"Hombre!" exclaimed Jose. "Now I understand what he meant by that note in his old diary, which we had in my father's house, in Spain! Of course! Arriving in Cartagena he went at once to the Department of Mines and tore out all the pages of the register that contained descriptions of his mineral properties. He intended some day to return to Guamoco and again locate them. And meantime, he protected himself by destroying all the registered locations. It was easy for him to do this, influential as he was in Cartagena. And doubtless at that stormy time the office of the Department of Mines was deserted. This note, Rosendo, I have read in his old diary, many times, but never knew to what it referred."

"Hombre!" ejaculated Rosendo. "Bueno, the soldiers sacked Simiti and slaughtered all the people they could find. Then they set fire to the town, and left. My parents had fled to Guamoco.

"But now for the old church and the picture of the Virgin that was lost during the terrible storm when the priest fell dead. We will have to guess that later, when peace had been restored, the priest of the old church in prying around the altar discovered the loose bricks and the box behind them. Bueno, the night of the awful storm he had gone secretly to the church to remove the box. I remember that my father said the priest had arranged for my father to take him down to Bodega Central the very next day. You see, he was going to flee with the gold, the rogue! Bien, while he was in the church taking out the loose bricks, that storm broke—and, from what I remember, it was terrible! The heavens were ablaze with lightning; the thunder roared like cannon; and the lake rose right out of its bed! Caramba! The door of the church crashed open, and the wind whistled in and blew out the candles on the altar. The wind also tore loose a beautiful picture of the Virgin that was hanging near the altar. The picture was blown out of its frame and swept off to the hills, or into the lake. It was never seen again, although the frame was found just outside the door. Perhaps it was the extinguishing of the candles and the falling of the picture that frightened the old priest so terribly. At any rate he ran from the church to his house, and when he reached his door he fell dead of apoplexy.

"Bueno, after that you could never get any of the Simiti people to enter the church again. They closed the doors and left it, just as it was, for they thought the curse of God had fallen upon it because it had been erected by the enemies of the Rincon family, whose patron saint was the blessed Virgin herself. Well, the old altar began to crumble, and parts of it fell away from time to time. And when the people heard the bricks falling they said it was the bad angel that the Virgin had locked in there—the angel of Satan that had extinguished the candles on the altar that night of the storm. Caramba! And I believed it, too! I am a fool, Padre, a fool!"

"We are all fools, Rosendo, when we yield ourselves to superstition and false belief," said Jose solemnly. "But you have worked out a very ingenious story, and I doubt not you have come very near to accounting in the right way for the presence of the little box in the altar. But now, amigo, come with me to my house. I would discuss a plan with you.

"It is this, Rosendo," he said, when they were alone. "We now have gold, and the way has been providentially opened. Carmen is in great danger here. What say you, shall we take her and leave Simiti?"

Rosendo's face became grave. He did not reply for some moments.

"Padre," he said at length, "you are right. It would be best for her if we could get her away. But—you would have to leave the country. I see now that neither she nor you would be safe anywhere in Colombia if you left Simiti."

"True, Rosendo," replied Jose. "And I am sure that no country offers the asylum that America does—the America of the north. I have never been there, amigo; but of all countries I learn that it is the most tolerant in matters religious. And it offers the greatest opportunities to one, like Carmen, just entering upon life. We will go there. And, Rosendo, prepare yourself and Dona Maria at once, for we had best start without delay."

But Rosendo shook his head. "No, Padre," he said slowly. "No. I could not go to the North with you; nor could Maria."

"But, Rosendo!" exclaimed the priest impatiently, "why?"

"Bien, Padre, we are old. And we know not the language of those up there. Nor the customs. We could not adapt ourselves to their ways of life—no, not at our age. Nor could we endure the change of climate. You tell me they have cold, ice, snow, up there. What could we do? We would die. No, we must remain here. But—" his voice choked.

"Bien, Padre, do you go, and take the girl. Bring her up to be a power for good in that great land. We—Maria and I—will remain in Simiti. It is not permitted that we should ever leave. This has always been our home, and here we will die."

Jose exclaimed again in impatience. But the old man was immovable.

"No, Padre, we could not make so great a change. Anywhere in Colombia would be but little different from Simiti. But up north—in that great country where they do those wonderful things you have told me about—no, Padre, Maria and I could not make so great a change.

"But, Padre," he continued, "what will you do—leave the Church? Or will you still be a priest up there?"

The question startled Jose rudely. In the great joy which the discovery of the gold had stimulated, and in the thought of the possibilities opened by it, he had given no heed to his status respecting the Church. Yet, if he remained in the Church, he could not make this transfer without the approval of the Vatican. And that, he well knew, could not be obtained. No, if he went, he must leave behind all ecclesiastical ties. And with them, doubtless, the ties which still bound him to his distant mother and the family whose honored name he bore. It was not so easy a matter to take the girl and leave Simiti, now that he gave the project further consideration.

And yet he could not abandon the idea, however great his present sense of disappointment. He would cling to it as an ideal, some day to be realized, and to be worked up to as rapidly as might be, without exciting suspicion, and without abruptly severing the ties which, on serious reflection, he found he was not morally strong enough as yet to break.

"Bien, Rosendo," he concluded in chastened tones. "We will think it over, and try to devise ways to accomplish the greatest good for the child. I shall remain here for the present."

Rosendo's face beamed with joy. "The way will be shown us some time, Padre!" he exclaimed. "And while we wait, we will keep our eyes open, no?"

Yes, Jose would keep his eyes open and his heart receptive. After all, as he meditated the situation in the quiet of his little cottage that evening, he was not sorry that circumstances kept him longer in Simiti. For he had long been meditating a plan, and the distraction incident upon a complete change of environment certainly would delay, if not entirely defeat, its consummation. He had planned to translate his Testament anew, in the light of various works on Bible criticism which the explorer had mentioned, and which the possession of the newly discovered gold now made attainable. He had with him his Greek lexicon. He would now, in the freedom from interruption which Simiti could and probably would afford for the ensuing few months, give himself up to his consecrated desire to extract from the sacred writings the spiritual meaning crystallized within them. The vivid experiences which had fallen to him in Simiti had resulted in the evolution of ideas—radically at variance with the world's materialistic thought, it is true—which he was learning to look upon as demonstrable truths. The Bible had slowly taken on a new meaning to him, a meaning far different from that set forth in the clumsy, awkward phrases and expressions into which the translators so frequently poured the wine of the spirit, and which, literally interpreted, have resulted in such violent controversies, such puerile ideas of God and His thought toward man, and such religious hatred and bigotry, bloodshed, suffering, and material stagnation throughout the so-called Christian era. He would approach the Gospels, not as books of almost undecipherable mystery, not as the biography of the blessed Virgin, but as containing the highest human interpretation of truth and its relation to mankind.

"I seek knowledge," he repeated aloud, as he paced back and forth through his little living room at night; "but it is not a knowledge of Goethe, of Kant, or Shakespeare; it is not a knowledge of the poets, the scientists, the philosophers, all whom the world holds greatest in the realm of thought; it is a knowledge of Thee, my God, to know whom is life eternal! Men think they can know Homer, Plato, Confucius—and so they can. But they think they can not know Thee! And yet Thou art nearer to us than the air we breathe, for Thou art Life! What is there out in the world among the multifold interests of mankind that can equal in importance a demonstrable knowledge of Thee? Not the unproven theories and opinions, the so-called 'authority' of the ancient Fathers, good men though they may have been; not modern pseudo-science, half-truths and relative facts, saturated with materialism and founded on speculation and hypothesis; but real knowledge, a knowledge of Thee that is as demonstrable as the simplest rule in mathematics! Alas! that men should be so mesmerized by their own beliefs as to say Thou canst not be known. Alas! for the burden which such thinkers as Spencer have laid upon the shoulders of stumbling mankind. For God can be known, and proven—else is Jesus responsible for the most cruel lie ever perpetrated upon the ignorant, suffering world!"

And so, putting aside a portion of his gold—his by right of inheritance as well as discovery—for the future purchase of such books and aids as he might require, Jose set his house in order and then plunged into such a search of the Scriptures as rendered him oblivious to all but the immediate interests of Carmen and her foster-parents. The great world again narrowed into the rock-bound confines of little Simiti. Each rushing morn that shot its fiery glow through the lofty treetops sank quickly into the hush of noon, while the dust lay thick, white, and hot on the slumbering streets of the ancient town; each setting sun burned with dreamy radiance through the afternoon haze that drew its filmy veil across the seething valley; each night died into a stillness, lonely and awful. Nature changed her garb with monotonous regularity; the drowsing children of this tropic region passed their days in dull torpidity; Jose saw nothing of it all. At times a villager would bring a tale of grievance to pour into his ears—perhaps a jaguar had pounced upon his dog on his little finca across the lake, or a huge snake had lured a suckling pig into its cavernous maw. At times a credulous woman would stop before his open door to dilate upon the thick worms that hung upon the leaves of the algarrobas and dropped their wool-like fibers upon the natives as they passed below, causing intermittent fevers. Perhaps an anxious mother would seek him for advice regarding her little son, who had eaten too much dirt, and was suffering from the common "jipitera," that made his poor little abdomen protrude so uncomfortably. Again, Rosendo might steal in for a few moments' mysterious, whispered talk about buried treasure, or the fables of El Dorado and Parime. Jose had time for them all, though as he listened his thought hovered ever about the green verge of Galilee.

By his side worked Carmen, delving assiduously into the mysteries of mathematics and the modern languages. When the day's work closed for them both, he often asked her to sing to him. And then, leaning back with closed eyes, he would yield himself to the soft dreams which her sweet voice called up from his soul's unfathomed depths. Often they walked together by the lake on a clear night; and on these little excursions, during which they were never beyond Rosendo's watchful eye, Jose reveled in the girl's airy gaiety and the spontaneous flow of her sparkling thought. He called her his domestic sunbeam; but in his serious moments—and they were many—he studied her with a wistful earnestness, while he sought to imbibe her great trust, her fearlessness, her unswerving loyalty to the Christ-principle of immanent Good. He would never permit restraint to be imposed upon her, even by Rosendo or his good wife. She knew not what it was to be checked in the freest manifestation of her natural character. But there was little occasion for restraint, for Carmen dwelt ever in the consciousness of a spiritual universe, and to it paid faithful tribute. She saw and knew only from a spiritual basis; and she reaped the rewards incident thereto. His life and hers were such as fools might label madness, a colorless, vegetative existence, devoid of even the elemental things that make mundane existence worth the while. But the appraisal of fools is their own folly. Jose knew that the torrid days which drew their monotonous length over the little town were witnessing a development in both himself and the child that some day would bear richest fruit. So far from being educated to distrust spiritual power, as are the children of this world, Carmen was growing up to know no other. Instead of the preponderance of her belief and confidence being directed to the material, she was developing the consciousness that the so-called evidence of the physical senses is but mortal thought, the suppositional opposite of the thought of the infinite God who says to mankind: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jose knew that his method of education was revolutionary. But he also knew that it was not wholly his; that the child had really taken this course herself, as if led thereto by a power beyond them both.

And so he watched her, and sought to learn from her as from Christ's own loving and obedient disciple. It was because of his obedience to God that Jesus was able to "prove" Him in the mighty works which we call miracles. He said, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Plain enough, indeed! And Carmen did do His will; she kept the very first Commandment; she walked by faith, and not by the sight of the human senses. She had been called an "hada," a witch, by the dull-witted folk of Simiti; and some day it would be told that she had a devil. But the Master had borne the same ignominy. And so has every pioneer in Truth, who has dared to lay the axe at the roots of undemonstrable orthodox belief and entrenched human error.

Jose often trembled for the child when he thought of the probable reception that awaited her in the world without, in case she ever left Simiti. Would her supreme confidence in good ever be weakened by an opposite belief in evil? Would her glorious faith ever be neutralized or counterbalanced by faith in a power opposed to God? He wondered. And sometimes in the fits of abstraction resulting from these thoughts, the girl would steal up to him and softly whisper, "Why, Padre, are you trying to make two and two equal seven?" Then he would laugh with her, and remember how from her algebraic work she had looked up one day and exclaimed, "Padre—why, all evil can be reduced to a common denominator, too—and it is zero!"

As recreation from the task of retranslating his Greek Testament, Jose often read to Carmen portions from the various books of the Bible, or told her the old sacred stories that children so love to hear. But Carmen's incisive thought cut deep into them, and Jose generally found himself hanging upon the naive interpretations of this young girl. When, after reading aloud the two opposing accounts of the Creation, as given in the first and second chapters of Genesis, she asked, "But, Padre, why did God change His mind after He made people and gave them dominion over everything?" Jose was obliged to say that God had not made a mistake, and then gone back afterward to rectify it; that the account of the Creation, as given in Genesis, was not His, but was a record of the dawning upon the human thought of the idea of the spiritual Creation; that the "mist" which went up from the earth was suppositional error; and that the record of the Creation which follows after this was only the human mind's interpretation of the real, spiritual Creation, that Creation which is the ever unfolding of infinite Mind's numberless, perfect ideas. The book of Genesis has been a fetish to human minds; and not until the limitations imposed by its literal interpretation were in a measure removed did the human mentality begin to rise and expand. And when, reading from Isaiah, the grandest of the ancient prophets, the ringing words, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" the child asked him if that did not refer to the very kind of people with whom they had daily intercourse, he had been obliged to say that it did, and that that sort of man was far, very far, from being the man of God's own creating.

"The mist, child, which is mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis, is said to have gone up from the ground. That is, it went up from matter. And so it is typical of materialism, from which all evil comes. The material is the direct opposite of the spiritual. Every bit of evil that men think they can see, or know, or do, comes as testimony of the five material senses. These might well be called the 'ground' senses. In the book of Genesis, you will notice that the account of the real comes first; then follows the account of its opposite, the unreal man of dust."

"Surely, Padre!" she exclaimed. "The plus sign is followed by a minus sign, isn't it? And the man made of dust is the real man with a minus sign before him."

"The man of dust is the human mind's interpretation of the spiritual man, dear child," returned Jose. "All human beings are interpretations by the mortal, or human, mind of infinite Mind, God, and His spiritual Creation. The interpretation is made in the human mind, and remains there. The human mind does not see these interpretations outside of itself—it does not see real men, and houses, and trees, outside of itself—but it sees its mental interpretations of God, which it calls men, and houses, and trees, and so on. These things are what we might call mental concepts. They are the man and the creation spoken of in the second chapter of Genesis after the mist went up from matter, from the ground, from materialism, resulting in the testimony of the physical senses."

"But, Padre, they are not real—these mental concepts?"

"No. They are illusions. They are formed in mentalities that are themselves wrong interpretations of the infinite Mentality, called God. They are formed without any rule or principle. They are made up of false thoughts, false opinions, beliefs of power opposed to God, beliefs in evil, in sickness, disaster, loss, and death. They are the results of educated and inherited and attached beliefs. They are largely made up of fear-beliefs. The human mentalities see these various beliefs combined in what it calls men and women, houses, animals, trees, and so on, all through the material so-called creation. It is this wrong interpretation that has caused all the suffering and sorrow in the world. And it is this false stuff that the good man Jesus finally said he had overcome."

"How did he do it, Padre?"

"By knowing its nothingness, and by knowing the Allness of his Father, infinite Mind. He called this false stuff a lie about God. And he overcame that lie by knowing the truth—just as you overcome the thought that you cannot solve your algebraic problems by knowing the truth that will and does solve them."

"But, Padre, you said once that Jesus was the best man that ever lived. Was he just a man?"

"Yes, chiquita. That is, the human minds all about him saw their mental concepts of him as a man. But he was a human concept that most clearly represented God's idea of Himself. Mortal, human minds are like window-panes, chiquita. When a window-pane is very dirty, very much covered with matter, only a little light can get through it. Some human minds are cleaner, less material, than others, and they let more light through. Jesus was the cleanest mind that was ever with us. He kept letting more and more light—Truth—through himself, until at last all the matter, even the matter composing the material concept that people called his earthly body, dissolved in the strong light, and the people saw him no more. That is called the Ascension."

"And—Padre, don't we have to do that way, too?" she asked earnestly.

"Just so, chiquita. We must, every one of us, do exactly as Jesus did. We must wash ourselves clean—wash off the dirty beliefs of power apart from God; we must wash off the beliefs of evil as a power, created in opposition to Him, or permitted by Him to exist and to use His children; we must wash off beliefs of matter as real and created by Him. We must know that matter and all evil, all that decays and passes away, all discord and disease, everything that comes as testimony of the five physical senses, is but a part of the lie about Him, the stuff that has the minus sign before it, making it less than nothing. We must know that it is the suppositional opposite of the real—it is an illusion, seeming to exist, yet evaporating when we try to define it or put a finger on it, for it has no rule or principle by which it was created and by which it continues to exist. Its existence is only in human thought."

No, Jose assured himself, the Gospels are not "loose, exaggerated, inaccurate, credulous narratives." They are the story of the clearest transparency to truth that was ever known to mortals as a human being. They preserve the life-giving words of him whose mission it was to show mankind the way out of error by giving them truth. They contain the rule given by the great Mathematician, who taught mankind how to solve their life-problems. They tell the world plainly that there seems to exist a lie about God; that every real idea of the infinite Mind seems to have its suppositional opposite in a material illusion. They tell us plainly that resisting these illusions with truth renders them nugatory. They tell us clearly that the man Jesus was so filled with truth that he proved the nothingness of the lie about God by doing those deeds that seemed marvelous in the eyes of men, and yet which he said we could and should do ourselves. And we must do them, if we would throw off the mesmerism of the lie. The human concept of man and the universe must dissolve in the light of the truth that comes through us as transparencies. And it were well if we set about washing away the dirt of materialism, that the light may shine through more abundantly.

Jesus did not say that his great deeds were accomplished contrary to law, but that they fulfilled the law of God. The law is spiritual, never material. Material law is but human limitation. Ignorance of spiritual law permits the belief in its opposite, material law, or laws of matter. False, human beliefs, opinions, and theories, material speculations and superstitions, parade before the human mind as laws. Jesus swept them all aside by knowing that their supposed power lay only in human acceptance. The human mind is mesmerized by its own false thought. Even Paul at times felt its mesmerism and exclaimed: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me." The very idea of good stirs up its opposite in the human consciousness. But Paul rose above it and saw its nothingness. Then he cried: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." He recognized the spiritual law that Jesus employed; and with it he overcame the mesmerism of the lie.

"To be a Christian, then," said Jose, "means not merely taking the name of Christ, and, while morally opposing sin, succumbing to every form of mesmerism that the lie about God exerts. No, it is infinitely more! It means recognizing the nature of God and His Creation, including Man, to be wholly spiritual—and the nature of the material creation and mankind as their opposite, as mental concepts, existing as false interpretations of the spiritual Universe and Man, and as having their place only in the false human consciousness, which itself is a mental activity concerned only with false thought, the suppositional opposite of God's thought. It means taking this Truth, this spiritual law, as we would take a mathematical rule or principle, and with it overcoming sin, sickness, discord of every name and nature, even to death itself. What, oh, what have so-called Christians been doing these nearly two thousand years, that they have not ere this worked out their salvation as Jesus directed them to do? Alas! they have been mesmerized—simply mesmerized by the lie. The millennium should have come long, long ago. It would come to-day if the world would obey Jesus. But it will not come until it does obey him."

Day after day, week after week, month after month, Jose delved and toiled, studied and pondered. The books which he ordered through the Empresa Alemania, and for which for some two months he waited in trembling anticipation and fear lest they be lost in transit, finally arrived. When Juan brought them up from Bodega Central, Jose could have wept for joy. Except for the very few letters he had received at rare intervals, these were the only messages that had penetrated the isolation of Simiti from the outside world in the two long years of his exile. His starving mind ravenously devoured them. They afforded his first introduction to that fearlessly critical thought regarding things religious which has swept across the world like a tidal wave, and washed away so many of the bulwarks of superstition and ignorance bred of fear of the unknown and supposedly unknowable.

And yet they were not really his first introduction to that thought, for, as he pored over these books, his heart expanded with gratitude to the brusque explorer whom he had met in Cartagena, that genial, odd medley of blunt honesty, unquibbling candor, and hatred of dissimulation, whose ridicule of the religious fetishism of the human mentality tore up the last root of educated orthodox belief that remained struggling for life in the altered soil of his mind.

But, though they tore down with ruthless hand, these books did not reconstruct. Jose turned from them with something of disappointment. He could understand why the trembling heart, searching wearily for truth, turned always from such as they with sinking hope. They were violently iconoclastic—they up-rooted—they overthrew—they swept aside with unsparing hand—but they robbed the starving mortal of his once cherished beliefs—they snatched the stale and feebly nourishing bread from his mouth, and gave nothing in return. They emptied his heart, and left it starving. What did it boot to tell a man that the orthodox dream of eternal bliss beyond the gates of death was but a hoax, if no substitute be offered? Why point out the fallacies, the puerile conceptions, the worse than childish thought expressed in the religious creeds of men, if they were not to be replaced by life-sustaining truth? If the demolition of cherished beliefs be not followed by reconstruction upon a sure foundation of demonstrable truth, then is the resulting state of mind worse than before, for the trusting, though deceived, soul has no recourse but to fall into the agnosticism of despair, or the black atheism of positive negation.

"Happily for me," he sighed, as he closed his books at length, "that Carmen entered my empty life in time with the truth that she hourly demonstrates!"



CHAPTER 24

Days melted into weeks, and these in turn into months. Simiti, drab and shabby, a crumbling and abandoned relique of ancient Spanish pride and arrogance, drowsed undisturbed in the ardent embrace of the tropical sun. Don Jorge returned, unsuccessful, from his long quest in the San Lucas mountains, and departed again down the Magdalena river.

"It is a marvelous country up there," he told Jose. "I do not wonder that it has given rise to legends. I felt myself in a land of enchantment while I was roaming those quiet mountains. When, after days of steady traveling, I would chance upon a little group of natives hidden away in some dense thicket, it seemed to me that they must be fairies, not real. I came upon the old trail, Padre, the Camino Real, now sunken and overgrown, which the Spaniards used. They called it the Panama trail. It used to lead down to Cartagena. Hombre! in places it is now twenty feet deep!"

"But, gold, Don Jorge?"

"Ah, Padre, what quartz veins I saw in that country! Hombre! Gold will be discovered there without measure some day! But—Caramba! This map which Don Carlos gave me is much in error. I must consult again with him. Then I shall return to Simiti." Jose regretfully saw him depart, for he had grown to love this ruggedly honest soul.

Meantime, Don Mario sulked in his house; nor during the intervening year would he hold anything more than the most formal intercourse with the priest. Jose ignored him as far as possible. Events move with terrible deliberation in these tropic lands, and men's minds are heavy and lethargic. Jose assumed that Don Mario had failed in the support upon which he had counted; or else Diego's interest in Carmen was dormant, perhaps utterly passed. Each succeeding day of quiet increased his confidence, while he rounded out month after month in this sequestered vale on the far confines of civilization, and the girl attained her twelfth year. Moreover, as he noted with marveling, often incredulous, mental gaze her swift, unhindered progress, the rapid unfolding of her rich nature, and the increasing development of a spirituality which seemed to raise her daily farther above the plane on which he dwelt, he began to regard the uninterrupted culmination of his plans for her as reasonably assured, if not altogether certain.

Juan continued his frequent trips down to Bodega Central as general messenger and transportation agent for his fellow-townsmen, meanwhile adoring Carmen from a distance of respectful decorum. Rosendo and Lazaro, relaxing somewhat their vigilance over the girl, labored daily on the little hacienda across the lake. The dull-witted folk, keeping to their dismally pretentious mud houses during the pulsing heat of day, and singing their weird, moaning laments in the quiet which reigned over this maculate hollow at night, followed undeviatingly the monotonous routine of an existence which had no other aim than the indulgence of the most primitive material wants.

"Ah, Padre," Rosendo would say of them, "they are so easy! They love idleness; they like not labor. They fish, they play the guitar, they gather fruits. They sing and dance—and then die. Padre, it is sad, is it not?"

Aye, thought the priest, doubly sad in its mute answer to the heartlessly selfish query of Cain. No one, not even the Church, was the keeper of these benighted brothers. He alone had constituted himself their shepherd. And as they learned to love him, to confide their simple wants and childish hopes to him, he came to realize the immense ascendency which the priests of Colombia possess over the simple understanding of the people. An ascendency hereditary and dominant, capable of utmost good, but expressed in the fettering of initiative and action, in the suppression of ambition, and the quenching of every impulse toward independence of thought. How he longed to lift them up from the drag of their mental encompassment! Yet how helpless he was to afford them the needed lustration of soul which alone could accomplish it!

"I can do little more than try to set them a standard of thought," he would muse, as he looked out from the altar over the camellia-like faces of his adult children when he conducted his simple Sunday services. "I can only strive to point out the better things of this life—to tell them of the wonders of invention, of art, of civilization—I can only relate to them tales of romance and achievement, and beautiful stories—and try to omit in the recital all reference to the evil methods, aims, and motives which have manifested in those dark crimes staining the records of history. The world calls them historical incident and fact. I must call them 'the mist that went up from the ground and watered the face of the earth.'"

But Jose had progressed during his years in Simiti. It had been hard—only he could know how hard!—to adapt himself to the narrow environment in which he dwelt. It had been hard to conform to these odd ways and strange usages. But he now knew that the people's reserve and shyness at first was due to their natural suspicion of him. For days, even weeks, he had known that he was being weighed and watched. And then love triumphed.

It is true, the dull staring of the natives of this unkempt town had long continued to throw him into fits of prolonged nervousness. They had not meant to offend, of course. Their curiosity was far from malicious. But at hardly any hour of the day or night could he look up from his work without seeing dark, inquisitive faces peering in through the latticed window or the open door at him, watchful of the minutest detail of his activity. He had now grown used to that. And he had grown used to their thoughtless intrusion upon him at any hour. He had learned, too, not to pale with nausea when, as was their wont of many centuries, the dwellers in this uncouth town relentlessly pursued their custom of expectorating upon his floor immediately they entered and stood before him. He had accustomed himself to the hourly intrusion of the scavenger pigs and starving dogs in his house. And he could now endure without aching nerves the awful singing, the maudlin wails, the thin, piercing, falsetto howls which rose almost nightly about him in the sacred name of music. For these were children with whom he dwelt. And he was trying to show them that they were children of God.

The girl's education was progressing marvelously. Already Jose had been obliged to supplement his oral instruction with texts purchased for her from abroad. Her grasp of the English language was his daily wonder. After two years of study she spoke it readily. She loved it, and insisted that her conversations with him should be conducted wholly in it. French and German likewise had been taken up; and her knowledge of her own Castilian tongue had been enriched by the few books which he had been able to secure for her from Spain.

Jose's anomalous position in Simiti had ceased to cause him worry. What mattered it, now that he had endeared himself to its people, and was progressing undisturbed in the training of Carmen? He performed his religious duties faithfully. His people wanted them. And he, in turn, knew that upon his observance of them depended his tenure of the parish.

And he wanted to remain among them, to lead them, if possible, at least a little way along what he was daily seeing to be the only path out of the corroding beliefs of the human mind. He knew that his people's growth would be slow—how slow might not his own be, too! Who could say how unutterably slow would be their united march heavenward! And yet, the human mind was expanding with wonderful rapidity in these last days. What acceleration had it not acquired since that distant era of the Old Stone Man, when through a hundred thousand years of darkness the only observable progress was a little greater skill in the shaping of his crude flint weapons!

To Padre Diego's one or two subsequent curt demands that Carmen be sent to him, Jose had given no heed. And perhaps Diego, absorbed in his political activities as the confidential agent of Wenceslas, would have been content to let his claim upon the child lapse, after many months of quiet, had not Don Jorge inadvertently set the current of the man's thought again in her direction.

For Don Jorge was making frequent trips along the Magdalena river. It was essential to his business to visit the various riverine towns and to mingle freely with all grades of people, that he might run down rumors or draw from the inhabitants information which might result in valuable clues anent buried treasure. Returning one day to Simiti from such a trip, he regaled Jose with the spirited recital of his experience on a steamboat which had become stranded on a river bar.

"Bien," he concluded, "the old tub at last broke loose. Then we saw that its engines were out of commission; and so the captain let her drift down to Banco, where we docked. I was forced, not altogether against my will, to put up with Padre Diego. Caramba! The old fox! But I had much amusement at his expense when I twitted him about his daughter Carmen, and his silly efforts to get possession of her!"

Jose shook with indignation. "Good heaven, friend!" he cried, "why can you not let sleeping dogs alone? Diego is not the man to be bearded like that! Would that you had kept away from the subject! And what did you say to him about the girl?"

"Caramba, man! I only told him how beautiful she was, and how large for her few years. Bien, I think I said she was the most beautiful and well-formed girl I had ever seen. But was there anything wrong in telling the truth, amigo?"

"No," replied Jose bitterly, as he turned away; "you meant no harm. But, knowing the man's brutal nature, and his assumed claim on the girl, why could you not have foreseen possible misfortune to her in dwelling thus on her physical beauty? Hombre, it is too bad!"

"Na, amigo," said Don Jorge soothingly, "nothing can come of it. Bien, you take things so hard!" But when Don Jorge again set out for the mountains he left the priest's heart filled with apprehension.

A few weeks later came what Jose had been awaiting, another demand upon him for the girl. Failure to comply with it, said Diego's letter, meant the placing of the case in the hands of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities for action.

Rosendo's face grew hard when he read the note. "There is a way, Padre. Let my woman take the girl and go up the Boque river to Rosa Maria, the clearing of Don Nicolas. It is a wild region, where tapirs and deer roam, and where hardly a man has set foot for centuries. The people of Boque will keep our secret, and she can remain hidden there until—"

"No, Rosendo, that will not do," replied Jose, shaking his head in perplexity. "The girl is developing rapidly, and such a course would result in a mental check that might spell infinite harm. She and Dona Maria would die to live by themselves up there in that lonely region. What about her studies? And—what would I do?"

"Then do you go too, Padre," suggested Rosendo.

"No, amigo, for that would cause search to be instituted by the Bishop, and we certainly would be discovered. But, to take her and flee the country—and the Church—how can I yet? No, it is impossible!" He shook his head dolefully, while his thoughts flew back to Seville and the proud mother there.

"Bien, Padre, let us increase our contributions to Don Wenceslas. Let us send him from now on not less than one hundred pesos oro each month. Will not that keep him quiet, no matter what Diego says?"

"Possibly," assented Jose. "At any rate, we will try it." They still had some three thousand pesos gold left.

* * * * *

"Padre," said Rosendo, some days later, as they sat together in the parish house, "what do you think Diego wants of the girl?"

Jose hesitated. "I think, Rosendo—" he began. But could even a human mind touch such depths of depravity? And yet—"I think," he continued slowly, "that Diego, having seen her, and now speculating on her future beauty of face and form—I think he means to place her in a convent, with the view of holding her as a ready substitute for the woman who now lives with him—"

"Dios! And that is my own daughter!" cried Rosendo, springing up.

"Yes—true, Rosendo. And, if I mistake not, Diego also would like to repay the score he has against you, for driving him from Simiti and holding the threat of death over him these many years. He can most readily do this by getting Carmen away from you—as he did the other daughter, is it not so?"

Rosendo came and stood before the priest. His face was strained with fearful anxiety. "Padre," he said in a low voice, "I shall end this matter at once. I go to Banco to-morrow to kill Diego."

"You shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Jose, seizing his hand. "Why—Rosendo, it would mean your own death, or lifelong imprisonment!"

"And what of that, Padre?" said the old man with awful calmness. "I have nothing that is not hers, even to my life. Gladly would I give it for her. Let me die, or spend my remaining days in the prison, if that will save her. Such a price for her safety would be low."

While he was speaking, Fernando, the town constable, entered. He saluted the men gravely, and drew from his pocket a document to which was attached the Alcalde's official seal.

"Senores," he said with much dignity, as if the majesty of his little office weighed upon him, "I am commanded by Senor, the Alcalde, to exercise the authority reposing in him and place Don Rosendo Ariza under arrest. You will at once accompany me to the carcel," he added, going up to the astonished Rosendo and laying a hand upon his shoulder.

"Arrest! Me! Hombre! what have I done?" cried the old man, stepping back.

"Bien, amigo, I do not find it my duty to tell you. The Senor Alcalde hands me the document and commands me to execute it. As for the cause—Bien, you must ask him."

"Come," said Jose, the first to recover from his astonishment, "let us go to him at once." He at any rate had now an opportunity to confront Don Mario and learn what plans the man had been devising these many months.

The Alcalde received the men in his little patio, scowling and menacing. He offered them no greeting when they confronted him.

"Don Mario," asked Jose in a trembling voice, "why have you put this indignity upon our friend, Rosendo? Who orders his arrest?"

"Ask, rather, Senor Padre," replied the Alcalde, full of wrath, "what alone saves you from the same indignity. Only that you are a priest, Senor Padre, nada mas! His arrest is ordered by Padre Diego."

"And why, if I may beg the favor?" pursued Jose, though he well knew the sordid motive.

"Why? Caramba! Why lay the hands of the law upon those who deprive a suffering father of his child! Bien, Fernando," turning to the constable, "you have done well. Take your prisoner to the carcel."

"No!" cried Rosendo, drawing back. "No, Don Mario, I will not go to the jail! I will—"

"Caramba!" shouted the Alcalde, his face purple. "I set your trial for to-morrow, in the early morning. But this night you will spend in the jail! Hombre! I will see if I am not Alcalde here! And look you, Senor Padre, if there is any disturbance, I will send for the government soldiers! Then they will take Rosendo to the prison in Cartagena! And that finishes him!"

Jose knew that, if Diego had the support of the Bishop, this was no idle threat. Rosendo turned to him in helpless appeal. "What shall I do, Padre?" he asked.

"It is best that you go to the jail to-night, Rosendo," said Jose with sinking heart. "But, Don Mario," turning menacingly to the Alcalde, "mark you, his trial takes place in the morning, and he shall be judged, not by you alone, but by his fellow-townsmen!"

"Have I not said so, senor?" returned Don Mario curtly, with a note of deep contempt in his voice.

As in most small Spanish towns, the jail was a rude adobe hut, with no furnishings, save the wooden stocks into which the feet of the hapless prisoners were secured. Thus confined, the luckless wight who chanced to feel the law's heavy hand might sit in a torturing position for days, cruelly tormented at night by ravenous mosquitoes, and wholly dependent upon the charity of the townsfolk for his daily rations, unless he have friends or family to supply his needs. In the present instance Don Mario took the extra precaution of setting a guard over his important prisoner.

Jose, benumbed by the shock and bewildered by the sudden precipitation of events, accompanied Rosendo to the jail and mutely watched the procedure as Fernando secured the old man's bare feet in the rude stocks. And yet, despite the situation, he could not repress a sense of the ridiculous, as his thought dwelt momentarily on the little opera bouffe which these child-like people were so continually enacting in their attempts at self-government. But it was a play that at times approached dangerously near to the tragic. The passions of this Latin offshoot were strong, if their minds were dull and lethargic, and when aroused were capable of the most despicable, as well as the most grandly heroic deeds. And in the present instance, when the fleeting sense of the absurd passed, Jose knew that he was facing a crisis. Something told him that resistance now would be useless. True, Rosendo might have opposed arrest with violence, and perhaps have escaped. But that would have accomplished nothing for Carmen, the pivot upon which events were turning. Jose had reasoned that it were better to let the Alcalde play his hand first, in the small hope that as the cards fell he might more than match his opponent's strength with his own.

"Na, Padre, do not worry," said Rosendo reassuringly. "It is for her sake; and we shall have to know, as she does, that everything will come out right. My friends will set me free to-morrow, when the trial takes place. And then"—he drew the priest down to him and whispered low—"we will leave Simiti and take to the mountains."

Jose bent his heavy steps homeward. Arriving at Rosendo's house, he saw the little living room crowded with sympathetic friends who had come to condole with Dona Maria. That placid woman, however, had not lost in any degree her wonted calm, even though her companions held forth with much impassioned declamation against the indignity which had been heaped upon her worthy consort. He looked about for Carmen. She was not with her foster-mother, nor did his inquiry reveal her whereabouts. He smiled sadly, as he thought of her out on the shales, her customary refuge when storms broke. He started in search of her; but as he passed through the plaza Manuela Cortez met him. "Padre," she exclaimed, "is the little Carmen to go to jail, too?"

Jose stopped short. "Manuela—why do you say that?" he asked hurriedly, his heart starting to beat like a trip-hammer.

"Because, Padre, I saw the constable, Fernando, take her into Don Mario's house some time ago."

Jose uttered an exclamation and started for the house of the Alcalde. Don Mario stood at the door, his huge bulk denying the priest admission.

"Don Mario!" panted Jose. "Carmen—you have her here?"

Fernando, who had been sitting just within the door, rose and came to his chief's side. Jose felt his brain whirling. Fernando stepped outside and took his arm. The Alcalde's unlovely face expanded in a sinister leer. "It is permissible to place even a priest in the stocks, if he becomes loco," he said significantly.

Jose tightened his grip upon himself. Fernando spoke quickly:

"It was necessary to take the girl in custody, too, Padre. But do not worry; she is safe."

"But—you have no right to take her—"

"There, Senor Padre, calm yourself. What right had you to separate her from her father?"

"Diego is not her father! He lies! And, Don Mario, you have no authority but his—"

"You mistake, Senor Padre," calmly interrupted the Alcalde. "I have a much higher authority."

Jose stared dully at him. "Whose, then?" he muttered, scarce hearing his own words.

"The Bishop's, Senor Padre," answered Don Mario, with a cruel grin.

"The Bishop! But—the old man—"

"Na, Senor Padre, but the Bishop is fairly young, you know. That is, the new one—"

"The new one!" cried the uncomprehending Jose.

"To be sure, Senor Padre, the new Bishop—formerly Senor Don Wenceslas Ortiz."

Jose beat the air feebly as his hand sought his damp brow. His confused brain became suddenly stagnant.

"Bien, Senor Padre," put in Fernando gently, pitying the priest's agony. "You had not heard the news. Don Mario received letters to-day. The old Bishop of Cartagena died suddenly some days ago, and Don Wenceslas at once received the temporary appointment, until the vacancy can be permanently filled. There is talk of making Cartagena an archbishopric, and so a new bishop will not be appointed until that question is settled. Meanwhile, Don Wenceslas administers the affairs of the Church there."

"And he—he—" stammered the stunned priest.

"To be sure, Senor Padre," interrupted Don Mario, laughing aloud; "the good Don Wenceslas no doubt has learned of the beautiful Carmen, and he cannot permit her to waste her loveliness in so dreary a place as Simiti. And so he summons her to Cartagena, in care of his agent, Padre Diego, who awaits the girl now in Banco to conduct her safely down the river. At least, this is what Padre Diego writes me. Bien, it is the making of the girl, to be so favored by His Grace!"

Jose staggered and would have fallen, had not Fernando supported him. Don Mario turned into his house. But as he went he spitefully hurled back:

"Bien, Senor Padre, whom have you to blame but yourself? You keep a child from her suffering father—you give all your time to her, neglecting the other poor children of your parish—you send Rosendo into the mountains to search for La Libertad—you break your agreement with me, for you long ago said that we should work together—is it not so? You find gold in the mountains, but you do not tell me. Na, you work against me—you oppose my authority as Alcalde—Bien, you opposed even the authority of the good Bishop—may he rest with the Saints! You have not made a good priest for Simiti, Senor Padre—na, you have made a very bad one! And now you wonder that the good Don Wenceslas takes the girl from you, to bring her up in the right way. Caramba! if it is not already too late to save her from your bad teachings!" His voice steadily rose while he talked, and ended in a shrill pipe.

Jose made as if to reach him; but Fernando held him back. The Alcalde got quickly within the house and secured the door. "Go now to your home, Padre," urged Fernando; "else I shall call help and put you in the stocks, too!"

"But I will enter that house! I will take the child from him!" shouted Jose desperately, struggling to gain the Alcalde's door.

"Listen to me, Padre!" cried Fernando, holding to the frenzied man. "The little Carmen—she is not in there!"

"Not—in—there! Then where is she, Fernando?—for God's sake tell me!" appealed the stricken priest. Great beads of perspiration stood upon his face, and tears rolled down his drawn cheeks.

Fernando could not but pity him. "Bien, Padre," he said gently; "come away. I give you my word that the girl is not in the house of the Alcalde. But I am not permitted to say where she is."

"Then I will search every house in Simiti!" cried the priest wildly.

"Na, Padre, you would not find her. Come, I will go home with you." He took Jose's arm again and led him, blindly stumbling, to the parish house.

By this time the little town was agog with excitement. People ran from house to house, or gathered on the street corners, discussing the event.

"Caramba!" shrilled one wrinkled beldame, "but Simiti was very quiet until the Cura came!"

"Na, senora," cried another, "say, rather, until that wicked little hada was brought here by Rosendo!"

"Cierto, she is an hada!" put in a third; "she cured Juanita of goitre by her charms! I saw it!"

"Caramba! she works with the evil one. I myself saw her come from the old church on the hill one day! Bien, what was she doing? I say, she was talking with the bad angel which the blessed Virgin has locked in there!"

"Yes, and I have seen her coming from the cemetery. She talks with the buzzards that roost on the old wall, and they are full of evil spirits!"

"And she brought the plague two years ago—who knows?" piped another excitedly.

"Quien sabe? But it was not the real plague, anyway."

"Bueno, and that proves that she caused it, no?"

"Cierto, senora, she cast a spell on the town!"

Jose sat in his little house like one in a dream. Fernando remained with him. Dona Maria had gone to the jail to see Rosendo. Juan had returned that morning to Bodega Central, and Lazaro was at work on the plantation across the lake. Jose thought bitterly that the time had been singularly well chosen for the coup. Don Mario's last words burned through his tired brain like live coals. In a sense the Alcalde was right. He had been selfishly absorbed in the girl. But he alone, excepting Rosendo, had any adequate appreciation of the girl's real nature. To the stagnant wits of Simiti she was one of them, but with singular characteristics which caused the more superstitious and less intelligent to look upon her as an uncanny creature, possessed of occult powers.

Moreover, Jose had duped Don Mario with assurances of cooeperation. He had allowed him to believe that Rosendo was searching for La Libertad, and that he should participate in the discovery, if made. Had his course been wholly wise, after all? He could not say that it had.

But—God above! it was all to save an innocent child from the blackest of fates! If he had been stronger himself, this never could have happened. Or, perhaps, if he had not allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by a fancied security bred of those long months of quiet, he might have been awake and alert to meet the enemy when he returned to the attack. Alas! the devil had left him for a season, and Jose had laid down "the shield of faith," while he lost himself in the intellectual content which the study of the new books purchased with his ancestral gold had afforded. But evil sleeps not; and with a persistency that were admirable in a better cause, it returned with unbated vigor at the moment the priest was off his guard.

* * * * *

Dawn broke upon a sleepless night for Jose. The Alcalde had sent word that Fernando must remain with the priest, and that no visits would be permitted to Rosendo in the jail. Jose had heard nothing from Carmen, and, though often during the long night he sought to know, as she would, that God's protection rested upon her; and though he sought feebly to prove the immanence of good by knowing no evil, the morning found him drawn and haggard, with corroding fear gnawing his desolate heart. Fernando remained mute; and Dona Maria could only learn that the constable had been seen leading the girl into Don Mario's house shortly after Rosendo's arrest.

At an early hour the people, buzzing with excitement, assembled for the trial, which was held in the town hall, a long, empty adobe house of but a single room, with dirt floor, and a few rough benches. The Alcalde occupied a broken chair at one end of the room. The trial itself was of the simplest order: any person might voice his opinion; and the final verdict was left to the people.

In a shaking voice, his frame tremulous with nervous agitation, Rosendo recounted the birth of the child at Badillo, and the manner of her coming into his family. He told of Diego's appointment to Simiti, and of the loss of his own daughter. Waxing more and more energetic as his recital drew out, he denounced Diego as the prince of liars, and as worthy of the violent end which he was certain to meet if ever that renegade priest should venture near enough for him to lay his hands upon him. The little locket was produced, and all present commented on the probable identity of the girl's parents. Many affected to detect a resemblance to Diego in the blurred photograph of the man. Others scouted the idea. Don Mario swore loudly that it could be no other. Diego had often talked to him, sorrowfully, and in terms of deepest affection, about the beautiful woman whose love he had won, but whom his vows of celibacy prevented from making his lawful wife. The Alcalde's recital was dramatic to a degree, and at its close several excitedly attempted to address the multitude at the same time.

Oratory flowed on an ever rising tide, accompanied by much violent gesticulation and expectoration by way of emphasis. At length it was agreed that Diego had been, in times past, a bad man, but that the verbal proofs which he had given the Alcalde were undoubtedly valid, inasmuch as the Bishop stood behind them—and Don Mario assured the people that they were most certainly vouched for by His Grace. The day was almost carried when the eloquent Alcalde, in glowing rhetoric, painted the splendid future awaiting the girl, under the patronage of the Bishop. How cruel to retain her in dreary little Simiti, even though Diego's claim still remained somewhat obscure, when His Grace, learning of her talents, had summoned her to Cartagena to be educated in the convent for a glorious future of service to God! Ah, that a like beautiful career awaited all the children of Simiti!

Jose at length forced himself before the people and begged them to listen to him. But, when he opened his mouth, the words stumbled and halted. For what had he to say? To tell these people that he was striving to educate the girl away from them was impossible. To say that he was trying to save her from the Church would be fatal. And to reiterate that Diego's claim was a fabrication, added nothing of value to the evidence, for what did he know of the child's parentage? He feebly begged them to wait until Diego's claim had been either corroborated or annulled. But no; they had the Bishop's corroboration, and that sufficed. "And, Caramba!" cried Don Mario, interrupting the priest in a loud voice, "if we oppose the Bishop, then will he send the government soldiers to us—and you know what—"

"Cielo, yes!" came from the multitude in one voice.

Jose sank down thoroughly beaten. His hands were tied. The case now rested with her God.

The people drew apart in little groups to discuss the matter. Don Mario's beady eyes searched them, until he was certain of the way the tide was flowing. Then he rose and called for order.

"Bueno, amigos y amigas," he began with immense dignity; "what say you if we sum up the case as follows: The proofs have the support of the Bishop, and show that the girl is the daughter of Padre Diego. Rosendo is guilty of having kept her from her own father, and for that he should be severely punished. Let him be confined in the jail for six months, and be forced to pay to us a fine of one thousand pesos oro—"

"Caramba! but he has no such sum," cried the people with mouths agape.

"Bien, I say he can get it!" retorted the Alcalde, looking meaningly at Jose. "And he should pay it for depriving the child of a father's love and the religious instruction which he would have given her!"

Jose jumped to his feet. "Friends!" he cried, playing his last card. "Will you not remember that more than that amount is due Rosendo for the care of the child? Who will repay him?"

The whimsical, fickle people broke into excited exclamations.

"Cierto!"

"The Cura is right!"

"Let Rosendo pay no fine—he has no gold, anyway!"

"Cut down the sentence, Don Mario. We do not like this!"

The Alcalde saw that he had gone a bit too far. "Bueno, then," he amended. "We will cancel both the fine and Padre Diego's debt to Rosendo, and the sentence shall be reduced to—what say you all?"

"A month in the jail, Don Mario, no more," suggested one.

An exclamation of approval from the crowd drowned the protest which Jose sought vainly to voice. Rosendo rose quickly; but Fernando and others seized him.

"Bien, it is approved," bawled the Alcalde, waving his thick arms. "Take the prisoner to the carcel, Senor Policia," turning to the constable.

"And the girl, Senor the Alcalde—when will you send her to her father?" called some one.

"Yes, Don Mario, she must be taken to Padre Diego at once," piped a woman's shrill voice.

"Bien," shouted the Alcalde, following his words with a long, coarse laugh, "I was wise enough to know what you would decide, and sent the girl down the river last night!"



CHAPTER 25

The candles and smoky oil lamps of Banco threw a fitful shimmer out upon the great river, casting huge, spectral shadows across its muddy, swirling waters, and seeming rather to intensify the blackness that lay thick and menacing upon its restless bosom. Rivermen who follow their hazardous calling along the Magdalena do not lightly risk the dangers of travel by night in their native canoes, when at any moment a false stroke, a sudden crash against a tossing forest tree, and a cry through the inky blackness, might sound to the straining ears of hushed listeners on the distant banks the elements of another of the mighty river's grim nocturnal tragedies.

But on the night following the trial of Rosendo in distant Simiti a canoe stole like a thing ashamed through the heavy shadows along the river's margin, and poked its blunt nose into the ooze at the upper edge of the town. Its two scantily clad bogas, steaming with perspiration and flecked with mud from the charged waters, sprang lightly from the frail craft and quickly made it fast to one of the long stilts upon which a ramshackle frame house rested. Then they assisted the third occupant of the canoe, a girl, to alight; and together they wended their way up the slippery bank and toward the town above.

"Caramba, compadre!" ejaculated one of the men, stumbling into a deep rut, "it is well you know where we go. Hombre! but I travel no more on the river by night. And, compadre, we had best ask Padre Diego to offer a candle to the Virgin for our safe arrival, no?"

The other man chuckled. "To be sure, friend Julio. Don Diego has much influence with virgins."

"Hombre! I like not his dirty work."

"Bien, amigo, what would you? You are well paid; and besides, you score against that baby-faced priest, Jose, who drove you out of Simiti because you were not married to your woman. You cannot complain, compadre."

"Caramba! I have yet to see the color of the pesos. I do not much trust your Padre Diego."

"Na, amigo, a bit of rum will put new life into your soaked gizzard. Cierto, this trip down the river was a taste of purgatory; but you know we may as well get used to it here, for when we pobres are dead who will buy Masses to get us out?"

"Caramba!" muttered the other sullenly, as he stumbled on through the darkness, "but if we have no money the priests will let us burn forever!"

The girl went along with the men silently and without complaint, even when her bare feet slipped into the deep ruts in the trail, or were painfully bruised and cut by the sharp stones and bits of wood that lay in the narrow path. Once she fell. The man addressed as Julio assisted her to her feet. The other broke into a torrent of profane abuse.

"Na, Ricardo," interrupted Julio, "hold your foolish tongue and let the girl alone! You and I have cursed all the way from Simiti, but she has made no complaint. She shames me. Caramba, I wish I were well out of this business!"

A few minutes later they struck one of the main thoroughfares. Then the men stopped to draw on their cotton shirts and trousers before entering the town. The road was better here, and they made rapid progress. The night was far spent, and the streets were deserted. In the main portion of the town ancient Spanish lamps, hanging uncertainly in their sconces against old colonial houses, threw a feeble light into the darkness. Before one of the better of these houses Julio and the girl were halted by their companion.

"Bien," he said, "it is here that the holy servant of God lives. Caramba, but may his garrafon be full!"

They entered the open door and mounted the stone steps. On the floor above they paused in the rotunda, and Ricardo called loudly. A side door opened and a young woman appeared, holding a lighted candle aloft. Ricardo greeted her courteously. "El Senor Padre, senorita Ana?" he said, bowing low. "You will do us the favor to announce our arrival, no?"

The woman stared uncomprehendingly at the odd trio. "The Padre is not here," she finally said.

"Dios y diablo!" cried Ricardo, forgetting his courtesy. "But we have risked our skins to bring him the brat, and he not here to receive and reward us! Caramba!"

"But—Ricardo, he is out with friends to-night—he may return at any moment. Who is the girl? And why do you bring her here?" She stepped forward, holding the candle so that its light fell full upon her face. As she did this the girl darted toward her and threw herself into the woman's arms.

"Anita!" she cried, her voice breaking with emotion, "Anita—I am Carmen! Do you not know me?"

The woman fell back in astonishment. "Carmen! What! The little Carmen, my father's—"

"Yes, Anita, I am padre Rosendo's Carmen—and yours!"

Ana clasped the girl in her arms. "Santa Maria, child! What brings you here, of all places?"

Ricardo stepped forward to explain. "As you may see, senorita, it is we who have brought her here, at the command of her father, Padre Diego."

"Her father!"

"Yes, senorita. And, since you say he is not in, we must wait until he returns."

The woman stood speechless with amazement. Carmen clung to her, while Ricardo stood looking at them, with a foolish leer on his face. Julio drew back into the shadow of the wall.

"Bien, senorita," said Ricardo, stepping up to the child and attempting to take her arm, "we will be held to account for the girl, and we must not lose her. Caramba! For then would the good Padre damn us forever!"

Carmen shrank away from him. Julio emerged swiftly from the shadow and laid a restraining hand on Ricardo. The woman tore Carmen from his grasp and thrust the girl behind herself. "Cierto, friend Ricardo, we are all responsible for her," she said quickly. "But you are tired and hungry—is it not so? Let me take you to the cocina, where you will find roast pig and a bit of red rum."

"Rum!" The man's eyes dilated. "Caramba! my throat is like the ashes of purgatory!"

"Come, then," said the woman, holding Carmen tightly by the hand and leading the way down the steps to the kitchen below. Arriving there, she lighted an oil lamp and hurriedly set out food and a large garrafon of Jamaica rum.

"There, compadre, is a part of your reward. And we will now wait until Padre Diego arrives, is it not so?"

While the men ate and drank voraciously, interpolating their actions at frequent intervals with bits of vivid comment on their river trip, the woman cast many anxious glances toward the steps leading to the floor above. From time to time she replenished Ricardo's glass, and urged him to drink. The man needed no invitation. Physical exhaustion and short rations while on the river had prepared him for just what the woman most desired to accomplish, and as glass after glass of the fiery liquor burned its way down his throat, she saw his scant wit fading, until at last it deserted him completely, and he sank into a drunken torpor. Then, motioning to Julio, who had consumed less of the rum, she seized the senseless Ricardo by the feet, and together they dragged him out into the patio and threw him under a platano tree.

"But, senorita—" began Julio in remonstrance, as thoughts of Diego's wrath filtered through his befuddled brain.

"Not a word, hombre!" she commanded, turning upon him. "If you lay a hand upon this child my knife shall find your heart!"

"But—my pay?"

"How much did Padre Diego say he would give you?" she demanded.

"Three pesos oro—and rations," replied the man thickly.

"Wait here, then, and I will bring you the money."

Still retaining Carmen's hand, she mounted the steps, listening cautiously for the tread of her master. Reaching the rotunda above, she drew Carmen into the room from which she had emerged before, and, bidding her conceal herself if Diego should arrive, took her wallet and hastily descended to where the weaving Julio waited.

"There, amigo," she said hurriedly, handing him the money. "Now do you go—at once! And do not remain in Banco, or Padre Diego will surely make you trouble. Your life is not safe here now. Go!" She pointed to the door; and Julio, impressed with a sense of his danger, lost no time in making his exit.

Returning to Carmen, the woman seated herself and drew the girl to her. "Carmen, child!" she cried, trembling, as her eyes searched the girl. "Tell me why you are here!"

"I do not know, Anita dear," murmured the girl, nestling close to the woman and twining an arm about her neck; "except that day before yesterday the Alcalde put padre Rosendo into the jail—"

"Into the jail!"

"Yes, Anita dear. And then, when I was going to see him, Fernando ran out of Don Mario's house and told me I must go in and see the Alcalde. Julio Gomez and this man Ricardo were there talking with Don Mario in the patio. Then they threw a ruana over me and carried me out through the patio and around by the old church to the Boque trail. When we got to the trail they made me walk with them to the Inanea river, where they put me into a canoe. They paddled fast, down to the Boque river; then to the Magdalena; and down here to Banco. They did not stop at all, except when steamboats went by—oh, Anita, I never saw a steamboat before! What big, noisy things they are! But Padre Jose had often told me about them. And when the big boats passed us they made me lie down in the canoe, and they put the ruana over me and told me if I made any noise they would throw me into the river. But I knew if I just kept still and knew—really knew—that God would take care of me, why, He would. And, you see, He did, for He brought me to you." A tired sigh escaped her lips as she laid her head on the woman's shoulder.

"But—oh, Santa Maria!" moaned the woman, "you are not safe here! What can I do?—what can I do?"

"Well, Anita dear, you can know that God is here, can't you? I knew that all the way down the river. And, oh, I am so glad to see you! Why, just think, it is eight years since you used to play with me! And now we will go back to Simiti, will we not, Anita?"

"Pray to the Virgin to help us, child! You may have influence with her—I have none, for my soul is lost!"

"Why, Anita dear, that is not true! You and I are both God's children, and He is right here with us. All we have to do is to know it—just really know it."

"But, tell me, quick—Diego may be here any moment—why did he send Ricardo for you?"

The girl became very serious. "Anita dear, Padre Diego says I am his child."

"What!"

"Yes—his daughter—that he is my father. But—is it really so, Anita?"

"Madre de Dios!" cried the woman. "What a beast!—what a beast! He saw you in Simiti when he was last there—and you are now a beautiful—No, child, you are not his daughter! The wretch lies—he is a sink of lies! He is rotten with sin! Oh, Dios!"

"Why, no, Anita dear, he is not a beast—we must love him, for he is God's child, too," said Carmen, patting the woman's wet cheek with her soft hand.

"He!—God's child!" She broke into a shrill of laughter. "Carita, he is Satan himself! You do not know him!"

"I don't mean that what you think you see is God's child, Anita dear; but that what you think you see stands for God's child, and isn't real. And if we know that, why, we will see the real child of God—the real man—and not what you call a beast."

Ana apparently did not hear. Her thought was with the future. Carmen looked about the room. "Oh, Anita," she exclaimed, "what a beautiful place, and what beautiful things you have!" She rubbed the tile floor with her bare foot. "Why, Anita dear, it is just like the palaces Padre Jose has told me about!" She walked around the room, touching the various toilet articles on the dresser, passing her hands carefully over the upholstered chairs, and uttering exclamations of wonder and delight. "Anita—Anita dear! Why, it is a palace! Oh! oh! oh!"

The woman looked up with a wan smile. "Chiquita, they are nothing. They are all cheap trinkets—nothing compared with what there is in the big world beyond us. You poor dear, you have lived all your life in miserable little Simiti, and you haven't the slightest idea of what there is in the world!"

"But, Anita dear, Simiti is beautiful," the girl protested.

"Beautiful!" The woman laughed aloud. "My dear, simple little girl! You have seen only this poor room, and you think it wonderful. I have been to Barranquilla and Cartagena with Padre Diego, and have seen houses a thousand times more beautiful than this. And yet, even those are nothing to what there is in the world outside."

Carmen went to the bed and passed her hand over the white counterpane. "Anita—why, is this—is this your—"

"Yes, chiquita, it is my bed. You have never seen a real bed, poor little thing."

"But—" the child's eyes were wide with wonder—"it is so soft—you sink way into it—oh, so soft—like the heron's feathers! I didn't sleep at all in the canoe—and I am so tired."

"You blessed lamb!" cried the woman, springing up and clasping the girl in her arms. "But—what can I do? When he returns, he may come right up here! Santa Maria, help me!—what shall I do?"

"Anita—let me sleep in your bed—it is so soft—but—" looking down dubiously at her muddy feet.

"Never mind them, child." The woman's face had set in grim determination. She went to the dresser and took out a small stiletto, which she quickly concealed in the bosom of her dress. "Get right in, just as you are! I will take care of Diego, if he comes! Santa Maria, I will—"

"Anita dear," murmured the girl, sinking down between the white sheets, "you and I will just know that God is everywhere, and that He will take care of us, and of Padre Diego too." With a sigh of contentment the child closed her eyes. "Anita dear," she whispered softly, "wasn't He good to bring me right to you? And to-morrow we will go back to Simiti—and to padre Rosendo—and Padre Jose—and—and Cantar-las-horas—you haven't seen him for such a long time—such a long—long—Anita dear, I—love—you—"

The child dropped asleep, just as a heavy step fell outside the door. Ana sprang up and extinguished the lamp, then went quickly out into the rotunda. Padre Diego was standing on the top step, puffing and weaving unsteadily. The woman hurried to him and passed an arm about his waist.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in a tone of feigned solicitation. "I feared you had met with an accident! My heart beats like the patter of rain! Why do you stay out so late and cause me worry?"

The bloated face of the man leered like a Jack-o'-lantern. "Spiritual retreat, my love—spiritual retreat," he muttered thickly. "Imbibing the spirits, you know." He laughed heavily at his coarse joke.

The woman gave him a look of inexpressible disgust. "But you are home safe, at any rate," she said in a fawning voice; "and my fear is quieted. Come now, and I will help you into bed. Not in there!" she cried, as he lurched toward the door of the room where Carmen lay; "in your own room to-night!"

He swayed to and fro before her, as she stood with her back against the door.

"Nombre de Dios!" he muttered, "but you grow daily more unkind to your good Padre! Bien, it is well that I have a fresh little housekeeper coming!" He made again as if to enter the room. The woman threw her arms about his neck.

"Padre dear," she appealed, "have you ceased to love your Anita? She would spend this night alone; and can you not favor her this once?"

"Caramba!" he croaked in peevish suspicion, "but I think you have a paramour in there. Bien, I will go in and shrive his wicked soul!"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" cried the desperate woman, her hand stealing to the weapon concealed in her dress. "Pepito came this evening with the case of Oporto which you ordered long ago from Spain. I put it in your study, for I knew you would want to sample it the moment you returned."

"Caramba!" he cried, turning upon her, "why do you not tell me important things as soon as I arrive? I marvel that you did not wait until morning to break this piece of heavenly news! Bien, come to the study, and you shall open a bottle for me. Dios! but my throat is seared with Don Antonio's vile rum! My parched soul panteth for the wine of the gods that flows from sunny Spain! Caramba, woman, give yourself haste!"

Suffering himself to be led by her, he staggered across the rotunda and into the room where long before he had entertained for a brief hour Don Jorge and the priest Jose. Ana quickly broke the neck of a bottle of the newly arrived wine and gave him a generous measure.

"Ah, God in heaven!" murmured the besotted priest, sinking into a chair and sipping the beverage; "it is the nectar of Olympus—triple distilled through tubes of sunlight and perfumed with sweet airs and the smiles of voluptuous houris! Ah, Lord above, you are good to your little Diego! Another sip, my lovely Ana—and bring me the cigarettes. And come, fat lass, do you sit beside me and twine your graceful arms about my neck, while your soft breath kisses my old cheek! Ah, Dios, who would not be human! Caramba! the good God may keep His heaven, if He will but give me the earth!"

Ana drew his head against her bosom and murmured hypocritical words of endearment in his ear, while she kept his glass full. Diego babbled like a child. He nodded; struggled to keep awake; and at length fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. Then she arose, and, assured that he would be long in his stupor, extinguished the light and hurried to her own room.

Carmen was sleeping peacefully. The woman bent over her with the lighted candle and looked long and wistfully. "Ah, Santa Maria!" she prayed, "if you will but save her, you may do what you will with me!"

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she turned to the door and threw the bolt. Coming back to the bed, she again bent over the sleeping girl. "Santa Virgen!" she murmured, "how beautiful! Like an angel! Dios mio—and that beast, he has seen her, and he would—ah, Dios!"

Going again to the dresser, she took from a drawer a sandalwood rosary. Then she returned to the bed and knelt beside the child. "Blessed Virgin," she prayed, while her hot tears fell upon the beads, "I am lost—lost! Ah, I have not told my beads for many years—I cannot say them now! Santa Virgen, pray for me—pray for me—and if I kill him to-morrow, tell the blessed Saviour that I did it for the child! Ah, Santa Virgen, how beautiful she is—how pure—what hair—she is from heaven—Santa Virgen, you will protect her?" She kissed the cross repeatedly. "Madre de Dios—she is so beautiful, so pure—"

Carmen moved slightly, and the woman rose hastily from her knees. "Anita dear," murmured the child, "Jesus waked Lazarus—out of his—sleep. Anita, why do you not come? I am waiting for you."

"Yes, child, yes! But—Dios mio!" she murmured when Carmen again slept, "I am too wicked to sleep with so pure an angel!—no, I can not! I must not!"

She spread a light shawl upon the tile floor near the window and lay down upon it, drawing a lace mantilla over her face to protect it from the mosquitoes. "Santa Virgen", she murmured repeatedly, "pray the blessed Saviour to protect her to-morrow—pray for her, Madre de Dios—pray for her!"

* * * * *

The piercing shriek of a steamboat whistle roused the woman just as the first harbingers of dawn spread over the river a crimson flush that turned it into a stream of blood. The child was asleep. Ana bent over her and left a kiss on her forehead. Then she stole out of the room and into the study. Padre Diego lay sunk in his chair like a monster toad. The woman threw him a look of utter loathing, and then hastily descended into the patio. Ricardo lay under the platano tree, sleeping heavily. She roused him with a kick.

"Up, man!" she cried, shaking him by the shoulder. "Padre Diego sends you this money, and bids you go. He is well satisfied with your work." She held out a roll of pesos.

The man, after much vigorous persuasion, got heavily to his feet. "Caramba, senorita!" he muttered in a dazed voice. "That last tragito—it was a bit too much, no? But—Bien, I would see the good Padre. Caramba, my poor head! What rum! But, senorita, do me the great favor to ask the good Padre to see me one little moment. I must deliver this letter to him." He fumbled in his wallet and drew out an envelope.

"He will not see you, Ricardo. He—"

"Caramba!" ejaculated the man loudly, as his senses returned. "But I believe there is something wrong here! Bien, now I shall see the Padre! I am responsible to him!" He pushed the woman aside and entered the house.

Ana started after him, and seized his arm. A scuffle ensued, and Ricardo's voice was loud and shrill as they reached the stairs. The woman clung to him desperately. "Ricardo—anything you ask—double the amount, if you will go! Leave the house—I will tell the Padre—I will give him the letter—"

"Caramba, but I will see him myself!" shouted the lightheaded Ricardo.

"Dios y diablo!" A heavy voice rolled down from above. "Bien, enamorada, is this the paramour whom you hid in your room last night? Caramba, you might have chosen a handsomer one!"

Ana sank down with a moan and buried her face in her hands. Diego heavily descended the stairs. "Ha, Ricardo!" he exclaimed, recognizing the man. "Bien, so it is you! And the girl?"

"I do not know, Padre," cried the man excitedly. "Senorita Ana, she made me drunk last night. I brought the girl—I waited for you, but the senorita—"

"Caramba, I understand!" replied Diego, turning to the woman.

Ana had risen and was making for the stairs. Diego sprang to her and seized her by the wrist. With her free hand she drew the stiletto from her bosom and raised it to strike. Ricardo saw the movement, and threw himself upon her.

"Dios!" cried Diego, as Ricardo felled the woman and wrenched the weapon from her grasp. "My pretty angel, you have the venom of a serpent! Sly wench! did you think to deceive your doting Padre? But—Dios nos guarde!"

Carmen, awakened by the noise, had left her bed, and now stood at the head of the stairs, looking with dilated eyes at the strange scene being enacted below.

Silence fell upon the group. Ana lay on the ground, her eyes strained toward the girl. Ricardo bent over her, awaiting his master's command. He knew now that she had forever lost her power over the priest. Diego stood like a statue, his eyes riveted upon Carmen. The girl looked down upon them from the floor above with an expression of wonder, yet without fear.

Diego was the first to find his voice. "Ah, my pretty one!" he wheedled. "My lovely daughter! At last you come to your lonely padre! Wait for me, hermosissima!" He puffed painfully up the steps.

"Carmen!—run!—run! Don't let him come near you—!" screamed Ana in a voice of horror. Ricardo clapped his hand heavily over her mouth.

But the child did not move. Diego reached her and seized her hand.

"Carissima!" he panted, feasting his eyes upon her, while a thrill passed through his coarse frame. "Madre de Dios, but you have grown beautiful! Don Mario was right—you are surely the most voluptuous object in human form that has ever crossed my path. Bien, the blessed God is still good to his little Diego!"

He started away with her, but was detained by the loud voice of Ricardo.

"Bien, Padre, my pay!"

"Cierto, hombre!" exclaimed Diego. "I was about to forget. But—a father's joy—ah! Bien, come to me to-morrow—"

"Na, Senor Padre, but to-day—now! I have risked my life—and I have a wife and babes! You will pay me this minute!"

"Caramba, ugly beast, but I will consign you to hell! Maldito! get you gone! There are more convenient seasons than this for your business!" And, still holding tightly to the girl's hand, he led her into the study.

The woman turned upon Ricardo with the fury of a tiger. "See now what you have done!" she screamed. "This will cost your life, for you have put into his dirty hands the soul of an angel, and he will damn it! Santa Virgen! If you had only taken the money I brought you—"

"Demon-tongue, I will take it now!" He snatched the roll of bills from her hand and bolted through the door. With a low moan the woman sank to the ground, while oblivion drew its sable veil across her mind.

Reaching the study, Diego pushed Carmen into the room and then followed, closing the door after him and throwing the iron bolt. Turning about, he stood with arms akimbo upon his bulging hips and gazed long and admiringly at the girl as she waited in expectant wonder before him. A smile of satisfaction and triumph slowly spread over his coarse features. Then it faded, and his heavy jowls and deep furrows formed into an expression, sinister and ominous, through which lewdness, debauchery, and utter corruption looked out brazenly, defiantly, into the fair, open countenance of the young girl before him. A sense of weariness and dull pain then seemed to follow. He shook his heavy head and passed a hand across his brow, as if to brush aside the confusion left by the previous night's potations.

"Madre de Dios!" he muttered, falling heavily into a chair, "but had I known you were here, little rosebud, I should have tried to keep sober." He reached out to grasp her; but she eluded him and went quickly to the open window, where she stood looking down into the street below. The morning sunlight, streaming into the room, engulfed her in its golden flood and transmuted the child of earth into a creature divinely radiant, despite the torn gown and stains of river travel.

"Bien, carisima," the man wheedled in a small, caressing voice, "where is your greeting to your glad padre? Dios mio!" he muttered, his eyes roving over her full figure, "but the Virgin herself was never more lovely! Come, daughter," he purred, extending his arms; "come to a father's heart that now, praise the Saints! shall ache no more for its lost darling."

The girl faced about and looked at him for a few moments. What her glance conveyed, the man was utterly incapable of understanding. Then she drew up a chair that stood near the window, and sinking into it, buried her face in her hands.

"Caramba, my smile of heaven! but why weep?" chirped Diego, affecting surprise. "Is it thus you celebrate your homecoming? Or are these, perchance, fitting tears of joy? Bien, your padre's doting heart itself weeps that its years of loneliness are at last ended." He held the sleeve of his gown to his eyes and sniffed affectedly.

The girl looked up quickly. "I am not weeping," she said.

"Bien, and what then?" he pursued.

"I was just knowing," she answered slowly, "that I was not afraid—that God was everywhere, even right here—and that He would not let any harm come to me."

Diego's eyes widened. Then he burst into a coarse laugh. "Hombre! and you ask Him to protect you from your adoring father! Come here, little wench. You are in your own home. Why be afraid?" He again held out his arms to her.

"I am not afraid—now," she answered softly. "But—I do not think God will let me come to you. If you were really my father, He would."

The man's mouth gaped in astonishment. A fleeting sense of shame swept through his festering mind. Then the lustful meanness of his corrupted soul welled up anew, and he laughed brutally. The idea was delightfully novel; the girl beautifully audacious; the situation piquantly amusing. He would draw her out to his further enjoyment. "So," he observed parenthetically, "I judge you are on quite familiar terms with God, eh?"