Chapter Four.
Mama Cachama.
When young Escombe regained his senses it was night, or so he supposed, for all was darkness about him, save for such imperfect illumination as came from a small wood fire which flickered and crackled cheerfully in one corner of the apartment in which he found himself. The apartment! Nay, it was far too large, much too spacious in every dimension, to be a room in an ordinary house, and those walls—or as much as could be seen of them in the faint, ruddy glow of the firelight—were altogether too rough and rugged to have been fashioned by human hands, while the roof was so high that the flickering light of the flames was not strong enough to reach it. It was a cavern, without doubt, and Harry began to wonder vaguely by what means he had come there. For, upon awakening, his mind had been in a state of the most utter confusion, and it was not until he had lain patiently waiting for his ideas to arrange themselves, and had thereby come to the consciousness that he was aching in every bone and fibre of his body, while the latter was almost entirely swathed in bandages, that the recollection of his adventure returned to him. Even then the memory of it was but a dreamy one, and indeed he did not feel at all certain that the entire incident was not a dream from beginning to end, and that he should not presently awake to find himself on the cot in his tent, with the cold, clear dawn peering in past the unfolded flap, and another day’s arduous work before him. But he finally concluded that the fire upon which his eyes rested was too real, and, more especially, that his pain was too acute and insistent for him to be dreaming. Then he fell to wondering afresh how in the name of fortune he had found his unconscious way into that cave and upon the pallet which supported him.
The fire was the only thing in the cavern that was distinctly visible; certain objects there were here and there, a vague suggestion of which came and went with the rise and fall of the flame, but what they were Harry could not determine. There was, among other matters, an object on the far side of the fire, that looked not unlike a bundle of rags; but when Escombe, in attempting to turn himself over into a more comfortable position, uttered an involuntary groan as a sharp twinge of pain shot through his anatomy, the bundle stirred, and instantly resolved itself into the quaintest figure of a little, old, bowed Indian woman that it is possible to picture. But, notwithstanding her extreme age and apparent decrepitude, the extraordinary old creature displayed marvellous activity. In an instant she was on her feet and beside the pallet, peering eagerly and anxiously into Harry’s wide-open eyes. The result of her inspection appeared to be satisfactory, for presently she turned away and, muttering to herself in a tongue which was quite incomprehensible to her patient, disappeared in the all-enveloping darkness, only to reappear a moment later with a small cup in her hand containing a draught of very dark brown, almost black, liquid of an exceedingly pungent but rather agreeable bitter taste, which she placed to his lips, and
which the lad at once swallowed without demur. The effect of the draught was instantaneous, as it was marvellously stimulating and exhilarating; and it must also have possessed very remarkable tonic properties, for scarcely had Escombe swallowed it when a sensation of absolutely ravenous hunger assailed him.
“Ah!” he sighed, “that was good; I feel ever so much better now. Mother,” he continued in Spanish, “I feel hungry: can you find me something to eat?”
“Aha! you feel hungry, do you?” responded the old woman in the same language. “Good! I am prepared for that. Wait but a moment, caro mio, until I can heat the broth, and your hunger shall soon be satisfied.” And with the birdlike briskness which characterised all her actions she moved away into the shadows, presently returning with three iron rods in her hand, which she dexterously arranged in the form of a tripod over the fire, and from which she suspended a small iron pot. Then, taking a few dry sticks from a bundle heaped up near the fire, she broke them into short lengths, which she carefully introduced, one by one, here and there, into the flame, coaxing it into a brisk blaze which soon caused a most savoury and appetising steam to rise from the pot. Next, from some hidden receptacle she produced a bowl and spoon, emptied the smoking contents of the pot into the former, and then, carefully propping her patient into a sitting position, proceeded to feed him. The stew was delicious, to such an extent, indeed, that Harry felt constrained to compliment his hostess upon its composition and to ask of what it was made. He was much astonished—and also, it must be confessed, a little disgusted—when the old lady simply answered, Lagarto (lizard). There was no doubt, however, that he had greatly enjoyed his meal, and felt distinctly the better for it; he therefore put his squeamishness on one side, and asked his companion to enlighten him as to the manner in which he came to be where he was.
“It is very simple,” answered the old woman. “While my son Yupanqui was fishing in the river, two days ago, he caught sight of something unusual lying at the edge of a sandbank, and upon paddling his balsa to the spot, he found your insensible body lying stranded there, bruised and bleeding; so, like a sensible boy, he took you up and brought you hither as quickly as possible, in order that I might exercise my skill in the attempt to restore you to life. We managed to do so at last, between us; but you were caduco (crazy), and could tell us nothing of yourself, for you spoke persistently in a language that we did not understand; so, as soon as it was seen that you would live, I busied myself in dressing your wounds and bruises, after which I prepared for you a certain medicine which, as I expected, threw you into a deep sleep, from which you have at length awakened in your right mind. And now you have but to lie still and allow your wounds to heal. Which reminds me that now is a very favourable time to dress them afresh.”
“Two days ago—stranded on a sandbank!” repeated Escombe in bewilderment. “I do not understand you, Mother. Surely I have not been lying insensible for two whole days! And how could I possibly have become stranded on a sandbank? I fell into the river in the quebrada, and I am prepared to avouch that there were no sandbanks there!”
“In the quebrada! Is it possible?” echoed the old woman. “Why, the end of the quebrada is more than a mile away from where Yupanqui found you! But I think I begin to understand a little. You are not a Spaniard—I can tell that by your accent—therefore you must be an Inglés, one of the ingenieros who are making the new railway among the mountains. Is it not so?”
“You have guessed it, Mother,” answered Escombe. “Yes, I was taking some measurements in the quebrada when the rope by which I was hanging broke, and I fell into a tree, and thence on to the rocks beneath, after which I lost consciousness.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the old woman, as she proceeded to remove deftly the bandages and re-dress Harry’s hurts; “yes, it is wonderful—very wonderful; for if you had not chanced to fall into the tree before striking the rocks, you must certainly have been killed. That I can quite understand. But I cannot understand how, after having fallen into the river, you escaped being dashed to pieces upon the many rocks among which it flows, nor how, having escaped that death, you afterwards escaped drowning in the deep water, for you must have been swept along quite a mile after issuing from the quebrada. It is true that when Yupanqui found you, you were lying upon your back; so that, I suppose, is the reason why the river did not suffocate you. Your hurts are doing famously, Señor Inglés, thanks to my knowledge of simples. There is only one—this in your head—which is likely to give trouble; but we will soon mend that, if you can prevail upon yourself to lie still and not disturb the bandage.”
“Oh!” answered Harry; “I will do that all right, now that my senses have come back to me, don’t you fear; for I must get well quickly, and return to my work as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Mother, where is your son? I should like to send him with a message to the engineer’s camp, if he will go, to let them know that I am alive.”
“Assuredly, assuredly,” assented the queer old creature, as she assiduously bathed the wound in Harry’s head with a hot fomentation which she had specially prepared. “He is out hunting, now, but the evening is drawing in and I expect him back ere long. When he returns we will hear what he has to say about it. Doubtless he will willingly go; but if your camp is near the spot where I think you must have fallen, it will take him quite half a day to reach it.”
“Half a day!” echoed Harry, aghast. “How is that? I should have thought that half an hour would have been nearer the mark.”
“Nay, my son,” answered the old woman, “he will have to travel fast to do it in half a day. You do not know how difficult it is to travel from place to place among these mountains, even when one knows the way. He will have to go a long way round to reach the spot of which I am thinking, for there are many impassable precipices in his course, to say nothing of bogs in which, if one be not very careful, one can disappear, leaving no trace behind.”
Harry could understand this, now that it had been explained to him, for he had already had experience of the impassable precipices and bottomless morasses spoken of by his companion. But it was disconcerting, to say the least of it, that it would occupy so long to send a message to camp; for, taking into consideration the fact that he had already been two days absent, and that it would require another half-day to send a message, the chances were that, when Yupanqui reached the spot, he would find the survey party gone, and would be obliged to follow them up until he should overtake them. Also he began to wonder how long it would be before his injuries would be sufficiently healed to allow him to travel over a road of so difficult a character as that hinted at in his companion’s remarks. He had only to attempt to move on his pallet, and to feel the intolerable aching in every limb that resulted from the effort, to understand that some days—probably at least a week—must elapse ere he would be fit to attempt the journey; and meanwhile where would the survey party be, and how would they be faring without him? What would Butler do? Would he take Harry’s death for granted, and proceed singlehanded with the survey; or would he send out a search party to seek for traces of his lost assistant? He must of necessity do one or the other, and the comforting reflection came to Harry that, even if the first course were adopted, the party could not get very far away without being overtaken.
“How long do you think it will be, Mother, before I shall be able to rise and move about again?” he enquired.
“Nay, my son, who can tell save the good God who holds our lives in His hands?” answered the old woman. “It may be two weeks, or it may be two months, according to whether or not the fever returns. Much must depend upon yourself. If you keep quite quiet, and do not become impatient, you may be able to rise and go into the open for a short time in two weeks, possibly even in less. But you must do in all things exactly as I say, if you wish to get well quickly; and you may trust in me, for I have seen many years and have always been skilled in the art of healing.”
“I will trust you, of course,” answered Harry, reaching out at the cost of some pain and squeezing the old creature’s clawlike hand. “Get me well as quickly as you can, Mother, and you will not find me ungrateful. I have the means of rewarding you liberally for all your trouble as soon as I can return to camp.”
“Reward!” ejaculated the old woman, angrily snatching away her hand; “who spoke of reward? I require no reward, if by that you mean money payment. I have no need of money. This cave has provided me with dry and comfortable housing for many years, while the garden outside and my son’s hunting and fishing furnish us with ample food. What need have we of money?”
“Pardon, Mother,” exclaimed Harry penitently, “I did not mean to offend you. But if you do not need money, there are perhaps other things that you or your son may be glad to have, and you must let me show my gratitude to you in some way, for I cannot forget that to you and your son I owe my life.”
“Ay, ay; ay, ay; that’s as may be,” muttered the old creature, as though speaking to herself. “There,” she added, as, having completed the dressing of Escombe’s injuries, she secured the last bandage, “that is done. Now, more medicine, and then more sleep.” And therewith she bustled away into the shadows, returning, a few minutes later, with a generous draught that foamed and sparkled in the goblet like champagne, but left a taste of sickly sweetness upon the palate. As the invalid swallowed the dose a sensation of great ease and comfort permeated his entire system, and the next moment he was asleep.
When Harry next awoke, feeling very much better, he saw that his hostess, and a fine, stalwart, copper-coloured young Indian whom he took to be her son, were seated at a roughly framed table, at some little distance from his cot, taking a meal by the light of an earthenware lamp, and conversing together in low tones in a language with which he was unfamiliar. From the manner in which the pair glanced in his direction from time to time he rather suspected that he was the subject of their conversation, which was being conducted with much earnestness, especially by the old woman. That she was maintaining a very keen watch upon her patient was perfectly evident, for at Harry’s first movement she sprang to her feet and, snatching up the lamp, rapidly approached his bedside, peering down into his eyes with the same intense eagerness that she had before exhibited, muttering and mumbling to herself excitedly the while.
“Ah, ah!” she exclaimed, in tones of much satisfaction, “so you are awake again at last! You have slept well and long, my friend—slept all through the night without a movement. And your skin is cool, too,” she continued, laying her skinny hand on Harry’s forehead; “cool and moist; no fever. But what of the pain? Is it still severe as ever?”
“The pain!” exclaimed Hal, moving himself slightly. “Why, no, it seems almost gone. What magic is this?”
“No magic at all,” chuckled the quaint old creature, “but merely a poor old Indian woman’s skill in simples. You are doing excellently well, Señor Inglés—better, even, than I dared hope. And now you are hungry, is it not so? Good! your breakfast is ready and shall be brought to you instantly; and when you have finished, there is my son Yupanqui, who is ready to take any message that you may desire to send to your camp.”
An excellently roasted bird—which the patient subsequently learned was a parrot,—bread made of Indian corn flour, and a cup of delicious chocolate were speedily dispatched. Then Harry having asked for his notebook, which had been found in his pocket and carefully dried, he pencilled a note to Butler, briefly informing that individual of his escape, and of his hope that he would be sufficiently recovered from his injuries to rejoin the camp in about a fortnight’s time, and dispatched Yupanqui with it, describing to the Indian the probable situation of the camp, as nearly as he could, and instructing the man to give it only into the hands of the Englishman, and to ask for a reply, which he was to bring back with him.
The next few days passed uneventfully, save that the invalid’s progress toward recovery was so rapid and satisfactory that about midday of the third day Harry—who began to find bed becoming very wearisome—was allowed by his nurse to rise and, clad in trousers and the remains of his shirt, go as far as the entrance of the cave and sit there for an hour or two, enjoying the magnificent prospect which greeted his astonished eyes.
He found that the cave which had afforded him such perfect shelter during his helplessness formed a chamber, or rather a series of chambers, in an enormous mass of rock that rose sheer out of a little circular, basin-like valley through which flowed the stream from the quebrada, the water here spreading out in the form of a lake measuring about a mile across and evidently rather shallow, for here and there he could see small sandbanks showing clear of the water. It was upon one of these that he had been found stranded by Yupanqui. The quebrada died out in the valley about a mile from the mouth of the cave, as could be seen when the spot was indicated by the old Indian woman, and Escombe wondered more than ever by what chance his senseless body had been carried so far by the rushing water without destroying such life as remained in it. The ground sloped rather steeply from the cave down to the water’s edge, and some eight or ten acres of it had been dug up at intervals and planted with maize, vegetables of various kinds, and fruit trees, among which Harry recognised the peach, the orange, the mulberry, and the cacao. It was no wonder, he told himself, that his queer but kind-hearted old hostess indignantly disclaimed any need of money. For, with the produce of the garden, and what Yupanqui could bring in from the forest and the river, it seemed to him that their every want, except perhaps in the matter of clothes, must be abundantly supplied. And, so far as clothes were concerned, doubtless the cultivated ground yielded a superabundance ample enough to afford them the means of bartering it for such simple clothing as they needed. The valley was of basin-like form, the sides of it growing ever steeper as they receded from the middle, until they eventually merged into the mountain slopes which hemmed in the valley on every side and went rolling away, ridge beyond ridge, in interminable perspective, until, in the extreme distance, they terminated in the snow-clad peaks of the Andes.
Harry’s hostess—who now mentioned that she bore the name of Cachama—appeared to be in a singularly communicative mood that day, for she beguiled the time by not only pointing out and naming the principal peaks in sight, but she also related several very interesting legends connected with certain of them and with the country generally, going back to the time before the conquest, and painting in dazzling colours the glories of the Inca dynasty, and the incredible wealth of the ancient rulers of Peru. She appeared to be pretty intimately acquainted with the history of the conquest of the country by Pizarro, and had many bitter things to say of the strange pusillanimity of the Inca, Atahuallpa, on that fatal 16th of November, 1532, when he went, open-eyed, into the trap prepared for him at Caxamalca, and suffered himself to be seized, in the presence of his entire army, by a mere handful of Spaniards. She gave a most emphatic denial to the suggestion that the country had benefited by the civilised conditions that had followed the conquest.
“No, no,” said she, “we are infinitely worse off in every way, to-day, than we were under the rule of the Incas. Poverty, misery, oppression, and suffering of every kind are to be met with on all hands and wherever one goes, while four hundred years ago we had a far higher state of civilisation than now exists, in which poverty and oppression, with their countless attendant evils, were unknown. But it will not last for ever, I tell you; brighter and happier days are in store for us of the ancient race, and perhaps even I, old as I am, may live to see it. Yes, I, poor though I am, and compelled to lodge my worn-out body in a cave, have royal blood in my veins, as had my husband, Yupanqui; we are both descended from Huayna Capac, and, but for Atahuallpa’s incredible folly, I might have been enjoying comfort and affluence to-day; ay, and possibly my husband might also have been living.”
Escombe had read Prescott’s Conquest of Peru during his schooldays, and the romantic story had implanted within his mind a keen interest in everything pertaining to the history of the country, which had never waned, and which had received a fresh stimulus when he learned that he was not only to visit and spend some time in Peru but also to explore certain parts of it. And now, to find himself actually conversing with someone who claimed descent from those proud Incas, who appeared to have lived in a regal splendour only to be equalled by that of the potentates of the Arabian Nights, seemed to him to be a rare slice of good luck; he was therefore careful to say nothing calculated to divert the conversation from the channel in which it was so satisfactorily flowing, but, on the contrary, did everything he could to keep it there. He was, however, very much surprised to find his hostess looking forward so confidently to brighter and happier times for the despised Indian race; for if any one thing seemed absolutely certain, it was that the time was not very far distant when the few scattered survivors must perish, and the race vanish from the face of the earth. It was therefore in somewhat incredulous tones that he turned to Cachama and said:
“What grounds have you for the hope—or should I call it the certainty—that better days are in store for your race? To me it seems that there are very few of you left.”
“Ay,” she answered, “it may so seem to you, for you have as yet seen but little of the country save the terra caliente, and very few of us are now to be found near the coast. But when you get farther up among the mountains, and especially when you get into the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, you will find that we have not all perished. Furthermore, it is said—with what truth I know not—that when Atahuallpa fell into the hands of the Conquistadors, and was strangled by torchlight in the great plaza of Caxamalca, many of the nobles who had been with him fled with their families into the heart of the mountains, and, establishing themselves in a certain secret place, set to work, at the bidding of one Titucocha, a priest of the Sun, to build a new City of the Sun—beside the glories of which those of Cuzco were to be as nothing—against the time when our Lord the Sun should again send Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca dynasty, back to earth to restore the dynasty in all its ancient splendour.”
“And do you really believe that such a restoration is possible?” asked Escombe with a smile at the old woman’s credulity.
“Ay,” answered Cachama with conviction, “I more than believe, I know! For I have the gift of foreknowledge, to a certain extent, and from my earliest childhood I have felt convinced that the prophecy is true—I cannot explain how, or why; I only know that it is so. And with the passage of the years I have ever felt that the time for its fulfilment was drawing nearer, until now I know that it is so close at hand that even I, old though I am, may live to see it. I would that I could feel as sure of the continuance of the dynasty as I am of its restoration; but I cannot; I can only see—dimly—up to a certain point, beyond which everything is misty and uncertain, with a vague suggestion of disaster which fills, me with foreboding.”