CHAPTER 38
The emotion of the jungle is a direct function of human temperament. Where one sees in it naught but a “grim, green sepulcher,” teeming with malignant, destructive forces, inimical to health, to tranquillity, to life, another––perhaps a member of the same party––will find in the wanton extravagance of Nature, her prodigious luxury, her infinite variety of form, of color, and sound, such stimuli to the imagination, and such invitation to further discovery and development, as to constitute a lure as insidious and unescapable as the habit which too often follows the first draft of the opium’s fumes. There are those who profess to have journeyed368through vast stretches of South Americanselvawithout encountering a wild animal. Others, with sight and hearing keener, and with a sense of observation not dulled by futile lamentations over the absence of the luxuries of civilized travel, will uncover a wealth of experiences which feed the memory throughout their remaining years, and mold an irresistible desire to penetrate again those vast, teeming, baffling solitudes.
It is true, the sterner aspect of the South American jungle affords little invitation to repose or restful contemplation. And the charm which its riotous prodigality exerts is in no sense idyllic. For the jungle falls upon one with the force of a blow. It grips by its massiveness, its awful grandeur. It does not entice admiration, but exacts obeisance by brute force. Its silence is a dull roar. Its rest is continuous motion, incessant activity. The garniture of its trackless wastes is that of great daubs of vivid color, laid thick upon the canvas with the knife––never modulated, never worked into delicate shading with the brush, but attracting by its riot, its audacity, its immensity, its disdain of convention, its utter disregard of the canons cherished by the puny mind that contemplates it. The forest’s appeal is a reflex of its own infinite complexity. The sensations which it arouses within the one who steps from civilization into its very heart are myriad, and often terrible. The instinct of self-preservation is by it suddenly, rudely aroused and kept keenly alive. Its inhospitality is menacing. The roar of its howling monkeys strikes terror to the timid heart. The plaintive calls of its persecuted feathered denizens echo through the mysterious vastnesses like despairing voices from a spirit world. The crashing noises, the strange, weird, unaccountable sounds that hurtle through its dimly lighted corridors blanch the face and cause the hand to steal furtively toward the loosely sheathed weapon. The piercing, frenzied screams which arise with blood-curdling effect through the awful stillness of noonday or the dead of night, turn the startled thought with sickening yearning toward the soft charms of civilization, in which the sense of protection is greater, even if actual security is frequently less.
Because of Nature’s utter disregard of the individual, life is everywhere. And that life is sharply armed and on the defensive. The rising heat-waves hum with insects. The bush swarms with them. Their droning murmur crowds the air. The trunks of trees, the great, pendent leaves of plants, the trailing vines, slimy with dank vegetation, afford footing and housing to countless myriads of them, keenly alert, ferociously resistive. The decaying logs fester with scorpions.369The ground is cavernous with the burrows of lizards and crawling forms, with centipedes and fierce formicidae. Death and terror stalk hand in hand. But life trails them. Where one falls, countless others spring up to fill the gap. The rivers andpantanosyield their quota of variegated forms. The flatperania, the dreaded electric eel, infests the warm streams, and inflicts its torture without discrimination upon all who dare invade its domain. Snakes lurk in the fetid swamps and lagoons, the brilliant coral and the deadlymápina. Beneath the forest leaves coils the brown adder, whose sting proves fatal within three days.
To those who see only these aspects of the jungle, a journey such as that undertaken by Rosendo and his intrepid little band would prove a terrifying experience, a constant repetition of nerve-shocks, under which the “centers” must ultimately give way. But to the two Americans, fresh from the mining camps of the West, and attuned to any pitch that Nature might strike in her marvelous symphony, the experience was one to be taken in the same spirit as all else that pertained to their romantic calling. Rosendo and his men accepted the day’s stint of toil and danger with dull stolidity. Carmen threw herself upon her thought, and saw in her shifting environment only the human mind’s interpretation of its mixed concept of good and evil. The insects swarmed around her as around the others. The tantalizingjejenesurged their insidious attacks upon her, as upon the rest. Her hands were dotted with tiny blood-blisters where the ravenous gnats had fed. But she uttered no complaint; nor would she discuss the matter when Harris proffered his sympathy, and showed his own red hands.
“It isn’t true,” she would say. “But you have no religion, and you don’t understand––as yet.”
“Don’t understand? And it isn’t true, eh? Well, you have mighty strange beliefs, young lady!”
“But not as strange and illogical as those you hold,” she replied.
“Oh, I don’t believe anything,” he answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’m an agnostic, you know.”
“There is just where you mistake, Mr. Harris,” she returned gravely. “For, instead of not believing anything, you firmly believe in the presence and power of evil. It is just those very people who boast that they do not believe in anything who believe most thoroughly in evil and its omnipotence and omnipresence.”
Yes, even the animals which she saw about her were but the human mind’s concepts of God’s ideas––not real. Adam370had named them. In the Bible allegory, or dream, the human, mortal mind names all its own material concepts.
The days wore on with dull regularity. From the rippling Tiguicito, which they reached choking with thirst and utterly exhausted, they dropped down again to the Boque, where they established camps and began to prospect the Molino company’s “near-mines,” as Harris called them after the first few unsuccessful attempts to get “colors” out of the barren soil. At certain points, where there seemed a more likely prospect, they remained for days, until the men, under Rosendo’s guidance, could sink pits to the underlying bedrock. Such work was done with the crudest of tools––an iron bar, wooden scrapers in lieu of shovels, and woodenbateasin which the men handed the loosened dirt up from one stage to another and out to the surface. It was slow, torturing work. The men grew restive. The food ran low, and they complained.
Then Harris one evening stumbled upon a tapir, just as the great animal had forded the river and was shambling into the bush opposite. He emptied his rifle magazine into the beast. It fell with a broken hip, and the men finished it with theirmachetes. Its hide was nearly a half inch in thickness, and covered withgarrapatas––fierce, burrowing vermin, with hooked claws, which came upon the travelers and caused them intense annoyance throughout the remainder of the journey.
Then Reed shot a deer, a delicate, big-eyed creature that had never seen a human being and was too surprised to flee. Later, Fidel Avila felled another with a large stone. And, finally, monkeys became so plentiful that the men all but refused to eat them any longer.
Two weeks were spent around the mouth of the Tiguicito and the Boque cañon. Then Reed gave the order to advance. The little party shouldered their packs and began the ascent of the ragged gorge. For days they clambered up and down the jagged walls of the cut, or skirted its densely covered margin. Twice Harris fell into the brawling stream below, and was fished out by Rosendo, his eyes popping, and his mouth choked with uncomplimentary opinion regarding mountain travel in the tropics. Once, seizing a slender vine to aid him in climbing, he gave a sudden lurch and swung out unexpectedly over the gorge, hundreds of feet deep. Again Rosendo, who by this time had learned to keep one eye on the ground and the other on the irresponsible Harris, rescued him from his perilous position.
“Why don’t you watch where you are going?” queried the laughing Carmen.
“I might,” sputtered Harris, “if I could keep my eyes off371of you.” Whereat Carmen pursed her lips and told him to reserve his compliments for those who knew how to appraise them rightly.
They camped where night overtook them, out in the open, often falling asleep without waiting to build a fire, but eating soggy cornarepaand tinned food, and drinking cold coffee left from the early morning repast. But sometimes, when the fatigue of day was less, they would gather about their little fire, chilled and dripping, and beg Carmen to sing to them while they prepared supper. Then her clear voice would ring out over the great cañon and into the vast solitudes on either hand in strange, vivid contrast to the cries and weird sounds of the jungle; and the two Americans would sit and look at her as if they half believed her a creature from another world. Sometimes Harris would draw her into conversation on topics pertaining to philosophy and religion, for he had early seen her bent and, agnostic that he was, delighted to hear her express her views, which to him were so childishly impossible. But as often he would voluntarily retire from the conflict, sometimes shaking his head dubiously, sometimes muttering his impatience with a mere child whose logic he, despite his collegiate training, could not refute. He was as full of philosophical theories as a nut with meat; but when she asked for proofs, for less human belief and more demonstration, he hoisted the white flag and retired from the field. But his admiration for the child became sincere. His respect for her waxed daily stronger. And by the time they had reached the great divide through which the Rosario fell, he was dimly aware of a feeling toward the beautiful creature who walked at his side day after day, sharing without complaint hardship and fatigue that sorely taxed his own endurance, that was something more than mere regard, and he had begun to speculate vaguely on a possible future in which she became the central figure.
At Rosario creek they left the great cañon and turned into the rugged defile which wound its tortuous course upward into the heights of theBarra Principal. They were now in a region where, in Rosendo’s belief, there was not one human being in an area of a hundred square miles. He himself was in sore doubt as to the identity of thequebradawhich they were following. But it tallied with the brief description given him by Don Nicolás. And, moreover, which was even more important, as they began its ascent there came to him that sense of conviction which every true son of the jungle feels when he is following the right course. He might not say how he knew he was right; but he followed the leading without further question.
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Up over the steep talus at the base of the cañon wall they clambered, up into the narrowingarroyo, cutting every foot of the way, for themacheteroswere now no longer keeping ahead of them––the common danger held the band united. Often they believed they discovered traces of ancient trails. But the jealous forest had all but obliterated them, and they could not be certain. In the higher and drier parts of the forest, where they left the creek and followed the beds of dead streams, slender ditches through which the water raced in torrents during the wet season, they were set upon by countless swarms of bees, a strange, stingless variety that covered them in a buzzing, crawling mass, struggling and fighting for the salt in the perspiration which exuded from the human bodies. Harris swore he would cease to eat, for he could not take even a mouthful of food without at the same time taking in a multitude of bees. Often, too, theirmachetescut into great hornet nests. Then, with the shrill cry, “Avispas!” Rosendo would tear recklessly through the matted jungle, followed by his slapping, stumbling companions, until the maddened insects gave up the chase. Frequently they walked into huge ant nests before they realized it, sometimes the greattucanderas, so ferociously poisonous. “Ah, señores,” commented Rosendo, as he once stopped to point out the marvelous roadway cut by these insects for miles straight through the jungle, “in the days of the Spaniards the cruel taskmasters would often tie the weak and sick slaves to trees in the depths of the forest and let these great ants devour them alive! Señores, you can never know the terrible crimes committed by the Spaniards!”
“And they were Christians!” murmured Harris, eying Carmen furtively.
But she knew, though she voiced it not, that the Spaniard had never known the Christ.
Night was spent on the summit of the divide. Then, without further respite, Rosendo urged the descent. Down through ravines and gullies; over monster bowlders; waist deep through streams; down the sheer sides of gorges on natural ladders formed by the hangingmoravines; skirting cliffs by the aid of tangled and interlaced roots of rank, wet vegetation; and then down again into river bottoms, where the tenacious mud challenged their every step, and the streams became an interminable morass, through which passage was possible only by jumping from root to root, where the gnarled feeders of the great trees projected above the bottomless ooze. The persecution of thejejenesbecame diabolical. At dawn and sunset the raucous bellow of the red-roarer monkeys made the air hideous. The373flickering lights of the forest became dismally depressing. The men grew morose and sullen. Reed and Harris quarreled with each other on the slightest provocation.
Then, to increase their misery, came the rain. It fell upon them in the river bottoms in fierce, driving gusts; then in sheets that blotted out the forest and wet their very souls. The heavens split with the lightning. The mountains roared and trembled with the hideous cannonade of thunder. The jungle-matted hills ran with the flood. An unvaried pall of vapor hung over the steaming ground, through which uncanny, phantasmagoric shapes peered at the struggling little band.
Again the sun burst forth, and a fiery vapor seethed above the moist earth. The reek of their damp clothing and the acrid odor of the wet soil increased the enervation of their hard travel. Again and again the peevish Harris accused Rosendo of having lost the way. The old man patiently bore the abuse. Reed chided Harris, and at length quarreled violently with him, although his own apprehension waxed continually greater. Carmen said little. Hour after hour she toiled along, floundering through the bogs, fording the deeper streams on Rosendo’s broad back, whispering softly to him at times, often seizing and pressing his great horny hand, but holding her peace. In vain at evening, when gathered about the damp, smudging firewood, Harris would bring up to her the causes of her flight. In vain he would accuse the unfortunate Alcalde, the Bishop, the soldiers. Carmen refused to lend ear to it, or to see in it anything more than a varied expression of the human mind. Personality was never for a moment considered. She saw, not persons, not things, but expressions of thought in the phenomena which had combined to urge her out of her former environment and cast her into the trackless jungle.
At length, one day, when it seemed to the exhausted travelers that human endurance could stand no more, Rosendo, who had long been straining his ears in the direction straight ahead, announced that the singing noise which floated to them as they descended a low hill and plunged into a thicket of tall lush grass, undoubtedly came from the river Tiguí. Another hour of straining and plunging through the dense growth followed; and then, with a final effort, which manifested in a sort of frenzied rush, the little band emerged suddenly upon the east bank of the crystal stream, glittering and shimmering in the bright morning sun as it sang and rippled on its solitary way through the great jungle.
The men threw off their packs and sprawled full length upon the ground. Rosendo pointed across the river.
“La Colorado,” he said, indicating what the Americans at374length made out to be a frame house, looming above the high grass. “And there,” pointing to the north, “isPozo Cayman, where the trail begins that leads to La Libertad.”
That night, as they lay on the rough board floor of the house at La Colorado, Rosendo told them the story of the misguided Frenchmen who, years before, had penetrated this wild region, located a barren quartz vein, then floated a company and begun developments. A considerable colony settled here. The soil was fertile; the undeveloped country ceaselessly rich in every resource, the water pure and sparkling, and abounding in fish. The climate, too, was moderate and agreeable. It seemed to the foreigners a terrestrial paradise. But then came the insidious fever. It crept out of the jungle like a thief in the night. One by one the Frenchmen fell sick and died. Panic seized upon them. Those unafflicted fled––all but one. He remained to protect the company’s property. But he, too, fell a victim to the plague. One day, as he lay burning upon his bed, he called feebly to his one remaining servant, the native cook, to bring him the little package of quinine. She hastened to comply; but, alas! she brought the packet of strychnine instead, and soon he, too, had joined his companions in that unknown country which awaits us all. The old woman fled in terror; and the evil spirits descended upon the place. They haunt it yet, and no man approaches it but with trembling.
Reed and Harris listened to the weird story with strange sensations. The clouds above had broken, and the late moon streamed through the night vapor, and poured through the bamboo walls of the house. The giant frogs in the nearby creek awoke, and through the long night croaked their mournful plaint in a weird minor cadence that seemed to the awed Americans to voice to the shimmering moon the countless wrongs of the primitive Indians, who, centuries before, had roamed this marvelous land in happy freedom, until the Spaniard descended like a dark cloud and, with rack and stake, fastened his blighting religion upon them.
A day’s rest at La Colorado sufficed to revive the spirits of the party and prepare them for the additional eight or ten hour journey over boggy morass and steep hill to La Libertad. For this trip Rosendo would take only the Americans and Carmen. Thecargadoreswere not to know the nature of this expedition, which, Rosendo announced, was undertaken that the Americans might explore for two days the region around the upper Tiguí. The men received this explanation with grunts of satisfaction.
Trembling with suppressed excitement, oblivious now of fatigue, hunger, or hardship, Reed and Harris followed the old375man that day over the ancient, obliterated trail to the forgotten mine of Don Ignacio de Rincón. They experienced all the sensations of those who find themselves at last on the course that leads to buried treasure. To Harris, the romance attaching to the expedition obliterated all other considerations. But Reed was busy with the practical end of it, with costs, with the problems of supplies, of transportation, and trail. Carmen saw but one vision, the man in far-off Simití, whose ancestor once owned the great mine which lay just ahead of them.
When night fell, the four stood, silent and wondering, at the mouth of the crumbling tunnel, where lay a rusted shovel bearing the scarce distinguishable inscription, “I de R.”
Two weeks later a group of natives, sitting at a feast of baked alligator tail, at the mouth of the Amacerí, near the dirty, straggling riverine town of Llano, rose in astonishment as they saw issuing from the clayey, wallowing Guamocó trail a staggering band of travelers, among them two foreigners, whose clothes were in shreds and whose beards and unkempt hair were caked with yellow mud. With them came a young girl, lightly clad and wearing torn ropealpargateson her bare feet. The heat was descending in torrents. From the neighboring town floated a brawling bedlam of human voices. It was Sunday, and the villagers were celebrating a religiousfiesta.
“Compadres,” said Rosendo, approaching the half-intoxicated group. “The boat––which way?”
One of the group, his mouth too full to speak, pointed in expressive pantomime up-stream. Rosendo murmured a fervent “Loado sea Dios,” and sank upon the ground.
“It will be down to-morrow––to-day, perhaps,” gurgled another of the rapidly recovering feasters, his eyes roving from one member to another of the weird-looking little band.
“Lord Harry!” exclaimed Harris, as he squatted upon the damp ground and mopped his muddy brow. “I’m a salamander for heat, that’s certain!”
“Señor,” said Rosendo, addressing Reed, “it would be well to pay the men at once, for the boat may appear at any time, and it will not wait long.”
While the curious group from the village crowded about and eagerly watched the proceedings, Reed unstrapped his pack and drew out a bundle of Colombian bills, with which he began to pay thecargadores, according to the reckoning which Rosendo had kept. As the last man, with a grunt of satisfaction, received his money, Harris exclaimed: “And to think, one good American dollar is worth a bushel of that paper stuff!”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a shrill376whistle came echoing down the river. A cloud of smoke above the distant treetops heralded the approach of the steamer. The little party had escaped a wait of a month in the drenching heat of Llano by the narrow margin of an hour.
Rosendo hastened to Reed and drew him aside. He tried to speak, but words failed him. Reed took his hand. “I understand, my friend,” he said gently. “Have no fear. The mine is all I had anticipated. My wife and I will care for the girl until we hear from you. And we will keep in touch with you, although it will take two months for a letter to reach us and our reply to get back again to Simití. The development company will be formed at once. Within six months you may expect to see the work started. It is your fortune––and the girl’s.”
Carmen drew close to Rosendo. “Padre, I am coming back to you––yes?”
“Cierto, chiquita!” The old man would not permit himself to say more. The girl had known for some time that he was not to accompany her to the States, and that she should not see Ana in Cartagena. To this she had at length accustomed herself.
In a few minutes the lumbering boat had swung around and thrown out its gang plank. A hurried embrace; a struggle with rushing tears; another shriek from the boat whistle; and the Americans, with Carmen standing mute and motionless between them, looked back at the fading group on shore, where Rosendo’s tall figure stood silhouetted against the green background of the forest. For a moment he held his arm extended toward them. Carmen knew, as she looked at the great-hearted man for the last time, that his benediction was following her––following her into that new world into which he might not enter.
Reed lifted the silent, wondering, big-eyed girl from the dinkey train which pulled into Cartagena from Calamar ten days later, and took her to the Hotel Mariana, where his anxious, fretting wife awaited. Their boat had hung on a hidden bar in the Cauca river for four interminable, torturing days.
377CHAPTER 39
On the day that Carmen arrived in Cartagena, Rosendo staggered down the Guamocó trail into Simití. On that same momentous day the flames of war again flared up throughout the country. The Simití episode, in which the President had interfered, brought Congress to the necessity of action. A few days of fiery debate followed; then the noxious measure was taken from the table and hastily enacted into a law.
But news travels slowly in Latin America, and some time was required for this act of Congress to become generally known. The delay saw Carmen through the jungle and down to the coast. There Reed lost no time in transacting what business still remained for him in Cartagena, and securing transportation for his party to New York.
Josè, the shadow of his former self, clung pitiably to Rosendo’s hand, imploring the constant repetition of the old man’s narrative. Then came Juan, flying to the door. He had seen and talked with the returnedcargadores. The girl had not come back with them. He demanded to know why. He became wild. Neither Josè nor Rosendo could calm him. At length it seemed wise to them both to tell him that she had gone to the States with the Americans, and would return to Simití no more.
The blow almost crushed the lad. He rushed about the town half dazed. He gathered groups of companions about him and talked to them excitedly. He threatened Rosendo and Josè. Then, evidently acting on the advice of some cooler head, he rushed to his canoe and put off across the lake toward thecaño. He did not return for several days. But when he did, the town knew that he had been to Bodega Central, and that the country was aflame with war.
Reed’s wife had not received Carmen in an amiable frame of mind. “For heaven’s sake, Charles,” she had cried, turning from his embrace to look at the wondering girl who stood behind him, “what have you here?”
“Oh, that,” he laughingly replied, “is only a little Indian I lassoed back in the jungle.” And, leaving the girl to the not very tender graces of his wife, he hurried out to arrange for the return voyage.
At noon, when Harris appeared at Reed’s room, Carmen rushed to him and begged to be taken for a stroll through the378town. Yielding to her husband’s insistence, Mrs. Reed had outfitted the girl, so that she presented a more civilized appearance. At first Carmen had been delighted with her new clothes. They were such, cheap as they were, as she had never seen in Simití. But the shoes––“Ah, señora,” she pleaded, “do not make me wear them, they are so tight! I have never worn shoes before.” She was beginning her education in the conventions and trammels of civilization.
As Carmen and Harris stood that afternoon in the public square, while the girl gazed enraptured at an equestrian statue of Simón Bolívar, a ragged little urchin approached and begged them to buy an afternoon paper. Harris humored him and bade Carmen ask him his name.
“Rincón,” the lad answered, drawing himself up proudly.
The girl started. “Rincón!” she repeated. “Why––where do you live?”
“In the Calle Lozano,” he replied, wondering why these people seemed interested in him.
Carmen translated the conversation to Harris. “Ask him who his father is,” suggested the latter.
“I do not know,” replied the little fellow, shaking his head. “I never saw him. He lives far away, up the great river, so Tia Catalina says. And she says he is a priest.”
The color suddenly left Carmen’s cheeks. “Come with me to your home,” she said, taking his hand.
The boy led them willingly through the winding streets to the little upper room where, years before, he had first seen the light.
“Tia Catalina,” he cried to the shabby woman who rose in amazement as the visitors entered, “see, some strangers!”
Carmen lost no time, but went at once to the heart of her question.
“The little fellow’s father––he is a Rincón? And––he lives up the great river?”
The woman eyed her suspiciously for some moments without replying. But the boy answered for her. “Yes, señorita,” he said eagerly, “in Simití. And his name––I am named for him––it is Josè. And I am going to visit him some day. Tia Catalina said I should, no, Tia?”
Harris fumbled in his pocket and drew out some money, which he handed to the woman. Her eyes lighted, and a cavernous smile spread over her wrinkled face.
“Ah, gracias, señor,” she murmured, bending over his hand; “we need it. The boy’s father has sent us but little of late.”
Carmen’s heart was fluttering wildly. “Tell me,” she said in379a cold voice, “the boy’s father is Padre Josè de Rincón, of Simití? You need not fear to speak. We have just come from Simití, and have seen him. We are leaving to-morrow for the States.”
“Yes, señorita,” replied the woman in a thin, cracking voice, now completely disarmed of her suspicion. “The little fellow was born here some seven years ago. Ah, well I remember the day! And his mother, poor little lamb! She died the same night. But the good Padre has sent us money ever since to care for him, until of late. Señorita, why is it, think you, that he sends us so little now?”
“I––do––not––know,” murmured Carmen abstractedly, scarce hearing the woman. Then she turned to the boy. She bent over him and looked long and wistfully into his eyes. He was a bright, handsome little fellow; and though her heart was crushed, she took him into it. Swallowing the lump which had come into her throat, she drew him to the window and sat down, holding him before her.
“Your father––I know him––well. He is a––a good man. But––I did not know––I never knew that he had a son.” She stopped, choking.
“Tia Catalina says he is a fine man,” proudly answered the boy. “And she wants me to be a priest, too. But I am going to be a bull-fighter.”
“It is true, señorita,” interposed the woman. “We cannot keep him from thearenanow. He hangs about it all day, and about the slaughter-house. We can hardly drag him back to his meals. What can we do, señorita? But,” with a touch of pride as she looked at him, “if he becomes a bull-fighter, he will be the best of them all!”
Carmen turned again to the woman. Her question carried an appeal which came from the depths of her soul. “Señora, is there no doubt––no doubt that Padre Rincón is the father of the boy?”
“We think not, señorita. The lad’s mother died in the good Padre’s arms. She would not say positively who was the boy’s father. We thought at first––it was some one else. Marcelena insisted on it to her dying day. But now––now we know that it was Padre Josè. And he was sent to Simití for it. But––ah, señorita, the little mother was so beautiful, and so good! She––but, señorita, you are not leaving so soon?”
Carmen had risen. “Yes, my good señora,” she said wearily. “We must now return to the hotel. But––here is more money for the boy. And, señora, when I reach the States I will send you money every month for him.”
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She took Harris’s hand. “Come,” she said simply, “I have seen enough of the city.”
At noon the next day a message from Bodega Central was put into the hand of the acting-Bishop of Cartagena, as he sat in his study, wrapped in the contemplation of certain papers before him. Hostilities had begun along the Magdalena river the day before. The gates of Cartagena were to be barricaded that day, for a boatload of rebels was about to leave Barranquilla to storm the city and seize, if possible, the customs. When he had read the message he uttered an exclamation. Had not the Sister Superior of the Convent of Our Lady reported the arrival of the daughter of Rosendo Ariza some days before? He seized his hat and left the room.
Hastening to the Department of Police, he had a short interview with the chief. Then that official despatched policemen to the office of the steamship company, and to the dock. Their orders were to arrest two Americans who were abducting a young girl. They returned a half hour later with sheepish faces. “Your Excellency,” they announced to their chief, “the vessel sailed from the port an hour ago, with the Americans and the girl aboard.”
The announcement aroused in Wenceslas the fury of a tiger. Exacerbation succeeded surprise; and that in turn gave way to a maddening thirst for sanguinary vengeance. He hastened out and despatched a telegraphic message to Bogotá. Then he returned to his study to await its effect.
Two days later a river steamer, impressed by the federal authorities, stopped at the mouth of the Boque, and a squad of soldiers marched over the unfrequented trail to Simití, where they arrived as night fell. Their orders were to take into custody the priest, Josè de Rincón, who was accused of complicity in the recent plot to overthrow the existing government.
At the same time, on a vessel plowing its way into the North, a young girl, awkwardly wearing her ill-fitting garments, hung over the rail and gazed wistfully back at the Southern Cross. The tourists who saw her heterogeneous attire laughed. But when they looked into her beautiful, sad face their mirth died, and a tender pity stirred their hearts.
And while within myself I traceThe greatness of some future race,Aloof with hermit-eye I scanThe present works of present man,––A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!––Coleridge.
And while within myself I traceThe greatness of some future race,Aloof with hermit-eye I scanThe present works of present man,––A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!
––Coleridge.
3
CHAPTER 1
The blanket of wet fog which had hung over the harbor with such exasperating tenacity lifted suddenly, late in the raw fall afternoon, and revealed to the wondering eyes of the girl who stood alone at the rail of theJoachima confusion of mountainous shadows, studded with myriad points of light which glittered and shimmered beneath the gray pall. Across the heaving waters came the dull, ominous breathing of the metropolis. Clouds of heavy, black smoke wreathed about the bay. Through it shrieking water craft darted and wriggled in endless confusion. For two days the port of New York had been a bedlam of raw sound, as the great sirens of the motionless vessels roared their raucous warnings through the impenetrable veil which enveloped them. Their noise had become acute torture to the impatient tourists, and added bewilderment to the girl.
The transition from the primitive simplicity of her tropical home had not been one of easy gradation, but a precipitate plunge. The convulsion which ensued from the culmination of events long gathering about little Simití had hurled her through the forest, down the scalding river, and out upon the tossing ocean with such swiftness that, as she now stood at the portal of a new world, she seemed to be wandering through the mazes of an intricate dream. During the ocean voyage she had kept aloof from the other passengers, partly because of embarrassment, partly because of the dull pain at her heart as she gazed, day after day, at the two visions which floated always before her: one, the haggard face of the priest, when she tore herself from his arms in far-off Simití; the other, that of the dark-faced, white-haired old man who stood on the clayey river bank at wretched Llano and watched her, with eager, straining eyes, until the winding stream hid her from his earthly sight––forever. She wondered dully now why she had left them, why she had so easily yielded to the influences which had caused4the separation. They might have fled to the jungle and lived there in safety and seclusion. The malign influences which beset them all in Simití never could have reached them in the trackless forest. And yet, she knew that had not Rosendo and Josè held out to her, almost to the last moment, assurances of a speedy reunion, she would not have yielded to the pressure which they had exerted, and to the allurements of life in the wonderful country to which they had sent her. Her embarrassment on the boat was due largely to a sense of awkwardness in the presence of women who, to her provincial sight, seemed visions of beauty. To be sure, the priest had often shown her pictures of the women of the outside world, and she had some idea of their dress. But that such a vast difference existed between the illustrations and the actualities, she had never for a moment imagined. Their gowns, their jewels, their coiffures held her in open-mouthed marvel, until Mrs. Reed, herself annoyed and embarrassed, remanded her to her cabin and bade her learn the impropriety of such manners.
Nor had the conduct of this lady throughout the voyage conduced to Carmen’s happiness. Mrs. Reed showed plainly that the girl was an awkward embarrassment to her; that she was tolerated because of reasons which pertained solely to her husband’s business; and she took pains to impress upon her fellow-travelers that, in view of the perplexing servant problem, this unmannered creature was being taken to the States to be trained as a maid, though, heaven knew! the training would be arduous, and the result uncertain.
Reed, though measurably kind, gave Carmen scant attention. Harris alone saved the girl from almost complete neglect. He walked the deck with her, regardless of the smiles of the other passengers. He taught her to play shuffle-board, checkers, and simple card games. He conducted her over the boat and explained the intricate machinery and the numberless wonders of the great craft. He sat with her out on the deck at night and told her marvelous stories of his experiences in frontier camps. And at the table he insisted that she occupy the seat next to him, despite the protestations of the chief steward, who would have placed her apart with the servants.
Carmen said little, but she clung to the man with an appeal which, though mute, he nevertheless understood. At Kingston he took her on a drive through the town, and bought post cards for her to send back to Josè and Rosendo. It consoled her immeasurably when he glowingly recounted the pleasure her loved ones would experience on receiving these cards; and thereafter the girl daily devoted hours to the preparation of additional ones to be posted in New York.
5
The lifting of the fog was the signal for a race among the stalled craft to gain the harbor entrance. The enforced retention of the vessels in the bay had resulted in much confusion in docking, and theJoachimwas assigned to a pier not her own. The captain grumbled, but had no choice. At the pier opposite there docked a huge liner from Havre; and the two boats poured their swarming human freight into the same shed. When the gang plank dropped, Harris took charge of Carmen, while Reed and his wife preceded them ashore, the latter giving a little scream of delight as she spied her sister and some friends with a profusion of flowers awaiting her on the pier. She rushed joyfully into their arms, while Reed hastened to his equipage with a customs officer.
But as Harris and the bewildered Carmen pushed into the great crowd in the shed, the absent-minded man suddenly remembered that he had left a bundle of Panamá hats underneath his bunk. Dropping the girl’s hand, the impetuous fellow tore back up the gang plank and dived into the boat.
For a moment Carmen, stood in confusion, bracing herself against the swarming multitude, and clinging tenaciously to the small, paper-wrapped bundle which she carried. Her first impulse was to follow Harris. But the eager, belated crowd almost swept her off her feet, and she turned again, drifting slowly with it toward the distant exit. As she moved uncertainly, struggling the while to prevent being crushed against the wall, she felt some one grasp her hand.
“Oh, here you are!” sounded a gentle voice close to her ear. “Well, how fortunate! We thought we had lost you! Come, they are waiting for us up ahead.”
Carmen looked up at the speaker. It was a woman, comely of feature, and strikingly well dressed. The girl thought her beautiful. The anxious fears of a moment before vanished. “Is he up there––Mr. Reed?” she asked quickly.
“He? Oh, yes––Mr. Reed and the others are waiting for us. They sent me back to find you. The automobiles came for you all; but I presume the others have gone by this time. However, you and I will follow in mine. I am Auntie.”
“His aunt?” the girl asked eagerly, as the woman forced a way for them through the mass of humanity.
“Yes, dear. And I am so glad to see you. I have heard all about you.”
“Did he write to you––from Simití?”
“Yes, long letters. And he told all about his little girl. He said your name was––”
“Carmen,” interrupted the girl, with a great surge of gladness, for here was one woman who did not avoid her.
6
“Yes, Carmen. It is a sweet name.”
“But––Mr. Harris!” cried Carmen, suddenly stopping as she remembered.
“Oh, did he wait? Well, he will come. He knows where to find the automobiles. I will leave word with the pier-master to tell him.”
By this time they had wormed their way clear of the crowd and gained the street. The woman, still retaining Carmen’s hand, went directly to a waiting automobile and pushed the unresisting girl through the open door. Carmen had never seen a conveyance like this, and her thought was instantly absorbed. She looked wonderingly for the horses. And then, sinking into the luxurious cushions, she fell to speculating as to how the thing was moved.
As the chauffeur reached back to close the door a policeman, who had been eying the party since they came out of the shed, stepped up and laid a hand on the car.
“Er––little girl,” he said, looking in and addressing Carmen, “you––you know this lady, do you?”
“Yes,” replied Carmen, looking up confidently into the woman’s smiling face. “She is Auntie, Mr. Reed’s aunt.” She thought his blue uniform and shining buttons and star gorgeously beautiful.
The officer stood hesitant a moment. Suspicion lurked in his eyes as he looked at the woman and then back again at the girl.
“She is a little girl who came up from the South with my nephew, Mr. Reed,” the woman explained easily. “But I don’t wonder you asked. I will give you my card, if you wish.”
Her air was supremely confident. The chauffeur, too, as he got out and leisurely examined his engine, served further to disarm suspicion. The officer raised up and removed his hand from the machine. The chauffeur slowly mounted the box and threw on his lever. As the car moved gently into the night the officer glanced at its number. “Hell!” he muttered, turning away. “What’s the use? The number would be changed anyway. What’s a fellow going to do in a case like this, I’d like to know––go with ’em?”
Some minutes later, Harris, wild and disheveled, followed by Reed and his party, emerged hurriedly into the street.
“What you looking for?” asked the officer, planting himself in front of Harris, and becoming vaguely apprehensive.
“Girl!” sputtered Harris, his eyes protruding and his long arms pawing the air. “Girl––so high––funny dress––big straw hat! Seen her?”
The officer gasped. “She’s gone! Aunt took her just now in an auto!”
7
“Aunt!” yelled Harris. “She’s got no aunt! She’s from the jungle!”
For a moment they all stood silent, big-eyed and gaping.
“Look here, Mr. Officer,” said Reed, interposing. “My name’s Reed. The girl came up from South America with me. Describe the woman––”
“Reed!” cried the policeman excitedly, his eyes lighting. “That’s it! Said she was your aunt!”
“Lord Harry! You great, blundering boob!” cried the distracted Harris, menacing the confused officer. “And you let her nab the kid?”
Night had fallen, and a curious crowd was gathering around the excited, noisy group. Reed quickly signaled a taxicab and hustled the bewildered officer into it. “You, Harris, get the women folks home, and wait for me! I’ll go to central with this officer and report the case!”
“Not I!” exclaimed Harris wildly. “I’m going to visit every dance hall and dive in this bloomin’ town before I go home! I’m going to find that girl! And you, you blithering idiot,” shaking a fist at the officer, “you’re going to lose your star for this!”
Meantime, the car, in which Carmen lay deep in the soft cushions, sped through the dusk like a fell spirit. A confused jumble of shadows flew past, and strange, unfamiliar noises rose from the animated streets. The lights shimmered on the moist glass. It was confusing. The girl ceased trying to read any meaning in it. It all fused into a blur; and she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the novel sensations stimulated by her first ride in a carriage propelled––she knew not how.
At length came a creaking, a soft, skidding motion, and the big car rolled up against a curb and stopped.
“We are home now,” said the woman softly, as she descended and again took Carmen’s hand. They hurriedly mounted the white stone steps of a tall, gloomy building and entered a door that seemed to open noiselessly at their approach. A glare of light burst upon the blinking eyes of the girl. A negro woman softly closed the door after them. With a wondering glance, Carmen looked about her. In the room at her right she caught a glimpse of women––beautiful, they seemed to her––clad in loose, low-cut, gaily colored gowns. There were men there, too; and some one sat at a piano playing sprightly music. She had seen pianos like that in Cartagena, and on the boat, and they had seemed to her things bewitched. In the room at the end of the hall men and women were dancing on a floor that seemed of polished glass. Loud talk, laughter, and singing floated through the rooms, and the air was8warm and stuffy, heavy with perfume. The odor reminded her of the roses in her own little garden in Simití. It was all beautiful, wonderful, fairy-like.
But she had only a moment for this appraisal. Seizing her hand again, the woman whisked her up the flight of stairs before them and into a warm, light room. Then, without speaking, she went out and closed the door, leaving the girl alone.
Carmen sank into a great, upholstered rocking chair and tried to grasp it all as she swayed dreamily back and forth. So this was his home, Mr. Reed’s. It was a palace! Like those Josè had described. She wondered if Harris dwelt in a place of such heavenly beauty; for he had said that he did not live with Reed. What would the stupid people of Simití think could they see her now! She had never dreamed that such marvels existed in the big world beyond her dreary, dusty, little home town! Josè had told her much, ah, wonderful things! And so had Harris. But how pitifully inadequate now seemed all their stories! She still wondered what had made that carriage go in which she had come up from the boat. And what would one like it cost? Would her interest in La Libertad suffice to buy one? She speculated vaguely.
Then she rose and wandered about the room. She passed her hand over the clean, white counterpane of the bed. “Oh,” she murmured, “how beautiful!” She went dreamily to the bureau and took up, one by one, the toilet articles that lay there in neat array. “Oh, oh, oh!” she murmured, again and again. She glanced into the clear mirror. The little figure reflected there contrasted so oddly with the gorgeously beautiful ones she had glimpsed below that she laughed aloud. Then she went to the window and felt of the soft curtains. “It is heaven,” she murmured, facing about and sweeping the room, “just heaven! Oh, how beautiful even the human mind can be! I never thought it, I never thought it!”
Again she sat down in the big rocker and gave herself up to the charm of her surroundings. Her glance fell upon a vase of flowers that stood on a table near another window. She rose and went to them, bending over to inhale their fragrance. “How strange!” she exclaimed, as she felt them crackle in her fingers. Poor child, they were artificial! But she would learn, ere long, that they fittingly symbolized the life of the great city in which she was now adrift.
Time passed. She began to wonder why the woman did not return. Were not the Reeds anxious to know of her safe arrival? But perhaps they had visitors. Surely that was the case. It was a ball––but so different from the simple, artless9baileof her native town. Stray snatches of music drifted into the room from the piano below. It stimulated a hunger for more. She went to the door, thinking to open it a little and listen. The door was locked!
For a moment she stood reflecting. Then apprehension began to steal over her. She went hastily, instinctively, to a window and raised the curtain. There were iron bars in front of it! She remembered suddenly that prison windows were like that. She hurried to the other. It was likewise barred. Terror’s clammy hand gripped at her heart. Then she caught herself––and laughed. “How silly!” she exclaimed, sinking again into the rocker. “God is everywhere––right here!”
At that moment the door opened noiselessly and a woman entered. She was younger than the one who had met the boat. When she saw the girl she uttered an exclamation. “Lord! where did you get those clothes?”
Carmen glanced down at her odd attire and then smiled up at the woman. “Cartagena,” she said simply. “Mrs. Reed bought them for me. But are you her sister? You don’t look like her.”
The woman laughed, a sharp, unmusical laugh. The dry cosmetic plastered thick upon her cheeks cracked. She was not beautiful like the others, thought Carmen. Her cheeks were sunken, and her low-cut gown revealed great, protruding collarbones. “Come,” she said abruptly, “get out of those rags and into something modern.” She opened a closet door and selected a gown from a number hanging there. It was white, and there was a gay ribbon at the waist.
“It’ll have to be pinned up,” she commented to herself, holding it out before her and regarding Carmen critically.
The girl’s eyes danced. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “am I to wear that? How beautiful! Did Mrs. Reed give it to me? And is there a party down stairs?”
The woman returned no answer, but opened a bureau drawer and took from it several other garments, which she threw upon a chair, together with the dress.
“Into the whole lot of ’em,” she said sharply, indicating the garments. “And move lively, for supper’s waitin’ and there’ll be callers soon––gentlemen callers,” she added, smiling grimly.
She turned and faced Carmen. Their eyes met. The woman stopped abruptly and stood with arms akimbo, regarding the girl. Carmen gazed up at her with a smile of happy, trustful assurance.
The woman was the first to speak. “Where did you come from?” she demanded hoarsely.