“But prove me what it is I would not do.”
FRAY FERNANDO returned to the galpón sorrowful and desolate. All the tenderness that life had left in his blighted heart had been gathered up and poured forth on the head of the Indian youth, who had truly been as a son to him. He never dreamed how much he had given, until he awoke to the consciousness that all was given in vain.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left him now to care for. He had not a hope remaining; just then he had scarcely a fear. His heart was too weary for conflict; it only ached with a dull and constant pain. Listlessly he went through the prescribed course of his evening devotions, repeating unfelt prayers and praises that found no echo in his heart. If he had ever really prayed, he had prayed for the child he fondly dreamed God had sent to comfort him in his misery. But that was over now; Jose was gone back to his people and to his gods, and his work and his prayers for him—like all his other work and all his other prayers—were wasted.
In this mood he laid himself down to sleep. Of late the slumbers that sealed those eyes had been fitful and broken. But it happened that upon this occasion Nature, usually capricious, saw fit to reassert her power and exact her revenge, and ere long he fell into a sound dreamless sleep.
He awoke with a start. A sharp cry rang in his ears. The room seemed full of furious men, struggling for mastery, clinging desperately to each other's throats. Then some bright thing, a knife or dagger, known by its glitter in the moonlight, fell to the ground at his side.
Less than a minute restored his senses fully, and reduced the shadowy host of combatants to two-a gigantic negro and a slender stripling, who seemed about to pay for the frantic tenacity with which he clutched his adversary's throat, by being crushed to death in his strong grasp.
That moment Fray Fernando forgot his peaceful calling, his sacred character, everything but the youth's danger. Seizing the weapon so opportunely left at his hand, he made third's-man in the fray to such good purpose, that the Negro fled for his life, like an evil spirit of night chased by returning day.
With the dagger still in his hand, the monk stood and gazed about him in bewilderment. But he could see scarcely anything, for the moon had retreated behind a cloud.
“Much-hani Pacha-camac!" exclaimed a well-known voice. Then in Spanish, "Dios gratias!”
“Jose! Is it you, Jose? How came you hither? What is it all about?”
“It was Pepe!" gasped Jose. "Villain, traitor, aucca! May I see him hurled from the highest rock on Cerro Blanco! Patre, are you hurt?”
"No, thank God. But am I dreaming or awake? What has happened?”
“He wanted to drink your blood, but God preserved you," said Jose.
Then Fray Fernando had recourse to his flint and steel. But it was some time before the tiny sparks availed to kindle the tinder, At length, however, the feat was accomplished; and a little oil-lamp shed as much light as in it lay upon the monk's perplexities.
The first thing it revealed startled him considerably. "O Jose!" he exclaimed in great distress, "why did you not tell me you were wounded?" For the lad's white tunic was covered with blood.
“It is nothing," said Jose, in whose code of morality the silent endurance of pain occupied a prominent place. "Only," he added, his dark face glowing with satisfaction, even with triumph, "the patre knows if I love him now.”
“You have saved my life," Fray Fernando answered. But it was not his fashion to waste time in words when deeds were needful. He bound up Jose's severely wounded arm, quickly and carefully, with a piece of linen torn from one of his consecrated vestments. Then he took some wine from the little store reserved for the celebration of mass, and gave it to his patient to drink. Not until all this was done, did he ask an explanation of the events of the night.
“I came back to you," Jose answered simply, "because you bought me. Finding you asleep, I lay down in my place. By-and-by Pepe crept in, still and silent, as a snake creeps through the grass. I cried aloud to wake you, and sprang at his throat. What else could I do? He had a weapon, I had none. I clung to him like the puma; he struggled and struck me with his knife; but his hands were not free enough to do much harm. I pressed my fingers into his throat for very life —your life and mine. Until at last, in his pain, he lost his think, and dropped the knife. Then I knew you were saved.”
Fray Fernando stretched out his hand to him. "You are a brave lad," he said; "God bless you!”
“Patre," said Jose, "say ‘my son' as you used to do.”
The monk was touched. "God bless thee, my son!" he answered warmly.
There was a silence; then Jose resumed,—"Patre, come with me to my people. No one will hurt you amongst them.”
Fray Fernando started at the suggestion. A hasty "No" trembled on his lips; but he began to reflect that his present position was worse than perilous. What would the morning bring? Pepe's attempted crime could scarcely remain a secret. Should Diego pass it over, he would proclaim his own guilt; should he undertake to punish it, the Negro, in his despair, would reveal everything. Clearly neither Diego nor Pepe had now any alternative but to complete their work. While a man might have repeated half a score of Paternosters, Fray Fernando pondered. Then he spoke in a decided, even cheerful tone, "Jose, I am going to Cuzco. Will you go thither with me?”
“To Cuzco" Jose cried in rapture. "Will the river go to the Mother Sea?”
“Not so loud. We must go at once, and in silence. I must needs speak with our lord, Don Marcio Serra; and he lives at Cuzco.”
"Chachau!" said Jose. The exclamation meant, "I am heartily willing, and very glad.”
Then the monk began to put together the few articles he thought necessary for the journey.
“We need not be troubled with baggage," said Jose coolly. "The men will give us all we want by the way.”
“And what of the way, Jose? How shall we find that I You know no more of it than I. You have only traveled along the coast, never towards Cuzco.”
“The way, patre! How could we miss it? We have only to go by the road.”
For if in the days of Roman ascendancy the proverb, "All roads lead to Rome" expressed an almost literal truth, it was yet more strictly true that in the empire of the Incas all roads led to Cuzco. Their policy was, in the highest degree, one of centralization.
“Will you take the books, patre?" Jose inquired. He regarded his patron's books with almost superstitious reverence. Indeed, it is quite possible that he thought each of them possessed what his race styled a "Mother," or spiritual essence of its own.
“I will take this," said the monk, laying his hand on a Breviary. "Not the others.”
Two bundles comprised all that the travelers cared to take; more indeed than Jose, who thought he had a child's right to everything he needed in Tahuantin Suyu, would willingly have encumbered himself with.
When his other preparations were completed, the monk took a key from the bosom of his frock, and unlocked a small strong coffer, placed for security in a kind of rude press which he had contrived in the wall of his hut. He took out some pieces of money; then paused for a moment in evident doubt. Something else was there, which he scarcely liked either to take or to leave behind; something which belonged of right to Jose, and which indeed his conscience told him he ought to have given him long ago. He had withheld it, fearing the memories it might awaken. But now all his precautions had been proved useless, if not worse. Better to do the thing that was right, without too much regard to consequences. "Jose," he said, showing him the curiously wrought pin he had received from Don Ramon, "do you remember this?”
“My mother's topu!" Jose exclaimed, eagerly taking it from his hand. For some moments he looked at it in silence, then he pressed it to his lips, while a tear glistened in his eye.
“Keep it," said the monk. "But we must not loiter now, for the hours of darkness are waning. Are you ready?”
“Let the patre wait but for a moment," said Jose. He fastened his treasure securely into his tunic; then, with some difficulty, caused by his only possessing the use of one hand, he took the crucifix from the coca-bag by his side. "This belongs to the patre," he said, with the air of a person a little ashamed of himself.
Fray Fernando wisely accepted the unspoken apology. He restored the crucifix to its place at his girdle, merely saying, "It is a precious symbol of a still more precious Thing.”
Then they passed silently through the sleeping galpón; and, before the morning dawned, were far beyond the reach of the astonished Diego.