145
Shifting his chair closer to Josè, the man resumed earnestly.
“Your grandfather, Don Ignacio, was a very rich man. The war stripped him. He got just what he deserved. Hisfincasand herds and mines melted away from him like grease from a holy candle. And nobody cared––any more than the Lord cares about candle grease. Most of his property fell into the hands of his former slaves––and he had hundreds of them hereabouts. But his most valuable possession, the great mine of La Libertad, disappeared as completely as if blotted from the face of the earth.
“That mine––no, not a mine, but a mountain of free gold––was located somewhere in the Guamocó district. After the war this whole country slipped back into the jungle, and had to be rediscovered. The Guamocó region is to-day as unknown as it was before the Spaniards came. Somewhere in the district, but covered deep beneath brush and forest growth, is that mine, the richest in Colombia.
“Now, as you know, Don Ignacio left this country in considerable of a hurry. But I think he always intended to come back again. Death killed that ambition. I don’t know about his sons. But the fact remains that La Libertad has never been rediscovered since Don Ignacio’s day. The old records in Cartagena show the existence of such a mine in Spanish times, and give a more or less accurate statement of its production.Diablo! I hesitate to say how much! The old fellow hadarrastras, mills, and so on, in which slaves crushed the ore. The bullion was melted into bars and brought down the trail to Simití, where he had agents and warehouses and a store or two. From there it was shipped down the river to Cartagena. But the war lasted thirteen years. And during that time everything was in a state of terrible confusion. The existence of mines was forgotten. The plantations were left unworked. The male population was all but killed off. And the country sank back into wilderness.
“Bueno; so much for history. Now to your friends on the coast––and elsewhere. Don Wenceslas is quietly searching for that mine––has been for years. He put his agent, Padre Diego, in Simití to learn what he might there. But the fool priest was run out after he had ruined a woman or two. However, Padre Diego is still in close touch with the town, and is on the keen search for La Libertad. Wenceslas thinks there may be descendants of some of Don Ignacio’s old slaves still living in Simití, or near there, and that they know the location of the lost mine. And, if I mistake not, he figures that you will learn the secret from them in some way, and that the mine will again come to light. Now, if you get wind of that mine and attempt146to locate it, or purchase it from the natives, you will be beaten out of it in a hurry. And you may be sure Don Wenceslas will be the one who will eventually have it, for there is no craftier, smoother, brighter rascal in Colombia than he. And so, take it from me, if you ever get wind of the location of that famous property––which by rights is yours, having belonged to your grandfather––keep the information strictly to yourself!
“I do not know Simití. But I shall be working in the Guamocó district for many months to come, hunting Indian graves. I shall have my runners up and down the Simití trail frequently, and may get in touch with you. It may be that you will need a friend. There! The boat is whistling for Badillo. A last word: Keep out of the way of both Wenceslas and Diego––cultivate the people of Simití––and keep your mouth closed.”
A few minutes later Josè stood on the river bank beside his little haircloth trunk and traveling bag, sadly watching the steamer draw away and resume her course up-stream. He watched it until it disappeared around a bend. And then he stood watching the smoke rise above the treetops, until that, too, faded in the distance. No one had waved him a farewell from the boat. No one met him with a greeting of welcome on the shore. He was a stranger among strangers.
He turned, with a heavy heart, to note his environment. It was a typical riverine point. A single street, if it might be so called; a half dozen bamboo dwellings, palm-thatched; and a score of natives, with their innumerable gaunt dogs and porcine companions––this was Badillo.
“Señor Padre.” A tall, finely built native, clad in soiled white cotton shirt and trousers, approached and addressed him in a kindly tone. “Where do you go?”
“To Simití,” replied the priest, turning eagerly to the man. “But,” in bewilderment, “where is it?”
“Over there,” answered the native, pointing to the jungle on the far side of the river. “Many leagues.”
The wearied priest sat down on his trunk and buried his face in his hands. Faintness and nausea seized him. It was the after-effect of his long and difficult river experience. Or, perhaps, the deadly malaria was beginning its insidious poisoning. The man approached and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Padre, why do you go to Simití?”
Josè raised his head and looked more closely at his interlocutor. The native was a man of perhaps sixty years. His figure was that of an athlete. He stood well over six feet high, with massive shoulders, and a waist as slender as a woman’s. His face was almost black in color, and mottled with patches of white, so common to the natives of the hot inlands. But there147was that in its expression, a something that looked out through those kindly black eyes, that assured Josè and bespoke his confidence.
The man gravely repeated his question.
“I have been sent there by the Bishop of Cartagena. I am to have charge of the parish,” Josè replied.
The man slowly shook his finely shaped head.
“We want no priest in Simití,” he said with quiet firmness. His manner of speaking was abrupt, yet not ungracious.
“But––do you live there?” inquired Josè anxiously.
“Yes, Padre.”
“Then you must know a man––Rosendo, I think his name––”
“I am Rosendo Ariza.”
Josè looked eagerly at the man. Then he wearily stretched out a hand.
“Rosendo––I am sick––I think. And––I have––no friends––”
Rosendo quickly grasped his hand and slipped an arm about his shoulders.
“I am your friend, Padre––” He stopped and appeared to reflect for a moment. Then he added quickly, “My canoe is ready; and we must hurry, or night will overtake us.”
The priest essayed to rise, but stumbled. Then, as if he had been a child, the man Rosendo picked him up and carried him down the bank to a rude canoe, where he deposited him on a pile of empty bags in the keel.
“Escolastico!” he called back to a young man who seemed to be the chief character of the village. “Sell thepanelaand yuccasá buen precio; and remind Captain Julio not to forget on the next trip to bring the little Carmen a doll from Barranquilla. I will be over again next month. And Juan,” addressing the sturdy youth who was preparing to accompany him, “set in the Padre’s baggage; and do you take the paddle, and I will pole.Conque, adioscito!” waving his battered straw hat to the natives congregated on the bank, while Juan pushed the canoe from the shore and paddled vigorously out into the river.
“Adioscito! adioscito! Don Rosendo y Juan!” The hearty farewells of the natives followed the canoe far out into the broad stream.
Across the open river in the livid heat of the early afternoon the canoe slowly made its way. The sun from a cloudless sky viciously poured down its glowing rays like molten metal. The boat burned; the river steamed; the water was hot to his touch, when the priest feebly dipped his hands into it and bathed his throbbing brow. Badillo faded from view as they rounded a148densely wooded island and entered a long lagoon. Here they lost the slight breeze which they had had on the main stream. In this narrow channel, hemmed in between lofty forest walls of closely woven vines and foliage, it seemed to Josè that they had entered a flaming inferno. The two boatmen sat silent and inscrutable, plying their paddles without speaking.
Down the long lagoon the canoe drifted, keeping within what scant shade the banks afforded, for the sun stood now directly overhead. The heat was everywhere, insistent, unpitying. It burned, scalded, warped. The foliage on either side of the channel merged into the hot waves that rose trembling about them. The thin, burning air enveloped the little craft with fire. Josè gasped for breath. His tongue swelled. His pulse throbbed violently. His skin cracked. The quivering appearance of the atmosphere robbed him of confidence in his own vision. A cloud of insects hung always before his sight. Dead silence lay upon the scene. Not a sound issued from the jungle. Not a bird or animal betrayed its presence. The canoe was edging the Colombian “hells,” where even the denizens of the forest dare not venture forth on the low, opensavannasin the killing heat of midday.
Josè sank down in the boat, wilting and semi-delirious. Through his dimmed eyes the boatman looked like glowing inhuman things set in flames. Rosendo came to him and placed his straw hat over his face. Hours, interminable and torturing, seemed to pass on leaden wings. Then Juan, deftly swerving his paddle, shot the canoe into a narrow arm, and the garish sunlight was suddenly lost in the densely intertwined branches overhanging the little stream.
“The outlet ofLa Cienaga, Padre,” Rosendo offered, laying aside his paddle and taking his long boat pole. “Lake Simití flows through this and into the Magdalena.” For a few moments he held the canoe steady, while from his wallet he drew a few leaves of tobacco and deftly rolled a long, thick cigar.
The real work of theboganow began, and Rosendo with his long punter settled down to the several hours’ strenuous grind which was necessary to force the heavy canoe up the little outlet and into the distant lake beyond. Back and forth he traveled through the half-length of the boat, setting the pole well forward in the soft bank, or out into the stream itself, and then, with its end against his shoulder, urging and teasing the craft a few feet at a time against the strong current. Josè imagined, as he dully watched him, that he could see death in the pestiferous effluvia which emanated from the black, slimy mud which every plunge of the long pole brought to the surface of the narrow stream.
149
The afternoon slowly waned, and the temperature lowered a few degrees. A warm, animal-like breath drifted languidly out from the moist jungle. The outlet, orcaño, was heavily shaded throughout its length. Crocodiles lay along its muddy banks, and slid into the water at the approach of the canoe. Hugeiguanas, the gorgeously colored lizards of tropical America, scurried noisily through the overarching branches. Here and there monkeys peeped curiously at the intruders and chattered excitedly as they swung among the lofty treetops. But for his exhaustion, Josè, as he lay propped up against his trunk, gazing vacantly upon the slowly unrolling panorama of marvelous plant and animal life on either hand, might have imagined himself in a realm of enchantment.
At length the vegetation abruptly ceased; the stream widened; and the canoe entered a broad lake, at the far end of which, three miles distant, its two whitewashed churches and its plastered houses reflecting the red glow of the setting sun, lay the ancient and decayed town of Simití, the northern outlet of Spain’s mediaeval treasure house, at the edge of the forgotten district of Guamocó.
Paddling gently across the unruffled surface of the tepid waters, Rosendo and Juan silently urged the canoe through the fast gathering dusk, and at length drew up on the shaly beach of the old town. As they did so, a little girl, bare of feet and with clustering brown curls, came running out of the darkness.
“Oh, padre Rosendo,” she called, “what have you brought me?”
Then, as she saw Rosendo and Juan assisting the priest from the boat, she drew back abashed.
“Look, Carmencita,” whispered Juan to the little maid; “we’ve brought you abigdoll, haven’t we?”
Night fell as the priest stepped upon the shore of his new home.
Ay, to save and redeem and restore, snatch Saul, the mistake, Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,––and bid him awake from the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set clear and safe in new light and new life,––a new harmony yet to be run and continued and ended.––Browning.
Ay, to save and redeem and restore, snatch Saul, the mistake, Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,––and bid him awake from the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set clear and safe in new light and new life,––a new harmony yet to be run and continued and ended.
––Browning.
3
CHAPTER 1
Josè de Rincón opened his eyes and turned painfully on his hard bed. The early sun streamed through the wooden grating before the unglazed window. A slight, tepid breeze stirred the mosquito netting over him. He was in the single sleeping room of the house. It contained another bed like his own, of roughmacanapalm strips, over which lay a straw mat and a thin red blanket. Bed springs were unknown in Simití. On the rude door, cobwebbed and dusty, a scorpion clung torpidly. From the room beyond he heard subdued voices. His head and limbs ached dully; and frightful memories of the river trip and the awful journey from Badillo sickened him. With painful exertion he stood upon the moist dirt floor and drew on his damp clothes. He had only a vague recollection of the preceding night, but he knew that Rosendo had half led, half dragged him past rows of dimly lighted, ghostly white houses to his own abode, and there had put him to bed.
“Muy buenos dias, Señor Padre,” Rosendo greeted him, as the priest dragged himself out into the living room. “You have slept long. But the señora will soon have your breakfast. Sit here––not in the sun!”
Rosendo placed one of the rough wooden chairs, with straight cowhide back and seat, near the table.
“Carmencita has gone to the boat for fresh water. But––here she comes. Pour theSeñor Padrea cup,carita,” addressing a little girl who at that moment entered the doorway, carrying a large earthen bottle on her shoulder. It was the child who had met the boat when the priest arrived the night, before.
“Fill the basin, too,chiquita, that the Padre may wash his hands,” added Rosendo.
The child approached Josè, and with a dignified little courtesy and a frank smile offered him a cup of the lukewarm water. The priest accepted it languidly. But, glancing into her face, his eyes suddenly widened, and the hand that was carrying the tin cup to his lips stopped.
4
The barefoot girl, clad only in a short, sleeveless calico gown, stood before him like a portrait from an old master. Her skin was almost white, with but a tinge of olive. Her dark brown hair hung in curls to her shoulders and framed a face of rarest beauty. Innocence, purity, and love radiated from her fair features, from her beautifully rounded limbs, from her soft, dark eyes that looked so fearlessly into his own.
Josè felt himself strangely moved. Somewhere deep within his soul a chord had been suddenly struck by the little presence; and the sound was unfamiliar to him. Yet it awakened memories of distant scenes, of old dreams, and forgotten longings. It seemed to echo from realms of his soul that had never been penetrated. The tumult within died away. The raging thought sank into calm. The man forgot himself, forgot that he had come to Simití to die. His sorrow vanished. His sufferings faded. He remained conscious only of something that he could not outline, something in the soul of the child, a thing that perhaps he once possessed, and that he knew he yet prized above all else on earth.
He heard Rosendo’s voice through an immeasurable distance––
“Leave us now,chiquita; the Padre wishes to have his breakfast.”
The child without speaking turned obediently; and the priest’s eyes followed her until she disappeared into the kitchen.
“We call her ‘the smile of God,’” said Rosendo, noting the priest’s absorption, “because she is always happy.”
Josè remained sunk in thought. Then––
“A beautiful child!” he murmured. “A wonderfully beautiful child! I had no idea––!”
“Yes, Padre, she is heaven’s gift to us poor folk. I sometimes think the angels themselves left her on the river bank.”
“On the river bank!” Josè was awake now. “Why––she was not born here?”
“Oh, no, Padre, but in Badillo.”
“Ah, then you once lived in Badillo?”
“Na, Señor Padre, she is not my child––except that the good God has given her to me to protect.”
“Not your child! Then whose is she?” The priest’s voice was unwontedly eager and his manner animated.
But Rosendo fell suddenly quiet and embarrassed, as if he realized that already he had said too much to a stranger. A shade of suspicion seemed to cross his face, and he rose hurriedly and went out into the kitchen. A moment later he returned with the priest’s breakfast––two fried eggs, a hot cornarepa, friedplatanos, dried fish, and coffee sweetened withpanela.
5
“When you have finished, Padre, we will visit the Alcalde,” he said quietly. “I must go down to the lake now to speak with Juan before he goes out to fish.”
Josè finished his meal alone. The interest which had been aroused by the child continued to increase without reaction. His torpid soul had been profoundly stirred. For the moment, though he knew not why, life seemed to hold a vague, unshaped interest for him. He began to notice his environment; he even thought he relished the coarse food set before him.
The house he was in was a typical native three-room dwelling, built of strips ofmacanapalm, set upright and tied together with pieces of slender, toughbejucovine. The interstices between the strips were filled with mud, and the whole whitewashed. The floors were dirt, trodden hard; the steep-pitched roof was thatched with palm. A few chairs like the one he occupied, the rude, uncovered table, some cheap prints and a battered crucifix on the wall, were the only furnishings of the living room.
While he was eating, the people of the town congregated quietly about the open door. Friendly curiosity to see the new Padre, and sincere desire to welcome him animated their simple minds. Naked babes crawled to the threshold and peeped timidly in. Coarsely clad women and young girls, many of the latter bedizened with bits of bright ribbon or cheap trinkets, smiled their gentle greetings. Black, dignified men, bare of feet, and wearing white cotton trousers and blackruanas––the cape affected by the poor males of the inlands––respectfully doffed their straw hats and bowed to him. Rosendo’s wife appeared from the kitchen and extended her hand to him in unfeigned hospitality. Attired in a fresh calico gown, her black hair plastered back over her head and tied with a clean black ribbon, her bare feet encased in hemp sandals, she bore herself with that grace and matronly dignity so indicative of her Spanish forbears, and so particularly characteristic of the inhabitants of this “valley of the pleasant ‘yes.’”
Breakfast finished, the priest stepped to the doorway and raised his hand in the invocation that was evidently expected from him.
“Dominus vobiscum,” he repeated, not mechanically, not insincerely, but in a spirit of benevolence, of genuine well-wishing, which his contact with the child a few minutes before seemed to have aroused.
The people bent their heads piously and murmured, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”
The open door looked out upon the centralplaza, where stood a large church of typical colonial design and construction,6and with a single lateral bell tower. The building was set well up on a platform of shale, with broad shale steps, much broken and worn, leading up to it on all sides. Josè stepped out and mingled with the crowd, first regarding the old church curiously, and then looking vainly for the little girl, and sighing his disappointment when he did not see her.
In theplazahe was joined by Rosendo; and together they went to the house of the Alcalde. On the way the priest gazed about him with growing curiosity. To the north of the town stretched the lake, known to the residents only by the name ofLa Cienaga. It was a body of water of fair size, in a setting of exquisite tropical beauty. In a temperate climate, and a region more densely populated, this lake would have been priceless. Here in forgotten Guamocó it lay like an undiscovered gem, known only to those few inert and passive folk, who enjoyed it with an inadequate sense of its rare beauty and immeasurable worth. Several small and densely wooded isles rose from its unrippled bosom; and tropical birds of brilliant color hovered over it in the morning sun. Near one of its margins Josè distinguished countless whitegarzas, the graceful herons whose plumes yield the coveted aigrette of northern climes. They fed undisturbed, for this region sleeps unmolested, far from the beaten paths of tourist or vandal huntsman. To the west and south lay the hills of Guamocó, and the loftyCordilleras, purpling in the light mist. Over the entire scene spread a damp warmth, like the atmosphere of a hot-house. By midday Josè knew that the heat would be insufferable.
The Alcalde, Don Mario Arvila, conducted his visitors through his shabby little store and into thepatioin the rear, exclaiming repeatedly, “Ah,Señor Padre, we welcome you! All Simití welcomes you and kisses your hand!” In the shade of his arbor he sat down to examine Josè’s letters from Cartagena.
Don Mario was a large, florid man, huge of girth, with brown skin, heavy jowls, puffed eyes, and bald head. As he read, his eyes snapped, and at times he paused and looked up curiously at the priest. Then, without comment, he folded the letters and put them into a pocket of his crash coat.
“Bien,” he said politely, “we must have the Padre meet Don Felipe Alcozer as soon as he returns. Some repairs are needed on the church; a few of the roof tiles have slipped, and the rain enters. Perhaps,Señor Padre, you may say the Mass there next Sunday. We will see. A––a––you had illustrious ancestors, Padre,” he added with hesitation.
“Do the letters mention my ancestry?” asked Josè with something of mingled surprise and pride.
“They speak of your family, which was, as we all know, quite renowned,” replied the Alcalde courteously.
7
“Very,” agreed Josè, wondering how much the Alcalde knew of his family.
“Don Ignacio was not unknown in thispueblo,” affably continued the Alcalde.
At these words Rosendo started visibly and looked fixedly at the priest.
“The family name of Rincón,” the Alcalde went on, “appears on the old records of Simití in many places, and it is said that Don Ignacio himself came here more than once. Perhaps you know,Señor Padre, that the Rincón family erected the church which stands in theplaza? And so it is quite appropriate that their son should officiate in it after all these centuries, is it not?”
No, Josè had not known it. He could not have imagined such a thing. He knew little of his family’s history. Of their former vast wealth he had a vague notion. But here in this land of romance and tragedy he seemed to be running upon their reliques everywhere.
The conversation drifted to parish matters; and soon Rosendo urged their departure, as the sun was mounting high.
Seated at the table for the midday lunch, Josè again became lost in contemplation of the child before him. Her fair face flushed under his searching gaze; but she returned a smile of confidence and sweet innocence that held him spellbound. Her great brown eyes were of infinite depth. They expressed a something that he had never seen before in human eyes. What manner of soul lay behind them? What was it that through them looked out into this world of evil? Childish innocence and purity, yes; but vastly more. Was it––God Himself? Josè started at his own thought. Through his meditations he heard Rosendo’s voice.
“Simití is very old, Padre. In the days of the Spaniards it was a large town, with many rich people. The Indians were all slaves then, and they worked in the mines up there,” indicating the distant mountains. “Much gold was brought down here and shipped down the Magdalena, for thecañowas wider in those days, and it was not so hard to reach the river. This is the end of the Guamocó trail, which was called in those days theCamino Real.”
“You say the mines were very rich?” interrogated Josè; not that the question expressed a more than casual interest, but rather to keep Rosendo talking while he studied the child.
But at this question Rosendo suddenly became less loquacious. Josè then felt that he was suspected of prying into matters which Rosendo did not wish to discuss with him, and so he pressed the topic no further.
8
“How many people did Don Mario say the parish contained?” he asked by way of diverting the conversation.
“About two hundred, Padre.”
“And it has been vacant long?”
“Four years.”
“Four years since Padre Diego was here,” commented Josè casually.
It was an unfortunate remark. At the mention of the former priest’s name Doña Maria hurriedly left the table. Rosendo’s black face grew even darker, and took on a look of ineffable contempt. He did not reply. And the meal ended in silence.
It was now plain to Josè that Rosendo distrusted him. But it mattered little to the priest, beyond the fact that he had no wish to offend any one. What interest had he in boorish Simití, or Guamocó? The place was become his tomb––he had entered it to die. The child––the girl! Ah, yes, she had touched a strange chord within him; and for a time he had seemed to live again. But as the day waned, and pitiless heat and deadly silence brooded over the decayed town, his starving soul sank again into its former depression, and revived hope and interest died within him.
The implacable heat burned through the noon hour; the dusty streets were like the floor of a stone oven; the shale beds upon which the old town rested sent up fiery, quivering waves; the houses seethed; earth and sky were ablaze. How long could he endure it?
And the terribleennui, the isolation, the utter lack of every trace of culture, of the varied interests that feed the educated, trained mind and minister to its comfort and growth––could he support it patiently while awaiting the end? Would he go mad before the final release came? He did not fear death; but he was horror-stricken at the thought of madness! Of losing that rational sense of the Ego which constituted his normal individuality!
Rosendo advised him to retire for the middaysiesta. Through the seemingly interminable afternoon he lay upon his hard bed with his brain afire, while the events of his warped life moved before him in spectral review. The week which had passed since he left Cartagena seemed an age. When he might hope to receive word from the outside world, he could not imagine. His isolation was now complete. Even should letters succeed in reaching Simití for him, they must first pass through the hands of the Alcalde.
And what did the Alcalde know of him? And then, again, what did it matter? He must not lose sight of the fact that his9interest in the outside world––nay, his interest in all things had ceased. This was the end. He had yielded, after years of struggle, to pride, fear, doubt. He had bowed before his morbid sense of honor––a perverted sense, he now admitted, but still one which bound him in fetters of steel. His life had been one of grossest inconsistency. He was utterly out of tune with the universe. His incessant clash with the world of people and events had sounded nothing but agonizing discord. And his confusion of thought had become such that, were he asked why he was in Simití, he could scarcely have told. At length he dropped into a feverish sleep.
The day drew to a close, and the flaming sun rested for a brief moment on the lofty tip of Tolima. Josè awoke, dripping with perspiration, his steaming blood rushing wildly through its throbbing channels. Blindly he rose from his rough bed and stumbled out of the stifling chamber. The living room was deserted. Who might be in the kitchen, he did not stop to see. Dazed by the garish light and fierce heat, he rushed from the house and over the burning shales toward the lake.
What he intended to do, he knew not. His weltering thought held but a single concept––water! The lake would cool his burning skin––he would wade out into it until it rose to his cracking lips––he would lie down in it, till it quenched the fire in his head––he would sleep in it––he would never leave it––it was cool––perhaps cold! What did the word mean? Was there aught in the world but fire––flames––fierce, withering, smothering, consuming heat? He thought the shales crackled as they melted beneath him! He thought his feet sank to the ankles in molten lava, and were so heavy he scarce could drag them! He thought the blazing sun shot out great tongues of flame, like the arms of a monster devilfish, which twined about him, transforming his blood to vapor and sucking it out through his gaping pores!
A blinding light flashed before him as he reached the margin of the lake. The universe burst into a ball of fire. He clasped his head in his hands––stumbled––and fell, face down, in the tepid waters.
CHAPTER 2
“It was the little Carmen, Padre, who saw you run to the lake. She was sitting at the kitchen door, studying her writing lesson.”
The priest essayed to rise from his bed. Night had fallen, and the feeble light of the candle cast heavy shadows over the10room, and made grotesque pictures of the black, anxious faces looking in at the grated window.
“But, Rosendo, it––was––a dream––a terrible dream!”
“Na, Padre, it was true, for I myself took you from the lake,” replied Rosendo tenderly.
Josè struggled to a sitting posture, but would have fallen back again had not Rosendo’s strong arm supported him. He passed his hand slowly across his forehead, as if to brush the mental cobwebs from his awakening brain. Then he inquired feebly:
“What does the doctor say?”
“Padre, there is no doctor in Simití,” Rosendo answered quietly.
“No doctor!”
Josè kept silence for a few moments. Then––
“But perhaps I do not need one. What time did it occur?”
“It did not happen to-day, Padre,” said Rosendo with pitying compassion. “It was nearly a week ago.”
“Nearly a week! And have I lain here so long?”
“Yes, Padre.”
The priest stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then––
“The dreams were frightful! I must have talked––raved! Rosendo––you heard me––?” His voice betrayed anxiety.
“There, Padre, think no more about it. You were wild––I fought to keep you in bed––we thought you must die––all but Carmen––but you have your senses now––and you must forget the past.”
Forget the past! Then his wild delirium had laid bare his soul! And the man who had so faithfully nursed him through the crisis now possessed the sordid details of this wretched life!
Josè struggled to orient his undirected mind. A hot wave of anger swept over him at the thought that he was still living, that his battered soul had not torn itself from earth during his delirium and taken flight. Was he fated to live forever, to drag out an endless existence, with his heart written upon his sleeve for the world to read and turn to its own advantage? Rosendo had stood between him and death––but to what end? Had he not yet paid the score in full––good measure, pressed down and running over? His thoughts ran rapidly from one topic to another. Again they reverted to the little girl. He had dreamed of her in that week of black night. He wondered if he had also talked of her. He had lain at death’s door––Rosendo had said so––but he had had no physician. Perhaps these simple folk brewed their own homely remedies––he wondered what they had employed in his case. Above the welter of his thoughts this question pressed for answer.
11
“What medicine did you give me, Rosendo?” he feebly queried.
“None, Padre.”
Josè’s voice rose querulously in a little excess of excitement. “What! You left me here without medical aid, to live or die, as might be?”
The gentle Rosendo laid a soothing hand upon the priest’s feverish brow. “Na, Padre,”––there was a hurt tone in the soft answer––“we did all we could for you. We have neither doctors nor medicines. But we cared for you––and we prayed daily for your recovery. The little Carmen said our prayers would be answered––and, you see, they were.”
Again the child!
“And what had she to do with my recovery?” Josè demanded fretfully.
“Quien sabe?It is sometimes that way when the little Carmen says people shall not die. And then,” he added sadly, “sometimes they do die just the same. It is strange; we do not understand it.” The gentle soul sighed its perplexity.
Josè looked up at him keenly. “Did the child say I should not die?” he asked softly, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, Padre; she says God’s children do not die,” returned Rosendo.
The priest’s blood stopped in its mad surge and slowly began to chill. God’s children do not die! What uncanny influence had he met with here in this crumbling, forgotten town? He sought the index of his memory for the sensations he had felt when he looked into the girl’s eyes on his first morning in Simití. But memory reported back only impressions of goodness––beauty––love.
Then a dim light––only a feeble gleam––seemed to flash before him, but at a great distance. Something called him––not by name, but by again touching that unfamiliar chord which had vibrated in his soul when the child had first stood before him. He felt a strange psychic presentiment as of things soon to be revealed. A sentiment akin to awe stole over him, as if he were standing in the presence of a great mystery––a mystery so transcendental that the groveling minds of mortals have never apprehended it. He turned again to the man sitting beside his bed.
“Rosendo––where is she?”
“Asleep, Padre,” pointing to the other bed. “But we must not wake her,” he admonished quickly, as the priest again sought to rise; “we will talk of her to-morrow. I think––”
Rosendo stopped abruptly and looked at the priest as if he would fathom the inmost nature of the man. Then he continued uncertainly:
12
“I––I may have some things to say to you to-morrow––if you are well enough to hear them. But I will think about it to-night, and––if––Bien! I will think about it.”
Rosendo rose slowly, as if weighted with heavy thoughts, and went out into the living room. Presently he returned with a rude, homemade broom and began to sweep a space on the dirt floor in the corner opposite Josè. This done, he spread out a light straw mat for his bed.
“The señora is preparing you a bowl of chicken broth and rice, Padre,” he said. “The little Carmen saved a hen for you when you should awake. She has fed it all the week on rice and goat’s milk. She said she knew you would wake up hungry.”
Josè’s eyes had closely followed Rosendo’s movements, although he seemed not to hear his words. Suddenly he broke forth in protest.
“Rosendo,” he cried, “have I your bed? And do you sleep there on the floor? I cannot permit this!”
“Say nothing, Padre,” replied Rosendo, gently forcing Josè back again upon his bed. “My house is yours.”
“But––the señora, your wife––where does she sleep?”
“She has herpetatein the kitchen,” was the quiet answer.
Only the two poor beds, which were occupied by the priest and the child! And Rosendo and his good wife had slept on the hard dirt floor for a week! Josè’s eyes dimmed when he realized the extent of their unselfish hospitality. And would they continue to sleep thus on the ground, with nothing beneath them but a thin straw mat, as long as he might choose to remain with them? Aye, he knew that they would, uncomplainingly. For these are the children of the “valley of the pleasant ‘yes.’”
Josè awoke the next morning with a song echoing in his ears. He had dreamed of singing; and as consciousness slowly returned, the dream-song became real. It floated in from the living room on a clear, sweet soprano. When a child he had heard such voices in the choir loft of the great Seville cathedral, and he had thought that angels were singing. As he lay now listening to it, memories of his childish dreams swept over him in great waves. The soft, sweet cadences rose and fell. His own heart swelled and pulsated with them, and his barren soul once more surged under the impulse of a deep, potential desire to manifest itself, its true self, unhampered at last by limitation and convention, unfettered by superstition, human creeds and false ambition. Then the inevitable reaction set in; a sickening sense of the futility of his longing settled over him, and he turned his face to the wall, while hot tears streamed over his sunken cheeks.
13
Again through his wearied brain echoed the familiar admonition, “Occupy till I come.” Always the same invariable response to his strained yearnings. The sweet voice in the adjoining room floated in through the dusty palm door. It spread over his perturbed thought like oil on troubled waters. Perhaps it was the child singing. At this thought the sense of awe seemed to settle upon him again. A child––a babe––had said that he should live! If a doctor had said it he would have believed. But a child––absurd! It was a dream! But no; Rosendo had said it; and there was no reason to doubt him. But what had this child to do with it? Nothing! And yet––was that wholly true? Then whence his sensations when first he saw her? Whence that feeling of standing in the presence of a great mystery? “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings––” Foolishness! To be sure, the child may have said he should not die; but if he were to live––which God forbid!––his own recuperative powers would restore him. Rosendo’s lively imagination certainly had exaggerated the incident.
Exhausted by his mental efforts, and lulled by the low singing, the priest sank into fitful slumber. As he slept he dreamed. He was standing alone in a great desert. Darkness encompassed him, and a fearful loneliness froze his soul. About him lay bleaching bones. Neither trees nor vegetation broke the dull monotony of the cheerless scene. Nothing but waste, unutterably dreary waste, over which a chill wind tossed the tinkling sand in fitful gusts. In terror he cried aloud. The desert mocked his hollow cry. The darkness thickened. Again he called, his heart sinking with despair.
Then, over the desolate waste, through the heavy gloom, a voice seemed borne faint on the cold air, “Occupy till I come!” He sank to his knees. His straining eyes caught the feeble glint of a light, but at an immeasurable distance. Again he called; and again the same response, but nearer. A glow began to suffuse the blackness about him. Nearer, ever nearer drew the gleam. The darkness lifted. The rocks began to bud. Trees and vines sprang from the waste sand. As if in a tremendous explosion, a dazzling light burst full upon him, shattering the darkness, fusing the stones about him, and blinding his sight. A great presence stood before him. He struggled to his feet; and as he did so a loud voice cried, “Behold, I comequickly!”
“Señor Padre, you have been dreaming!”
The priest, sitting upright and clutching at the rough sides of his bed, stared with wooden obliviousness into the face of the little Carmen.
14CHAPTER 3
“You are well now, aren’t you, Padre?”
It was not so much an interrogation as an affirmation, an assumption of fact.
“Now you must come and see my garden––and Cucumbra, too. And Cantar-las-horas; have you heard him? I scolded him lots; and I know he wants to mind; but he just thinks he can’t stop singing the Vespers––the old stupid!”
While the child prattled she drew a chair to the bedside and arranged the bowl of broth and the two wheat rolls she had brought.
“You are real hungry, and you are going to eat all of this and get strong again. Right away!” she added, emphatically expressing her confidence in the assumption.
Josè made no reply. He seemed again to be trying to sound the unfathomable depths of the child’s brown eyes. Mechanically he took the spoon she handed him.
“See!” she exclaimed, while her eyes danced. “A silver spoon! Madre Ariza borrowed it from Doña Maria Alcozer. They have lots of silver. Now eat.”
From his own great egoism, his years of heart-ache, sorrows, and shames, the priest’s heavy thought slowly lifted and centered upon the child’s beautiful face. The animated little figure before him radiated such abundant life that he himself caught the infection; and with it his sense of weakness passed like an illusion.
“And look, Padre! The broth––isn’t it good?”
Josè tasted, and declared it delicious.
“Well, you know”––the enthusiastic little maid clambered up on the bed––“yesterday it was Mañuela––she was my hen. I told her a week ago that you would need her––”
“And you gave up your hen for me, little one?” he interrupted.
“Why––yes, Padre. It was all right. I told her how it was. And she clucked so hard, I knew she was glad to help the goodCura. And she was so happy about it! I told her she really wouldn’t die. You know, things never do––do they?”
The priest hesitated. To hide his confusion and gain time he began to eat rapidly.
“No, they don’t,” said the girl confidently, answering her own question. “Because,” she added, “God iseverywhere––isn’t He?”
What manner of answer could he, of all men, make to such15terribly direct questions as these! And it was well that Carmen evidently expected none––that in her great innocence she assumed for him the same beautiful faith which she herself held.
“Doña Jacinta didn’t die last week. But they said she did; and so they took her to the cemetery and put her in a darkbóveda. And the black buzzards sat on the wall and watched them. Padre Rosendo said she had gone to the angels––that God took her. But, Padre, God doesn’t make people sick, does He? They get sick because they don’t know who He is. Every day I told God I knew He would cure you. And He did, didn’t He?”
While the girl paused for breath, her eyes sparkled, and her face glowed with exaltation. Child-like, her active mind flew from one topic to another, with no thought of connecting links.
“This morning, Padre, two little green parrots flew across the lake and perched on our roof. And they sat there and watched Cucumbra eat his breakfast; and they tried to steal his fish; and they scolded so loud! Why did they want to steal from him, when there is so much to eat everywhere? But they didn’t know any better, did they? I don’t think parrots love each other very much, for they scold so hard. Padre, it is so dark in here; come out and see the sun and the lake and the mountains. And my garden––Padre, it is beautiful! Esteban said next time he went up the trail he would bring me a monkey for a pet; and I am going to name it Hombrecito. And Captain Julio is going to bring me a doll from down the river. But,” with a merry, musical trill, “Juan said the night you came thatyouwere my doll! Isn’t he funny!” And throwing back her little head, the child laughed heartily.
“Padre, you must help padre Rosendo with his arithmetic. Every night he puts on his big spectacles and works so hard to understand it. He says he knows Satan made fractions. But, Padre, that isn’t so, is it? Not if God made everything. Padre, you knoweverything, don’t you? Padre Rosendo said you did. There are lots of things I want you to tell me––such lots of things that nobody here knows anything about. Padre,”––the child leaned toward the priest and whispered low––“the people here don’t know who God is; and you are going to teach them! There was aCurahere once, when I was a baby; but I guess he didn’t know God, either.”
She lapsed into silence, as if pondering this thought. Then, clapping her hands with unfeigned joy, she cried in a shrill little voice, “Oh, Padre, I amsoglad you have come to Simití! I justknewGod would not forget us!”