CHAPTER II.
THE DOOM OF THE ANCIENT LAW
Ullomaya and those who followed him stopped suddenly on the threshold of what was now in truth the death-chamber of the Inca, and bent their heads and remained for a moment in respectful silence. Then the High Priest of the Sun went forward to the bedside and spoke to the prostrate woman, saying--
“Alas, I see we come too late, for our Lord is already standing in the bright courts of the Mansions of the Sun, and yet not too late, since before he departed he spoke the words of wisdom and comfort for his people. Is that not so, O Queen?”
The self-widowed queen rose to her feet as she heard him speak, and faced him with clenched hands, head erect and somewhat thrown back. There were no tears in the great deep dark eyes which burnt angrily under her straight, black brows, but the pale olive of her cheeks and brow looked a ghastly grey under the yellow fringe of the Llautu which denoted her rank, and her lips, of wont so red and fresh, though she had been a mother for twenty years, were pale and drawn and twitched somewhat at the corners as though betraying the workings of some fierce passion within her; and when she spoke, her voice, which had been the sweetest that had ever spoken the liquid speech of the Valley, rang harsh and angry on the silence of the chamber.
“Yes,” she said, “he is dead, my lord and master, the love of my youth and the honour of my age--he is dead! and as thou sayest, priest, he died with words of wisdom and comfort upon his lips. With his last breath he granted my prayer that he would not disinherit his son or take the empire of Quito away from the House of my fathers and give its children to be subjects to the men of the South.
“This is not what you have come to hear, you who vexed the last hour of my Lord’s life by seeking to turn his footsteps from the path of justice as they were approaching the threshold of the Mansions of the Sun, but it is said beyond recall, and thou, Ullomaya--High Priest of the Sun and man of the Divine Blood as thou art--art yet a traitor, for Atahuallpa is, from this hour forth Inca and Lord of Quito, and thou hast sought to rob him of his inheritance and make him the vassal of Huascar. Go forth, now, for thou art not fit to look upon the face of thy dead Lord!”
As she said this, Zaïma the Queen, with a swift movement of her arms, threw the bright-hued mantle that hung from her shoulders on to the couch so that it fell over the dead Inca’s face, and then her right arm went out, pointing with extended forefinger to the door.
The high priest shrank back instinctively before the imperious gesture, and the little throng of priests and nobles gathered about the doorway, parted, leaving the way clear for him, for in their eyes he was already accursed, since he stood charged by the lips of the all-powerful queen-mother of a crime so great that no man of the Divine Blood had ever been guilty of it before him.
His deep knowledge of his people and their laws told him that any words of defence would be useless and worse than useless. So, throwing himself for the moment into the posture of supplication, he made a silent invocation to the Unnameable, whose name he would not utter even in a moment so solemn as this, and then turned and went slowly towards the door; but before he reached it a hand was laid heavily upon his shoulder and a grip like the clutch of a condor’s talon held him motionless.
Atahuallpa had sprung erect from the place where he had been cowering by the bedside. The horror that had shaken his soul had passed. At the sight of his mother’s imperial gestures, and the sound of her fierce and pregnant words, the warrior spirit and the fierce pride of the despot had awakened within him. He had accepted his destiny, and so sanctioned the crime which had given it to him.
Thousands of lives were to be sacrificed, rivers of blood were to be poured out, and the empire of the Children of the Sun was to pass away for ever like a golden dream ending in an awakening of horror because of that swift and irrevocable resolution of his. But all this was in the future. In the present were the glories of empire and the delights of Divine honours and unquestioned rule, and other than these he saw nothing.
The priest looked up as he felt his grip and saw his eyes, bloodshot and fierce, looking into his.
“Thou who wouldst have changed the course of Destiny appointed by the Divine Ones, who wouldst have robbed me of my rights, and made my Lord and thine a liar with his last breath--is there any need for me to tell thee the doom of the traitor and the worker of sacrilege? Thou and thy wife and thy children and thy children’s children shall share it, according to the justice of the Ancient Law. The fire shall consume thee and them, and the winds shall scatter thine ashes and theirs from the sight of men. The places where ye have dwelt, the works ye have done, and the fields ye have tilled shall be destroyed utterly and laid waste for ever, so that when men see the wilderness that was once thine home, they shall remember the law which says that the doer of evil and all that are his shall be taken away from among the Children of the Sun and no vestige of them suffered to remain.”[3]
The yet uncrowned Inca spoke these fearful words in a tone so coldly fierce that none who heard them doubted for an instant that he would use the power and the right that was his, and carry out the terrific penalty of the inexorable law to the last extremity, and none knew better how dire and all-embracing was the doom that impended over him and all that were his better than he who but an hour ago had held the highest and holiest dignity in the land, saving only that of the Inca-Royal himself.
Yet awful as it was, the old man gave no outward sign that it had any terrors for him. His eyes met the fierce gaze of Atahuallpa’s without flinching, and his voice, as he replied to his hideous words, was mild and yet unwavering--
“Son of him who was my Lord, there is no justice save that which the Divine Ones have given us, and there is no vengeance that is terrible save that which the sins of men call down from the hand of Him who may not be named. That which I sought to do was but to uphold the ancient laws and fulfil the parting spoken words of the Divine Manco, and the last words which my ears heard from the lips of my dead Lord and thine yonder told me that I had done rightly.
“Earth is small and life is short, but the Mansions of the Sun are vast and the life of those who reach them is without end. So I and mine are ready to depart. What thine eyes have seen here I know not, nor yet what it was that the eyes of him who is now among the Divine Ones last beheld, but ere long his lips will tell me----”
What else he might have said was never uttered, for Atahuallpa, with a cry like the snarl of a wounded mountain lion, shifted his grip from his shoulder to his throat and flung him stumbling backwards to the door, so that he fell prone across the threshold and lay stunned on the marble floor of the passage.
“Lift him up and take him away!” he said sharply to the frightened priests who were now huddled about the doorway. “He is no longer a Priest of the Sun or a man, but an outcast that may not be permitted to live. Let all of his blood be put in safe keeping instantly, and by the coming of our Father[4] to-morrow let all be made ready for them to meet their doom. Your Lord has spoken.”
“Well and royally done, my son, and now my Lord!” said Zaïma the Queen, coming from where she stood by the head of the couch with both hands outstretched and making as though she would embrace him, but Atahuallpa started and shrank back ever so little. Yet he took her hands in his and bowed his head as if in deference before her, though it might have been that he feared to look into her eyes, and said humbly--
“The son of my father and my mother could have done no less. I did but what the Ancient Law has commanded. He has polluted the Blood with the poison of sin, and he must die. But go now, my mother, to your own house, for the embalmers must do their work before morning. Come, I will lead you to your door. Challcuchima, my uncle, come hither.”
As he turned to lead his mother from the room he stopped and beckoned to an old man, grey and bronzed and scarred with the marks of battle, but glittering from head to knee with plates of gold and silver linked together by rings and fastened on to a long tunic of fine, soft leather, clasped round the waist with a broad belt of interlaced gold and silver links from which hung a heavy golden-hilted sword of tempered copper. This was Challcuchima, the brother of the dead Inca, chief general of his armies, and the most renowned warrior in the Land of the Four Regions.
He had a short, copper-headed spear in his hand, and as he approached his new Lord he laid this across his shoulders, stooping slightly as one who bears a burden, for this was the act of homage which the greatest princes and nobles of the empire, even those of the Inca’s own blood, never dared to omit when they entered his presence, or were honoured by having speech with him, and as Atahuallpa saw it he smiled, and a sparkle came into his eyes, for it told him that the ally and the servant whose help was most precious of all to him had taken him for his lord and master.
“Let the room be cleared and guarded!” he said. “Remain here yourself with the guard and let none enter on any pretence till I return.”
“I hear but to obey, Lord!” the old warrior answered, bending yet lower. “I will guard the chamber with my life, even as I will guard thy dominions against all that shall dare seek to take them from thee.”
“Nor could they be better guarded than by him whose shield was ever the best bulwark of my father’s realm!” Atahuallpa replied almost tenderly, as he laid his hand lightly on the old man’s head. Then, leading his mother by the hand that had slain his father, he passed from the death-chamber through the little throng of princes and nobles, who bowed themselves almost to the floor as he went by and then arose and followed him at the bidding of Challcuchima, who at once blocked the passage with a guard of soldiers and remained alone in the room to await the coming of his master.
He drew the heavy curtains of brilliantly dyed wool, interthreaded with fine-drawn strings of gold, closely across the entrance and then he went to the bedside and reverently drew back the covering from the face of the dead Inca. He stooped and looked at it, and then suddenly started upright and clasped his hands over his forehead. Then he looked down again more closely than before, and, after gazing awhile, he closed with a gentle and reverent touch the glazed eyes that were staring up with their last look of horror scarce faded from them. Then he softly pushed the protruding tongue back into the mouth and bound up the fallen jaw with a strip of dyed cotton that lay beside the pillow.
“My Lord died hard, it would seem,” he muttered to himself, “and yet all thought his end could not fail to be peaceful. Well, well--hard or easy, it was very near, and I had rather have Atahuallpa the soldier-prince for my lord and leader than Huascar the lover of women and dreamer of dreams. What is done is past, and who knows but that some day we may have a wider realm than this and my Lord may reign with one foot planted on Quito and the other on Cuzco, master of all the Four Regions.
“There is no strife like the strife of brothers, and these two will not long reign side by side in peace. After that will come the day of brave men and stout warriors, and the victory shall be with us--with skill and order and strength and valour! It was a bold deed and a fearful one--I would have slain a score of men ere I had permitted it, yet now it is done and the Divine Ones themselves could not undo it.”