Thus Pedro set out on his search for Cristoval.
CHAPTER XXV
A Glimpse of Cuzco
The interest at first aroused by Pedro's disappearance gradually subsided, and was suddenly forgotten for a time, in the excitement following upon another departure. This was attended by tragic circumstance. Fray Mauricio, having established himself at Xauxa, at once denounced José to the commandant, Saavedra, as a heretic, demanding his arrest. Saavedra, intimidated by threats of the Inquisition's vengeance, unwillingly consented. He was not prompt, however, and word of the friar's efforts reached the armorer, who was almost recovered from his fever. The next morning Mauricio was found in his quarters, stabbed to the heart. José had vanished.
Search was made in the town and neighboring mountains, but no trace of the armorer was found, and as no reward was offered, the hunt was given up.
Pedro's absence was not unnoted by Rava, however, and her gratitude for his devotion and services inspired her persistent inquiries. To these Father Tendilla made evasive replies, deeming it unwise to suggest a hope which would probably renew her anguish when Pedro returned. But to Señora Bolio, so much exercised that she even proposed to take the field in search of the cook, he confided his mission, perplexed at that lady's attitude, which seemed too resolute to imply tenderness, but which nevertheless indicated something more than mere solicitude. Even had the good father been better versed in the gentle passion as manifested in the feminine breast, the señora's symptoms might easily have balked his diagnosis. When she learned that Pedro had left Xauxa she suspected it was prompted by his unconquerable coyness, and shocked the mild priest by a characteristic opinion of the apparent treachery. But, apprised of the fact, she melted in a manner no less surprising, blew her nose violently to abort a threatened tear, and broke into eulogy even more emphatic than her denunciation.
Rava's spiritual growth had been such as to rejoice the good missionary's heart. She turned now with all the emotion born of grief, the yearning of a heart bereft, the ardent faith of a sincere and ingenuous mind, to the Mater Dolorosa and the Redeemer. Obedient to her preceptor, she conquered the despair which he saw was menacing her life itself. She found divine consolation, and in its realization her belief received new strength. She was baptized and received the sacrament. The occasion was one of utmost solemnity, and the garrison attended in body. The little flock of native converts and as many more of the people of Xauxa as the walls of the church would hold, gathered to see the daughter of an Inca repudiate the gods of her fathers in their ancient temple.
One morning Father Tendilla hastened to Rava with the news that a chasqui had arrived from Cuzco, announcing that the Inca Manco had despatched an escort to convey her to the capital. Not many days later the sun rose upon a city of tents on the plain outside the town. The escort had arrived at nightfall the day before—battalions of the Incarial Guard, a hundred nobles, a throng of maids for the Ñusta's attendance, and a long train of camp servants, hamaca bearers, and carriers for the baggage. That morning the sacerdotal palace was a-glitter with the richly costumed members of the royal suite, bringing the Inca Manco's brotherly greetings and their own homage to the restored princess. Rava's simpler life was of the past, and once more she was a Daughter of the Sun.
A fortnight later the cortège of the Ñusta was descending by the great Chinchasuyu Road into the valley of Cuzco. As the column emerged from the pass, and the fertile bolson opened out below, Rava drew aside the curtains of the hamaca. The arid slope dropped for hundreds of feet to the uppermost terraces of the andenes which clung to the mountain-sides and ended with their green the bleak wilderness of eroded rock. Beyond these the rolling floor of the valley, traversed by the stream Cachimayo; and on the left, rising abruptly from the plain, crowned by the ramparts and towers of its huge fortress, loomed the sullen mass of the hill Sachsahuaman. At its feet lay Cuzco, the "Navel," the centre of the universe, the ancient capital of the Incas; and still farther away, the bastions of the gigantic circumvallation of the Cordillera, its peaks delicately outlined against the azure of the cloudless sky or the white of more distant snow-clad summits.
A faint haziness overhung the valley, with filmy spirals of white smoke rising languidly above the roofs into the air, a-quiver with the warmth of the lowland and lending lightness and unreality to the almost dreamlike splendor of the capital. It seemed not of the West. The bright walls of dwellings, the glare of street and plaza, the green of interior court and garden, and the gold of the roofs of palace and temple, were blended by distance into a harmonious beauty which might have belonged rather to some metropolis of the fabled Orient.