“To be wroth with what we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.”
COLERIDGE.
TROUBLES thickened round the path of Fray Fernando during the months that followed Jose's departure. Pepe had a quarrel about a Negro woman with one of his fellow-slaves named Zillo—a quiet, rather well-disposed man. He sought to fasten upon him a charge of robbery; and Diego was quite willing to assume his guilt, and to sacrifice him to the malice of his rival. Pepe must be kept in good-humor, or everything would go wrong both in the mine and in the galpón.
Fray Fernando was roused to indignation at the thought of a man whom he believed to be innocent undergoing a terrible punishment; but his remonstrance was received with coldness, even with disdain. He was far too much in earnest, however to give up the contest. Such a monstrous injustice should not be done, if by any means he could prevent it. After exhausting all his eloquence in rebukes, persuasions, and expostulations, he drew the last arrow out of his quiver. "Señor Diego," he said, "if you do it, I lay a statement of the whole matter before your lord, Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano." A threat likely to cost him who uttered it far more than him who heard it. Nor was Fray Fernando ignorant of the peril in which he involved himself. He was alone, in the midst of lawless men, with sharp steel in their hands, and little reluctance to use it. They might well remember the Spanish proverb, "Dead men never bite." What better could the meddlesome friar expect than a dagger through his heart some dark night, and a grave on the lonely mountain summit? And who could suspect any foul play from the decorous message that would, no doubt, be forwarded in due time to Don Marcio Serra, informing him, very regretfully, that the health of the holy father had given way under the rigors of that inhospitable climate?
In former days—which seemed to belong to another state of existence—men called him who now bore the name of Fray Fernando, bravest of the brave. But for ten miserable years he had called himself coward and recreant. Still he could brave death for the sake of a poor Negro, toward whom he entertained no feeling warmer than compassion. Though, after all, not for his sake—for the sake of justice and mercy.
“If death were all!"—he said to himself, as he realized the full peril of his situation, in the lonely hour that succeeded his stormy altercation with Diego—"if death were all! But—after death!" This was the key-note of a long, mournful meditation, into which we cannot, perhaps dare not, follow him. At last, to relieve his burdened heart by action, he set forth upon his daily walk—never omitted—to the pass whence José might be seen returning. The Indian youth had now been more than six months away—a lengthened absence, which gave Fray Fernando much uneasiness, for Jose was the one solitary joy and hope of his dreary life.
It was evening—about an hour before the rapid tropical sunset. Fray Fernando soon saw an Indian ascending the winding pathway with the fleet footsteps of his race. As the wayfarer gradually drew nearer, he perceived a burden on his shoulder; and saw that he wore a white cotton tunic, fastened at the waist by an embroidered belt; a yacollo, or mantle; short native trousers, reaching a little below the knees; and usutas, or native sandals. But when his features became visible, the monk cried aloud in astonishment—for they were Jose's.
Jose, who had now attained his full height, and assumed an air of manly independence quite new to him, gravely took the burden from his shoulder, and laid it at the feet of Fray Fernando. It was the monk's first impulse to embrace his adopted child; but some momentary, unaccountable feeling, shared probably by both, checked the impulse, and held them apart.
“How is this, my son?" Fray Fernando questioned, in anxious and displeased surprise. "Where is the Spanish dress I gave you?”
Jose pointed to the burden at their feet. His countenance seemed as much changed as his dress. Fray Fernando thought its expression sullen, almost fierce.
“I hope," he said, "that you have not put off the heart of the Christian with the clothing of the Spaniard.”
Perhaps his words were the less gentle from the state of irritation in which his mind had been left by his recent altercation with Diego.
“I am clothed as my fathers were," José answered. "I am no Spaniard; I am a Child of the Sun.”
“You should be ashamed to recall those heathenish fables," the monk returned. "Have I to repeat to you, after seven years of careful instruction, that the sun is nothing but a ball of fire, made by God to give light to the earth, and for that purpose traveling round it every day?”
“I don't know what Ynty is. I know what the Spaniards are; and may Ynty slay me with his arrows if henceforward I wear their dress or learn their ways!”
José flung out his words with eager, sharp abruptness, naturally increased by the difficulty with which, in a moment of excitement, he translated his rapid thoughts from Quechua into Spanish.
“José! José!" cried the monk, in angry amazement; "is this the reward of all the love and care I lavished on you?”
“I have no wish to grieve you, patre," said the youth, in a softened tone.
“No wish to grieve me!—yet your words are enough to bring down God's vengeance on us both. Go to! You disappoint me, Jose. You are like all the rest—ungrateful.”
Words such as these would have brought the docile, affectionate Jose of six months ago to his knees, to ask forgiveness with tears. But Viracocha stood erect and motionless; in Fray Fernando's eyes, a bronze statue of defiance. Yet, unseen by Fray Fernando, there was a quivering of the lip, a gathering mist in the eye.
“Patre," he said at length, "if you will only listen." Here he faltered—stopped—and began his sentence again in a different form. "Patre, hear what I have seen and heard, and then tell me if I ought to speak the tongue or worship the gods of the race who are trampling my people into dust.”
“Nothing you have seen or heard can excuse the insolent tone you have thought proper to assume," said the monk. He continued, however, in a voice less firm, even almost hesitating—"I do not deny that there have been many instances of oppression; but still—”
"But still—they make good and just laws in the council at Seville, beyond the Mother Sea. I know that," said the Indian bitterly. "But I know, too, how those laws are kept down in yonder valleys. Cain the murderer said to God, ‘I am not my brother's keeper.' But the Spaniard says to God and man, ‘I am my brother's keeper;' and then he slays him by the sword,' by famine, by torture. It would be more merciful to kill us all at once, and make the land a desert, as he has done elsewhere.”
“Oh, Jose, you have need to repent, and to ask God to forgive your wicked words.”
“It is not your God I worship now," retorted Jose in desperation.
“Then what has brought you here? Better have remained amongst your own people than come back to insult and defy me.”
“But why do you say that to me?" asked Jose, with apparent simplicity. "You bought me.”
“In an evil hour. Would I had never seen your face! Leave me, and return to your people.”
And Fray Fernando turned to go. But Jose placed himself before him in the path.
“Hear me, patre," he cried—"only hear me; then do with me what you will.”
“Were you the Jose of six months ago, there is nothing I would not hear from your lips; but an evil spirit has entered into you.”
“Am I worse in your eyes than Pepe or Zillo? Yet even them you would not condemn unheard.”
“Speak, then, if you will; but in words fit for a Christian man to listen to.”
“Patre, I went down to the valley by the road my fathers made; and I saw the water-courses they fashioned, which lead so far up into the mountains no man knoweth where they end. In the great puquios “I could almost stand upright. I examined them well. They are all carefully and cunningly made, and lined with great stones deftly hewn and fashioned. They divide themselves into many little puquios—so many, that every corner of the thirsty land is watered by the streams of the snowy Antis, and brings forth maize, fruit, and flowers for the joy of man. Such things my fathers made. But the Spaniards destroy the roads, and break up the water-courses, taking the hewn stones to build houses for themselves.”
“Not in Nasca," Fray Fernando interposed. "Don Marcio has strictly forbidden the practice.”
Jose had gained his point—he was listening.
“I know it," he answered. "Don Marcio is not like others—he fears God. But they do it, all through the country; so that, where we tended gardens, our children will wander through thirsty deserts—if, indeed, there are any of us left alive. Yet the Spaniards behold these roads and water-courses with wonder and admiration. They say there be none like them in their country; all their power and all their skill could not have fashioned them.”
“Yet the destruction of roads and aqueducts, though greatly to be deplored, scarcely warrants such fierce anger.”
“But it is the men and women, and little children, who are destroyed throughout the land, and no man pities them. Listen, patre. I found my people down yonder in the vale of Nasca sad of countenance, though they did not complain. They miss the joyous feasts of the olden time, the frequent holidays, the dances in honor of Ynty and Quilla.
Always they toil hard, often they starve, that they may pay their tribute to the Spaniards. It is very much that they have to pay, and if they fail, they are beaten and tortured. Once I came to a little village, where I found great grief and mourning. The Spaniards, who were taking up the tribute, had bound a poor, helpless boy to a tree, and were beating him most cruelly. The women were weeping and wringing their hands; the men—some of them begging for mercy, others searching their huts for maize, or charqui, or cords of maguey, to appease the wrath of the Spaniards. I asked what the boy had done, what law he had broken; and as I talked Spanish, the Spaniards listened to me, and told me he would not pay his tribute. I did not understand; so I turned for explanation to my own people. They said the tribute was required of all above eighteen, but that it was a common practice to demand it of boys under age, and to ill-use them cruelly till their friends paid the claim, though their own share had left them well-nigh starving. That time the silver you gave me saved the boy. But what use to save one —every day they do these things. "He paused for a few moments; then went on sorrowfully:—" Ere long I came to Nasca, where there is a town and a fort. There some Spaniards have come to live. May the curse of God—”
“Hush, Jose! you must not curse.”
Jose caught the edge of his yacollo with his teeth, and bit it, a common gesture with his race when moved to anger. Then he resumed:—
“In Nasca and its neighborhood I found the doors all shut and barred—a strange thing in Tahuantin Suyu. When first our people saw the Spaniards bolt and bar their doors, they marveled, and could not forbear to ask the reason—did they fear we would murder them? They answered, No; we do it for fear of thieves.' Whereat our people marveled all the more, for there were no thieves amongst them. The Inca said, ' You shall not steal.' A man who went a journey would lay a little stick, across his threshold, just to say, I am not at home; ' and although his house were filled with gold and silver, none would enter it. But now—now all is changed. Now we ourselves learn to steal, like the wicked Spaniards. O Ynty, Ynty, will you not help us?" And he turned and looked towards the sun, now descending to the west.
“Call not on Ynty, who cannot hear you," the monk interposed.
“But, bad as the tribute was," Jose continued, recovering calmness, and turning again towards the monk, "men did not curse it, as they did the mita. It was long before I could understand aright what the mita was. I stayed in Nasca, to learn the laws of my people from the old men there; and then I went northwards. Having crossed a desert, I came to another valley, broad and fertile. It was evening. A little village lay amongst fields of quinoa. I thought it had a lonely look. Soon I saw a group of women returning thither from their work. But I saw no men. The women walked hand in hand, chanting a mournful yaravi:—
The stranger has taken our husbands to work in his mines,
And we toil in the fields for our children's bread.'
When I talked with them, they told me the Spaniards take away every seventh man to work in the mines and the obregas. If that is not enough, they take more. The men die quickly, and more and more are ever needed. Year after year fewer men in the villages; year after year more men in the mines and obregas.—Where will it end, patre?”
“But," said Fray Fernando," the term of their service is only a year.”
“So said I to the women in my simplicity—' Your husbands will come back to you in a year.' And they answered, weeping, They will never come back— no, never again. They will die. Or if haply they live, the Spaniards will say—they are in debt,—and will keep them for yanaconas forever.'”
“Is such done "asked Fray Fernando.
“Every day," answered Jose." At last I said to the poor women of Yca, I will go and see your husbands at the mine.' —They blessed and thanked me, and gave me a store of coca leaves to carry to them, such as I have here "(touching a little ornamental bag, curiously woven of twisted threads in different colors, which hung by his side)." One, the widow of a curaca, gave me this dress to put on; for everywhere the children fled from me in terror, because I was clothed as a Spaniard. It was the holiday dress of her only son. Two years ago a Spanish traveler had taken him by force, with another youth, to carry his baggage to Cuzco. Neither of them ever returned.”
“This again is a practice forbidden by the laws," said Fray Fernando.
“What good are your laws? We obeyed the laws of our Inca, because we both loved and feared him. But Spaniards fear nothing, and love nothing—except gold.”
“José! José!”
“True, patre,—too true. As. I journeyed to the mine, I met a sorrowful company of women, some leading children by the hand. They said they were going to their husbands, at work in the obregas, else they would never see them again. When I said, I am going to the mine,' they answered me, Tell the miners to thank Ynty for their lot.' This I thought strange, for the women of Yea had talked to me of the miseries of the miners till my heart was sore. But these said, Better is it with those who dig the silver from the depths of the earth, than with those who weave the llama's fleece in the obregas.' Worked far beyond their strength, fed with food we would not offer to a beast, beaten cruelly, or else—patre, I could not tell you all. But God has mercy on them, and they die. They die soon; but others must be found to fill their places—ay, though they have to be hunted with blood-hounds. Now they take little children, six or seven years old. I saw myself—" But here Jose stopped, and covered his face with his hands. Soon large tears fell slowly through them. "No words!" he cried passionately; "no words. Only tears. Would they were tears of blood! And this is Tahuantin Suyu, that my fathers made so happy!"
Fray Fernando was moved to compassion for the gentle unoffending race, the unresisting victims of such cruel wrongs. “A poor and harmless people, created of God, and that might have been won to his knowledge," as Sir Walter Raleigh says pathetically. He answered in a softened tone, "You could say with the prophet, ' O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.'”
“The daughter of my people!" Jose repeated, with eyes that turned his tears to sparks of fire. "O patre, I have not told half—I cannot! They have broken into the houses of the Virgins of the Sun. They have taken them away by violence. I know now—too well!—why my mother died rather than be captive to the Spaniard. They have left us nothing sacred, nothing holy—not even the grave. They have dug open the tombs of our fathers to search for hid treasures. They have torn the ornaments from our temples; they have turned them into stables for their horses. They have robbed our store-houses, where the Incas laid up maize, quinoa, wool, cotton, to supply the people in years of scarcity. They have slaughtered by thousands the gentle, useful llamas, that bore our burdens and clothed us with their fleeces—only that they may feast upon their brains!—Are these the favorites and messengers of Pacha-camac, sent to teach us his will? No; they are the children of Supay— the devil. I will never believe God loves them, or commands us to obey them. I will never become as one of them, to learn their ways, to wear their dress, to serve their gods—”
“José, hush!" interposed the monk. Five minutes ago those two hearts had been very near, had almost met. But Jose's words, blasphemous in the ears of Fray Fernando, broke down the bridge between them. "I can hear my countrymen reproached," he said, "and I sorrowfully admit there is too much cause;—but I cannot hear my Faith blasphemed. Still," he added, more gently, "I would fain believe your heart does not mean all your lips have said. Changed as you are, I can hardly think you have forgotten all the past—you whom I taught, watched over, tended in sickness. See, here is the holy emblem of our Faith." He took the crucifix, with the rosary attached, from his girdle, and held it out to Jose. "Take it, my son; kiss it, in token of your penitence and your attachment to the Christian faith; and I will forgive your wild words and forget them.”
Jose took the crucifix,—but held it at arm's length.
"Kiss it, my son," said the monk.
José did not move.
“Kiss it," Fray Fernando repeated more sternly. Unfortunately he added,—"as a sign that you renounce the vain idols of your race.”
What! Was Ynty an idol—Ynty the glorious? What then was this bit of wood—not even gold or silver—to which the patre bade him do reverence. Jose's anger was not often roused, but when roused, it was incontrollable. He made a step forward towards a steep cliff, near the edge of which he was standing. The crucifix swung and shook over the precipice in his extended hand.
“Dare you?" cried the monk, springing forward to arrest him, horror-stricken at his profanity.
“I dare!" the Indian answered, the wrongs of his race all crowding on his memory, and the cross seeming nothing, in that moment's passion, save an emblem of the creed of the destroyer. "Behold!”
The deed was done. His passion began to die away the moment it was indulged. And at the same time the last rays of the sun were dying from the sky.
Enough!" said Fray Fernando, and he spoke very coldly. The white man's anger needs no loud words, no fierce gestures for its expression." I was a fool to expect gratitude or love from an Indian. You never knew what either means, Jose. You have never loved me, and the love I gave to you I wasted. This is our last parting. Let me pass.”
Jose moved aside at his command, and stood watching him with a stupefied air, until he was out of sight.
Then he ran to the place whence the cliff could be descended with the least difficulty. Leaping and scrambling, and clinging now and then to a stray tuft of ychu, he soon reached the spot where lay the crucifix. He took it up, and placed it carefully in the little bag by his side.
From this spot he could see the valley, winding far beneath. He stood gazing until the short twilight was past, and the rapidly increasing darkness hid it from his view. Then he threw himself on the ground, and gave way to a passionate burst of weeping. For the patre had parted with him in fierce anger, telling him he had never loved him.
He had no sense of fear in that lonely spot. The tracks of the puma were seldom seen in the district; and the hardy Indian youth thought little of a bed on the alfalfa, and less of the want of food, especially whilst some fragrant leaves still remained in his coca-bag.
But he was sore in need of help and comfort, for himself and for his people. And, because he saw none, either in the darkened heavens or on the miserable earth, he wept and wailed, plucking up the alfalfa by the roots and flinging it from him in his bitter grief.
At last he looked up. Ynty was gone long ago. Not even a faint glow remained now on the horizon. He remembered the words of the great Inca Huayna Capac, taught him in his childhood. Ynty could not be lord and governor, thought the wise monarch, because so often absent from the earth; nay, he seemed like a servant who himself obeyed a master, or like an arrow shot from a bow by a strong hand. It was plain enough now that Ynty could not help his children in their hour of need. There was no one to hear and help in those cold distant heavens to which they cried in vain. Were the Spaniards right I Was God on their side I Instead of the departed sun, there burned above his head the bright stars of the Southern Cross, which the patre told him was the sacred emblem of the Christian Faith, written on the heavens in characters of fire. No hint of the true meaning of the cross had ever found its way to Jose's heart, though he was, of course, familiar with the historical fact. He had never heard the message of divine love.
And through the best human love that he knew came the bitterest pain of that bitter hour. The patre had saved him from his cruel enemy, tended him in sickness, fed him, clothed him, taught him. And now the patre said, "You have never loved me, and the love I gave to you I wasted.”
The Indian lay quite still for a long time. Thoughts he had no power to express were struggling in his soul. Jose and Viracocha were at strife within him.
At last came a decisive moment. "Arri! rantihuarcca," he said, half aloud. "Yes; he bought me." That was the argument that turned the scale. Jose—for he it was who won the victory—started up, shook the alfalfa from his dress, tied his sandals more firmly, and again repeating, "Arri; rantihuarcca," peered cautiously around through the darkness.
An hour afterward the Indian youth was treading noiselessly through the sleeping galpón. He reached the door of Fray Fernando's hut, and pushed it gently. As of old, it was only on the latch. The monk had his own reasons for not adopting precautions that, in real danger, would inevitably prove futile. Jose entered. All was still. Fray Fernando lay on his pallet fast asleep, for the hour was now very late. Whereupon Jose, with that peculiar kind of sang froid characteristic of his race, turned quietly into his accustomed corner, and, as though he had never forfeited his right to be there, laid himself down to sleep.