The Sun Virgin
“Toparca?” she asked with trembling eagerness.
The guard nodded.
“Tell him to await me in the court beside the fountain.”
When she appeared, fully dressed, the youth was pacing the paved floor
restlessly.
“You have heard something?” she asked in a quick whisper.
“Yes. The chief priest has demanded a Council of State. It is now in
session. The chief priest, the Inca, the queen, the dowager mother are
there. They are trying the stranger for his life. If you would save it,
you must act quickly!”
“And you who love me bring this message?” she cried tenderly.
“Yes--”
She could only stare, but her eyes shone in misty gratitude.
“Oh, Yma, beloved,” he choked, “have you become the stranger’s bride?”
“No, Toparca. He loves another. He has repulsed me cruelly.”
The youth stared bewildered.
“How could he be so blind before your dazzling beauty?”
“He does not see with your eyes.”
“I’m sorry you grieve, my Yma. I’d give you your heart’s desire, if
I could. Yet I rejoice you are not his. And I shall pray our Sun God
daily to keep you until I shall claim you as my own. When I am of age
the Inca will grant my prayers--if you will only wait and love me,
dear?”
The girl pressed her fingers to his lips in a tender gesture and
hurried to the door.
“Come, we’ve no time to lose. You must help me.”
The boy obtained admission to the royal council chamber of his brother
without delay, and concealed Yma behind the folds of the curtained
doorway.
The chief priest was speaking sternly:
“I repeat my warning to you, Lord of the Sun. This man is a spy sent
among us to learn the strength of your kingdom. Your illustrious
father first heard of their skirting our coast in this very room, the
night he made his will, and divided the kingdom between you and your
brother Huascar. The Priests from Cuzco threatened and raved in vain.
And strange to say an earthquake shook the palace and a volcano burst
into eruption. Your father, Huyna Capac, defied the double warning and
reaffirmed his decree in favor of your mother, his beloved Pacha.”
The Priest paused and bowed to the stately Dowager Queen.
“He made you the Inca of the Northern Kingdom in spite of all croakings
from Cuzco. But I warn you, Lord of the Sun, your father confessed to
me in secret that in these strange beings who walk the earth in shining
shells, carrying thunderbolts in their hands, he foresaw the doom of
the empire. I vote for the man’s death to-night.”
The dowager studied the high priest with a frown. The Inca lifted his
eyes to the queen who refused to act without his lead.
“I wait your decision, my Lord,” she humbly said.
The Inca’s slanting eyes narrowed in a piercing glance at his mother.
“But if this strange god-man is endowed with such power can we not use
him? Two Incas cannot rule. A war between us now threatens. If the
stranger will give to me his magic, I can win if these tales of his
prowess be true--”
“That depends,” his mother interrupted, “on the charms of Yma. If she
wins his love, he will fight for us--”
“But will she win?”
“If he resists her charms he is truly a god. She is the most beautiful
Virgin of the Sun in the history of the Kingdom.”
Yma pressed Toparca’s hand and whispered:
“Now, lead me to the Inca--”
The youth tremblingly led the girl before the royal Council, and
faltered:
“The Sun Virgin has an important message, Atahualpa.”
The girl threw Toparca a look of pity and faced the frowning ruler.
“I have come, my Lord of the Sun, to announce my triumph. The stranger
is mine. He loves me and takes me as his bride.”
Toparca rushed from the room.
The Council voted life to Molina, who was at the moment alone in his
apartment, a prey to fears of the future.
While on the great uncharted sea, the little fleet, like an approaching
cloud, flew southward and neared Tumbez.
Empires lay on the scales and a woman’s lie had turned the balance.
CHAPTER IX
When Yma discovered that Molina could not be taken through the mere
sight of her beauty or the voluptuous appeal of her lovely body, by a
quick intuition she changed her method.
She would make her presence free from all attempt at allurement. She
would work a charm of habit so subtle that he could not arm himself
against it. Never once, after the first night of offered surrender, did
she hint of love. She was simply a slave to the bidding of her master.
His commands were her joy; her service an act of worship.
Her first suggestion for his daily life was so sensible he agreed
immediately. He must master the Quicha language, the spoken word of
the Inca Empire. She would learn to speak his tongue and together they
could train others.
The Spaniard found her new ways harder to resist than the more obvious
one with which she began. Through the long hours of their study of the
languages she was ever modest, gentle and worshipful.
Her attitude of worship was the one restful thing about her. It was
a strange experience for the cavalier. The sense of being regarded
as a god was a queer feeling. It reacted on his conscience and his
outlook on life. It held him to ideals. He could not afford now to act
as common clay. The girl’s worship was an incense that glorified life.
It gave him strength to resist the lure of her body. It brought to his
loneliest hours of longing for Teresa a new strength. And yet, it was
this very attitude that, to an extent, weakened him. It was easier
for his conscience, but it maddened his masculinity. Yma’s strategy
was subtle. Molina’s ideals struggled with his inclinations. If she
threw her beautiful arms around his neck now--and he tacitly hoped she
would--the battle would be a hard one.
As the days passed and no sign of an invasion of the kingdom appeared,
the Inca’s fears passed. He allowed his strange guest complete liberty
to go and come as he pleased.
Yma planned a journey of inspection of the kingdom to which Molina
eagerly agreed. It would give him the opportunity to map the country,
locate its roads and forts, gauge the number of its inhabitants, and
estimate the strength of its resources and armies. To the girl it meant
the glory of moonlit nights in the tropics amid scenes of surpassing
splendor. His heart would be of stone if it did not melt at visions she
would show to him.
The highways were a source of endless wonder to Molina. The litters on
which they were swiftly borne passed over endless miles of wide, paved
roads, such roads as Europe had never seen or the world known since the
days of the Roman Empire.
Yma led him first over the highway of the Grand Plateau between the
first ranges of the Andes. They climbed swiftly into the clouds.
Across trackless sierras of dazzling snow the trail was never lost.
Tunnels ran through miles of solid rock. Rivers were crossed over
slender suspension bridges that spanned gorges miles in depth. Mountain
crests were scaled by hewn stairways cut into the rocks. Narrow ravines
of almost fathomless depths were filled with solid masonry to meet the
level of the tunnels.
“How long, my Yma, is this miraculous roadway?” Molina asked as they
began the descent into the great plateau.
“Two thousand miles, Señor,” was the quick reply.
He laughed at the quaint way her lips framed the Spanish “señor.”
They stopped at a post resthouse perched on the cliff to enjoy the
grandeur of the view. Molina never tired inspecting the huge granaries
of these stations. He always found them not more than five miles apart.
These were not only for the use of the traveling public, but were the
homes of the post runners who carried the royal mails with such swift
efficiency.
These runners, called _chasquis_, were young athletes selected for
their speed and fidelity. In addition to the delivery of the royal mail
they also carried delicacies for the table of the Inca and his nobles:
fish, fresh from the sea and streams, and fruits and game. Molina could
recall no such institution in all Europe.
In the great plateau he found the kingdom of the Inca in its full
development, a complete system of civilization more highly organized
than life in Spain. All labor was for the common good. No man could
accumulate more than his needs. There could be no poverty. There was
no want. No man might better his lot, or leave the place of his birth
without the summons or consent of the Inca. Every man, not assigned to
duty in the army or the public works, was required to till the soil.
The Inca himself set the example at the spring festival by entering the
fields and spading the soil.
Agriculture had developed in the most marvelous ways. Arid spaces were
watered by a system of aqueducts conveying swift streams of pure water
from the mountain heights. The mountain sides were terraced for miles
in height. These terraces were covered with rich soil carried and
hauled by hand. Potatoes, corn, and vegetables grew in rich profusion.
Each man’s crop, when harvested, was divided into three portions: one
for the Inca, one for the Temple of the Sun, and one for the man who
toiled. The portion of the Inca was stored in the royal granaries
against any possible day of want. From these storehouses, all public
servants, the army, and the miners were supplied. The labor required
to till the soil was light, when evenly distributed. The people held
no fear of the future. They literally had become children of the sun.
Their chief pleasure was the dance. When night softly fell from the
tropic skies, the lights of a thousand feasts and dances gleamed in the
valleys.
An overseer was set over a group of ten families. A controller ruled a
hundred families. A lieutenant-governor ruled five thousand families,
a governor ten thousand, and a viceroy had the oversight of a province
consisting of forty thousand families. Each officer reported to his
superior and the viceroy went several times a year to report in person
to his emperor, the Inca.
Secret agents traveled continuously, incognito, over the kingdom,
inspected each village, noted the conduct of its officers, and reported
to the sovereign.
Crimes were rare, but when committed were met with swift, dire
punishment. Murder, adultery, rape, incest and similar violations
of the moral code were punishable by death. Only a governor could
pronounce a death sentence, with the right of appeal to the highest
authorities.
Theft was punished in a unique manner. If the culprit stole from want
the official responsible for his condition must pay the penalty. The
thief was then provided with land, clothing, food, and all necessities.
If such a man still would steal, he was executed immediately.
The men did the heavy work, the women assisting in seedtime and
harvest. In addition to her house-work, while men tilled the fields and
worked the mines, the women made shoes, cloth and clothes for their
families.
Immoral women were not permitted to live within a village. Their heads
were shaven and they were driven into the forests. If a respectable
wife spoke to such a woman she suffered the same penalty. There were
no brothels in Peru. There were no public drinking places, no brawls
over drink or women.
The fishing off the coast and in the rivers and streams was free to
all, but only the Inca or his wardens were allowed to kill game.
The standard type of dwelling was of the simplest form suitable to the
tropics--small buildings of adobe brick, thatched with straw. Large
families had two rooms, small ones but a single room. Wooden chairs
and tables, an open fireplace with cooking pots and pans and a bed,
slightly elevated from the floor, completed the ordinary outfit.
Corn, potatoes, and llama mutton were the staple foods. The people ate
but two meals a day, one in the forenoon and one at sunset.