The Romance of Golden Star Part 10

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 circ.u.mstances. 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 G.o.d--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-l.u.s.t 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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,--