The Romance of Golden Star ...Griffith, George Chetwynd
Science
The Romance of Golden Star ...
Griffith, George Chetwynd
Fantasy fiction
By this time, not only had the golden wedges gone far and wide through
the land, but nearly all the soldiers of the pure Indian blood had been
won over to my cause, for, as I have said, and as everyone in the
country knows, these soldiers are treated with great hardness by their
Spanish masters, who often pay them nothing for many weeks or months
together, and give them scanty food and hard usage, and cast them into
prison or flog them and shoot them if they think to do anything to get
justice. Moreover, there are always factions of men they call
politicians scheming for power and setting the soldiers fighting against
one another and against their countrymen for no benefit to themselves.
So what Francis Hartness had told me on the night that Golden Star had
come back to life had already begun to come true. More than half the
garrison of Cuzco had already been won over, and only waited for the
signal which should bid the whole Indian population of the valley to
rise and seize the arms and ammunition in the city, and make the
officers and the Governor and all the officials prisoners.
Anahuac's daughter was a servant in the Governor's house, and this girl
understood Spanish, though she pretended only to know Quichua and the
dialect of the people, and she had been set to watch,[E] and Tupac's
eldest son had also been secretly watching all the comings and goings of
Djama since we came to Cuzco. In this way his visit to the Governor had
been made known to me, and then one of the soldiers in the company that
had been ordered to go with the Governor's son to the Rodadero had told
Tupac of the order, and I had arranged with him how the surprise was to
be carried out, and this, as you have seen, had been done with complete
success.
When I had finished telling this to Hartness I turned to the professor
and said to him kindly,--
'There has been nothing said that brings any share of the guilt of this
treason to you, so now, if you will promise me on your faith and honour
as an Englishman to keep my secrets and obey such commands as I shall
put upon you for your own safety and that of all of us, you shall go
free, and you shall have the choice of going back to England or to any
other country until the war is over, or of staying here under my
protection until you can go away safely with the treasure which shall
be yours. But if you go now you cannot take it with you, for in a few
days from now there will be war throughout the whole land, and it would
be impossible to take so much treasure to the coast. Now, what do you
say?'
He thought for a moment and then said,--
'I am not a man of war, as you know Vilcaroya, but I hope I am a man of
honour. I have never breathed a syllable that could have given anyone an
inkling of your secret, and I promise you solemnly that I never will.
What Djama has done distresses me even more than it amazes me. I would
have staked my life on his honesty, and if you will release him and let
him come with me--'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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