Feliz Gomez, who had been sent to Bodega Central for merchandise which
Don Mario was awaiting from the coast, had collapsed as he stepped
from his boat on his return to Simití. When he regained consciousness
he called wildly for the priest.
"Padre!" he cried, when Josè arrived, "it is _la plaga_! Ah,
_Santísima Virgen_--I am dying!--dying!" He writhed in agony on the
ground.
The priest bent over him, his heart throbbing with apprehension.
"Padre--" The lad strove to raise his head. "The innkeeper at Bodega
Central--he told me I might sleep in an empty house back of the
inn. _Dios mío!_ There was an old cot there--I slept on it two
nights--_Caramba!_ Padre, they told me then--Ah, _Bendita Virgen_!
Don't let me die, Padre! _Carísima Virgen_, don't let me die! _Ah,
Dios--!_"
His body twisted in convulsions. Josè lifted him and dragged him to
the nearby shed where the lad had been living alone. A terror-stricken
concourse gathered quickly about the doorway and peered in wide-eyed
horror through the narrow window.
"Feliz, what did they tell you?" cried Josè, laying the sufferer upon
the bed and chafing his cold hands. The boy rallied.
"They told me--a Turk, bound for Zaragoza on the Nechí river--had
taken the wrong boat--in Maganguey. He had been sick--terribly sick
there. _Ah, Dios!_ It is coming again, Padre--the pain! _Caramba!_
_Dios mío!_ Save me, Padre, save me!"
"Jacinta! Rosa! I must have help!" cried Josè, turning to the stunned
people. "Bring cloths--hot water--and send for Don Mario. Doña Lucia,
prepare an _olla_ of your herb tea at once!"
"Padre"--the boy had become quieter--"when the Turk learned that he
was on the wrong boat--he asked to be put off at the next town--which
was Bodega Central. The innkeeper put him in the empty house--and
he--_Dios_! he died--on that bed where I slept!"
"Well?" said Josè.
"Padre, he died--the day before I arrived there--and--ah_, Santísima
Virgen_! they said--he died--of--of--_la cólera_!"
"Cholera!" cried the priest, starting up. At the mention of the
disease a loud murmur arose from the people, and they fell back from
the shed.
"Padre!--_ah, Dios_, how I suffer! Give me the sacrament--I cannot
live--! Padre--let me confess--now. Ah, Padre, shall I go--to heaven?
Tell me--!"
Josè's blood froze. He stood with eyes riveted in horror upon the
tormented lad.
"Padre"--the boy's voice grew weaker--"I fell sick that day--I started
for Simití--I died a thousand times in the _caño_--_ah, caramba_! But,
Padre--promise to get me out of purgatory--I have no money for Masses.
_Caramba!_ I cannot stand it! Oh, _Dios_! Padre--quick--I have not
been very wicked--but I stole--_Dios_, how I suffer!--I stole two
pesos from the innkeeper at Bodega Central--he thought he lost
them--but I took them out of the drawer--Padre, pay him for me--then I
will not go to hell! _Dios!_"
Rosendo at that moment entered the house.
"Don't come in here!" cried Josè, turning upon him in wild apprehension.
"Keep away, for God's sake, keep away!"
In sullen silence Rosendo disregarded the priest's frenzied appeal.
His eyes widened when he saw the boy torn with convulsions, but he did
not flinch. Only when he saw Carmen approaching, attracted by the
great crowd, he hastily bade one of the women turn her back home.
Hour after hour the poor sufferer tossed and writhed. Again and again
he lapsed into unconsciousness, from which he would emerge to
piteously beg the priest to save him. _"Ah! Dios, Padre!"_ he pleaded,
extending his trembling arms to Josè, "can you do nothing? Can you not
help me? _Santísima Virgen_, how I suffer!"
Then, when the evening shadows were gathering, the final convulsions
seized him and wrenched his poor soul loose. Josè and Rosendo were
alone with him when the end came. The people had early fled from the
stricken lad, and were gathering in little groups before their homes
and on the corners, discussing in low, strained tones the advent of
the scourge. Those who had been close to the sick boy were now cold
with fear. Women wept, and children clung whimpering to their skirts.
The men talked excitedly in hoarse whispers, or lapsed into a state of
terrified dullness.
Josè went from the death-bed to the Alcalde. Don Mario saw him coming,
and fled into the house, securing the door after him. "Go away,
Padre!" he shouted through the shutters. "For the love of the Virgin
do not come here! _Caramba!_"
"But, Don Mario, the lad is dead!" cried Josè in desperation. "And
what shall we do? We must face the situation. Come, you are the
Alcalde. Let us talk about--"
"_Caramba!_ Do what you want to! I shall get out! _Nombre de Dios!_ If
I live through the night I shall go to the mountains to-morrow!"
"But we must have a coffin to bury the lad! You must let us have
one!"
"No! You cannot enter here, Padre!" shrilled Don Mario, jumping up and
down in his excitement. "Bury him in a blanket--anything--but keep
away from my house!"
Josè turned sadly away and passed through the deserted streets back to
the lonely shed. Rosendo met him at the door. "_Bien, Padre_," he said
quietly, "we are exiled."
"Have you been home yet?" asked Josè.
"_Hombre_, no! I cannot go home now. I might carry the disease to the
señora and the little Carmen. I must stay here. And," he added, "you
too, Padre."
Josè's heart turned to lead. "But, the boy?" he exclaimed, pointing
toward the bed.
"When it is dark, Padre," replied Rosendo, "we will take him out
through the back door and bury him beyond the shales. _Hombre!_ I must
see now if I can find a shovel."
Josè sank down upon the threshold, a prey to corroding despair, while
Rosendo went out in search of the implement. The streets were dead,
and few lights shone from the latticed windows. The pall of fear had
settled thick upon the stricken town. Those who were standing before
their houses as Rosendo approached hastily turned in and closed their
doors. Josè, in the presence of death in a terrible form, sat mute. In
an hour Rosendo returned.
"No shovel, Padre," he announced. "But I crept up back of my house and
got this bar which I had left standing there when I came back from the
mountains. I can scrape up the loose earth with my hands. Come now."
Josè wearily rose. He was but a tool in the hands of a man to whom
physical danger was but a matter of temperament. He absently helped
Rosendo wrap the black, distorted corpse in the frayed blanket; and
then together they passed out into the night with their grewsome
burden.
"Why not to the cemetery, Rosendo?" asked Josè, as the old man took an
opposite course.
"_Hombre_, no!" cried Rosendo. "The cemetery is on shale, and I could
not dig through it in time. We must get the body under ground at once.
_Caramba!_ If we put it in one of the _bóvedas_ in the cemetery the
buzzards will eat it and scatter the plague all over the town. The
_bóvedas_ are broken, and have no longer any doors, you remember."
So beyond the shales they went, stumbling through the darkness, their
minds freighted with a burden of apprehension more terrible than the
thing they bore in their arms. The shales crossed, Rosendo left the
trail, cutting a way through the bush with his _machete_ a distance of
several hundred feet. Then, by the weird yellow light of a single
candle, he opened the moist earth and laid the hideous, twisted thing
within. Josè watched the procedure in dull apathy.
"And now, Padre," said Rosendo, at length breaking the awful silence,
"where will you sleep to-night? I cannot let you go back to your
house. It is too near the señora and Carmen. No man in town will let
you stay in his house, since you have handled the plague. Will you
sleep in the shed where the lad died? Or out on the shales with me? I
called to the señora when I went after the bar, and she will lay two
blankets out in the _plaza_ for us. And in the morning she will put
food where we can get it. What say you?"
Josè stood dazed. His mind had congealed with the horror of the
situation. Rosendo took him by the arm. "Come, Padre," he said gently.
"The hill up back of the second church is high, and no one lives near.
I will get the blankets and we will pass the night out there."
"But, Rosendo!" Josè found his voice. "What is it? Is it--_la
cólera_?"
"_Quien sabe?_ Padre," returned Rosendo. "There has been plague
here--these people, some of them, still remember it--but it was long
ago. There have been cases along the river--and brought, I doubt not,
by Turks, like this one."
"And do you think that it is now all along the river? That Bodega
Central is being ravaged by the scourge? That it will sweep through
the country?"
"_Quien sabe?_ Padre. All I do know is that the people of Simití are
terribly frightened, and the pestilence may wipe away the town before
it leaves."
"But--good God! what can we do, Rosendo?"
"Nothing, Padre--but stay and meet it," the man replied quietly.
They reached the hill in silence. Then Rosendo wrapped himself in one
of the blankets which he had picked up as he passed through the
_plaza_, and lay down upon the shale.
But Josè slept not that night. The warm, sluggish air lay about him,
mephitic in its touch. The great vampire bats that soughed through it
symbolized the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." Lonely calls
drifted across the warm lake waters from the dripping jungle like the
hollow echoes of lost souls. Rosendo tossed fitfully, and now and then
uttered deep groans. The atmosphere was prescient with horror. He
struggled to his feet and paced gloomily back and forth along the brow
of the hill. The second church stood near, deserted, gloomy, no longer
a temple of God, but a charnel house of fear and black superstition.
In the distance the ghostly white walls of the Rincón church glowed
faintly in the feeble light that dripped from the yellow stars. There
was now no thought of God--no thought of divine aid. Josè was riding
again the mountainous billows of fear and unbelief; nor did he look
for the Master to come to him through the thick night across the
heaving waters.
The tardy dawn brought Doña Maria to the foot of the hill, where she
deposited food, and held distant converse with the exiles. Don Mario
had just departed, taking the direction across the lake toward San
Lucas. He had compelled his wife to remain in Simití to watch over the
little store, while he fled with two boatmen and abundant supplies.
Others likewise were preparing to flee, some to the Boque river, some
up the Guamocó trail. Doña Maria was keeping Carmen closely, nor would
she permit her to as much as venture from the house.
"Why should not the señora take Carmen and go to Boque, Rosendo?"
asked Josè. "Then you and I could occupy our own houses until we knew
what the future had in store for us."
Rosendo agreed at once. Carmen would be safe in the protecting care of
Don Nicolás. Doña Maria yielded only after much persuasion. From the
hilltop Josè could descry the Alcalde's boat slowly wending its way
across the lake toward the Juncal. Rosendo, having finished his
morning meal, prepared to meet the day.
"_Bien_, Padre," he said, "when the sun gets high we cannot stay here.
We must seek shade--but where?" He looked about dubiously.
"Why not in the old church, Rosendo?"
"_Caramba_, never!" cried Rosendo. "_Hombre!_ that old church is
haunted!"
Josè could never understand the nature of this man, so brave in the
face of physical danger, yet so permeated with superstitious dread of
those imaginary inhabitants of the invisible realm.
"Padre," suggested Rosendo at length. "We will go down there, nearer
the lake, to the old shack where the blacksmith had his forge. He died
two years ago, and the place has since been empty."
"Go then, Rosendo, and I will follow later," assented Josè, who now
craved solitude for the struggle for self-mastery which he saw
impending.
While Rosendo moved off toward the deserted shack, the priest
continued his restless pacing along the crest of the hill. The morning
was glorious--but for the blighting thoughts of men. The vivid green
of the dewy hills shone like new-laid color. The lake lay like a
diamond set in emeralds. The dead town glowed brilliantly white in the
mounting sun. Josè knew that the heat would soon drive him from the
hill. He glanced questioningly at the old church. He walked toward it;
then mounted the broken steps. The hinges, rusted and broken, had let
the heavy door, now bored through and through by _comején_ ants, slip
to one side. Through the opening thus afforded, Josè could peer into
the cavernous blackness within. The sun shot its terrific heat at him,
and the stone steps burned his sandaled feet. He pushed against the
door. It yielded. Then through the opening he entered the dusty,
ill-smelling old edifice.
When his eyes had become accustomed to the dimness within, he saw that
the interior was like that of the other church, only in a more
dilapidated state. There were but few benches; and the brick altar,
poorer in construction, had crumbled away at one side. Dust, mold, and
cobwebs covered everything; but the air was gratefully cool. Josè
brushed the thick dust from one of the benches. Then he lay down upon
it, and was soon sunk in heavy sleep.
* * * * *
The sun had just crossed the meridian. Josè awoke, conscious that he
was not alone. The weird legend that hung about the old church
filtered slowly through his dazed brain. Rosendo had said that an
angel of some kind dwelt in the place. And surely a presence sat on
the bench in the twilight before him! He roused up, rubbed his sleepy
eyes, and peered at it. A soft laugh echoed through the stillness.
"I looked all around for the bad angel that padre Rosendo said lived
here, and I didn't find anything but you."
"Carmen, child! What are you doing here? Don't come near me!" cried
Josè, drawing away.
"Why, Padre--what is it? Why must I keep away from you? First, madre
Maria tells me I must go to Boque with her. And now you will not let
me come near you. And I love you so--" Tears choked her voice, and she
sat looking in mute appeal at the priest.
Josè's wit seemed hopelessly scattered. He passed his hand dully
across his brow as if to brush the mist from his befogged brain.
"Padre dear." The pathetic little voice wrung his heart. "Padre dear,
when madre Maria told me I had to go to Boque, I went to your house to
ask you, and--and you weren't there. And I couldn't find padre Rosendo
either--and there wasn't anybody in the streets at all--and I came up
here. Then I saw the blanket out on the hill, and I kept hunting for
you--I wanted to see you _so_ much. And when I saw the door of the
church broken, I thought you might be in here--and so I came in--and,
oh, Padre dear, I was _so_ glad to find you--but I wouldn't wake you
up--and while you were sleeping I just _knew_ that God was taking care
of you all the time--"
Josè had sunk again upon the bench.
"Padre dear!" Carmen came flying to him across the darkness and threw
her arms about his neck. "Padre dear! I just couldn't stand it to
leave you!" The flood-gates opened wide, and the girl sobbed upon his
shoulder.
"Carmen--child!" But his own tears were mingling freely with hers. The
strain of the preceding night had left him weak. He strove feebly to
loosen the tightly clasped arms of the weeping girl. Then he buried
his drawn face in her thick curls and strained her to his heaving
breast. What this might mean to Carmen he knew full well. But--why not
have it so? If she preceded him into the dark vale, it would be for
only a little while. He would not live without her.
The sobs died away, and the girl looked up at the suffering man.
"Padre dear, you will not send me away--will you?" she pleaded.
"No! no!" he cried fiercely, "not now!"
A happy little sigh escaped her lips. Then she drew herself closer to
him and whispered softly, "Padre dear--I love you."
A groan burst from the man. "God above!" he cried, "have you the heart
to let evil attack such a one as this!"
The girl looked up at him in wonder. "Why, Padre dear--what is it?
Tell me."
"Nothing, child--nothing! Did--er--did your madre Maria say why you
must go to Boque?" he asked hesitatingly.
"She said Feliz Gomez died last night of the plague, and that the
people were afraid they would all get sick and die too. And she
said--Padre dear, she said you were afraid I would get sick, and so
you told her to take me away. You didn't mean that, did you? She
didn't understand you, did she? You are not afraid, are you? You can't
be, you know, can you? You and I are not afraid of anything. We
_know_--don't we, Padre dear?"
"What do we know, child?" he asked sadly.
"Why--why, we know that God is _everywhere_!" She looked at him
wonderingly. What could she understand of a nature so wavering?--firm
when the sun shone bright above--tottering when the blasts of
adversity whirled about it? He had said such beautiful things to her,
such wonderful things about God and His children only yesterday. And
now--why this awful change? Why again this sudden lowering of
standards?
He had sunk deep into his dark thoughts. "Death is inevitable!" he
muttered grimly, forgetful of the child's presence.
"Oh, Padre dear!" she pleaded, passing her little hand tenderly over
his cheek. Then her face brightened. "I know what it is!" she
exclaimed. "You are just trying to think that two and two are
seven--and you can't prove it--and so you'd better stop trying!" She
broke into a little forced laugh.
Josè sat wrapped in black silence.
"Padre dear." Her voice was full of plaintive tenderness. "You have
talked so much about that good man Jesus. What would he say if he saw
you trying to make two and two equal seven? And if he had been here
last night--would he have let Feliz die?"
The priest made no answer. None was required when Carmen put her
questions.
"Padre dear," she continued softly. "Why didn't _you_ cure Feliz?"
His soul withered under the shock.
"You have told me, often, that Jesus cured sick people. And you said
he even made the dead ones live again--didn't you, Padre dear?"
"Yes," he murmured; "they say he did."
"And you read to me once from your Bible where he told the people that
he gave them power over everything. And you said he was the great
rule--you called him the Christ-principle--and you said he never went
away from us. Well, Padre dear," she concluded with quick emphasis,
"why don't you use him now?"
She waited a moment. Then, when no reply came--
"Feliz didn't die, Padre."
"_Hombre!_ It's all the same--he's gone!" he cried in a tone of sullen
bitterness.
"You think he is gone, Padre dear. And Feliz thought he had to go. And
so now you both see it that way--that's all. If you would see things
the way that good man Jesus told you to--well, wouldn't they be
different--wouldn't they, Padre dear?"
"No doubt they would, child, no doubt. But--"
She waited a moment for him to express the limitation which the
conjunctive implied. Then:
"Padre dear, how do you think he did it? How did he cure sick people,
and make the dead ones live again?"
"I--I don't know, child--I am not sure. That knowledge has been lost,
long since."
"You _do_ know, Padre," she insisted; "you _do_! Did he know that God
was everywhere?"
"Yes."
"And what did he say sickness was?"
"He classed it with all evil under the one heading--a lie--a lie about
God."
"But when a person tells a lie, he doesn't speak the truth, does he?"
"No."
"And a lie has no rule, no principle?"
"No."
"And so it isn't anything--doesn't come from anything true--hasn't any
real life, has it?"
"No, a lie is utterly unreal, not founded on anything but supposition,
either ignorant or malicious."
"Then Jesus said sickness was a supposition, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"And God, who made everything real, didn't make suppositions. He made
only real things."
"True, child."
"Well, Padre dear, if you _know_ all that, why don't you act as if you
did?"
Act? Yes, act your knowledge! Acknowledge Him in all your ways! Then
He shall bring it to pass! What? That which is real--life, not
death--immortality, not oblivion--love, not hate--good, not evil!
"_Chiquita_--" His voice was thick. "You--you believe all that, don't
you?"
"No, Padre dear"--she smiled up at him through the darkness--"I don't
believe it, I _know_ it."
"But--how--how do you know it?"
"God tells me, Padre. I hear Him, always. And I prove it every day.
The trouble is, you believe it, but I don't think you ever try to
_prove_ it. If you believed my problems in algebra could be solved,
but never tried to prove it--well, you wouldn't do very much in
algebra, would you?" She laughed at the apt comparison.
Josè's straining eyes were peering straight ahead. Through the thick
gloom he saw the mutilated figure of the Christ hanging on its cross
beside the crumbling altar. It reflected the broken image of the
Christ-principle in the hearts of men. And was he not again crucifying
the gentle Christ? Did not the world daily crucify him and nail him
with their false beliefs to the cross of carnal error which they set
up in the Golgotha of their own souls? And were they not daily paying
the awful penalty therefor? Aye, paying it in agony, in torturing
agony of soul and body, in blasted hopes, crumbling ambitions, and
inevitable death!
"Padre dear, what did the good man say sickness came from?" Carmen's
soft voice brought him back from his reflections.
"Sickness? Why, he always coupled disease with sin."
"And sin?"
"Sin is--is unrighteousness."
"And that is--?" she pursued relentlessly.
"Wrong conduct, based on wrong thinking. And wrong thinking is based
on wrong beliefs, false thought."
"But to believe that there is anything but God, and the things He
made, is sin, isn't it, Padre dear?"
"Sin is--yes, to believe in other powers than God is to break the very
first Commandment--and that is the chief of sins!"
"Well, Padre dear, can't you make yourself think right? Do you know
what you really think about God, anyway?"
Josè rose and paced up and down through the dark aisle.
"I try to think," he answered, "that He is mind; that He is infinite,
everywhere; that He is all-powerful; that He knows all things; and
that He is perfect and good. I try not to think that He made evil, or
anything that is or could be bad, or that could become sick, or decay,
or die. Whatever He made must be real, and real things last forever,
are immortal, eternal. I strive to think He did make man in His image
and likeness--and that man has never been anything else--that man
never 'fell.'"
"What is that, Padre?"
"Only an old, outworn theological belief. But, to resume: I believe
that, since God is mind, man must be an idea of His. Since God is
infinite, man must exist in Him. I know that any number of lies can be
made up about true things. And any number of falsities can be assumed
about God and what He has made. I am sure that the material universe
and man are a part of the lie about God and the way He manifests and
expresses Himself in and through His ideas. Everything is mental. We
_must_ hold to that! The mental realm includes all truth, all fact.
But there may be all sorts of supposition about this fact. And yet,
while fact is based upon absolute and undeviating principle--and I
believe that principle to be God--supposition is utterly without any
rule or principle whatsoever. It is wholly subject to truth, to
Principle, to God. Hence, bad or wrong thought is absolutely subject
to good or real thought, and must go down before it. The mortal man is
a product of wrong thought. He is a supposition; and so is the
universe of matter in which he is supposed to live. We have already
learned that the things he thinks he hears, feels, tastes, smells, and
sees are only his own thoughts. And these turn out to be suppositions.
Hence, they are nothing real."
"Well, Padre! How fast you talk! And--such big words! I--I don't think
I understand all you say. But, anyway, I guess it is right." She
laughed again.
"I _know_ it is right!" he exclaimed, forgetting that he was talking
to a child. "Evil, which includes sickness and death, is only a false
idea of good. It is a misinterpretation, made in the thought-activity
which constitutes what we call the human consciousness. And that is
the opposite--the suppositional opposite--of the mind that is God.
Evil, then, becomes a supposition and a lie. Just what Jesus said it
was!"
"But, Padre--I don't see why you don't act as if you really believed
all that!"
"Fear--only fear! It has not yet been eradicated from my thought," he
answered slowly.
"But, Padre, what will drive it out?"
"Love, child--love only, for 'perfect love casteth out fear.'"
"Oh, then, Padre dear, I will just love it all out of you, every bit!"
she exclaimed, clasping her arms about him again and burying her face
in his shoulder.
"Ah, little one," he said sadly, "I must love more. I must love my
fellow-men and good more than myself and evil. If I didn't love myself
so much, I would have no fear. If I loved God as you do, dearest
child, I would never come under fear's heavy shadow."
"You _do_ love everybody--you have got to, for you are God's child.
And now," she added, getting down and drawing him toward the door,
"let us go out of this smelly old church. I want you to come home.
We've got to have our lessons, you know."
"But--child, the people will not let me come near them--nor you
either, now," he said, holding back. "They think we may give them the
disease."
She looked up at him with a tender, wistful smile. Then she shook her
head. "Padre dear, I love you," she said, "but you make me lots of
trouble. But--we are going to love all the fear away, and--" stamping
her little bare foot--"we are going to get the right answer to your
problem, too!"
The priest took her hand, and together they passed out into the
dazzling sunlight.
On the brow of the hill stood Rosendo, talking excitedly, and with
much vehement gesticulation, to Doña Maria, who remained a safe
distance from him. The latter and her good consort exclaimed in horror
when they saw Carmen with the priest.
_"Caramba!"_ cried Rosendo, darting toward them. "I could kill you for
this, Padre! _Hombre!_ How came the child here, and with you? _Dios
mío!_ Have you no heart, but that, when you know you may die, you
would take her with you?" He swung his long arms menacingly before the
priest, and his face worked with passion.
The girl ran between the two men. "Padre Rosendo!" she cried, seizing
one of his hands in both of her own. "I came of myself. He did not
call me. I found him asleep. And he isn't going to die--nor I,
either!"
Doña Maria approached and quietly joined the little group.
_"Caramba! Go back!"_ cried the distressed Rosendo, turning upon her.
"_Hombre! Dios y diablo!_ will you all die?" He stamped the ground and
tore his hair in his impotent protest.
"_Na_, Rosendo," said the woman placidly, "if you are in danger, I
will be too. If you must die, so will I. I will not be left alone."
A thrill of admiration swept over the priest. Then he smiled wanly.
"_Bien_," he said, "we have all been exposed to the plague now, and we
will stand together. Shall we return home?"
Rosendo's anger soon evaporated, but his face retained traces of deep
anxiety. "Maria tells me, Padre," he said, "that Amado Sanchez fell
sick last night with the flux, and nobody will stay with him,
excepting his woman."
"Let us go to him, then," replied the priest. "Doña Maria, do you and
Carmen return to your house, whilst Rosendo and I seek to be of
service to those who may need us."
Together they started down the main street of the town. Dead silence
reigned everywhere. Many of the inhabitants had fled to the hills. But
there were still many whose circumstances would not permit of flight.
As they neared Rosendo's house the little party were hailed from a
distance by Juan Mendoza and Pedro Cárdenas, neighbors living on
either side of Rosendo and the priest.
"_Hola_, Padre and Don Rosendo!" they called; "you cannot return to
your homes, for you would expose us to the plague! Go back! Go back!
We will burn the houses over your heads if you return!"
"But, _amigos_--" Josè began.
"_Na_, Padre," they cried in tense excitement, "it is for the best! Go
back to the hill! We will supply you with food and blankets--but you
must not come here! Amado Sanchez is sick; Guillermo Hernandez is
sick. Go back! You must not expose us!" The attitude of the
frightened, desperate men was threatening. Josè saw that it would be
unwise to resist them.
"_Bien, compadres_, we will go," he said, his heart breaking with
sorrow for these children of fear. Then, assembling his little family,
he turned and retraced his steps sadly through the street that burned
in lonely silence in the torrid heat.
Carmen's eyes were big with wonder; but a happy idea soon drove all
apprehension from her thought. "Padre!" she exclaimed, "we will live
in the old church, and we will play house there!" She clapped her
hands in merriment.
"Never!" muttered Rosendo. "I will not enter that place! It would
bring the plague upon me! _Na! na!_" he insisted, when they reached
the steps, "do you go in if you wish; but I will stay outside in the
shadow of the building." Nor would the combined entreaties of Carmen
and Josè induce him to yield. Doña Maria calmly and silently prepared
to remain with him.
"Pull off the old door, Padre!" cried Carmen excitedly. "And open all
the shutters. Look! Look, Padre! There goes the bad angel that padre
Rosendo was afraid of!" A number of bats, startled at the noise and
the sudden influx of light, were scurrying out through the open door.
"Like the legion of demons which Jesus sent into the swine," said
Josè. "I will tell you the story some day, _chiquita_," he said, in
answer to her look of inquiry.
The day passed quickly for the child, nor did she seem to cast another
thought in the direction of the cloud which hung over the sorrowing
town. At dusk, Mendoza and Cárdenas came to the foot of the hill with
food and blankets.
"Amado Sanchez has just died," they reported.
"What!" cried Josè. "So soon? Why--he fell sick only yesterday!"
"No, Padre, he had been ailing for many days--but it may have been the
plague just the same. Perhaps it was with us before Feliz brought it.
But we have not exposed ourselves to the disease and--Padre--there is
not a man in Simití who will bury Amado. What shall we do?"
Josè divined the man's thought. "_Bien, amigo_," he replied. "Go you
back to your homes. To-night Rosendo and I will come and bury him."
Josè had sent Carmen and Doña Maria beyond the church, that they might
not hear the grewsome tidings. When the men had returned to their
homes, the little band on the hilltop ate their evening meal in
silence. Then a bench was swept clean for Carmen's bed, for she
insisted on sleeping in the old church with Josè when she learned that
he intended to pass the night there.
Again, as the heavy shadows were gathering, Josè and Rosendo descended
into the town and bore out the body of Amado Sanchez to a resting
place beside the poor lad who had died the day before. To a man of
such delicate sensibilities as Josè, whose nerves were raw from
continual friction with a world with which he was ever at variance,
this task was one of almost unendurable horror. He returned to the old
church in a state bordering on collapse.
"Rosendo," he murmured, as they seated themselves on the hillside in
the still night, "I think we shall all die of the plague. And it were
well so. I am tired, utterly tired of striving to live against such
odds. _Bien_, let it come!"
"Courage, _compadre_!" urged Rosendo, putting his great arm about the
priest's shoulders. "We must all go some time, and perhaps now; but
while we live let us live like men!"
"You do not fear death?"
"No--what is it that the old history of mine says? 'Death is not
departing, but arriving.' I am not afraid. But the little Carmen--I
wish that she might live. She--ah, Padre, she could do much good in
the world. _Bien_, we are all in the hands of the One who brought us
here--and He will take us in the way and at the time that He
appoints--is it not so, Padre?"
Josè lapsed again into meditation. No, he could not say that it was
so. The thoughts which he had expressed to Carmen that morning still
flitted through his mind. The child was right--Rosendo's philosophy
was that of resignation born of ignorance. It was the despair of
doubt. And he did not really think that Carmen would be smitten of the
plague. Something seemed to tell him that it was impossible. But, on
the other hand, he would himself observe every precaution in regard to
her. No, he would not sleep in the church that night. He had handled
the body of the plague's second victim, and he could not rest near the
child. Perhaps exposure to the night air and the heavy dews would
serve to cleanse him. And so he wrapped himself in the blanket which
Doña Maria brought from within the church, and lay down beside the
faithful pair.
In the long hours of that lonely night Josè lay beneath the shimmering
stars pondering, wondering. Down below in the smitten town the poor
children of his flock were eating their hearts out in anxious dread
and bitter sorrow. Was it through any fault of theirs that this thing
had come upon them, like a bolt from a cloudless sky? No--except that
they were human, mortal. And if the thing were real, it came from the
mind that is God; if unreal--but it seemed real to these simple folk,
terribly so!
His heart yearned toward them as his thought penetrated the still
reaches of the night and hovered about their lonely vigil. Yet, what
had he to offer? What balm could he extend to those wearing out weary
hours on beds of agony below? Religion? True religion, if they could
but understand it; but not again the empty husks of the faith that had
been taught them in the name of Christ! Where did scholastic theology
stand in such an hour as this? Did it offer easement from their
torture of mind and body? No. Strength to bear in patience their heavy
burden? No. Hope? Not of this life--nay, naught but the thread-worn,
undemonstrable promise of a life to come, if, indeed, they might
happily avoid the pangs of purgatory and the horrors of the quenchless
flames of hell! God, what had not the Church to answer for!
And yet, these ignorant children were but succumbing to the
evidence of their material senses--though small good it would do to
tell them so! Could they but know--as did Carmen--that rejection of
error and reception of truth meant life--ah, could they but know!
Could he himself but know--really _know_--that God is neither the
producer of evil, nor the powerless witness of its ravages--could
he but understand and prove that evil is not a self-existing
entity, warring eternally with God, what might he not accomplish!
For Jesus had said: "These signs"--the cure of disease, the rout of
death--"shall follow them that believe," that understand, that
know. Why could he not go down to those beds of torture and say
with the Christ: "Arise, for God hath made thee whole"? He knew
why--"without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that
cometh of God must believe"--must _know_--"that He is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him." The suffering victims in the town
below were asleep in a state of religious dullness. The task of
independent thinking was onerous to such as they. Gladly did they
leave it to the Church to do their thinking for them. And thus did
they suffer for the trust betrayed!
But truth is omnipotent, and "one with God is a majority." Jesus gave
few rules, but none more fundamental than that "with God all things
are possible." Was he, Josè, walking with God? If so, he might arise
and go down into the stricken town and bid its frightened children be
whole. If he fully recognized "the Father" as all-powerful,
all-good, and if he could clearly see and retain his grasp on the
truth that evil, the supposititious opposite of good, had neither
place nor power, except in the minds of mortals receptive to it--ah,
then--then----
A soft patter of little feet on the shales broke in upon his thought.
He turned and beheld Carmen coming through the night.
"Padre dear," she whispered, "why didn't you come and sleep in the
church with me?" She crept close to him. He had not the heart nor the
courage to send her away. He put out his arm and drew her to him.
"Padre dear," the child murmured, "it is nice out here under the
stars--and I want to be with you--I love you--love you--" The whisper
died away, and the child slept on his arm.
"Perfect love casteth out fear."