Harry Escombe: A Tale of Adventure in Peru

by Harry Collingwood

Huanacocha is unconvinced.

The meal over, it became necessary for Escombe to effect another change of attire, the simple garb that he had assumed upon emerging from the bath being discarded in favour of certain gorgeous garments that had been especially prepared for the solemn service in the great Temple of the Sun. There was only one item in this costume which Harry had worn before, and that was the borla or tasselled fringe of scarlet round the temples, which proclaimed his royal rank. On this occasion also, the ceremony in which he was about to take part being a strictly religious one, he wore no weapons. The great Temple of the Sun being the most important building in the city, not even excepting the royal palace, was built on the crest of a hill which dominated the entire city, and was situated about a mile from the palace; the journey thither, therefore, afforded opportunity for another royal procession, in which Harry was to figure in a sort of litter borne aloft on the shoulders of eight men. This litter consisted of a platform covered with a magnificent carpet woven in a pattern composed of many rich colours, and supported by two pairs of shafts made of some tough, springy wood, the end of each shaft being attached to a kind of yoke which rested upon the shoulders of two of the bearers. Upon the platform, which was carried shoulder-high, was mounted a throne, the woodwork of which was entirely enclosed in gold plates, richly wrought and thickly studded with emeralds; and, seated on this throne and surrounded by an escort of some five hundred foot soldiers gorgeously attired and armed with bows, spears, and maces with heavy spiked heads, the young Inca presently found himself being borne at a rapid trot through another wide and handsome street, which, judging from the character of the buildings bordering it, evidently formed the aristocratic quarter of the town. This street, like those which he had already passed through, was lined on both sides by gaily attired people of both sexes and all ages, who rent the air with their enthusiastic acclamations as the cortege swept past them, the only difference being that the majority at least of these folk were, like himself, hurrying in the direction of the temple.

It was with a somewhat abstracted air that Harry acknowledged the salutations of these people, for, truth to tell, his mind and his conscience were being rather severely exercised upon the subject of the function in which he was about to take part. The one great outstanding fact in relation to it was that it was a pagan rite; and he felt that, regarded from an abstract point of view, it was distinctly wrong for him, a professed Christian, to countenance or abet idolatry in any form. Yet he had not been all those months in Peru without having acquired a certain elementary knowledge of the early history of the country, much of which, by the way, had been gained through his conversations with Arima long before that individual had so much as dreamed of the brilliant destiny that awaited his pleasant-mannered young English master. Thus, for instance, he knew that the Peruvian Indians recognised the existence of a Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, whom they sometimes named Pachacamac, and at others Viracocha; and he also knew that the attributes of this Being were believed to be of so superlatively divine a character that the simple Indians had never dared to rear more than one temple in his honour, which had long since been destroyed. He was aware also that the Inca was not only an absolute monarch, an autocrat invested with greater powers than any other earthly monarch, but that he was implicitly believed to be of divine origin, and that some of the attributes of divinity still clung to him; he was therefore not only a monarch who wielded absolute power, and whose will was law, but he was also the head of the priesthood. Taking these two facts in conjunction, Escombe, with the extreme assurance of youth, and perhaps not attaching quite enough importance to the fact that the sun was the deity whose worship had been especially inculcated and carefully handed down from generation to generation, thought, as he considered the matter, that he could see his way first to divert the adoration of his subjects from the sun to Pachacamac, and afterwards to explain that Pachacamac and the God of the Christians were one and the same, thus insensibly leading them from the paths of paganism into those of Christianity. And he resolved to do it. It was a grand ambition, and it spoke well for him that this should be the first definite resolution that he had taken in connection with the tremendous powers with which he had become so strangely invested; for, singularly enough, it had never occurred to him until within the last hour that he would be called upon to take any part in the functions and ceremonies of pagan worship. Moreover, it swept away every one of the scruples that had been worrying him as to whether or not he was justified in being present at the impending function; for he felt that, having come to the above resolution, he was justified in being present, otherwise how could he offer any suggestions as to a change in the ceremonial?

By the time that he had thought the matter out thus far, and had arrived at the conclusion that he believed he could see his way pretty clearly before him, he had reached the great open space, in the centre of which stood the temple, and he had time only to run his eye hastily over the enormous building and gather in a general idea of its aspect before his litter was deposited at the foot of the magnificent flight of forty-five broad, shallow steps which ran all round the building, and which gave access to the spacious platform upon which the edifice was raised.

As Harry leisurely dismounted from the litter his escort ran nimbly up the steps and arranged itself—four deep on each step, and the remainder on the platform above—into a wide avenue of spearmen to keep back the crowds that thronged the steps, and thus afford the young Inca a clear space in which to accomplish the ascent to the great main doorway of the building. At the same moment Tiahuana, gorgeously attired in a long flowing robe of white that was stiff with the heavy gold embroidery which almost covered it, with a mitre-like headdress, similarly embroidered, on his head, and a gold wand surmounted by a golden image of the sun in his right hand, emerged from the doorway, followed by apparently the entire staff of the priesthood, and stood at the head of the long flight of steps to receive the Inca.

Contrary to his expectation, instead of being conducted directly into the main body of the building, Escombe, surrounded by fully a hundred priests, was led by Tiahuana into an anteroom, where he found assembled the Council of Seven, under the leadership of one Huanacocha—who, Tiahuana whisperingly mentioned, was the chief and most powerful noble of the entire nation—and some five hundred other nobles, to whom he was now to be presented, and who were thus to be afforded an opportunity of thoroughly satisfying themselves before matters were allowed to proceed any further, that the young man was indeed the re-incarnated Manco, for whose return to earth the nation had been looking forward for over three hundred years.

Upon entering this anteroom Escombe found himself upon a dais occupying one end of, and reaching across the entire width of the apartment. In the centre of the dais, but close up to the front of it, was a throne of solid silver, with a footstool before it, and upon this throne Harry was directed by Tiahuana to seat himself, the body of priests immediately arranging themselves behind and on either side of it. Before him, and on the main floor of the room, which was some eighteen inches below the level of the dais, were arranged several rows of benches upon which the nobles were seated, the Council of Seven, which had governed in the absence of an Inca, with Huanacocha occupying the middle place, being seated on the front bench, or that nearest the dais.

The little stir which had been occasioned by the entrance of Harry and the priests having subsided, Arima—to Escombe’s amazement—was mysteriously produced by Tiahuana and led forward to the front of the dais, from which standpoint he was ordered to relate the circumstances under which he first came into contact with the young Englishman; how his suspicions as to the identity of his employer with the expected Inca were first aroused; what steps he took to verify those suspicions, and how he proceeded after those suspicions were confirmed; all of which he told in the Quichua language, not only with a total absence of embarrassment, but with a certain undertone of pride and exultation running through his narrative; for he felt that, as the first discoverer of the returned Manco, he was a person of very great consequence. Then Harry was requested to state where and in what manner he came into possession of the long-lost emerald collar of Manco Capac, which he did in Spanish, Tiahuana afterwards interpreting his brief statement into Quichua. Then came Tiahuana’s own turn. He began by reminding his hearers of the terrible happenings of that dreadful day when Atahuallpa, deceived by the treacherous Spaniards, unsuspectingly entered the city of Caxamalca, only to see his followers ruthlessly slaughtered, and to find himself a captive in the hands of the Conquistadors. Then he drew a graphic word picture of that still more awful night when Atahuallpa, chained hand and foot, was led out into the great square of the city and ignominiously strangled by his unscrupulous and bloodthirsty betrayers. Warming to his subject, he next very briefly sketched the untoward fate of the Inca Manco, son of Huayna Capac, whom the Spaniards had installed, as their tool and puppet, on the throne vacated by the murder of Atahuallpa; and he concluded this portion of his address by briefly reminding his hearers of the sudden and dramatic appearance of the prophet-priest Titucocha on the night of Atahuallpa’s murder, and of the prophecy then uttered by him, which Tiahuana repeated word for word. Then, gathering fresh energy and fire as he proceeded, the High Priest told how, after waiting impatiently all his life long for the reappearance of the great Manco, foretold by Titucocha, until he had begun to despair of living to see that happy day, he had been suddenly startled into new life and hope by the arrival of Arima in the city with the glad news that the divine Manco had actually returned to earth and was even then among the mountains of his beloved Peru. He reminded them of how he, Tiahuana, had conducted Arima into the presence of the Council of Seven and caused him to relate his story to them; of the scepticism with which that story had been received, of the difficulty which he had encountered in persuading the Council that it was their duty to permit him, as High Priest, to sift the story and ascertain how far it was true; and how, having at length secured their somewhat reluctant consent, he had triumphantly accomplished his mission and now had the duty and pleasure to present them to the divine Manco, promised of Heaven as the deliverer and restorer of the Peruvian nation.

“But how are we to be assured beyond all possibility of doubt that this young man is in very deed the reincarnated Manco, whose return was foretold by the prophet Titucocha, and for whom the nation has looked these three hundred years and more?” demanded Huanacocha, the head of the Council of Seven. “He is a white man to begin with; and for my part it has always been in my mind that when the divine Manco should deign to return to us, he would come in the form of a full-blooded Peruvian Indian, even as we are.”

A low murmur of concurrence and approval filled the room at these bold words of Huanacocha, and every eye was at once turned upon Tiahuana to see what reply he would give to this apparently unanswerable objection.