MORE than six years have passed away, producing little outward change in any of the inhabitants of Cerro Blanco whom we know by name, except in the Indian boy, who has grown a fine handsome stripling. His patron is well satisfied with his development, both mental and physical. This is fortunate, for with nothing else, either within or without himself, is poor Fray Fernando satisfied. His position at the mining-colony becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Passing disagreements with Diego Rascar have deepened and widened into a standing feud. The Spaniards and Creoles take part with Diego, while the Black people count for nothing, with the exception of Pepe, and he has his own reasons for bearing a grudge against the padre. This is particularly hard, since the padre's real offense is that he has espoused the cause of the black men against the white. "A pity it is," Diego sometimes says, "that this holy man never knows when to shut his eyes.”
During the last six years Fray Fernando has been growing every day more incapable of shutting his eyes to wrong and oppression. The old practice of "passing by on the other side," so safe, so easy, and so convenient, has become not only distasteful, but impossible to him. If a man chooses to act, even once, the part of the good Samaritan, he must accept the cost. He will find that he cannot, if he would, descend again to the rȏle of the priest and the Levite.
But in proportion as Fray Fernando's own heart became softer, it seemed to him that the hearts around him grew harder. He thought that the whites were sinking gradually to the level of the Black people, their barbarous half-caste families being even more degraded than themselves. In the blacks he saw no change worth speaking of, save a change for the worse in Pepe, who, on account of his strength, intelligence, and usefulness in managing the other slaves, was petted and pampered by Diego, and allowed to indulge his vicious propensities without a check. Often did the mournful words of the prophet ring in the ears of Fray Fernando: "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain." And he could not take refuge in the strong confidence of faith, and add, "Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." Fray Fernando thought his work nothing—words written on water, lines traced on sand. Or, if remembered at all, he believed it would only go to swell the vast amount of his sin, that burden already greater than he could bear.
But for the Indian youth, at least, he had not labored in vain. Long ago Jose had displaced the clumsy Pepe as acolyte, to the great satisfaction of every one, Pepe himself alone excepted. He knew the "Doctrina de la Fé” as well as any intelligent Spanish lad of his age. He was diligent in the repetition of prayers, and the performance of every other religious duty enjoined on him. He had learned to read and write, and Fray Fernando was beginning to teach him Latin— a necessary labor, if the accomplishment of reading was to be of any use to him, as the few books his patron possessed were in that language. Jose learned quickly, for his memory was remarkably good, and the similarity between Latin and Spanish, which contrasted delightfully with the utter and perplexing difference between Spanish and Quechua, made the task a comparatively light one.
His instructor's pleasure in his progress might have been somewhat lessened had he dreamed that his pupil imagined all the time that he was learning the language of the Jews. Was he not to read the Psalms of David in the Latin tongue, and was not David a king of the Jews? Jose believed that the Jews were a great but very wicked people, who lived, or had lived long ago (for his notions of chronology were vague in the extreme), on the other side of the Mother Sea. They were guilty, he knew, of the awful crime of having put to death the Son of God, and he thought that in righteous judgment the Spaniards, with the Pope at their head, made war upon them, and had driven them out of their country. He supposed the Pope to be a Spaniard, and the Catholic High Priest. He had a hazy idea that he never died, but lived on miraculously from age to age. He knew that various nations of white men, who were not Spaniards, lived beyond the great sea; and imagined they bore the same relation to the Spaniards, in power and civilization, as the barbarous tribes subdued by his Inca forefathers did to them. Perhaps Fray Fernando would not have dispelled this illusion, even if he could.
But the fact was, that at the end of all those years of loving toil and care, Fray Fernando's acquaintance with his protégé was very superficial. He knew Jose well enough: the docile, affectionate child, who not only obeyed but anticipated his commands; the intelligent pupil, whose progress more than repaid the pains of his instructor. But there was another whom he knew not, who did not indeed speak with Jose's tongue, for that was now well used to the sonorous accents of the Spaniard, but who often looked from Jose's dark thoughtful eyes, and ever dwelt in the silent recesses of Jose's heart. This was Viracocha, the Inca's child, who cherished with passionate love the legends of his family, who still looked upon the Sun as his Father, and believed religiously in the ultimate triumph of his race. These ideas, crossed and interwoven with threads of Christian doctrine, made up a strange confused tangle of a creed, which changed its hue according as it was looked at in the light of Ynty's beams, or in that of the tapers which burned before the crucifix.
That Fray Fernando knew nothing of all this was in some measure his own fault. "Silence," it is said, "is golden;" but this is not always true. Sometimes it is sharp steel; keen to sunder bonds and separate chief friends even like the piercings of a sword. Naturally startled by the hold the ideas of his race had taken upon the mind of his little protégé, Fray Fernando fell into the common mistake of thinking,—"If I do not allow him to talk of these things, he will cease to think of them, and in time forget them altogether." It was easy to carry out his plan. Nothing is easier than to silence a sensitive child. Few words, perhaps none, are needed. A look, a gesture, a tone of voice, a hasty turning from the subject, will suffice to render the stream of confidence "a fountain sealed." It is the unsealing, in after-years, which will be difficult, perhaps impossible. It soon came as naturally to Jose to bury his thoughts as it does to his, race to bury their treasures in the earth. Thus it happened that Fray Fernando was very much surprised by what occurred on the afternoon of Christmas-day, 1570.
After performing the service, he was sitting in his cell reading, when Jose came in. The lad was dressed in a full suit of Spanish costume, which his kind protector had been at the expense and trouble of procuring for him from Cuzco, being anxious, not merely to give him pleasure, but also to "Spaniardize" him, as the phrase ran, in every possible way. And indeed the doublet and hosen of fine blue cloth, with white silk stockings, set off the youth's graceful figure to great advantage; and his handsome Indian face, and glossy black hair, had never looked so well as they did beneath the shade of the dark blue velvet montero.
On entering the cell, he removed the montero, and stood before the monk with a bow almost worthy of a Spanish cavalier.
“Well, my son?" said Fray Fernando kindly, looking up from his book.
“Patre," said Jose,” it is Christmas-day; you have told me that in the country beyond the sea men give gifts to each other.”
“Ah! so you want a gift, Jose. Speak out, my boy; what is it?”
Jose hesitated; a rather unusual thing with him. He had few ways of expressing feeling, and seldom did express it at all.
Fray Fernando closed the volume he had been reading, and surveyed the youth attentively, and with much satisfaction. Jose was dear to him as his own son; he was yet more fond of him than he was proud of him, and that is much to say. "You make a very good hidalgo, Jose," he remarked with a smile. “Is anything wanting to complete your equipment? Have you set your heart upon a cloak like Diego's, or even upon a sword?”
“No, patre; I thank you. That which I desire is a thing of another kind. I desire-your leave to visit mine own people down yonder in the valley. Let the patre be good to me, his son and servant." Jose spoke, according to his wont, very quietly. And having spoken, he stood perfectly motionless, a waiting an answer.
But the white man started, as if he had received a sudden blow. "What is this, Jose?" he asked. "Why do you want to leave me?”
“I do not want to leave the patre. I want to go to my own people.”
“But wherefore should you go, and to whom? You have no friends among your own people. Your father and mother are dead long ago. Besides, you are a Christian.”
“The patre speaks truth; I am a Christian.”
“Then wherefore forsake Christian instruction and communion? No, Jose; it is a vain, idle fancy. Give it up, and stay with me; for I love you, Jose.”
Jose's slight fingers trembled, letting go their hold on the montero, which fell to the ground. But, after a moment's pause, he drew nearer, and knelt before the monk. "The patre has been always good to me," he said. "Let him be good to me now, and send me away, that I may go to my own people." "Stand up I" said Fray Fernando, with some displeasure in his tone. "Christian men should kneel to God alone. Wait a while; for I must think. You have troubled me, Jose.”
Jose stood up, and waited. Had the padre's meditation lasted for hours, he would not have disturbed him by the motion of a limb or a muscle.
But he had not to wait so long. The padre spoke. "Jose," he asked, "if I give you leave to go, will you come back to me again?”
“I will surely come back to you, patre.”
“You intend it. But your mind may change. I fear, if I let you go now, I shall see your face no more.”
“Patre," said Jose, with deeper earnestness of voice, "I must needs come back. Do I not belong to you?”
“My son, we both belong to God.”
“I belong to you, patre. You bought me, and with something you were loath to part with, for I saw you kiss it ere you gave it into Don Ramon's hand."—A slight circumstance that Fray Fernando himself had forgotten—"Certainly I will return to you, patre.”
“Then go, in God's name; and may He keep thee safe both in soul and body. May He also forgive me if I have sinned in giving thee this permission. For I misdoubt me sore thine errand is a foolish one.”
Jose started at daybreak next morning. His patron gave him much good advice; fearing, and not without reason, that his inexperience and utter ignorance of the world might involve him in difficulties and perils. One of the first thoughts that would occur to a European in contemplating a journey had no place at all in the mind of Jose. He suffered no perplexity about ways and means; he knew that every Indian whose hut he chanced to pass would freely and gladly afford him food and shelter. He had looked at money as a curiosity, and had heard its use explained, but he had never used it or seen it used. When Fray Fernando gave him some pieces of silver to take with him, he asked what he should do with them.
“You can give them, if you like, to those who entertain you and show you kindness," said the monk.
Jose looked pleased. "I thank you, patre," he said. "It is good to have something to give.”
The parting was an affectionate one. Fray Fernando accompanied his adopted son to the pass; there he embraced and blessed him,—and stood watching until the slight figure disappeared among the rocks. "Will he ever return?" sighed the monk. "Will my Jose ever come back to me again?”
The first question might have been answered in the affirmative,—but what of the second?