not the elder daughter, whom all the world knows where she sits, white upon her little green patch against the hopeless desert, looking up with now and then a shiver at the white-headed giant, her father. no, the one i mean now is something like three hundred and fifty years younger than the misti’s first born and favorite, and not white at all, nor over-dignified, nor even given to much thought as to when taita[16] shall shrug again those mighty shoulders and rattle the walls about her ears. in fact, to look at the two—the fat, brown, clumsy cholo girl and the shining city—i dare say you would never take tránsita and arequipa[17] for sisters at all. but as both are daughters of the misti, i see no other way out of it.
what! you don’t know either of them? hm! of course it could hardly be expected that you should be acquainted with tránsita,[66] for she lives on a back street on the other side of the river and comes very seldom to the plaza. and probably you could not talk with her, anyhow, since her speech is only spanish and quichua. but not to know arequipa—why that is to count out the prettiest city in peru, and one of the oldest in america. and if you do not know the daughter you have missed the father, too, which is an even greater pity—for he is one of the handsomest giants on earth, though a baby in his own family. well, well—the sooner i give you an introduction the better, then.
the misti is an inactive but living volcano, a hundred miles from the sea, in southern peru. as i have said, it ranks small at home, being only 19,300 feet tall, while some of its brother andes tower to 26,000 feet. but few of them are so handsome. it stands alone and erect, with head up and shoulders squared, while some of them look as if the nurse had dropped them in their babyhood and they had never got their spines straight again. it is a huge and very perfect cone, symmetrical as the sacred peak of japan, but vastly higher. so steep is it that the thick blanket of volcanic cinders would surely slip down from its shoulders, except for the long brooches[67] of dead lava that pin it up. as for its head, that is old with eternal snow.
for time unknown—since long before history—the misti has been the best known mountain in peru; and i do not much wonder. it has a nobility of its own, such as its mightier brethren do not all possess. just to its right vast charchani climbs 20,000 feet into the sky, and a most majestic peak it is. just to its left towers the grand wall of pichu-pichu, itself taller than the greatest mountain in the united states. but it is always the lone, solemn misti, to which every one looks, of which every one speaks—with a strange mixture of love and awe. meeting an arequipe?o abroad, you might very likely fancy there were no other mountains in sight of his home; but you will not be left long in ignorance that there is a misti. even before europeans knew of america, the remarkable indians of peru half worshiped the misti; and so arequipa gets its name, an aymará word which means “with the peak behind it.” far up its deadly sides they toiled to make their sacrifices to those above; and even in the elder crater i have counted the ruins of aboriginal shrines. it is so isolated, so individual, so majestic in its awful stature; and above all, while its neighbor brothers[68] are just mountains, it has a soul—the wondrous fire-soul of the volcano.
a stern father is the misti. his daughter is surely not undutiful, but many a time he has punished her sorely. many a time he has sent her sprawling in the dust, and turned her smiling whiteness to a generation of mourning. so, even as late as 1868 over half the buildings of arequipa went down in a mortal chaos of stone, killing as many people as fall in an ordinary battle.
one might fancy that such a parent would get himself disliked; but his severity does not seem to be laid up against him. arequipa loves the misti—and as for tránsita, she loved him even more than she did arequipa. their house faced south, but the first thing in the morning tránsita used to climb to the stone-arched roof to look at the peak black against the rising sun; and the last thing at evening to watch the rosy west-glow upon that venerable head. and always she wondered the more, for now as she grew taller, and the untaught soul had room to swell, she saw more and more in that great dark one with his elephant-wrinkled hide and the lava scars on his white head, and now and then, of a hushed dawn, the ghost of a cloud floating plume-like from his brow. perhaps it was because he is so[69] incomprehensible a giant that she comprehended him—in that child way which is more at home in some mysteries than we older stupids are. at all events, she turned to him for companionship and confidences, and had a way of talking with him ever so softly, that no one else should hear.
“now, taita,” she was whispering this morning, “hast thou heard what is to be? for they say that the tuerto, the cross-eyed, who oppressed us before, is to make new revolution, that he may be president again and rob himself still richer. and it has always been in arequipa that they begin. dost thou think it? and would they kill eugénio? for he is very loyal, and is one of importance, being a corporal. do not let them hurt my brother—wilt thou, taita?”
to all these questions and the adjuration the giant answered never a word. his face was grave with the morning shadows. to look at him no one but tránsita would have dreamed he knew anything about it.
nor do i really know that he did, though he had the best of opportunities. from that lookout in the sky, so overtopping the town, he could see right into the high-walled court of don telesfor’s mansion. it was a flat old courtyard, paved with tipsy blocks of[70] stone and framed four-square with long shadowy verandas of the white sillar.[18] in the center was a long-forgotten fountain, and at the middle of each side a quaint staircase of the same white tufa ran up to the cracked and precarious sillar roof. no one was to be seen about the court. only, along the eastern portal[19] was a long ridge of fresh earth.
don telesfor was making repairs. a great many people in arequipa had long been free to say that he ought to mend his ways, and the old place might certainly count as a way that should be mended. his career as prefect, years before, had been by no means free from charges of extortion and thievery, and it was notorious that he would be glad to see again in the presidential chair the unscrupulous usurper who had grown from pauper soldier to many-times millionaire in one term. for this reason don telesfor was as little beloved as his old patron; and poor cholos, with better love than understanding of freedom, took malicious pleasure in laying the scourge to their two backs jointly. “look at the cacerist!” they would growl audibly[71] when don telesfor thundered down the reeling cobblestones on his silver trapped horse. as for his house, i fancy not one of them ever passed it after nightfall, with a bit of chalk in his pocket (and chalk is the last thing to be without in peru during a campaign), but he stopped and scrawled in elastic spanish upon the outer wall: “death to the tyrant and his leeches! down with the cross-eyed!”
but though he was unpopular in person and politics, no one thought of taking don telesfor very seriously. like his patron, he had turned tail when the chilean wolves came down on the fold; and unlike him, his caution was greater than his greed. every one knew him for timorous. the unhappy republic was torn and pale with fear of a new usurpation; but in all the whisperings and the glances over the shoulder, don telesfor was quite forgotten. since the downfall of the pretender he had been quietly cultivating his pretty chacra at yura, and now even thought to patch up the old mansion in arequipa, long tousled and neglected since the terrible temblor of ’68. this was praiseworthy and reassuring, too. in those troublous times to think rather of beautifying and restoring the home was clearly a pledge of peace.
[72]
sober burros, each laden with two big white blocks of sillar, had been trudging down from the lofty quarries, and the tottering arches of the courtyard had been rebuilt. now, don telesfor was hauling rich soil all the way from his plantation to make flower beds in the patio.[20] some felt that the soil of arequipa ought to be good enough for any flower; but if he chose to haul dirt twelve miles instead of one, that was his lookout. so the crazy wagons creaked across the ancient stone bridge every afternoon and bumped into the courtyard, and were relieved of their mules. don telesfor was always on hand in person to attend to the unloading—he and his nephew, don beltran, and two old peons—while the drivers took their animals to the acéquia. one would have thought that loam sacred, by the care he took of it.
just now the big gates were shut. the wagons would not be in from yura for some time yet. along the east side of the patio was the long mound of soil, paling in the hot sun; aside from that, one might have thought the place abandoned.
but if one could have peered through the heavy doors of the middle room of the north portal one would have seen don telesfor[73] and don beltran and half a dozen strangers talking low and earnestly. the windows and even the skylight were shuttered, and the one candle sent strange shadows sprawling over a formidable row of long, shallow, iron-bound boxes stained with fresh earth.
“to-morrow night, then,” said one of the strangers, laying his hand on don telesfor’s shoulder. “even so it will begin in lima on the eve of the new congress, and all is set that the revolution burst in the same hour in truxillo, cuzco, here and all peru. and carrying it off well here in the south, who knows but don telesfor shall earn a place in the new cabinet?”
“ójala!” sighed don telesfor, his mouth twitching greedily. “at all events, this end is safe. i promise you no one so much as suspects us, and with the two hundred men that will sleep here to-night hidden, we can easily put down any resistance. the guárdias are the only danger; for, being cholos[21] they all worship piérola, and it avails not the trying to buy them. the only argument with such stupids is to rap them the back of the head—and for that, thirty secure men are appointed to hide upon the beat and silence each his policeman.[74] by midnight that should all be settled without noise, and then we will fall upon the barracks. a hundred soldiers, asleep, have nothing to say with us; and in the morning arequipa will waken to find herself in our ranks.”
“nothing lacks, then?”
“nothing. all is understood. forty rifles are still to come, but they will be here in an hour, or maybe two, for the carts move slowly.”
“and then the flower beds will be done, no?” chuckled the other with a wink.
“aye, and ready to bloom,” answered don telesfor, smiling grimly at the jest.
“and, methinks, with enough thorns—ay diós! what?”
for a deep, far roar crept through the closed shutters; a babel of howling curs and crowing cocks and the jangle of church bells. before one could fairly turn to look at his neighbor it was as if that whole room of stone had suddenly been dropped twenty feet, as one might drop a bird cage to the floor. the heavy boxes and the standing men and the massive furniture were tossed as feathers in a gust of air. the wide stone vault overhead yawned and let in a foot of sky, and shivered as if to fall, and then as swiftly clapped its ragged teeth[75] shut again, while a great dust filled the room to choking. then all was still as the grave, and for a few seconds nothing moved. at last the men scrambled to their feet, pale and hushed, and stood looking blankly at one another.
“ea! but i like not your arequipa temperament,” faltered the tallest of the strangers. “it is too impulsive. not if you gave me three arequipas would i dwell here!”
“pues, it is nothing,” answered don telesfor, coolly. “only in the being accustomed. these temblores are fearsome, but we think little of them. to the street, when the shock comes, lest the walls thump us on the heads; and then back into the house, as if there had been nothing. as for this one, it is a good omen. el misti gives us the hand that he is with us for an overturning.”
tránsita, sitting upon the stone coping of her own roof, had a clearer view of the earthquake, and her opinion certainly did not coincide with that of don telesfor. it was a perfect day, as most days in arequipa are, but something in the air made her nervous and ill at ease, and all the morning she had been perched up there[76] confiding her fears to the great peak. below, the street was still echoing the rumble of clumsy carts high heaped with earth. she had paid little attention to them or their clamor. her thoughts were for eugénio, and her anxiety about him seemed to grow. so groundlessly, too. the national unrest was everywhere, but vague and undefined. no one knew any specific cause for alarm, and she least of all. now, if her ears had been sharp enough to hark across to that barred room a mile away, where don telesfor was at that very moment saying: “the only argument with such stupids is to rap them the back of the head.” and “such stupids” meant precisely eugénio and his fellow-soldiers, the military police of the city.
six wagons had already turned the corner toward the bridge and were out of sight. as the straggling seventh and last trundled past the house the teamster, seeing that squat figure up there, tossed at it a pebble from his load. tránsita only shrugged her shoulder at the tap. she was too busy with her thoughts to so much as turn around. “much care of eugénio,” she murmured. “and if truly there be of these cacerists here, confound them, taita!”
[77]
as she raised her eyes to the great peak a swift chill ran through her. she was sure the misti nodded, as if he had heard her words. surely the giant moved! far spurts of dust rose from his shoulders, and dark masses came leaping down, and the great profile seemed to lose its sharpness. she winked hard to be sure of her eyes, and now the misti moved no more. but from the corrals roundabout rose a bedlam; and chopo ran out, barking frantically, and the ancient cottonwoods up by the mill suddenly bowed their heads as to a hurricane. the acéquia bank split and the stream came panicking out. the tall wall back of eusébio’s house was rent from top to bottom, and two-foot blocks of sillar flew all about. the very roof on which she sat—a massive arch of stone, as are nearly all the roofs of arequipa—went up and down as if a heavy wave had passed under it. the coping spilled into the street; and tránsita was left clinging on the broken edge, her face hanging over. there were wild screams, and every one stood, as by magic, in the middle of the street, looking up at the tottering walls. and in the self-same breath it was all done, and no sign was left save the shattered blocks of stone, the truant acéquia[78] and a tall cloud of yellow dust that went bellying off toward charchani.
yes, one thing more. tránsita lay bewildered a moment, and then began to look about, still without moving. every one was going back into the houses, laughing nervously, a few children crying. in another moment the street was deserted. it was as if that thousand people had been a return-ball, to pop one instant into sight, and in another back with the recoil of the elastic. but down by the empty hovels over the way was a cart, broken across in halves. two dazed mules were trying clumsily to right themselves with the forward end of the wreck, while the rear half was tossed up on the narrow sidewalk against the ruined walls. the load of earth had been unceremoniously dumped into the gutter, and the cholo driver, half overwhelmed by it, lay motionless along the curb.
at that, tránsita was upon her feet at once, nor paused until she was tugging at the teamster’s arms. the dirt was heaped upon his legs, and he had fainted with the pain, and such a dead weight she could not budge. she dropped the limp shoulders and began to claw the loose earth away. in a moment the left foot was free; but as she dragged it out, the dirt slipped down and[79] revealed the corner of an iron-bound box resting upon the other leg. a sudden impulse led her to sweep back the soil until the end of the case was uncovered. the funny black marks there meant nothing to tránsita—indeed, if any one had spelled out for her the “m-a-double-n-l-i-c-h-e-r,” i seriously doubt if that grewsome german name would have made her any the wiser. but if she did not know letters from ten-penny nails, and was equally ignorant of the inventions and the existence of germany, tránsita was no fool. for a moment her brown face looked more than usually dull. then a slow grayness crept into it, and there was a hitch in her breath.
she looked up at the misti appealingly, and then down at the box, staring as if fascinated. presently the rather heavy jaw set stubbornly. she lifted the corner of the box an inch, by a violent effort, pried her shin against the sharp edge to hold it, and laboriously dragged out the imprisoned foot. then she scraped the earth over until the box was well hidden again, and leaving the liberated but unconscious teamster where he lay, went racing down the street like one gone daft.
“this is a pretty story to bring to the cuartel, daughterling,” said captain yrribarri,[80] fifteen minutes later. corporal eugénio had no sooner heard his sister’s breathless message than he brought her before the commanding officer, and there she had rehearsed it all, unshaken by questionings and banter. “it has to be true,” she declared, over and over, “else mi taita misti never would have showed me.”
“a girl’s nonsense,” the grave officer repeated. “and still—what do any boxes, thus hidden in loads of earth, and in these times? i mind me, now, that don telesfor has been hauling earth all the way from yura these many weeks, when there is better at carmen alto. it is fit to be looked into, and by the saints, if thy guess is true, little one, thou shalt be corporal, or thy brother sergeant! oyez, eugénio! with a squad of thirty men surround don telesfor’s house and hold it tight that it leak not, while pedro goes with five to verify the cart and the box. if that is nothing, they will report to you and you will return to quarters with the tongue behind the teeth; but if they shall find arms in the cart, keep the house and warn me.”
for my own part, i do not overly love the soldier-police of arequipa, and have sometimes been angry enough to want to choke them for murdering my sleep with their[81] abominable midnight whistles. but after all, i am glad that they were not all knocked on the head the night after the earthquake; for in spite of their ignorance and their skin and their ear-piercing way of announcing “all’s well,” they are a kindly, honest, well meaning set, who could be much better utilized than by clubbing. and particularly eugénio, who is a very good boy and likes to talk with me, calling me “your grace.” he has told me many interesting things, and often sent a cholo to “tote” my heavy camera around. sergeant eugénio now, please—for tránsita declined to be a corporal when the search revealed not only the one case of mannlicher rifles in the dirt under the wrecked cart, but thirty cases more in don telesfor’s house, along with papers which left no doubt of his treason. some fellow-conspirator must have warned him in time of the wayside accident, for though eugénio and his men kept the house fully surrounded until a report came from the cart, when they broke in there was not a soul to be found.
none of the other plotters were known, and don telesfor eluded pursuit. it may or may not be true, as, i have been told, that he took asylum in bolivia and was afterward drowned in trying to ford the choqueyapu[82] during a freshet; but, at all events, he never came back to revive his nipped revolution.
as for tránsita, you might just as well try to tell her that the misti is not there at all as that “he” did not specially and intentionally interpose to save the peace of his daughters and the head of eugénio. i half believe her brother is secretly of the same opinion, for the superstition of the peak is very strong in arequipa; though he shrugs his shoulders in a deprecatory way when put the direct question, and says evasively:
“pues, who knows? so the women declare. for me it is enough that he did it, and in time, the same as if he knew.”