The Romance of Golden Star ...

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

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But better than all was the utter, and, as far as all men, save
ourselves, could see, the hopeless poverty of the country. Long years of
plundering had emptied the treasury. Commerce was leaving the shores,
and industries were languishing throughout the land. No man trusted his
neighbour, for nearly all were in debt, and none could get paid, and my
own people, the slaves of the children of the Spaniards, and the sport
of their blind and brutal jesting, had borne their heavy burdens till
their backs were sore, sore as their patient hearts were, and they would
bear them no longer.

From the country which is called Ecuador, and which in my other life had
been Quito, the kingdom of Atahuallpa, to the southern confines of
Bolivia, which had once been part of the Land of the Four Regions, the
dominions of my own father, all were ready to throw down their
long-borne burdens and turn and rend their oppressors and those whose
fathers had robbed them of the land that had once been theirs.

I well remember the very words in which Francis Hartness told me all
this at much greater length than I have set it down here; and this is
what he said when, as the stars were paling in the sky above us and the
eastern mountains were beginning to stand out sharply against the
growing light of the coming dawn, our long talk drew to its close,--

'In short, Vilcaroya, if I were given to that sort of thing, I could
believe that the very Fates themselves had conspired to prepare the way
for you. You have come back to the world and to your own country at the
very moment that these miserable wretches are getting ready to tear each
other to pieces. The government is as hopeless as it is impossible, and
the popular party, as they call themselves, have neither a leader that
they can trust, nor money to buy weapons and pay their soldiers with.
The treasury is empty, for, so to speak, almost the last dollar had been
stolen. The native troops have had no regular pay for months, and I
believe they would desert to a regiment if they once believed that you
are what you are, and that you possess, as you do, the means of paying
them well and honestly for their help.

'And, after all, I don't know that even I, as a soldier, could call it
desertion under such circumstances. You are of their own blood, the son
of one of their ancient kings. These people, these Peruvians, are only
mongrel descendants of those who have plundered and oppressed them for
centuries. They owe them no allegiance that is worth the name; but you
they would hail, not only as their lawful king, but almost as a god--as,
indeed, they could well be pardoned for doing, seeing what a marvellous
fate yours has been.

'The only thing to do at present, and the only thing in which I see any
difficulty, is to get into communication with them in such a way that
they shall come to know you without the authorities knowing anything
about you or your treasures. If that could be done, I think all the rest
would be easy, and then I believe that the moment you raised the flag of
the old Incas, they would flock to it in thousands, and after that it
would only be a matter of military management and leadership.'

'And if I will charge myself with that, my friend,' I said, as he paused
for a moment; 'if I will promise you that before six more suns have
risen and set, the news of my coming shall be spread far and wide
through the land, and yet in such a manner that none but the faithful,
the Children of the Blood themselves, shall know anything that could
work us harm, will you give me the help of your skill and your knowledge
of the arts of this new warfare which is so strange to me? Will you lead
my armies to battle against the oppressors of my people? Will you help
me to free this land of my fathers from the yoke of its tyrants, and be
the war-chieftain of my people, and stand by my throne in the days when
the Rainbow Banner shall once more float over the battlements of the
Sacsahuaman and the City of the Sun? If you will, you shall have riches
and power and all that the heart of man can desire.'

'Not all, I am afraid, Vilcaroya!' he said, interrupting me with a laugh
that had but little mirth in it. 'Not all; but that would not be in your
hands to give. Never mind, it is the fortune of war, or perhaps I should
rather say of love. But for the rest, yes. I believe your cause is a
just and righteous one, and what I can do to help it I will. Henceforth
we are brothers-in-arms, even though we may perhaps be rivals in love.
There, you have my hand upon it, and with it the word of an Englishman
who never broke his word yet to man or woman.'

How shall I tell you of the great joy with which those brave,
honest-spoken words of his filled me? He, the man whom I had feared
most, even as I had learned to love him most, was the first to bid me
hope--and hope I did now, in spite of all things. So, saying nothing,
for my heart was too full for speech, I put my hand in his, and there,
as the dawn brightened over the mountains, we clasped hands in silence
and sealed our compact, and when the sun rose swiftly over the now
glittering peaks, I let go his hand and bowed myself before it, greeting
it as the bringer of a new day which was to end the long night that had
fallen over my land and my people when the light of my last life was
quenched in the darkness of my death-sleep.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE THRONE-ROOM OF YUPANQUI

We saw nothing of Golden Star the next day, nor yet for many days
afterwards, for, in spite of our impatience, Ruth would not permit us to
do so. What her brother had said had speedily proved itself to be true.
She had come back to life a child-woman. Her body was that of a girl of
seventeen years--which was her age when she and I had drunk the draught
of the death-sleep together--and the kindly Powers that had presided
over her birth had shaped her in a mould of almost perfect womanly
beauty, yet, as Djama had said, her mind was a virgin page, from which
the story of her past life had been utterly erased, and on whose blank
whiteness the story of her new life had yet to be written.

Now, on the writing of the first words of this story, as Joyful Star
told us in her sweetly-serious way the night that she had sunk into her
first natural slumber, everything might depend.

'It is a task,' she had said that night, 'which I fear terribly to enter
upon, and yet I know that I am the only one here who ought to undertake
it. She will need weeks and months of most careful watching, and the
sympathy that only another woman, and one who loves her as I have
already learned to do, could give her. No woman ever had such a task
before, and very few have had so good a work to do. There is something,
too'--and here I remember how subtle a change came into her voice as she
said this--'there is something in this wonderful resemblance between us
which tells me that this is my duty, and I am going to devote myself
absolutely to it during every hour of her waking life until she is able
to do without my care. I must watch her and care for her as a mother
does for her child, and you must let me do it alone as long as I wish
to, just as we had to let Laurens do _his_ work alone. Don't you think I
am right, professor?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'perfectly right, Miss Ruth. I am sure everybody
will agree with me that Her Highness could not be in better hands than
yours. Indeed, as you say, yours are the only hands in which she could
possibly be trusted with safety to her newly-awakening reason at such an
extraordinary juncture in her life.'

To this we all agreed willingly enough, and so Joyful Star had the big
room cleared out and installed herself there with all the comforts and
luxuries that the inexhaustible wealth which was now at my command could
provide her with, so that Golden Star should find her new world as
beautiful as might be. Meanwhile the professor, with a trusty guide that
I had provided him with from among my own people, plunged afresh into
his beloved studies with such ardour that he seemed to have almost
forgotten all else that had brought us to Peru.

Francis Hartness had gone with Tupac--who, in the sight of the
Spaniards, was only his Indian servant and guide--on a mission of
importance to the South, where the first rumblings of the coming
war-storm were already making themselves heard. As for Djama, who, as
you know, had no more interest in the work that now lay before Francis
Hartness and myself than the professor had, he went about for some days
gloomy and silent, and seemingly ill at ease, like a man who for a time
has lost his interest in life; and at last--it was on the twentieth day
after Golden Star had awakened--he came to me when I was alone in my
room and said abruptly,--

'Vilcaroya, do you think I have fairly earned my reward for what I have
done?'

'Yes,' I said, looking into his eyes and reading, though he knew it
not, the thoughts that were moving in his mind. 'You have done all that
you promised to do, but we have yet said nothing of the price. How much
do you ask for?'

'As much as I can get!' he said, with a laugh that pleased me but
little. 'But, of course, I know the work that you yourself have come
here to do, and I see that it will be expensive, so you will find me
reasonable.'

'And you, I hope, will not find me ungenerous. Do you remember what you
saw in the Hall of Gold?' As I said this, his self-command left him for
an instant. I saw his hands close, and his lips tremble, and the fierce
fire of the gold-lust spring into his eyes as he replied,--

'Yes; how could I forget it?'

'And do you remember, too,' I said, 'the words that you heard me speak
when I stood before the pyramid?'

'Yes,' he replied, with a faint flush coming into his pale cheeks. 'It
is not likely that I should forget them either. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' I said, speaking slowly as a man who weighs his words well,
'saving only the sacred emblems of the Sun, which it is not lawful for
me to give away, all that you saw there shall belong to you and to him
who made it possible for you to do what you have done. You will share it
as you please--that is no care of mine--but I have conditions to make
for my own sake and that of my people.'

'What are they?' and as he spoke the flush died out of his cheeks again.

'That you shall both swear solemnly to me that, come what may, no man
shall ever know from you where the gold came from, and that, moreover,
you shall never utter any word of my story or Golden Star's where mortal
ears can hear it, nor give any sign or word to any man or woman that
shall lead him or her to guess that I am what I am, or that my work here
is what it is. Swear that oath to me and you shall take your gold and go
in peace. Break it, and the fate that I told you of shall be yours. Are
you content?'

'Yes,' he said, 'and more than content; and I swear to you most
solemnly, on my own honour and by all that I hold sacred, that I will
keep your secrets absolutely.'

'No, not here,' I said, breaking into his speech; 'and more, it is not
only your oath that I want. There must be witnesses, for this is too
great a thing to do lightly. To-morrow night we will go back to the Hall
of Gold, and there you shall swear your oaths and they shall be
witnessed.'

'Very well,' he said. 'Whenever and wherever you like. But now,
Vilcaroya, I have something else to say to you. Personally, you know, I
have no further interests in Peru, saving one only. Your next few years
will be stormy ones, and though I believe that, with the power you have
behind you, you will win in the end, yet you know as well as I do that
you will have to run all the risks of a war that may be a very savage
one before you succeed. You may restore the throne of the Incas, and
reign upon it, or you may be killed in the first battle. You will pardon
me speaking so plainly, won't you?'

I bowed my head in silence and he went on.

'In view of this, then, I am going to propose that when we leave Peru--I
mean my sister and the professor and myself--you will allow Ruth to take
Golden Star to England with her, say, for three years or so, in order
that her education may be carried on to the best advantage. I will
promise you solemnly that during that time I will not speak a word of
love to her, or attempt to be anything else to her than I am to Ruth,
and then if you succeed in your aims, as I hope you will, we will come
back and be Your Majesty's guests for a time, and after that we shall
see what more the kindly Fates may have in store for you and me.'

No man ever heard more fairly spoken or reasonable-sounding words than
these were, and yet all the while I listened to them I knew that they
were but used to hide the real thoughts of him who was speaking them.
Yet what could I answer him? Did they not seem to point out the best of
all courses that could be followed for the welfare of Golden Star and
the comfort of her whose gentle hand was leading her nearer every day to
the fulfilment of the promise of her new life? So, for want of anything
better in my mind, I answered,--

'Your words are unwelcome to me, for so long a parting would be a great
sorrow to me; yet they are wise, and that which is most pleasant is not
always the best to be done.'

'Very well,' he said, 'I quite understand you, so we won't say anything
more about it until then. I suppose I may tell the professor about what
we are to do to-morrow night?'

'Yes,' I said; 'there will be no harm in that, since a share of the gold
belongs to him as well.'

'And Hartness?'

'He knows already, for I have told him not only of the treasures in the
Hall of Gold, but of many others that will be used in the work that he
has sworn to do with me.'

Later on that day when the mid-day heat had cooled a little, I was
walking alone in the garden of the hacienda, thinking deeply of what
Djama had said and striving to find some plan of my own that would be
as good and yet not make the parting that I dreaded needful. I turned,
paying but little heed to my way, into a winding pathway shaded with
trees and bordered with grass and flowers. I was looking down upon the
ground, as was my wont, when I heard footsteps near me and looked up. I
had turned the bend in the path, and there, but a few paces from me,
stood Golden Star and Ruth. I started and made a motion as though I
would turn back, but Ruth immediately beckoned to me smilingly, and
said,--

'Come and let me introduce you to your sister, Vilcaroya. I think it's
time you began to be friends again. Don't you think she is looking
wonderfully well and strong, and--and beautiful?'

You may think, but I cannot tell you, of all the feelings that rose up
within me as I obeyed her invitation. It was the first time that I had
seen Golden Star since the night she had awakened. Nay, was it not the
first time I had seen her as a truly living woman since the night of our
bridal in the Sanctuary?

She was dressed in garments made after the fashion of Ruth's own, of
light grey soft stuff, and on the glorious wealth of her hair was a
broad-brimmed straw hat such as Ruth wore. Indeed, to look at them both,
standing there side by side, they could but have been taken for two
twin sisters--daughters of the Day and Night--as my loving fancy called
them afterwards--rather than the daughters of different peoples, and
children of far-parted generations, whose hands, as they clasped,
bridged the gulf between one age of the world and another.

As I approached, Golden Star's eyes looked at me with the simple wonder
that shines out of the eyes of a little child, and like a little child
she smiled at me, and then she looked at Ruth, and made a soft low sound
that was almost like the cooing of a child.

'She is pleased to see you, Vilcaroya,' said Ruth, taking hold of my
hand and hers, 'but of course she can't say so yet. Now, let me teach
her to shake hands with you.'

Then she put into mine the soft, warm little hand that I had last
clasped when we went hand in hand to the couch of our long sleep. I
pressed it gently, looking at her through the tears that rose into my
eyes, then I raised it to my lips and kissed it, and she smiled, and
made the little soft sound again, and then Ruth put her arm around her
waist and said,--

'Come, now, you are acquainted, and she likes you. This will be a most
valuable lesson for her. Now, let us have a walk, and you tell me the
news, if there is any.'

'Most willingly,' I said, 'for I have much news to tell.'

So we turned back along the path into the quietest part of the garden, I
walking by Ruth's side. And I told her of all that had passed between
her brother and me in the morning, and of what was to be done on the
following night. She was looking very serious when I had finished, and I
could see that many unspoken thoughts were working in her mind, and when
I had done she looked up at me and said,--

'Laurens's plan seems a very good one at first sight, but of course we
cannot decide upon anything until we have thought a good deal more about
it, and talked it well over amongst ourselves. But, at anyrate, it would
be several weeks yet before I would even think of going away with Golden
Star, so there is plenty of time for that. But to-morrow night--Listen,
Vilcaroya, may I ask a very great favour of you?'

'Joyful Star can ask no favour of me,' I said. 'She can speak, and I can
hear and obey.'

'Nonsense, Vilcaroya! I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' she answered
with pretty petulance. 'Now, suppose I was to ask you to let me see this
wonderful treasure-house of yours and promise faithfully not to tell
anyone about it--would you let me?'

'It is not the best that I can show you,' I answered gladly, 'but if
you desire to see it, it is yours and all that it contains. I can give
your brother and the professor other gold, and I will show you a greater
treasure-house than this under the Fortress itself.'

'Well,' she laughed, 'I won't say now that I won't have it, because the
sight of all that gold might be too much for me, but I should dearly
love to come and see it, and I think I might venture to bring Golden
Star too. She's quite well and strong now, and if we are careful of her,
it can't do her any harm, and it may do her good. Shall I bring her?'

'Yes,' I said, 'why not?'

At this moment we saw Djama come walking down the path towards us, and
at the sight of him there came to me, like the stab of a dagger of ice,
the sudden memory that, at the moment I was speaking of my
treasure-house under the Sacsahuaman, I had heard a gentle rustle behind
some bushes close by the path, and a sound like that of a stealthy
tread.

As Djama came near to us I saw the love-light flash into his eyes, and a
swift flush rise into his sallow cheeks. He held out his hand and
quickened his pace, smiling as sweetly as a woman the while. I was
facing him a little in advance, and I heard behind me a sharp, low,
shuddering cry of terror that shook my heart as I turned to learn its
cause. Golden Star had thrown her arms round Ruth's neck, and was
clinging to her, trembling with fear, and looking sideways at Djama with
eyes fixed and wide open with terror.

You have seen how little children will go smiling and fearless into the
arms of one stranger and shrink in hate and terror from another. Their
sight is keener than it is in after years, when the dust of the world's
conflict has dulled it, and they can see plainly the good and the evil
that is hidden behind the mask of the face. So it was with that
child-soul of Golden Star's. Though I was now to her as strange as
Djama, yet she had seen in me only the friend and brother who loved her
and wished her well, and whose heart was clean in her sight; but in
Djama she had seen at a single glance the evil that had only been
revealed to me after many weeks of watching.

Though I hated him for the fear that he had caused her, yet I was glad
also, for now I saw that the answer to his proposal would be easier than
I had thought for. As for him, his face darkened and his black brows
came together, and the love-light in his eyes changed to a glare of
anger; but this was only for an instant. It passed more quickly than the
thunder-clouds melt round the crest of Illampu. He stopped, and stood
with his head slightly bent and his hands spread, palms outward, in the
posture of one who asks pardon, and said, in a voice that had no trace
of anger,--

'Forgive me, Ruth! I am afraid I have startled our patient--or perhaps I
should rather say yours now. It was something more than stupid of me to
come upon you suddenly like this, without any warning. Of all people in
the world, I ought to have known better than that. But I suppose seeing
Vilcaroya already here made me forget myself. Did she start like that
when he came?'

'No,' replied Ruth, still standing with her arm where she had thrown it
around Golden Star's shoulders, and stroking her hair with the other.
'She--she saw him farther off than you, and I took her towards him, so I
suppose the shock was not so great. But please go away, both of you,
now. You see she is terribly frightened, and she is trembling as though
someone had struck her. I must take her into the house and get her quiet
again, or the consequences may be serious.'

Djama turned away without a word, his face darkening again as he did so,
and with one backward glance at Golden Star, who had now raised her head
from Ruth's breast, and was staring after us with fixed, wide-open eyes,
I turned and walked away beside him, neither of us speaking a word, for
we were both too busy with our own thoughts.

That night Francis Hartness and Tupac returned from their journey to the
South, and as the professor was also in the house I told them of what I
wished done on the following night, and bade Tupac make all preparation.
The next day we all started in the cool of the morning to go to the
Rodadero as though for a picnic, as the people of Cuzco often do, so
that there might be no suspicion of our true object. We all rode upon
horses, saving Golden Star, who was carried in a hammock litter, that I
had had made for her, and Tupac, and six of our people who came with us
as bearers and servants.

We spent the day wandering about among the huge ruins of the
Sacsahuaman, and exploring the wonders of the carved rocks and
underground passages and altar-places, which have been the marvel of
every traveller to the hills about Cuzco, and all that I knew of the
upper works I told my companions, and showed them as well as I could
what the mighty fastness had been in the days of its pride and unbroken
strength.

Then, when the brief twilight came, I bade one of our men take the
beasts into a chamber among the rocks that I had shown him, and where
plenty of fodder had been stored a few days before. After this we waited
a little longer till night fell, and then I bade Tupac do what I had
bidden him the day before. His voice rose shrill and plaintive in the
silence, chanting a song that you may have heard the Indians singing in
Peru when returning from their labours, and presently, from among the
rocks on the plain, and from the shadowy lines of the Fortress, many
silent figures stole out and went towards the valley in which the
Sayacusca stands.

Then I told my companions that all, save those of the Blood, must have
their eyes bandaged, as Djama's had been before, and when they had
submitted willingly to this, knowing that no harm would come to them, we
led them to the Sayacusca, I leading Ruth by the hand, and following the
bearers of Golden Star's litter, and there the way to the Hall of Gold
was opened as before, and we entered it, followed by a long line of the
Children of the Blood.

But I made no halt here, nor did I let my companions even see the
treasure that was to be divided between Djama and the professor
according to my promise, for I had greater marvels in store for them.
So, lantern in hand, I led the way through a winding gallery behind the
pyramid of gold of which I told you before. At the end of this was a
door, formed by a revolving stone similar to that at the entrance to the
hall. This Tupac and another opened under my directions, and we entered
a long, straight passage behind it. At the end was a broad flight of
stone steps, and at the top were two low bronze doors bolted into
pillars on either side. The doors had no hinges, but they turned with
the pillars, and no one who did not know this, or how the pillars
turned, could open them. But this secret was one of many others that I
had brought with me from the past, and in a few moments the doors were
standing open before us.

We passed in, and I closed them behind us. Two of my men had come laden
with great candles and torches, and these I had lighted and placed in
golden sconces which stood out from the walls in the great hall into
which we had passed through the bronze doors. When this had been done, I
beckoned to Tupac, and went silently with him to the other end of the
hall, where, on a throne of gold under a canopy of silver, sat a silent
figure clad in the imperial robes, and with a mask of beaten gold over
its face, according to the ancient custom. It was the effigy of the
great Yupanqui, father of Huayna-Capac, which had been seated here since
his death, as an emblem of the unbroken sovereignty of his race, giving
place in turn to his son and grandson on the days that they were
crowned, and being replaced when the ceremony was over.

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