he hissed a curse at me through
his clenched teeth, and turned and walked away towards the door. As he
reached it he looked back, and saw me still standing there with the
dagger ready to do the work that could never be undone. I saw his lips
move, but heard no sound.
Then he unlocked the door, went out, and locked it after him, leaving me
there alone with my dead sister-love, whose new life, with all its
possibilities of love and happiness, or hate and misery, I had thrown
into the balance of Fate in the game that I was playing against him to
win that other love which had now become tenfold more dear to me.
When he had gone I took his chair and put it by the side of the bed and
sat down, still holding my bare dagger in my hand and looking on Golden
Star's dead loveliness, wondering what it would be like when the
sunshine of her new life should shine upon it, and on whom her first
glance would fall, or whose name be the first that her lips would speak,
and as I sat and watched and waited it seemed to me as though the ghosts
of those long dead were taking shape and ranging themselves about the
bed of her re-awakening as they had done about the bed of her falling
asleep and mine.
I saw Anda-Huillac and his brother priests of the Sun standing about me,
gazing at me and at her with sad and dreamy eyes, like phantoms of the
past looking upon the realities of the present. Then the shape of
Anda-Huillac seemed to glide towards me. His ghostly eyes looked into
mine, and a smile of pity and reproach moved his pale lips. I felt a
cold, soft hand laid upon mine, my grasp relaxed and the dagger fell
ringing to the floor.
The sound awoke me, and my vision vanished. How long it had lasted, or
whether it was a vision of sleep or waking, I know not, but I was awake
now for I heard the door creek on its hinges. I picked the dagger up
again and started to my feet, and, still guarding Golden Star's bed, I
turned and faced Djama as he came in, followed by the professor and
Francis Hartness, with Joyful Star between them.
CHAPTER VI
THE WAKING OF GOLDEN STAR
'There is your royal, would-be lover, Ruth! Come, if you don't believe
me, you can hear from his own lips that upon you, and you alone, depends
Golden Star's return to life. Is not that so, Your Highness?'
It was Djama who said this, and as he said it, he caught Joyful Star by
the hand and half led, half dragged her towards me from between the
other two. But before he had come half the length of the room, Francis
Hartness had overtaken him in a few swift strides. I saw his hand fall
heavily on his shoulder, and with his other hand he took Ruth's out of
his. His blue eyes were nearly black with anger, and his bronzed face
was grey and set and pale with the passion that his strong will was
holding back, and his voice was low and clear, and vibrating like the
sound of a distant bell when he spoke and said,--
'I can't stand that, Djama. Are you forgetting that your sister is a
woman, and that you have brought her into the presence of the dead?'
'You must be mad, Laurens!' said Joyful Star, before her brother could
reply. 'Surely this dreadful work of yours has turned your brain.
Vilcaroya, what does all this mean? Is Golden Star dead or alive? Ah,
how beautiful she is now! No, surely she cannot be dead!'
She had broken away from both her brother and Francis Hartness, and as
she said the last words she was leaning over Golden Star's pillow,
softly stroking her hair; and then she stooped lower and kissed her
forehead. Then the others came up to the bedside, Francis Hartness and
Djama in front, and the professor standing silent and wondering behind
them.
'If Djama won't speak, will you, Vilcaroya?' said Hartness, looking at
me with eyes that were still angry. 'What is that dagger in your hand
for, and what is the meaning of this story that he has been telling me?'
'The meaning is of life or death,' I said. 'Laurens Djama will not give
Golden Star's life back to her if I will not swear to give her to him
when she lives again, and I have sworn that he shall not restore her to
life unless he swears to give Joyful Star to me, for I love her, and
will have neither life nor empire without her.'
As I listened to my own voice saying these bold words, it seemed to me
as though another were speaking, for, even in that hot moment of passion
and desperate resolve, I could scarce believe them mine. For the
instant, I thought Hartness would have struck me down where I stood, nor
could I have used my dagger against him, for he was a man and I loved
him, though I saw now that we both loved the same woman. But before
either of us could move, Ruth had risen erect and come between us, her
cheeks burning with shame and her eyes aglow with anger.
'What!' she said, 'Laurens give me to you, Vilcaroya! Don't you know yet
that no one can give an English girl away except herself, and that she
only gives herself to the man she chooses of her own free will? Do you
think I am a slave or a human chattel to be bartered away like that?
Nonsense! And you, Captain Hartness, don't look so fiercely at
Vilcaroya. Remember that he is your friend and mine, or has been, and
has not the same ideas as we have. If he had--'
'He has,' I said, breaking in upon her speech, 'since Joyful Star has
spoken. He is not her lover but her slave, and she has shamed him. I
will eat the words that should never have been spoken. Let Golden Star
live! I will keep my oath and ask nothing in return.'
So the savage within me was tamed, and I, who but a few minutes before
had been ready to take two lives at the prompting of a single word,
dropped my dagger and stood with bowed head, humble as a chidden child
before her whose lightest word was then my most sacred law. I raised my
eyes and looked at her to see if my words had pleased her. As our eyes
met she gave me a glance that I would have died to win from her, and
then, pushing me and Francis Hartness gently aside, yet with a force
that neither of us could have resisted, she took her brother by the arm
and, leading him to the bedside with one hand, she laid the other on
Golden Star's brow, and said,--
'Laurens, can you really bring her back to life?'
'Yes,' he answered, and I could see that he did not dare to raise his
eyes to hers, 'but--'
'But you will only do it for a price, you think. For shame! Is that the
way you would use this terrible power that you possess? Is my brother so
mean a creature as that? You love her, you say, even as she lies there,
neither dead nor alive? Well, when she lives, she will be worthy of any
man's love, but only of a man's, Laurens, and you would not be a man,
with all your learning and power, if you insisted on so mean an
advantage as your skill gives you. Do you mean to tell me that you can
look on such a beauty as that, knowing that you can restore it to life,
and yet ask a price before you will do it? Come, Laurens, that is not
like your old self. Use your power with the same generosity that it has
been given to you, and then win Golden Star like a man if you can.'
Where my strength had been vanquished, her sweet wisdom conquered. The
man who had laughed at my threats, and told me without a quiver in his
voice how he could, and would, slay himself rather than I should do what
he knew I could do, stood humbled and abashed before the righteous and
yet gently-spoken reproach of her who was pleading for the life of a
sister woman.
I saw Djama's hands meet behind his back, and his fingers begin to twine
about each other. I saw him look from Ruth to Golden Star, from the
living woman who was his sister to her lifeless counterpart. Then came
over him one of those swift changes of mood which we had so often seen
before. All the cold cruelty of his long-chained-up passion vanished.
His face, from being stone, became flesh again. The fierce glitter, as
of a sword's point, died out of his eyes, and they grew warm and soft
again, and his voice was almost as sweet and gentle as Ruth's, and
strangely like it, too, as he answered her and said,--
'You are right, Ruth. I was not myself. I was a brute, unworthy either
of love or power. Let her die! Good God, I would die myself a thousand
times rather than do that! I must have been out of my senses even to
think of such a crime for a moment, but if you were a man and had lived
through what I have lived through for the last two days and nights, you
would understand me, and perhaps forgive me. Yes, she shall live. How
could I ever have thought of letting her die!'
Then he rose from his half-stooping posture over the bed, and came to
where I stood at the foot, and, with his hand outstretched and a smile
on his lips, said,--
'You have heard what I have just said, Vilcaroya. You have withdrawn
your conditions; now I will take back mine. It is no use for you and me
to be enemies. We have had our fight, and I confess myself beaten. Now
let us try to be friends for Ruth's sake and Golden Star's, and I
promise you that to-morrow morning you shall be telling her the story of
your resurrection and her own.'
For a moment I stared at him in, speechless wonder, striving to
understand how it could be that those eyes, which had, but a short time
before, been glaring hate at me, could now be looking so kindly and
frankly into mine; and how those lips, which had just been sneering so
coldly and cruelly alike at my love and my hate, could shape such
friendly and honest-sounding words. Then I looked at Ruth, asking her
with my eyes what she would have me do, and in instant obedience to what
I saw took Djama's hand in mine and said,--
'So be it! The evil in our hearts has spoken, now let the good that is
there speak, and let us be friends; and, when Golden Star awakes, with
my lips she shall bless you and her who has made peace between us where
there was strife.'
'Miss Ruth, you really must allow me to congratulate you on your success
as a peacemaker,' said the professor, speaking now for the first time
since he had come into the room, and coming forward to where Joyful Star
still stood by the bedside. 'It would have been ten thousand pities if
this--ah--this little affair had ended any other way, for all of the
exquisitely perfect subjects--'
'_Subjects_, professor?' said Ruth, interrupting him with a laugh. 'Do
you venture to call Golden Star a subject, just as you do those awful
things in your dissecting-rooms? Look at her--a _subject_ indeed! Don't
call her that again in my hearing, please!'
'Oh, ah, of course, I beg your pardon a thousand times, and Her
Highness's too. Really, I spoke quite thoughtlessly and most
improperly.' he answered, laughing at her mock displeasure, 'And now,
Djama, since we have had two declarations of love and a peacemaking,
don't you think it would be cruel to keep Her Highness waiting any
longer on the threshold of her new life? Come, Hartness, you and I have
no more business here at present. Don't you think we had better go and
wait somewhere else for the working of the miracle?'
'Just what I was going to say,' replied Hartness, who had gone away a
little distance from the bed while we were talking, and had been
standing by the table, seeming to examine the strange instruments that
were scattered about it. 'Of course the doctor will wish to finish his
work alone.'
'May not Vilcaroya and I stay, Laurens?' asked Joyful Star, looking at
him with appealing eyes. 'You know it will be much better for her to see
another woman by her when she awakes, and then she will recognise
Vilcaroya, and that will tell her that she is among friends.'
But Djama shook his head and said,--
'No, Ruth, not yet. There is something else to be done before
that--something, well, something that only a medical man ought to see or
do, and you really must leave me to do it alone. You forget, it is not
merely a matter of waking. She is not alive yet; but if you will leave
me alone for about half-an-hour, I promise you that I will call you and
Vilcaroya back before she actually wakes.'
'Very well,' she said, moving away from the bedside. 'I don't want to
pry into your mysteries.' Then she turned to me, and said, with a faint
smile on her lips, 'Vilcaroya, come into the dining-room, I have
something to say to you.'
She went down the room after the professor and Francis Hartness, and I
followed her with beating heart and anxious thoughts, wondering what new
lesson it was she was about to teach me.
Djama closed and locked the door after us. She led the way to the
dining-room, where there was a light burning. It was empty, for the
others, hearing what she had said to me, had gone out into the
courtyard. Then she turned and faced me with her back to the light; but
in spite of that I could see that her eyes were bright, and her fair
face flushed as she said to me in a low voice that trembled a little,--
'Vilcaroya, I am going to forget everything that was said in the room
yonder, and--and you must forget it too. It was no time or place for
such things to be said, and you and Laurens were not yourselves when you
said them. If you do not forget them, we cannot be friends any more. You
understand me, don't you?'
Gentle and sweetly spoken as the words were, they fell upon my heart
like snow upon a fainting flame; yet I felt that, like all her words,
they were true and just. I crossed my hands on my breast with one of my
old-world gestures, and, standing so before her with bowed head, I
said,--
'The will of Joyful Star is my law. Let what I spoke in my madness be
forgotten as you have said. Who am I that I should say such things?--a
poor savage that has wandered from his own world into hers, where he is
a stranger!'
'No, not a savage, Vilcaroya. You must never say that word again. How
could Golden Star's brother be a savage? How could I--but there, we have
said enough for the present. We have other things to think of now.'
With that she turned away and sat down in a long, low chair, resting her
cheek upon her hand, and looking out of one of the windows at the
stars, while I went and stood before another to look at the same stars
that she was looking at, and so we waited in silence until the door
opened, and we heard Djama's voice telling us that the long-expected
moment of Golden Star's awakening had come at last.
As Joyful Star went to the door I stood aside and waited for her to pass
me and go out first. As she went by our eyes met for a moment, and I saw
that hers were bright with tears. My heart leapt at the sight, and then
fell still again and well nigh fainting. What had she said to me but a
few minutes before? How dare I dream that those sweet tears could be for
me?
I followed her and Djama into the room, but half-way between the door
and the bed I stopped, not daring to go on, held back by some impulse I
could not name. I saw her lean over the pillow for a moment in silence
that for me was breathless. Then came a soft, sweet sound, and then a
little cry. Was it her's or Golden Star's?
Djama beckoned to me. I went with swift, silent steps to the foot of the
little bed, and saw Golden Star's eyes wide open and looking wonderingly
up into Ruth's face, and her red lips smiling at her. The miracle had
been completed. She had awakened her with a kiss.
'Come and give her your welcome back to life, Vilcaroya,' she whispered,
rising and turning her fair face with its wet cheeks and smiling lips
towards me. I went and stood over the pillow, and laid my trembling lips
on Golden Star's brow, and then I said, in the words that had been the
first of my own new life,--
'_Cori-Coyllur Ñustallipa, Ñusta mi!_'
She looked at me, but there was no more recognition in her gaze than in
that of a newborn child, nor was there any answering smile upon her
lips. Unheeding this for the moment, I went on and said, still speaking
very gently and softly in our own tongue,--
'Thou art thrice welcome back from the shades of night into the bright
presence of our Father the Sun, oh, Golden Star! Dost thou not remember
me, Vilcaroya, thy brother, who went into the darkness with thee long
ago, and has been permitted to return before thee that he might greet
thee and bid thee welcome?'
Her eyes wandered from my face to Joyful Star's, and then she smiled
again, but no answering words came from her parted lips. Now, as we
looked from one another to her, a great fear came into all our hearts,
and Ruth gave it voice.
'Laurens,' she whispered, laying her hands upon his arm, 'what is the
matter? Vilcaroya spoke at once, didn't he? Why doesn't she speak? Oh,
surely it can't be that she is--that she has come back to life without
memory or--or her reason? What is it?'
I waited for Djama's answer as a man might wait for words that were to
tell him whether he was to live or die. He put us both gently away from
the bed, and then, laying his hand on Golden Star's brow, he looked long
and steadfastly into her eyes. It seemed to me as though Ruth and I
could hear each other's hearts beating and counting off the seconds
until he raised his head again and said in the slow, even tones of the
man of science who, for the time, had overcome and banished the lover,--
'Memory, perhaps, even probably; but reason, no. These are not the eyes
of an imbecile or an idiot, but they _are_ the eyes of a child. It is
possible that when she fully recovers we may find her mind a perfect
blank--a virgin page on which the story of her new life will have to be
written.'
'Thank God for that!' she murmured, and I, too, echoed her words in my
heart, though I did not know then how much she meant by them.
Then once more she turned and went to Golden Star's pillow, laying her
hand upon her brow again, and looking fondly for a moment on the silent
and yet eloquent face that was looking up at her. Then she said to her
brother,--
'But is she well now? I mean, is her physical life certain? Will she
live and grow well and strong again?'
'Yes,' he answered. 'I have done everything that it is in my power to
do. I have fulfilled my promise to His Highness. The rest is, as it was
with him, merely a matter of care and nourishment and nursing.'
'Then,' she said, with a swift, subtle change coming over her manner,
'the care and the nursing must be mine, and you two must say good-bye to
her for the present, until I have nursed her back to health. Of course
you may see her when necessary, as her doctor, but only as her doctor,
mind. And you, Vilcaroya, must possess yourself with what patience you
can until my part of the work is done as well. Now, go away, both of
you. I am mistress here for the present. Laurens, you go and get ready
the nourishment that you think she should take, and come back in
half-an-hour, and tell me how it is to be taken.'
It was easy for us to see the deep yet kindly meaning of her
lightly-spoken words, for in them she had told us that Golden Star was
now once more a living woman. No longer a mummy, or a corpse, or a
'subject,' as the professor had called her--no longer an inanimate thing
that had neither sex nor claim to human rights--but a sister woman of
her own kind whose wants could only be supplied by her. So we obeyed
her, and went away, leaving her there to perform the most sacred task
save one that a loving woman could perform.
Djama went to prepare the food that Golden Star would soon need, and I
went in search of the professor and Francis Hartness, and told them all
that had happened, and then, when the professor had gone to bed to
finish his broken night's rest, I and he who was my rival in love, and
who was to be my brother-in-arms, went out from the courtyard into the
_patio_ which lay in front of the house, sloping down towards the
entrance of the little valley in which the hacienda lay, and there,
walking to and fro side by side, we talked long and earnestly of many
things upon the doing of which my heart was set, and which might now be
freely entered upon, seeing that the first object of our journey was
already achieved.
Our talk, as you may well believe, was of war and not of love, though it
would be hard to say which of the two at that hour most filled our
secret thoughts; but, as I have told you, this English soldier was a
true man, and I trusted him, knowing well that though, when the imperial
Llautu once more encircled my brows, I might find courage to seek openly
the love of her into whose eyes I had already seen him look with love,
yet no falsehood or hatred could ever come between us. So I told him
freely of the treasures that I had only to take from their hiding-places
to make them mine, and spoke once more of the use that I would make of
them, and took his advice as to the best method of that use.
This he was well able to give me, for I soon found that since he had
resolved to throw in his lot with us, he had applied himself diligently
to the task of studying the work that was to be ours, and seeking the
best and readiest means of doing it. In Lima and Arequipa he had bought
books and papers from which he had learned, as far as could be learned,
the resources and power of the government of Peru, the number of its
soldiers and their stations, the names and characters of the men who
made the government, and of those who were opposed to them, seeking, as
he told me was now ever the case in the countries of South America, to
overturn the government and to take for themselves the honours and the
profits of rule.
He told me--which events soon proved to be the truth--that not many
months would pass by before civil war once more broke out. The President
and the ministers, who were the tools of his tyranny, had oppressed the
people with grievous burdens till they could endure them no longer, and
already people in the towns of the interior were refusing to pay taxes,
and were arming themselves in secret and meeting in bands among the
mountains to practise themselves with their weapons, and make ready for
the war which was so soon to come.
All this, as he soon showed me, was happening as though the Fates which
rule the world had especially prepared it for my coming. The people had
no leader save a man who had been himself a tyrant before, and none
trusted him, but looked to him only to serve their own ends. Those who
had the power were hated, and those who sought to seize it were
distrusted.
But better than all was the utter, and, as far as all men, save
ourselves, could see, the hopeless poverty of the country. Long years of
plundering had emptied the treasury. Commerce was leaving the shores,
and industries were languishing throughout the land. No man trusted his
neighbour, for nearly all were in debt, and none could get paid, and my
own people, the slaves of the children of the Spaniards, and the sport
of their blind and brutal jesting, had borne their heavy burdens till
their backs were sore, sore as their patient hearts were, and they would
bear them no longer.
From the country which is called Ecuador, and which in my other life had
been Quito, the kingdom of Atahuallpa, to the southern confines of
Bolivia, which had once been part of the Land of the Four Regions, the
dominions of my own father, all were ready to throw down their
long-borne burdens and turn and rend their oppressors and those whose
fathers had robbed them of the land that had once been theirs.
I well remember the very words in which Francis Hartness told me all
this at much greater length than I have set it down here; and this is
what he said when, as the stars were paling in the sky above us and the
eastern mountains were beginning to stand out sharply against the
growing light of the coming dawn, our long talk drew to its close,--
'In short, Vilcaroya, if I were given to that sort of thing, I could
believe that the very Fates themselves had conspired to prepare the way
for you. You have come back to the world and to your own country at the
very moment that these miserable wretches are getting ready to tear each
other to pieces. The government is as hopeless as it is impossible, and
the popular party, as they call themselves, have neither a leader that
they can trust, nor money to buy weapons and pay their soldiers with.
The treasury is empty, for, so to speak, almost the last dollar had been
stolen. The native troops have had no regular pay for months, and I
believe they would desert to a regiment if they once believed that you
are what you are, and that you possess, as you do, the means of paying
them well and honestly for their help.
'And, after all, I don't know that even I, as a soldier, could call it
desertion under such circumstances. You are of their own blood, the son
of one of their ancient kings. These people, these Peruvians, are only
mongrel descendants of those who have plundered and oppressed them for
centuries. They owe them no allegiance that is worth the name; but you
they would hail, not only as their lawful king, but almost as a god--as,
indeed, they could well be pardoned for doing, seeing what a marvellous
fate yours has been.
'The only thing to do at present, and the only thing in which I see any
difficulty, is to get into communication with them in such a way that
they shall come to know you without the authorities knowing anything
about you or your treasures. If that could be done, I think all the rest
would be easy, and then I believe that the moment you raised the flag of
the old Incas, they would flock to it in thousands, and after that it
would only be a matter of military management and leadership.'
'And if I will charge myself with that, my friend,' I said, as he paused
for a moment; 'if I will promise you that before six more suns have
risen and set, the news of my coming shall be spread far and wide
through the land, and yet in such a manner that none but the faithful,
the Children of the Blood themselves, shall know anything that could
work us harm, will you give me the help of your skill and your knowledge
of the arts of this new warfare which is so strange to me? Will you lead
my armies to battle against the oppressors of my people? Will you help
me to free this land of my fathers from the yoke of its tyrants, and be
the war-chieftain of my people, and stand by my throne in the days when
the Rainbow Banner shall once more float over the battlements of the
Sacsahuaman and the City of the Sun? If you will, you shall have riches
and power and all that the heart of man can desire.'
'Not all, I am afraid, Vilcaroya!' he said, interrupting me with a laugh
that had but little mirth in it. 'Not all; but that would not be in your
hands to give. Never mind, it is the fortune of war, or perhaps I should
rather say of love. But for the rest, yes. I believe your cause is a
just and righteous one, and what I can do to help it I will. Henceforth
we are brothers-in-arms, even though we may perhaps be rivals in love.
There, you have my hand upon it, and with it the word of an Englishman
who never broke his word yet to man or woman.'
How shall I tell you of the great joy with which those brave,
honest-spoken words of his filled me? He, the man whom I had feared
most, even as I had learned to love him most, was the first to bid me
hope--and hope I did now, in spite of all things. So, saying nothing,
for my heart was too full for speech, I put my hand in his, and there,
as the dawn brightened over the mountains, we clasped hands in silence
and sealed our compact, and when the sun rose swiftly over the now
glittering peaks, I let go his hand and bowed myself before it, greeting
it as the bringer of a new day which was to end the long night that had
fallen over my land and my people when the light of my last life was
quenched in the darkness of my death-sleep.
CHAPTER VII
IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI
We saw nothing of Golden Star the next day, nor yet for many days
afterwards, for, in spite of our impatience, Ruth would not permit us to
do so. What her brother had said had speedily proved itself to be true.
She had come back to life a child-woman. Her body was that of a girl of
seventeen years--which was her age when she and I had drunk the draught
of the death-sleep together--and the kindly Powers that had presided
over her birth had shaped her in a mould of almost perfect womanly
beauty, yet, as Djama had said, her mind was a virgin page, from which
the story of her past life had been utterly erased, and on whose blank
whiteness the story of her new life had yet to be written.
Now, on the writing of the first words of this story, as Joyful Star
told us in her sweetly-serious way the night that she had sunk into her
first natural slumber, everything might depend.
'It is a task,' she had said that night, 'which I fear terribly to enter
upon, and yet I know that I am the only one here who ought to undertake
it. She will need weeks and months of most careful watching, and the
sympathy that only another woman, and one who loves her as I have
already learned to do, could give her. No woman ever had such a task
before, and very few have had so good a work to do. There is something,
too'--and here I remember how subtle a change came into her voice as she
said this--'there is something in this wonderful resemblance between us
which tells me that this is my duty, and I am going to devote myself
absolutely to it during every hour of her waking life until she is able
to do without my care. I must watch her and care for her as a mother
does for her child, and you must let me do it alone as long as I wish
to, just as we had to let Laurens do _his_ work alone. Don't you think I
am right, professor?'
'Yes,' he answered, 'perfectly right, Miss Ruth. I am sure everybody
will agree with me that Her Highness could not be in better hands than
yours. Indeed, as you say, yours are the only hands in which she could
possibly be trusted with safety to her newly-awakening reason at such an
extraordinary juncture in her life.'
To this we all agreed willingly enough, and so Joyful Star had the big
room cleared out and installed herself there with all the comforts and
luxuries that the inexhaustible wealth which was now at my command could
provide her with, so that Golden Star should find her new world as
beautiful as might be. Meanwhile the professor, with a trusty guide that
I had provided him with from among my own people, plunged afresh into
his beloved studies with such ardour that he seemed to have almost
forgotten all else that had brought us to Peru.
Francis Hartness had gone with Tupac--who, in the sight of the
Spaniards, was only his Indian servant and guide--on a mission of
importance to the South, where the first rumblings of the coming
war-storm were already making themselves heard. As for Djama, who, as
you know, had no more interest in the work that now lay before Francis
Hartness and myself than the professor had, he went about for some days
gloomy and silent, and seemingly ill at ease, like a man who for a time
has lost his interest in life; and at last--it was on the twentieth day
after Golden Star had awakened--he came to me when I was alone in my
room and said abruptly,--
'Vilcaroya, do you think I have fairly earned my reward for what I have
done?'
'Yes,' I said, looking into his eyes and reading, though he knew it
not, the thoughts that were moving in his mind. 'You have done all that
you promised to do, but we have yet said nothing of the price. How much
do you ask for?'
'As much as I can get!' he said, with a laugh that pleased me but
little. 'But, of course, I know the work that you yourself have come
here to do, and I see that it will be expensive, so you will find me
reasonable.'
'And you, I hope, will not find me ungenerous. Do you remember what you
saw in the Hall of Gold?' As I said this, his self-command left him for
an instant. I saw his hands close, and his lips tremble, and the fierce
fire of the gold-lust spring into his eyes as he replied,--
'Yes; how could I forget it?'
'And do you remember, too,' I said, 'the words that you heard me speak
when I stood before the pyramid?'
'Yes,' he replied, with a faint flush coming into his pale cheeks. 'It
is not likely that I should forget them either. Why do you ask?'
'Because,' I said, speaking slowly as a man who weighs his words well,
'saving only the sacred emblems of the Sun, which it is not lawful for
me to give away, all that you saw there shall belong to you and to him
who made it possible for you to do what you have done. You will share it
as you please--that is no care of mine--but I have conditions to make
for my own sake and that of my people.'
'What are they?' and as he spoke the flush died out of his cheeks again.
'That you shall both swear solemnly to me that, come what may, no man
shall ever know from you where the gold came from, and that, moreover,
you shall never utter any word of my story or Golden Star's where mortal
ears can hear it, nor give any sign or word to any man or woman that
shall lead him or her to guess that I am what I am, or that my work here
is what it is. Swear that oath to me and you shall take your gold and go
in peace. Break it, and the fate that I told you of shall be yours. Are
you content?'
'Yes,' he said, 'and more than content; and I swear to you most
solemnly, on my own honour and by all that I hold sacred, that I will
keep your secrets absolutely.'
'No, not here,' I said, breaking into his speech; 'and more, it is not
only your oath that I want. There must be witnesses, for this is too
great a thing to do lightly. To-morrow night we will go back to the Hall
of Gold, and there you shall swear your oaths and they shall be
witnessed.'
'Very well,' he said. 'Whenever and wherever you like. But now,
Vilcaroya, I have something else to say to you. Personally, you know, I
have no further interests in Peru, saving one only. Your next few years
will be stormy ones, and though I believe that, with the power you have
behind you, you will win in the end, yet you know as well as I do that
you will have to run all the risks of a war that may be a very savage
one before you succeed. You may restore the throne of the Incas, and
reign upon it, or you may be killed in the first battle. You will pardon
me speaking so plainly, won't you?'
I bowed my head in silence and he went on.
'In view of this, then, I am going to propose that when we leave Peru--I
mean my sister and the professor and myself--you will allow Ruth to take
Golden Star to England with her, say, for three years or so, in order
that her education may be carried on to the best advantage. I will
promise you solemnly that during that time I will not speak a word of
love to her, or attempt to be anything else to her than I am to Ruth,
and then if you succeed in your aims, as I hope you will, we will come
back and be Your Majesty's guests for a time, and after that we shall
see what more the kindly Fates may have in store for you and me.'
No man ever heard more fairly spoken or reasonable-sounding words than
these were, and yet all the while I listened to them I knew that they
were but used to hide the real thoughts of him who was speaking them.
Yet what could I answer him? Did they not seem to point out the best of
all courses that could be followed for the welfare of Golden Star and
the comfort of her whose gentle hand was leading her nearer every day to
the fulfilment of the promise of her new life? So, for want of anything
better in my mind, I answered,--
'Your words are unwelcome to me, for so long a parting would be a great
sorrow to me; yet they are wise, and that which is most pleasant is not
always the best to be done.'
'Very well,' he said, 'I quite understand you, so we won't say anything
more about it until then. I suppose I may tell the professor about what
we are to do to-morrow night?'
'Yes,' I said; 'there will be no harm in that, since a share of the gold
belongs to him as well.'
'And Hartness?'
'He knows already, for I have told him not only of the treasures in the
Hall of Gold, but of many others that will be used in the work that he
has sworn to do with me.'
Later on that day when the mid-day heat had cooled a little, I was
walking alone in the garden of the hacienda, thinking deeply of what
Djama had said and striving to find some plan of my own that would be
as good and yet not make the parting that I dreaded needful. I turned,
paying but little heed to my way, into a winding pathway shaded with
trees and bordered with grass and flowers. I was looking down upon the
ground, as was my wont, when I heard footsteps near me and looked up. I
had turned the bend in the path, and there, but a few paces from me,
stood Golden Star and Ruth. I started and made a motion as though I
would turn back, but Ruth immediately beckoned to me smilingly, and
said,--
'Come and let me introduce you to your sister, Vilcaroya. I think it's
time you began to be friends again. Don't you think she is looking
wonderfully well and strong, and--and beautiful?'
You may think, but I cannot tell you, of all the feelings that rose up
within me as I obeyed her invitation. It was the first time that I had
seen Golden Star since the night she had awakened. Nay, was it not the
first time I had seen her as a truly living woman since the night of our
bridal in the Sanctuary?
She was dressed in garments made after the fashion of Ruth's own, of
light grey soft stuff, and on the glorious wealth of her hair was a
broad-brimmed straw hat such as Ruth wore. Indeed, to look at them both,
standing there side by side, they could but have been taken for two
twin sisters--daughters of the Day and Night--as my loving fancy called
them afterwards--rather than the daughters of different peoples, and
children of far-parted generations, whose hands, as they clasped,
bridged the gulf between one age of the world and another.
As I approached, Golden Star's eyes looked at me with the simple wonder
that shines out of the eyes of a little child, and like a little child
she smiled at me, and then she looked at Ruth, and made a soft low sound
that was almost like the cooing of a child.
'She is pleased to see you, Vilcaroya,' said Ruth, taking hold of my
hand and hers, 'but of course she can't say so yet. Now, let me teach
her to shake hands with you.'
Then she put into mine the soft, warm little hand that I had last
clasped when we went hand in hand to the couch of our long sleep. I
pressed it gently, looking at her through the tears that rose into my
eyes, then I raised it to my lips and kissed it, and she smiled, and
made the little soft sound again, and then Ruth put her arm around her
waist and said,--
'Come, now, you are acquainted, and she likes you. This will be a most
valuable lesson for her. Now, let us have a walk, and you tell me the
news, if there is any.'
'Most willingly,' I said, 'for I have much news to tell.'
So we turned back along the path into the quietest part of the garden, I
walking by Ruth's side. And I told her of all that had passed between
her brother and me in the morning, and of what was to be done on the
following night. She was looking very serious when I had finished, and I
could see that many unspoken thoughts were working in her mind, and when
I had done she looked up at me and said,--
'Laurens's plan seems a very good one at first sight, but of course we
cannot decide upon anything until we have thought a good deal more about
it, and talked it well over amongst ourselves. But, at anyrate, it would
be several weeks yet before I would even think of going away with Golden
Star, so there is plenty of time for that. But to-morrow night--Listen,
Vilcaroya, may I ask a very great favour of you?'
'Joyful Star can ask no favour of me,' I said. 'She can speak, and I can
hear and obey.'
'Nonsense, Vilcaroya! I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' she answered
with pretty petulance. 'Now, suppose I was to ask you to let me see this
wonderful treasure-house of yours and promise faithfully not to tell
anyone about it--would you let me?'
'It is not the best that I can show you,' I answered gladly, 'but if
you desire to see it, it is yours and all that it contains. I can give
your brother and the professor other gold, and I will show you a greater
treasure-house than this under the Fortress itself.'
'Well,' she laughed, 'I won't say now that I won't have it, because the
sight of all that gold might be too much for me, but I should dearly
love to come and see it, and I think I might venture to bring Golden
Star too. She's quite well and strong now, and if we are careful of her,
it can't do her any harm, and it may do her good. Shall I bring her?'
'Yes,' I said, 'why not?'
At this moment we saw Djama come walking down the path towards us, and
at the sight of him there came to me, like the stab of a dagger of ice,
the sudden memory that, at the moment I was speaking of my
treasure-house under the Sacsahuaman, I had heard a gentle rustle behind
some bushes close by the path, and a sound like that of a stealthy
tread.
As Djama came near to us I saw the love-light flash into his eyes, and a
swift flush rise into his sallow cheeks. He held out his hand and
quickened his pace, smiling as sweetly as a woman the while. I was
facing him a little in advance, and I heard behind me a sharp, low,
shuddering cry of terror that shook my heart as I turned to learn its
cause. Golden Star had thrown her arms round Ruth's neck, and was
clinging to her, trembling with fear, and looking sideways at Djama with
eyes fixed and wide open with terror.
You have seen how little children will go smiling and fearless into the
arms of one stranger and shrink in hate and terror from another. Their
sight is keener than it is in after years, when the dust of the world's
conflict has dulled it, and they can see plainly the good and the evil
that is hidden behind the mask of the face. So it was with that
child-soul of Golden Star's. Though I was now to her as strange as
Djama, yet she had seen in me only the friend and brother who loved her
and wished her well, and whose heart was clean in her sight; but in
Djama she had seen at a single glance the evil that had only been
revealed to me after many weeks of watching.
Though I hated him for the fear that he had caused her, yet I was glad
also, for now I saw that the answer to his proposal would be easier than
I had thought for. As for him, his face darkened and his black brows
came together, and the love-light in his eyes changed to a glare of
anger; but this was only for an instant. It passed more quickly than the
thunder-clouds melt round the crest of Illampu. He stopped, and stood
with his head slightly bent and his hands spread, palms outward, in the
posture of one who asks pardon, and said, in a voice that had no trace
of anger,--
'Forgive me, Ruth! I am afraid I have startled our patient--or perhaps I
should rather say yours now. It was something more than stupid of me to
come upon you suddenly like this, without any warning. Of all people in
the world, I ought to have known better than that. But I suppose seeing
Vilcaroya already here made me forget myself. Did she start like that
when he came?'
'No,' replied Ruth, still standing with her arm where she had thrown it
around Golden Star's shoulders, and stroking her hair with the other.
'She--she saw him farther off than you, and I took her towards him, so I
suppose the shock was not so great. But please go away, both of you,
now. You see she is terribly frightened, and she is trembling as though
someone had struck her. I must take her into the house and get her quiet
again, or the consequences may be serious.'
Djama turned away without a word, his face darkening again as he did so,
and with one backward glance at Golden Star, who had now raised her head
from Ruth's breast, and was staring after us with fixed, wide-open eyes,
I turned and walked away beside him, neither of us speaking a word, for
we were both too busy with our own thoughts.
That night Francis Hartness and Tupac returned from their journey to the
South, and as the professor was also in the house I told them of what I
wished done on the following night, and bade Tupac make all preparation.
The next day we all started in the cool of the morning t
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