Chapter 13…

Chapter 13

"At last, you come!"

The querulous tones of the aged Bishop eddied the brooding silence within the Cathedral. Without waiting for a reply he turned again to his table and took up a paper containing a list of names.

"You wait until midday," he continued testily; "but you give me time to reflect and decide. The parish of Simití has long been vacant. I have assigned you to it. The Honda touches at Calamar to-morrow, going up-river. You will take it."

"Simití! Father--!"

"Bien; and would you dispute this too!" quavered the ill-humored Bishop.

"But--Simití--you surely cannot mean--!"

The Bishop turned sharply around. "I mean that after what I learn from Rome I will not keep you here to teach your heresies in our University! I mean that after what I hear this morning of your evil practices I will not allow you to spend another day in Cartagena!" The angry ecclesiastic brought his bony fist hard against the table to emphasize the remark.

"Madre de Dios!" he resumed, after some moments of nursing his choleric feelings. "Would you debate further! The Holy Father for some unexplained reason inflicts a madman upon me! And I, innocent of what you are, obey his instructions and place you in the University--with what result? You have the effrontery--the madness--to lecture to your classes on the heresies of Rome!"

"But--"

"And as if that were not burden enough for these old shoulders, I must learn that I have taken a serpent to my bosom--but that you are still sane enough to propagate heresies--to plot revolution with the Radicals--and--shame consume you!--to wantonly ruin the fair daughters of our diocese! But, do you see now why I send you where you can do less evil than here in Cartagena?"

The priest slowly petrified under the tirade.

"The fault is not mine if I must act without instruction from Rome," the Bishop went on petulantly. "Twice have I warned you against your teachings--but I did not suspect then, for only yesterday did I learn that before coming to me you had been confined in a monastery--insane! But--Hombre! when you bring the blush of shame to my cheeks because of your godless practices--it is time to put you away without waiting for instruction!"

Godless practices! Was the Bishop or the priest going mad?

"Go now to your room," the Bishop added, turning again to his table. "You have little enough time to prepare for your journey. Wenceslas will give you letters to the Alcalde of Simití."

Wenceslas! The priest's thought flew back over the events of the morning. Marcelena--Maria--the encounter below with--! Dios! Could it be that Wenceslas had fastened upon him the stigma of his own crime? The priest found his tongue.

"Father!--it is untrue!--these charges are false as hell!" he exclaimed excitedly. "I demand to know who brings them against me!"

The testy Bishop's wrath flared up anew. "You demand! Am I to sit here and be catechised by you? It is enough that I know what occurs in my diocese, and am well informed of your conduct!"

The doorway darkened, and the priest turned to meet the object of his suspecting thought.

Bestowing a smile of patronage upon Josè, and bowing obsequiously before the Bishop, Wenceslas laid some papers upon the table, remarking as he did so, "The letters, Your Grace, to introduce our Josè to his new field. Also his instructions and expense money."

"Wenceslas!" The priest confronted him fiercely. "Do you accuse me before the Bishop?"

"Accuse, amigo?" Wenceslas queried in a tone of assumed surprise. "Have I not said that your ready tongue and pen are your accusers? But," with a conciliatory air, "we must remember that our good Bishop mercifully views your conduct in the light of your recent mental affliction, traces of which, unfortunately, have lingered to cause him sorrow. And so he graciously prepares a place for you, caro amigo, where rest and relief from the strain of teaching will do you much good, and where life among simple and affectionate people will restore you, he hopes, to soundness of mind."

The priest turned again to the Bishop in a complexity of appeal. The soft speech of Wenceslas, so full of a double entendu, so markedly in contrast with the Bishop's harsh but at least sincere tirade, left no doubt in his mind that he was now the victim of a plot, whose ramifications extended back to the confused circumstances of his early life, and the doubtful purposes of his uncle and his influence upon the sacerdotal directors in Rome. And he saw himself a helpless and hopelessly entangled victim.

"Father!" In piteous appeal Josè held out his hands to the Bishop, who had turned his back upon him and was busy with the papers on his table.

"Amigo, the interview is ended," said Wenceslas quietly, stepping between the priest and his superior.

Josè pushed wildly past the large form of Wenceslas and seized the Bishop's hand.

"Santa Maria!" cried the petulant churchman. "Do you obey me, or no? If not, then leave the Church--and spend your remaining days as a hounded ex-priest and unfrocked apostate," he finished significantly. "Go, prepare for your journey!"

Wenceslas slipped the letter and a few pesos into the hand of the smitten, bewildered Josè, and turning him to the door, gently urged him out and closed it after him.

* * * * *

Just why the monastery gates had opened to him after two years' deadening confinement, Josè had not been apprised. All he knew was that his uncle had appeared with a papal appointment for him to the University of Cartagena, and had urged his acceptance of it as the only course likely to restore him both to health and position, and to meet the deferred hopes of his sorrowing mother.

"Accept it, sobrino mío," the uncle had said. "Else, pass your remaining days in confinement. There can be no refutation of the charges against you. But, if these doors open again to you, think not ever to sever your connection with the Church of Rome. For, if the Rincón honor should prove inadequate to hold you to your oath, be assured that Rincón justice will follow you until the grave wipes out the stain upon our fair name."

"Then, tío mío, let the Church at once dismiss me, as unworthy to be her son!" pleaded Josè.

"What, excommunication?" cried the horrified uncle. "Never! Death first! Are you still mad?"

Josè looked into the cold, emotionless eyes of the man and shuddered. The ancient spirit of the Holy Inquisition lurked there, and he cowered before it. But at least the semblance of freedom had been offered him. His numbed heart already had taken hope. He were indeed mad not to acquiesce in his uncle's demands, and accept the proffered opportunity to leave forever the scenes of his suffering and disgrace. And so he bowed again before the inexorable.

Arriving in Cartagena some months before this narrative opens, he had gradually yielded himself to the restorative effects of changed environment and the hope which his uncle's warm assurances aroused, that a career would open to him in the New World, unclouded by the climacteric episode of the publishing of his journal and his subsequent arrogant bearing before the Holy Father, which had provoked his fate. Under the beneficent influences of the soft climate and the new interests of this tropic land he began to feel a budding of something like confidence, and the suggestions of an unfamiliar ambition to retrieve past failure and yet gratify, even if in small measure, the parental hope which had first directed him as a child into the fold of the Church. The Bishop had assigned him at once to pedagogical work in the University; and in the teaching of history, the languages, and, especially, his beloved Greek, Josè had found an absorption that was slowly dimming the memory of the dark days which he had left behind in the Old World.

But the University had not afforded him the only interest in his new field. He had not been many weeks on Colombian soil when his awakening perceptions sensed the people's oppression under the tyranny of ecclesiastical politicians. Nor did he fail to scent the approach of a tremendous conflict, in which the country would pass through violent throes in the struggle to shake off the galling yoke of Rome. Maintaining an attitude of strict neutrality, he had striven quietly to gauge the anticlerical movement, and had been appalled to find it so widespread and menacing. Only a miracle could save unhappy Colombia from being rent by the fiercest of religious wars in the near future. Oh, if he but had the will, as he had the intellectual ability, to throw himself into the widening breach!

"There is but one remedy," he murmured aloud, as he sat one evening on a bench in the plaza of Simón Bolívar, watching the stream of gaily dressed promenaders parading slowly about on the tesselated walks, but hearing little of their animated conversation.

"And what is that, may I ask, friend?"

The priest roused up with a start. He had no idea that his audible meditations had been overheard. Besides, he had spoken in English. But this question had been framed in the same tongue. He looked around. A tall, slender man, with thin, bronzed face and well-trimmed Van Dyke beard, sat beside him. The man laughed pleasantly.

"Didn't know that I should find any one here to-night who could speak my lingo," he said cordially. "But, I repeat, what is the remedy?"

"Christianity," returned the amazed Josè, without knowing what he said.

"And the condition to be remedied?" continued the stranger.

"This country's diseased--but to whom have I the honor of speaking?" drawing himself up a little stiffly, and glancing about to see who might be observing them.

"Oh, my credentials?" laughed the man, as he caught Josè's wondering look. "I'm quite unknown in Cartagena, unfortunately. You must pardon my Yankee inquisitiveness, but I've watched you out here for several evenings, and have wondered what weighty problems you were wrestling with. A quite unpardonable offense, from the Spanish viewpoint, but wholly forgivable in an uncouth American, I'm sure. Besides, when I heard you speak my language it made me a bit homesick, and I wanted to hear more of the rugged tongue of the Gentiles."

Laughing again good-naturedly, he reached into an inner pocket and drew out a wallet. "My name's Hitt," he said, handing Josè his card. "But I didn't live up to it. That is, I failed to make a hit up north, and so I'm down here." He chuckled at his own facetiousness. "Amos A. Hitt," he went on affably. "There used to be a 'Reverend' before it. That was when I was exploring the Lord's throne. I've dropped it, now that I'm humbly exploring His footstool instead."

Josè yielded to the man's friendly advances. This was not the first American he had met; yet it seemed a new type, and one that drew him strongly.

"So you think this country diseased, eh?" the American continued.

Josè did not answer. While there was nothing in the stranger's appearance and frank, open countenance to arouse suspicion, yet he must be careful. He was living down one frightful mistake. He could not risk another. But the man did not wait for a reply.

"Well, I'm quite agreed with you. It has priest-itis." He stopped and looked curiously at Josè, as if awaiting the effect of his bold words. Then--"I take it you are not really one of 'em?"

Josè stared at the man in amazement. Hitt laughed again. Then he drew forth a cigar and held it out. "Smoke?" he said. The priest shook his head. Hitt lighted the cigar himself, then settled back on the bench, his hands jammed into his trousers pockets, and his long legs stuck straight out in front, to the unconcealed annoyance of the passers-by. But, despite his brusquerie and his thoughtlessness, there was something about the American that was wonderfully attractive to the lonely priest.

"Yes, sir," Hitt went on abstractedly in corroboration of his former statement, "Colombia is absolutely stagnant, due to Jesuitical politics, the bane of all good Catholic countries. If she could shake off priestcraft she'd have a chance--provided she didn't fall into orthodox Protestantism."

Josè gasped, though he strove to hide his wonder. "You--" he began hesitatingly, "you were in the ministry--?"

"Yes. Don't be afraid to come right out with it. I was a Presbyterian divine some six years ago, in Cincinnati. Ever been there?"

Josè assured him that he had never seen the States.

"H'm," mused the ex-preacher; "great country--wonderful--none like it in the world! I've been all over, Europe, Asia, Africa--seen 'em all. America's the original Eden, and our women are the only true descendants of mother Eve. No question about it, that apple incident took place up in the States somewhere--probably in Ohio."

Josè caught the man's infectious humor and laughed heartily. Surely, this American was a tonic, and of the sort that he most needed. "Then, you are--still touring--?"

"I'm exploring," Hitt replied. "I'm here to study what ancient records I may find in your library; then I shall go on to Medellin and Bogotá. I'm on the track of a prehistoric Inca city, located somewhere in the Andes--and no doubt in the most inaccessible spot imaginable. Tradition cites this lost city as the cradle of Inca civilization. Tampu Tocco, it is called in their legends, the place from which the Incas went out to found that marvelous empire which eventually included the greater part of South America. The difficulty is," he added, knotting his brows, "that the city was evidently unknown to the Spaniards. I can find no mention of it in Spanish literature, and I've searched all through the libraries of Spain. My only hope now is that I shall run across some document down here that will allude to it, or some one who has heard likely Indian rumors."

Josè rubbed his eyes and looked hard at the man. "Well!" he ejaculated, "you are--if I may be permitted to say it--an original type."

"I presume I am," admitted the American genially. "I've been all sorts of things in my day, preacher, teacher, editor. My father used to be a circuit rider in New England forty years ago or more. Pious--good Lord! Why, he was one of the kind who believe the good book 'from kiver to kiver,' you know. Used to preach interminable sermons about the mercy of the Lord in holding us all over the smoking pit and not dropping us in! Why, man! after listening to him expound the Scriptures at night I used to go to bed with my hair on end and my skin all goose-flesh. No wonder I urged him to send me to the Presbyterian Seminary!"

"And you were ordained?" queried Josè, dark memories rising in his own thought.

"Thoroughly so! And glad I was of it, too, for I had grown up as pious and orthodox as my good father. I considered the ordination a through ticket to paradise."

"But--now--"

"Oh, I found myself in time," continued the man, answering Josè's unspoken thought. "Then I stopped preaching beautiful legends, and tried to be genuinely helpful to my congregation. I had a fine church in Cincinnati at that time. But--well, I mixed a trifle too much heresy into my up-to-date sermons, I guess. Anyway, the Assembly didn't approve my orthodoxy, and I had as little respect for its heterodoxy, and the upshot of it was that I quit--cold." He laughed grimly as he finished the recital. "But," he went on gravely, "I now see that it was due simply to my desire to progress beyond the acceptance of tradition and allegory as truth, and to find some better foundation upon which to build than the undemonstrable articles of faith embraced in the Westminster Confession. To me, that confession of faith had become a confession of ignorance." He turned his shrewd eyes upon Josè. "I was in somewhat the same mental state that I think you are in now," he added.

"And why, if I may ask, are you now exploring?" asked Josè, disregarding the implication.

"Oh, as for that," replied the American easily, "I used to teach history and became especially interested in ancient civilizations, lost cities, and the like, in the Western Hemisphere. Long before I left the ministry oil was struck on our little Pennsylvania farm, and--well, I didn't have to work after that. So for some years I've devoted myself strictly to my particular hobby of travel. And in my work I find it necessary to discard ceremony, and scrape acquaintance with all sorts and conditions. I especially cultivate clergymen. I've wanted to know you ever since I first saw you out here. But I couldn't wait for a formal introduction. And so I broke in unceremoniously upon your meditations a few moments ago."

"I am grateful to you for doing so," said Josè frankly, holding out a hand. "There is much that you can tell me--much that I want to know. But--" He again looked cautiously around.

"Ah, I understand," said Hitt, quickly sensing the priest's uneasiness. "What say you, shall we meet somewhere down by the city wall? Say, at the old Inquisition cells?"

Josè nodded his acquiescence, and they separated. A few minutes later the two were seated in one of the cavernous archways of the long, echoing corridor which leads to the deserted barracks and the gloomy, bat-infested cells beneath. A vagrant breeze drifted now and then across the grim wall above them, and the deserted road in front lay drenched in the yellow light of the tropic moon. There was little likelihood of detection here, where the dreamy plash of the sea drowned the low sound of their voices; and Josè breathed more freely than in the populous plaza which they had just left.

"Good Lord!" muttered the explorer, returning from a peep into the foul blackness of a subterranean tunnel, "imagine what took place here some three centuries ago!"

"Yes," returned Josè sadly; "and in the reeking dungeons of San Fernando, out there at the harbor entrance. And, what is worse, my own ancestors were among the perpetrators of those black deeds committed in the name of Christ."

"Whew! You don't say! Tell me about it." The explorer drew closer. Josè knew somehow that he could trust this stranger, and so he briefly sketched his ancestral story to his sympathetic listener. "And no one knows," he concluded in a depressed tone, "how many of the thousands of victims of the Inquisition in Cartagena were sent to their doom by the house of Rincón. It may be," he sighed, "that the sins of my fathers have been visited upon me--that I am now paying in part the penalty for their criminal zeal."

The explorer sat for some time in silent meditation. "Perhaps," he said, "your family fell under the spell of old Saint Dominic. You know the legend? How God deliberated long whether to punish the wickedness of mankind by sending down war, plague, or famine, and was finally prevailed upon by Saint Dominic to send, instead, the Holy Inquisition. Another choice example of the convenient way the world has always had of attributing the foulest deeds of men to the Almighty. No wonder religion has so woefully declined!"

"But is it so up in the great North?" asked Josè. "Tell me, what is the religious status there? My limitations have been such that I have--I have not kept abreast of current theological thought."

"In the United States the conventional, passive submission to orthodox dogma is rapidly becoming a thing of the past," the explorer replied. "The people are beginning to think on these topics. All human opinion, philosophical, religious, or scientific, is in a state of liquefaction--not yet solidified. Just what will crystallize out of the magma is uncertain. The country is experiencing a religious crisis, and an irresistible determination to know is abroad in the land. Everything is being turned upside-down, and one hardly dares longer say what he believes, for the dogma of to-day is the fairy-tale of to-morrow. And, through it all, as some one has tersely said, 'orthodoxy is hanging onto the coat-tails of progress in a vain attempt to stop her.' We are facing in the United States the momentous question, Is Christianity a failure? Although no one knows what Christianity really is. But one thing is certain, the brand of Christianity handed out by Protestant and Catholic alike is mighty close to the borderline of dismal failure."

"But is there in the North no distinct trend in religious belief?" queried Josè.

The explorer hesitated. "Yes," he said slowly, "there is. The man who holds and promulgates any belief, religious or scientific, is being more and more insistently forced to the point of demonstration. The citation of patristic authority is becoming daily more thoroughly obsolete."

"And there is no one who demonstrates practical Christianity?"

"No. Do you? Is there any one in your Church, or in the Protestant faith, who does the works which Christ is reported to have done? Is there any one who really tries to do them? Or thinks he could if he tried? The good church Fathers from the third century down could figure out that the world was created on the night before the twenty-third of October, four thousand and four B. C., and that Adam's fall occurred about noon of the day he was created. They could dilate ad nauseam on transubstantiation, the divine essence, and the mystery of the Trinity; they could astonishingly allegorize the Bible legends, and read into every word a deep, hidden, incomprehensible sense; they could prove to their own satisfaction that Adam composed certain of the Psalms; that Moses wrote every word of the Pentateuch, even the story of his own death and burial; and that the entire Bible was delivered by God to man, word for word, just as it stands, including the punctuation. And yet, not one of them followed the simple commands of Jesus closely enough to enable him to cure a toothache, to say nothing of generally healing the sick and raising the dead! Am I not right?"

"Yes--I am sorry to have to admit," murmured Josè.

"Well," went on the explorer, "that's what removed me from the Presbyterian ministry. It is not Christianity that is a dismal failure, but men's interpretation of it. Of true Christianity, I confess I know little. Oh, I'm a fine preacher! And yet I am representative of thousands of others, like myself, all at sea. Only, the others are either ashamed or afraid to make this confession. But, in my case, my daily bread did not depend upon my continuance in the pulpit."

"But supposing that it had--"

"The result doubtless would have been the same. The orthodox faith was utterly failing to supply me with a satisfying interpretation of life, and it afforded me no means of escaping the discords of mundane existence. It could only hold out an undemonstrable promise of a life after death, provided I was elected, and provided I did not too greatly offend the Creator during the few short years that I might spend on earth. If I did that, then, according to the glorious Westminster Confession, I was doomed--for we are not so fortunate as you in having a purgatory from which we may escape through the suffrages of the faithful," he concluded with a chuckle.

Josè knew, as he listened, that his own Church would hold this man a blasphemer. The man by his own confession was branded a Protestant heretic. And he, Josè, was anathema for listening to these sincere, brutally frank confidences, and tendering them his warm sympathy. Yet he sat spellbound.

"And so I retired from the ministry," continued the explorer. "I had become ashamed of tearing down other men's religious beliefs. I was weary of having to apologize constantly for the organization to which I was attached. At home I had been taught a devout faith in revealed religion; in the world I was thrown upon its inquiring doubts; I yearned for faith, yet demanded scientific proof. Why, I would have been satisfied with even the slight degree of proof which we are able to advance for our various physical sciences. But, no, it was not forthcoming. I must believe because the Fathers had believed. I struggled between emotion and reason, until--well, until I had to throw it all over to keep from going mad."

Josè bowed in silence before this recital of a soul-experience so closely paralleling his own.

"But, come," said the explorer cheerily, "I'm doing all the talking. Now--"

"No! no!" interrupted the eager Josè. "I do not wish to talk. I want to hear you. Go on, I beg of you! Your words are like rain to a parched field. You will yet offer me something upon which I can build with new hope."

"Do not be so sanguine, my friend," returned the explorer in a kindly tone. "I fear I shall be only the reaper, who cuts the weeds and stubble, and prepares the field for the sower. I have said that I am an explorer. But my field is not limited to this material world. I am an explorer of men's thoughts as well. I am in search of a religion. I manifest this century's earnest quest for demonstrable truth. And so I stop and question every one I meet, if perchance he may point me in the right direction. My incessant wandering about the globe is, if I may put it that way, but the outward manifestation of my ceaseless search in the realm of the soul."

He paused. Then, reaching out and laying a hand upon the priest's knee, he said in a low, earnest voice, "My friend, something happened in that first year of our so-called Christian era. What it was we do not know. But out of the smoke and dust, the haze and mist of that great cataclysm has proceeded the character Jesus--absolutely unique. It is a character which has had a terrific influence upon the world ever since. Because of it empires have crumbled; a hundred million human lives have been destroyed; and the thought-processes of a world have been overthrown or reversed. Just what he said, just what he did, just how he came, and how he went, we may not know with any high degree of accuracy. But, beneath all the myth and legend, the lore and childish human speculation of the intervening centuries, there must be a foundation of eternal truth. And it must be broad--very broad. I am digging for it--as I dug on the sites of ancient Troy and Babylon--as I have dug over the buried civilizations of Mexico and Yucatan--as I shall dig for the hidden Inca towns on the wooded heights of the Andes. And while I dig materially I am also digging spiritually."

"And what have you found?" asked Josè hoarsely.

"I am still in the overburden of débris which the sedulous, tireless Fathers heaped mountain high upon the few recorded teachings of Jesus. But already I see indications of things to come that would make the members of the Council of Trent and the cocksure framers of the Westminster Confession burst from their graves by sheer force of astonishment! There are even now foreshadowings of such revolutionary changes in our concept of God, of the universe, of matter, and the human mind, of evil, and all the controverted points of theological discussion of this day, as to make me tremble when I contemplate them. In my first hasty judgment, after dipping into the 'Higher Criticism,' I concluded that Jesus was but a charlatan, who had learned thaumaturgy in Egypt and practiced it in Judea. Thanks to a better appreciation of the same 'Higher Criticism' I am reconstructing my concept of him now, and on a better basis. I once denounced God as the creator of both good and evil, and of a man who He knew must inevitably fall, even before the clay of which he was made had become fairly dry. I changed that concept later to Matthew Arnold's 'that something not ourselves that makes for righteousness.' But mighty few to-day recognize such a God! Again, in Jesus' teaching that sin brought death into the world, I began to see what is so dimly foreshadowed to-day, the mental nature of all things. 'Sin' is the English translation of the original 'hamartio,' which means, 'to miss the mark,' a term used in archery. Well, then, missing the mark is the mental result of nonconformity to law, is it not? And, going further, if death is the result of missing the mark, and that is itself due to mental cause, and, since death results from sickness, old age, or catastrophe, then these things must likewise be mental. Sickness, therefore, becomes wholly mental, does it not? Death becomes mental. Sin is mental. Spirit, the Creator, is mental. Matter is mental. And we live and act in a mental realm, do we not? The sick man, then, becomes one who misses the mark, and therefore a sinner. I think you will agree with me that the sick man is not at peace with God, if God is 'that which makes for righteousness.' Surely the maker of that old Icelandic sixteenth-century Bible must have been inspired when, translating from Luther's Bible, he wrote in the first chapter of Genesis, 'And God created man after His own likeness, in the likeness of Mind shaped He him.' Cannot you see the foreshadowing to which I have referred?"

Josè kept silence. The current of his thought seemed about to swerve from its wonted course.

"What is coming is this," continued the explorer earnestly, "a tremendous broadening of our concept of God, a more exalted, a more worthy concept of Him as spirit--or, if you will, as mind. An abandonment of the puerile concept of Him as a sort of magnified man, susceptible to the influence of preachers, or of Virgin and Saints, and yielding to their petitions, to their higher sense of justice, and to money-bought earthly ceremonies to lift an imaginary curse from His own creatures. And with it will come that wonderful consciousness of Him which I now begin to realize that Jesus must have had, a consciousness of Him as omnipotent, omnipresent good. As I to-day read the teachings of Jesus I am constrained to believe that he was conscious only of God and God's spiritual manifestation. And in that remarkable consciousness the man Jesus realized his own life--indeed, that consciousness was his life--and it included no sense of evil. The great lesson which I draw from it is that evil must, therefore, be utterly unreal and non-existent. And heaven is but the acquisition of that mind or consciousness which was in Christ Jesus."

"But, Mr. Hitt, such ideas are revolutionary!"

"True, if immediately and generally adopted. And so you see why the Church strives to hold the people to its own archaic and innocuous religious tenets; why your Church strives so zealously to hold its adherents fast to the rules laid down by pagan emperors and ignorant, often illiterate churchmen, in their councils and synods; and why the Protestant church is so quick to denounce as unevangelical everything that does not measure to its devitalized concept of Christianity. They do not practice what they preach; yet they would not have you practice anything else. The human mind that calls itself a Christian is a funny thing, isn't it?"

He laughed lightly; then lapsed into silence. The sea breeze rose and sighed among the great, incrusted arches. The restless waves moaned in their eternal assault upon the defiant walls. The moon clouded, and a warm rain began to fall. Josè rose. "I must return to the dormitory," he announced briefly. "When you pass me in the plaza to-morrow evening, come at once to this place. I will meet you here. You have--I must--"

But he did not finish. Pressing the explorer's hand, he turned abruptly and hurried up the dim, narrow street.

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Chapter 14

All through the following day the priest mused over the conversation of the preceding night. The precipitation with which this new friendship had been formed, and the subsequent abrupt exchange of confidences, had scarcely impressed him as unusual. He was wholly absorbed by the radical thought which the man had voiced. He mulled over it in his wakeful hours that night. He could not prevent it from coloring the lecture which he delivered to his class in ancient history that day. And when the sun at length dropped behind La Popa, he hurried eagerly to the plaza. A few minutes later he and the ex-clergyman met in the appointed rendezvous.

"I dropped in to have a look at the remains of Pedro Claver to-day," his new friend remarked. "The old sexton scraped and bowed with huge joy as he led me behind the altar and lighted up the grewsome thing. I suppose he believed that Pedro's soul was up in the clouds making intercession with the Lord for him, while he, poor devil, was toting tourists around to gaze at the Saint's ghastly bones in their glass coffin. The thing would be funny were it not for its sad side, namely, the dense and superstitious ignorance in which such as this poor sexton are held all their lives by your Church. It's a shame to feed them with the bones of dead Saints, instead of with the bread of life! But," he reflected, "I was myself just as bigoted at one time. And my zeal to convert the world to Protestantism was just as hot as any that ever animated the missionaries of your faith."

He paused and looked quizzically at Josè. He seemed to be studying the length to which he could go in his criticism of the ancient faith of the house of Rincón. But Josè remained in expectant silence.

"Speaking of missionaries," the man resumed, "I shall never forget an experience I had in China. My wealthy and ultra-aristocratic congregation decided that I needed rest, and so sent me on a world tour. It was a member of that same congregation, by the way, a stuffy old dame whose wealth footed up to millions, who once remarked to me in all confidence that she had no doubt the aristocracy of heaven was composed of Presbyterians. Poor, old, empty-headed prig! What could I do but assure her that I held the same comforting conviction! Well, through influential friends in Pekin I was introduced to the eminent Chinese statesman, Wang Fo, of delightful memory. Our conversation turned on religion, and then I made the most inexcusable faux pas that a blithering Yankee could make, that of expressing regret that he was not of our faith. Good heavens! But he was the most gracious gentleman in the world, and his biting rebuke was couched in tones of silken softness.

"'What is it that you offer me?' he said mildly. 'Blind opinion? Undemonstrated and undemonstrable theory? Why, may I ask, do you come over here to convert us heathen, when your own Christian land is rife with evil, with sedition, with religious hatred of man for man, with bloodshed and greed? If your religious belief is true, then you can demonstrate it--prove it beyond doubt. Do you say that the wonderful material progress which your great country manifests is due to Christianity? I answer you, no. It is due to the unfettering of the human mind, to the laying off of much of the mediaeval superstition which in the past ages has blighted mankind. It is due largely to the abandonment of much of what you are still pleased to call Christianity. The liberated human mind has expanded to a degree never before seen in the world. We Chinese are still mentally fettered by our stubborn resistance to change, to progression. Your great inventors and your great men of finance are but little hampered by religious superstition. Hence the mental flights which they so boldly undertake, and the stupendous achievements they attain. Is it not so?'

"What could I say? He had me. But he hadn't finished me quite.

"'I once devoted much time to the study of Chemistry,' he went on blandly, 'and when I tell you that there is a law to the effect that the volume of a gas is a function of its pressure I do so with the full knowledge that I can furnish you indisputable proof therefor. But when you come to me with your religious theories, and I mildly request your proofs, you wish to imprison or hang me for doubting the absurdities which you cannot establish!'

"He laughed genially, then took me kindly by the arm. 'Proof, my zealous friend, proof,' he said. 'Give me proof this side of the grave for what you believe, and then you will have converted the heathen. And can your Catholic friend--or, shall I say enemy?--prove his laughable doctrine of purgatory? The dead in purgatory dependent upon the living! Why, I tell him, that smacks of Shintoism, wherein the living feed the dead! Then he points in holy indignation to the Bible. Bah! Cannot I prove anything I may wish from your Bible? What will you have? Polygamy? Incest? Murder? Graft? Hand me your Bible, and I will establish its divinity. No, my good friend. When you come to me with proofs that you really do the works of him whom you profess to follow, then will I gladly listen, for I, too, seek truth. But in the present deplorable absence of proofs I take much more comfort in the adoration of my amiable ancestors than I could in your laughable and undemonstrable religious creeds.'

"I left his presence a saddened but chastened man, and went home to do a little independent thinking. When I approached my Bible without the bias of the Westminster Confession I discovered that it did serve admirably as a wardrobe in which to hang any sort of religious prejudice. Continued study made me see that religious faith is generally mere human credulity. I discovered that in my pitying contempt for those of differing belief I much resembled the Yankee who ridiculed a Chinaman for wearing a pig-tail. 'True,' the Celestial replied, 'we still wear the badge of our former slavery. But you emancipated Americans, do you not wear the badge of a present and much worse form of slavery in your domination by Tammany Hall, by your corrupt politicians, and your organizers and protectors of crime?'

"As time passed I gradually began to feel much more kindly toward Matthew Arnold, who said, 'Orthodox theology is an immense misunderstanding of the Bible.' And I began likewise to respect his statement that our Bible language is 'fluid and passing'--that much of it is the purest poetry, beautiful and inspiring, but symbolical."

"But," broke in Josè, "you must admit that there is something awfully wrong with the world, with--"

"Well," interrupted Hitt, "and what is it? As historical fact, that story about Adam and Eve eating an apple and thereby bringing down God's curse upon the whole innocent human race is but a figment of little minds, and an insult to divine intelligence. But, as symbolizing the dire penalty we pay for a belief in the reality of both good and evil--ah, that is a note just beginning to be sounded in the world at large. And it may account for the presence of the world's evil."

"Yet, our experience certainly shows that evil is just as real and just as immanent as good! And, indeed, more powerful in this life."

"If so," replied the explorer gravely, "then God created or instituted it. And in that case I must break with God."

"Then you think it is all a question of our own individual idea of God?"

"Entirely. And human concepts of Him have been many and varied. But that worst of Old Testament interpreters of the first century, Philo, came terribly close to the truth, I think, when, in a burst of inspiration, he one day wrote: 'Heaven is mind, and earth is sensation.' Matthew Arnold, I think, likewise came very close to the truth when he said that the only God we can recognize is 'that something not ourselves that makes for righteousness.' And, as for evil, up in the United States there are some who are now lumping it all under the head of 'mortal mind,' considering it all but the 'one lie' which Jesus so often referred to, and regarding it as the 'suppositional opposite' of the mind that is God, and so, powerless. Not a bad idea, I think. But whether the money-loving Yankee will ever leave his mad chase for gold long enough to live this premise and so demonstrate it, is a question. I'm watching its development with intense interest. We in the States have wonderful, exceptional opportunities for study and research. We ought to uncover the truth, if any people should."

He fell into thoughtfulness again. Josè drew a long sigh. "I wish--I wish," he murmured, "that I might go there--that I might live and work and search up there."

The explorer roused up. "And why not?" he asked abruptly. "Look here, come with me and spend a year or so digging around for buried Inca towns. Then we will go back to the States. Why, man! it would make you over. I'll take you as interpreter. And in the States I'll find a place for you. Come. Will you?"

For a moment the doors of imagination swung wide, and in the burst of light from within Josè saw the dreams of a lifetime fulfilled. Emancipation lay that way. Freedom, soul-expansion, truth. It was his God-given privilege. Who had the right to lay a detaining hand upon him? Was not his soul his own, and his God's?

Then a dark hand stole out from the surrounding shadows and closed the doors. From the blackness there seemed to rise a hollow voice, uttering the single word, Honor. He thrust out an arm, as if to ward off the assaults of temptation. "No, no," he said aloud, "I am bound to the Church!"

"But why remain longer in an institution with which you are quite out of sympathy?" the explorer urged.

"First, to help the Church. Who will uplift her if we desert her? And, second, to help this, my ancestral country," replied Josè in deep earnestness.

"Worthy aims, both," assented Hitt. "But, my friend, what will you accomplish here, unless you can educate these people to think? I have learned much about conditions in this country. I find that the priest in Colombia is even more intolerant than in Ireland, for here he has a monopoly, no competition. He is absolute. The Colombian is the logical product of the doctrines of Holy Church. It is so in Mexico. It is so wherever the curse of a fixed mentality is imposed upon a people. For that engenders determined opposition to mobility. It quenches responsiveness to new concepts and new ideas. It throttles a nation. The bane of mental progress is the Semper Idem of your Church."

"Christianity will remove the curse."

"I have no doubt whatever of that. It probably is the future cure for all social ills and evils of every sort. But if so, it must be the Christianity which Jesus taught and demonstrated--not the theological chaff now disseminated in his name. Do not forget that we no longer know what Christianity is. It is a lost science."

"It can and will be recovered!" cried Josè warmly.

"I have said that is foreshadowed. But we must have the whole garment of the Christ, without human addenda. He is reported as having said, 'The works that I do bear witness of me.' Now the works of the Christian Church bear ample witness that she has not the true understanding of the Christ. Nor has that eminent Protestant divine, now teaching in a theological seminary in the States, who recently said that, although Jesus ministered miraculously to the physical man, yet it was not his intention that his disciples should continue that sort of ministry; that the healing which Jesus did was wholly incidental, and was not an example to be permanently imitated. Good heavens! how these poor theologians hide their inability to do the works of the Master by taking refuge in such ridiculously unwarranted assertions. To them the rule seems to be that, if you can't do a thing you must deny the possibility of its being done. Great logic, isn't it?

"And yet," he went on, "the Church has had nearly two thousand years in which to learn to do the works of the Master. Pretty dull pupil, I think. And we've had nearly two thousand years of theology from this slow pupil. Would that she would from now on give us a little real Christianity! Heavens! the world needs it. And yet, do you know, sectarian feeling is still so bitter in the so-called Church of God that if a Bishop of the Anglican Church should admit Presbyterians, Methodists, or members of other denominations to his communion table a scream of rage would go up all over England, and a mighty demand would be raised to impeach the Bishop for heresy! Think of it! God above! the puny human mind. Do you wonder that the dogma of the Church has lost force? That, despite its thunders, thinking men laugh? I freely admit that our great need is to find an adequate substitute for the authority which others would like to impose upon us. But where shall we find such authority, if not in those who demonstrate their ability to do the works of the Master? Show me your works, and I'll show you my faith. This is my perpetual challenge.

"But, now," he said, "returning to the subject so near your heart: the condition of this country is that of a large part of South America, where the population is unsettled, even turbulent, and where a priesthood, fanatical, intolerant, often unscrupulous, pursue their devious means to extend and perpetuate unhindered the sway of your Church. Colombia is struggling to remove the blight which Spain laid upon her, namely, mediaeval religion. It is this same blighting religion, coupled with her remorseless greed, which has brought Spain to her present decrepit, empty state. And how she did strive to force that religion upon the world! Whole nations, like the Incas, for example, ruthlessly slaughtered by the papal-benisoned riffraff of Spain in her attempts to foist herself into world prestige and to bolster up the monstrous assumptions of Holy Church! The Incas were a grand nation, with a splendid mental viewpoint. But it withered under the touch of the mediaeval narrowness fastened upon it. Whole nations wasted in support of papal assumptions--and do you think that the end is yet? Far from it! War is coming here in Colombia. It may come in other parts of this Western Hemisphere, certainly in Mexico, certainly in Peru and Bolivia and Chili, rocked in the cradle of Holy Church for ages, but now at last awaking to a sense of their backward condition and its cause. If ever the Church had a chance to show what she could do when given a free hand, she has had it in these countries, particularly in Mexico. In all the nearly four centuries of her unmolested control in that fair land, oppressed by sword and crucifix, did she ever make an attempt worth the name to uplift and emancipate the common man? Not one. She took his few, hard-earned pesos to get his weary soul out of an imagined purgatory--but she left him to rot in peonage while on earth! But, friend, I repeat, the struggle is coming here in Colombia. And look you well to your own escape when it arrives!"

"And can I do nothing to help avert it?" cried the distressed Josè.

"Well," returned the explorer meditatively, "such bondage is removable either through education or war. But in Colombia I fear the latter will overtake the former by many decades."

"Then rest assured that I shall in the meantime do what in me lies to instruct my fellow-countrymen, and to avoid such a catastrophe!"

"Good luck to you, friend. And--by the way, here is a little book that may help you in your work. I'm quite sure you've never read it. Under the ban, you know. Renan's Vie de Jésus. It can do you no harm, and may be useful."

Josè reached out and took the little volume. It was anathema, he knew, but he could not refuse to accept it.

"And there is another book that I strongly recommend to you. I'm sorry I haven't a copy here. It once created quite a sensation. It is called, 'Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest.' Published anonymously, in Vienna, but unquestionably bearing the earmarks of authenticity. It mentions this country--"

Without speaking, Josè had slowly risen and started down the musty corridor, his thought aflame with the single desire to get away. Down past the empty barracks and gaping cells he went, without stopping to peer into their tenebrous depths--on and on, skirting the grim walls that typified the mediaevalism surrounding and fettering his restless thought--on to the long incline which led up to the broad esplanade on the summit. Must he forever flee this pursuing Nemesis? Or should he hurl himself from the wall, once he gained the top? At the upper end of the incline he heard the low sound of voices. A priest and a young girl who sat there on the parapet rose as he approached. He stopped abruptly in front of them. "Wenceslas!" he exclaimed. "And Maria!"

"Ah, amigo, a quiet stroll before retiring? It is a sultry night."

"Yes," slowly replied Josè, looking at the girl, who drew back into the shadow cast by the body of her companion. Then, bowing, he passed on down the wall and disappeared in the darkness that shrouded the distance.

A few minutes later the long form of the explorer appeared above the incline. Wenceslas and the girl had departed. Seeing no one, the American turned and descended to the ground, shaking his head in deep perplexity.

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Chapter 15

The next day was one of the Church's innumerable feast-days, and Josè was free to utilize it as he might. He determined on a visit to the suburb of Turbaco, some eight miles from Cartagena, and once the site of Don Ignacio's magnificent country home. Although he had been some months in Cartagena, he had never before felt any desire to pass beyond its walls. Now it seemed to him that he must break the limitation which those encircling walls typified, that his restless thought might expand ere it formulated into definite concepts and plans for future work. This morning he wanted to be alone. The old injury done to his sensitive spirit by the publication of his journal had been unwittingly opened anew. The old slowness had crept again into his gait since the evening before. Over night his countenance had resumed its wonted heaviness; and his slender shoulders bent again beneath their former burden.

When Josè arrived in Cartagena he had found it a city of vivid contrasts. There mediaevalism still strove with the spirit of modern progress; and so it suited well as an environment for the dilation of his shrunken soul-arteries. The lethal influence of the monastery long lay over him, beneath which he continued to manifest those eccentric habits which his prolonged state of loneliness had engendered. He looked askance at the amenities which his associates tentatively held out to him. He sank himself deep in study, and for weeks, even months, he shunned the world of people and things. He found no stimulus to a search for his ancestral palace within the city, nor for a study of the Rincón records which lay moldering in the ancient city's archives.

But, as the sunlit days drifted dreamily past with peaceful, unvarying monotony, Josè's faculties, which had always been alert until he had been declared insane, gradually awakened. His violently disturbed balance began to right itself; his equilibrium became in a measure restored. The deadening thought that he had accomplished nothing in his vitiated life yielded to a hopeful determination to yet retrieve past failure. The pride and fear which had balked the thought of self-destruction now served to fan the flame of fresh resolve. He dared not do any writing, it was true. But he could delve and study. And a thousand avenues opened to him through which he could serve his fellow-men. The papal instructions which his traveling companion, the Apostolic Delegate, had brought to the Bishop of Cartagena, evidently had sufficed for his credentials; and the latter had made no occasion to refer to the priest's past. An order from the Vatican was law; and the Bishop obeyed it with no other thought than its inerrancy and inexorability. And with the lapse of the several months which had slipped rapidly away while he sought to forget and to clear from his mind the dark clouds of melancholia which had settled over it, Josè became convinced that the Bishop knew nothing of his career prior to his arrival in Colombia.

And it is possible that the young priest's secret would have died with him--that he would have lived out his life amid the peaceful scenes of this old, romantic town, and gone to his long rest at last with the consciousness of having accomplished his mite in the service of his fellow-beings; it is possible that Rome would have forgotten him; and that his uncle's ambitions, to which he knew that he had been regarded as in some way useful, would have flagged and perished over the watery waste which separated the New World from the Old, but for the intervention of one man, who crossed Josè's path early in his new life, found him inimical to his own worldly projects, and removed him, therefore, as sincerely in the name of Christ as the ancient Conquistadores, with priestly blessing, hewed from their paths of conquest the simple and harmless aborigines.

That man was Wenceslas Ortiz, trusted servant of Holy Church, who had established himself in Cartagena to keep a watchful eye on anticlerical proceedings. That he was able to do this, and at the same time turn them greatly to his own advantage, marks him as a man of more than usually keen and resourceful mentality. He was a native son, born of prosperous parents in the riverine town of Mompox, which, until the erratic Magdalena sought for itself a new channel, was the chief port between Barranquilla and the distant Honda. There had been neither family custom nor parental hopes to consider among the motives which had directed him into the Church. He was a born worldling, but with unmistakable talents for and keen appreciation of the art of politics. His love of money was subordinate only to his love of power. To both, his talents made access easy. In the contemplation of a career in his early years he had hesitated long between the Church and the Army; but had finally thrown his lot with the former, as offering not only equal possibilities of worldly preferment and riches, but far greater stability in those periodic revolutions to which his country was so addicted. The Army was frequently overthrown; the Church, never. The Government changed with every successful political revolution; the Church remained immovable. And so with the art of a trained politician he cultivated his chosen field with such intensity that even the Holy See felt the glow of his ardor, and in recognition of his marked abilities, his pious fervor and great influence, was constrained to place him just where he wished to be, at the right hand of the Bishop of Cartagena, and probable successor to that aged incumbent, who had grown to lean heavily and confidingly upon him.

As coadjutor, or suffragan to the Bishop of Cartagena, Wenceslas Ortiz had at length gathered unto himself sufficient influence of divers nature as, in his opinion, to ensure him the See in case the bishopric should, as was contemplated, be raised eventually to the status of a Metropolitan. It was he, rather than the Bishop, who distributed parishes to ambitious pastors and emoluments to greedy politicians. His irons in ecclesiastical, political, social and commercial fires were innumerable. The doctrine of the indivisibility of Church and State had in him an able champion--but only because he thereby found a sure means of increasing his prestige and augmenting his power and wealth. His methods of work manifested keenness, subtlety, shrewdness and skill. His rewards were lavish. His punishments, terrible. The latter smacked of the Inquisition: he preferred torture to quick despatch.

It had not taken Wenceslas long to estimate the character of the newcomer, Josè. Nor was he slow to perceive that this liberal pietist was cast in an unusual mold. Polity necessitated the cultivation of Josè, as it required the friendship--or, in any event, the thorough appraisement--of every one with whom Wenceslas might be associated. But the blandishments, artifice, diplomacy and hints of advancements which he poured out in profusion upon Josè he early saw would fail utterly to penetrate the armor of moral reserve with which the priest was clad, or effect in the slightest degree the impression which they were calculated to make.

In the course of time the priest became irritating; later, annoying; and finally, positively dangerous to the ambitions of Wenceslas. For, to illustrate, Josè had once discovered him, in the absence of the Bishop, celebrating Mass in a state of inebriation. This irritated. Wenceslas had only been careless. Again, Josè had several times shown himself suspicious of his fast-and-loose methods with the rival political factions of Cartagena. This was annoying. Finally, he had come upon Josè in the market place a few weeks prior, in earnest conference with Marcelena and the girl, Maria; and subsequent conversation with him developed the fact that the priest had other dark suspicions which were but too well founded. This was dangerous. It was high time to prepare for possible contingencies.

And so, in due time, carefully wording his hint that Padre Josè de Rincón might be a Radical spy in the ecclesiastical camp, Wenceslas found means to obtain from Rome a fairly comprehensive account of the priest's past history. He mused over this until an idea suddenly occurred to him, namely, the similarity of this account with many of the passages which he had found in a certain book, "The Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest"--a book which had cast the shadow of distrust upon Wenceslas himself in relation to certain matters of ecclesiastical politics in Colombia nearly three years before, and at a most unfortunate time. Indeed, this sudden, unheralded exposure had forced him to a hurried recasting of certain cherished plans, and drawn from him a burning, unquenchable desire to lay his pious hands upon the writer.

His influence with Rome at length revealed the secret of the wretched book's authorship. And from the moment that he learned it, Josè's fate was sealed. The crafty politician laughed aloud as he read the priest's history. Then he drew his plans and waited. But in the interim he made further investigations; and these he extended far back into the ancestral history of this unfortunate scion of the once powerful house of Rincón.

Meantime, a few carefully chosen words to the Bishop aroused a dull interest in that quarter. Josè had been seen mingling freely with men of very liberal political views. It would be well to warn him. Again, weeks later, Wenceslas was certain, from inquiries made among the students, that Josè's work in the classroom bordered a trifle too closely on radicalism. It were well to admonish him. And, still later, happening to call at Josè's quarters just above his own in the ecclesiastical dormitory, and not finding him in, he had been struck by the absence of crucifix or other religious symbol in the room. Was the young priest becoming careless of his example?

And now, on this important feast-day, where was Padre Josè? On the preceding evening, as Wenceslas leaned over the parapet of the wall after his surprise by Josè, he had noted in the dim light the salient features of a foreigner who, he had just learned, was registered at the Hotel Mariano from the United States. Moreover, Wenceslas had just come from Josè's room, whither he had gone in search of him, and--may the Saints pardon his excess of holy zeal which impelled him to examine the absent priest's effects!--he had returned now to the Bishop bearing a copy of Renan's Vie de Jésus, with the American's name on the flyleaf. It certainly were well to admonish Padre Josè again, and severely!

The Bishop, hardly to the surprise of his crafty coadjutor, flew into a towering rage. He was a man of irascible temper, bitterly intolerant, and unreasoningly violent against all unbelievers, especially Americans whose affairs brought them to Colombia. In this respect he was the epitome of the ecclesiastical anti-foreign sentiment which obtained in that country. His intolerance of heretics was such that he would gladly have bound his own kin to the stake had he believed their opinions unorthodox. Yet he was thoroughly conscientious, a devout churchman, and saturated with the beliefs of papal infallibility and the divine origin of the Church. In the observance of church rites and ceremonies he was unremitting. In the soul-burning desire to witness the conversion of the world, and especially to see the lost children of Europe either coaxed or beaten back into the embrace of Holy Church, his zeal amounted to fanaticism. In the present case--

"Your Eminence," suggested the suave Wenceslas to his exasperated superior, "may I propose that you defer action until I can discover the exact status of this American?"

And the Bishop forthwith placed the whole matter in his trusted assistant's helpful hands.

Meantime, Josè and the American explorer sat in the shade of a magnificent palm on a high hill in beautiful Turbaco, looking out over the shimmering sea beyond. For Hitt had wandered into the Plaza de Coches just as Josè was taking a carriage, and the latter could not well refuse his proffered companionship for the day. Yet Josè feared to be seen in broad daylight with this stranger, and he involuntarily murmured a Loado sea Dios! when they reached Turbaco, as he believed, unobserved. He did not know that a sharp-eyed young novitiate, whom Wenceslas had detailed to keep the priest under surveillance, had hurried back to his superior with the report of Josè's departure with the Americano on this innocent pleasure jaunt.

"Say no more, my friend, in apology for your abrupt departure last evening," the explorer urged. "But tell me, rather, about your illustrious grandfather who had his country seat in this delightful spot. Why, man! this is paradise. I've a notion to come here to live some day."

Josè cast his apprehensions upon the soft ocean breeze, and gave himself up to the inspiriting influence of his charming environment. He dwelt at length upon the Rincón greatness of mediaeval days, and expressed the resolve sometime to delve into the family records which he knew must be hidden away in the moldering old city of Cartagena. "But now," he concluded, after another reference to the Church, "is Colombia to witness again the horror of those days of carnage? And over the human mind's interpretation of the Christ? God forbid!"

The American shook his head dubiously. "There is but one remedy--education. Not sectarian, partisan, worldly education--not instruction in relative truths and the chaff of materialistic speculation--but that sort of education whereby the selfish human mind is lifted in a measure out of itself, out of its petty jealousies and envyings, out of sneaking graft and touting for worldly emolument, and into a sense of the eternal truth that real prosperity and soundness of states and institutions are to be realized only when the Christ-principle, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' is made the measure of conduct. There is a tremendous truth which has long since been demonstrated, and yet which the world is most woefully slow to grasp, namely, that the surest, quickest means of realizing one's own prosperity and happiness is in that of others--not in a world to come, but right here and now."

"But that means the inauguration of the millennium," protested Josè.

"Well, and why not so?" returned the explorer calmly. "Has not that been the ultimate aim of Christianity, and of all serious effort for reform for the past two thousand years? And, do you know, the millennium could be ushered in to-morrow, if men only thought so? Within an incredibly short time evil, even to death itself, could be completely wiped off the earth. But this wiping-off process must take place in the minds and thoughts of men. Of that I am thoroughly convinced. But, tell me, have you ever expressed to the Bishop your views regarding the condition of this country?"

Josè flushed. "Yes," he replied in embarrassment. "Only a week ago I tried again to convince him of the inevitable trend of events here unless drastic measures were interposed by the Church. I had even lectured on it in my classes."

"Well, what did he say?"

"The Bishop is a man of very narrow vision," replied Josè. "He rebuked me severely and truculantly bade me confine my attention to the particular work assigned me and let affairs of politics alone. Of course, that meant leaving them to his assistant, Wenceslas. Mr. Hitt, Colombia needs a Luther!"

"Just so," returned the explorer gravely. "Priestcraft from the very earliest times has been one of the greatest curses of mankind. Its abuses date far back to Egyptian times, when even prostitution was countenanced by the priests, and when they practiced all sorts of impostures upon the ignorant masses. In the Middle Ages they turned Christianity, the richest of blessings, into a snare, a delusion, a rank farce. They arrogated to themselves all learning, all science. In Peru it was even illicit for any one not belonging to the nobility to attempt to acquire learning. That was the sole privilege of priests and kings. In all nations, from the remotest antiquity, and whether civilized or not, learning has been claimed by the priests as the unique privilege of their caste--a privilege bestowed upon them by the special favor of the ruling deity. That's why they always sought to surround their intellectual treasures with a veil of mystery. Roger Bacon, the English monk, once said that it was necessary to keep the discoveries of the philosophers from those unworthy of knowing them. How did he expect a realization of 'Thy kingdom come,' I wonder?"

"They didn't expect it to come--on earth," said Josè.

"No. They relegated that to the imagined realm which was to be entered through the gateway of death. It's mighty convenient to be able to relegate your proofs to that mysterious realm beyond the grave. That has always been a tremendous power in the hands of priests of all times and lands. By the way, did you know that the story of Abel's assassination was one of many handed down, in one form or another, by the priests of India and Egypt?"

"Do you mean it?" inquired Josè eagerly.

"Certainly. The story doubtless comes from the ancient Egyptian tale which the priests of that time used to relate regarding the murder of Osiris by his brother, Set. It was a deed of jealousy. The story later became incorporated into the sacred books of India and Egypt, and was afterward taken over by the Hebrews, when they were captives in Egypt. The Hebrews learned much of Egyptian theology, and their own religion was greatly tinctured by it subsequently. The legend of the deluge, for example, is another tradition of those primitive days, and credited by the nations of antiquity. But here there is the likelihood of a connection with the great cataclysm of antiquity, the disappearance of the island of Atlantis in consequence of a violent earthquake and volcanic action. This alleged island, supposed to be a portion of the strip at one time connecting South America with Africa, is thought to have sunk beneath the waters of the present Atlantic ocean some nine thousand years before Solon visited Egypt, and hence, some eleven thousand years ago. Anyway, the story of this awful catastrophe got into the Egyptian records in the earliest times, and was handed down to the Hebrews, who probably based their story of the flood upon it. You see, there is a foundation of some sort for all those legends in the book of Genesis. The difficulty has been that humanity has for centuries childishly accepted them as historical fact. For example, the serpent story. Now in very primitive times the serpent was the special emblem of Kneph, the creator of the world, and was regarded as a sort of good genius. It is still so regarded by the Chinese, who make of it one of their most beautiful symbols, the dragon. Later it became the emblem of Set, the slayer of Osiris; and after that it was looked upon with horror as the enemy of mankind, the destroyer, the evil principle. Hence, in Egypt, the Hebrew captives adopted the serpent as emblematical of evil, and later used it in their scriptural records as the evil genius that tempted Eve and brought about the fall of man. And so all people whose religious beliefs are founded upon the Hebrew Bible now look upon the serpent as the symbol of evil. Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans thus regard it."

Josè gazed at the man with rapt interest. "Don't stop!" he urged. "Go on! go on!"

Hitt laughed. "Well," he resumed, "the tree and the serpent were worshiped all through eastern countries, from Scandinavia to the Asiatic peninsula and down into Egypt. And, do you know, we even find vestiges of such worship in America? Down in Adams county, Ohio, on the banks of Brush creek, there is a great mound, called the serpent mound. It is seven hundred feet long, and greatly resembles the one in Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, Scotland. It also resembles the one I found in the ancient city of Tiahuanuco, whose ruins lie at an elevation of some thirteen thousand feet above the Pacific ocean, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, near the Bolivian frontier. This ancient city ages ago sent out colonists all over North and South America. These primitive people believed that a serpent emitted an egg from its mouth, and that the earth was born of that egg. Now the serpent mound in Ohio has an egg in its mouth. What is the logical inference?"

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Josè, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Hitt laughed again in evident enjoyment of the priest's wonder. Then he resumed: "It has been established to my entire satisfaction that the ancient Egyptians and the Mayas of Central and South America used almost identical symbols. And from all antiquity, and by all nations, the symbols of the tree and serpent and their worship have been so closely identified as to render it certain that their origin is the same. What, then, are the serpent and tree of knowledge in the Hebrew Bible but an outgrowth of this? The tree of life, of civilization, of knowledge, was placed in the middle of the land, of the 'garden,' of the primitive country of the race, Mayax. And the empire of the Mayas was situated between the two great continents of North and South America. These people spread out in all directions. They populated the then existing island of Atlantis. And when the terrible earthquake occurred, whereby this island was sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean, why, to these people the world had been drowned! The story got to Egypt, to Chaldea, and to India. Hence the deluge record of Genesis."

"But, these primitive people, how ancient are they?" queried Josè.

"No one can form any adequate estimate," said Hitt in reply. "The wonderful city of Tiahuanuco was in ruins when Manco Capac laid the foundations of the Inca empire, which was later devastated by the Spaniards. And the Indians told the Spaniards that it had been constructed by giants before the sun shone in heaven."

"Astonishing!" exclaimed Josè. "Such facts as these--if facts they be--relegate much of the Scriptural authority to the realm of legend and myth!"

"Quite so," returned the explorer. "When the human mind of this century forces itself to approach a subject without prejudice or bias, and without the desire to erect or maintain a purely human institution at whatever cost to world-progress, then it finds that much of the hampering, fettering dogma of mediaevalism now laid upon it by the Church becomes pure fiction, without justifiable warrant or basis. Remember, the Hebrew people gave us the Old Testament, in which they had recorded for ages their tribal and national history, their poetry, their beliefs and hopes, as well as their legends, gathered from all sources. We have likewise the historical records of other nations. But the Hebrew possessed one characteristic which differentiated him from all other people. He was a monotheist, and he saw his God in every thing, every event, every place. His concept of God was his life-motif. This concept evolved slowly, painfully, throughout the centuries. The ancient Hebrew patriarchs saw it as a variable God, changeful, fickle, now violently angry, now humbly repentant, now making contracts with mankind, now petulantly destroying His own handiwork. He was a God who could order the slaughter of innocent babes, as in the book of Samuel; or He was a tender, merciful Father, as in the Psalms. He could harden hearts, wage bloody wars, walk with men 'in the cool of the day,' create a universe with His fist, or spend long days designing and devising the material utensils and furniture of sacrifice to be used in His own worship. In short, men saw in Him just what they saw in themselves. They saw but their mental concept. The Bible records humanity's changing, evolving concept of God, of that 'something not ourselves which makes for righteousness.' And this concept gradually changed from the magnified God-man of the Old Testament, a creature of human whims and passions, down to that held by the man of Nazareth, a new and beautiful concept of God as love. This new concept Jesus joyously gave to a sin-weary world that had utterly missed the mark. But it cost him his earthly life to do it. And the dark record of the so-called Christian Church, both Protestant and Catholic, contains the name of many a one who has paid the same penalty for a similar service of love.

"The Chaldeans and Egyptians," he went on, after a moment's reflective pause, "gave the Hebrews their account of the creation of the universe, the fall of man, the flood, and many other bits of mythical lore. And into these stories the Hebrews read the activity of their God, and drew from them deep moral lessons. Egypt gave the Hebrews at least a part of the story of Joseph, as embodied in the hieroglyphics which may be read on the banks of the Nile to-day. They probably also gave the Hebrews the account of the creation found in the second chapter of Genesis, for to this day you can see in some of the oldest Egyptian temples pictures of the gods making men out of lumps of clay. The discovery of the remains of the 'Neanderthal man' and the 'Ape-man of Java' now places the dawn of human reason at a period some three to five hundred thousand years prior to our present century, and, combined with the development of the science of geology, which shows that the total age of the earth's stratified rocks alone cannot be much less than fifty-five millions of years, serves to cast additional ridicule upon the Church's present attitude of stubborn adherence to these prehistoric scriptural legends as literal, God-given fact. But, to make the right use of these legends--well, that is another thing."

"And that?"

The explorer hesitated. "I find it difficult to explain," he said at length. "But, remember what I have already said, there is, there must be, a foundation beneath all these legends which admonish mankind to turn from evil to good. And, as I also said, that foundation must be very broad. I have said that I was in search of a religion. Why not, you may ask, accept the religious standard which Jesus set? That was the new concept of God as love. Very good. I am quite convinced that love is the religion, the tie which binds all things together and to a common source and cause. And I am equally convinced that Jesus is the only person recorded in history who ever lived a life of pure reflection of the love which he called God. And so you see why I am chipping and hewing away at the theological conception of the Christ, and trying to get at the reality buried deep beneath in the theological misconceptions of the centuries. I am quite convinced that if men loved one another, as Jesus bade them do, all war, strife, disease, poverty, and discord of every sort would vanish from human experience. But--and here is a serious question--did Jesus ask the impossible? Did he command us to love the sinful, erring mortal whom we see in our daily walk--or did he--did he have a new thought, namely, that by loving the real man, for which, perhaps, this human concept stands in the human mind, that this very act would change that distorted concept and cause it to yield its place to the real one? I believe Jesus to have been the wisest man who ever trod this earth. But I likewise believe that no man has ever been more deplorably misunderstood, misquoted, and misinterpreted than he. And so I am delving down, down beneath the mass of human conjecture and ridiculous hypothesis which the Church Fathers and our own theologians have heaped up over this unique character, if perchance I may some day discover just what he was, just what he really said, and just what the message which he sought to convey to mankind."

He leaned over and laid a hand on Josè's arm. "My young friend," he said earnestly, "I believe there are meanings in the life and words of Jesus of which the Church in its astounding self-sufficiency has never even dreamed. Did he walk on the water? Did he feed the multitude with a few loaves? Did he raise Lazarus? Did he himself issue from the tomb? No more momentous questions were ever asked than these. For, if so, then the message of Jesus has a bearing on the material universe, on the human mind, and the whole realm of thought that is utterly revolutionary! What was that message? Did the man's own apostles and immediate followers understand it? Did Paul? Certain we are, however, that the theology which Rome gave to her barbarian conquerors was wholly different from that taught by Jesus and his disciples. And we know that the history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire down to the Franco-Prussian war is largely a recital of the development of the religious beliefs which Rome handed down to her conquerors, and their influence upon the human mind. These beliefs constitute the working hypothesis of that institution known to-day as the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and its separated offshoots, the Greek Catholic and the Protestant Churches, including the numberless ramifications and divisions of the latter. The question as to whether eternal salvation is a function of complete immersion of the human body, or only a gentle sprinkling, appears most lamentably puerile in the face of the tremendous revolutionary truths hinted by the deeds of Jesus, assuming that he has been correctly reported in the Gospels. No; Renan, in his Vie de Jésus, which I gave you last night, missed it. Before him, Voltaire and countless other critics of man-made theology missed it. The writings of these men do serve, however, to mow down the theological stubble in the world's field of thought. What is it, this gigantic truth which Jesus brought? I do not know. But he himself is reported to have said, 'If ye keep my commands, ye shall know of the doctrine.' And his chief command was, that we love God and our fellow-men. I have no doubt whatever that, when we follow this command, we shall know of the doctrine which he came to establish in the hearts of men."

"But his message was the brotherhood of man," said Josè.

"Nay," replied the explorer, "it was the fatherhood of God, rather. For that includes the brotherhood of man. But, while we agree thus far, who can say what the fatherhood of God implies? Who, realizing that this was Jesus' message, knows how to make it practical, as he did? To him it meant--ah, what did it not mean! It meant a consciousness that held not one trace of evil. It meant a consciousness of God as omnipotent power, the irresistible power of good, which, in the form of spirit, or mind, as some will have it, is ever present. Is it not so? Well, then, who is there to-day, within the Church or without, who understands the divine message of the fatherhood of God sufficiently to acquire such a consciousness, and to make the intensely practical application of the message to every problem of mind, or body, or environment? Who to-day in your Church or mine, for example, realizes that Jesus must have seen something in matter far different from the solid, indestructible thing that we think we see, and that this was due to his understanding of the immanence of his Father as spirit--an understanding which enabled him to walk on the waves, and to treat material things as if they were not? No, my friend, the Christ-message of the fatherhood of God is hardly apprehended in the world to-day in the slightest degree by priest or prelate, church or sect. And yet, the influence of Jesus is tremendous!"

Josè's brow knit in perplexity. "I--I don't believe I follow you, quite," he said.

"I am not surprised," replied the explorer gently. "I sometimes wonder if I understand myself just what it is that I am trying to express. My belief is still in a state of transition. I am still searching. The field has been cleared. And now--now I am waiting for the new seed. I have abandoned forever the sterile, non-productive religious beliefs of current theology. I have abandoned such belittling views of God as the Presbyterian sublapsarian view of election. I have turned wearily from the puerile dogma of your Church as unworthy of the Father of Jesus. From delving into the mysteries of the Brahminism of India, of ancestor-worship in Japan, of Confucianism in China, of Islamism in the far East, I have come back to the wonderful man of Nazareth. And now I am trying to see what Christianity would be if purged of its adulterations--purged of the Greek philosophy of the early Fathers; of the forgeries of the Middle Ages; of the pagan ceremonialism and priestly rites and assumptions of power to save or damn in this present century. And what do I find, after all this rubbish has been filtered out? Love, friend--love; the unfathomable love of the Father of Jesus, who knows no evil, no sin, no sickness, no death, no hell, no material heaven, but whose kingdom is the harmonious realm of spirit, or mind, wherein the individual consciousness knows no discord of any name or nature."

The afternoon haze had been long gathering when Josè roused the sleeping cochero and prepared to return to the stifling ecclesiastical atmosphere from which for a brief day he had been so happily free. A cold chill swept over him when he took his seat in the carriage, and he shuddered as if with an evil presentiment.

"And you still adhere to your determination to remain in the Church?" his friend asked, as they turned from the green hills and nodding palms of Turbaco, and set their course, toward the distant mediaeval city.

"Yes," came the scarcely audible reply. But as Josè spoke, he knew that his mind had that day been stripped of its last remaining vestige of the old theology, leaving it bare, exposed--and receptive.

* * * * *

A week passed. The explorer had gone, as silently and unannounced as he had come. The evening before his departure he and Josè had sat again in the thick shadows of the old wall. The next morning he was on the mighty river; and the priest was left with a great void in his heart.

One noon, as Josè was returning from his classes, he pondered deeply the last words of the explorer, "Remember, nothing that has been invented by mankind or evolved by the human mind can stand, or remain. We might just as well accept that great fact now as later, and adjust ourselves to it. But the things of the spirit remain. And Paul has told us what they are."

As he passed slowly along the winding little street toward the dormitory, a messenger approached him with a summons from the Bishop. He turned and started wonderingly toward the Cathedral. He had been reprimanded once, twice, for the liberal views which he had expressed to his classes. Was he to receive another rebuke now? He had tried to be more careful of late. Had he been seen with the explorer?

An hour later, his eyes set and unseeing, and his thin lips trembling, Josè dragged himself up the stone steps to his little room and threw himself upon the bed. The bonds which had been slowly, imperceptibly tightening during these few months of precious liberty had been drawn suddenly taut. The Bishop, in the rôle of Inquisitor Natus, had just revealed a full knowledge of his dismal past, and had summarily dismissed him from the University faculty. Josè, bewildered and stunned, had tried vainly to defend himself. Then, realizing his impotence before the uncompromising bigotry of this choleric ecclesiastic, he had burst suddenly into a torrent of frenzied declarations of his undeserved wrongs, of his resolve now to renounce his oath, to leave the Church, to abandon honor, family, everything that held or claimed him, and to flee into unknown and unknowing parts, where his harassed soul might find a few years of rest before its final flight! The Bishop became bitterly and implacably infuriated, and remanded the excited priest to his room to reflect upon his wild words, and to await the final disposition of his case--unless he should have determined already to try the devious route of apostasy.

Rising the next morning at dawn from the chill floor where he had spent the torturing hours of an interminable night, and still clinging forlornly to his battered sense of honor and family pride, Josè again received the Bishop's summons; and, after the events of the morning already related, faced the angry churchman's furious tirade, and with it, what he could not have imagined before, a charge of hideous immorality. Then had been set before him a choice between apostasy and acceptance of the assignment to the parish of far-off Simití.

"And now, unpitying Fate," he murmured, as the door of the Bishop's sanctum closed behind him, and he wandered down through the gloom of the quiet Cathedral, "receive your victim. You have chosen well your carnal instruments--pride--ecclesiasticism--lust! My crimes? Aye, the very lowest; for I have loved liberty of thought and conscience; I have loved virtue and honor; the pursuits of intellect; the fair; the noble; yea, the better things of life. I have loved my fellow-men; and I have sought their emancipation from the thraldom of ignorance. I have loved truth, and the Christ who revealed it to the dull minds of mortals. Enough! I stand convicted! And--I accept the sentence--I have no desire to resist it. For the end is now not distant!"

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Chapter 16

The tropical moon shone in her fullness from an unclouded sky. Through the ethereal atmosphere which bathed the storied city her beams fell, plashing noiselessly upon the grim memorials of a stirring past. With a mantle of peace they gently covered the former scenes of violence and strife. With magic, intangible substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale luster, streaming through narrow barbican and mildewed arch, touched the decaying ruin of San Felipe with the wand of enchantment, and restored it to pristine freshness and strength. Through the stillness of night the watery vapor streamed upward from garden and patio, and mingled with the scent of flushing roses and tropical buds in a fragrant mist suffused with the moon's yellow glow.

On the low parapet bordering the eastern esplanade of the city wall the solitary figure of the priest cast a narrow shadow in the pale moonlight. The sounds which eddied the enveloping silence seemed to echo in his ears the tread of mediaeval warriors. In the wraith-like shadows he saw the armored forms of Conquistadores in mortal strife with vulpine buccaneers. In the whirring of the bats which flouted his face he heard the singing of arrows and the hiss of hurled rocks. In the moan of the ocean as it broke on the coral reef below sounded the boom of cannon, the curses of combatants, and the groans of the dying. Here and there moved tonsured monks, now absolving in the name of the peaceful Christ the frenzied defenders of the Heroic City, now turning to hurl curses at the swarming enemy and consign their blackened souls to deepest hell, while holding images of the crucified Saviour to the quivering lips of stricken warriors.

In the fancied combat raging in the moonlight before him he saw the sons of the house of Rincón manifesting their devotion to Sovereign and Pope, their unshaken faith in Holy Church, their hot zeal which made them her valiant defenders, her support, her humble and devoted slaves for more than three centuries.

What was the charm by which she had held them? And why had its potency failed utterly when directed to him? But they were men of physical action, not thought--men of deeds which called only for brave hearts and stout bodies. It is true, there had been thinkers in those days, when the valiant sons of Rincón hurled the enemy from Cartagena's walls--but they lay rotting in dungeons--they lay broken on the rack, or hung breathing out their souls to God amid the hot flames which His self-appointed vicars kindled about them. The Rincóns of that day had not been thinkers. But the centuries had finally evolved from their number a man of thought. Alas! the evolution had developed intellect, it is true--but the process had refined away the rugged qualities of animal strength which, without a deeper hold on Truth and the way to demonstrate it than Josè possessed, must leave him the plaything of Fate.

Young in years, but old in sorrow; held by oaths which his ever-accusing sense of honor would not let him break; trembling for his mother's sake, and for the sake of Rincón pride, lest the ban of excommunication fall upon him; yet little dreaming that Rome had no thought of this while his own peculiar elements of character bound him as they did to her; the man had at last yielded his life to the system which had wrecked it in the name of Christ, and was now awaiting the morrow, when the boat should bear him to far-off Simití. He went resignedly--even with a dull sense of gladness--for he went to die. Life had yielded him nothing--and constituted as he was, it could hold nothing for him in the future.

The glorious moon poured its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred dreamily in the tempered moonlight; and the banana trees, bending with their luscious burden, cast great, mysterious shadows, wherein insect life rustled and scampered in nocturnal activity.

"Padre Josè!"

A woman's voice called from below. The priest leaned over the wall.

"It is Catalina. I have been hunting everywhere. Maria is calling for you. She cannot live long. You will come?"

Come? Yes--ah, why did he let his own misery blind him to the sorrow of others even more unfortunate! Why had he forgotten the little Maria! Descending the broad incline to the road below, Josè hurried with the woman to the bedside of the dying girl. On the way the warm-hearted, garrulous Catalina relieved her troubled and angered soul.

"Padre Lorenzo came this morning. He would not shrive her unless we would pay him first. He said he would do it for ten pesos--then five--and then three. And when we kept telling him that we had no money he told us to go out and borrow it, or he would leave the little Maria to die as she was. He said she was a vile sinner anyway--that she had not made her Easter duty--that she could not have the Sacrament--and her soul would go straight to hell--and there was no redemption! Then he came again this afternoon and said she must die; but he would shrive her for two pesos. And when we told him we could not borrow the money he was terribly angry, and cursed--and Marcelena was frightened--and the little Maria almost died. But I told him to go--that her little soul was whiter than his--and if he went to heaven I didn't want Maria to go there too--and--!"

The woman's words burned through the priest's ears and into his sickened soul. Recovering her breath, Catalina went on:

"It is only a few days ago that the little Maria meets Sister Isabel in the plaza. 'Ah,' says Sister Isabel, 'you are going to be a mother.'

"'Yes, Sister,' answers the little Maria, much confused; and she tries to hide behind Marcelena.

"'It is very dangerous and you will suffer much unless you have a sacred cord of Saint Frances,' says the Sister. 'I will bring you one.'

"And then she asks where the little Maria lives; and that very day she brings a piece of rope, with knots in it, which she says the priest has blessed, and it is a sacred cord of Saint Frances, and if the little Maria will wear it around her waist she will not suffer at the parturition; and the little Maria must pay a peso oro for it--and the scared little lamb paid it, for she had saved a little money which Don Carlos Ojeda gave her for washing--and she wore it when the babe was born; but it didn't help her--"

"Dios!" ejaculated the priest.

"And Marcelena had paid a peso y medio," continued the excited woman, "for a candle that Sister Natalia told her had come from the altar of the Virgin of Santander and was very holy and would help one through confinement. But the candle went out; and it was only a round stick of wood with a little piece of candle on the end. And I--Padre, I could not help it, I would do anything for the poor child--I paid two pesos oro for a new escapulario for her. Sister Natalia said it was very holy--it had been blessed by His Grace, the Bishop, just for women who were to be mothers, and it would carry them through--but if they died, it would take them right out of purgatory--and--!"

"Catalina!" interrupted the tortured priest. "Say no more!"

"But, Padre, the babe," the woman persisted. "What will become of it? And--do you know?--Padre Lorenzo says it is yours! He told Juanita so--she lives below us. But Maria says no. She has told only Marcelena--and Marcelena will never tell. Who is its father, Padre?"

The priest, recognizing the inevitable, patiently resigned himself to the woman's talk without further reply. Presently they turned into the Calle Lazano, and entering the house where Marcelena had greeted him that morning, mounted to the chamber above where lay the little Maria.

A single candle on a table near the head of the bed shed a flickering, uncertain light. But the window was open, and the moon's beams poured into the room in golden profusion. Aside from the girl, there were no other occupants than Marcelena and the new-born child.

"Padre," murmured the passing girl, "you will not let me die without the Sacrament?"

"No, child," replied the priest, bending over her, hot tears streaming down his cheeks as she kissed his hand.

The girl had been beautiful, a type of that soft, southern beauty, whose graces of form, full, regular features, and rich olive tint mark them as truly Spanish, with but little admixture of inferior blood. Her features were drawn and set now; but her great, brown eyes which she raised to the priest were luminous with a wistful eagerness that in this final hour became sacred.

"Marcelena," the priest hurriedly whispered to the woman. "I have no--but it matters not now; she need not know that I come unprepared. She must pass out of the world happy at last."

"There is a drop of wine that the doctor left; and I will fetch a bit of bread," replied the woman, catching the meaning of the priest's words.

"Bring it; and I will let her confess now."

Bending over the sinking girl, the priest bade her reveal the burden resting on her conscience.

"Carita," he said tenderly, when the confession was ended, "fear not. The blessed Saviour died for you. He went to prepare a place for you and for us all. He forgave the sinful woman--carita, he forgives you--yes, freely, gladly. He loves you, little one. Fear not what Padre Lorenzo said. He is a sinful priest. Forget all now but the good Saviour, who stands with open arms--with a smile on his beautiful face--to welcome his dear child--his little girl--you, carita, you."

"Padre--my babe?"

"Yes, child, it shall be cared for."

"But not by the Sisters"--excitedly--"not in an asylum--Padre, promise me!"

"There, carita, it shall be as you wish."

"And you will care for it?"

"I, child?--ah, yes, I will care for it."

The girl sank back again with a smile of happiness. A deep silence fell upon the room. At the feet of the priest Catalina huddled and wept softly. Marcelena, in the shadow of the bed where she might not be seen, rocked silently back and forth with breaking heart.

"Padre--you will--say Masses for me?" The words were scarcely audible.

"Yes, carita."

"I--have no money--no money. He promised to give me--money--and clothes--"

"There, carita, I will say Masses for you without money--every day, for a year. And you shall have clothes--ah, carita, in heaven you shall have everything."

The candle sputtered, and went out. The moon flooded the room with ethereal radiance.

"Padre--lift me up--it grows dark--oh, Padre, you are so good to me--so good."

"No, child, it is not I who am good to you, but the blessed Christ. See him, carita--there--there in the moonlight he stands!"

The smoke from a neighboring chimney drifted slowly past the window and shone white in the silvery beams. The girl, supported by the arm of the priest, gazed at it through dimming eyes in reverent awe.

"Padre," she whispered, "it is the Saviour! Pray to him for me."

"Yes, child." And turning toward the window the priest extended his hand.

"Blessed Saviour," he prayed, "this is one of thy stricken lambs, lured by the wolf from the fold. And we have brought her back. Dost thou bid her come?"

The sobs of the weeping woman at his feet floated through the room.

"Ah, thou tender and pitying Master--best friend of the sinning, the sick, and the sorrowing--we offer to thee this bruised child. We find no sin, no guile, in her; for after the ignorant code of men she has paid the last farthing for satisfying the wolf's greed. Dost thou bid her come?"

In the presence of death he felt his own terrible impotence. Of what avail then was his Christianity? Or the Church's traditional words of comfort? The priest's tears fell fast. But something within--perhaps that "something not ourselves"--the voice of Israel's almost forgotten God--whispered a hope that blossomed in this petition of tenderest love and pity. He had long since ceased to pray for himself; but in this, the only prayer that had welled from his chilled heart in months, his pitying desire to humor the wishes of a dying girl had unconsciously formulated his own soul's appeal.

"Blessed Saviour, take her to thine arms; shield her forever more from the carnal lust of the wolf; lift her above the deadening superstitions and hypocritical creeds of those who touch but to stain; take her, Saviour, for we find her pure, innocent, clean; suffering and sorrow have purged away the sin. Dost thou bid her come?"

The scent of roses and orange blossoms from the garden below drifted into the room on the warm breeze. A bird, awakened by the swaying of its nest, peeped a few sweet notes of contentment, and slept again.

"We would save her--we would cure her--but we, too, have strayed from thee and forgotten thy commands--and the precious gift of healing which thou didst leave with men has long been lost. But thou art here--thy compassionate touch still heals and saves. Jesus, unique son of God, behold thy child. Wilt thou bid her come?"

"What says he, Padre?" murmured the sinking girl.

The priest bent close to her.

"He says come, carita--come!"

With a fluttering sigh the tired child sank back into the priest's arms and dropped softly into her long sleep.

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Chapter 17

The twisted, turbid "Danube of New Granada," under the gentle guidance of its patron, Saint Mary Magdalene, threads the greater part of its sinuous way through the heart of Colombia like an immense, slow-moving morass. Born of the arduous tropic sun and chill snows, and imbued by the river god with the nomadic instinct, it leaps from its pinnacled cradle and rushes, sparkling with youthful vigor, down precipice and perpendicular cliff; down rocky steeps and jagged ridges; whirling in merry, momentary dance in shaded basins; singing in swirling eddies; roaring in boisterous cataracts, to its mad plunge over the lofty wall of Tequendama, whence it subsides into the dignity of broad maturity, and begins its long, wandering, adult life, which slowly draws to a sluggish old age and final oblivion in the infinite sea. Toward the close of its meandering course, long after the follies and excesses of early life, it takes unto itself a consort, the beautiful Cauca; and together they flow, broadening and deepening as life nears its end; merging their destinies; sharing their burdens; until at last, with labors ended, they sink their identities in the sunlit Caribbean.

When the simple-minded Conquistadores first pushed their frail cockleshells out into the gigantic embouchure of this tawny stream and looked vainly for the opposite shore, veiled by the dewy mists of a glittering morn, they unconsciously crossed themselves and, forgetful for the moment of greed and rapine and the lust of gold, stood in reverent awe before the handiwork of their Creator. Ere the Spaniard had laid his fell curse upon this ancient kingdom of the Chibchas, the flowering banks of the Magdalena, to-day so mournfully characterized by their frightful solitudes, were an almost unbroken village from the present coast city of Barranquilla to Honda, the limit of navigation, some nine hundred miles to the south. The cupidity of the heartless, bigoted rabble from mediaeval slums which poured into this wonderland late in the sixteenth century laid waste this luxuriant vale and exterminated its trustful inhabitants. Now the warm airs that sigh at night along the great river's uncultivated borders seem still to echo the gentle laments of the once happy dwellers in this primitive paradise.

Sitting in the rounded bow of the wretched riverine steamer Honda, Padre Josè de Rincón gazed with vacant eyes upon the scenery on either hand. The boat had arrived from Barranquilla that morning, and was now experiencing the usual exasperating delay in embarking from Calamar. He had just returned to it, after wandering for hours through the forlorn little town, tormented physically by the myriad mosquitoes, and mentally by a surprising eagerness to reach his destination. He could account for the latter only on the ground of complete resignation--a feeling experienced by those unfortunate souls who have lost their way in life, and, after vain resistance to molding circumstances, after the thwarting of ambitions, the quenching of ideals, admit defeat, and await, with something of feverish anticipation, the end. He had left Cartagena early that morning on the ramshackle little train which, after hours of jolting over an undulating roadbed, set him down in Calamar, exhausted with the heat and dust-begrimed. He had not seen the Bishop nor Wenceslas since the interview of the preceding day. Before his departure, however, he had made provision for the burial of the girl, Maria, and the disposal of her child. This he did at his own expense; and when the demands of doctor and sexton had been met, and he had provided Marcelena with funds for the care of herself and the child for at least a few weeks, his purse was pitiably light.

Late in the afternoon the straggling remnant of a sea breeze drifted up the river and tempered the scorching heat. Then the captain of the Honda drained his last glass of red rum in the posada, reiterated to his political affiliates with spiritous bombast his condensed opinion anent the Government, and dramatically signaled the pilot to get under way.

Beyond the fact that Simití lay somewhere behind the liana-veiled banks of the great river, perhaps three hundred miles from Cartagena, the priest knew nothing of his destination. There were no passengers bound for the place, the captain had told him; nor had the captain himself ever been there, although he knew that one must leave the boat at a point called Badillo, and thence go by canoe to the town in question.

But Josè's interest in Simití was only such as one might manifest in a prison to which he was being conveyed. And, as a prisoner of the Church, he inwardly prayed that his remaining days might be few. The blows which had fallen, one after another, upon his keen, raw nerves had left him benumbed. The cruel bruises which his faith in man had received in Rome and Cartagena had left him listless, and without pain. He was accepting the Bishop's final judgment mutely, for he had already borne all that human nature could endure. His severance from a life of faith and love was complete.

Nor could Josè learn when he might hope to reach Badillo, though he made listless inquiry.

"Na, Señor Padre," the captain had said, "we never know where to find the water. It is on the right to-day; on the left to-morrow. There is low tide to-night; the morning may see it ten feet higher. And Badillo--quien sabe? It might be washed away when we arrive." And he shrugged his shoulders in complete disclaimer of any responsibility therefor.

The captain's words were not idle, for the channel of the mighty river changes with the caprice of a maiden's heart. With irresistible momentum the tawny flood rolls over the continent, now impatiently ploughing its way across a great bend, destroying plantations and abruptly leaving towns and villages many miles inland; now savagely filching away the soft loam banks beneath little settlements and greedily adding broad acres to the burden of its surcharged waters. Mighty giants of the forest, wrested from their footholds of centuries, plunge with terrifying noise into the relentless stream; great masses of earth, still cohering, break from their moorings and glide into the whirling waters, where, like immense islands, they journey bobbing and tumbling toward the distant sea.

Against the strong current, whose quartzose sediment tinkled metallically about her iron prow, the clumsy Honda made slow headway. She was a craft of some two hundred tons burden, with iron hull, stern paddle wheel, and corrugated metal passenger deck and roof. Below the passenger deck, and well forward on the hull, stood the huge, wood-burning boiler, whose incandescent stack pierced the open space where the gasping travelers were forced to congregate to get what air they might. Midway on this deck she carried a few cabins at either side. These, bare of furnishings, might accommodate a dozen passengers, if the insufferable heat would permit them to be occupied. Each traveler was obliged to supply his own bedding, and likewise hammock, unless not too discriminating to use the soiled cot provided. Many of those whose affairs necessitated river travel--and there was no other mode of reaching the interior--were content at night to wrap a light blanket about them and lie down under their mosquito nets on the straw mats--petates--with which every peon goes provided. Of service, there was none that might be so designated. A few dirty, half-dressed negro boys from the streets of Barranquilla performed the functions of steward, waiting on table with unwashed hands, helping to sling hammocks, or assisting with the carving of the freshly killed beef on the slippery deck below. Accustomed as he had been to the comforts of Rome, and to the less elaborate though still adequate accommodations which Cartagena afforded, Josè viewed his prison boat with sinking heart. Iron hull, and above it the glowing boiler; over this the metal passenger deck; and above that the iron roof, upon which the fierce tropical sun poured its flaming heat all day; clouds of steam and vapor from the hot river enveloping the boat--had the Holy Inquisition itself sought to devise the most refined torture for a man of delicate sensibilities like Josè de Rincón, it could not have done better than send him up the great river at this season and on that miserable craft, in company with his own morbid and soul-corroding thoughts.

The day wore on; and late in the evening the Honda docked at the pretentious town of Maganguey, the point of transfer for the river Cauca. Like the other passengers, from whom he had held himself reservedly aloof, Josè gladly seized the opportunity to divert his thoughts for a few moments by going ashore. But the moments stretched into hours; and when he finally learned that the boat would not leave until daybreak, he lapsed into a state of sullen desperation which, but for the Rincón stubbornness, would have precipitated him into the dark stream. Aimlessly he wandered about the town, avoiding any possible rencontre with priests, or with his fellow-passengers, many of whom, together with the bacchanalian captain, he saw in the various cantinas, making merry over rum and the native anisado.

The moon rose late, bathing the whitewashed town in a soft sheen and covering with its yellow veil the filth and squalor which met the priest at every turn as he wandered through its ill-lighted streets. Maganguey in plan did not depart from the time-honored custom of the Spaniards, who erected their cities by first locating the church, and then building the town around it. So long as the church had a good location, the rest of the town might shift for itself. Some of the better buildings dated from the old colonial period, and had tile roofs and red brick floors. Many bore scars received in the internecine warfare which has raged in the unhappy country with but brief intervals of peace since the days of Spanish occupation. But most of the houses were of the typical mud-plastered, palm-thatched variety, with dirt floors and scant furniture. Yet even in many of these Josè noted pianos and sewing machines, generally of German make, at which the housewife was occupied, while naked babes and squealing pigs--the latter of scarcely less value than the former--fought for places of preferment on the damp and grimy floors.

Wandering, blindly absorbed in thought, into a deserted road which branched off from one of the narrow streets on the outskirts of the town, Josè stumbled upon a figure crouching in the moonlight. Almost before he realized that it was a human being a hand had reached up and caught his.

"Buen Padre!" came a thick voice from the mass, "for the love of the good Virgin, a few pesos!"

A beggar--perhaps a bandit! Ah, well; Josè's purse was light--and his life of no value. So, recovering from his start, he sought in his pockets for some billetes. But--yes, he remembered that after purchasing his river transportation in Calamar he had carefully put his few remaining bills in his trunk.

"Amigo, I am sorry, but I have no money with me," he said regretfully. "But if you will come to the boat I will gladly give you something there."

At this the figure emitted a scream of rage, and broke into a torrent of sulphurous oaths. "Na, the Saints curse you beggarly priests! You have no money, but you rob us poor devils with your lies, and then leave us to rot to death!"

"But, amigo, did I not say--" began Josè soothingly.

"Maldito!" shrilled the figure; "may Joseph and Mary and Jesus curse you! A million curses on you, maldito!" Pulling itself upward, the shapeless thing sank its teeth deep into the priest's hand.

With a cry of pain the startled Josè tore himself loose, his hand dripping with blood. At the same time the figure fell over into the road and its enveloping rags slipped off, disclosing in the bright moonlight a loathsome, distorted face and elephantine limbs, covered with festering sores.

"Good God!" cried Josè, recoiling. "A leper!"

Turning swiftly from the hideous object, his brain awhirl with the horrible nightmare, the priest fled blindly from the scene. Nauseated, quivering with horror, with the obscene ravings of the leper still ringing in his ears, he stumbled about the town until daybreak, when the boat's shrieking whistle summoned him to embark.

The second day on the river seemed to Josè intolerable, as he shifted about the creaking, straining tub to avoid the sun's piercing rays and the heat which, drifting back from the hot stack forward, enveloped the entire craft. There were but few passengers, some half dozen men and two slatternly attired women. Whither they were bound, he knew not, nor cared; and, though they saluted him courteously, he studiously avoided being drawn into their conversations. The emotional appeal of the great river and its forest-lined banks did not at first affect him. Yet he sought forgetfulness of self by concentrating his thought upon them.

The massed foliage constituted an impenetrable wall on either side. Everywhere his eyes met a maze of lianas, creeping plants, begonias, and bizarre vegetable forms, shapes and hues of which he had never before had any adequate conception. Often he caught the glint of great, rare butterflies hovering in the early sunlight which filtered through the interlaced fronds and branches. Often when the boat hugged the bank he saw indescribable buds and blossoms, and multicolored orchids clinging to the drooping bejucos which festooned the enormous trees. As the afternoon waned and the sun hung low, the magic stillness of the solitude began to cast its spell about him, and he could imagine that he was penetrating a fairy-land. The vast stream, winding, broadening, ramifying round wooded islets, throwing out long, dusky lagoons and swampy arms, incessantly plying its numberless activities, at length held him enraptured. As he brooded over it all, his thought wandered back to the exploits of the intrepid Quesada and his stalwart band who, centuries before, had forced their perilous way along this same river, amid showers of poisoned arrows from hostile natives, amid the assaults of tropical storms and malarial fevers, to the plateau of Cundinamarca, the home of the primitive Muiscas; and there gathering fresh strength and inspiration, had pushed on to the site of Santa Fé de Bogotá.

A cry suddenly rang through the boat. "Man overboard!"

The clang of the pilot's bell stopped the clumsy craft; but not before the ragged little negro boy who had served at Josè's table as steward had been swept far away by the rapid current.

The utmost confusion immediately prevailed. Every one of the rabble rout of stokers, stewards, and stevedores lost his wits and set up a frenzied yell. Some who remembered that there was such a thing, tore at the ropes which held the single lifeboat. But the boat had been put on for appearance's sake, not for service, and successfully resisted all efforts at removal. No one dared risk his life in attempted rescue, for the river swarmed with crocodiles. There was vain racing, counseling and gesticulating; but at length, the first wave of excitement over, passengers and crew settled down to watch the outcome of the boy's struggle for life, while the pilot endeavored to turn the unwieldy steamer about.

"Now is the time to put up a prayer for the youngster, Padre," said a voice behind Josè.

The priest turned. The speaker was evidently a native Colombian. Josè had noticed him on the boat when he embarked at Calamar, and surmised that he had probably come up from Barranquilla.

"An excellent opportunity to try the merits of a prayer to the Virgin, no? If she can fish us out of purgatory she ought to pull this boy out of the river, eh?" continued the speaker with a cynical smile.

"I would rather trust to a canoe and a pair of stout arms than a prayer at present," returned Josè with candor.

"Corriente!" replied the man; "my way of thinking, exactly! But if I had a good rifle now I'd put that little fellow out of his misery, for he's going down, sure!"

It was not unkindly said; and Josè appreciated the man's rude sentiment. Minutes passed in strained silence.

"Hombre!" cried the man. "He's going!"

The lad was evidently weakening. The rapid, swirling current continually frustrated his efforts to reach the shore. Again the head went under.

"Dios!" Josè exclaimed. "Is there no help?"

Jesus had walked the waves. Yet here his earthly representative, trained in all the learning and culture of Holy Church to be an Alter Christus, stood helplessly by and watched a child drown! God above! what avail religious creed and churchly dogma? How impotent the beliefs of men in such an hour! Could the Holy Father himself, with all his assumptions, spiritual and temporal--with all his power to loose from sin and from the imaginary torments of purgatory--save this drowning boy?

Josè turned away in bitterness of heart. As he did so a murmur of awe arose from the spectators. The priest looked again down the river. Impelled from below, the body of the boy was hurled out of the water. Then, as it fell, it disappeared.

"Cayman!" gasped the horrified crew.

Josè stood spellbound, as the ghastly truth dawned upon him. A crocodile, gliding beneath the struggling lad, had tossed him upward, and caught him in its loathsome jaws when he fell. Then it had dragged him beneath the yellow waters, where he was seen no more.

Life is held cheaply by the Magdalena negro--excepting his own. Shiftless and improvident child of the tropics, his animal wants are readily satisfied by the fruits and fish which nature provides for him so bountifully. Spiritual wants he has none--until calamity touches him and he thinks he is about to die. Then witchcraft, charm, incantation, the priest--anything that promises help is hurriedly pressed into requisition to prolong his useless existence. If he recovers, he forgets it all as hurriedly. The tragedy which had just been enacted before the Honda's crew produced a ripple of excitement--a momentary stirring of emotion--and was then speedily forgotten, while the boat turned and drove its way up-stream against the muddy waters.

But Josè could not forget. Nature had endowed him with a memory which recorded as minutely and as lastingly as the phonographic cylinder. The violent death of the boy haunted him, and mingled with the recurrent memories of the sad passing of the little Maria, and his own bitter life experience. Oh, the mystery of it all! The tragedy of life! The sudden blighting of hopes! The ruthless crushing of hearts! What did it mean? Did this infinite variety of good and evil which we call life unite to manifest an infinite Creator? Nay, for then were God more wicked than the lowest sinner! Was evil as real as good, and more powerful? Yes. Did love and the soul's desire to be and do good count for nothing in the end? No; for the end is death--always death! And after that--who knows?

"We are coming to Banco, Padre," said the man who had addressed Josè before, rousing him from his doleful meditations and pointing to the lights of the distant town, now shimmering through the gathering dusk.

As the boat with shrilly shrieking whistle drew near the landing, a crowd hurriedly gathered on the bank to receive it. Venders of guava jelly, rude pottery, and straw mats hastily spread out their merchandise on the muddy ground and began to dilate loudly on their merits. A scantily clad man held aloft a rare leopard skin, which he vigorously offered for two pesos gold. Slatternly women, peddling queer delectables of uncertain composition, waved their thin, bare arms and shrilly advertised their wares. Black, naked children bobbed excitedly about; and gaunt dogs and shrieking pigs scampered recklessly through the crowd and added to the general confusion. Here and there Josè could see dignified looking men, dressed in white cotton, and wearing straw--jipijapa--hats. These were merchants, patiently awaiting consignments which they had perhaps ordered months before. Crazy, ramshackle dwellings, perched unsteadily upon long, slender stilts, rose from the water's edge; but substantial brick buildings of fair size, with red-tile roofs and whitewashed walls, mingled at intervals with the thatched mud huts and rude hovels farther within the town. In a distant doorway he descried a woman nursing a babe at one breast and a suckling pig at the other. Convention is rigid in these Colombian river towns; but it is widely inclusive.

"Come ashore with me, Padre, and forget what is worrying you," said Josè's new acquaintance, taking him by the arm. "I have friends here--Hola! Padre Diego Guillermo!" he suddenly called, catching sight of a black-frocked priest standing in the crowd on the shore.

The priest addressed, a short, stout, coarse-featured man of perhaps forty, waved back a vigorous salutation.

"Hombre!" the man ejaculated, holding Josè's arm and starting down the gangplank. "What new deviltry is the rogue up to now!"

The man and the priest addressed as Diego embraced warmly.

"Padre Diego Guillermo Polo, I have the extreme honor to present my friend, the eminent Padre--" ceremoniously waving a hand toward Josè.

"Josè de Rincón," supplied the latter, bowing.

"Rincón!" murmured the priest Diego. Then, abruptly, "Of Cartagena?"

"Yes," returned Josè, with awakened interest.

"Not of Don Ignacio--?"

"My grandfather," Josè replied promptly, and with a touch of pride.

"Ha! he owned much property--many fincas--about here; and farther west, in the Guamocó country, many mines, eh, Don Jorge?" exchanging a significant look with the latter.

"But," he added, glancing at the perspiring Honda, "this old tub is going to hang up here for the night. So do me the honor, señores, to visit my little cell, and we will fight the cursed mosquitoes over a sip of red rum. I have some of very excellent quality."

Josè and Don Jorge bowed their acquiescence and followed him up the muddy road. The cell referred to consisted of a suite of several rooms, commodiously furnished, and looking out from the second story of one of the better colonial houses of the town upon a richly blooming interior patio. As the visitors entered, a comely young woman who had just lighted an oil-burning "student" lamp and placed it upon the center table, disappeared into one of the more remote rooms.

"My niece," said the priest Diego, winking at Don Jorge as he set out cigars and a garrafón of Jamaica rum. "I have ordered a case of American beer," he continued, lighting a cigar. "But that was two months ago, and it hasn't arrived yet. Diablo! but the good médico tells me I drink too much rum for this very Christian climate."

Don Jorge swept the place with an appraising glance. "H'm," he commented, as he poured himself a liberal libation from the garrafón. "The Lord surely provides for His faithful children."

"Yes, the Lord, that's right," laughed Padre Diego; "still I am daily rendering no small thanks to His Grace, Don Wenceslas, future Bishop of Cartagena."

"And eminent services into the bargain, I'll venture," added Don Jorge.

Padre Diego's eyes twinkled merrily. Josè started. Then even in this remote town the artful Wenceslas maintained his agent!

"But our friend is neither drinking nor smoking," said Padre Diego, turning inquiringly to Josè, who had left his glass untouched.

"With your permission," replied the latter; "I do not use liquor or tobacco."

"Nor women either, eh?" laughed Padre Diego. "Por Dios! what is it the Dutchman says?

'Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang.'

"Caramba! but my German has all slipped from me."

"Don't worry," commented Don Jorge cynically; "for I'll wager it took nothing good with it."

"Hombre! but you are hard on a loyal servant of the Lord," exclaimed Padre Diego in a tone of mock injury, as he drained another glass of the fiery liquor.

"Servant of the Lord!" guffawed Don Jorge. "Of the Lord Pope, Lord Wenceslas, or the Lord God, may we ask?"

"Qué chiste! Why, stupid, all three. I do not put all my eggs into one basket, however large. But tell me, now," he inquired, turning the conversation from himself, "what is it brings you into this region forsaken of the gods?"

"Sepulcros," Don Jorge briefly announced.

"Ha! Indian graves again! But have you abandoned your quest of La Tumba del Diablo, in the Sinu valley?"

"Naturally, since the records show that it was opened centuries ago. And I spent a good year's search on it, too! Dios! They say it yielded above thirty thousand pesos gold."

"Diablo!"

"But I am on the track of others. I go now to Medellin; then to Remedios; and there outfit for a trip of grave hunting through the old Guamocó district."

"Guamocó! Then you will naturally come down the Simití trail, which brings you out to the Magdalena."

"Simití?" interrupted Josè eagerly, turning to the speaker. "Do you know the place?"

"Somewhat!" replied Padre Diego, laughing. "I had charge of that parish for a few months--"

"But found it highly convenient to leave, no?" finished the merciless Don Jorge.

"Caramba! Would you have me die of ennui in such a hell-hole?" cried Diego with some aspersion.

"Hell-hole!" echoed Josè. "Is it so bad as that?"

"Hombre! Yes--worse! They say that after the good Lord created heaven and earth He had a few handfuls of dirt left, and these He threw away. But crafty Satan, always with an eye single to going the Lord one better, slyly gathered this dirt together again and made Simití." Diego quickly finished another glass of rum, as if he would drown the memory of the town.

Josè's heart slowly sank under the words.

"But why do you ask? You are not going there?" Padre Diego inquired. Josè nodded an affirmative.

"Diablo! Assigned?"

"Yes," in a voice scarcely audible.

The Padre whistled softly. "Then in that case," he said, brightening, "we are brother sinners. So let us exchange confidences. What was your crime, if one may ask?"

"Crime!" exclaimed Josè in amazement.

"Aye; who was she? Rich? Beautiful? Native? Or foreign? Come, the story. We have a long night before us." And the coarse fellow settled back expectantly in his chair.

Josè paled. "What do you mean?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"Caramba!" returned the Padre impatiently. "You surely know that no respectable priest is ever sent to Simití! That it is the good Bishop's penal colony for fallen clergy--and, I may add, the refuge of political offenders of this and adjacent countries. Why, the present schoolmaster there is a political outcast from Salvador!"

"No, I did not know it," replied Josè.

"Por Dios! Then you are being jobbed, amigo! Did Don Wenceslas give you letters to the Alcalde?"

"Yes."

"And--by the way, has Wenceslas been misbehaving of late?--for when he does, somebody other than himself has to settle the score."

Josè remained silent.

"Ah," mused Diego, "but Don Wenceslas is artful. And yet, I think I see the direction of his trained hand in this." Then he burst into a rude laugh. "Come, amigo," he said, noting Josè's dejected mien; "let us have your story. We may be able to advise. And we've had experience--eh, Don Jorge?"

But Josè slowly shook his head. What mattered it now? Simití would serve as well to bury him as any other tomb. He knew he was sent as a lamb to the slaughter. But it was his affair--and his God's. Honor and conscience had presented the score; and he was paying in full. His was not a story to be bandied about by lewd priests like Padre Diego.

"No," he replied to the Padre's insistent solicitations; "with your permission, we will talk of it no more."

"But--Hombre!" cried the Padre at last, in his coarse way stirred by Josè's evident truthfulness. "Well--as you wish--I will not pry into your secrets. But, take a bit of counsel from one who knows: when you reach Simití, inquire for a man who hates me, one Rosendo Ariza--"

At this juncture the Honda's diabolical whistle pierced the murky night air.

"Caramba!" cried Don Jorge, starting up. "Are they going to try the river to-night?" And the men hurried back to the landing.

The moon was up, and the boat was getting under way. Padre Diego went aboard to take leave of his friends.

"Bien, amigo," he said to Don Jorge; "I am sorry your stay is so short. I had much to tell you. Interesting developments are forward, and I hope you are well out of Guamocó when the trouble starts. For the rivals of Antioquia and Simití will pay off a few scores in the next revolution--a few left over from the last; and it would be well not to get caught between them when they come together."

"And so it is coming?" said Don Jorge thoughtfully.

"Coming! Hombre! It is all but here! The Hercules went up-river yesterday. You will pass her. She has gone to keep a look-out in the vicinity of Puerto Berrio. I am sorry for our friend," nodding toward Josè, who was leaning over the boat's rail at some distance; "but there is a job there. He doesn't belong in this country. And Simití will finish him."

"Bah! only another priest less--and a weak-kneed one at that," said Don Jorge with contempt; "and we have too many of them now, Lord knows!"

"You forget that I am a priest," chuckled Diego.

"You! Yes, so you are," laughed Don Jorge; "but of the diocese of hell! Well, we're off. I'll send a runner down the trail when I reach the Tiguí river; and if you will have a letter in Simití informing me of the status of things political, he can bring it up. Conque, adios, my consummate villain."

The Honda, whistling prodigiously, swung out into mid-stream and set her course up-river, warily feeling through the velvety darkness for the uncertain channel. Once she grated over a hidden bar and hung for a few moments, while her stack vomited torrents of sparks and her great wheel angrily churned the water into creamy foam in the clear moonlight. Once, rounding a sharp bend, she collided squarely with a huge mahogany tree, rolling and plunging menacingly in the seaward rushing waters.

"Diablo!" muttered Don Jorge, as he helped Josè swing his hammock and adjust the mosquito netting. "I shall offer a candle a foot thick to the blessed Virgin if I reach Puerto Berrio safely! Santo Dios!" as the boat grazed another sand bar. "I've heard tell of steamers hanging up on bars in this river for six weeks! And look!" pointing to the projecting smoke-stack of a sunken steamer. "Caramba! That is what we just escaped!"

But Josè manifested slight interest in the dangers of river navigation. His thoughts were revolving about the incidents of the past few days, and, more especially, about Padre Diego and his significant words. Don Jorge had volunteered no further explanation of the man or his conversation; and Josè's reticence would not permit him to make other inquiry. But, after all, his thought-processes always evolved the same conclusion: What mattered it now? His interest in life was at an end. He had not told Don Jorge of his experience with the leper in Maganguey. He was trying to forget it. But his hand ached cruelly; and the pain was always associated with loathsome and repellant thoughts of the event.

* * * * *

The eastern sky was blushing at the approach of the amorous sun when Josè left his hammock and prepared to endure another day on the river. To the south the deep blue vault of heaven was dotted with downy clouds. Behind the laboring steamer the river glittered through a dazzling white haze. Ahead, its course was traceable for miles by the thin vapor always rising from it. The jungle on either side was brilliant with color and resonant with the songs of forest lyrists. In the lofty fronds of venerable palms and cedars noisy macaws gossiped and squabbled, and excited monkeys discussed the passing boat and commented volubly on its character. In the shallow water at the margin of the river blue herons and spindle-legged cranes were searching out their morning meal. Crocodiles lay dozing on the playas, with mouths opened invitingly to the stupid birds which were sure to yield to the mesmerism. Far in the distance up-stream a young deer was drinking at the water's edge.

The charm of the rare scene held the priest spellbound. As he gazed upon it a king vulture--called by the natives the Vulture Papa, or Pope Vulture--suddenly swooped down from the depths of heaven and, lighting upon the carcass of a monster crocodile floating down the river, began to feast upon the choicest morsels, while the buzzards which had been circling about the carrion and feeding at will respectfully withdrew until the royal appetite should be satiated.

"Holy graft, eh, Padre?" commented Don Jorge, coming up. "Those brainless buzzards, if they only knew it and had sense enough to unite, could strip every feather off that swaggering vulture and send him packing. Fools! And we poor Colombians, if we had the courage, could as easily throw the Church into the sea, holy candles, holy oils, holy incense and all! Diablo! But we are fleeced like sheep!"

To Josè it did not seem strange that this man should speak so frankly to him, a priest. He felt that Don Jorge was not so much lacking in courtesy and delicate respect for the feelings and opinions of others as he was ruggedly honest and fearlessly sincere in his hatred of the dissimulation and graft practiced upon the ignorant and unsuspecting. For the rest of the day Don Jorge was busy with his maps and papers, and Josè was left to himself.

The character of the landscape had altered with the narrowing of the stream, and the river-plain now lay in a great volcanic basin flanked by distant verdure-clad hills. Far to the southwest Josè could see the faint outlines of the lofty Cordilleras. Somewhere in that direction lay Simití. And back of it lay the ancient treasure house of Spain, where countless thousands of sweating slaves had worn out their straining bodies under the goad and lash, that the monarchs of Castile might carry on their foolish religious wars and attempt their vain projects of self-aggrandizement.

The day wore on without interest, and darkness closed in quickly when the sun dropped behind the Sierras. It was to be Josè's last night on the Magdalena, for the captain had told him that, barring disaster, the next afternoon should find them at Badillo. After the evening meal the priest took his chair to the bow of the steamer and gave himself over to the gentle influences of the rare and soothing environment. The churning of the boat was softly echoed by the sleeping forest. The late moon shimmered through clouds of murky vapor, and cast ghostly reflections along the broad river. The balmy air, trembling with the radiating heat, was impregnated with sweetest odors from the myriad buds and balsamic plants of the dark jungle wilderness on either hand, where impervious walls rose in majestic, deterrant, awesome silence from the low shore line, and tangled shrubs and bushes, rioting in wild profusion, jealously hung to the water's edge that they might hide every trace of the muddy banks. What shapes and forms the black depths of that untrodden bush hid from his eyes, Josè might only imagine. But he felt their presence--crawling, creeping things that lay in patient ambush for their unwitting prey--slimy lizards, gorgeously caparisoned--dank, twisting serpents--elephantine tapirs--dull-witted sloths--sleek, wary jaguars--fierce formicidae, poisonous and carnivorous. He might not see them, but he felt that he was the cynosure of hundreds of keen eyes that followed him as the boat glided close to the shore and silently crept through the shadows which lay thick upon the river's edge. And the matted jungle, with its colossal vegetation, he felt was peopled with other things--influences intangible, and perhaps still unreal, but mightily potent with the symbolized presence of the great Unknown, which stands back of all phenomena and eagerly watches the movements of its children. These influences had already cast their spell upon him. He was yielding, slowly, to the "lure of the tropics," which few who come under its attachment ever find the strength to dispel.

No habitations were visible on the dark shores. Only here and there in the yellow glow of the boat's lanterns appeared the customary piles of wood which the natives sell to the passing steamers for boiler fuel, and which are found at frequent intervals along the river. At one of these the Honda halted to replenish its supply. The usual bickering between the negro owner and the boat captain resulted in a bargain, and the half-naked stevedores began to transfer the wood to the vessel, carrying it on their shoulders in the most primitive manner, held in a strip of burlap. The rising moon had at last thrown off its veil of murky clouds, and was shining in undimmed splendor in a starry sky. Josè went ashore with the passengers; for the boat might remain there for hours while her crew labored leisurely, with much bantering and singing, and no anxious thought for the morrow.

The strumming of a tiple in the distance attracted him. Following it, he found a small settlement of bamboo huts hidden away in a beautiful grove of moriche palms, through which the moonbeams filtered in silvery stringers. Little gardens lay back of the dwellings, and the usual number of goats and pigs were dozing in the heavy shadows of the scarcely stirring trees. Reserved matrons and shy doncellas appeared in the doorways; and curious children, naked and chubby, hid in their mothers' scant skirts and peeped cautiously out at the newcomers. The tranquil night was sweet with delicate odors wafted from numberless plants and blossoms in the adjacent forest, and with the fragrance breathed from the roses, gardenias and dahlias with which these unpretentious dwellings were fairly embowered. A spirit of calm and peaceful contentment hovered over the spot, and the round, white moon smiled down in holy benediction upon the gentle folk who passed their simple lives in this bower of delight, free from the goad of human ambition, untrammeled by the false sense of wealth and its entailments, and unspoiled by the artificialities of civilization.

One of the passengers suggested a dance, while waiting for the boat to take on its fuel. The owner of the wood, apparently the chief authority of the little settlement, immediately procured a tom-tom, and gave orders for the baile. At his direction men, women and children gathered in the moonlit clearing on the river bank and, while the musician beat a monotonous tattoo on the crude drum, circled about in the stately and dignified movements of their native dance.

It was a picture that Josè would not forget. The balmy air, soft as velvet, and laden with delicious fragrance; the vast solitude, stretching in trackless wilderness to unknown reaches on either hand; the magic stillness of the tropic night; the figures of the dancers weirdly silhouetted in the gorgeous moonlight; with the low, unvaried beat of the tom-tom rising dully through the warm air--all merged into a scene of exquisite beauty and delight, which made an indelible impression upon the priest's receptive mind.

And when the sounds of simple happiness had again died into silence, and he lay in his hammock, listening to the spirit of the jungle sighing through the night-blown palms, as the boat glided gently through the lights and shadows of the quiet river, his soul voiced a nameless yearning, a vague, unformed longing for an approach to the life of simple content and child-like happiness of the kind and gentle folk with whom he had been privileged to make this brief sojourn.

* * * * *

The crimson flush of the dawn-sky heralded another day of implacable heat. The emerald coronals of palms and towering caobas burned in the early beams of the torrid sun. Light fogs rose reluctantly from the river's bosom and dispersed in delicate vapors of opal and violet. The tangled banks of dripping bush shone freshly green in the misty light. The wilderness, grim and trenchant, reigned in unchallenged despotism. Solitude, soul-oppressing, unbroken but for the calls of feathered life, brooded over the birth of Josè's last day on the Magdalena. About midday the steamer touched at the little village of Bodega Central; but the iron-covered warehouse and the whitewashed mud hovels glittered garishly in the fierce heat and stifled all desire to go ashore. The call was brief, and the boat soon resumed its course through the solitude and heat of the mighty river.

Immediately after leaving Bodega Central, Don Jorge approached Josè and beckoned him to an unoccupied corner of the boat.

"Amigo," he began, after assuring himself that his words would not carry to the other passengers, "the captain tells me the next stop is Badillo, where you leave us. If all goes well you will be in Simití to-night. No doubt a report of our meeting with Padre Diego has already reached Don Wenceslas, who, you may be sure, has no thought of forgetting you. I have no reason to tell you this other than the fact that I think, as Padre Diego put it, you are being jobbed--not by the Church, but by Wenceslas. I want to warn you, that is all. I hate priests! They got me early--got my wife and girl, too! I hate the Church, and the whole ghastly farce which it puts over on the ignorant people of this country! But--," eying him sharply, "I would hardly class you as a real priest. There, never mind!" as Josè was about to interrupt. "I think I understand. You simply went wrong. You meant well, but something happened--as always does when one means well in this world. But now to the point."

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. His fincas and 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 had arrastras, 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 attempt to 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 there was 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 the panela and yuccas á 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 a densely 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, open savannas in 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 of La 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 the boga now 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.

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, or caño, was heavily shaded throughout its length. Crocodiles lay along its muddy banks, and slid into the water at the approach of the canoe. Huge iguanas, 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 a big doll, haven't we?"

Night fell as the priest stepped upon the shore of his new home.

CARMEN ARIZA

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Book 2

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.

CARMEN ARIZA

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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 rough macana palm 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 the Señor Padre a 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.

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 corn arepa, fried platanos, dried fish, and coffee sweetened with panela.

"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 of macana palm, set upright and tied together with pieces of slender, tough bejuco vine. 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 black ruanas--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 central plaza, where stood a large church of typical colonial design and construction, and 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 the plaza he 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 of La 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 white garzas, 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 lofty Cordilleras, 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 the patio in 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.

"Very," agreed Josè, wondering how much the Alcalde knew of his family.

"Don Ignacio was not unknown in this pueblo," 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 the plaza? 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 the caño was 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 the Camino 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.

"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 terrible ennui, 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 midday siesta. 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 his interest 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.

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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 the room, 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.

"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:

"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 her petate in 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.

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 come quickly!"

"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.

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Chapter 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 good Cura. 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 is everywhere--isn't He?"

What manner of answer could he, of all men, make to such terribly 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 dark bóveda. 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 that you were 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 know everything, 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 a Cura here 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 am so glad you have come to Simití! I just knew God would not forget us!"

Josè had no reply to make. His thought was busy with the phenomenon before him: a child of man, but one who, like Israel of old, saw God and heard His voice at every turn of her daily walk. Untutored in the ways of men, without trace of sophistication or cant, unblemished as she moved among the soiled vessels about her, shining with celestial radiance in this unknown, moldering town so far from the world's beaten paths.

The door opened softly and Rosendo entered, preceded by a cheery greeting.

"Hombre!" he exclaimed, surveying the priest, "but you mend fast! You have eaten all the broth! But I told the good wife that the little Carmen would be better than medicine for you, and that you must have her just as soon as you should awake."

Josè's eyes dilated with astonishment. Absorbed in the child, he had consumed almost his entire breakfast.

"He is well, padre Rosendo, he is well!" cried the girl, bounding up and down and dancing about the tall form of her foster-father. Then, darting to Josè, she seized his hand and cried, "Now to see my garden! And Cucumbra! And--!"

"Quiet, child!" commanded Rosendo, taking her by the arm. "The good Cura is ill, and must rest for several days yet."

"No, padre Rosendo, he is well--all well! Aren't you, Padre?" appealing to Josè, and again urging him forth.

The rapidity of the conversation and the animation of the beautiful child caused complete forgetfulness of self, and, together with the restorative effect of the wholesome food, acted upon the priest like a magical tonic. Weak though he was, he clung to her hand and, struggling out of the bed, stood uncertainly upon the floor. Instantly Rosendo's arm was about him.

"Don't try it, Padre," the latter urged anxiously. "The heat will be too much for you. Another day or two of rest will make you right."

But the priest, heedless of the admonition, suffered himself to be led by the child; and together they passed slowly out into the living room, through the kitchen, and thence into the diminutive rose garden, the pride of the little Carmen.

Doña Maria, wife of Rosendo, was bending over the primitive fireplace, busy with her matutinal duties, having just dusted the ashes from a corn arepa which she had prepared for her consort's simple luncheon. She was a woman well into the autumn of life; but her form possessed something of the elegance of the Spanish dames of the colonial period; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, which emanated from a gentle and affectionate heart; and her manner combined both dignity and suavity. She greeted the priest tenderly, and expressed mingled surprise and joy that he felt able to leave his bed so soon. But as her eyes caught Rosendo's meaning glance, and then turned to the child, they seemed to indicate a full comprehension of the situation.

The rose garden consisted of a few square feet of black earth, bordered by bits of shale, and seemingly scarce able to furnish nourishment for the three or four little bushes. But, though small, these were blooming in profusion.

"Padre Rosendo did this!" exclaimed the delighted girl. "Every night he brings water from La Cienaga for them!"

Rosendo smiled patronizingly upon the child; but Josè saw in the glance of his argus eyes a tenderness and depth of affection for her which bespoke nothing short of adoration.

Carmen bent over the roses, fondling and kissing them, and addressing them endearing names.

"She calls them God's kisses," whispered Rosendo to the priest.

At that moment a low growl was heard. Josè turned quickly and confronted a gaunt dog, a wild breed, with eyes fixed upon the priest and white fangs showing menacingly beneath a curling lip.

"Oh, Cucumbra!" cried the child, rushing to the beast and throwing her arms about its shaggy neck. "Haven't I told you to love everybody? And is that the way to show it? Now kiss the Cura's hand, for he loves you."

The brute sank at her feet. Then as she took the priest's hand and held it to the dog's mouth, he licked it with his rough tongue.

The priest's brain was now awhirl. He stood gazing at the child as if fascinated. Through his jumbled thought there ran an insistent strain, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. The Father dwelleth in me and I in Him." He did not associate these words with the Nazarene now, but with the barefoot girl before him. Again within the farthest depths of his soul he heard the soft note of a vibrating chord--that chord which all the years of his unhappy life had hung mute, until here, in this moldering town, in the wilderness of forgotten Guamocó, the hand of Love had swept it.

The sun stood at the zenith. The day was white-hot. Doña Maria summoned her little family to the midday repast. Rosendo brought a chair for Josè and placed it near the rose garden in the shade of the house, for, despite all protest, the priest had stubbornly refused to return to his bed. Left now to himself, his thought hovered about the child, and then drifted out across the incandescent shales to the beautiful lake beyond. The water lay like shimmering glass. In the distance the wooded slopes of the San Lucas mountains rose like green billows. Brooding silence spread over the scene. It was Nature's hour of siesta. In his own heart there was a great peace--and a strange expectancy. He seemed to be awaiting a revelation of things close at hand. In a way he felt that he had accomplished his purpose of coming to Simití to die, and that he was now awaiting the resurrection.

The peaceful revery was interrupted by Rosendo. "Padre, if you will not return to your bed--" He regarded the priest dubiously.

"No, Rosendo. I grow stronger every minute. But--where is Carmen?"

"She must help her mother."

A long pause ensued, while Josè impatiently waited for Rosendo to continue. The child was becoming his obsession. He was eager to talk of her, to learn her history, to see her, for her presence meant complete obliteration of self.

"Padre," Rosendo at length emerged from his meditation. "I would like to speak of the little Carmen."

"Yes," responded Josè with animation. Life and strength seemed to return to him with a bound.

"But--what say you? Shall we visit the church, which is only across the road? There we can talk without interruption. No one will be in the streets during the heat. And I will carry you over."

"Let us go to the church, yes; but I can walk. It is only a step."

Josè leaned upon Rosendo, the latter supporting him with his great arm, and together they crossed the road and mounted the shale platform on which stood the ancient edifice. Rosendo produced a huge key of antique pattern; and the rusty lock, after much resistance, yielded with a groan, and the heavy door creaked open, emitting an odor of dampness and must. Doffing their hats, the men entered the long, barn-like room. Rosendo carefully closed and locked the door behind them, a precaution necessary in a drowsing town of this nature, where the simple folk who see day after day pass without concern or event to break the deadening monotony, assemble in eager, buzzing multitudes at the slightest prospect of extraordinary interest.

The room was dimly lighted, and was open to the peak of the roof. From the rough-hewn rafters above hung hundreds of hideous bats. At the far end stood the altar. It was adorned with decrepit images, and held a large wooden statue of the Virgin. This latter object was veiled with two flimsy curtains, which were designed to be raised and lowered with great pomp and the ringing of a little bell during service. The image was attired in real clothes, covered with tawdry finery, gilt paper, and faded ribbons. The head bore a wig of hair; and the face was painted, although great sections of the paint had fallen, away, leaving the suggestion of pockmarks. Beneath this image was located the sagrario, the little cupboard in which the hostia, the sacred wafer, was wont to be kept exposed in the custodia, a cheap receptacle composed of two watch crystals. At either side of this stood half consumed wax tapers. A few rough benches were strewn about the floor; and dust and green mold lay thick over all.

At the far right-hand corner of the building a lean-to had been erected to serve as the sacristía, or vestry. In the worm-eaten wardrobe within hung a few vestments, adorned with cheap finery, and heavily laden with dust, over which scampered vermin of many varieties. An air of desolation and abandon hung over the whole church, and to Josè seemed to symbolize the decay of a sterile faith.

Rosendo carefully dusted off a bench near one of the windows and bade Josè be seated.

"Padre," he began, after some moments of deep reflection, "the little Carmen is not an ordinary child."

"I have seen that, Rosendo," interposed Josè.

"We--we do not understand her," Rosendo went on, carefully weighing his words; "and we sometimes think she is not--not altogether like us--that her coming was a miracle. But you do not believe in miracles," he added quizzically.

"Why do you say that, Rosendo?" Josè returned in surprise.

Rosendo paused before replying.

"You were very sick, Padre; and in the fever you--" the impeccably honest fellow hesitated.

"Yes, I thought so," said Josè with an air of weary resignation. "And what else did I say, Rosendo?"

The faultless courtesy of the artless Rosendo, a courtesy so genuine that Josè knew it came right from the heart, made conversation on this topic a matter of extreme difficulty to him.

"Do not be uneasy, Padre," he said reassuringly. "I alone heard you. Whenever you began to talk I would not let others listen; and I stayed with you every day and night. But--it is just because of what you said in the calentura that I am speaking to you now of the little Carmen."

Because of what he had said in his delirium! Josè's astonishment grew apace.

"Padre, many bad priests have been sent to Simití. It has been our curse. Priests who stirred up revolution elsewhere, who committed murder, and ruined the lives of fair women, have been put upon us. And when in Badillo I learned that you had been sent to our parish, I was filled with fear. I--I lost a daughter, Padre--"

The good man hesitated again. Then, as a look of stern resolution spread over his strong, dark face, he continued:

"It was Padre Diego! We drove him out of Simití four years ago. But my daughter, my only child, went with him." The great frame shook with emotion, while he hurried on disconnectedly.

"Padre, the priest Diego said that the little Carmen should become a Sister--a nun--that she must be sent to the convent in Mompox--that she belonged to the Church, and the Church would some day have her. But, by the Holy Virgin, the Church shall not have her! And I myself will slay her before this altar rather than let such as Padre Diego lay their slimy paws upon the angel child!"

Rosendo leaped to his feet and began to pace the floor with great strides. The marvelous frame of the man, in which beat a heart too big for the sordid passions of the flesh, trembled as he walked. Josè watched him in mute admiration, mingled with astonishment and a heightened sense of expectancy. Presently Rosendo returned and seated himself again beside the priest.

"Padre, I have lived in terror ever since Diego left Simití. For myself I do not fear, for if ever I meet with the wretch I shall wring his neck with my naked hands! But--for the little Carmen--Dios! they might steal her at any time! There are men here who would do it for a few pesos! And how could I prevent it? I pray daily to the Virgin to protect her. She--she is the light of my life. I watch over her hourly. I neglect my hacienda, that I may guard her--and I am a poor man, and cannot afford not to work."

The man buried his face in his huge hands and groaned aloud. Josè remained pityingly silent, knowing that Rosendo's heaving heart must empty itself.

"Padre," Rosendo at length raised his head. His features were drawn, but his eyes glowed fiercely. "Priests have committed dark deeds here, and this altar has dripped with blood. When a child, with my own eyes I saw a priest elevate the Host before this altar, as the people knelt in adoration. While their heads were bowed I saw him drive a knife into the neck of a man who was his enemy; and the blood spurted over the image of the Virgin and fell upon the Sacred Host itself! And what did the wicked priest say in defense? Simply that he took this time to assassinate his man because then the victim could die adoring the Host and under the most favorable circumstances for salvation! Hombre! And did the priest pay the penalty for his crime? No! The Bishop of Cartagena transferred him to another parish, and told him to do better in future!"

Josè started in horror. But Rosendo did not stop.

"And I remember the story my father used to tell of the priest who poisoned a whole family in Simití with the communion wafer. Their estates had been willed to the Church, and he was impatient to have the management of them. Again nothing was done about it."

"But, Rosendo, if Simití has been so afflicted by bad priests, why are you confiding in me?" Josè asked in wonder.

"Because, Padre," Rosendo replied, "in the fever you said many things that made me think you were not a bad man. I did suspect you at first--but not after I heard you talk in your sleep. You, too, have suffered. And the Church has caused it. No, not God; but the men who say they know what He thinks and says. They make us all suffer. And after I heard you tell those things in your fever-sleep, I said to Maria that if you lived I knew you would help me protect the little Carmen. Then, too, you are a--" He lapsed abruptly into silence.

Josè pressed Rosendo's hand. "Tell me about her. You have said she is not your daughter. I ask only because of sincere affection for you all, and because the child has aroused in me an unwonted interest."

Rosendo looked steadily into the eyes of the priest for some moments. Josè as steadily returned the glance. From the eyes of the one there emanated a soul-searching scrutiny; from those of the other an answering bid for confidence. The bid was accepted.

"Padre," began Rosendo, "I place trust in you. Something makes me believe that you are not like other priests I have known. And I have seen that you already love the little Carmen. No, she is not my child. One day, about eight years ago, a steamer on its way down the river touched at Badillo to put off a young woman, who was so sick that the captain feared she would die on board. He knew nothing of her, except that she had embarked at Honda and was bound for Barranquilla. He hoped that by leaving her in the care of the good people of Badillo something might be done. The boat went its way; and the next morning the woman died, shortly after her babe was born. They buried her back of the village, and Escolastico's woman took the child. They tried to learn the history of the mother; but, though the captain of the boat made many inquiries, he could only find that she had come from Bogotá the day before the boat left Honda, and that she was then very sick. Some weeks afterward Escolastico happened to come to Simití, and told me the story. He complained that his family was already large, and that his woman found the care of the babe a burden. I love children, Padre, and it seemed to me that I could find a place for the little one, and I told him I would fetch her. And so a few days later I brought her to Simití. But before leaving Badillo I fixed a wooden cross over the mother's grave and wrote on it in pencil the name 'Dolores,' for that was the name in the little gold locket which we found in her valise. There were some clothes, better than the average, and the locket. In the locket were two small pictures, one of a young man, with the name 'Guillermo' written beneath it, and one of the woman, with 'Dolores' under it. That was all. Captain Julio took the locket to Honda when he made inquiries there; but brought it back again, saying that nobody recognized the faces. I named the babe Carmen, and have brought her up as my own child. She--Padre, I adore her!"

Josè listened in breathless silence.

"But we sometimes think," said Rosendo, resuming his dramatic narrative, "that it was all a miracle, perhaps a dream; that it was the angels who left the babe on the river bank, for she herself is not of the earth."

"Tell me, Rosendo, just what you mean," said Josè reverently, laying his hand gently upon the older man's arm.

Rosendo shook his head slowly. "Talk with her, Padre, and you will see. I cannot explain. Only, she is not like us. She is like--"

His voice dropped to a whisper.

"--she is like--God. And she knows Him better than she knows me."

Josè's head slowly sank upon his breast. The gloom within the musty church was thick; and the bats stirred restlessly among the dusty rafters overhead. Outside, the relentless heat poured down upon the deserted streets.

"Padre," Rosendo resumed. "In the calentura you talked of wonderful things. You spoke of kings and popes and foreign lands, of beautiful cities and great marvels of which we know nothing. It was wonderful! And you recited beautiful poems--but often in other tongues than ours. Padre, you must be very learned. I listened, and was astonished, for we are so ignorant here in Simití, oh, so ignorant! We have no schools, and our poor little children grow up to be only peones and fishermen. But--the little Carmen--ah, she has a mind! Padre--"

Again he lapsed into silence, as if fearful to ask the boon.

"Yes, Rosendo, yes," Josè eagerly reassured him. "Go on."

Rosendo turned full upon the priest and spoke rapidly. "Padre, will you teach the little Carmen what you know? Will you make her a strong, learned woman, and fit her to do big things in the world--and then--then--"

"Yes, Rosendo?"

"--then get her away from Simití? She does not belong here, Padre. And--?" his voice sank to a hoarse whisper--"will you help me keep her from the Church?"

Josè sat staring at the man with dilating eyes.

"Padre, she has her own Church. It is her heart."

He leaned over and laid a hand upon the priest's knee. His dark eyes seemed to burn like glowing coals. His whispered words were fraught with a meaning which Josè would some day learn.

"Padre, that must be left alone!"

A long silence fell upon the two men, the one massive of frame and black of face, but with a mind as simple as a child's and a heart as white as the snow that sprinkled his raven locks--the other a youth in years, but bowed with disappointment and suffering; yet now listening with hushed breath to the words that rolled with a mighty reverberation through the chambers of his soul:

"I am God, and there is none else! Behold, I come quickly! Arise, shine, for thy light is come!"

The sweet face of the child rose out of the gloom before the priest. The years rolled back like a curtain, and he saw himself at her tender age, a white, unformed soul, awaiting the sculptor's hand. God forbid that the hand which shaped his career should form the plastic mind of this girl!

Of a sudden a great thought flashed out of the depths of eternity and into his brain, a thought which seemed to illumine his whole past life. In the clear light thereof he seemed instantly to read meanings in numberless events which to that hour had remained hidden. His complex, misshapen career--could it have been a preparation?--and for this? He had yearned to serve his fellow-men, but had miserably failed. For, while to will was always present with him, even as with Paul, yet how to perform that which was good he found not. But now--what an opportunity opened before him! What a beautiful offering of self was here made possible? God, what a privilege!

Rosendo sat stolid, buried in thought. Josè reached out through the dim light and grasped his black hand. His eyes were lucent, his heart burned with the fire of an unknown enthusiasm, and speech stumbled across his lips.

"Rosendo, I came to Simití to die. And now I know that I shall die--to myself. But thereby shall I live. Yes, I shall live! And here before this altar, in the sight of that God whom she knows so well, I pledge my new-found life to Carmen. My mind, my thought, my strength, are henceforth hers. May her God direct me in their right use for His beautiful child!"

Josè and Rosendo rose from the bench with hands still clasped. In that hour the priest was born again.

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Chapter 4

"He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

The reporters of the unique Man of Galilee, upon whose straining ears these words fell, noted them for future generations of footsore pilgrims on life's wandering highway--for the rich, satiated with their gorgeous gluttonies; for the proud Levite, with his feet enmeshed in the lifeless letter of the Law; for the loathsome and outcast beggar at the gates of Dives. And for Josè de Rincón, priest of the Holy Catholic Church and vicar of Christ, scion of aristocracy and worldly learning, now humbled and blinded, like Paul on the road to Damascus, begging that his spiritual sight might be opened to the glory of the One with whom he had not known how to walk.

Returning in silence from the church to Rosendo's humble cottage, Josè had asked leave to retire. He would be alone with the great Presence which had come to him across the desert of his life, and now stood before him in the brightness of the undimmed sun. He no longer felt ill nor exhausted. Indeed, quite the contrary; a quickened sense of life, an eagerness to embrace the opportunity opening before him, caused his chest to heave and his shrunken veins to throb.

On his bed in the darkened room he lay in a deep silence, broken only at intervals by the hurried scampering of lizards darting through the interstices of the dry walls. His uncomprehending eyes were fixed upon the dust-laden thatch of the roof overhead, where droning wasps toiled upon their frail abodes. He lay with the portals of his mind opened wide. Through them, in ceaseless flow, passed two streams which did not mingle. The one, outward bound, turbid with its burden of egoism, fear, perplexity, and hopelessness, which, like barnacles, had fastened to his soul on its chartless voyage; the other, a stream of hope and confidence and definite purpose, a stream which leaped and sang in the warm sunlight of Love as it poured into his receptive brain.

The fresh thought which flowed into his mental chambers rapidly formed into orderly plans, all centering upon the child, Carmen. What could he teach her? The relative truths and worldly knowledge--purified, as far as in him lay, from the dross of speculation and human opinion--which lay stored in the archives of his mind? Yes; but that was all. History, and its interpretation of human progress; the languages; mathematics, and the elements of the physical sciences; literature; and a knowledge of people and places. With these his retentive mind was replete. But beyond this he must learn of her. And her tutor, he now knew, was the Master Mind, omniscient God. And he knew, more, that she possessed secrets whose potency he might as yet scarcely imagine. For, in an environment which for dearth of mental stimulus and incentive could scarcely be matched; amid poverty but slightly raised above actual want; untouched by the temperamental hopelessness which lies just beneath the surface of these dull, simple folk, this child lived a life of such ecstasy as might well excite the envy of the world's potentates.

But meantime, what should be his attitude toward the parish? He fully realized that he and the Church were now as far apart as the poles. Yet this was become his parish, the first he had ever held; and these were his people. And he must face them and preach--what? If not the Catholic faith, then would he be speedily removed. And that meant complete disruption of his rapidly formulating plans. But might he not in that event flee with Carmen, renounce the Church, and--

Impossible! Excommunication alone could sever the oath by which the Church held him. And for that he could not say that he was ready. For excommunication meant disgrace to his mother--perhaps the snapping of a heart already sorely strained. To renounce his oath was dishonor. To preach the Catholic faith without sincerity was scarcely less. Yet amid present circumstances this seemed the only course open to him.

But what must he teach Carmen in regard to the Church? Could he maintain his position in it, yet not of it; and at the same time rear her without its pale, yet so as not to conflict with the people of Simití, nor cause such comment as might reach the ears of the Bishop of Cartagena? God alone knew. It must be attempted, at any rate. There was no other way. And if it was God's plan, he might safely trust Him for the requisite strength and wisdom. For this course the isolation of Simití and the childish simplicity of its people afforded a tremendous advantage. On the other hand, he knew that both he and Carmen had powerful enemies. Yet, one with God might rout a host. And Carmen walked with God.

Thus throughout the afternoon the priest weighed and pondered the thoughts that sought admission to his reawakened mind. He was not interrupted until sundown; and then Carmen entered the room with a bowl of chocolate and some small wheaten loaves. Behind her, with an amusing show of dignity, stalked a large heron, an elegant bird, with long, scarlet legs, gray plumage, and a gracefully curved neck. When the bird reached the threshold it stopped, and without warning gave vent to a prolonged series of shrill, unmusical sounds. The startled priest sat up in his bed and exclaimed in amazement.

"It is only Cantar-las-horas, Padre," laughed the little maid. "He follows me wherever I go, unless he is off fishing. Sometimes when I go out in the boat with padre Rosendo he flies clear across the lake to meet us. He is lots older than I, and years ago, when there were Curas here, he learned his song. Whenever the Angelas rang he would try to sing just like it; and now he has the habit and can't help it. But he is such a dear, wise old fellow," twining a chubby arm lovingly about the bird's slender neck; "and he always sings just at six o'clock, the time the Angelas used to ring."

The heron manifested the deepest affection for the child as she gently stroked its plumage and caressed its long, pointed bill.

"But how do you suppose he knows when it is just six o'clock, chiquita?" asked Josè, deeply interested in the strange phenomenon.

"God tells him, Padre," was the direct and simple reply.

Assuredly, he should have known that! But he was fast learning of this unusual child, whose every movement was a demonstration of Immanuel.

"Does God tell you what to do, Carmen?" he asked, seeking to draw out the girl's strange thought, that he might probe deeper into her religious convictions.

"Why, yes, Padre." Her tone expressed surprise. "Doesn't He tell you, too?" Her great eyes searched him. He was a Cura; he should be very close to God.

"Yes, chiquita--that is, He has told me to-day what to do."

There was a shade of disappointment in her voice when she replied: "I guess you mean you listened to Him to-day, don't you, Padre? I think sometimes you don't want to hear Him. But," she finished with a little sigh, "there are lots of people here who don't; and that is why they are sick and unhappy."

Josè was learning another lesson, that of guarding his speech to this ingenuous girl. He discreetly changed the subject.

"What have you been doing this afternoon, little one?"

Her eyes instantly brightened, and the dark shade that had crossed her face disappeared.

"Well, after the siesta I helped madre Maria clean the yuccas for supper; and then I did my writing lesson. Padre Rosendo told me to-day that I could write better than he. But, Padre, will you teach madre Maria to read and write? And there are just lots of poor people here who can't, too. There is a school teacher in Simití, but he charges a whole peso oro a month for teaching; and the people haven't the money, and so they can't learn."

Always the child shifted his thought from herself to others. Again she showed him that the road to happiness wound among the needs of his fellow-men. The priest mentally recorded the instruction; and the girl continued:

"Padre Rosendo told madre Maria that you said you had come to Simití to die. You were not thinking of us then, were you, Padre? People who think only of themselves always want to die. That was why Don Luis died last year. He had lots of gold, and he always wanted more, and he was cruel and selfish, and he couldn't talk about anything but himself and how rich he was--and so he died. He didn't really die; but he thought about himself until he thought he died. And so they buried him. That's what always happens to people who think about themselves all the time--they get buried."

Josè was glad of the silence that fell upon them. Wrapped so long in his own egoism, he had now no worldly wisdom with which to match this girl's sapient words. He waited. He felt that Carmen was but the channel through which a great Voice was speaking.

"Padre," the tones were tender and soft, "you don't always think of good things, do you?"

"I? Why, no, little girl. I guess I haven't done so. That is, not always. But--"

"Because if you had you wouldn't have been driven into the lake that day. And you wouldn't be here now in Simití."

"But, child, even a Cura cannot always think of good things, when he sees so much wickedness in the world!"

"But, Padre, God is good, isn't He?"

"Yes, child." The necessity to answer could not be avoided.

"And He is everywhere?"

"Yes." He had to say it.

"Then where is the wickedness, Padre?"

"Why--but, chiquita, you don't understand; you are too young to reason about such things; and--"

In his heart Josè knew he spoke not the truth. He felt the great brown eyes of the girl penetrate his naked soul; and he knew that in the dark recesses of the inner man they fell upon the grinning skeleton of hypocrisy. Carmen might be, doubtless was, incapable of reasoning. Of logical processes she knew nothing. But by what crass assumption might he, admittedly woefully defeated in his combat with Fate, oppose his feeble shafts of worldly logic to this child's instinct, an instinct of whose inerrancy her daily walk was a living demonstration? In quick penitence and humility he stretched out his arm and drew her unresisting to him.

"Dear little child of God," he murmured, as he bent over her and touched his lips to her rich brown curls, "I have tried my life long to learn what you already know. And at last I have been led to you--to you, little one, who shall be a lamp unto my feet. Dearest child, I want to know your God as you know Him. I want you to lead me to Him, for you know where He is."

"He is everywhere, Padre dear," whispered the child, as she nestled close to the priest and stole her soft arms gently about his neck. "But we don't see Him nor hear Him if we have bad thoughts, and if we don't love everybody and everything, even Cucumbra, and Cantar-las-horas, and--"

"Yes, chiquita, I know now," interrupted Josè. "I don't wonder they all love you."

"But, Padre dear, I love them--and I love you."

The priest strained her to him. His famished heart yearned for love. Love! first of the tender graces which adorned this beautiful child. Verily, only those imbued with it become the real teachers of men. The beloved disciple's last instruction to his dear children was the tender admonition to love one another. But why, oh, why are we bidden to love the fallen, sordid outcasts of this wicked world--the wretched, sinning pariahs--the greedy, grasping, self-centered mass of humanity that surges about us in such woeful confusion of good and evil? Because the wise Master did. Because he said that God was Love. Because he taught that he who loves not, knows not God. And because, oh, wonderful spiritual alchemy! because Love is the magical potion which, dropping like heavenly dew upon sinful humanity, dissolves the vice, the sorrow, the carnal passions, and transmutes the brutish mortal into the image and likeness of the perfect God.

Far into the night, while the child slept peacefully in the bed near him, Josè lay thinking of her and of the sharp turn which she had given to the direction of his life. Through the warm night air the hoarse croaking of distant frogs and the mournful note of the toucan floated to his ears. In the street without he heard at intervals the pattering of bare feet in the hot, thick dust, as tardy fishermen returned from their labors. The hum of insects about his toldo lulled him with its low monotone. The call of a lonely jaguar drifted across the still lake from the brooding jungle beyond. A great peace lay over the ancient town; and when, in the early hours of morning, as the distorted moon hung low in the western sky, Josè awoke, the soft breathing of the child fell upon his ears like a benediction; and deep from his heart there welled a prayer--

"My God--her God--at last I thank Thee!"

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