"No, a lie is utterly unreal, not founded on anything but supposition, either ignorant or malicious."

"Then Jesus said sickness was a supposition, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"And God, who made everything real, didn't make suppositions. He made only real things."

"True, child."

"Well, Padre dear, if you know all that, why don't you act as if you did?"

Act? Yes, act your knowledge! Acknowledge Him in all your ways! Then He shall bring it to pass! What? That which is real—life, not death—immortality, not oblivion—love, not hate—good, not evil!

"Chiquita—" His voice was thick. "You—you believe all that, don't you?"

"No, Padre dear"—she smiled up at him through the darkness—"I don't believe it, I know it."

"But—how—how do you know it?"

"God tells me, Padre. I hear Him, always. And I prove it every day. The trouble is, you believe it, but I don't think you ever try to prove it. If you believed my problems in algebra could be solved, but never tried to prove it—well, you wouldn't do very much in algebra, would you?" She laughed at the apt comparison.

Jose's straining eyes were peering straight ahead. Through the thick gloom he saw the mutilated figure of the Christ hanging on its cross beside the crumbling altar. It reflected the broken image of the Christ-principle in the hearts of men. And was he not again crucifying the gentle Christ? Did not the world daily crucify him and nail him with their false beliefs to the cross of carnal error which they set up in the Golgotha of their own souls? And were they not daily paying the awful penalty therefor? Aye, paying it in agony, in torturing agony of soul and body, in blasted hopes, crumbling ambitions, and inevitable death!

"Padre dear, what did the good man say sickness came from?" Carmen's soft voice brought him back from his reflections.

"Sickness? Why, he always coupled disease with sin."

"And sin?"

"Sin is—is unrighteousness."

"And that is—?" she pursued relentlessly.

"Wrong conduct, based on wrong thinking. And wrong thinking is based on wrong beliefs, false thought."

"But to believe that there is anything but God, and the things He made, is sin, isn't it, Padre dear?"

"Sin is—yes, to believe in other powers than God is to break the very first Commandment—and that is the chief of sins!"

"Well, Padre dear, can't you make yourself think right? Do you know what you really think about God, anyway?"

Jose rose and paced up and down through the dark aisle.

"I try to think," he answered, "that He is mind; that He is infinite, everywhere; that He is all-powerful; that He knows all things; and that He is perfect and good. I try not to think that He made evil, or anything that is or could be bad, or that could become sick, or decay, or die. Whatever He made must be real, and real things last forever, are immortal, eternal. I strive to think He did make man in His image and likeness—and that man has never been anything else—that man never 'fell.'"

"What is that, Padre?"

"Only an old, outworn theological belief. But, to resume: I believe that, since God is mind, man must be an idea of His. Since God is infinite, man must exist in Him. I know that any number of lies can be made up about true things. And any number of falsities can be assumed about God and what He has made. I am sure that the material universe and man are a part of the lie about God and the way He manifests and expresses Himself in and through His ideas. Everything is mental. We must hold to that! The mental realm includes all truth, all fact. But there may be all sorts of supposition about this fact. And yet, while fact is based upon absolute and undeviating principle—and I believe that principle to be God—supposition is utterly without any rule or principle whatsoever. It is wholly subject to truth, to Principle, to God. Hence, bad or wrong thought is absolutely subject to good or real thought, and must go down before it. The mortal man is a product of wrong thought. He is a supposition; and so is the universe of matter in which he is supposed to live. We have already learned that the things he thinks he hears, feels, tastes, smells, and sees are only his own thoughts. And these turn out to be suppositions. Hence, they are nothing real."

"Well, Padre! How fast you talk! And—such big words! I—I don't think I understand all you say. But, anyway, I guess it is right." She laughed again.

"I know it is right!" he exclaimed, forgetting that he was talking to a child. "Evil, which includes sickness and death, is only a false idea of good. It is a misinterpretation, made in the thought-activity which constitutes what we call the human consciousness. And that is the opposite—the suppositional opposite—of the mind that is God. Evil, then, becomes a supposition and a lie. Just what Jesus said it was!"

"But, Padre—I don't see why you don't act as if you really believed all that!"

"Fear—only fear! It has not yet been eradicated from my thought," he answered slowly.

"But, Padre, what will drive it out?"

"Love, child—love only, for 'perfect love casteth out fear.'"

"Oh, then, Padre dear, I will just love it all out of you, every bit!" she exclaimed, clasping her arms about him again and burying her face in his shoulder.

"Ah, little one," he said sadly, "I must love more. I must love my fellow-men and good more than myself and evil. If I didn't love myself so much, I would have no fear. If I loved God as you do, dearest child, I would never come under fear's heavy shadow."

"You do love everybody—you have got to, for you are God's child. And now," she added, getting down and drawing him toward the door, "let us go out of this smelly old church. I want you to come home. We've got to have our lessons, you know."

"But—child, the people will not let me come near them—nor you either, now," he said, holding back. "They think we may give them the disease."

She looked up at him with a tender, wistful smile. Then she shook her head. "Padre dear, I love you," she said, "but you make me lots of trouble. But—we are going to love all the fear away, and—" stamping her little bare foot—"we are going to get the right answer to your problem, too!"

The priest took her hand, and together they passed out into the dazzling sunlight.

On the brow of the hill stood Rosendo, talking excitedly, and with much vehement gesticulation, to Dona Maria, who remained a safe distance from him. The latter and her good consort exclaimed in horror when they saw Carmen with the priest.

"Caramba!" cried Rosendo, darting toward them. "I could kill you for this, Padre! Hombre! How came the child here, and with you? Dios mio! Have you no heart, but that, when you know you may die, you would take her with you?" He swung his long arms menacingly before the priest, and his face worked with passion.

The girl ran between the two men. "Padre Rosendo!" she cried, seizing one of his hands in both of her own. "I came of myself. He did not call me. I found him asleep. And he isn't going to die—nor I, either!"

Dona Maria approached and quietly joined the little group.

"Caramba! Go back!" cried the distressed Rosendo, turning upon her. "Hombre! Dios y diablo! will you all die?" He stamped the ground and tore his hair in his impotent protest.

"Na, Rosendo," said the woman placidly, "if you are in danger, I will be too. If you must die, so will I. I will not be left alone."

A thrill of admiration swept over the priest. Then he smiled wanly. "Bien," he said, "we have all been exposed to the plague now, and we will stand together. Shall we return home?"

Rosendo's anger soon evaporated, but his face retained traces of deep anxiety. "Maria tells me, Padre," he said, "that Amado Sanchez fell sick last night with the flux, and nobody will stay with him, excepting his woman."

"Let us go to him, then," replied the priest. "Dona Maria, do you and Carmen return to your house, whilst Rosendo and I seek to be of service to those who may need us."

Together they started down the main street of the town. Dead silence reigned everywhere. Many of the inhabitants had fled to the hills. But there were still many whose circumstances would not permit of flight. As they neared Rosendo's house the little party were hailed from a distance by Juan Mendoza and Pedro Cardenas, neighbors living on either side of Rosendo and the priest.

"Hola, Padre and Don Rosendo!" they called; "you cannot return to your homes, for you would expose us to the plague! Go back! Go back! We will burn the houses over your heads if you return!"

"But, amigos—" Jose began.

"Na, Padre," they cried in tense excitement, "it is for the best! Go back to the hill! We will supply you with food and blankets—but you must not come here! Amado Sanchez is sick; Guillermo Hernandez is sick. Go back! You must not expose us!" The attitude of the frightened, desperate men was threatening. Jose saw that it would be unwise to resist them.

"Bien, compadres, we will go," he said, his heart breaking with sorrow for these children of fear. Then, assembling his little family, he turned and retraced his steps sadly through the street that burned in lonely silence in the torrid heat.

Carmen's eyes were big with wonder; but a happy idea soon drove all apprehension from her thought. "Padre!" she exclaimed, "we will live in the old church, and we will play house there!" She clapped her hands in merriment.

"Never!" muttered Rosendo. "I will not enter that place! It would bring the plague upon me! Na! na!" he insisted, when they reached the steps, "do you go in if you wish; but I will stay outside in the shadow of the building." Nor would the combined entreaties of Carmen and Jose induce him to yield. Dona Maria calmly and silently prepared to remain with him.

"Pull off the old door, Padre!" cried Carmen excitedly. "And open all the shutters. Look! Look, Padre! There goes the bad angel that padre Rosendo was afraid of!" A number of bats, startled at the noise and the sudden influx of light, were scurrying out through the open door.

"Like the legion of demons which Jesus sent into the swine," said Jose. "I will tell you the story some day, chiquita," he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.

The day passed quickly for the child, nor did she seem to cast another thought in the direction of the cloud which hung over the sorrowing town. At dusk, Mendoza and Cardenas came to the foot of the hill with food and blankets.

"Amado Sanchez has just died," they reported.

"What!" cried Jose. "So soon? Why—he fell sick only yesterday!"

"No, Padre, he had been ailing for many days—but it may have been the plague just the same. Perhaps it was with us before Feliz brought it. But we have not exposed ourselves to the disease and—Padre—there is not a man in Simiti who will bury Amado. What shall we do?"

Jose divined the man's thought. "Bien, amigo," he replied. "Go you back to your homes. To-night Rosendo and I will come and bury him."

Jose had sent Carmen and Dona Maria beyond the church, that they might not hear the grewsome tidings. When the men had returned to their homes, the little band on the hilltop ate their evening meal in silence. Then a bench was swept clean for Carmen's bed, for she insisted on sleeping in the old church with Jose when she learned that he intended to pass the night there.

Again, as the heavy shadows were gathering, Jose and Rosendo descended into the town and bore out the body of Amado Sanchez to a resting place beside the poor lad who had died the day before. To a man of such delicate sensibilities as Jose, whose nerves were raw from continual friction with a world with which he was ever at variance, this task was one of almost unendurable horror. He returned to the old church in a state bordering on collapse.

"Rosendo," he murmured, as they seated themselves on the hillside in the still night, "I think we shall all die of the plague. And it were well so. I am tired, utterly tired of striving to live against such odds. Bien, let it come!"

"Courage, compadre!" urged Rosendo, putting his great arm about the priest's shoulders. "We must all go some time, and perhaps now; but while we live let us live like men!"

"You do not fear death?"

"No—what is it that the old history of mine says? 'Death is not departing, but arriving.' I am not afraid. But the little Carmen—I wish that she might live. She—ah, Padre, she could do much good in the world. Bien, we are all in the hands of the One who brought us here—and He will take us in the way and at the time that He appoints—is it not so, Padre?"

Jose lapsed again into meditation. No, he could not say that it was so. The thoughts which he had expressed to Carmen that morning still flitted through his mind. The child was right—Rosendo's philosophy was that of resignation born of ignorance. It was the despair of doubt. And he did not really think that Carmen would be smitten of the plague. Something seemed to tell him that it was impossible. But, on the other hand, he would himself observe every precaution in regard to her. No, he would not sleep in the church that night. He had handled the body of the plague's second victim, and he could not rest near the child. Perhaps exposure to the night air and the heavy dews would serve to cleanse him. And so he wrapped himself in the blanket which Dona Maria brought from within the church, and lay down beside the faithful pair.

In the long hours of that lonely night Jose lay beneath the shimmering stars pondering, wondering. Down below in the smitten town the poor children of his flock were eating their hearts out in anxious dread and bitter sorrow. Was it through any fault of theirs that this thing had come upon them, like a bolt from a cloudless sky? No—except that they were human, mortal. And if the thing were real, it came from the mind that is God; if unreal—but it seemed real to these simple folk, terribly so!

His heart yearned toward them as his thought penetrated the still reaches of the night and hovered about their lonely vigil. Yet, what had he to offer? What balm could he extend to those wearing out weary hours on beds of agony below? Religion? True religion, if they could but understand it; but not again the empty husks of the faith that had been taught them in the name of Christ! Where did scholastic theology stand in such an hour as this? Did it offer easement from their torture of mind and body? No. Strength to bear in patience their heavy burden? No. Hope? Not of this life—nay, naught but the thread-worn, undemonstrable promise of a life to come, if, indeed, they might happily avoid the pangs of purgatory and the horrors of the quenchless flames of hell! God, what had not the Church to answer for!

And yet, these ignorant children were but succumbing to the evidence of their material senses—though small good it would do to tell them so! Could they but know—as did Carmen—that rejection of error and reception of truth meant life—ah, could they but know! Could he himself but know—really know—that God is neither the producer of evil, nor the powerless witness of its ravages—could he but understand and prove that evil is not a self-existing entity, warring eternally with God, what might he not accomplish! For Jesus had said: "These signs"—the cure of disease, the rout of death—"shall follow them that believe," that understand, that know. Why could he not go down to those beds of torture and say with the Christ: "Arise, for God hath made thee whole"? He knew why—"without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh of God must believe"—must know—"that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." The suffering victims in the town below were asleep in a state of religious dullness. The task of independent thinking was onerous to such as they. Gladly did they leave it to the Church to do their thinking for them. And thus did they suffer for the trust betrayed!

But truth is omnipotent, and "one with God is a majority." Jesus gave few rules, but none more fundamental than that "with God all things are possible." Was he, Jose, walking with God? If so, he might arise and go down into the stricken town and bid its frightened children be whole. If he fully recognized "the Father" as all-powerful, all-good, and if he could clearly see and retain his grasp on the truth that evil, the supposititious opposite of good, had neither place nor power, except in the minds of mortals receptive to it—ah, then—then——

A soft patter of little feet on the shales broke in upon his thought. He turned and beheld Carmen coming through the night.

"Padre dear," she whispered, "why didn't you come and sleep in the church with me?" She crept close to him. He had not the heart nor the courage to send her away. He put out his arm and drew her to him.

"Padre dear," the child murmured, "it is nice out here under the stars—and I want to be with you—I love you—love you—" The whisper died away, and the child slept on his arm.

"Perfect love casteth out fear."



CHAPTER 20

Dawn brought Juan Mendoza and Pedro Cardenas again to the hill, and with them came others. "Mateo Gil, Pablo Polo, and Juanita Gomez are sick, Padre," announced Mendoza, the spokesman. "They ask for the last sacrament. You could come down and give it to them, and then return to the hill, is it not so?"

"Yes," assented Jose, "I will come."

"And, Padre," continued Mendoza, "we talked it over last night, after Amado Sanchez died, and we think it would help if you said a Mass for us in the church to-day."

"I will do so this afternoon, after I have visited the sick," he replied pityingly.

Mendoza hesitated. Then—

"We think, too, Padre, that if we held a procession—in honor of Santa Barbara—perhaps she would pray for us, and might stop the sickness. We could march through the town this evening, while you stood here and prayed as we passed around the hill. What say you, Padre?"

Jose was about to express a vehement protest. But the anxious faces directed toward him melted his heart.

"Yes, children," he replied gently, "do as you wish. Keep your houses this afternoon while I visit the sick and offer the Mass. I will leave the hostia on the altar. You need not fear to touch it. Carry it with you in your rogation to Santa Barbara this evening, and I will stand here and pray for you."

The people departed, sorrowing, but grateful. Hope revived in the breasts of some. But most of them awaited in trembling the icy touch of the plague.

"Padre," said Rosendo, when the people had gone. "I have been thinking about the sickness, and I remember what my father told me he learned from a Jesuit missionary. It was that the fat from a human body would cure rheumatism. And then the missionary laughed and said that the fat from a plump woman would cure all diseases of mind and body. If that is so, Padre, and Juanita Gomez dies—she is very plump, Padre—could we not take some of the fat from her body and rub it on the sick—"

"God above, Rosendo! what are you saying!" cried Jose recoiling in horror.

"Caramba!" retorted the honest man. "Would you not try everything that might possibly save these people? What the missionary said may be true."

"No, my faithful ally," replied Jose. "You did not get the sense in which he said it. Neither human fat nor medicine of any kind will help these people. Nothing will be accomplished for them until their fear has been removed. For, I—well, the symptoms manifested by poor Feliz may have been those of Asiatic cholera. But—I begin to doubt. And as for Sanchez—Bien, we do not know—not for certain." He stopped and pondered the question.

"Padre," pursued Rosendo, "I have used the liver of a lizard for toothache, and it was very good."

"I have no doubt of it, Rosendo," replied Jose, with a smile. "And in days past stranger remedies than that were used by supposedly wise people. When the eyesight was poor, they rubbed wax from the human ear upon the eyes, and I doubt not marvelous restorations of sight were made. So also dogs' teeth were ground into powder and taken to alleviate certain bodily pains. Almost everything that could be swallowed has been taken by mankind to cure their aches and torments. But they still ache to-day; and will continue to do so, I believe, until their present state of mind greatly changes."

When the simple midday meal of corn arepa and black coffee was finished, Jose descended into the quiet town. "It is absurd that we should be kept on the hill," he had said to Rosendo, "but these dull, simple minds believe that, having handled those dead of the plague, we have become agents of infection. They forget that they themselves are living either in the same house with it, or closely adjacent. But it humors them, poor children, and we will stay here for their sakes."

"Caramba! and they have made us their sextons!" muttered Rosendo.

Jose shuddered. The clammy hand of fear again reached for his heart. He turned to Carmen, who was busily occupied in the shade of the old church.

"Your lessons, chiquita?" he queried, going to her for a moment's abstraction.

"No, Padre dear," she replied, smiling up at him, while she quickly concealed the bit of paper on which she had been writing.

"Then what are you doing, little one?" he insisted.

"Padre dear—don't—don't always make me tell you everything," she pleaded, but only half in earnest, as she cast an enigmatical glance at him.

"But this time I insist on knowing; so you might as well tell me."

"Well then, if you must know," she replied, her face beaming with a happiness which seemed to Jose strangely out of place in that tense atmosphere, "I have been writing a question to God." She held out the paper.

"Writing a question to God! Well—!"

"Why, yes, Padre dear. I have done that for a long, long time. When I want to know what to do, and think I don't see just what is best, I write my question to God on a piece of paper. Then I read it to Him, and tell Him I know He knows the answer and that He will tell me. And then I put the paper under a stone some place, and—well, that's all, Padre. Isn't it a good way?" She beamed at him like a glorious noonday sun.

The priest stood before her in wonder and admiration. "And does He tell you the answers to your questions, chiquita?" he asked tenderly.

"Always, Padre dear. Not always right away—but He never fails—never!"

"Will you tell me what you are asking Him now?" he said.

She handed him the paper. His eyes dimmed as he read:

"Dear, dear Father, please tell your little girl and her dear Padre Jose what it is that makes the people think they have to die down in the town."

"And where will you put the paper, little girl?" he asked, striving to control his voice.

"Why, I don't know, Padre. Oh, why not put it under the altar in this old church?" she exclaimed, pleased with the thought of such a novel hiding place.

"Excellent!" assented Jose; and together they entered the building. After much stumbling over rubbish, much soiling of hands and disturbing of bats and lizards, while Carmen's happy laugh rang merrily through the gloomy old pile, they laid the paper carefully away behind the altar in a little pocket, and covered it with an adobe brick.

"There!" panted the girl, the task finished. "Now we will wait for the answer."

Jose went down into the ominous silence of the town with a lighter heart. The sublime faith of the child moved before him like a beacon. To the sick he spoke words of comfort, with the vision of Carmen always before him. At the altar in the empty church, where he offered the Mass in fulfillment of his promise to the people, her fair form glowed with heavenly radiance from the pedestal where before had stood the dilapidated image of the Virgin. He prepared the sacred wafer and left a part of it on the altar for the people to carry in their procession to Santa Barbara. The other portion he took to the sick ones who had asked for the sacrament.

Two more had fallen ill that afternoon. Mateo Gil, he thought, could not live the night through. He knelt at the loathsome bedside of the suffering man and prayed long and earnestly for light. He tried not to ask, but to know. While there, he heard a call from the street, announcing the passing of Guillermo Hernandez. Another one! His heart sank again. The plague was upon them in all its cruel virulence.

Sadly he returned to the hill, just as the sun tipped the highest peaks of the Cordilleras. Standing on the crest, he waited with heavy heart, while the mournful little procession wended its sad way through the streets below. An old, battered wooden image of one of the Saints, rescued from the oblivion of the sacristia, had been dressed to represent Santa Barbara. This, bedecked with bits of bright colored ribbon, was carried at the head of the procession by the faithful Juan. Following him, Pedro Gonzales, old and tottering, bore a dinner plate, on which rested the hostia, while over the wafer a tall young lad held a soiled umbrella, for there was no canopy.

A slow chant rose from the lips of the people like a dirge. It struck the heart of the priest like a chill wind. "Ora pro nobis! Ora pro nobis!" Tears streamed from his eyes while he gazed upon his stricken people. Slowly, wearily, they wound around the base of the hill, some sullen with despair, others with eyes turned beseechingly upward to where the priest of God stood with outstretched hands, his full heart pouring forth a passionate appeal to Him to turn His light upon these simple-minded children. When they had gone back down the road, their bare feet raising a cloud of thick dust which hid them from his view, Jose sank down upon the rock and buried his face in his hands.

"I know—I think I know, oh, God," he murmured; "but as yet I have not proved—not yet. But grant that I may soon—for their sakes."

Rosendo touched his shoulder. "There is another body to bury to-night, Padre. Eat now, and we will go down."

* * * * *

Standing over the new grave, in the solemn hush of night, the priest murmured: "I am the resurrection and the life." But the mound upon which Rosendo was stolidly heaping the loose earth marked only another victory of the mortal law of death over a human sense of life. And there was no one there to call forth the sleeping man.

"Behold, I give you power over all things," said the marvelous Jesus. The wondrous, irresistible power which he exerted in behalf of suffering humanity, he left with the world when he went away. But where is it now?

"Still here," sighed the sorrowing priest, "still here—lo, always here—but we know it not. Sunken in materiality, and enslaved to the false testimony of the physical senses, we lack the spirituality that alone would enable us to grasp and use that Christ-power, which is the resurrection and the life."

"Padre," said Rosendo, when they turned back toward the hill, "Hernandez is now with the angels. You gave him the sacrament, did you not?"

"Yes, Rosendo."

"Bien, then you remitted his sins, and he is doubtless in paradise. But," he mused, "it may be that he had first to pass through purgatory. Caramba! I like not the thought of those hot fires!"

"Rosendo!" exclaimed Jose in impatience. "Your mental wanderings at times are puerile! You talk like the veriest child! Do not be deceived, Hernandez is still the same man, even though he has left his earthly body behind. Do not think he has been lifted at once into eternal bliss. The Church has taught such rubbish for ages, and has based its pernicious teachings upon the grossly misunderstood words of Jesus. The Church is a failure—a dead, dead failure, in every sense of the word! And that man lying there in his grave is a ghastly proof of it!"

Rosendo looked wonderingly at the excited priest, whose bitter words rang out so harshly on the still night air.

"The Church has failed utterly to preserve the simple gospel of the Christ! It has basely, wantonly betrayed its traditional trust! It has fought and slain and burned for centuries over trivial, vulnerable non-essentials, and thrown its greatest pearls to the swine! It no longer prophesies; it carps and reviles! It no longer heals the sick; but it conducts a purgatorial lottery at so much a head! It has become a jumble of idle words, a mumbling of silly formulae, a category of stupid, insensate ceremonies! Its children are taught to derive their faith from such legends as that of the holy Saint Francis, who, to convince a heretic, showed the hostia to an ass, which on beholding the sacred dough immediately kneeled! Good God!"

"Ca-ram-ba! But you speak hard words, Padre!" muttered Rosendo, vague speculations flitting through his brain as to the priest's mental state.

"God!" continued Jose heatedly, "the Church has fought truth desperately ever since the Master's day! It has fawned at the feet of emperor and plutocrat, and licked the bloody hand of the usurer who tossed her a pittance of his foul gains! In the great world-battles for reform, for the rights of man, for freedom from the slavery of man to man or to drink and drugs, she has come up only as the smoke has cleared away, but always in time to demand the spoils! She has filched from the systems of philosophy of every land and age, and after bedaubing them with her own gaudy colors, has foisted them upon unthinking mankind as divine decrees and mandates! She has foully insulted God and man!—"

"Caramba, Padre! You are not well! Hombre, we must get back to the hill! You are falling sick!"

"I am not, Rosendo! You voice the Church's stock complaint of every man who exposes her shams: 'He hath a devil!'"

Rosendo whistled softly. Jose went on more excitedly:

"You ask if Hernandez is in paradise or purgatory. He is in a state no better nor worse than our own, for both are wholly mental. We are now in the fires of as great a purgatory as any man can ever experience! Yes, there is a purgatory—right here on earth—and it follows us after death, and after every death that we shall die, until we learn to know God and see Him as infinite good, without taint or trace of evil! The flames of hell are eternal to us as long as we eat of 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'—as long as we believe in other powers than God—as long as we believe sin and disease and evil to be as real and as potent as good! When we know these things as awful human illusions, and when we recognize God as the infinite mind that did not create evil, and does not know or behold it, then, and then only, will the flames of purgatory and hell in this state of consciousness which we mistakenly call life, and in the states of consciousness still to come, begin to diminish in intensity, and finally die out!"

He walked along in silence for some moments. Then he turned to Rosendo and put his hand affectionately upon the old man's shoulder. "My good friend," he said more calmly, "I speak with intense feeling, for I have suffered much through the intolerance, the unspirituality, and the worldly ambition of the agents of Holy Church. I suffer, because I see what she is, and how widely she has missed the mark. But, worse, I see how blindly, how cruelly, she leads and betrays her trusting children—and it is the thought of that which at times almost drives me mad! But never mind me, Rosendo. Let me rave. My full heart must empty itself. Do you but look to Carmen for your faith. She is not of the Church. She knows God, and she will lead you straight to Him. And as you follow her, your foolish ideas of purgatory, hell, and paradise, of wafers and virgins—all the tawdry beliefs which the Church has laid upon you, will drop off, one by one, and melt away as do the mists on the lake when the sun mounts high."

Carmen and Dona Maria sat against the wall of the old church, waiting for them. The child ran through the darkness and grasped Jose's hand.

"I wouldn't go to sleep until you came, Padre!" she cried happily. "I wanted to be sure you wouldn't sleep anywhere else than right next to me."

"Padre," admonished Rosendo anxiously, "do you think you ought to let her come close to you now? The plague—"

Jose turned to him and spoke low. "There is no power or influence that we can exert upon her, Rosendo, either for good or evil. She is obeying a spiritual law of which we know but little."

"And that, Padre?"

"Just this, Rosendo: 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.'"

The late moon peeped timidly above the drowsing treetops. Its yellow beams stole silently across the still lake and up the hillside to the crumbling church. When they reached the four quiet figures, huddled close against the ghostly wall, they filtered like streams of liquid gold through the brown curls of the little head lying on the priest's shoulder. And there they dwelt as symbols of Love's protecting care over the trusting children of this world, until the full dawn of the glorious sun of Truth.



CHAPTER 21

Jose rose from his hard bed stiff and weary. Depression sat heavily upon his soul, and he felt miserably unable to meet the day. Dona Maria was preparing the coffee over a little fire back of the church. The odor of the steaming liquid drifted to him on the warm morning air and gave him a feeling of nausea. A sharp pain shot through his body. His heart stopped. Was the plague's cold hand settling upon him? Giddiness seized him, and he sat down again upon the rocks.

In the road below a cloud of dust was rising, and across the distance a murmur of voices floated up to his ears. Men were approaching. He wondered dully what additional trouble it portended. Rosendo came to him at that moment.

"Muy buenos dias, Padre. I saw a boat come across the lake some minutes ago. I wonder if Don Mario has returned."

The men below were ascending the hill. Jose struggled to his feet and went forth to meet them. A familiar voice greeted him cheerily.

"Hola, Senor Padre Jose! Dios mio, but your hill is steep!"

Jose strained his eyes at the newcomer. The man quickly gained the summit, and hurried to grasp the bewildered priest's hand.

"Love of the Virgin! don't you know me, Senor Padre?" he cried, slapping Jose roundly upon the back.

The light of recognition slowly came into the priest's eyes. The man was Don Jorge, his erstwhile traveling companion on the Magdalena river.

"And now a cup of that coffee, if you will do me the favor, my good Cura. And then tell me what ails you here," he added, seating himself. "Caramba, what a town! Diego was right—the devil himself made this place! But they say you have all taken to dying! Have you nothing else to do? Caramba, I do not wonder! Such a God-forsaken spot! Well, what is it? Speak, man!"

Jose collected his scattered thoughts. "The cholera!" he said hoarsely.

"Cholera! Caramba! so they told me down below, and I would not believe them! But where did it come from?"

"One of our men brought it from Bodega Central."

"Bodega Central!" ejaculated Don Jorge. "Impossible! I came from there this morning myself. Have been there two days. There isn't a trace of cholera in the place, as far as I know! You have all gone crazy—but small wonder!" looking out over the decrepit town.

The priest's head was awhirl. He felt his senses leaving him. His ears were reporting things basely false. "You say—" he began in bewilderment.

"I say what I have said, amigo! There is no more cholera in Bodega Central than there is in heaven! I arrived there day before yesterday, and left before sunrise this morning. So I should know."

Jose sank weakly down at the man's side. "But—Don Jorge—Feliz Gomez returned from there three nights ago, and reported that a Turk, who had come up from the coast, had died of the plague!"

Don Jorge's brows knit in perplexity. "I recall now," he said slowly, after some moments of study. "The innkeeper did say that a Turk had died there—some sort of intestinal trouble, I believe. When I told him I was bound for Simiti, he laughed as if he would split, and then began to talk about the great fright he had given a man from here. Said he scared the fellow until his black face turned white. But I was occupied with my own affairs, and paid him little attention. But come, tell me all about it."

With the truth slowly dawning upon his clouded thought, Jose related the grewsome experiences of the past three days.

"Ca-ram-ba!" Don Jorge whistled softly. "Who would have thought it! But, was Feliz Gomez sick before he went to Bodega Central?"

"I do not know," replied Jose.

"Yes, senor," interposed Rosendo. "He and Amado Sanchez both had bowel trouble. Their women told my wife so, after you and I, Padre, had come up here to the hill. But it was nothing. We have it here often, as you know."

"True," assented Jose, "but we have never given it any serious thought."

Don Jorge leaned back and broke into a roar of laughter. "Por el amor del cielo! You are all crazy, amigo—you die like rats of fear! Did you ever put a mouse into a bottle and then scare it to death with a loud noise? Hombre! That is what has happened to you!" The hill reverberated with his loud shouts.

But Jose could not share in the merriment. The awful consequences of the innkeeper's coarse joke upon the childish minds of these poor, impressionable people pressed heavily upon his heart. Bitter tears welled to his eyes. He sprang to his feet.

"Come, Rosendo!" he cried. "We must go down and tell these people the truth!"

Don Jorge joined them, and they all hastened down into the town. Ramona Chaves met them in the plaza, her eyes streaming.

"Padre," she wailed, "my man Pedro has the sickness! He is dying!"

"Nothing of the kind, Ramona!" loudly cried Jose; "there is no cholera here!" He hastened to the bedside of the writhing Pedro.

"Up, man!" he shouted, seizing his hand. "Up! You are not sick! There is no cholera in Simiti! There is none in Bodega Central! Feliz did not bring it! He and Amado had only a touch of the flux, and they died of fear!"

The priest's ringing words acted upon the man like magic. He roused up from his lethargy and stared at the assemblage. Don Jorge repeated the priest's words, and added his own laughing and boisterous comments. Pedro rose from his bed, and stood staring.

Together, their little band augmented at every corner by the startled people, they hurried to the homes of all who lay upon beds of sickness, spreading the glad tidings, until the little town was in a state of uproar. Like black shadows before the light, the plague fled into the realm of imagination from which it had come. By night, all but Mateo Gil were up and about their usual affairs. But even Mateo had revived wonderfully; and Jose was confident that the good news would be the leaven of health that would work a complete restoration within him in time. The exiles left the hilltop and the old church, and returned again to their homes. Don Jorge took up his abode with Jose.

"Bien," he said, as they sat at the rear door of the priest's house, looking through the late afternoon haze out over the lake, "you have had a strange experience—Caramba! most strange!—and yet one from which you should gather an excellent lesson. You are dealing with children here—children who have always been rocked in the cradle of the Church. But—" looking archly at Jose, "do I offend? For, as I told you on the boat a year ago, I do not think you are a good priest." He laughed softly. "Bien," he added, "I will correct that. You are good—but not a priest, is it not so?"

"I have some views, Don Jorge, which differ radically from those of the faith," Jose said cautiously.

"Caramba! I should hope so!" his friend ejaculated.

"But," interposed Jose, anxious to direct the conversation into other channels, "may I ask how and where you have occupied yourself since I left the boat at Badillo?"

"Ah, Dios!" said Don Jorge, shaking his head, although his eyes twinkled. "I have wandered ever since—and am poorer now than when I started. I left our boat at Puerto Nacional, to go to Medellin; and from there to Remedios and Guamoco. But while in the river town I met another guaquero—grave hunter, you know—who was preparing to go to Honda, to investigate the 'castles' at that place. There is a strange legend—you may have heard it—hanging over those rocks. It appears that a lone hermit lived in one of the many caverns in the great limestone deposits rising abruptly from the river near the town of Honda. How he came there, no one knew. Day after day, year after year, he labored in his cave, extending it further into the hillside. People laughed at him for tunneling in that barren rock, for gold has never been found anywhere in it. But the fellow paid them no attention; and gradually he was accepted as a harmless fanatic, and was left unmolested to dig his way into the hill as far as he would. Years passed. No one knew how the fellow lived, for he held no human intercourse. Kind people often brought food and left it at the mouth of his cavern, but he would have none of it. They brought clothes, but they rotted where they were left. What he ate, no one could discover. At last some good soul planted a fig tree near the cave, hoping that the fruit in time would prove acceptable to him. One day they found the tree cut down. Bien, time passed, and he was forgotten. One day some men, passing the cave, found his body, pale and thin, with long, white hair, lying at the entrance. But—Caramba! when they buried the body they found it was that of a woman!"

He paused to draw some leaves of tobacco from his wallet and roll a thick cigar. The sudden turn of his story drew an expression of amazement from the priest.

"Bien," he resumed, "where the woman came from, and who she was, never was learned. Nor how she lived. But of course some one must have supplied her with food and clothes all these years. Perhaps she was some grand dame, with a dramatic past, who had come there to escape the world and do penance for her sins. What sorrow, what black tragedy that cave concealed, no one may ever know! Nor am I at all interested in that. The point is, either she found gold there, or had a quantity of it that she brought with her—at least so I thought at the time. So, when the guaquero at Puerto Nacional told me the story, nothing would do but I must go with him to search the cave. Caramba! We wasted three full months prying around there—and had our labor for our pains!"

He tilted his chair back and puffed savagely at his cigar.

"Well, then I got on the windy side of another legend, a wild tale of buried treasure in the vicinity of Mompox. Of course I hurried after it. Spent six months pawing the hot dirt around that old town. Fell in with your estimable citizen, Don Felipe, who swindled me out of a hundred good pesos oro on a fraudulent location and a forged map. Then I cursed him and the place and went up to Banco."

"Banco!" Jose's heart began beating rapidly. Don Jorge went on:

"Your genial friend Diego is back there. Told me about his trip to Simiti to see his little daughter."

"What did he say about her, amigo?" asked Jose in a controlled voice.

"Not much—only that he expected to send for her soon. You know, Rosendo's daughter is living with him. Fine looking wench, too!"

"But, Don Jorge," pursued Jose anxiously, "what think you, is the little Carmen Diego's child?"

"Hombre! How should I know? He no doubt has many."

"She does not look like him," asserted Jose, clinging to his note of optimism.

"No. And fortunate she is in that! Caramba, but he looks like an imp from sheol!"

Jose saw that little consolation was to be derived from Don Jorge as far as Carmen was concerned. So he allowed the subject to lapse.

"Bien," continued Don Jorge, whose present volubility was in striking contrast to his reticence on the boat the year before, "I had occasion to come up to Bodega Central—another legend, if I must confess it. And there Don Carlos Norosi directed me here."

"What a life!" exclaimed Jose.

"Yes, no doubt it appears so to you, Senor Padre," replied Don Jorge. "And yet my business, that of treasure hunting, has in times past proved very lucrative. The Indian graves of Colombia have yielded enormous quantities of gold. The Spaniards opened many of them; and in one, that of a famous chieftain, discovered down below us, near Zaragoza, they found a solid gold pineapple, a marvelous piece of workmanship, and of immense value. They sent it to the king of Spain. Caramba! it never would have reached him if I had been there!

"But," he resumed, "we have no idea of the amount of treasure that has been buried in various parts of Colombia. This country has been, and still is, enormously rich in minerals—a veritable gold mine of itself. And since the time of the Spanish conquest it has been in a state of almost constant turmoil. Nothing and nobody has been safe. And, up to very recent times, whenever the people collected a bit of gold above their daily needs, they promptly banked it with good Mother Earth. Then, like as not, they got themselves killed in the wars, and the treasure was left for some curious and greedy hunter like myself to dig up years after. The Royalists and Tories buried huge sums all over the country during the War of Independence. Why, it was only a year or so ago that two men came over from Spain and went up the Magdalena river to Bucaramanga. They were close-mouthed fellows, well-dressed, and evidently well-to-do. But they had nothing to say to anybody. The innkeeper pried around until he discovered that they spent much time in their room poring over maps and papers. Then they set off alone, with an outfit of mules and supplies to last several weeks. Bueno, they came back at last with a box of good size, made of mahogany, and bound around with iron bands. Caramba! They did not tarry long, you may be sure. And I learned afterward that they sailed away safely from Cartagena, box and all, for sunny Spain, where, I doubt not, they are now living in idleness and gentlemanly ease on what they found in the big coffer they dug up near that old Spanish city."

Jose listened eagerly. To him, cooped up for a year and more in the narrow confines of Simiti, the ready flow of this man's conversation was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation.

"Caramba, but the old Indian chiefs were wise fellows!" Don Jorge pursued. "They seemed to know that greedy vandals like myself would some day poke around in their last resting places for the gold that was always buried with them—possibly to pay their freight across the dark river. And so they dug their graves in the form of an L, in the extreme tip of which the royal carcasses were laid. In this way they have deceived many a grave-hunter, who dug straight down without finding the body, which was safely tucked away in the toe of the L. I have gone back and reopened many a grave that I had abandoned as empty, and found His Royal Highness five or six feet to one side of the straight shaft I had previously sunk."

"I suppose," mused Jose, "that you now follow this work because of its fascination—for you must have found and laid aside much treasure in the years that you have pursued it."

"Caramba!" ejaculated the guaquero. "I have been rich and poor, like the rising and setting of the sun! What I find, I spend again hunting more. It is the way of the world. The man who has enough money never knows it. And his greed for more—more that he needs not, and cannot possibly spend on himself—generally results, as in my case, in the loss of what he already has. But there are reasons aside from the excitement of the chase that keep me at it."

He fell strangely silent, and Jose knew that there were aroused within him memories that seared the tissues of the brain as they entered.

"Amigo," Don Jorge resumed. His voice was low, tense and cold. "There are some things which I am trying to forget. This exciting and dangerous business of mine keeps my thought occupied. I care nothing now for the treasure I may discover. But I crave forgetfulness. Do you understand?"

"Surely, good friend," replied Jose quickly; "and I ask pardon for recalling those things to you."

"De nada, amigo!" said Don Jorge, with a gesture of deprecation. Then: "I told you on the boat that I had lost a wife and girl. The Church got them both. I tell you this because I know you, too, have grievances against her. Caramba! Yet I will tell you only a part. I lived in Maganguey, where my wife's brother kept a store and did an excellent commission business. I was mining and hunting graves in the Cauca region, sometimes going up the Magdalena, too, and working on both sides of the river. Maganguey was a convenient place for me to live, as it stands at the junction of the two great rivers. Besides, my wife wished to remain near her own people. Bien, we had a daughter. She grew up fair and good. And then, one day, the priest told my wife that the girl was destined to a great future, and must enter a convent and consecrate herself to the Church. Caramba! I am not a Catholic—was never one! My parents were patriots, and both took part in the great war that gave liberty to this country. But they were liberal in thought; and I was never confirmed to the Church. Bien, the priest made my life a hell—my wife became estranged from me—and one day, returning from the Cauca, I found my house deserted. Wife and girl and the child's nurse had gone down the river!"

The man's face darkened, and hard lines drew around his mouth.

"They had taken my money chest, some thousands of pesos. I sought the priest. He laughed at me, and—Caramba! I struck him such a blow between his pig eyes that he lay senseless for hours!"

Jose glanced at the broad shoulders and the great knots of muscle on the man's arms. He was of medium height, but with a frame of iron.

"Bien, Senor Padre, I, too, fled wild and raving from Maganguey that night, and plunged into the jungle. Months later I drifted down the river, as far as Mompox. And there one day I chanced upon old Marcelena, the child's nurse. Like a cayman I seized her and dragged her into an alley. She confessed that my wife and girl were living there—the wife had become housekeeper for a young priest—the girl was in the convent. Caramba! I hurled the woman to the ground and turned my back upon the city!"

Jose's interest in the all too common recital received a sudden stimulus.

"Your daughter's name, Don Jorge, was—"

"Maria, Senor Padre."

"And—she would now be, how old, perhaps?"

"About twenty-two, I think."

"Her appearance?"

"Fair—complexion light, like her mother's. Maria was a beautiful child—and good as she was beautiful."

"But—the child's nurse remained with her?"

"Marcelena? Yes. She was devoted to the little Maria. The woman was old and ugly—but she loved the child."

"Did you not inquire for them when you were in Mompox a few months ago?" pursued Jose eagerly.

"I made slight inquiry through the clerk in the office of the Alcalde. I did not intend to—but I could not help it. Caramba! He made further inquiry, but said only that he was told they had long since gone down to Cartagena, and nothing had been heard from them."

The gates of memory's great reservoir opened at the touch of this man's story, and Jose again lived through that moonlit night in Cartagena, when the little victim of Wenceslas breathed out her life of sorrow and shame in his arms. He heard again the sobs of Marcelena and the simple-minded Catalina. He saw again the figure of the compassionate Christ in the smoke that drifted past the window. And now the father of that wronged girl sat before him, wrapped in the tatters of a shredded happiness! Should he tell him? Should he say that he had cared for this man's little grandson since his advent into this sense of existence that mortals call life? For there could be no doubt now that the little Maria was his daughter.

"Don Jorge," he said, "you have suffered much. My heart bleeds for you. And yet—"

"Na, Padre, there is nothing to do. Were I to find my family I could only slay them and the priests who came between us!"

"But, Don Jorge," cried Jose in horror, "you surely meditate no such vengeance as that!"

The man smiled grimly. "Senor Padre," he returned coldly, "I am Spanish. The blood of the old cavaliers flows in my veins. I have been betrayed, trapped, fooled, and my honored name has been foully soiled. What will remove the stain, think you? Blood—nothing else! Caramba! The priest of Maganguey who poured the first drop of poison into my wife's too willing ears—Bien, I have said enough!"

"Hombre! You don't mean—"

"I mean, Senor Padre, that I drifted down the river, unseen, to Maganguey one night. I entered that priest's house. He did not awake the next morning."

"God!" exclaimed Jose, starting up.

"Na, Padre, not God, but Satan! He rules this world."

Jose sank back in his chair. Don Jorge leaned forward and laid a hand upon his knee. "My friend," he said evenly, "you are young—how old, may I ask?"

"Twenty-seven," murmured Jose.

"Caramba! A child! Bien, you have much to learn. I took to you on the boat because I knew you had made a mess of things, and it was not entirely your fault. I have seen others like you. You are no more in the Church than I am. Now why do you stay here? Do I offend in asking?"

Jose hesitated. "I—I have—work here, senor," he replied.

"True," said Don Jorge, "a chance to do much for these poor people—if the odds are not too strong against you. But—are you working for them alone? Or—does Diego's child figure in the case? No offense, I assure you—I have reason to ask."

Jose sought to read his eyes. The man looked squarely into his own, and the priest found no deception in their black depths.

"I—senor, she cannot be Diego's child—and I—I would save her!"

Don Jorge nodded his head. "Bien," he said, "to-morrow I leave for San Lucas. I will return this way."

After the evening meal the guaquero spread his petate upon the floor and disposed himself for the night. He stubbornly refused to accept the priest's bed. "Caramba!" he muttered, after he had lain quiet for some time, "why does not the Church permit its clergy to marry, like civilized beings! Do you know, Senor Padre, I once met a woman in Bogota and held some discussion with her on this topic. She said, as between a priest who had children, and a married minister, she would infinitely prefer the priest, because, as she put it, no matter how dissolute the priest, the sacraments from his hands would still retain their validity—but never from those of a married minister! Caramba! what can you do against such bigotry and awful narrowness, such dense ignorance! Cielo!"

The following morning, before sunrise, Don Jorge and his boatmen were on the lake, leaving Jose to meditate on the vivid experiences of the past few days, their strange mental origin, and the lesson which they brought.



CHAPTER 22

"Padre dear," said Carmen, "you know the question that we put under the altar of the old church? Well, God answered it, didn't He?"

"I—why, I had forgotten it, child. What was it? You asked Him to tell us why the people thought they had to die, did you not? Well—and what was His answer?"

"Why, He told us that they were frightened to death, you know."

"True, chiquita. Fear killed them—nothing else! They paid the penalty of death for believing that Feliz Gomez had slept on a bed where a man had died of the plague. They died because they—"

"Because they didn't know that God was everywhere, Padre dear," interrupted Carmen.

"Just so, chiquita. And that is why all people die. And yet," he added sadly, "how are we going to make them know that He is everywhere?"

"Why, Padre dear, by showing them in our talk and our actions that we know it—by proving it, you know, just as we prove our problems in algebra."

"Yes, poor Feliz, and Amado, and Guillermo died because they sinned," he mused. "They broke the first Commandment by believing that there was another power than God. And that sin brought its inevitable wage, death. They 'missed the mark,' and sank into the oblivion of their false beliefs. God above! that I could keep my own mentality free from these same carnal beliefs, and so be a true missionary to suffering humanity! But you, Carmen, you are going to be such a missionary. And I believe," he muttered through his set teeth, "that I am appointed to shield the girl until God is ready to send her forth! But what, oh, what will she do when she meets that world which lies beyond her little Simiti?"

Rosendo had returned to Guamoco. "The deposit will not last much longer," he said to Jose, shaking his head dubiously. "And then—"

"Why, then we will find another, Rosendo," replied the priest optimistically.

"Ojala!" exclaimed the old man, starting for the trail.

The day after Don Jorge's departure the Alcalde returned. He stole shamefacedly through the streets and barricaded himself in his house. There he gave vent to his monumental wrath. He cruelly abused his long-suffering spouse, and ended by striking her across the face. After which he sat down and laboriously penned a long letter to Padre Diego, in which the names of Jose and Carmen figured plentifully.

For Don Jorge had met the Alcalde in Juncal, and had roundly jeered him for his cowardly flight. He cited Jose and Rosendo as examples of valor, and pointed out that the Alcalde greatly resembled a captain who fled at the smell of gunpowder. Don Mario swelled with indignation and shame. His spleen worked particularly against Rosendo and the priest. Come what might, it was time Diego and his superiors in Cartagena knew what was going on in the parish of Simiti!

A few days later an unctuous letter came to Jose from Diego, requesting that Carmen be sent to him at once, as he now desired to place her in a convent and thus supplement the religious education which he was sure Jose had so well begun in her. The priest had scarcely read the letter when Don Mario appeared at the parish house.

"Bien, Padre," he began smoothly, but without concealing the malice which lurked beneath his oily words, "Padre Diego sends for the little Carmen, and bids me arrange to have her conveyed at once to Banco. I think Juan will take her down, is it not so?"

Jose looked him squarely in the eyes. "No, senor," he said in a voice that trembled with agitation, "it is not so!"

"Hombre!" exclaimed Don Mario, swelling with suppressed rage. "You refuse to give Diego his own child?"

"No, senor, but I refuse to give him a child that is not his."

"Caramba! but she is—he has the proofs! And I shall send her to him this day!"

The Alcalde shrilled forth his rage like a ruffled parrot. Jose seized him by the shoulders and, turning him swiftly about, pushed him out into the road. He then entered the rear door of Rosendo's house and bade Dona Maria keep the child close to her.

A few minutes later Fernando Perez appeared at Jose's door. He was municipal clerk, secretary, and constable of Simiti, all in one. He saluted the priest gravely, and demanded the body of the child Carmen, to be returned to her proper father.

Jose groaned inwardly. What could he do against the established authority?

"Bien, Padre," said Fernando, after delivering his message, "the hour is too late to send her down the river to-day. But deliver her to me, and she shall go down at daybreak."

"Listen," Jose pleaded desperately, "Fernando, leave her here to-night—this is sudden, you must acknowledge—she must have time to take leave of Dona Maria—and—"

"Senor Padre, the Alcalde's order is that she go with me now. I must obey."

Jose felt his control oozing fast. Scarce knowing what he did, he quickly stepped back through the rear door, and going to Rosendo's house, seized a large machete, with which he returned to face the constable.

"Look you, Fernando," he cried, holding the weapon menacingly aloft, "if you lay a hand on that girl, I will scatter your brains through yonder plaza!"

"Caramba!" muttered the constable, falling back. "Bien," he hastily added, "I will make this report to the Alcalde!" With which he beat an abrupt retreat.

Jose sank into a chair. But he hastily arose and went into Rosendo's house. "Dona Maria!" he cried excitedly, "leave Carmen with me, and do you hurry through the town and see if Juan is here, and if Lazaro Ortiz has returned from the hacienda. Bid them come to me at once, and bring their machetes!"

The woman set out on her errand. Jose seized his machete firmly in one hand, and with the other drew Carmen to him.

"What is it, Padre dear?" the child asked, her eyes big with wonder. "Why do you tremble? I wish you wouldn't always go around thinking that two and two are seven!"

"Carmen, child—you do not understand—you are too young, and as yet you have had no experience with—with the world! You must trust me now!"

"I do not trust you, Padre," she said sadly. "I can't trust anybody who always sees things that are not so."

"Carmen—you are in danger—and you do not comprehend—" cried the desperate man.

"I am not in danger—and I do understand—a great deal better than you do, Padre. Now let me go—you are afraid! People who are afraid die of the plague!" The irony of her words sank into his soul.

Juan looked in at the door. Jose rose hastily. "Did you meet Dona Maria?" he asked.

"No, senor," the lad replied.

"She is searching for you—have you your machete?"

"Yes, Padre, I have just come back from the island, where I was cutting wood."

"Good, then! Remain here with me. I need you—or may."

He went to the door and looked eagerly down the street. "Ah!" he exclaimed with relief, "here come Dona Maria and Lazaro! Now, friends," he began, when they were assembled before him, "grave danger threatens—"

"Padre!" It was Dona Maria's voice. "Where is Carmen?"

Jose turned. The child had disappeared.

"Lazaro!" he cried, "go at once to the Boque trail! Let no one pass that way with Carmen, if your life be the penalty! Juan, hurry to the lake! If either of you see her, call loudly, and I will come! Dona Maria, start through the town! We must find her! God above, help us!"

* * * * *

The afternoon dragged its interminable length across the valley. Jose wearily entered his house and threw himself upon a chair. He had not dared call at the Alcalde's house, for fear he might do that official violence. But he had seen Fernando in the street, and had avoided him. Then, of a sudden, a thought came to him from out the darkness. He sprang to his feet and hurried off toward the shales. There, beneath the stunted algarroba tree, sat the child.

"Carmen!" He rushed to her and clasped her in his arms. "Why did you do this—?"

"Padre," she replied, when she could get her breath, "I had to come out here and try to know for you the things you ought to know for yourself."

He said nothing; but, holding her hand tightly, he led her back to the house.

That evening Jose sent for Don Mario, the constable, and Juan and Lazaro. Assembling them before him in his living room, he talked with them long and earnestly.

"Compadres," he said, "this week we have passed through a sad experience, and the dark angel has robbed us of three of our beloved friends. Is it your wish that death again visit us?"

They looked at one another in wonder. The Alcalde scowled darkly at the priest beneath his heavy brows. Jose continued:

"Bien, it is planned to seize the little Carmen by force, and send her down the river to Padre Diego—"

"Dios y diablo!" Juan had sprung to his feet. "Who says that, Padre?" he demanded savagely. The Alcalde shrank back in his chair.

"Be calm, Juan!" Jose replied. "Padre Diego sends for her by letter—is it not so, Don Mario?"

The latter grunted. Juan wheeled about and stared menacingly at the bulky official.

"Now, friends," Jose pursued, "it has not been shown that Carmen belongs to Diego—in fact, all things point to the conclusion that she is not his child. My wish is to be just to all concerned. But shall we let the child go to him, knowing what manner of man he is, until it is proven beyond all doubt that he is her father?"

"Caramba! No!" exclaimed Juan and Lazaro in unison.

"And I am of the opinion that the majority of our citizens would support us in the contention. What think you, friends?"

"Every man in Simiti, Padre," replied Lazaro earnestly.

"Don Mario," said Jose, turning to the Alcalde, "until it is established that Diego has a parent's claim to the girl, Juan and Lazaro and I will protect her with our lives. Is it not so, amigos?" addressing the two men.

"Hombre! Let me see a hand laid upon her!" cried Juan rising.

Lazaro spoke more deliberately. "Padre," he said. "I owe you much. I know you to be q good man—not like Padre Diego. I know not what claim he may have on the girl, but this I say: I will follow and support you until it is shown me that you are in the wrong."

Jose went over and clasped his hand. Then, to the town officials:

"Bien, amigos, we will let the matter rest thus, shall we not? We now understand one another. If harm comes to the child, the death angel will again stalk through this town, and—" he looked hard at Don Mario, whilst that official visibly shrank in size—"Bien," he concluded, "a sharp watch will be kept over the child. We will submit to proofs—but to nothing less. And violence will bring bloodshed and death."

"But—Caramba!" cried Don Mario, at last finding his voice. "If Diego has the Bishop back of him, he will force us to deliver the girl—or the Bishop will have the government soldiers sent here! I can ask for them—and if necessary I will!"

Jose paled slightly. He knew the Alcalde spoke truth. Don Mario, seeing that his words had taken effect, quickly followed up the advantage. "Now you, Juan and Lazaro, do you think the little whelp worth that?"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Juan leaped across the floor and fell upon him. Jose seized the lad and, with Fernando's help, tore him loose. Lazaro held his machete aloft, ready to strike. Jose's voice rang out sharply:

"Hold, men! Stop! Go you to your homes now! Juan, do you stay here with me!"

The lad faced the Alcalde and shook his fist. "Bien," he sputtered, "send for the soldiers, fat dog that you are! But when I see them crossing the lake, I will come first to your house and cut open that big belly!"

"Arrest him, Fernando!" shrilled the Alcalde, shaking with rage.

"I will cut off the hand that is laid on Juan!" cried Lazaro, advancing.

"Men! Men! Don Mario and Fernando, go now! Enough of this! And for God's sake think twice before you make any further move!"

Don Mario and his constable departed in sullen silence. Jose let Lazaro out through the rear door, while he bade Juan pass the night in the parish house. A consultation was held with Dona Maria, and it was arranged that Carmen should sleep in the room with Jose, with Juan lying before the door, until Rosendo should return from the mountains. Then Jose sat down and wrote to the Bishop.

* * * * *

No reply came from Cartagena until Rosendo returned at the end of the month. Meanwhile, Jose had never for a moment permitted Carmen to leave his side. The child chafed under the limitation; but Jose and Dona Maria were firm. Juan lived with the priest; and Lazaro lurked about the parish house like a shadow. The Alcalde and his constable remained discreetly aloof.

But with Rosendo's return came letters from both Wenceslas and Diego. The latter had laid aside his unction, and now made a curt and peremptory demand upon Jose for the child. The letter from Wenceslas was noncommittal, stating only that he was quite uninformed of Diego's claim, but that an investigation should be made. Jose wondered if he had blundered in laying the case before him.

"Hombre!" ejaculated Rosendo, when he heard Jose's story. "It is as I feared! And now the Bishop has the matter in hand! Caramba! We shall lose her yet!

"And, Padre," he added, "the deposit is played out. There is no more gold there. And, now that we shall have none to send to the Bishop each month, Carmen's fate is settled—unless we go away. And where shall we go? We could not get out of the country." He hung his head and sat in gloomy dejection.

For more than a year Rosendo had panned the isolated alluvial deposit, and on his regular monthly returns to Simiti he and the priest had sent from thirty to ninety pesos gold to Wenceslas. To this Jose sometimes added small amounts collected from the people of Simiti, which they had gratuitously given him for Masses and for the support of the parish. Wenceslas, knowing the feeble strength of the parish, was surprised, but discreet; and though he continually urged Jose to greater efforts, and held out the allurements of "indulgences and special dispensations," he made no inquiries regarding the source of the monthly contributions.

For many days following, Rosendo and the priest went about as in a thick, black cloud. "Rosendo," said Jose at length, "go back to the mountains and search again. God was with us before. Have we any reason to doubt Him now?"

"And leave Carmen here, exposed to the danger that always hangs over her? Caramba, no! I would not go back now even if the deposit were not worked out! No!" Jose knew it would be futile to urge him.

Carmen came to the priest that same day. "Padre, I heard you and padre Rosendo talking this morning. Have you no money, no gold?"

"Why, child—there seems to be a need just at present," he replied lightly. "But we might—well, we might send another of your questions to God. What say you?"

"Of course!" she cried delightedly, turning at once and hurrying away for pencil and paper.

"Now," she panted, seating herself at the table. "Let us see; we want Him to give us pesos, don't we?"

"Yes—many—a large sum. Make it big," he said facetiously.

"Well, you know, Padre dear," she replied seriously, "we can't ask for too much—for we already have everything, haven't we? After all, we can only ask to see what we really already have.

"Say 'yes,' Padre dear," she pleaded, looking up appealingly at him staring silently at her. Oh, if she could only impart to him even a little of her abundant faith! She had enough, and to spare!

"Well, here it is," she said, holding out the paper.

He took it and read—"Dear, dear God: Padre Jose needs pesos—lots of them. What shall he do?"

"And now," she continued, "shall we put it under the altar of the old church?"

He smiled; but immediately assumed an expression of great seriousness. "Why not in the church here, the one we are using? The other is so far away?" he suggested. "And it is getting dark now."

"But—no, we will go where we went before," she concluded firmly.

Again he yielded. Taking matches and a piece of candle, he set off with the girl in a circuitous route for the hill, which they gained unobserved. Within the musty old church he struck a light, and they climbed over the debris and to the rear of the crumbling altar.

"See!" she cried joyously. "Here is my other question that He answered! Doesn't He answer them quick though! Why, it took only a day!"

She drew the old paper from beneath the adobe brick. Then she hesitated. "Let us put this question in a new place," she said. "Look, up there, where the bricks have fallen out," pointing to the part of the altar that had crumbled away.

Jose rose obediently to execute the commission. His thought was far off, even in Cartagena, where sat the powers that must be held quiet if his cherished plans were not to fail. He reached out and grasped one of the projecting bricks to steady himself. As he did so, the brick, which was loose, gave way with him, and he fell, almost across Carmen, followed by a shower of rubbish, as another portion of the old altar fell out.

"Hombre!" he ejaculated, picking himself up. "What good luck that the candle was not extinguished! And now, senorita, are you willing that we should bury this important question here on the floor; or must I again try to put it in the altar itself?"

"Up there," insisted the child, laughing and still pointing above.

He rose and looked about, searching for a convenient place to deposit the paper. Then something attracted his attention, something buried in the altar, but now exposed by the falling out of the fresh portion. It was metal, and it glittered in the feeble candle light. He reached in and hastily scraped away more of the hard mud. Then, trembling with suppressed excitement, he pulled out another brick. Clearly, it was a box that had been buried in there—who knows when? He gave the candle to Carmen and bade her stand up close. Then with both hands he carefully removed the adjacent bricks until the entire box was in view.

"Hombre!" he muttered. "What do you suppose this is? A box—"

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl in delight. "A box to put our question in, Padre!"

"More likely the answer itself, child!" muttered the excited priest, straining and tugging away at it. "Carmen! Stand aside!" he suddenly commanded. "Now—" He gave a final pull. A crash of falling bricks followed; the candle was extinguished; and both he and the child were precipitated to the floor.

"Carmen!" called the priest, choking with dust, "are you hurt?"

"No, Padre dear," came the laughing answer through the darkness. "But I'm pretty full of dust. And the candle is buried."

Jose groped about for the box. It lay near, a small, wooden coffer, bound about with two narrow bands of steel. He dragged it out and bore it down the aisle to the door, followed by Carmen.

"Padre!" she exclaimed eagerly. "What is it?"

He dusted it off and examined it carefully in the fast fading light. It was some twelve inches square by three deep, well made of mahogany, and secured by a small, iron padlock. On the top there was a crest of arms and the letters, "I de R," burned into the wood.

Night had closed in, and the priest and girl made their way hurriedly back home by way of the lake, to avoid being seen. Under his cassock Jose carried the box, so heavy that it chafed the skin from his hip as they stumbled along.

"Carmen, say nothing—but tell your padre Rosendo to come to me at once!"

With the doors secured, and Carmen and Dona Maria standing guard outside to apprise them of danger, Jose and Rosendo covertly examined the discovery.

"I de R!" pondered Rosendo, studying the box. Then—"Caramba! Padre—Caramba! It is Ignacio de Rincon! Hombre! And the crest—it is his! I have seen it before—years and years ago! Caramba! Caramba!" The old man danced about like a child.

"Ignacio de Rincon! Your grandfather!" he kept exclaiming, his eyes big as saucers. Then, hastening out to get his iron bar, he returned and with a blow broke the rusty padlock. Tearing open the hinged cover, he fell back with a loud cry.

Before their strained gaze, packed carefully in sawdust, lay several bars of yellow metal. Rosendo took them out with trembling hands and laid them upon the floor. "Gold, Padre, gold!" he muttered hoarsely. "Gold, buried by your grandfather! Caramba!—

"Hold these, Padre!" hurrying out and returning with a pair of homemade wooden balances. Again and again he carefully weighed the bars. Then he began to calculate. It seemed to Jose that the old man wasted hours arriving at a satisfactory result.

"Padre," he finally announced in tones which he strove vainly to control, "there cannot be less than six thousand pesos oro here!"

Jose drew a long breath. "Six thousand pesos—twenty-four thousand francs! It is a fortune! Rosendo, we are rich!"

The trembling old man replaced the bars and carried them to Jose's bed. The priest opened the door and called to Carmen.

"What was in the old box, Padre?" she asked happily, bounding into the room.

He stooped and picked her up, almost crushing her in his arms. "The answer to your question, chiquita. 'Before they call I will answer: and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'"



CHAPTER 23

When Jose awoke the next morning he quickly put his hand under his pillow. Yes, the little coffer was there! It had not been a dream. He drew it forth and raised the cover. The yellow bars glittered in the morning rays sifting through the overhanging thatch at the window. He passed his hand gently across them. What a fortunate discovery! And how strangely brought about. They were rich! Now he could take Carmen and flee! His heart leaped within him as he hastily threw on his scant attire and went out into the balsamic air of the tropical morning. Rosendo had gone to the village of Boque, starting before sun-up, so Dona Maria announced. Some sudden impulse had seized him, and he had set out forthwith, not stopping to discuss the motive with his faithful consort. Jose concluded his desayuno, and then summoned Carmen to the parish house for the day's lessons. She came with a song on her lips.

"Don't stop, chiquita! Sing it again—it is beautiful; and my soul drinks it in like heavenly dew!" he cried, as the child danced up to him and threw her plump arms about his neck.

She turned about and sat down on the dusty threshold and repeated the little song. The glittering sunlight streamed through her rich curls like stringers of wire gold. Cucumbra came fawning to her and nestled at her little bare feet, caressing them at frequent intervals with his rough tongue. Cantar-las-horas approached with dignified tread, and, stopping before his adored little mistress, cocked his head to one side and listened attentively, his beady eyes blinking in the dazzling light.

Jose marveled anew as he listened. Where had that voice come from? Had either of her parents been so gifted? he wondered. And yet, it was only the voicing of a soul of stainless purity—a conscience clear as the light that gilded her curls—a trust, a faith, a knowledge of immanent good, that manifested daily, hourly, in a tide of happiness whose far verge melted into the shore of eternity. As he sat with closed eyes the adobe hut, with its dirt floor and shabby furnishings, expanded into a castle, hung with richest tapestries, rarest pictures, and glittering with plate of gold. The familiar odors of garlic and saffron, which penetrated from the primitive kitchen of Dona Maria, were transmuted into delicate perfumes. The sun drew nearer, and suffused him with its glittering flood. The girl became a white-robed vision, and her song a benediction, voicing "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will."

The song ended, and left the thought with him: "To men of good will?" Yes, to men of God's will—the will that is good—to men of sound mind—that mind which was in Christ Jesus—the mind that knows no evil! To such is eternal peace.

"Chiquita," the priest said gently, when the girl returned to him. "Your question was quickly answered yesterday, was it not?"

She laughed up into his face. "It was answered, Padre, before we asked it. God has the answers to all questions that could ever be asked. We would always know the answers if we thought the way He does."

"But—tell me, chiquita, do you think He put that little box up there in the altar purposely for us?"

"No, Padre—I guess it was hidden there by some man, long ago, who was afraid he would lose it. And since he was afraid he would lose it, why—he did, for now we have it."

"Yes, the thing that he greatly feared came upon him. But what is your idea regarding the way we happened to find it? Did God lead us to it?"

"God leads to everything good, Padre dear," was the simple response.

"Of course. But, in this particular case—would we have been led to the little box if you had not asked your question of God?"

"Why not, Padre? People are always led right when they think right."

"And so thinking right was the cause of this discovery, was it?" he pursued, relentlessly probing her thought to its depths.

"Why—yes, Padre—of course. We had to have money—you said so, you know. And you told me to ask for lots of pesos. Well, we both knew that God had already given us more pesos than we could ever know what to do with—He always does. He just can't help giving Himself to everybody. And He gave Himself to us—why, we have always had Him! We are in Him, you know. And when anybody just knows that—why, he sees nothing but good everywhere, and he always has all that he needs."

"All that he wants, you mean, chiquita?"

"No, Padre, not all that he wants. Just all that he needs. You might want all the gold in the world—but you wouldn't need it."

"No, that would be only a selfish, human want. It would be covetousness. But—you still think we were led right to the little box, do you?"

"I know it, Padre dear," she replied emphatically. "When we think good, we see good. It always comes out that way. It is just as sure as getting the right answers to my problems in algebra when I think right about them."

"And thinking right about them means using the right rule, does it not?"

"Yes—of course. If I didn't use the right rule—why, what sort of answers would I get? All jumbled up!"

"Surely—perfect chaos. But still," vigorously pursuing the subject, "you don't think we happened upon the little box just by good luck?"

"Padre," she shook her curls insistently, "things never happen, never! We see only what we think—always!"

"Yes, there surely does seem to be a definite law of cause and effect. But you did not think gold yesterday, chiquita."

"Oh, Padre dear, what a bother you are! No, I didn't think gold yesterday. I never think gold. But I always think good. And that is gold and everything else that we need. Can't you see? And it wasn't just because I thought good yesterday, but because I think good every day, that I saw the gold. It was because we needed it, and God had already given us all that we needed. And I knew that it just had to come. And so did you. Then, because we really needed it, and knew that it was right and that it must come—well, it did. Can't you see?" Her little face was very serious as she looked up appealingly into his.

"Yes, chiquita, yes, I see. I just wanted to know how you would explain it. It becomes clearer to me every day that there are no such things as miracles—never were! Christ Jesus never performed miracles, if by that we mean that he set aside God's laws for the benefit of mankind. But he acted in perfect accord with those laws—and no wonder the results seemed miraculous to dull-witted human minds, who had always seen only their coarse, material thought externalized in material laws and objects, in chance, mixed good and evil, and a God of human characteristics!"

"Yes—I—guess so, Padre dear—only, I don't understand your big words."

"Ah, chiquita, you understand far, far better than I do! Why, I am learning it all from you! But come, now for the lessons."

And Jose had learned by this time, too, that between merely recognizing righteousness as right-thinking, and actually practicing it—putting it to the test so as to "prove" God—there is a vast difference. Things cannot be "thought" into existence, nor evils "thought" away—the stumbling block of the mere tyro in the study of mental cause and effect. A vast development in spirituality must precede those "signs following" before mankind shall again do the works of the Master. Jose knew this; and he bowed in humble submission, praying for daily light.

* * * * *

At dusk Rosendo returned. "Bien, Padre, I have it now, I think!" he cried excitedly, pacing back and forth in the little room.

"What, Rosendo?" asked the wondering priest.

"The secret of the little box! Come, while we eat I will tell you!"

The little group gathered about the table, while Rosendo unfolded his theory.

"I went to Boque this morning to talk with Dona Lucia. She is very aged, the oldest inhabitant in these parts. Bien, I knew that she had known Don Ignacio, although she was not his slave. Her story brought back to me also the things my father had often told me about Don Ignacio's last trip to Simiti. Putting all these things together, I think I now know how the little box came to be hidden in the altar of the old church."

The old man's eyes sparkled with happiness, while his auditors drew closer about him to drink in his dramatic recital. For Rosendo, like a true Latin, reveled in a wonder-tale. And his recitals were always accompanied by profuse gesticulation and wonderful facial expressions and much rolling of the eyes.

"Bien," he continued, "it was this way. Don Ignacio's possessions in Guamoco were enormous, and in the then prosperous city of Simiti he had stores and warehouses and much property. When the War of Independence neared its end, and he saw that the Royalist cause was lost, he made a last and flying trip to Simiti, going up the Magdalena river from Cartagena in his own champan, propelled by some of his still faithful slaves.

"Bien, he found that one of his foremen had just returned from the mountains with the final clean-up from La Libertad arrastras. These had been abandoned, for most of the slaves had deserted, or gone to fight the Spaniards. But the foreman, who was not a slave, but a faithful employe, had cleaned up the arrastras and hidden the amalgam until he could find a favorable opportunity to come down to Simiti with it.

"Now, when Don Ignacio arrived here, he found the town practically deserted. So he and the foreman retorted the amalgam and melted the gold into bars. But, just as they had completed their task, a messenger came flying to town and reported that a body of Royalist soldiers were at Badillo, and that they had learned that Simiti was the bodega of the rich Guamoco district, and were preparing to come over and sack the town. They were fleeing down the river to the coast, to get away to Spain as soon as possible, but had put off at Badillo to come over here. Fortunately, they had become very intoxicated, and their expedition was for that reason delayed.

"Bueno, at the news the foreman dropped everything and fled for his life. A few people gathered with the priest in the Rincon church, the one you are using now, Padre. The priest of the other old church on the hill fled. Caramba, but he was a coward—and he got well paid for it, too! But of that later.

"Don Ignacio's champan was at Badillo, and he had come across to Simiti by canoe. Bien, he dared not take this gold back with him; and so he thought of hiding it in one of the churches, for that is always a sacred place. There were people in his own church, and so he hurried to the one on the hill. Evidently, as he looked about in the deserted building for a place to hide the bars, he saw that some of the bricks could easily be removed from the rear of the altar. A couple of hours sufficed to do the work of secreting the box. Then he fled across the shales to the town of Boque, where he got a canoe to take him down to the Magdalena; and there he waited until he saw the soldiers come across and enter the cano. Then he fled to Badillo. Don Nicolas, son of Dona Lucia, was his boatman, and he says that he remained with your grandfather at that place over night, and that there they received the report that the Royalists had been terribly whipped in the battle—the battle of—Caramba! I forget—"

"Of Ayacucho," suggested Jose.

"Just so," resumed Rosendo. "Bien, there was nothing for the poor man to do but hasten down the river to Cartagena as fast as possible, for he knew not what might have befallen his family. He did not dare go back to Simiti then for the box. And so the gold was left in the altar."