A sad and hideous sight it was: yet one too common even then in those remoter districts, where the humane edicts were disregarded which the prayers of Dominican friars (to their everlasting honor be it spoken) had wrung from the Spanish sovereigns, and which the legislation of that most wise, virtuous, and heroic Inquisitor (paradoxical as the words may seem), Pedro de la Gasca, had carried into effect in Peru,--futile and tardy alleviations of cruelties and miseries unexampled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the conquests of Sennacherib and Zingis Khan.
But on the frontiers, where negroes were imported to endure the toil which was found fatal to the Indian, and all Indian tribes convicted (or suspected) of cannibalism were hunted down for the salvation of their souls and the enslavement of their bodies, such scenes as these were still too common; and, indeed, if we are to judge from Humboldt's impartial account, were not very much amended even at the close of the last century, in those much-boasted Jesuit missions in which (as many of them as existed anywhere but on paper) military tyranny was superadded to monastic, and the Gospel preached with fire and sword, almost as shamelessly as by the first Conquistadores.
A line of Indians, Negroes, and Zambos, naked, emaciated, scarred with whips and fetters, and chained together by their left wrists, toiled upwards, panting and perspiring under the burden of a basket held up by a strap which passed across their foreheads.Yeo's sneer was but too just; there were not only old men and youths among them, but women; slender young girls, mothers with children, running at their knee; and, at the sight, a low murmur of indignation rose from the ambushed Englishmen, worthy of the free and righteous hearts of those days, when Raleigh could appeal to man and God, on the ground of a common humanity, in behalf of the outraged heathens of the New World; when Englishmen still knew that man was man, and that the instinct of freedom was the righteous voice of God; ere the hapless seventeenth century had brutalized them also, by bestowing on them, amid a hundred other bad legacies, the fatal gift of negro-slaves.
But the first forty, so Amyas counted, bore on their backs a burden which made all, perhaps, but him and Yeo, forget even the wretches who bore it.Each basket contained a square package of carefully corded hide; the look whereof friend Amyas knew full well.
"What's in they, captain?"
"Gold!" And at that magic word all eyes were strained greedily forward, and such a rustle followed, that Amyas, in the very face of detection, had to whisper--"Be men, be men, or you will spoil all yet!"The last twenty, or so, of the Indians bore larger baskets, but more lightly freighted, seemingly with manioc, and maize-bread, and other food for the party; and after them came, with their bearers and attendants, just twenty soldiers more, followed by the officer in charge, who smiled away in his chair, and twirled two huge mustachios, thinking of nothing less than of the English arrows which were itching to be away and through his ribs.The ambush was complete; the only question how and when to begin?
Amyas had a shrinking, which all will understand, from drawing bow in cool blood on men so utterly unsuspicious and defenceless, even though in the very act of devilish cruelty--for devilish cruelty it was, as three or four drivers armed with whips lingered up and down the slowly staggering file of Indians, and avenged every moment's lagging, even every stumble, by a blow of the cruel manati-hide, which cracked like a pistol-shot against the naked limbs of the silent and uncomplaining victim.
Suddenly the casus belli, as usually happens, arose of its own accord.
The last but one of the chained line was an old gray-headed man, followed by a slender graceful girl of some eighteen years old, and Amyas's heart yearned over them as they came up.Just as they passed, the foremost of the file had rounded the corner above;there was a bustle, and a voice shouted, "Halt, senors! there is a tree across the path!""A tree across the path?" bellowed the officer, with a variety of passionate addresses to the Mother of Heaven, the fiends of hell, Saint Jago of Compostella, and various other personages; while the line of trembling Indians, told to halt above, and driven on by blows below, surged up and down upon the ruinous steps of the Indian road, until the poor old man fell grovelling on his face.
The officer leaped down, and hurried upward to see what had happened.Of course, he came across the old man.
"Sin peccado concebida! Grandfather of Beelzebub, is this a place to lie worshipping your fiends?" and he pricked the prostrate wretch with the point of his sword.
The old man tried to rise: but the weight on his head was too much for him; he fell again, and lay motionless.
The driver applied the manati-hide across his loins, once, twice, with fearful force; but even that specific was useless.
"Gastado, Senor Capitan," said he, with a shrug."Used up.He has been failing these three months!""What does the intendant mean by sending me out with worn-out cattle like these? Forward there!" shouted he."Clear away the tree, senors, and I'll soon clear the chain.Hold it up, Pedrillo!"The driver held up the chain, which was fastened to the old man's wrist.The officer stepped back, and flourished round his head a Toledo blade, whose beauty made Amyas break the Tenth Commandment on the spot.
The man was a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, high-bred man; and Amyas thought that he was going to display the strength of his arm, and the temper of his blade, in severing the chain at one stroke.
Even he was not prepared for the recondite fancies of a Spanish adventurer, worthy son or nephew of those first conquerors, who used to try the keenness of their swords upon the living bodies of Indians, and regale themselves at meals with the odor of roasting caciques.