The Bride of the Sun

“And my son, Huascar?”

“Your son is in no danger. Huascar watches over him.”

“You say you watch over them! But to-morrow I may have neither son nor daughter.”

“Neither son nor daughter will you have if you do not obey Huascar.” The man’s tone had become somber and menacing. “But if you obey, I swear by the head of Atahualpa, who awaits your daughter should I betray her, I swear by my eternal soul, that the señorita will be saved!”

“What must we do?”

“Nothing. You must abstain from all action. Do not pursue the Red Ponchos and put them on their guard. I will do everything if you and yours promise not to come near that house again. They know you, and when you appear, the mammaconas form the black chain round the Bride of the Sun. If a stranger appeared, they would offer her up to Atahualpa dead, rather than see her escape. Be warned, and do not leave this inn. If you promise me that, I swear that I will bring your son here, unharmed, at midnight. For your daughter, you must wait.”

Don Christobal took down a little crucifix from a nail over the bed, and came toward Huascar.

“The señora brought you up in our holy faith,” he said. “Swear upon this that you will do as you say.”

Huascar held out his hand and took the oath.

“I have sworn,” he said proudly, “but for me, your word is enough.”

“You have it,” replied Don Christobal. “We await you here at midnight. Gentlemen,” he added, as Huascar’s steps rang on the staircase without, “I have given my word, and you must help me keep it. I believe in Huascar.”

“So do I,” added Natividad.

Dick was silent. He had been watching the Indian, and was unconvinced.

“What do you think, Dick?”

“I don’t like it. Perhaps I am mistaken, though. I feel that Huascar hates me, and I do not love him particularly. We are not in a position to judge one another. Midnight will show.”

Natividad, going to the window, had opened it, and was leaning out into the street.

“I tell you I have seen that face somewhere before,” he reiterated.

“So have I,” added the Marquis, going to the window as well.

Dick joined them, and watched the skeletonlike old man across the street He was tracking Huascar, like a little boy playing at brigands, childishly taking ineffective cover behind carts, pedestrians and trees. The Indian had noticed him, and turned once or twice; then continued on his way openly, quite unconcerned.

Suddenly, the Marquis, pensively leaning against the window, straightened himself with an exclamation.

“That is Orellana! The father of Maria-Cristina de Orellana!”

Natividad started.

“You are right. That’s who it is.... I remember him well now.”

They remained as if stunned by this apparition from the terrible past; this ghost come to remind them that he too had had a beautiful daughter; that she had vanished ten years before, during the Interaymi, and that he would never see her again. The Marquis, crushed by a flood of old memories, sat inert in an armchair, deaf to Natividad’s reassuring words, and refused to touch a mouthful of the meal prepared for them.

Dick, at the Marquis’ exclamation, had dashed down into the street, caught up with the mysterious old man at the corner of the square, and put a hand on his shoulder. The stranger turned, looking at the young man fixedly.

“What do you desire, señor?” he asked in a toneless voice.

“I want to know why you are following that man.” Dick pointed to Huascar, just disappearing at another corner.

“Do you not know, then? The great day of the Interaymi is near. I am following that man because he commands the Red Ponchos, who are taking my daughter to the Cuzco. She is the Bride of the Sun, you know. But this time I shall not let her die! I shall save her, and we will return together to Lima, where her fiancée is waiting. Adios señor!”

He stalked away on his long legs, leaning on the crook.

“Mad!” said Dick aloud. Then he clenched his fists as if to hold his own reason. This inaction would drive him insane! To think that in the very heart of a supposedly civilized city there was nothing to do but to wait And wait for what? Huascar’s good pleasure; his good pleasure to keep his word or break it. Could he force that house alone? He could at all events try, and fight his way to Maria-Teresa’s feet, even if he was killed the minute afterwards.

He stopped, and pulled himself together.

What good purpose would that serve? No, he must wait; wait until midnight, when Huascar would return. That was the only thing to do; ruse for ruse, and the golden voice of money to talk to those Indians. But midnight was a long way off. Ten times the young man paced round the square, wondering and raging. Surely there were behind all these beflagged and festooned windows a legion of Christian men who would rise like a hurricane if they knew the abominable truth!

Dick’s thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a dancing, singing, howling mob at the end of the neighboring calle. This, then, was the populace which he would have raised against Garcia, and which obeyed Garcia, while the Dictator, like Pilate, washed his hands of it. The mob approached, to the thunder of drums and bugles, while flaming torches and swaying paper lanterns lit up the scene, for night had now fallen. Overhead fluttered banners adorned with crosses and strange symbols perhaps two thousand years old. Christians, this crowd? Perhaps!

Not a man of the upper classes was to be seen, not even a high-caste Indian. Here were only the dregs of the city; a mass of howling maniacs, whirling and whooping round a huge bonfire which had flared up in the center of the square, their wild yells punctuated by salvas of cohetes (crackers). On one side of the square they were singing hymns; on the other they were drinking, smoking, swearing. One group of natives swept into a church, still dancing; another entered the theater and became religiously silent, awaiting the arrival of Garcia, for whom a gala was being given.

Dick, arms crossed and brows knit, glared at the passing groups. There was nothing to be done with such brutes as these! Then he took a sudden resolution. To the four winds with Huascar and his promises! He would go to that little adobe house! Feeling to see if his revolver was safe in his pocket, he turned, only to be confronted by Huascar.

“Señor, where go you?”

He put a hand on the engineer’s arm, restraining him. Dick roughly shouldered the man away.

“You know where I am going.”

Again the Indian intervened.

“Return to the inn, señor,” he advised calmly. “I will be there in two hours’ time with the little lord. But if you make another step I cannot answer for the safety of your betrothed.” Huascar’s voice had changed as he said “your betrothed.” Dick, looking up quickly, saw nothing but hatred in the Indian’s eyes. Maria-Teresa is lost, he thought despairingly. Then a flash of light seemed to illumine the abyss into which he felt himself rolling with her.

“Huascar,” he said abruptly, “if you save Don Christobal’s daughter…”

He stopped a moment, for his heart was beating as if it would burst. In those few seconds of silence, which seemed an eternity, the barbaric picture of that scene became imprinted on his brain for all time—this dark archway under which they had instinctively drawn, the somber and deserted street before them, the intermittent uproar from the plaza mayor, and, in the adjacent streets, the banging of cohetes thrown by mischievous boys under the feet of all that passed. Just opposite, at a window on the first floor, half-a-dozen globules of colored fire flickered in the darkness; a family of royal Arequipenos had been illuminating in honor of Garcia before going to see the torchlight procession, or to the gala at the Municipal Theater.

Dick waited until an Indian, loaded down with horse-cloths, had passed and vanished; perhaps, sub-consciously, he was awaiting the miracle which would render unnecessary what he was about to say. The Indian waited, motionless as a statue.

“If you save her, I swear to you by my God that she shall never be my wife.”

Huascar did not answer at once. He was evidently taken by surprise.

“I shall save her,” he said at last. “Return to the inn, señor. I shall be there at midnight.” He turned and walked toward the river without another look at Dick, who made his way back to the plaza mayor, his ears buzzing, convinced that he had delivered Maria-Teresa.

V

Absorbed by his thoughts, shaken by the mental storm through which he had just passed, Dick did not notice what was happening about him, and was nearly ridden down by a detachment of hussars clearing a way to the theater. The hussars were escorting an open carriage drawn by four splendidly caparisoned horses, and seated in the carriage were two men: General Garcia, in all the glory of the fullest of full uniforms, and beside him, in immaculate evening-dress, Oviedo Runtu.

When he saw the Indian, Dick made as if to rush after the carriage, but he was swept away in a swirl of the crowd and, hardly knowing how, carried right into the theater on that human flood. He at once tried to escape, but could not battle his way back to the door. Garcia, surrounded by a glittering staff, was bowing to the cheering crowd from the front of the presidential box. Dick was so placed that he could not see Oviedo Runtu. The Indian, modestly hidden behind a column, left Garcia to wrestle with his glory alone.

A French actress, “of the Comédie Française,” if the bills were to be believed, came before the footlights and recited Spanish verse, in which Garcia was hailed as “the Savior of the country.”