CHAPTER XIV
THE RE-KINDLING OF THE SACRED FIRE

Now this story of mine is nearly done, for there are but few things left for me to tell. It is not for me to write of all the battles that we fought after the City of the Sun and the region about it fell into our hands, for to do that is a task better fitted to the hands of him who led my ever-growing hosts to victory after victory until the whole land that had been my fathers' was mine from north to south and from the great rivers of the east to the Sea of the Setting Sun, which you now call the Pacific Ocean.

It is enough for me to say that I used my gold without stint, and that it did all and more than the work I had been told it would do. As we marched southward and westward to the sea, army after army left those who were fighting between themselves for the ruins of the land and, having no real quarrel of their own, ranged themselves under the Rainbow Banner and fought with me for freedom and the ancient faith of their long-dead fathers, and how city after city welcomed me as I came to give it peace and wealth instead of strife and misery.

My unforgotten story and the marvel of my coming back from the days of our old-time glories had sped like the leaps of the lightning from mountain to mountain and valley to valley, and every man in whose veins flowed even the smallest drop of the Sacred Blood threw aside the broken fragments of the oppressor's yoke and came to give me his service.

From other countries, too, and from far over the sea, there came men to fight for me, men whom Hartness had called from afar by speaking to them over the lightning-wires, and they brought ships with them, armed with flame and thunder, which the promise of my gold had purchased, and these took all the seaports for me, while my ever-growing armies were taking the cities of the inland valleys—all of which those who would learn may read in the great book which Francis Hartness and the professor, who with Joyful Star have helped out these lame words of mine, are writing together to tell how the ancient empire of the Incas rose at my call and the bidding of my gold—which I doubt not was far stronger than I—out of the degradation into which the oppressors had cast it, and has even now begun to prosper again with more than its former glory.

But, as I have said, these things are not for me to tell, since I have neither the skill nor the knowledge to do so. What I have set down here is only the story of my own awakening out of the death-sleep into which the arts of the priests of the Sun had cast me with Golden Star, and of her return to join me in my new life. I have told of that and of all that befell us afterwards, and now there remains only the telling of that which fulfilled our strange fates and completed our happiness in the new world into which those fates had brought us.

Many weeks passed and grew into months before the oppressors were finally subdued and I found myself undisputed lord of all the land, and, as I had promised Joyful Star, all this had to come to pass before I would ask her to put her hand into mine and take her place beside me as my Coya and queen on the throne of Huayna-Capac.

But at length there was peace in the land and we returned from Lima, the capital of the Spaniards, where I had been proclaimed and acknowledged Inca and Emperor of my ancient domains, to the City of the Sun, which many loving and willing hands had cleansed of the abominations of its new idolatries and made in some measure fit to receive us, to crown our new lives with such happiness as, with the help and blessing of the Unnameable, we might be able to bestow upon each other.

The treasures of gold and silver and ornaments of jewels, the rich hangings and the sacred and precious emblems had been brought from the Hall of Gold and the throne-room beneath the Sacsahuaman and set up in the chief temple of the Spaniards, which stands in the place where the holy Temple of the Sun once stood and is in great part built of the self-same stones. [F]

It was the eve of the Feast of Raymi, or the Coming of the Sun, which in the olden time we counted as the beginning of the year, and I had determined that this day should witness the restoration of the old order and the beginning of my own true happiness—so that night Golden Star and I, as became the son and daughter of the Royal Race and Sacred Blood, watched and prayed according to the ancient rites—she in a chamber of what had once been the House of the Virgins of Sun, and I in the purified temple—from the setting of the sun until the first waning of the stars in the coming dawn.

Very early in the morning she was brought to me in the temple by Tupac-Rayca—whom I had in virtue of his pure blood and noble decent, consecrated Villac-Umu or High Priest of the Sun, and who had in turn invested such others of the Blood as he thought worthy with the subordinate dignities of the holy office. He and his attendants were arrayed in the ancient priestly robes and adorned with the sacred emblems of their rank, and Golden Star was attired as a royal Virgin of the Sun, in garments of white edged with scarlet and decked with ornaments of pure gold.

Then we prayed together before the newly-set-up altar, which stood over against the eastern window of the Sanctuary, and when that duty was ended, and while the growing light was yet dim, there came to us Joyful Star, also arrayed as a princess of the Blood, and Francis Hartness, whom my thankful people had already named Viracocha, after one of our golden-haired hero-gods of the olden time.

After them came all those of the Sacred Race that were left in the land—men and matrons, youths and maidens—all dressed in the long-forbidden garb of their forefathers, and ranged themselves in two silent, orderly ranks down the sides of the Sanctuary, waiting with patient eagerness for that which they had been bidden here to see.

Above the altar hung the great golden Emblem of the Sun, upon which the radiant glance of the Lord of Light would first fall through the circular window in the eastern wall, and on it was a pyramid of wood anointed with scented oils; for here was soon to be re-kindled—if our Lord the Sun should smile on the new fortunes of his long-suffering children—without the aid of human hands, that sacred fire first lit by Manco Capac and Mama Occlu, son and daughter of the Sun, and which had burnt unquenched through all the ages that had passed from the founding to the fall of our ancient empire. Beside it lay a cone-shaped vessel of burnished gold, in the depths of which the Sacred Fleece awaited the touch that was to change it into flame.

When all were assembled, Tupac-Rayca mounted the steps of the altar, and, facing the silent throng, began to speak in the ancient and unforgotten tongue and said,—

'Children of the Sun, sons and daughters of those whose ancestors in the unremembered days received the divine command to create the empire over which they ruled with ever-growing glory until, by the inscrutable decrees of the Unnameable, the destroyer and oppressor were permitted to come into the land, listen with open ears and thankful hearts to the words which our Father shall put into my mouth to say to you!'

All bowed their heads and crossed their hands over their breasts as he spoke, and after a little silence he went on,—

'The last of the Villac-Umus who stood where I am standing told your fathers and mine of the near-approaching night of gloom and desolation that was about to fall upon the Land of the Four Regions. For what sins of his children our Father permitted that night to eclipse the bright day of their empire we know not, nor is it lawful for us to inquire. Let it be enough for us to believe that, grievous as the doom was, it could not have been anything save the inflexible justice of the Unnameable.'

Again they bowed their heads, and there was silence for a little space until he went on, speaking this time in a gladder voice,—

'But, stern as that justice was, it was yet not untempered with mercy, for with the words of doom there came from our Father, by the lips of his minister, the holy Anda-Huillac, those words of hope and promise which from that day to this have been handed down in secret, yet unforgotten, from father to son and from mother to daughter, and which now for the first time since then may be spoken openly in the land:—

'Sons and daughters of the long-dead, turn your eyes and see how the eastern skies are swiftly brightening with first rays of that long-looked-for dawn. This is the morning of our deliverance, for our deliverers stand here before us, and with your own eyes you may look upon those who, in the strength of their love and faith, dared the doom to win the promise, for here in the living flesh stands that Vilcaroya, son of the great Huayna-Capac, and there beside him is Golden Star, that virgin of the Royal Race who of her own will joined hands with him in the wedlock of death, and whose pure soul has dwelt with his in the Mansions of the Sun while ten generations of men have lived and died awaiting their return to the land.

'To us, more blessed, it has been given to see that which our fathers waited for in vain. To us our Lord Vilcaroya and our Lady Golden Star have come back from the shadows of death into the light of life and glory of victory. Already you have seen the oppressor pay the price of life for life, and blood for blood, and shame for shame. You have seen our Lord seated on the golden throne of the Divine Manco with the Rainbow Banner waving high above him, and now the moment has come for you to see the fulfilling of what yet remains of the promise unfulfilled. Behold the visible presence of our Father comes near to smile once more on his children long left in darkness!'

While he was speaking these last words the light in the eastern sky had brightened fast until a sunray leapt over the lower rim of the window and shone on the painted ceiling of the Sanctuary. At a sign from Tupac-Rayca, Golden Star took up the vessel in which lay the Sacred Fleece, and, standing in the middle of the altar on the highest step, held it poised in her hands above her head, with her pale, fair face and shining eyes upturned towards the window.

Foot by foot the light crept along the roof, broadening and brightening as it went, till it touched the western wall. Then, ever followed by the anxious eyes of the silent throng, it descended until the great Symbol of the Sun flashed and flamed in its radiance. Still lower it sank and the burnished vessel that Golden Star held to receive them caught the gathering rays and glowed as though filled with liquid fire.

Now the moment for the giving of the Sign had come. A faint wreath of pale blue smoke curled upwards from the Sacred Fleece. It grew darker and denser, and then a little tongue of flame leapt out from the midst of it. At the same instant Tupac seized the vessel and held it upturned over the pyramid of wood upon the altar. The burning fleece fell down upon the anointed wood, a long shaft of fire shot upward, and, as the descending sunrays fell over the face and bosom of Golden Star, the voice of Tupac rang out in an exultant chant through the silence, saying, —

'Rejoice, Children of the Sun, rejoice! for your Father has once more looked in kindness and blessing upon you, and with the radiant glance of his eyes he has re-kindled the long-quenched fire which henceforth shall burn upon his altar as long as his visible presence shall make bright the heavens and beautiful the earth!'

As he ceased, Golden Star's voice rose up clear and sweet, singing the first words of the Hymn to the Sun—as I alone of all that throng had heard her sing them in the days that were no more. Then the Children of the Blood raised their voices too, and out of the fulness of their thankful hearts poured forth their first tribute of praise and thanksgiving to Him who had broken the yoke of the oppressor and given back light and joy and peace to the long-darkened Land of the Four Regions.

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When the Hymn to the Sun was ended and the Children of the Blood had received the blessing of Tupac, there was yet one more ceremony to be performed before the rejoicings of the Feast of Raymi began. There is little need for me to tell you what it was. In love as in war I had striven and conquered, and now the dearest of my rewards, dearer far than wealth or empire, was to be made mine by the free gift of her who was herself that which she gave.

Two of the priests brought forth the marriage-font and placed it in front of the altar, and Joyful Star stood on the one side of it and I on the other and we joined hands across it.

It was a double vessel of gold, formed of two twin cups, and between them there was a hole stopped by a golden plug, to which a little chain was fastened. The cup on my side was filled with blood-red wine and that towards Joyful Star with pure water, crystal clear.

Tupac took our hands in his and parted them, saying as he did so,—

'To meet and to part is the lot of man and woman upon earth, yet when two true souls meet and two faithful hearts are joined even death can part them but in seeming, for in the bright halls of the Mansions of the Sun they shall dwell for ever in the blessed presence of our Father!'

So saying, he joined our hands again, and drawing out the golden plug, he pointed to the mingling fluids and went on, speaking now to each of us in turn,—

'Here, Vilcaroya Inca, and you, Joyful Star, daughter of a conquering race and well-beloved of our Lord, see the emblem of the union between you! As the strong red wine colours and strengthens the pure water, so, Joyful Star, shall the stronger nature of thy chosen husband colour and strengthen thine, and, as the pure water tempers and purifies the wine, so, Vilcaroya Inca, shall the gentler and purer nature of her who is henceforth thy wife and queen by the rites of our ancient law, soften and purify thine according to the will and purpose of the Unnameable, who to this end sent man and woman upon earth that together they might possess and enjoy it, each helping the other, man making the world fruitful and beautiful by his labour, and woman sweetening his toil by the reward of her love and her constancy.'

Then he raised his hands above our heads as we bowed them together over the emblem of our mingling lives, and said again,—

'Son and daughter, man and wife, who have met from afar, and who in this solemn act have sworn in the all-pervading presence of the Unnameable to lead each other from this your meeting-place to the dim border of the shadow-land which lies between this world and the threshold of the Mansions of the Sun, may the blessing of our Father clothe your brows with honour and fill your hearts with everlasting love and trust, and may He guide your feet to walk in pleasant places from now even to the end!'

As he ceased our hands parted, only to meet again a moment later after we had stepped aside to yield up our places at the marriage-font to Francis Hartness and Golden Star.

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