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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, what did he say?"

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

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

"They didn't expect it to come—on earth," said Jose.

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

"Do you mean it?" inquired Jose eagerly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER 16

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Padre Jose!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Dios!" ejaculated the priest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Padre—my babe?"

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

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

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

"And you will care for it?"

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

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

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

"Yes, carita."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The priest bent close to her.

"He says come, carita—come!"

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



CHAPTER 17

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But, amigo, did I not say—" began Jose soothingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Cayman!" gasped the horrified crew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man and the priest addressed as Diego embraced warmly.

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

"Jose de Rincon," supplied the latter, bowing.

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

"Yes," returned Jose, with awakened interest.

"Not of Don Ignacio—?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sepulcros," Don Jorge briefly announced.

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

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

"Diablo!"

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

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

"Simiti?" interrupted Jose eagerly, turning to the speaker. "Do you know the place?"

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

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

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

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

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

Jose's heart slowly sank under the words.

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

"Diablo! Assigned?"

"Yes," in a voice scarcely audible.

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

"Crime!" exclaimed Jose in amazement.

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

Jose remained silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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