The Romance of Golden Star ...

G >> George Chetwynd Griffith >> The Romance of Golden Star ...

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

When he had finished, I bade Tupac summon all who were present to the
foot of the throne, and then I spoke to them of the plans that I had
made with Francis Hartness in all their details, and showed them how
each, according to his opportunities, could give his help in carrying
them out, and then, as by this time the night was far spent and there
was yet work of another sort to do, I sent them back to their seats, and
calling Ruth and Golden Star to me, I bade them follow me, and led the
way down the hall and through one of the passages at the end until I
brought them to a chamber which Tupac and his comrades had already
prepared for them by my orders, and here I left them to take their rest
together, promising to return in the morning.

When I got back into the throne-room Djama asked me whither I had taken
his sister, and I told him what I had done, saying that the hour was now
too late for us to return to our home on the other side of the valley,
and that, moreover, it was needful for us to go back to the Hall of Gold
to make a proper count of the treasure and to let him and the professor
swear their oaths of secrecy in the presence of the fathers of my
people.

Then I left him, looking much more ill at ease than such tidings should
have made him feel, and told Tupac in the ancient tongue to take three
of his companions and go and do that which it was now time to do. So he
went and chose his men and departed through the bronze doors by which we
had entered the hall. After that I named a guard to remain all night in
the hall, and bade the rest go and put on their everyday clothing, and
I, too, went back into the chamber behind the throne and changed my
imperial garments for the others that I had put off.

Then I ordered the torches and candles to be extinguished, all saving a
few that were left for the guards, and then the eyes of Djama and the
professor were bandaged afresh, though those of Francis Hartness--he
being now one of us and devoted to our cause--were left open; and when
this was done the lanterns were lit and I led the way into the
ante-chamber of the throne-room, where the bronze doors still stood open
as Tupac had left them.

I stood by them till the last man had passed out, then I went through
and closed them. Then I followed the rest and again placed myself at
their head. But when we reached the end of the straight passage, instead
of turning the revolving pillar which closed the entrance of the
winding passage leading to the Hall of Gold, I sought about with my
lantern on the floor until I found three marks in the shape of a
triangle in one corner of a great square slab of stone, and, taking a
long staff which one of the men carried, I placed the end on the
triangle and calling two others to help me, we bore downwards with all
our weight, and when we had thrust awhile on the staff the corner of the
slab sank into the floor and it turned on a diagonal axis until it stood
upright, leaving a three-cornered space large enough for a man's body to
pass through easily. Then I made a sign to one of the Ayllos and said,--

'Anahuac, take your lantern down there and light the way down the
steps.'

'Truly there are no secrets in the land hidden from the eyes of our
Lord!' he said, glancing round in wonder at the rest, and then he
lowered himself with his lantern into the hole and disappeared.

Then I bade the rest follow him one by one, and so all went down, I
going last with Francis Hartness, who helped me to put the stone back
into its place.

Our way now led along a rough-hewn gallery that sloped gently upwards
for some twelve hundred paces, and at the end of it there was a little
chamber measuring some twenty feet each way and having no apparent
outlet, but in the middle of one of the walls there was another of the
cunningly-constructed revolving stones which our ancient masons ever
used to bar their secret ways, and this three of our men, working as I
told them, turned on its hinge, and through the opening that was thus
made we passed out in single file to a little rock-walled valley over
which the stars were shining.

The door was closed behind us, and dust and dirt were rubbed over the
thin lines which marked where it fitted into the rock, and then we
extinguished our lanterns and passed out of the valley on to the pampa.

The place where we had come out was about a thousand paces from the
walls of the Sacsahuaman. We halted on the plain and I gave my last
orders to the Ayllos. Then we set out in the direction of the Fortress,
and as we went one by one my followers disappeared silently into the
half darkness about us till at last only four of them were left, two
leading Djama and two the professor.

I had been talking of many things with Francis Hartness on the way, and
showing him how in the olden times we had made use of the secret
passages such as those he had already seen, and when we saw that we had
come out by a way different to that which we had entered, he asked me
the reason of it, and I answered him in a low voice and said,--

'Because the other way is closed. Have patience a little while and you
shall see why.'

Then we went on our way in silence until we came to the edge of the
valley in which the Sayacusca stands. Here I halted and whispered a few
words to the men who were leading Djama and the professor. They slipped
off their ponchos and threw them over the heads of their prisoners, for
such the two were now to be for the present. I heard a muffled cry from
Djama, and I went to him and put my hand on his shoulder and said in a
whisper,--

'Keep quiet and lie down. These men have knives and will use them at my
bidding.'

Then they pulled him and the professor down, and they lay quiet, knowing
that their lives were in my hands, and I lay down on the edge of the
valley, signing to Francis Hartness to come and lie beside me. Then I
pointed into the valley and bade him watch. Presently, in the dim light,
we made out figures moving about the rock, and caught every now and then
the glint of the star-rays along thin lines of polished metal.

'Rifle barrels!' he whispered. 'What are they doing here? I didn't know
that your men had any weapons yet.'

'No,' I said, 'those are in the hands of soldiers from Cuzco. The time
has come sooner than I thought for, and yet not too soon. You will see
the first blow struck for the freedom of my people before to-morrow's
sun rises.'

FOOTNOTES:

[C] The queen-consort of the Inca, as distinguished from the many others
whom the ancient laws allowed him to marry.

CHAPTER IX

THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA

'Wait now for a little while with patience,' I said, laying my hand on
his shoulder, 'and you shall see a strange thing, a thing that shall
show you how strong the old traditions are still in the land of the
Incas. Lie here and do not let yourself be seen till I send a messenger
for you. It will not be very long.'

He nodded and I rose quietly to my feet and went round the hollow until
I got the great stone between me and the place where the soldiers were
standing, and then I went down on my hands and knees and crept quietly
towards it and climbed up a flight of steps carved in it. This took me
to the top of the cleft in which is the broken stairway. I climbed down
this and dropped softly into the hole at the bottom. It was dry now, for
Tupac had done that which I had bidden him in the throne-room. I felt
my way down the steps till I came to the wall at the bottom. Then I
whispered his name, and he answered out of the darkness in the old
language,--

'I am here, Lord, and all that has been ordered is done.'

I crept towards him along the wall, measuring my way along it with my
outstretched arms till I knew that I had come to the revolving stone
which closed the way into the hall. He was standing against it, and one
of the others was with him. I felt over the door till I found the silver
socket, and then we opened the door as before with the bar which Tupac
had brought. Then I went down through the hall and lighted a lantern and
went into the little chamber where, as before, I changed my clothing for
the imperial robes, and set the Llautu on my head; but I kept on my belt
under my cloak, and put two revolvers in it in case I should need them,
and when I went back into the hall Tupac and the others were lighting
candles and putting them in the holders round the walls as I had bidden
them. When this was done I said to him,--

'Go now and bring the others down, first the soldiers with their
officer, by whose side you must keep closely, and see that your knife
is ready. Then let Ainu bring the Men of the Blood, and the strangers
quickly after them, and bid Anahuac and Ainu close the door when the
last man has entered.'

He bowed his head, and the two went out and left me sitting there on a
seat built up of blocks of gold before the pyramid, waiting to play my
part in the scene that was to follow, and strike the first blow in the
battle that I had come to fight. Presently I heard the rattle of arms
and the sound of footsteps coming along the passage. I took one of the
revolvers out of my belt and held it ready under my cloak, and sat still
and rigid as the effigy of Yupanqui, looking straight before me at the
entrance at the other end.

Tupac came in first, and close behind him was a Spanish officer with a
drawn sword in his hand. After him came the soldiers, two and two, with
their rifles and bayonets. The officer stopped and stared about him,
blinking with eyes half dazzled by the sudden light and the glitter of
the gold and jewels which he saw wherever he looked. The same instant I
saw the gleam of steel in Tupac's hand close to his yellow throat. Then
he said to him in Spanish,--

'Put up your sword, senor, and come with me and beg your life from the
Son of the Sun who sits yonder on his throne.'

The Spaniard uttered a loud cry of amazement as his eyes fell upon me,
for so far he had not seen me, having been too much taken up by the
splendours of the hall. Then he turned and called to his soldiers, but
while the cry was still in his throat, Tupac's arm went round his neck
and the knife-point touched his skin. Then he bade two of the soldiers
take the sword out of his hand and hold him fast, which they did,
greatly to his wonder, for he did not know that the betrayer was already
betrayed. As soon as he was safe, Tupac told the other soldiers to take
their places along the walls, and they did so in silence, yet wondering
greatly at all they saw. There were four-and-twenty of them, not
counting the two who held the officer, all men of Indian blood whom the
Spaniards[D] had made rather slaves than soldiers to fight their petty
quarrels for them for little pay and scanty food.

After them came Anahuac and Ainu and the rest of the Men of the Blood,
bringing with them Djama and the professor blindfolded, and Francis
Hartness with his eyes unbound. All this time I had neither moved nor
made a sound, and the soldiers were looking at me almost in terror,
wondering whether I was truly a man or one of the dead Incas with living
eyes in his head. As for the Spanish officer, being a coward, as many of
his sort are, he was already white with fear, and his knees were shaking
as he stood between the two soldiers who held him. When all had entered,
Anahuac came and prostrated himself before me and said,--

'The commands of the Son of the Sun are obeyed. All are here, and the
door is shut.'

Before I answered him, I called Francis Hartness to me and said,--

'Come here and stand by me, my friend, for I shall need your counsel.'

He came and stood by me on my right hand, saying as he looked still
wonderingly at me,--

'This means treachery, I suppose, and after that, tragedy. Is that why
you left Ruth and Golden Star in the Fortress? I am afraid you had only
too much reason to, but I hope, for Ruth's sake, you will do justice
with as much mercy as you can.'

'You shall see,' I answered. 'But if it were not for her you would see
justice without mercy.'

Then I bade Anahuac rise, and told him and Tupac to unbind the eyes of
Djama and the professor and bring them before me.

As Djama's eyes opened to the light, he stared about him in silence for
a moment. His face was very pale, and his lips were twitching and
trembling. The professor, too, looked about him, also wondering greatly
at what he saw; but neither of them spoke till they had been led forward
and stood before me. Then, while Djama still kept silence, the
professor, looking from me to Hartness, said in a voice that had much
wonder, but no fear or sign of guilt, in it,--

'What is this? What does all this mean? What are all these soldiers here
for, Vilcaroya? I thought it was so important that all this should be
kept secret? Surely no one has betrayed you already? But no, that can't
be. Hartness, what does it all mean?'

'It means--first,' I said, speaking very slowly, and not in a loud
voice, 'that you have been brought here with Laurens Djama to take the
oath which you agreed to take--never to reveal the secrets of the things
that you have learned. I ask your pardon for the rude way in which my
people have brought you, but it was necessary.'

Then I turned to Djama, who was standing silent and motionless, with
clenched teeth and set face, like one who knows that he stands near his
doom and has no hope of mercy, and said,--

'Now, Laurens Djama, are you ready to do as you promised to do when I
told you that I would give you the half of this gold for what you have
done for me and Golden Star? Are you ready to swear the oath here, in
the presence of these witnesses, that you swore to me then?'

He drew himself up and looked at me boldly--for he was a brave man
although his heart was black--and said to me with a hard, harsh laugh in
his voice,--

'You have been too clever for me, and so I suppose you have the right to
mock me. There is no need to go on with this farce. The sight of your
treasures gave me the gold-fever, I suppose, and it drove me mad, as it
has driven many others mad, and I betrayed you. There is no use saying
any more. I see that I have been betrayed too, and that my life is in
your hands, so I need only say that I keep the right of taking it myself
in my own way.'

'There is no need for that yet,' I said, 'and others are concerned in
this besides you.'

Then I turned from him to Francis Hartness and said,--

'I cannot speak the Spanish speech, and I would not if I could. Do you
therefore speak to the Spaniard yonder, and bid him say how he came to
be here with his soldiers. Tell him, too, that if he lies, or refuses to
speak, he shall be buried in the gold he came to steal until the weight
of it crushes his life out. But say to him that if he speaks the truth
and holds nothing back and does as I shall bid him, he shall have his
life, and afterwards as much gold as three men can carry.'

So then Francis Hartness turned to the trembling Spaniard and questioned
him, and he confessed freely as soon as he knew he was not to be killed,
and told how Djama had gone to the Governor of Cuzco and told him of my
coming and of a great treasure that he would show him, and of others
that I knew the secret of and might be made to reveal, and how he had
bargained that half of all that was found should be his and the other
half the Governor's, if he would help him to carry it to the coast in
safety and put it on a steamer. The Spaniard told also how the Governor,
who was his own father, had only half believed this story, and had
bidden him bring a company of soldiers to the appointed place and see if
there was any truth in Djama's story, and, if he found there was, to
take Djama and all of us prisoners and carry us back to Cuzco, and put
us into the prison until he could question us the next day.

When he had finished, Djama laughed again and said,--

'There's the honour of a Peruvian! Serve me right for being such a fool
as to trust to it!'

But I bade him sternly to hold his peace till he should be told to
speak, and then, when Francis Hartness had told me in English what the
Spaniard had said, I bade Tupac and Anahuac stand forward and tell of
their share in what had been done, so that all might understand. They
told their story in Quichua, and when I translated it into English to
Francis Hartness I made few words of it, of which the meaning was
this,--

Ever since Tupac and his comrades had recognised me as their lord, and
sworn their faith to me, they, and others whom they trusted, had
industriously spread abroad the news of my coming--though telling
nothing that would make a traitor able to betray us--and, in proof of
their story, little wedges of gold, stamped with the ancient symbol of
the Sun, had been passed from hand to hand as earnest of my promise that
I would use the hidden treasures of the Incas for the benefit of my
people, and make money of gold where now there was only silver and
copper.

By this time, not only had the golden wedges gone far and wide through
the land, but nearly all the soldiers of the pure Indian blood had been
won over to my cause, for, as I have said, and as everyone in the
country knows, these soldiers are treated with great hardness by their
Spanish masters, who often pay them nothing for many weeks or months
together, and give them scanty food and hard usage, and cast them into
prison or flog them and shoot them if they think to do anything to get
justice. Moreover, there are always factions of men they call
politicians scheming for power and setting the soldiers fighting against
one another and against their countrymen for no benefit to themselves.
So what Francis Hartness had told me on the night that Golden Star had
come back to life had already begun to come true. More than half the
garrison of Cuzco had already been won over, and only waited for the
signal which should bid the whole Indian population of the valley to
rise and seize the arms and ammunition in the city, and make the
officers and the Governor and all the officials prisoners.

Anahuac's daughter was a servant in the Governor's house, and this girl
understood Spanish, though she pretended only to know Quichua and the
dialect of the people, and she had been set to watch,[E] and Tupac's
eldest son had also been secretly watching all the comings and goings of
Djama since we came to Cuzco. In this way his visit to the Governor had
been made known to me, and then one of the soldiers in the company that
had been ordered to go with the Governor's son to the Rodadero had told
Tupac of the order, and I had arranged with him how the surprise was to
be carried out, and this, as you have seen, had been done with complete
success.

When I had finished telling this to Hartness I turned to the professor
and said to him kindly,--

'There has been nothing said that brings any share of the guilt of this
treason to you, so now, if you will promise me on your faith and honour
as an Englishman to keep my secrets and obey such commands as I shall
put upon you for your own safety and that of all of us, you shall go
free, and you shall have the choice of going back to England or to any
other country until the war is over, or of staying here under my
protection until you can go away safely with the treasure which shall
be yours. But if you go now you cannot take it with you, for in a few
days from now there will be war throughout the whole land, and it would
be impossible to take so much treasure to the coast. Now, what do you
say?'

He thought for a moment and then said,--

'I am not a man of war, as you know Vilcaroya, but I hope I am a man of
honour. I have never breathed a syllable that could have given anyone an
inkling of your secret, and I promise you solemnly that I never will.
What Djama has done distresses me even more than it amazes me. I would
have staked my life on his honesty, and if you will release him and let
him come with me--'

'No, no, my friend!' I said, quickly and sternly. 'What you would ask is
impossible. His aims were deeper and his sin was blacker than it has
been shown to be here. He did not betray us for gold alone, for he knew
that I would keep my promise and give him more than he could want. He
would have given me to my enemies to be killed--it might have been by
tortures, to make me say where my treasures were hidden--so that he
might have had Golden Star at his mercy.'

'It was your own fault, curse you! Why did you not give her to me?'
Djama cried suddenly, breaking loose from the two who held his arms and
putting his hand to his pistol pocket. The next instant my own revolver
was out from under my cloak and levelled at his heart.

'Another motion and I will kill you,' I said, 'though so quick a death
would be too good for you. Tie his hands behind his back and hold him
faster this time. Give me his pistol.'

Before I had done speaking they had seized him again in spite of his
struggles, and paying no heed to his cries and imprecations--for by this
time his long-pent-up passion had broken loose and made him almost mad,
and when they had given me his pistol I said to him,--

'I told you that Golden Star should be yours if you could win her as an
honest man. But you sought to steal her as you would have stolen my
gold. That is enough; keep silence now, or you shall be gagged.'

Then I held out my hand to the professor and said,--

'I will accept your promise, for you are an honest man. There is my
hand. Now we will be friends as before, and I will answer for your
safety. Will you go or stay with us?'

'I will stay,' he said, 'for my studies are not completed yet, and
besides, I am anxious to see what the Inca empire will be like when it
is restored.'

'I am glad that you say so,' I replied, 'for you are welcome, and you
shall make your home here always if you will.'

Then I bade them stand the Spanish officer in the professor's place
beside Djama, and, turning to Francis Hartness, said,--

'These men are worthy of death, for they would have delivered us to
death, but I cannot kill Djama since Joyful Star might hate me for it,
and if I do not kill him it would not be justice to kill the Spaniard.
What shall I do?'

'I see nothing for it,' he said, after thinking awhile, 'but shutting
them up safely until we have got this business over, and then sending
them out of the country and forbidding them to come back under pain of
death. There are plenty of places that they would be perfectly safe in.'

'That is well thought of, my friend,' I said, 'and it shall be done.
They came for gold and they shall have it. They shall live in it, and
see gold, and nothing but gold, till the sight of it is hateful to them.
They shall have a prison of gold, and eat and drink from gold, and sleep
and walk and sit on gold. Yes, truly, they shall have enough of gold
before they see the light of day again. Now tell the Spaniard what I
have said.'

He did so, and at first the wretch's eyes glittered and then grew dim
when the true meaning of his doom came upon him, for it meant he knew
not how long an imprisonment with a man who had betrayed his friends,
and whom, as he had confessed, he would himself have betrayed; and he
thought, too, that I had only promised him his life and the gold to make
him speak, and that now I would keep him prisoner and perhaps kill him
in the end. So he fell on his knees, like the craven that he was, and
begged for mercy, and told Hartness of my promise, and with Hartness's
lips I told him only that he must have patience and wait until it was my
pleasure to do what I had said.

After this I called Tupac and Anahuac and told them what I wished done,
and they took a score of their men and forthwith began to build, in a
corner of the hall beside the throne, a chamber measuring some ten feet
each way, of the oblong blocks of gold which were piled up in the
pyramid, and while they were doing this I called the soldiers before me
and told them, speaking in their own dialect, that if they were faithful
to me until the end of the war, each man should have one ounce weight of
gold paid to him every month, and one ounce more for each of his
comrades that he could persuade to join us, and for this night's work I
would give them each a wedge of gold of the weight of two ounces, which
was more money than all that they had earned in their lives before; and
when I had promised this they went on their knees and swore faith to me
and destruction to their hated Spanish masters.

Then I told them how Francis Hartness would lead them to battle and to
victory as he had led the soldiers of his own nation, and after that he
spoke to them in Spanish, and told them what to tell their comrades and
what was to be done with the arms and ammunition when the signal for the
rising was given.

All this while Djama and the Spaniard were kept standing watching the
building of their golden prison-cell. The men worked swiftly, and the
many hands made the toil light, and they built the walls up very thick
and strong, fitting the golden bricks closely into each other, and
making the walls smooth and without hand or foot-hold, so that neither
could any of the bricks be got out, nor the walls be climbed. The cell
was divided into two by another wall, and when the walls were finished
they were about ten feet high, and there was an opening into each cell
in front, large enough for a man to crawl in on his hands and knees.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14