"It was the little Carmen, Padre, who saw you run to the lake. She was
sitting at the kitchen door, studying her writing lesson."
The priest essayed to rise from his bed. Night had fallen, and the
feeble light of the candle cast heavy shadows over the room, and made
grotesque pictures of the black, anxious faces looking in at the
grated window.
"But, Rosendo, it--was--a dream--a terrible dream!"
"_Na_, Padre, it was true, for I myself took you from the lake,"
replied Rosendo tenderly.
Josè struggled to a sitting posture, but would have fallen back again
had not Rosendo's strong arm supported him. He passed his hand slowly
across his forehead, as if to brush the mental cobwebs from his
awakening brain. Then he inquired feebly:
"What does the doctor say?"
"Padre, there is no doctor in Simití," Rosendo answered quietly.
"No doctor!"
Josè kept silence for a few moments. Then--
"But perhaps I do not need one. What time did it occur?"
"It did not happen to-day, Padre," said Rosendo with pitying
compassion. "It was nearly a week ago."
"Nearly a week! And have I lain here so long?"
"Yes, Padre."
The priest stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then--
"The dreams were frightful! I must have talked--raved! Rosendo--you
heard me--?" His voice betrayed anxiety.
"There, Padre, think no more about it. You were wild--I fought to keep
you in bed--we thought you must die--all but Carmen--but you have your
senses now--and you must forget the past."
Forget the past! Then his wild delirium had laid bare his soul! And
the man who had so faithfully nursed him through the crisis now
possessed the sordid details of this wretched life!
Josè struggled to orient his undirected mind. A hot wave of anger
swept over him at the thought that he was still living, that his
battered soul had not torn itself from earth during his delirium and
taken flight. Was he fated to live forever, to drag out an endless
existence, with his heart written upon his sleeve for the world to
read and turn to its own advantage? Rosendo had stood between him and
death--but to what end? Had he not yet paid the score in full--good
measure, pressed down and running over? His thoughts ran rapidly from
one topic to another. Again they reverted to the little girl. He had
dreamed of her in that week of black night. He wondered if he had also
talked of her. He had lain at death's door--Rosendo had said so--but
he had had no physician. Perhaps these simple folk brewed their own
homely remedies--he wondered what they had employed in his case. Above
the welter of his thoughts this question pressed for answer.
"What medicine did you give me, Rosendo?" he feebly queried.
"None, Padre."
Josè's voice rose querulously in a little excess of excitement. "What!
You left me here without medical aid, to live or die, as might be?"
The gentle Rosendo laid a soothing hand upon the priest's feverish
brow. "_Na_, Padre,"--there was a hurt tone in the soft answer--"we
did all we could for you. We have neither doctors nor medicines. But
we cared for you--and we prayed daily for your recovery. The little
Carmen said our prayers would be answered--and, you see, they were."
Again the child!
"And what had she to do with my recovery?" Josè demanded fretfully.
"_Quien sabe?_ It is sometimes that way when the little Carmen says
people shall not die. And then," he added sadly, "sometimes they do
die just the same. It is strange; we do not understand it." The gentle
soul sighed its perplexity.
Josè looked up at him keenly. "Did the child say I should not die?" he
asked softly, almost in a whisper.
"Yes, Padre; she says God's children do not die," returned Rosendo.
The priest's blood stopped in its mad surge and slowly began to chill.
God's children do not die! What uncanny influence had he met with here
in this crumbling, forgotten town? He sought the index of his memory
for the sensations he had felt when he looked into the girl's eyes on
his first morning in Simití. But memory reported back only impressions
of goodness--beauty--love.
Then a dim light--only a feeble gleam--seemed to flash before him, but
at a great distance. Something called him--not by name, but by again
touching that unfamiliar chord which had vibrated in his soul when the
child had first stood before him. He felt a strange psychic
presentiment as of things soon to be revealed. A sentiment akin to awe
stole over him, as if he were standing in the presence of a great
mystery--a mystery so transcendental that the groveling minds of
mortals have never apprehended it. He turned again to the man sitting
beside his bed.
"Rosendo--where is she?"
"Asleep, Padre," pointing to the other bed. "But we must not wake
her," he admonished quickly, as the priest again sought to rise; "we
will talk of her to-morrow. I think--"
Rosendo stopped abruptly and looked at the priest as if he would
fathom the inmost nature of the man. Then he continued uncertainly:
"I--I may have some things to say to you to-morrow--if you are
well enough to hear them. But I will think about it to-night,
and--if--_Bien_! I will think about it."
Rosendo rose slowly, as if weighted with heavy thoughts, and went out
into the living room. Presently he returned with a rude, homemade
broom and began to sweep a space on the dirt floor in the corner
opposite Josè. This done, he spread out a light straw mat for his
bed.
"The señora is preparing you a bowl of chicken broth and rice, Padre,"
he said. "The little Carmen saved a hen for you when you should awake.
She has fed it all the week on rice and goat's milk. She said she knew
you would wake up hungry."
Josè's eyes had closely followed Rosendo's movements, although he
seemed not to hear his words. Suddenly he broke forth in protest.
"Rosendo," he cried, "have I your bed? And do you sleep there on the
floor? I cannot permit this!"
"Say nothing, Padre," replied Rosendo, gently forcing Josè back again
upon his bed. "My house is yours."
"But--the señora, your wife--where does she sleep?"
"She has her _petate_ in the kitchen," was the quiet answer.
Only the two poor beds, which were occupied by the priest and the
child! And Rosendo and his good wife had slept on the hard dirt floor
for a week! Josè's eyes dimmed when he realized the extent of their
unselfish hospitality. And would they continue to sleep thus on the
ground, with nothing beneath them but a thin straw mat, as long as he
might choose to remain with them? Aye, he knew that they would,
uncomplainingly. For these are the children of the "valley of the
pleasant 'yes.'"
Josè awoke the next morning with a song echoing in his ears. He had
dreamed of singing; and as consciousness slowly returned, the
dream-song became real. It floated in from the living room on a clear,
sweet soprano. When a child he had heard such voices in the choir loft
of the great Seville cathedral, and he had thought that angels were
singing. As he lay now listening to it, memories of his childish
dreams swept over him in great waves. The soft, sweet cadences rose
and fell. His own heart swelled and pulsated with them, and his barren
soul once more surged under the impulse of a deep, potential desire to
manifest itself, its true self, unhampered at last by limitation and
convention, unfettered by superstition, human creeds and false
ambition. Then the inevitable reaction set in; a sickening sense of
the futility of his longing settled over him, and he turned his face
to the wall, while hot tears streamed over his sunken cheeks.
Again through his wearied brain echoed the familiar admonition,
"Occupy till I come." Always the same invariable response to his
strained yearnings. The sweet voice in the adjoining room floated in
through the dusty palm door. It spread over his perturbed thought like
oil on troubled waters. Perhaps it was the child singing. At this
thought the sense of awe seemed to settle upon him again. A child--a
babe--had said that he should live! If a doctor had said it he would
have believed. But a child--absurd! It was a dream! But no; Rosendo
had said it; and there was no reason to doubt him. But what had this
child to do with it? Nothing! And yet--was that wholly true? Then
whence his sensations when first he saw her? Whence that feeling of
standing in the presence of a great mystery? "Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings--" Foolishness! To be sure, the child may have
said he should not die; but if he were to live--which God forbid!--his
own recuperative powers would restore him. Rosendo's lively
imagination certainly had exaggerated the incident.
Exhausted by his mental efforts, and lulled by the low singing, the
priest sank into fitful slumber. As he slept he dreamed. He was
standing alone in a great desert. Darkness encompassed him, and a
fearful loneliness froze his soul. About him lay bleaching bones.
Neither trees nor vegetation broke the dull monotony of the cheerless
scene. Nothing but waste, unutterably dreary waste, over which a chill
wind tossed the tinkling sand in fitful gusts. In terror he cried
aloud. The desert mocked his hollow cry. The darkness thickened. Again
he called, his heart sinking with despair.
Then, over the desolate waste, through the heavy gloom, a voice seemed
borne faint on the cold air, "Occupy till I come!" He sank to his
knees. His straining eyes caught the feeble glint of a light, but at
an immeasurable distance. Again he called; and again the same
response, but nearer. A glow began to suffuse the blackness about him.
Nearer, ever nearer drew the gleam. The darkness lifted. The rocks
began to bud. Trees and vines sprang from the waste sand. As if in a
tremendous explosion, a dazzling light burst full upon him, shattering
the darkness, fusing the stones about him, and blinding his sight. A
great presence stood before him. He struggled to his feet; and as he
did so a loud voice cried, "Behold, I come _quickly_!"
"_Señor Padre_, you have been dreaming!"
The priest, sitting upright and clutching at the rough sides of his
bed, stared with wooden obliviousness into the face of the little
Carmen.