“He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame, and pain,
Dying the death, whose signs remain,
Up yonder on the accursed tree,
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, all in all,
King of kings and Lord of lords,
As his servant John received the words,
'I died, and live for evermore.'”
R. BROWNING.
JOSE'S heart was glad within him. For Fray Fernando had at last obtained permission for the slaves of the San Cristofero to come by turns to his lodging that they might make confession of their sins, and receive private religious instruction and consolation. It is true that the señor commandante had shrugged his shoulders rather scornfully at the request; while the captain had hinted that the trouble the good friar was taking about the souls of the rowers was nearly as superfluous as that of "the over-clean Harcajo people, who wax their asses' feet." But both had very good reasons for not crossing his whims, even if they had been still more unaccountable. Nor was there really anything objectionable in his proposal, since he made himself personally responsible for the safe keeping of all the prisoners.
So the poor wretches were allowed to come, two and two together, to the humble lodging of the friar; and many a fearful tale of guilt and shame did they pour into his ear. They were a motley crew. Some of them were Spaniards from the mother country, but a large proportion were Creoles, and there were some Mulattoes, and even two or three Black men amongst them.
“Poor fellows!" said Jose compassionately, "one can give them at least a bath, a change of clothing, and a good meal!”
“It is easy for you, Jose. You only see those low wants of the body that you can supply, or at least alleviate," Fray Fernando answered sadly. He was sitting at the table, his head resting upon his hands—an image of despondency. "Who will find me a bath for those sin-stained souls—clean raiment to cover them in God's sight and their own—bread for their bitter hunger of heart?”
“But, patre," said Jose again, "you surely can do all that yourself. Else, why are you a patre? Are not the Sacraments for that?”
Fray Fernando sighed. A chill misgiving, that the remedies did not after all reach the seat of the disease, was sinking gradually into his soul. Those degraded beings, into the core of whose hearts sin had eaten like a canker—was any moral restoration possible for them? And without moral restoration, could the spiritual cure he professed to work be real or effectual? What good in giving them absolution from the blasphemies of yesterday, when, through the partition that divided his chamber from Jose's, he could hear the new score begun almost ere they had left his presence! Could the conscience indeed be cleansed whilst the heart and the lips remained so fearfully unclean?”
Amongst the saddest moments in a man's life are those in which he begins to suspect the sovereign efficacy of those remedies for the ills of humanity in which hitherto he has trusted without question. They may not, perhaps, have availed for him; but that, he has told himself, is his own fault—he has not applied them rightly. An undercurrent of hope remains that he may do so yet, or that others may do it for him. He may be dying of thirst, yet still the waters of Shiloh go softly; his wound may ache unhealed, yet still there is balm in Gilead. But who shall bring help or comfort to his despairing soul if once he surmises that the fountain is not in Shiloh, that there is no balm in Gilead, nor any physician there?
Hitherto Fray Fernando had blamed himself; he had not doubted his Church. Her mystic sacraments brought no mystic blessing to him, only because he did not fulfill the indispensable conditions of blessing. That they could bring no blessing to others was a new, and, as it then seemed to him, a still more terrible thought.
“Patre," Jose resumed, little guessing what was passing in his patron's mind—"patre, my friend comes today. I know you will be very kind to him for Jose's sake.”
“For your sake, surely! But a galley-slave is a strange friend for Don Jose—the Child of the Sun. What have you seen in this youth?”
Jose answered evasively, "He is so young, patre, to have suffered so much. And he has hair like the tears of Ynty, and eyes the color of the cloudless sky. Moreover, he is gentle; and he never uses oaths or evil words.”
“Ah! I have observed that myself. I know something of his story: his case is a singular one.”
Fray Fernando was aware that Walter Gray had been a prisoner of the Inquisition. And he surmised that the "penitence" that saved his life was not, probably, the most sincere in the world. If he were a Dominican friar, with heart and soul devoted to the interests of the Holy Office, he might seek for symptoms of a "relapse"—but he was nothing of the kind; he had no wish to meddle in such matters. Whatever he might suspect, or even ascertain, the poor lad should be safe with him, unless he should prove himself unworthy of favor. He said aloud: "You may trust me, Jose. I will be kind to your friend.”
“Thank you, patre.—Ah! here they come. That tall, brown, bent man is called the matador. He and the Englishman are friends.”
Fray Fernando went to the door to meet his guests, whom he welcomed with the customary "Pax vobiscum." They bowed; the old man bending low, the younger slightly, like an English gentleman acknowledging the salutation of an equal.
According to custom, Jose set a substantial meal before the visitors. It was not, indeed, usual to partake of food before attending the confessional; but the case of these poor half-starved galley-slaves was peculiar, and in Fray Fernando's judgment it required peculiar treatment. Whilst they did ample justice to the repast, he would enter freely into conversation with them; and endeavor, in a friendly manner, to learn something of their history. Generally they were disposed to be communicative; being pleased to find themselves listened to with interest, and not without hope of future benefits. But these two were very silent. Walter's mind was greatly disturbed, on account of the impending interview with the monk. Most gladly would he have avoided the visit, if he could have done so without exciting suspicion, or rather, without actually proclaiming himself a heretic, who refused the sacraments of the Church. But as it happened, this scheme of his Indian friend, devised for his special benefit, was but too likely to prove his undoing. During the meal, he ate little and spoke less, awaiting, with mingled feelings, the dreaded summons to the confessional.
The matador, from long habit, was silent; but his eyes often sought the face of the monk, as if finding a strange attraction there. Something, indeed, there was that affected him like the strain of some half-forgotten melody, which the memory can neither wholly grasp nor let altogether go.
Fray Fernando did not pay any particular attention to him, but observed the young Englishman with much compassion. Guessing pretty accurately what was passing in his mind, and willing to end his suspense, he departed from his usual practice by giving precedence to the younger. "I see, my young friend," he said, "that you have finished your repast. I will therefore hear your confession first. Come with me." And, rising from his seat, he led the way into the inner chamber, where was his oratory and confessional.
Anxiously had Walter prepared himself for this hour. He had planned and pondered, and formed many a resolution, which he dismissed, and then formed again, as to how he should speak, how he should act, when the important moment arrived. But now all vanished utterly from his memory. A strength and calmness, never felt before, descended suddenly upon him. No thought of fear occurred to him, nor indeed any thought at all save the one which wholly filled his heart. He was called to confess. And like a lightning flash, came those words across his mind: "He that confesseth me before men, him will I also confess before my Father and before the holy angels." Repeating them over to himself, he followed Fray Fernando into the inner room.
Jose kindled a light for the matador, and supplied him with tobacco, and with a quaint cumbrous pipe covered with Indian carving. From what he had seen of the man, he respected and liked him; but neither had any wish to converse with the other. So they sat together in perfect silence, quite content to wait, and to enjoy their own meditations.
They could hear the voices of the monk and his penitent plainly enough, the thin partition being of cane covered with plaster. First, that of the young Englishman—calm, earnest, solemn—"I desire to confess"—but the end of the sentence escaped them. Then Fray Fernando's voice, earnest also,—not quite his ordinary professional tone, which was well known to Jose. Then both, succeeding each other rapidly, sometimes even mingling, as the voices of men who dispute, and rather hotly. Then a brief sentence, mournfully spoken by Fray Fernando. Then, once more, the voice of Walter Gray, so full, so calm, so harmonious, that Jose thought he must be reciting some sweet yaravi of his native land, instead of making confession of his sins. Then a pause, followed by some low quiet words from Fray Fernando. These appeared to end the interview. A movement was heard within, and in another moment Fray Fernando opened the door. "Remember, I give you time," they heard him say. "You are under my instruction. I must see you as often as I can.”
Walter Gray bowed, and walked into the outer room. Released from the hateful oar, he looked tall and stately; and in spite of his ragged jerkin and fettered ankles, a true English gentleman—"a Child of the Sun," Jose called him in his heart He placed himself in the seat at the table from which the matador had just risen, and resting his face upon his hands, seemed lost in thought.
The silence that followed was really hard for Jose to bear; he had hoped such great things from this interview, and taken such pains to procure it. Yet he respected the Englishman too much to intrude on his meditations. He waited for some time with exemplary patience; but at last, growing desperate from the fear of losing altogether the only opportunity he might ever enjoy, he ventured to ask,—
“Señor Englishman, will you speak with me?”
Walter Gray started, uncovered his face, and turned his frank blue eyes upon Jose, whose presence, up to that moment, he had completely forgotten.
“I should be ungrateful indeed if I would not, Don Jose," he answered. "What do you want with me?”
“I have somewhat to say to you; somewhat also to hear from your lips," said Jose, in his grave, sententious way. Then rising from his seat, he stood before the Englishman.
For a minute's space each gazed at the other in silence. They were a strange contrast—the Inca Indian and the Anglo-Saxon,—the heir of a civilization that had played out its part in the world's history and was now fast fading, and the representative of the great race that held the world's future in its hand, and was destined to slay the slayer, and to spoil the spoiler, of Tahuantin Suyu. It was like the morning sun looking in through unclosed windows on the pale tinted gleam of an alabaster lamp, accidentally left burning still—though its work was done and its use over.
Jose, like Walter, had prepared diligently for this hour; but unlike him, he did not at the critical moment forget all he had to say. Still it was with something like hesitation that he began,—“Señor Englishman, you inquired my name the other day—”
“And gladly do I offer my grateful thanks to Don Jose Viracocha Inca for a thousand kindnesses," Walter said heartily.
“Listen! There are three names there. Don Jose, my Spanish name, is like that." He unclasped his mantle and flung it from him, standing before Walter in his simple tunic of fine white cotton, fastened at the waist by an embroidered belt. "It is an outside garment, assumed, thrown off, as lightly. And no dearer do I hold my Spanish manners, and tongue, and learning. Then, there remains Viracocha, the name my mother gave me when she had my first hair cut. That is my own name,—myself. It means Foam of the Sea.' Well, let that go too! Let the foam flash and fade and die away into nothing! Who cares? It was never meant to last. But there remains still the best, the most precious name of all.—No nobler, I think, is spoken anywhere on earth.—That shall last, when all the rest have perished. I am Inca, Child of the Sun.
“Yes, Señor Englishman, I repeat it proudly, Child of the Sun. I know what I say. In the midst of our sorrow and degradation, I can smile myself for very scorn at the insolent scorn of the Spaniards, who call this a vain heathenish superstition of ours. How are children known save by their likeness to their father? And my race bore their father's image, plain as the light of day. Like Ynty the glorious, they shed abroad life, joy, fruitfulness, far and wide, wherever their sway extended. I tell you, Englishman, in days to come, you will find our tongue spoken, our name honored, our laws reverenced, far away amongst wild tribes you have not dreamed of yet. For we were great kings and mighty conquerors; and it was our glory that we did not reign or conquer for ourselves.
“But the Spaniards came, few in number, yet so strong. Why has God given the white man such terrible strength? They had fire-breathing clubs, and horses, and great ships. But more than all these, they had strange craft and cunning, wherewith they deceived us. They called themselves messengers of God, and we believed them." Jose paused sorrowfully.
“I know the story of the conquest of Peru," Walter threw in, thinking to spare him a painful recital.
“Peru!" Jose repeated with a smile. "What is Peru? That barbarous word was not known amongst us until the Spaniards came. Yet it is meet they should call the land by a new name. Tahuantin Suyu, the empire of my fathers, they have never known,—and never shall they know! But again I tell you, Señor Englishman, Tahuantin Suyu is not dead. No! though they have laid waste her fair fields and terraced hills, and destroyed her roads and water-courses—No! though they have steeped the land in blood, from the Mother Sea to the White Mountains, and again from the White Mountains to the pathless forest—No! though they have taken the true heir of Manco Capac, and dragged him to Cuzco, and though I have seen—I myself—his head fall beneath the Spanish ax. No!—The Inca will reign again.”
Jose's hope was buried, but it was still there. Like the treasures of Yupanqui, of which the secret hiding-place had been revealed to him by Maricancha, who had himself helped to inter them, he knew where to find it, and could produce it when he chose.
The firm conviction and the intense earnestness that breathed in his every look and tone, impressed Walter Gray. He asked, as Fray Fernando long ago had asked, "How know you that?”
Jose took up a curious, many-tinted shell which lay on the table. "There, put that to your ear, Señor Hualter" (the nearest approach he could make to the pronunciation of "Walter"). "Do you hear nothing?”
“I hear a murmur, like that of the ocean.”
“What does that murmur say?”
Walter smiled as he answered, "I scarcely know. Perhaps —that it has come from the ocean, its home.”
“True," said Jose. "And thus I too have put my ear to the beating heart of my people. I hear a murmur there, never ceasing, never changing. That murmur says, ‘The Inca shall reign again '”
There was a pause. Walter looked at him, wondering, interested, yet bewildered.
“Shall I tell you something else which is murmured in the heart of my people?" Jose resumed. "There are dim prophecies floating here and there amongst us, of strangers, great and brave—fair-haired, bearded, children of light—yet to come from beyond the Mother Sea, who shall avenge our wrongs, and help to restore our ancient dominion.”
Walter's eyes kindled, but he did not speak.
“Señor Englishman, I read in your face that you understand me.”
“Yes—oh yes! Would that we could help you!”
“You can help. All is not yet told. I have learned, by long silent thought and study, that the Spaniards too have prophecies—strange prophecies—telling of a king to come, and from you.”
“From us? From our nation? Do you mean an Englishman”
“Yes. An Englishman-a Jew. A son of David, your king.”
Walter looked blank astonishment. "You are under some strange delusion," he said. "We are not Jews; nor was David our king.”
“You are heretics, are you not? And heretics are Jews.”
“Heretics indeed they call us; but we are not Jews. Don Jose, did your padre teach you this?”
Walter's surprise was not unmixed with amusement; but Jose was profoundly earnest, and moved to his inner depths. "The patre," he explained, "is wise and good. But he dared not teach me, what none of his people would wish ours to know, that there will yet be a greater king than theirs. Nay, it may be that they themselves do not understand, or believe, that their boasted empire is doomed one day to fall in the dust before that great Inca of the West, who shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth!'”
A faint glimmer of light now began to break on Walter's mind. "You are quoting Holy Scripture," he said.
Jose sought Fray Fernando's Breviary, and opening at the Seventy-second Psalm, he pointed to it, saying, "You will understand it, because it is written in your own language.”
“Latin is not my language," explained Walter, "but I can read it." And his eyes rested on the page, whilst his bewildered mind strove in vain to find a clue by which to unravel Jose's tangle of ideas.
Jose drew nearer. "Kind and good Englishman," he entreated, "tell me who that king is, and where I shall find him.”
Walter looked up from the book, and gazed at him intently. "Do you indeed desire to know?" he asked.
“Does the thirsting earth desire the rain of heaven? Have I not made a solemn vow that I will lay the cause of my people at his feet, and implore him to do justice and judgment between us and the Spaniards?”
Walter pondered. "I fear you will be troubled, disappointed, when you hear all," he said at last.
“Only try me.”
“That King," said Walter gravely, "is reigning even now; though not in England, nor in Spain. Hearken, Don Jose. Long ago He came to the people of His choice. But they rejected, insulted, slew Him. Yet He will come again, perhaps soon; and take to Him His great power, and reign in righteousness over all the earth, from the rising of the sun till the going down thereof. Of that reign, all kings who have ever reigned in righteousness and judged the poor and needy—as David and Solomon; even, for aught I know, as your own Incas—have given the world imperfect images, and a faint shadow. All the hopes they have awakened He will fulfill.”
“They slew Him?—yet He will come again?" Jose questioned, his eyes intently reading the face of Walter.
Then there was a pause. At length, drawing from its place in his chuspa, or coca-bag, a little crucifix Fray Fernando had given him, he kissed it, laid it reverently down, and made the sign of the cross upon his forehead.
“Yes, you are right," Walter went on. "He is the great King. He it is who shall judge the people with righteousness, and the poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.”
Here he stopped suddenly; for two large, heavy tears fell from the dark eyes of Jose, blotting the pages of the book.
“Why do you weep?" he asked kindly.
Jose's words came slowly out of a depth of quiet despair,—
“For my lost hope. I thought there was a real king. But it is only a mystery of the Faith.—One said so to me long ago. I ought to have believed her.”
“O Don Jose, you do not understand! He is truly all—more than all—your heart desires. And as surely as tomorrow's sun shall rise, He will come again, and reign upon this very earth on which we stand now, to make an end of sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.”
“But He is the Judge of all. He is the God of the Spaniards. He takes their part now—hereafter, perhaps?”
“Hereafter the proud Spaniards and their master, the Pope of Rome, shall lick the dust beneath His feet. Their plagues shall come in one day—death and mourning and famine; and the word shall be fulfilled to them, Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her.'" Then, with a sudden change of tone, and growing pale,—"But I should not speak thus. I forget myself. Don Jose, I have put my life into your hands. You will not betray me?”
Jose placed his hand in his.
“Do not I also hate the Spaniards?" he said. "But your words cut my heart in two, like a sword. I thought I had grasped a strong hand to help my people; and lo! it is but a dream—a shadow. There is no help for us, in heaven or on earth.”
“Do not think so. The King will help you, if you come to Him.”
“How can I come to Him?”
“Has not the padre taught you to pray?”
“Surely. But what use in that? It is only speaking words. As well might I speak to the spirits of my ancestors—and better, since they are my own race: I know them.”
“And Him you do not know? Ask Him, Don Jose, to reveal Himself to you. He loves you—died for you.”
So engrossed were Jose and Walter Gray in their conversation, that it occurred to neither to observe the very unusual length to which the matador seemed to be protracting his confession. Instead of wondering, as they might well have done, at the delay, they felt like men suddenly awakened from a dream, when the slight cane door of the partition was thrown open, and the matador came forth. He looked, Walter thought, as though he had been weeping; yet his brown cheek was flushed, his eyes were bright with animation, and his bent form seemed for the time to have regained the erect stateliness of youth.
Jose, for his part, did not spend a thought, scarcely even a glance, on the matador. He had abundant occupation for his thoughts at home. Yet, preoccupied as he was, the moment he saw Fray Fernando, he was struck by a strange alteration in his appearance also. Bidding a hasty, though warm and grateful, farewell to Walter Gray, he turned, full of affectionate solicitude, to his adopted father.
The monk, however, put him aside with a gesture. He said "I will walk down to the San Cristofero with—my friend.”