The Romance of Golden Star ...

  CHAPTER IX

  THE TREACHERY OF DJAMA

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

  He nodded and I rose quietly to my feet and went round the hollow untilI got the great stone between me and the place where the soldiers werestanding, and then I went down on my hands and knees and crept quietlytowards it and climbed up a flight of steps carved in it. This took meto the top of the cleft in which is the broken stairway. I climbed downthis and dropped softly into the hole at the bottom. It was dry now, forTupac had done that which I had bidden him in the throne-room. I feltmy way down the steps till I came to the wall at the bottom. Then Iwhispered his name, and he answered out of the darkness in the oldlanguage,--

  '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 myoutstretched arms till I knew that I had come to the revolving stonewhich closed the way into the hall. He was standing against it, and oneof the others was with him. I felt over the door till I found the silversocket, and then we opened the door as before with the bar which Tupachad brought. Then I went down through the hall and lighted a lantern andwent into the little chamber where, as before, I changed my clothing forthe imperial robes, and set the Llautu on my head; but I kept on my beltunder 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 lightingcandles and putting them in the holders round the walls as I had biddenthem. When this was done I said to him,--

  'Go now and bring the others down, first the soldiers with theirofficer, by whose side you must keep closely, and see that your knifeis ready. Then let Ainu bring the Men of the Blood, and the strangersquickly after them, and bid Anahuac and Ainu close the door when thelast man has entered.'

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

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

  'Put up your sword, senor, and come with me and beg your life from theSon 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 thesplendours of the hall. Then he turned and called to his soldiers, butwhile the cry was still in his throat, Tupac's arm went round his neckand the knife-point touched his skin. Then he bade two of the soldierstake 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 alreadybetrayed. As soon as he was safe, Tupac told the other soldiers to taketheir places along the walls, and they did so in silence, yet wonderinggreatly at all they saw. There were four-and-twenty of them, notcounting the two who held the officer, all men of Indian blood whom theSpaniards[D] had made rather slaves than soldiers to fight their pettyquarrels 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 FrancisHartness with his eyes unbound. All this time I had neither moved normade 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 livingeyes in his head. As for the Spanish officer, being a coward, as many ofhis sort are, he was already white with fear, and his knees were shakingas 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 thedoor 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 stillwonderingly at me,--

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

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

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

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

  'What is this? What does all this mean? What are all these soldiers herefor, Vilcaroya? I thought it was so important that all this should bekept secret? Surely no one has betrayed you already? But no, that can'tbe. Hartness, what does it all mean?'

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

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

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

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

  'You have been too clever for me, and so I suppose you have the right tomock me. There is no need to go on with this farce. The sight of yourtreasures gave me the gold-fever, I suppose, and it drove me mad, as ithas driven many others mad, and I betrayed you. There is no use sayingany more. I see that I have been betrayed too, and that my life is inyour hands, so I need only say that I keep the right of taking it myselfin my own way.'

  'There is no need for that yet,' I said, 'and others are concerned inthis 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 youtherefore speak to the Spaniard yonder, and bid him say how he came tobe here with his soldiers. Tell him, too, that if he lies, or refuses tospeak, he shall be buried in the gold he came to steal until the weightof it crushes his life out. But say to him that if he speaks the truthand holds nothing back and does as I shall bid him, he shall have hislife, and afterwards as much gold as three men can carry.'

  So then Francis Hartness turned to the trembling Spaniard and questionedhim, 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 mycoming and of
a great treasure that he would show him, and of othersthat I knew the secret of and might be made to reveal, and how he hadbargained that half of all that was found should be his and the otherhalf the Governor's, if he would help him to carry it to the coast insafety 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 hadbidden him bring a company of soldiers to the appointed place and see ifthere was any truth in Djama's story, and, if he found there was, totake Djama and all of us prisoners and carry us back to Cuzco, and putus 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 foolas to trust to it!'

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

  Ever since Tupac and his comrades had recognised me as their lord, andsworn their faith to me, they, and others whom they trusted, hadindustriously spread abroad the news of my coming--though tellingnothing that would make a traitor able to betray us--and, in proof oftheir story, little wedges of gold, stamped with the ancient symbol ofthe Sun, had been passed from hand to hand as earnest of my promise thatI would use the hidden treasures of the Incas for the benefit of mypeople, and make money of gold where now there was only silver andcopper.

  By this time, not only had the golden wedges gone far and wide throughthe land, but nearly all the soldiers of the pure Indian blood had beenwon over to my cause, for, as I have said, and as everyone in thecountry knows, these soldiers are treated with great hardness by theirSpanish masters, who often pay them nothing for many weeks or monthstogether, and give them scanty food and hard usage, and cast them intoprison or flog them and shoot them if they think to do anything to getjustice. Moreover, there are always factions of men they callpoliticians scheming for power and setting the soldiers fighting againstone another and against their countrymen for no benefit to themselves.So what Francis Hartness had told me on the night that Golden Star hadcome back to life had already begun to come true. More than half thegarrison of Cuzco had already been won over, and only waited for thesignal which should bid the whole Indian population of the valley torise and seize the arms and ammunition in the city, and make theofficers and the Governor and all the officials prisoners.

  Anahuac's daughter was a servant in the Governor's house, and this girlunderstood Spanish, though she pretended only to know Quichua and thedialect of the people, and she had been set to watch,[E] and Tupac'seldest son had also been secretly watching all the comings and goings ofDjama since we came to Cuzco. In this way his visit to the Governor hadbeen made known to me, and then one of the soldiers in the company thathad been ordered to go with the Governor's son to the Rodadero had toldTupac of the order, and I had arranged with him how the surprise was tobe carried out, and this, as you have seen, had been done with completesuccess.

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

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

  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 ofhonour. I have never breathed a syllable that could have given anyone aninkling 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 wouldhave staked my life on his honesty, and if you will release him and lethim come with me--'

  'No, no, my friend!' I said, quickly and sternly. 'What you would ask isimpossible. His aims were deeper and his sin was blacker than it hasbeen shown to be here. He did not betray us for gold alone, for he knewthat I would keep my promise and give him more than he could want. Hewould have given me to my enemies to be killed--it might have been bytortures, to make me say where my treasures were hidden--so that hemight 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 andputting his hand to his pistol pocket. The next instant my own revolverwas out from under my cloak and levelled at his heart.

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

  Before I had done speaking they had seized him again in spite of hisstruggles, and paying no heed to his cries and imprecations--for by thistime 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 anhonest man. But you sought to steal her as you would have stolen mygold. 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 myhand. Now we will be friends as before, and I will answer for yoursafety. Will you go or stay with us?'

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

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

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

  'These men are worthy of death, for they would have delivered us todeath, 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 shuttingthem up safely until we have got this business over, and then sendingthem out of the country and forbidding them to come back under pain ofdeath. 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, andsee 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 sleepand walk and sit on gold. Yes, truly, they shall have enough of goldbefore they see the light of day again. Now tell the Spaniard what Ihave said.'

  He did so, and at first the wretch's eyes glittered and then grew dimwhen the true meaning of his doom came upon him, for it meant he knewnot how long an imprisonment with a man who had betrayed his friends,and whom, as he had confessed, he would himself have betrayed; and hethought, too, that I had only promised him his life and the gold to makehim speak, and that now I would keep him prisoner and perhaps kill himin the end. So he fell on his knees, like the craven that he was, andbegged for mercy, and told Hartness of my promise, and with Hartness'slips I told him only that he must have patience and wait until it was mypleasure 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 acorner of the hall beside the throne, a chamber measuring some ten feeteach way, of the ob
long blocks of gold which were piled up in thepyramid, and while they were doing this I called the soldiers before meand told them, speaking in their own dialect, that if they were faithfulto me until the end of the war, each man should have one ounce weight ofgold paid to him every month, and one ounce more for each of hiscomrades that he could persuade to join us, and for this night's work Iwould give them each a wedge of gold of the weight of two ounces, whichwas more money than all that they had earned in their lives before; andwhen I had promised this they went on their knees and swore faith to meand destruction to their hated Spanish masters.

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

  All this while Djama and the Spaniard were kept standing watching thebuilding of their golden prison-cell. The men worked swiftly, and themany hands made the toil light, and they built the walls up very thickand strong, fitting the golden bricks closely into each other, andmaking the walls smooth and without hand or foot-hold, so that neithercould any of the bricks be got out, nor the walls be climbed. The cellwas divided into two by another wall, and when the walls were finishedthey were about ten feet high, and there was an opening into each cellin front, large enough for a man to crawl in on his hands and knees.

  When all was ready I said to Djama,--

  'There is your house of gold. Go and dwell in it till it shall be safefor me to release you. Every day, as I have said, you shall eat anddrink from plates and cups of gold, and you shall dream of gold untilthis gold-fever of yours is cured.'

  'Until I have gone gold-mad, you mean!' he cried, snarling at me like anangry dog. 'It is just such a vengeance as a half-civilised savage wouldhave thought of. You know as well as I do that I shall go mad in thereunless I kill myself first.'

  'You have your choice!' I said. 'I will make your punishment no lighter.If you think to pull the walls down they will fall on you and crush you,and you will be buried in gold, and if I am told that you have tried tobreak out, I will put chains of gold on you, so heavy that you shall notbe able to drag them across your cell; but if you are peaceful andpatient, all your wants shall be attended to by those that I shallappoint, and you shall have everything but liberty and the light of day.Now, go in.'

  'I won't!' he cried with a curse that ended in a scream. 'I shall go madin there, I tell you, and that is a thousand times worse than death tome. I won't! Damn you, I won't!'

  'Then you shall be thrust in,' I said.

  I made a sign to those who held him, and they, seeing what I meant, tookhim by the body and the legs, and carried him, feet foremost, kickingand struggling, towards the hole. Then they thrust him in with his armsstill bound. But when he was half-way through, I bade one of them loosethe cords a little, so that he could free himself afterwards. TheSpaniard made no resistance, and when he was bidden crept, tremblinglike a hound that has been flogged, into his cell, and when they wereboth in I ordered the openings to be built up.

  They thrust him in with his arms still bound.

  _To face page 205._]

  Francis Hartness and the professor had gone away to the other end of thehall, not liking to see this, and yet knowing that it would be uselessto seek to persuade me to more mercy.

  'Our work here is done now,' I said, going to them, 'and it would bewell for us to go back to the fortress and sleep, for the morning isnear and there will be much work to do before long.'

  'I don't think I shall sleep much after what I have seen to-night,' saidHartness, 'and if I did sleep I think I should dream of that goldenprison and those two poor wretches hungering and thirsting for daylightand liberty, with the means of buying any luxury the world could givethem within reach of their hands.'

  'Yes,' said the professor, 'it is a curious situation, isn't it?--quiteapart from the personal interest it has for us. Now, in England orAmerica, a room built with walls and floor of solid gold would be aluxury that only a millionaire could afford, and he would probably bethought a fool for building it, and yet here it is only a prison inwhich a man might well starve to death. Come, let us get away from here.I really don't want to hear any more of Djama's ravings than I can help.Good heavens! who ever would have thought that a man of his culture andlearning and strength of mind could possibly have made such a blackguardof himself!'

  'Well,' said Hartness, with a dry sort of laugh, 'you see he was thevictim of the two passions that have done most to drive men mad or makescoundrels of them since the world began--the love of woman and the lustfor gold. I don't pretend to understand it myself, because he had goldenough promised to him, and there is no telling but that he might havewon the woman; but there, you never can tell how far any man is mad orsane until he's tried.'

  'But there was something else, my friend,' I said. 'There was, as yousay, lust of gold and love of woman; but there was also hate. Why, Iknow not; but though I owe my new life to that man, I have hated him andhe has hated me since we learnt to know each other as living men. Youknow, too, how, as I told you, Golden Star shrank from him as though hehad been a poisonous reptile, and yet why should I hate him and yet loveher who is of the same flesh and blood as he is?'

  'I would rather discuss the problem in the open air or at the haciendathan here,' said the professor, 'and even then I don't suppose we shouldget much nearer to a solution, for these things are mysteries and mostlypast finding out. Yet it may be that you and he, the sons of differentcenturies, may actually have embodied in you the differences and theantipathies of the two ages and the two races to which you belong. Thereis no telling. But come, let us get out of here, please. I really can'tstand this any longer.'

  'Nor I,' said Hartness. 'For goodness' sake let us go! This is a gooddeal more trying to the nerves than a cavalry charge or a smartskirmish.'

  'Very well,' I said, 'we will go.'

  Then I called to Tupac and bade him tell the soldiers and the rest thatthe night's work was over and it was time to go. We gave each of thesoldiers his wedge of gold, as I had promised them; and once more I madethem swear that each would kill any of the others who thought to betrayus. Then Tupac and Anahuac went and opened the stone door, and wereturned from the Hall of Gold to the upper earth, leaving Djama and hisfellow traitor still raving and crying within the walls of their goldenprison.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [D] The Inca naturally does not distinguish between the modern Peruviansand their Spanish ancestors.

  [E] This is quite a common thing in Peru, and the Indian women makeexceedingly clever spies.