“Oh, there was mourning when you fell,
In your own vales a deep-toned knell,—
An agony, a wild farewell
But that hath long been o'er.
“Rest, with your still and solemn fame,—
The hills keep record of your name;
For never can a touch of shame
Darken the buried brow."—
HEMANS.
THE next morning our travelers descended the hill, and soon found themselves within the precincts of the royal city.
As frequently happens, neither experienced just the emotions he expected. Jose was so confused and bewildered by the crowds which filled the street to overflowing, and thronged past him on every side, that he scarcely made an effort to look about him, and actually stood close to the temples and palaces he had dreamed of all his life without seeing them. His first impression was that the whole population of the city was escaping from some terrible calamity—a fire, an earthquake, or a flood. But recollecting that he had never seen a city before, and could not therefore be sure that this was not its ordinary condition, his apprehensions subsided, and he determined to hold his peace for the present. His fears, however, revived when he began to observe the downcast, tearful faces of the Indians, of whom the crowd was chiefly composed. Nor was he reassured on discovering that they were shared by his more experienced companion.
“Jose," said the monk, "something very extraordinary must be going forward here. Ask one of the Indians what it is.”
Instead of making the inquiry at once from the next in the crowd, Jose managed to mount a large stone belonging to one of the Indian buildings which the Spaniards were demolishing, and from this vantage-ground surveyed the street. Noticing amongst the throng a white-haired, venerable-looking Indian, who wore around his head a cord of vicuna wool dyed carnation and yellow (the distinguishing badge of the Incas), he made his way, with much difficulty, towards the spot where he stood. But just as he was beginning to address him, a loud cry of terror drowned his voice, and he saw the Indians around scattering in all directions. Some hid themselves in the adjacent lanes and houses, the rest rushed wildly hither and thither-trampling upon each other in their panic.
The cause soon appeared. A young Spanish cavalier, dressed in shining armor, and mounted on a high-mettled horse, was spurring in hot haste through the crowded street, little regarding the lives and limbs of "los Indios." In any thoroughfare such a circumstance would have caused alarm and confusion, but it created a fearful panic amongst a people who had not yet overcome their superstitious dread of the "huge earth-shaking beast" that obeyed the white man.
Jose at first gave way with the rest. But he had seen horses in Nasca, and being naturally courageous, had successfully endeavored to overcome his fear of them. Recovering self-possession, he looked about him, and observed that a poor little Indian child, who had been thrown down in the confusion, was lying almost beneath the horse's hoofs. To snatch it from its perilous position, and deposit it safely in the nearest of a dozen pair of arms, stretched out simultaneously to receive it, was a minute's work. In the next, Jose's hand was laid boldly upon the rein of the reckless rider. "Have a care how you ride, señor caballero," he said in Spanish; "we have all lives and limbs to lose, worth as much in God's sight as your own.”
The youth, for he was no more—a very handsome young Spaniard, with fine, haughty, aristocratic features, dark, curled hair, and the first down on his blooming cheek—cast a look of amazement upon "El Indio," who dared to remonstrate with him, and in such good Castilian. Then, flushing with anger, he raised his riding-whip. "Curse your insolence!" he cried. "Let go my rein, you Indian dog.”
Don Jose Viracocha Inca had not come to the city of his fathers to be treated as a slave. He instantly snatched the whip from the hand of the Spaniard, whose keenly-tempered blade leaped the next moment from its scabbard and flashed in the sunlight. Fatal consequences might have followed, had not one from the crowd laid a strong hand on Jose's shoulder, and, partly by force, partly by a few words—brief, but of momentous import—whispered in his ear, drawn him away from the scene of conflict. The whip fell to the ground, and one of the bystanders picked it up and gave it to its owner; who spurred on to the great square, lest he should incur a severe rebuke from his senior officer, and still more, lest he should miss the tragedy about to be enacted there.
Meanwhile Jose turned a blank, terrified face to the old Indian with the fillet of vicuña wool—for he it was whose friendly violence had extricated him from his perilous position.
—"The Inca?" he repeated; "what is it you say of the Inca?”
“I say of you, that you are a brave youth, but that this is no time to show it, when the eye of every man in Cuzco is dim with tears for the Inca.”
“The Inca?—Do I hear aright? Speak once again, my father.”
“While I speak, they are leading the Inca to his death in yonder square.”
“Alalau! Dare they do such a deed?—even the Spaniards? —What is his crime?”
“He has refused to touch Spanish gold," said the old man bitterly. "From hands red with his people's blood he would accept nothing. So at last they give him the one gift he cannot refuse-the stroke that sends him to the mansions of his Father the Sun.”
To Jose it seemed as if the sun itself had suddenly become black in the heavens. To him the Inca was as truly a part of the unchanging and unchangeable order of things as the light that ruled the day. Gladly would he have laid down his own head on the block instead of his.
“Let me look on his face," he exclaimed at last; "I have never seen him.”
“Come," said the other briefly; and together they threaded their way through the crowd to the great square.
In the old times, when the Inca made his royal progress, the spots where his golden litter rested took a new name from that auspicious hour. Eager thousands thronged around, rending the air, and, as the historian says, "bringing down the birds" with their joyful acclamations; and a happy man was he who was so favored as to behold the face of his prince and lord. Now, instead of the golden throne, there was a grim scaffold draped with black; instead of shouts of joy, there were groans and lamentations, and "noise of weeping loud." Yet the devotion of the nation's heart burned on unquenched. Because the homage rendered was not born of fear, but of love, it survived all outward change, all circumstance and pomp of golden thrones, and armed guards, and costly apparel, and was poured forth, only more richly than ever, at the feet of the despoiled and fettered captive on his way to death.
With hands bound, and halter round his neck, the son of Manco Capac ascended the scaffold. His face was calm and his step firm. He was not unworthy of his royal ancestors, who had ever braved death dauntlessly on the battle-field. Yet Tupac Amaru, still in the morning of his days, keenly felt the injustice of his doom. Looking down upon the sea of upturned dusky faces, he raised his fettered right hand, with the palm open, then slowly lowered it again, mutely commanding silence.
And silence, sudden and complete, fell upon that great wailing multitude. It was "as if there had not been one soul left alive in the whole city." So was obeyed the Inca's last command.
“Let it be proclaimed to all the world," said Tupac Amaru, "that I have done no wrong, and that I die only because it is the pleasure of the tyrant.”
Then he knelt down on the scaffold, clasped his hands, and raised his eyes to heaven. "O God!" he cried, in his native tongue, "behold how mine enemies rob me of my blood!”
There was a minute's pause; then the silent gliding forward of a hooded, black-robed figure; then the gleam and flash of steel. Then a wail of anguish—the cry of a great nation's broken heart—that arose from the crowded square of Cuzco, and swept on and on till it reached the most secluded hut of the distant Andes. The last sands of the glorious dynasty of Manco Capac had run out. There was no more an Inca.
The murder of young Tupac Amaru deserves to be remembered, not because it was the most cruel of the misdeeds of the conquerors of Tahuantin Suyu, but because of the innocence of the victim, and because of the hopes that were buried in his grave. How, after that day's tragedy, could the Indians continue to cherish in secret the fond belief that the true heir of Manco Capac reigned still in the wild forests of Vilca-pampa, and that one day he would issue thence in victorious might to recover the throne of his fathers?
Yet hope is hard to kill. It may lie in seeming death, and be laid in the grave; but if inspired by love it will rise again, partaking of love's immortality. There was no more an Inca. But not the less did the Indians whisper to each other, "The Inca will come again." Only henceforward the restoration of the loved dynasty became not so much a political hope as an article of religious faith.