Chapter I: Part 1

_Page 91._]

UNDER THE
SOUTHERN CROSS.

A Tale of the New World.

_By the Author of
“THE CZAR: A TALE OF THE FIRST NAPOLEON.”
&c. &c._

“THY KINGDOM COME.”

London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1900

CONTENTS.

I. FRAY FERNANDO’S MISSION, 9

II. CERRO BLANCO, 14

III. ST. JOSEPH’S TOOTH, 22

IV. VIRACOCHA, 31

V. VIRACOCHA’S FATHERS, 36

VI. VIRACOCHA VISITS HIS BRETHREN, 48

VII. VIRACOCHA COMES BACK, 55

VIII. VINDICATED, 68

IX. THE JOURNEY, 74

X. THE DEAD MEN WHO FOUGHT AGAINST STAIN, 84

XI. ACROSS THE APURIMAC, 90

XII. WHAT THEY DID BEYOND THE MOTHER SEA, 100

XIII. THE DOCTORS, 112

XIV. THE LAST INCA, 118

XV. THE GOLDEN CITY, 124

XVI. A STAR, 134

XVII. IN THE CONVENT PARLOUR, 141

XVIII. AT HOME, 152

XIX. THE STAR SHINES, 160

XX. THE STAR SETS, 165

XXI. OLD ENGLAND, 173

XXII. HIS OWN WAY, 182

XXIII. WHERE IT LED, 192

XXIV. AT THE OAR, 199

XXV. THE FRIEND OF THE POOR, 204

XXVI. THE FRUITS OF THE WEST, 212

XXVII. THE MATADOR, 220

XXVIII. THE KING OF THE EAST, 225

XXIX. AFTER MANY DAYS, 238

XXX. THE MAGIC STONE, 246

XXXI. THE YEARS THAT THE CANKER WORM HATH EATEN, 254

XXXII. WALTER GREY’S ADVICE, 261

XXXIII. THE KING FOUND, 267

XXXIV. THE KING FOLLOWED, 274

XXXV. EASTER-DAY, 281

XXXVI. JOSÉ’S MISTAKE, 286

XXXVII. A DISAPPOINTED MAN, 294

XXXVIII. FRAY FERNANDO’S WORDS, 303

XXXIX. JOSÉ’S WORDS, 310

XL. JOSÉ’S WORDS AGAIN, 318

XLI. JOSÉ IS AVENGED OF HIS ENEMIES, 325

XLII. JOYFUL MEETINGS, 335

XLIII. FOAM OF THE SEA, 344

XLIV. OLD ENGLAND AGAIN, 352

UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS

I.

Fray Fernando’s Mission.

“Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.”

On a burning autumn afternoon,—in the Sixteenth Century, which had then passed its meridian by rather more than ten years,—Don Fray Tomas de San Martin, the stately prior of the great Franciscan monastery of Ciudad de los Reyes, now called Lima, was sitting alone in his private apartment. Meaner and idler men were dozing the sultry hours away; but it was not in the nature of Fray Tomas to seek repose while the duties of his calling, the interests of his Order, or the concerns of any of his numerous friends required his attention. In spite of physical languor and exhaustion, an expression of satisfaction lit up his countenance as he finished his second careful perusal of a letter he held in his hand. Then he laid the document on the table before him, pausing, however, to glance, with a slight smile, at the pompous armorial bearings inscribed on the seals with which the floss silk that bound it had been secured. The prior was not a man given to soliloquy; but if we might translate his unspoken thoughts, they would run somewhat after this fashion: “Sixteen quarterings for honest Marcio Serra de Leguisano, the tailor’s son! Where, in heaven’s name, have they all come from? Truly saith the Preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘I have seen servants riding upon horses.’ He might have added,—and there be none such headlong riders. _Pues_, every man to his taste. These little weaknesses of Marcio Serra’s may well be borne with, after all. For amongst the conquistadors there is many a worse man, and not one better. Would that all, like him, broke off their sins by righteousness, and their iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Certainly, it behoves us to aid him to the utmost of our power.”—And, stretching out his hand, he rang a little silver bell that lay near him on the table.

But the attendant, whose duty it was to answer it, was lying on a mat in the ante-chamber, fast asleep,—and not until the prior had more than once raised his voice and called loudly, “Antonio!” did he make his appearance.

“Send me hither Fray Fernando immediately, and then go finish thy siesta,” said the prior, cutting short his apologies with contemptuous good-nature.

Fray Fernando, who was not asleep, came in a few moments; and having made the accustomed reverence, stood silently before the chair of his superior.

Fray Tomas was an able man and a good ruler. Both within the walls of his monastery and beyond them he was thoroughly respected. Yet few could have looked on the two who now stood face to face without the thought that they ought to have changed places,—that Fray Fernando ought to have commanded and Fray Tomas to have obeyed. Everything about the younger monk, from the broad white forehead to the nervous taper fingers, bespoke the refinement and sensitiveness of high breeding. Yet he did not look like a man of the schools and the cloister. Power and determination gleamed from his dark, deep-set eye, and showed themselves in every movement of his vigorous though attenuated frame. You would have said that he ought to have worn the plumed casque instead of the tonsure, and have shouted, “St. Jago for Spain!” instead of telling Ave Marias on the rosary that hung from his belt.

The prior addressed him with great urbanity. “We do justice, brother,” he said, “to that singular zeal for our holy Faith which animates your breast.”

Fray Fernando bowed, but a look of pain passed over his face.

The prior blandly continued: “Therefore it is that, an opportunity being afforded to some brother of our honourable Order to undertake a work of peculiar toil and self-sacrifice for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, our thoughts turn to thee, as to one who will cheerfully, nay joyfully, embrace such a mission.”

“I am ready to go whithersoever my lord the prior shall command,” said Fray Fernando.

The prior laid his hand on the letter. “This have I just received from the most noble knight and conquistador, Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano. Doubtless he is known to you by reputation?”

“My lord remembers I am a comparative stranger here.”

The prior had too much good sense to retail idle stories: such as that the good knight’s parentage was said to be of the humblest; that on the division of the spoils of Cuzco the massive golden sun of the great temple had fallen to his share; and that, with the recklessness of a _parvenu_, he had gambled most of it away at primero in a single night, complaining pathetically, the next morning, that he had “lost a good piece of the sun.” He merely explained: “Don Marcio Serra hath received, in _encomienda_ from our lord the king, a noble estate, rich in gold and silver, as well as in the ordinary productions of the soil. It embraces a very fertile valley, called Nasca; and stretches upwards, even to the land of mist and snow, where the mighty Andes raise their giant heads. High up, in that rarely-trodden region, at the summit of a bleak mountain, called Cerro Blanco, gold was discovered a few years since. A shaft was sunk, and the mine was worked, as usual, by the forced labour of the Indians. But these unhappy people died so quickly, that at last Don Marcio, having the fear of God before his eyes, and being mindful of his soul’s salvation, began to take thought of their miserable case. Possibly he was the more disposed to compassionate them, because he hath taken to wife an Indian princess, one of the Children of the Sun, as they call them, after their vain heathenish fashion. Therefore he hath purchased a sufficient band of negro slaves, both men and women, which he hath been at great charges to transport from the coast to the heights of Cerro Blanco. And there he hath set them to work under competent Spanish overseers.”

Both the churchmen accepted this substitution of black labourers for copper-coloured ones as an effort of the most sincere and enlightened philanthropy. Nor were they, perhaps, as much mistaken as might be supposed.

“But,” continued Fray Tomas, “as the good knight’s piety is fully equal to his humanity, he is now desirous to extend to these benighted savages the inestimable blessings of our holy Faith. He therefore entreats me to send him some brother of our Order, who may be found willing, for the love of God and the good of souls, to banish himself to a dreary inhospitable region, where the frozen earth brings forth little more than a few blades of stunted grass; and where, from one year’s end to the other, scarce a face will greet the exile’s eyes save those of the negro slaves.”

Had the picture he was limning been intended for any other eye than that of Fray Fernando, Fray Tomas might have softened its lines, and have interspersed here and there a few lighter touches. But now he did just the contrary; because he had taken the measurement of the man he was addressing. When he ceased speaking, there was a moment’s silence; then Fray Fernando said quietly, “I willingly undertake the mission.”

“May God and our Lady recompense thy zeal and piety!” was the prior’s benign reply. He then proceeded, with equal affability and good sense, to discuss the details of the lengthened journey which it would be necessary for Fray Fernando to undertake.

The younger monk seemed not only willing, but actually eager to occupy the post assigned to him. Not during his whole novitiate (which had but recently terminated) had he appeared so cheerful, not to say so animated. It was currently reported that nothing gave Fray Fernando pleasure except self-mortifications and austerities; which he carried to a greater length than any monk who had been in the monastery since its foundation.

“I have found the very man for your excellency’s affair,” wrote the prior that evening to Don Marcio. “He is a brother of our house; exceeding pious; and so consumed with zeal for the Faith, that he desires nothing so much as martyrdom. The more difficult and painful an enterprise, the less of worldly honour or profit it is like to bring, the more attractions it hath in the eyes of our holy Fray Fernando.”

Such were the reflections of good Fray Tomas de San Martin; who was as much, and as little, able to penetrate the mystery that veils every human soul as any other shrewd man who fondly imagines that he can read the hearts of his neighbours at a glance.

II.

Cerro Blanco.

“I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
Who feed, and hoard, and sleep, and know not me.”

TENNYSON.

Fray Fernando has been nearly a year in his new home. But it seems a mockery to call it by that sacred name: since not to any living thing was Cerro Blanco a home in the true sense of the word. Yet between forty and fifty miners, with their families, ate, drank, and slept in the cluster of cabins that nestled, almost literally, in a cleft of the rock, for protection against the stormy winds of the Andes. These cabins were built of adobes, or mud-bricks dried in the sun; and were thatched, very neatly and carefully, with the strong grass called _ychu_. All this work had been done, before the arrival of the negroes, by the Indians of the valley, as part of the labour required from them by way of tribute to their lord. They were also obliged to provide the little colony with the necessaries of life. At stated intervals they might be seen treading the steep and winding mountain-paths in long procession, bearing on their heads or their shoulders large baskets of maize, of potatoes, or of quinoa—the rice of the country—as food for the negroes. Nor would they fail to bring also a couple of alpacas, and a good supply of chica, or native beer, to suit the more luxurious tastes of the Spanish intendant of the mine, and his servants. For in that elevated situation few things would grow (at least, without very careful cultivation), except stunted grass and little mountain-flowers, mostly blue and yellow.

Still higher than the village—indeed, on the very summit of the mountain—was the mine, which was worked in rude and primitive fashion. The ore extracted from the earth by the labour of the negroes was smelted, after the manner of the Indians, in a large oven made of clay, and placed in such a situation that the strong mountain-winds seldom failed effectually to fan the furnace. The gold thus obtained was transmitted twice a year to the intendant of Nasca, who accounted for it to his lord, Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano.

Some strong motive was certainly necessary to make a lengthened residence in such a spot tolerable to a free man, who could go elsewhere if he would. The intendant, Diego Rascar, his four Spanish and two Creole servants, were bound to their post by the strong cords of avarice. But Fray Fernando had no such tie. His life was very empty; there was neither the love of gold, nor, to speak truth, the love of souls, to fill it. He did his duty, so far as he understood it, to his dusky flock. He baptized the infants; he married the young men and maidens; he buried the dead. He even tried to repress gross crimes amongst the negroes, and to prevent gross cruelties on the part of the Spaniards: he sought to keep the latter from lapsing into utter heathenism, and he taught the former to hasten to the little chapel at the sound of the bell, and to fall on their knees at the elevation of the host. It did not occur to him that he ought to teach them anything more, or that it would be possible to do so. The negro slaves were savages, but one grade removed from the lowest type; a type differing very greatly and very sadly from the imaginary picture of the “noble and virtuous savage” which a sickly and sentimental civilization has amused itself by delineating.

With these degraded beings—whom, in his pride, he accounted scarcely human—Fray Fernando had nothing in common; and he felt nothing towards them save contempt and disgust, sometimes mingled with pity, stirred by their sufferings. How could it have been otherwise? With deep truth has it been said, “There is but one Mediator between man and man, as well as between God and man—the man Christ Jesus.” But Fray Fernando knew the man Christ Jesus not at all as Mediator; he only knew him as Judge. He could not therefore say, with the noble Las Casas, “I have left in the Indies Jesus Christ our Lord, suffering stripes and afflictions and crucifixions, not once, but thousands of times, at the hands of the Spaniards.” The love that embraces all men for the sake of Him who took man’s nature upon Him, and delighted to call Himself the Son of man, was as far above Fray Fernando’s comprehension as the brilliant stars of the Southern Cross were above his head. And thus it was that in that barren lonely place no love, human or divine, came to soothe and soften his heart, and to efface the deep, jagged characters graven there by the iron pen of pain.

Could the beauties of Nature have taken the place of human interests, Fray Fernando need not have felt forlorn, even on the summit of Cerro Blanco. He had but to ascend the height where the miners’ shaft had been sunk, to command a view sublime and glorious as the imagination could conceive. Far above, the magnificent snow-clad peaks of the Andes pierced the cloudless sky; while as far beneath, the rich and cultivated vale of Nasca wound like a variegated thread from the mountain’s base through the sandy desert to the distant ocean. It is true that often, while the mountain-peaks glistened in sunshine, a thick veil of mist obscured all that lay beneath; yet even then the scene had a wild, weird grandeur of its own.

Will it be believed that Fray Fernando’s steps but seldom led him to the spot that commanded such a prospect? Not that he was unimpressed by its sublimity; rather otherwise,—he felt it too keenly. The everlasting hills shadowed and oppressed his spirit with the sense of a Power and Presence too awful and too near for his peace. “Surely God is in this place!” was the language of his heart; and, unhappily, God was a terror to him. He desired nothing so much as to forget Him; or, if that had been possible, to hide himself in secret places where He could not see him.

From part of the pathway between the mine and the galpon, or square—as the miners’ village was called—might be seen the mountain-pass by which travellers sometimes made their way from the valleys of the coast into the interior of the country. Such travellers, if Spaniards, were usually glad to accept shelter and hospitality from the little mining colony; and it need not be said that the intelligence they brought with them from the civilized world was considered ample payment by the exiles. But if the wayfarers were of Indian race, their fleet footsteps only grew all the fleeter until the lair of the hated and dreaded Spaniards was well out of sight.

It became a habit with Fray Fernando to walk to the spot whence the pass could be seen. Why he did this it is not easy to say. Perhaps, in spite of himself, he clung to the shadow of the social life now shut out from him; or perhaps he dreaded visitors rather than hoped for them. However this may have been, a restless impulse seemed to drive him thither two or three times in the day, and sometimes even late at night. But this might have been because he slept little.

One bright, cold, moonlight night he was taking this walk as usual, when the sound of a wild, peculiar chant, somewhat mellowed by distance, broke upon his ear. Startled, but not greatly surprised, he paused and listened. “Yes,” thought he, “it must be so!—Those five civilized Spaniards, who are lords and masters here, and bound to show these negroes an example of Christian living, have made themselves drunk with new chica,—and the most active and daring of the slaves have managed to elude their vigilance, and to steal out of their quarters for the purpose of enacting some forbidden and detestable heathen rite.”

Guided by his ear, Fray Fernando bent his steps towards the spot whence the sounds proceeded. On a little grassy plateau amongst the rocks, some dozen negroes were engaged in performing a wild mystic dance. Hand in hand they moved; now keeping time to some barbarous tune led by one of their number—now setting time and tune at defiance, and leaping, shouting, screaming like hideous maniacs. But the unexpected appearance of the monk’s gray cowl and mantle brought the weird ceremony to a hasty close.

“Shame, shame on you!” he cried, as the dusky group scattered in all directions. “Shame on you!” he repeated once again, advancing to the centre, and raising his arm in a threatening attitude. “You—Christian men, _neofitos_, _reducidos_!—_you_ to return to these vile heathen abominations—to worship the devil!—you who have been taught to know the one living and true God, who made heaven and earth, and all that in them is! Are you not afraid lest He strike you dead, and cast you into the fire that burneth for ever and ever?”

The negroes were far from comprehending every word in this address, yet they well understood its general import, and were duly impressed by the solemn tone and threatening gestures of the speaker. They were thoroughly cognisant also of the fact that the Spaniards were the masters and they the slaves. They fled in all directions with the activity of fear; some clambering up the rocks, some running down them, and others hiding in their crevices. Few stayed to hear the cogent and thoroughly intelligible peroration with which the friar concluded his harangue:—

“If there be a man among you not found within his quarters ere the moon has passed from beneath yonder cloud, Señor Diego shall reckon with him in the morning.”

One only of the negroes—a stalwart ebony giant, recently brought from the wilds of Africa, where he had been a petty chieftain—stood his ground fearlessly, and looked Fray Fernando boldly in the face.

“_You_, Pepe!” said the monk. “I expected better things from you.”

The African threw out his great bare arms with a gesture of despairing sorrow.

“What would you?” said he, in broken Spanish.—“If we worship the Zombi, the Spaniards scourge us, and we die;—if we worship not the Zombi, he sends the small-pox, and we die.—Either way, we die.”

“Not so, Pepe,” the monk answered more gently. “The Zombi is an evil spirit, a devil: he cannot harm you if you trust in God, for God is stronger than he. Put your confidence in God and in our Lady, and no evil can befall you.”

“Look, padre,” said the negro: “I said to our Lady the prayer you taught me; yet all the same, Señor Diego—”

But, not waiting to finish his sentence, he turned quickly, first his head, then his whole body—and bounding or scrambling over whatever rocky impediments lay before him, he began a headlong career down the hill towards the pass that wound beneath it. His senses, sharpened by the exigencies of his previous savage life, told him correctly that a party of travellers halted there, and were calling for guidance or help of some kind, aware that the mining village was at hand. He knew well that his services in bringing them safely thither would be rewarded with a holiday, plenty of sora, or spirits, and certain other indulgences which he highly valued.

Soon as Fray Fernando understood the matter, he too hastened to the nearest point whence the pass could be seen. In the struggling moonlight he discerned a little band of Spaniards on horseback, with glittering casques, and a long file of attendant Indians with burdens on their shoulders. He saw the leader engaged in an earnest parley with Pepe; and soon became aware that the party had put themselves under his guidance, and would reach the galpon in a few minutes.

Rather ashamed of the state of things they were likely to find there, the monk quickened his steps, that he might give warning of their approach. Diego and his servants were aroused, with difficulty, from their heavy slumbers, and soon every soul in the galpon was astir. Fortunately, food was plentiful,—the Indians of the valley having brought their tribute recently. The flesh of the alpaca was prepared as speedily as possible by the negro women, and set before the Spaniards with cakes of maize and skins of chica. Nor were the Indians forgotten. Fray Fernando pitied these poor people, who seemed exhausted with fatigue, and benumbed by the cold of the mountains, to which they were unaccustomed. He gave them maize and chica, and found room for them to sleep in the huts of the negroes. While busied in these kindly duties, he noticed amongst them, with awakened feelings of warmer compassion, a boy about ten years old, beautiful in form and feature, and distinguished from the rest by his peculiar costume. Unlike these, whose clothing was coarse and scanty, this child wore a pretty tunic of fine white cotton, fastened on each shoulder by some precious stone. He was bound to one of his adult companions, as a prisoner whose safe keeping was considered an object of importance. Fray Fernando gave him some fruit, which the boy took with a look half shy, half confiding, in his dark eyes, large and soft as those of the mountain antelope. But almost immediately the little hands dropped their burden, and the weary child sank down at the feet of his companion in a profound sleep.

After he had seen the Indians comfortably accommodated, Fray Fernando repaired to Diego’s “house” (so called by way of eminence), to sup with the Spaniards, and to hear the news from the civilized world. But they had none. Their leader, calling himself Don Ramon de Virves, was on his return from an expedition along the coast, undertaken to “reduce” some of the still independent Indians under the dominion of the King of Spain and the Pope of Rome. So he styled it, in high-sounding Castilian; but in plain rough English, it was a marauding expedition. He had amassed in its course considerable treasures in gold and silver, a few valuable specimens of emerald and turquoise, and some other things not deserving particular enumeration. He seemed pleased to find a churchman in that remote solitude; and said he should be glad to confess and hear mass before going on his way next morning.

Fray Fernando guessed the reason for this request. Men did not usually come back from such excursions as Don Ramon’s with clean hands. He naturally would find it easier to pour the tale of his sins into the ears of a stranger whose face he might never see again, than to lay it bare for the inspection of one whose accusing eye might meet his too often, and with too much meaning for his peace. The monk granted his desire, all the more readily because the morrow happened to be a saint’s day—the festival of St. Joseph. The matter settled, Fray Fernando speedily quitted a scene of coarse revelry that had no charms for him.

Late as it now was, he could not sleep. But sleeplessness was no new thing with him; in broken rest he was growing continually worse. Too often did he spend the long silent hours of the night in living over the past—a record not to be dwelt on without keen and bitter anguish. At times, when sleep overcame him, he would start in terror at hideous forms and faces that seemed to stand before him. _One_ especially, a face familiar and loved in early youth; but pale, distorted, and with strange fear and horror in dilated eyes. In truth, of late, since his coming to Cerro Blanco, a change had passed over him that cost him many a cold and secret shudder. Sometimes these visions haunted him when _not_ asleep. Sometimes, while sitting with eyes open, and senses all awake, they drew near—they seemed to come within his grasp—and then would vanish—how and whither he could not tell. Even in the solitary mud-cabin called his cell from habit, he never felt alone, and least of all at night.

In order to banish these “temptations of the evil one” (as he called them), he tried fasting. This only aggravated the symptoms of his malady. He tried prayer—still they came. But his prayer was not real prayer; it was merely the repetition of a form,—a shadow, a lifeless thing.

And yet, sometimes, prayer and fasting gave relief—relief that almost grew to ecstacy. He dreamed that other visions might one day come—visions of glory, not of terror. Sinful as he was, such grace might be given him—and on some blessed day the white wings of angels might suddenly descend, and sweep away the demon host that pursued and tortured him.

Fray Fernando now stood at a place where two ways met. One of two destinies awaited him: either to become a saint, after Rome’s most approved pattern, or—to become insane.

III.

St. Joseph’s Tooth.

“Light for the forest child!
An outcast though he be
From the haunts where the sun of his childhood smiled,
And the country of the free.
Pour the hope of heaven o’er his desert wild;
For what home on earth hath he?”

SIGOURNEY.

Soon after daybreak next morning, Fray Fernando repaired to the little church—which was only a hut, larger and loftier than the rest, and adorned with a bell. He was in the habit of leaving the door open day and night; so he passed in without any delay, and walked quickly to the rough wooden box which he had caused to be erected by way of a confessional. But on attempting to enter it, he stumbled over something that lay beneath. In a moment, the Indian boy noticed on the preceding night sprang up and stood before him, with frame quivering, and cheek crimsoned beneath its olive hue. There was an evident struggle in the child’s mind. Should he turn and flee, or should he dare to stay, and cast himself on the mercy of the tall dark man in gray?

Fray Fernando ended his hesitation. He did not know his language, it is true, but he knew a much more ancient language, that of nature. At least, he had known it once, and had not quite forgotten it. He drew the child towards him, and sought to reassure him by gentle and caressing gestures, patting his shoulder and stroking his long glossy black hair. And he had well-nigh succeeded in soothing him, when suddenly the boy’s expression changed to one of intense and irrepressible terror; and he tried with all his might to break away from the monk. Don Ramon’s figure darkened the doorway.

“Good morning, padre!” said the soldier of fortune. “Santa Maria! what wind has blown that unlucky boy here? No doubt he has been trying to run away again. Little plague! But it shall be kill or cure with him this time.”

The monk had thrown his arm round the boy’s waist, partly to hold him fast, partly to keep him safe. And after a moment the child ceased to struggle, either because that grasp was so strong, or more probably because it was so gentle. But a thought flashed through Fray Fernando’s mind, giving instant birth to a purpose. “The boy has placed himself, though unconsciously, under the protection of Holy Church, and it shall not fail him.” He said aloud, “But what can you want with such a child, señor? He is too young to be worth much to you.”

“True. But I promised to send a present of a little Indian, for a page, to a lady in the Old Country, whom I hold in great esteem. And this boy, whom fortune has placed in my power, is just fit for the purpose, with his handsome face and his bright intelligent ways. You heard me tell last night the story of his capture? No? I forgot—you retired early. _Pues_, with your good leave, holy father, I have another story to tell now. But let me first call one of my men to take that child away.”

“Nay, rather permit me to keep him here for the present,” said Fray Fernando, who shrank from seeing the child used with harshness, and, moreover, had further thoughts which he did not care to divulge just yet.

He tried to make the boy understand by signs that he must remain where he was. Nor was this difficult; for the Indian seemed already to associate some idea of protection with his presence. He lay down tranquilly behind the confessional, choosing a spot whence he could see his new friend the monk, but not his enemy Don Ramon. And then the business of the morning proceeded.

We are not going to unveil the mysteries of confession, or to violate that secrecy which the Church of Rome requires her minister to guard even at the cost of life. Nor was there anything peculiar or exceptional in the tale that Don Ramon poured into the ears of Fray Fernando. It was only the story of a young man of great energy and strong passions, sent early to seek his fortune beyond the seas, removed from every restraining influence, and with the untold riches of the New World spread out before him; all that could gratify the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye to be had for the taking.

And yet the tale of wrong and robbery impressed Fray Fernando painfully. The monk was not hard by nature; though he might have been called a man hardened by the circumstances of his life. He had human sympathy; but it was like the drop of water sometimes found embedded in a stone. It was difficult to reach. Unknown to himself, however, a softening power was at work with him that morning. He imposed upon Don Ramon as severe a penance as he dared, for the unprovoked and treacherous slaughter of a little settlement of independent Indians, surprised in one of the oases of the great desert he had been traversing. It could not, indeed, have been much more severe, had the penitent insulted a friar, destroyed an image of our Lady, or maintained one of Luther’s heretical opinions. And he told him plainly that unless he changed his present course of life, he would one day find himself face to face with certain just judgments of God against them that do such things, which neither priestly absolution, prayers, penances, nor sacraments could avert.

When the rite was over, it wanted some time yet to the hour appointed for mass. Fray Fernando turned, pointed to the little captive, and said boldly, “You will gain neither honour nor profit by a prisoner taken as you took that child, Don Ramon.”

“St. Jago! after all you have said, I am nearly of the same mind myself. But what can a man do? When a fair lady breathes a wish to a loyal caballero and her devoted slave, it behoves him to go even through blood and fire to fulfil it.”

“Not through the blood of women and babes, and the fire of their burning homes,” said Fray Fernando, perhaps a little too boldly.

Don Ramon was somewhat chafed. “I am not worse than others, holy father,” he said. “I do wrong to no christened man; and I am always careful to give the Church her due. Even now, I intend to consecrate to our Lady of Atocha gold enough out of my spoils to make a pair of candlesticks for her altar.”

“In the compassionate eyes of our Lady, mercy and pity are more precious than gold,” returned the monk. “And believe me, Señor Don Ramon,” he continued with increasing earnestness, “your suit with the fair lady you speak of will prosper all the better if you consult the will of God and the health of your own soul in the disposition of your captives. That boy seems so much attached to his freedom, that he will either succeed in escaping you, in spite of all your precautions, or you will have to use such harsh measures to restrain him, that he may escape you in another way.”

“Yet ’twere pity to lose him. He is the handsomest of his race that I have seen.”

“True. And I do not care to hide from you that my heart is drawn to the child. I would gladly keep him myself, and bring him up.”

Don Ramon laughed. “Commend me to the holy fathers, the sons of St. Francis,” he said. “They know how to order their affairs with discretion. You have taken a fancy to my captive, padre, and you want him yourself. So you try to persuade me that I will mightily serve my soul’s interests by giving him up to you. But you forget his propensities for running away.”

“I do not. But I shall make a Christian of him; then if he goes, I cannot help it; if he stays, I shall instruct him carefully in the verities of our holy Faith, that he may instruct his brethren.”

“A course of action like to prove very beneficial—suppose you persevere in it—to the Indians, and perhaps to your own soul also. But I know not how it is to benefit me, who have had all the toil and the fighting, not to speak of an arrow in my left leg, which might have been poisoned, for aught I knew to the contrary.”

“I have not forgotten your interests in the matter, nor am I so unreasonable as to ask you to give me your prisoner for nothing. I have something to offer you in exchange worth a dozen Indian captives. Moreover, I do not insist, though I might, upon the fact that you will be doing a good work, very useful to yourself, in giving up the child to me for the purpose I have named.”

“Well, well, holy father, let us hear what you have to offer. Nevertheless, the good work is the main thing. A man ought to think of his soul’s salvation.”

The monk drew from beneath his robe a little box of amber, with hinges and rims of gold, and with much reverence and solemnity of manner showed it to the soldier.

“A holy relic?” inquired the latter, with bowed head and voice decorously lowered, as in the presence of majesty.

“A tooth of the blessed St. Joseph, whose festival we celebrate to-day,” said Fray Fernando reverently.

A pause followed this solemn and impressive announcement. Then the monk opened the little box, and displayed the relic to the admiring gaze of Don Ramon. “It is of most undoubted authenticity, and of very powerful virtue,” he said. “And the motive which could induce me to part with it must needs be a strong one. I have kept it for many years—indeed, since my early childhood. It was given me by—” But here he broke off hastily, leaving his sentence incomplete. His eyes turned from the little amber box to the eager face of the Indian boy, who was watching them with an evident suspicion that their conversation concerned himself.

“Such a thing as that would do a man no harm in a fight or a shipwreck?” said Don Ramon. And the assertion, as he put it, was indisputable.

“It will do you good and not harm wherever you are; in the field or in the house, in the land or on the sea,” returned Fray Fernando. “Always supposing”—common sense and candour obliged him to add—“that you are not engaged in any business of which the holy saint would disapprove.”

“I intend to pay more regard to these considerations in future,” said Don Ramon. “Well then, holy father, since such is your pleasure, take the boy, and I take the relic. Perhaps you would have no objection to throw me a mass or two into the bargain? Ours is a wild life—though we do good service to holy Church in fighting the infidels. And as we take care of her interests, it may not be too much to hope that she will look to ours.”

Fray Fernando satisfied him on the subject of the masses; and as Pepe, who acted the part of acolyte, had by this time begun to ring the bell, he led the little Indian boy to his own cell, where he took the precaution of shutting him up, having first supplied him with food.

After mass, Don Ramon and his companions partook of a liberal breakfast, and then resumed their journey. Just before his departure, however, the soldier of fortune drew the monk aside. “Here,” he said with the air of one conferring no inconsiderable favour—“here is a golden ornament which belonged to the mother of that child. I may as well give it you; perhaps it may serve hereafter to identify him. At all events, you will favour me by accepting it as an acknowledgment of your valuable spiritual ministrations. I took it, with my own hands, from her mantle, when I found her lying dead the morning after we made her and the boy our prisoners.”

Something about robbery for burnt-offering flashed through Fray Fernando’s mind, but he took the jewel without any other comment than a brief “Thank you.” It was a large golden pin, somewhat resembling a spoon in shape, and with figures ingeniously cut all over its surface.

Shortly afterwards, Fray Fernando visited his little prisoner. The child was looking out of the window of the cell when he entered; but he turned quickly round, took a mat from the floor, rolled it up to resemble a burden, placed it on his head, and then walking gravely towards his new master, deposited it at his feet.

Fray Fernando could not imagine what he meant by this pantomime; but anxious to soothe him and to reconcile him to his situation, he drew his arm round him, and began to stroke and caress him, as he had done in the morning. Then recollecting one of the very few phrases he happened to know of the child’s native tongue, the Quichua, he asked, “_Yma sutinque?_” (“What is your name?”)

The boy, disengaging himself gently from his caressing arm, stood before him, with head erect, and dark eyes kindling with evident pride, as he answered, “_Viracocha Yntip Churi_.”

“God and our Lady bless thee, poor heathen child. Thou shalt have a better name than that, a _Christian_ name, ere this sun goes down,” said Fray Fernando.

That very day, accordingly, he baptized the child in the presence of the whole colony. He gave him the name of José, which he thought singularly appropriate, both because the boy was baptized on St. Joseph’s day, and because his freedom was purchased with a relic of that saint.

Both the Spaniards and the negroes were edified by the evident willingness with which the little heathen submitted to the rite. It was not until long afterwards that Fray Fernando discovered that the neophyte had put a meaning of his own upon what was otherwise meaningless to him. He imagined that this was a ceremony by which his kind protector was publicly asserting his claim to him.

But that claim had already been asserted, and confirmed by a pledge stronger than many ceremonies—by love given and returned. And it was allowed in the child’s heart.

IV.

Viracocha.

“A child in whom childhood’s life was dead,
Its sweet light marred and dim.”

MRS. STUART MENTEITH.

Fray Fernando soon became aware that he had taken upon himself a troublesome charge. The little Indian was gentle and docile, and he did not show the slightest inclination to run away. But his attachment to his benefactor took a turn that was both inconvenient and embarrassing. Fray Fernando of course intended to instruct him; but supposed that when his short daily lesson was over, he would be content to run about the galpon and to play with the negro children. But he soon found that the dusky Indian looked on the black Africans with contempt and aversion. Whenever Fray Fernando gave him dried fruit or _huminta_,[1] he called the little negroes about him, and shared his treasures very liberally; but that done, he walked quietly away from them, and established himself on his mat at the feet of his protector. Often he sat or lay there for hours, perfectly quiet and silent. But sometimes he talked to himself, or sang very sweet and mournful songs in his native tongue; and two or three times he positively frightened Fray Fernando by sudden bursts of passionate weeping. On these occasions he would throw himself on the ground, wailing and sobbing without restraint, and often repeating, in tones of the most heart-rending sorrow, “_Ay, mamallay! ay, mamallay!_” And by that cry Fray Fernando knew that the orphan child was in bitterness, mourning for his mother. But as soon as the paroxysm was over, he would resume the grave and mournful silence that seemed so unnatural in a child. Fray Fernando began to fear that he might pine away and die; and was but partially reassured by Diego, who knew something of the Indians, and told him that grave silent ways were characteristic of the race.

José, as he was now called, could by no means be induced to sleep anywhere except in his patron’s cell. Sometimes Fray Fernando, to whom the practice was not at all agreeable, positively refused him admittance, having first provided another resting-place for him. But in the morning he was sure to find him, no matter how great the cold might be (and he was very sensitive to cold), lying crouched at his door. Except in this one matter, he was always obedient to his protector. He learned quickly to understand what was said to him in Spanish, but was slow in attempting to speak it; whether from want of ability or want of inclination his instructor could not tell. From certain observances that he practised occasionally—such as kissing the air and looking towards the sun, at the time of its rising and setting—Fray Fernando gathered that he had been taught to worship that luminary. By way of antidote, he brought him regularly to chapel, and instructed him carefully in the ceremonies proper to the place.

The first question volunteered by his little pupil gave the monk as keen a sensation of pleasure as the sight of the first flower of spring after the rains and frosts of winter. One day he brought the boy, who had now been several months under his care, to see the mine. He looked at everything, in his quiet, grave, intelligent way, as if he understood it perfectly. But as they were returning he asked suddenly, “Patre” (so he always pronounced padre, the first Spanish word he learned)[2]—“patre, how did the gold get so far down into the ground?”

“God made it there, my son,” said Fray Fernando.

“Yachani—I know. Pacha-camac made everything,” the child returned, bowing low at the mention of the great Name, then slowly raising his open hands to Heaven, in token of adoration. “But the gold is the tears of Ynty.”

“Who is Ynty?” asked the monk.

With a reverent gesture the child pointed upwards to the object of his race’s homage, the glorious Sun.

“God made Ynty, and he is His servant,” said Fray Fernando, not unwisely, in reply.

“Yachani—I know,” José answered quietly.

Some time after this little incident, the Indians from the valley came as usual with their tribute. On these occasions José’s faculty of speech never failed to return to him; he chattered Quichua with his brethren as long as they might be permitted to remain together. Fray Fernando liked to see him awakened, even for a time, from his unchildlike languor and listlessness; he therefore rather encouraged his intercourse with the other Indians.

Bitterly did he regret this indulgence afterwards. A virulent fever was laying waste the valleys, counting its victims by thousands amongst a people healthy and long-lived under favourable conditions, but deficient in strength, and with constitutions easily shattered by disease or hardship. Ere the next morning’s dawn José was tossing on his mat, freezing and burning, speaking strange words in Quichua, and moaning piteously for his mother.

Fray Fernando was greatly distressed for the child. Moreover, he was alarmed, not without cause, for the health of the rest of the colony. He determined to attend the sick boy himself, and to allow no one else to approach him. Even setting aside the danger of infection, he could not trust him to the care of the negro women, who, though kind-hearted enough, were very ignorant and stupid.

His knowledge of medicine was very limited, and he had little at command. The Indians were indeed well acquainted with the healing virtues of many of their plants, and used them with considerable skill and intelligence; but Fray Fernando had no means of communication with them. All that common sense and tender kindness could suggest, he did for his patient; the rest he was obliged to leave to nature.

Soon it appeared as though the little life, watched with such interest for well-nigh a whole year, was ebbing fast away. This did not surprise, though it grieved him. The child had been pining ever since he came to him. The slightest strain would suffice to break the slender thread. And as he sat and watched beside him through the long dark hours of the night (in that equatorial region nearly equal to the day), he thought within himself how much he should miss and mourn him. Truly the orphan had given back sevenfold the benefit received. He had made his days less dreary, less miserable, and his nights far less terrible. Whither now had vanished those visions of horror that were wont to haunt him through the sleepless hours of darkness? José’s presence had dispelled them, as the sun dispels the shadows of the night. Fray Fernando, as yet, did not fully understand from _what_ he had thus been saved; but he felt as though the mists of a dark dread which had overhung his life were gradually clearing away—he hoped for ever.

But now it seemed as if he must part with his treasure, and return to his former lonely, desolate state. The fever having run its course, the little patient lay, weak and helpless, with the look of one whose life is fading. Hoping against hope, he administered, continually and in smallest quantities, the strongest stimulant, the sora of the Indians. Anxious hours passed away with little change, yet with no visible decrease of strength. A long, weary night followed, during which Fray Fernando found it hard to tell whether José slept or waked, or lay in stupor, unconscious of all around.

At length day appeared. The sun rose suddenly, as it does in those tropical lands. José moved, looked at Fray Fernando, and smiled. He drank the cordial held to his lips, then feebly whispered something. Fray Fernando bent over him to listen. “I want to see my Father’s face,” he repeated more distinctly.

Fray Fernando feared the mind was wandering still. “My poor child,” he said, “your father is dead—long since.”

“_My_ Father never dies,” the child responded, with a look half of surprise, half of reproach. “Don’t you know him?—Ynty the Glorious!” he added, speaking with more energy than Fray Fernando thought him capable of showing.

“When my child is better,” he replied evasively, “he shall go forth and see the sunshine.”

But José was not satisfied; and again, after a little pause, he pleaded, “Let me see my Father’s face, good patre.”

Fray Fernando, with new and suddenly awakened interest, now ventured to put a question to his child. “Does my little José then claim kindred with the princes of his people—the Incas—the Children of the Sun?” For even the haughty Spanish conquerors could not withhold the tribute of their reverence from the truly royal line they had so cruelly despoiled.

“I am Viracocha Yntip Churi, in Spanish talk, Viracocha—Child of the Sun,” the boy replied.

Then Fray Fernando wrapped him gently in the soft warm skins of the vicuña, carried him tenderly out, and laid him in the sunshine.

When brought back to his couch again, the tired child whispered, “My Father kissed me;” and fell into the soundest and most natural sleep he had had since his illness.

V

Viracocha’s Fathers.

“The warrior kings, whose banners
Flew far as eagles fly;
They are gone where swords avail them not
From the feast of victory.”

HEMANS.

From that time Fray Fernando took care that his little charge should enjoy all the sunshine it was in his power to give him. And whether the light and the fresh air, aided perhaps by the child’s superstition, really worked a cure, or whether nature, left to herself, simply rallied her well-nigh exhausted powers, it is certain that José’s health improved, though slowly, and with many variations.

He seemed now as anxious to talk Spanish as he had previously been to avoid it. Fray Fernando gladly encouraged this propensity; the more so as he was now desirous of learning all the child could tell him about his own history.

One day as he sat with him in the sunshine he said to him, “You call yourself Yntip Churi, Child of the Sun. Are you, then, a kinsman of the Inca, Atahualpa, the same the conquistadors slew at Caxa-marca?”

But the child’s weak frame trembled at the question, which seemed to him an insult. “Oh no, no!” he answered. “Thank Ynty, I am not. Atahualpa was not Inca, he was _aucca_—how call you it?—coward—traitor. He slew the true Inca, Huascar, the great Huayna Capac’s lawful son.”

“But Atahualpa was also the son of Huayna Capac, was he not?” asked the puzzled monk, who could not boast of much acquaintance with the history of the conquered race.

“Yes,” eagerly explained the little partizan. “But what did that matter? His mother was not _Coya_;[3] she was not even a Child of the Sun. She was only a daughter of the King of Quito, whom Huayna Capac Inca conquered. Huayna Capac was brave and gentle; and he was wont to say that he never refused a woman anything. So she made him promise to give the kingdom of his fathers to her son. And having that, he wanted all. Hence the cruel war, and the death of Huascar, the true Inca. _Alalau!_[4] never did Children of the Sun slay one another until then.”

“And who taught you these things, my child?”

“Mamallay—my mother.”