RAY FERNANDO'S thoughts were very busy during his five minutes' walk from the San Cristofero to his own humble lodging. He came to the determination that he would tell Jose everything that had happened. He had great reliance on the Indian's tact and skill in dealing with those who held the destinies of the galley-slaves in their hands. But, independently of this, his adopted son deserved his full confidence, and he should have it.
“Jose," he said, "I have something to tell you.”
Jose, at a moment's notice, buried the treasures of new knowledge he had just received from Walter Gray, and was longing to examine, in some deep place within his heart, and stood prepared to listen.
“Do you remember the tale I told you in the tampu beside the Apurimac?" asked the monk.
“Every word of it.”
“Shall I lose forever your love and your reverence, Jose, it I confess to you that the Don Alfonso of that tale stands before you now?”
Jose's countenance showed no emotion; neither horror nor amazement, not even surprise, was depicted there. It was, in fact, no more than for a long time he had suspected. At first the suspicion brought keen sorrow and perplexity to his loyal heart; but he had, fortunately, been able of late to persuade himself that the patre was quite justified in his resistance to Spanish cruelty and oppression. How he reconciled this belief with his respect for the Catholic faith and the authorities of the Church, it is impossible to say. But indeed there were so many un-reconciled contradictions in the mind of Jose, that this one might well pass unnoticed amongst them.
He said very quietly, "I always knew that the patre was a noble amongst his own people. And what did he, in fighting for the deliverance of the oppressed, save to show himself the friend of the Poor—like a child of the Sun?”
Then, in words few and broken by emotion, Fray Fernando told him the strange sequel of the story. But, to his amazement, Jose listened with cold incredulity. Was the patre quite sure that there was no mistake, no delusion—that the galley-slave was in very truth the person he represented himself to be?
Now, if the patre had told him that he had just been honored with a visit from the Virgin Mary, Jose would have received the communication with the deepest reverence and the most unquestioning belief. For it would then have been "a mystery of the Faith;" and Jose was in the habit of divesting himself of his reason and common sense whenever he entered the temple of the supernatural. Scarcely any marvel could be proposed to him there to which he would hesitate to give implicit credence. But upon the platform of this world and its affairs, and within what he considered the legitimate domain of his reason, he was a shrewd and careful investigator of facts. He inherited the practical ability of his fathers, who were accustomed to decide hard cases, and to do justice and judgment between man and man.
The half astonished, half angry Fray Fernando found he had no alternative save to set his doubts at rest by a full and circumstantial account of his interview with the matador.
This could hardly fail to convince the most skeptical; and once convinced, Jose was ready to prove himself an invaluable ally.
“We will save him," he said. "Spain is far away; Spaniards will do anything for gold.”
Fray Fernando pondered. "But I have no gold," he objected.
“I have," Jose answered quietly. "Moreover, the time is favorable. The Commandante has gone to Cuzco. Only the Capitano remains. He has his price. Let me treat with him, patre. Nothing easier for him than to give out that the men are dead.”
“The men?”
"Yes; the stake I mean to play for is the deliverance of both—the matador and the Englishman.”
“For Heaven's sake, Jose, beware what you do," cried Fray Fernando in alarm. "You will peril all. The Englishman is a prisoner of the Holy Office.”
“So is the other.”
“Ay; but consider the difference. Melchior was condemned to the galleys full sixteen years ago, in Spain. The matter was never known here; and by this time is well-nigh forgotten everywhere. But Walter Gray—fresh in every man's mind and memory, and under the very eyes of their reverences who pronounced his sentence!—No, no, Jose; unless you want to ruin us, you must leave him alone.”
“Well, I can wait," replied the imperturbable Jose. And rising from his seat, he began to prepare their frugal supper.
But Fray Fernando could not eat. Out of the fullness of his heart he talked to Jose of the former days, and of Melchior del Salto; until it became absolutely necessary for him to attend to his evening devotions. When these were over, Jose prevailed on him to lie down, and at least endeavor to take some rest. Sleep was not possible to him; but it was good to lie motionless in the dark on his mat, to think over the past and the present, and to thank God for His great mercy.
Jose, when left alone, meditated for a little while on the patre's strange history, then disinterred his own treasure, and began to examine it.
The bitter disappointment that he felt at first had by no means passed away. He quite believed all that Walter Gray had told him. This, from his point of view, was both natural and reasonable. His forefathers had gone forth to propagate the worship of the Sun, as the best and purest religion they knew. And yet that worship had not wholly satisfied the more intelligent amongst them; and they had turned readily, nay, eagerly, to the Spaniards as the depositaries of a more satisfying faith, which they gladly learned from them. But Jose had had abundant cause to suspect that the Spaniards were not what they professed to be, the chief favorites of the true, invisible God, nor their kind of worship the most acceptable that could be offered to Him. What more reasonable than to suppose that the wise and powerful English, from whom he hoped so much, would be better instructed?
But, granted that Walter's words were true, what they revealed was still "a mystery of the Faith," and nothing more. And in far more educated minds than Jose's mist and mystery are closely allied. The hopes that had seemed so real, so substantial, so near, were relegated at once to the land of dreams and shadows. Hence the chill disappointment, the utter helpless sadness, that settled down upon his soul.
After a long interval of desultory brooding, that did not deserve the name of thought, he roused himself, trimmed the lamp Fray Fernando had left lighted, and sat down to read over, yet once more, that sublime psalm—the song of the King who should reign in righteousness.
With kindling eyes, and a beating heart, he followed the description of what the King should be. Step by step his soul seemed lifted upwards, until at last it reached the footstool of God Himself—"The Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.”
“Blessed be His holy name forever,'" Jose read half aloud, "and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen!' His glory—whose? The great King's? No, God's—the God of Israel's. And yet the great King's also, if Sen͂or Hualter's words be true—for He is God—God and man—Sufferer, Savior, Redeemer, King." Thus for the first time, in all its grandeur, the great Truth broke upon his mind. It was like the uprising of the sun-a rapid tropical sunrise.
Would that King then, he questioned with himself, really come in His glory, take the part of his people, and avenge them upon their enemies, the cruel Spaniards? Might not this, after all, be possible? And if so, what a vengeance His would be! Jose was neither merciless nor bloodthirsty; he desired no wholesale massacres, no tortures. And yet, as he sat there with the Breviary still open before him, a vivid panorama rose before his eyes. He saw the great square of Cuzco filled with Indians, mounted upon splendid horses, and carrying fire-breathing clubs,—all guarding a grim scaffold draped with black, where a stately Spaniard, with the features of the Viceroy Toledo, was about to bow his haughty head beneath the fatal ax.
But a loud knocking at the outer door dispelled his vision into air. He hastened to unbar it, and confronted a sunburnt mariner from the San Cristofero.
At the same moment he became aware that his lamp was useless,-the day was breaking.
“One of the slaves is very ill," said the mariner. "Will the padre come and see him, for the love of God? Ask him also to bring ‘su majestad,' for the man seems to be dying.”
“I will waken the patre," said Jose. "Tell me the name of the sick man.”
“He is called the matador.”
Fray Fernando came forth from the inner room. "I have heard all," he said, looking greatly agitated. "You need not have asked the name. I knew it.”
Quickly and silently he made the necessary preparations. No wonder that Jose, in his ignorance, looked with trembling awe upon the little silver box, which he was taught to believe actually contained his Creator and his God! Upon this occasion, however, the thought flashed through his mind—"Was the King of whom Señor Hualter spoke really there? If so, how could He be gone away into heaven '?" But it soon gave place to a reflection of a more practical kind,—"The patre has had no food since yesterday forenoon. If he goes forth fasting he may take the calenture.—Patre," he said aloud, ' I pray you drink at least some of this chica ere you go.”
Fray Fernando shook his head. "I shall communicate with him," he said.
Nothing more was spoken until they were on their way, Fray Fernando bearing the precious viaticum, and Jose the little silver bell with which he failed not to warn bystanders to show fitting reverence.
Then Fray Fernando said, "If it be possible to remove him, we must do it.”
“What becomes of galley-slaves when they are ill?" Jose asked.
Fray Fernando sighed. "The only place for them is the hold," he said. "And that is so dark, and withal so horribly unclean, that, I have heard, many die at the oar rather than enter it.”
“Surely the chihuayhua flower, the emblem of pity, does not grow on your side of the Mother Sea," said Jose with quiet bitterness.
“But sometimes there is leave given to bring them on shore to the prison, or to some hospital," Fray Fernando resumed.
“This man shall come on shore, and neither to prison nor hospital," Jose answered determinately. "Here we are, patre. Look, there stands the captain by the helm. I am to deal with him, you understand? But he must bring me to his cabin. I can do nothing within earshot of his men.”
So successfully did Jose deal with the captain of the San Cristofero, that in less than an hour the sick man was taken gently from the dark and horrible hole into which he had been thrown to die, placed on a rude litter made out of a couple of spare planks covered with Jose's mantle, and borne carefully to the lodging of Fray Fernando.
“You succeeded marvelously—how did you manage?"—the monk asked of Jose, so soon as he had rendered Melchior the cares his situation immediately demanded, and had seen that he was slumbering from exhaustion.
“I had, in the clasp of my yacollo, a certain magic stone, which I did but show the captain, and the sight of it bowed his heart at once.”
“And what said he to you?”
“Many things, which seemed utter unreason. Such as these: Pray devoutly and hammer on stoutly.' That the golden load is a burden light,' and that he was not like the tailor of Campijo, or Campillo, or some such place, who wrought for nothing, and found his customers in thread.”
“What answer made you to his litany of proverbs?”
“None; save to give him that glimpse of the magic stone. And to tell him I knew the poor fellow was dying (which in truth I know not at all); and that if he died on shore, there would be no man the wiser—but one man the wealthier. But had I known these were proverbs, I might have favored him in return with one of ours, from the lips of the wise Inca Pachacutec: 'Anger and passion may be cured; but folly is incur able.' And of all the follies under God's heaven, the worst, as I think, is that of the white men, who will do nothing for pity and for mercy, for the fear of God and the love of man; but everything for gold and silver, or for children's toys of colored or sparkling stones.”
Fray Fernando sighed. "You have done well, Jose," he said. "But I fear the deliverance has come too late.”
“Nay, patre. Our people indeed die easily; but the white man is strong, and he clings to life as the lianas cling to the forest trees. With care and God's blessing, I think we may save him yet.”