The Crimson Conquest 34

The Crimson Conquest 34

"I fear you belittle them," she said, with a smile and a slight flush.

"The Ñusta Rava hath already told me much of your terrible journey, and

my wonder that she endured it is only less than my thankfulness that she

had so good a guardian."

 

Cristoval bowed again. "The Ñusta Rava hath rare spirit. I trust she

will quickly regain her strength, Palla Maytalca."

 

Cristoval showed his anxiety, and the lady hastened to assure him that

his ward needed only rest. "But now," she said, "let me make you known

to my young companions," and she called to the damsels a few steps away.

Their timidity at approaching a Viracocha, to them a fabulous and

dreaded being, was dissipated by his simple kindliness of manner, and

when the quartet reached the hemicycle the first reserve had gone. The

maidens were the daughters of the _curaca_ of Xilcala, the Palla

explained, and spent much of their time with her, acquiring what

accomplishments she could impart, and affording her welcome

companionship in return. They were handsome, graceful girls, and

compared favorably, Cristoval thought, with the señoritas of Castile.

 

All three were soon engaged with their embroidery, Maytalca often

pausing to listen breathlessly to the cavalier’s details of the flight

from Caxamalca. He gave them simply, passing over incidents that

involved his own courage, and dwelling with quiet enthusiasm upon Rava’s

fortitude. But his hostess had heard from the Ñusta more of the former

than of the latter, and she was rapidly coming to share the estimate of

him held by his grateful _protégée_. At his mention of the Cañares her

face became grave.

 

"I fear them, Viracocha Cristoval," she said, seriously. "They are as

wolves on the track of a wounded deer. It is a tribe which hath cost

the Incas most heavily to subdue, and their subjection hath never been

complete. They were conquered first by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, but

revolted some years ago and were repressed at terrible sacrifice of

life. The tribe hath never taken kindly to our laws and institutions,

and hath always resisted the benevolent efforts of the Incas to lift

them from savagery. It is true, they fought with our unhappy Huascar

against Atahualpa, but they were influenced, I have always thought, less

by loyalty to Tavantinsuyu than by their native treachery, for they were

once subject to Quito. Now they hate Quito and Cuzco alike, and I

wonder not at their traitorous alliance with the invaders.—Pardon me,

Viracocha Cristoval!"

 

"You are not talking to an enemy of Tavantinsuyu, Palla Maytalca," said

Cristoval, quietly.

 

"I believe it," she returned, with a quick glance. "I think it hath

been proven. But," she resumed, after a pause, "I dread the thought of

the Cañares following."

 

Cristoval was silent for a moment. "I should think it impossible that

we could be traced by any living creature," he said, at length.

 

"They will search every crevice of these mountains; and the distance

from here to Caxamalca is not great, Viracocha."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XIX*

 

_*Hearts Perplexed*_

 

 

The ensuing days were such as had rarely entered into Peralta’s

adventurous and somewhat reckless life. The enclosing mountains seemed

jealous of the intrusion even of thoughts of the outside world, and the

soft air and prevailing sense of peace cast a spell to which he fell a

willing subject. Save for a rumor that Pizarro had placed the imperial

_llautu_ upon the head of Toparca and had begun his advance upon Cuzco,

attended by his allies the Cañares, ravaging as they moved, the vale was

without tidings. The last of these told of the arrival of the Spaniards

at Xauxa, some fifty leagues to the south, and of increasing resistance

from native warriors, led, it was said, by Prince Manco, Rava’s full

brother and rightful heir to the throne. The devastating march of the

conquistadors had passed far to the eastward, leaving a demoralization

which interrupted all regular communication, and the secluded valley

seemed forgotten of the world.

 

At first Cristoval bore the inaction with uneasiness. Until he should

have placed the Ñusta Rava in the protection of her brother Manco, his

duty would be unfulfilled; and although he looked forward to the

ultimate surrender of his guardianship with a reluctance only half

confessed to himself, yet his vow to Atahualpa was paramount. Very

soon, however, the impossibility of reaching Cuzco with Pizarro in the

way became apparent. For the present they must remain at Xilcala, and

the cavalier was forced to admit a feeling of relief.

 

So he surrendered to the dreamy quiet of Xilcala, growing daily more

compliant. Nevertheless, the unwelcome prospective forced itself upon

him with an insistence he could not always put aside. One morning he

was sitting with Rava and their hostess in the hemicycle where they

usually passed the warmer hours of the day, and the conversation turned,

as often, upon far-away Cuzco, and their prospects of reaching it.

Something called Maytalca away, and the two were left to themselves,

lapsing at once into the silence without constraint privileged to close

friendship and sympathy. Rava, engaged upon an embroidered trifle,

glanced from time to time toward the vacant lake, or at her ruminating

companion as he sat watching the intricacies of her work. At length she

spoke, using the more familiar form, and having dropped, at his request,

the appellation of Viracocha.

 

"Thou art thoughtful, Cristoval," she said, looking up from her work.

"I fear idleness beginneth to burden thee."

 

Cristoval smiled at her genially. "To burden me, child! I would I

might always bear so light a burden as this soft sunshine and thy

companionship. No, I’ve lived through weightier cares and kept my

spirits. I was but thinking of the day when it must end."

 

He was looking away when he concluded, and failed to see the tremor of

her fingers as she resumed her task. He was silent for a moment, then

continued, with a ring of sadness, "No, Ñusta Rava, I could not weary of

this. But it cannot last forever. When I see thee in safety, then I

must go. I have thought of a friend whom I may trust to take me back to

Panama—whence we sailed for thy shores. Once there," he went on,

talking rather to himself than to her, "I can make my way to Spain—for I

swear never again to draw sword against the people of this western

world. There is no glory in it, and there are wars enough at home where

honor may be won as becometh a Christian."

 

Rava was very still, her head bent over her work, her face colorless and

dull. Alas! she thought with sudden heaviness of heart, he is but a

Viracocha, and can be naught else. No thought of love but for his

sword, no passion but for war. He is like his kind—less men than gods

of destruction; gifted with power and wisdom, but cursed with

heartlessness. But no! Surely he was not without a heart, for had he

not guarded her with a tenderness unvarying and almost womanly?

Assuredly not heartless in that sense at least! And there was affection

of some nature in every look and intonation. She was conscious of that,

for he had never striven to conceal it, and could not have done so from

her had he so striven. But, ah me! it must be that his was not a human

heart like hers. He was of another world, as her people

said—inscrutable, unknowable. She looked up once more, searching his

eyes this time with strange inquiry, and quite unconscious of her

intentness. The kindliness of Cristoval’s face faded into surprise.

 

"Why, Heaven bless thee, child!" he exclaimed. "What is in thy thoughts?

Hast a question thou wouldst ask?"

 

She looked away, saying with a sigh, "Thou art a Viracocha, Cristoval!"

and left him pondering a riddle as insoluble to him as he was to her.

 

Soon afterward she arose to go. He escorted her to the head of the

avenue, and turned slowly back. "I am a Viracocha!" he repeated to

himself a dozen times, revolving it in perplexity. "A Viracocha! Now,

in the name of a saint, what meaneth she by that? Of course I’m a

Viracocha—to her unlettered people; but none, in saying it, ever looked

me through and through with eyes as big as if I were a genie out of a

bottle in some tale of Araby! A Viracocha, quoth she! Who was this

Viracocha? Ha! a heathen god, I’ve heard; which is to say, a devil!

_Madre_! Meaneth she that I am a devil? No, bless her heart, that is

far from it, I’ll stake my head! H’m! I’ll ask Markumi. No, I’ll not!

He may give this Viracocha deity a reputation that will make me repent

the asking. These pagan gods are oft unsavory, the best of them. ’T is

better to be in doubt. But, _ay de mi_, Cristoval, thou ’rt beyond thy

depth in this business with women. It hath more of unexpectedness than

a bee-stung colt."

 

He wandered and pondered for an hour, then gave it up, saddled his

horse, and rode off down the valley.

 

However inscrutable Cristoval was to Rava, or however perplexing she was

at times to him, their separate problems did not mar the harmony of the

days in the Vale of Xilcala. They were much together, for they had

neither occupation nor preoccupation to keep them apart. There were

long walks along the lake or among the hills; and visits to the

cottagers, to whom their beloved Ñusta came as a gentle spirit of

sympathy in their sorrows, or a sharer of their simple joys. There were

quiet hours in the garden, often with Maytalca and the daughters of the

_curaca_, Huallampo; but much of the time the Princess and Cristoval

were alone, strolling the shaded paths, or sitting in the hemicycle,

where Rava busied herself with some dainty fabric while Cristoval

watched and mused in the intervals of fitful conversation.

 

Under these conditions it is less than strange that Rava should wonder,

not without disappointment, that the cavalier should turn his thoughts

to war and its cruel glory. And it is not more than strange that his

thoughts should take this bent with growing infrequency, or that he

should look forward with more and more reluctance to the time when his

role of guardian must be resigned, and the days in Xilcala be of the

past. For, if the difference of race, of age, of culture, combined with

the brevity of their association to make difficult to each the real

nature of the other, yet the circumstances and the sentiment consequent

upon their lately shared dangers were favorable for a live and romantic

sympathy. Upon the heart of the girl, indeed, such incidents could have

but one effect.

 

And assuredly, if Rava was disposed to endow her champion with

attributes above the human, he was little behind in his exalted estimate

of her. He had been bred a soldier, and as such his experience with

women had been largely limited to those of the sophisticated type

accessible to men of his wandering career. His youth had been passed at

the court of the Marques of Cadiz, where he had learned more of intrigue

and feminine flexibility than of maidenly traits; and the rigid

seclusion of the unmarried daughters of Castilian families of the better

classes had inhibited anything more than contemplation of dueña-fended

innocence at a distance. He had passed through his callow period of

fevers and deliriums engendered by stolen glances from señoritas’ eyes;

had sighed and sung and thrummed o’ nights beneath half-open lattices

and dim balconies, not always without catastrophe—once or twice with

spilt blood of his own or a rival’s, and usually without better reward.

But his youth had flown with only uncertain notions of the charms of

maidenhood, and he carried these to the wars and forgot them. He had

been in love, so he had thought, many times and in many lands; but it

was love that had faded to mere memories of names, fondly enough

recalled, no doubt, but each dismissed with a sigh for one as deep as

for another. And that is to say that he had never been in love.