Josè rose from his hard bed stiff and weary. Depression sat heavily
upon his soul, and he felt miserably unable to meet the day. Doña
Maria was preparing the coffee over a little fire back of the church.
The odor of the steaming liquid drifted to him on the warm morning air
and gave him a feeling of nausea. A sharp pain shot through his body.
His heart stopped. Was the plague's cold hand settling upon him?
Giddiness seized him, and he sat down again upon the rocks.
In the road below a cloud of dust was rising, and across the distance
a murmur of voices floated up to his ears. Men were approaching. He
wondered dully what additional trouble it portended. Rosendo came to
him at that moment.
"_Muy buenos dias, Padre._ I saw a boat come across the lake some
minutes ago. I wonder if Don Mario has returned."
The men below were ascending the hill. Josè struggled to his feet and
went forth to meet them. A familiar voice greeted him cheerily.
"_Hola, Señor Padre Josè!_ _Dios mío_, but your hill is steep!"
Josè strained his eyes at the newcomer. The man quickly gained the
summit, and hurried to grasp the bewildered priest's hand.
"Love of the Virgin! don't you know me, _Señor Padre_?" he cried,
slapping Josè roundly upon the back.
The light of recognition slowly came into the priest's eyes. The man
was Don Jorge, his erstwhile traveling companion on the Magdalena
river.
"And now a cup of that coffee, if you will do me the favor, my good
_Cura_. And then tell me what ails you here," he added, seating
himself. "_Caramba_, what a town! Diego was right--the devil himself
made this place! But they say you have all taken to dying! Have you
nothing else to do? _Caramba_, I do not wonder! Such a God-forsaken
spot! Well, what is it? Speak, man!"
Josè collected his scattered thoughts. "The cholera!" he said
hoarsely.
"Cholera! _Caramba!_ so they told me down below, and I would not
believe them! But where did it come from?"
"One of our men brought it from Bodega Central."
"Bodega Central!" ejaculated Don Jorge. "Impossible! I came from there
this morning myself. Have been there two days. There isn't a trace of
cholera in the place, as far as I know! You have all gone crazy--but
small wonder!" looking out over the decrepit town.
The priest's head was awhirl. He felt his senses leaving him. His ears
were reporting things basely false. "You say--" he began in
bewilderment.
"I say what I have said, _amigo_! There is no more cholera in Bodega
Central than there is in heaven! I arrived there day before yesterday,
and left before sunrise this morning. So I should know."
Josè sank weakly down at the man's side. "But--Don Jorge--Feliz Gomez
returned from there three nights ago, and reported that a Turk, who
had come up from the coast, had died of the plague!"
Don Jorge's brows knit in perplexity. "I recall now," he said slowly,
after some moments of study. "The innkeeper did say that a Turk had
died there--some sort of intestinal trouble, I believe. When I told
him I was bound for Simití, he laughed as if he would split, and then
began to talk about the great fright he had given a man from here.
Said he scared the fellow until his black face turned white. But I was
occupied with my own affairs, and paid him little attention. But come,
tell me all about it."
With the truth slowly dawning upon his clouded thought, Josè related
the grewsome experiences of the past three days.
_"Ca-ram-ba!"_ Don Jorge whistled softly. "Who would have thought it!
But, was Feliz Gomez sick before he went to Bodega Central?"
"I do not know," replied Josè.
"Yes, señor," interposed Rosendo. "He and Amado Sanchez both had bowel
trouble. Their women told my wife so, after you and I, Padre, had come
up here to the hill. But it was nothing. We have it here often, as you
know."
"True," assented Josè, "but we have never given it any serious
thought."
Don Jorge leaned back and broke into a roar of laughter. "_Por el amor
del cielo!_ You are all crazy, _amigo_--you die like rats of fear! Did
you ever put a mouse into a bottle and then scare it to death with a
loud noise? _Hombre!_ That is what has happened to you!" The hill
reverberated with his loud shouts.
But Josè could not share in the merriment. The awful consequences of
the innkeeper's coarse joke upon the childish minds of these poor,
impressionable people pressed heavily upon his heart. Bitter tears
welled to his eyes. He sprang to his feet.
"Come, Rosendo!" he cried. "We must go down and tell these people the
truth!"
Don Jorge joined them, and they all hastened down into the town.
Ramona Chaves met them in the _plaza_, her eyes streaming.
"Padre," she wailed, "my man Pedro has the sickness! He is dying!"
"Nothing of the kind, Ramona!" loudly cried Josè; "there is no cholera
here!" He hastened to the bedside of the writhing Pedro.
"Up, man!" he shouted, seizing his hand. "Up! You are not sick! There
is no cholera in Simití! There is none in Bodega Central! Feliz did
not bring it! He and Amado had only a touch of the flux, and they died
of fear!"
The priest's ringing words acted upon the man like magic. He roused up
from his lethargy and stared at the assemblage. Don Jorge repeated the
priest's words, and added his own laughing and boisterous comments.
Pedro rose from his bed, and stood staring.
Together, their little band augmented at every corner by the startled
people, they hurried to the homes of all who lay upon beds of
sickness, spreading the glad tidings, until the little town was in a
state of uproar. Like black shadows before the light, the plague fled
into the realm of imagination from which it had come. By night, all
but Mateo Gil were up and about their usual affairs. But even Mateo
had revived wonderfully; and Josè was confident that the good news
would be the leaven of health that would work a complete restoration
within him in time. The exiles left the hilltop and the old church,
and returned again to their homes. Don Jorge took up his abode with
Josè.
"_Bien_," he said, as they sat at the rear door of the priest's house,
looking through the late afternoon haze out over the lake, "you have
had a strange experience--_Caramba_! most strange!--and yet one from
which you should gather an excellent lesson. You are dealing with
children here--children who have always been rocked in the cradle of
the Church. But--" looking archly at Josè, "do I offend? For, as I
told you on the boat a year ago, I do not think you are a good
priest." He laughed softly. "_Bien_," he added, "I will correct that.
You are good--but not a priest, is it not so?"
"I have some views, Don Jorge, which differ radically from those of
the faith," Josè said cautiously.
"_Caramba!_ I should hope so!" his friend ejaculated.
"But," interposed Josè, anxious to direct the conversation into other
channels, "may I ask how and where you have occupied yourself since I
left the boat at Badillo?"
"Ah, _Dios_!" said Don Jorge, shaking his head, although his eyes
twinkled. "I have wandered ever since--and am poorer now than when I
started. I left our boat at Puerto Nacional, to go to Medellin; and
from there to Remedios and Guamocó. But while in the river town I met
another _guaquero_--grave hunter, you know--who was preparing to go to
Honda, to investigate the 'castles' at that place. There is a strange
legend--you may have heard it--hanging over those rocks. It appears
that a lone hermit lived in one of the many caverns in the great
limestone deposits rising abruptly from the river near the town of
Honda. How he came there, no one knew. Day after day, year after year,
he labored in his cave, extending it further into the hillside. People
laughed at him for tunneling in that barren rock, for gold has never
been found anywhere in it. But the fellow paid them no attention; and
gradually he was accepted as a harmless fanatic, and was left
unmolested to dig his way into the hill as far as he would. Years
passed. No one knew how the fellow lived, for he held no human
intercourse. Kind people often brought food and left it at the mouth
of his cavern, but he would have none of it. They brought clothes, but
they rotted where they were left. What he ate, no one could discover.
At last some good soul planted a fig tree near the cave, hoping that
the fruit in time would prove acceptable to him. One day they found
the tree cut down. _Bien_, time passed, and he was forgotten. One day
some men, passing the cave, found his body, pale and thin, with long,
white hair, lying at the entrance. But--_Caramba_! when they buried
the body they found it was that of a woman!"
He paused to draw some leaves of tobacco from his wallet and roll a
thick cigar. The sudden turn of his story drew an expression of
amazement from the priest.
"_Bien_," he resumed, "where the woman came from, and who she was,
never was learned. Nor how she lived. But of course some one must have
supplied her with food and clothes all these years. Perhaps she was
some grand dame, with a dramatic past, who had come there to escape
the world and do penance for her sins. What sorrow, what black tragedy
that cave concealed, no one may ever know! Nor am I at all interested
in that. The point is, either she found gold there, or had a quantity
of it that she brought with her--at least so I thought at the time.
So, when the _guaquero_ at Puerto Nacional told me the story, nothing
would do but I must go with him to search the cave. _Caramba!_ We
wasted three full months prying around there--and had our labor for
our pains!"
He tilted his chair back and puffed savagely at his cigar.
"Well, then I got on the windy side of another legend, a wild tale of
buried treasure in the vicinity of Mompox. Of course I hurried after
it. Spent six months pawing the hot dirt around that old town. Fell in
with your estimable citizen, Don Felipe, who swindled me out of a
hundred good _pesos oro_ on a fraudulent location and a forged map.
Then I cursed him and the place and went up to Banco."
"Banco!" Josè's heart began beating rapidly. Don Jorge went on:
"Your genial friend Diego is back there. Told me about his trip to
Simití to see his little daughter."
"What did he say about her, _amigo_?" asked Josè in a controlled
voice.
"Not much--only that he expected to send for her soon. You know,
Rosendo's daughter is living with him. Fine looking wench, too!"
"But, Don Jorge," pursued Josè anxiously, "what think you, is the
little Carmen Diego's child?"
"_Hombre!_ How should I know? He no doubt has many."
"She does not look like him," asserted Josè, clinging to his note of
optimism.
"No. And fortunate she is in that! _Caramba_, but he looks like an imp
from sheol!"
Josè saw that little consolation was to be derived from Don Jorge as
far as Carmen was concerned. So he allowed the subject to lapse.
"_Bien_," continued Don Jorge, whose present volubility was in
striking contrast to his reticence on the boat the year before, "I had
occasion to come up to Bodega Central--another legend, if I must
confess it. And there Don Carlos Norosí directed me here."
"What a life!" exclaimed Josè.
"Yes, no doubt it appears so to you, _Señor Padre_," replied Don
Jorge. "And yet my business, that of treasure hunting, has in times
past proved very lucrative. The Indian graves of Colombia have yielded
enormous quantities of gold. The Spaniards opened many of them; and in
one, that of a famous chieftain, discovered down below us, near
Zaragoza, they found a solid gold pineapple, a marvelous piece of
workmanship, and of immense value. They sent it to the king of Spain.
_Caramba_! it never would have reached him if I had been there!
"But," he resumed, "we have no idea of the amount of treasure that has
been buried in various parts of Colombia. This country has been, and
still is, enormously rich in minerals--a veritable gold mine of
itself. And since the time of the Spanish conquest it has been in a
state of almost constant turmoil. Nothing and nobody has been safe.
And, up to very recent times, whenever the people collected a bit of
gold above their daily needs, they promptly banked it with good Mother
Earth. Then, like as not, they got themselves killed in the wars, and
the treasure was left for some curious and greedy hunter like myself
to dig up years after. The Royalists and Tories buried huge sums all
over the country during the War of Independence. Why, it was only a
year or so ago that two men came over from Spain and went up the
Magdalena river to Bucaramanga. They were close-mouthed fellows,
well-dressed, and evidently well-to-do. But they had nothing to say to
anybody. The innkeeper pried around until he discovered that they
spent much time in their room poring over maps and papers. Then they
set off alone, with an outfit of mules and supplies to last several
weeks. _Bueno_, they came back at last with a box of good size, made
of mahogany, and bound around with iron bands. _Caramba!_ They did not
tarry long, you may be sure. And I learned afterward that they sailed
away safely from Cartagena, box and all, for sunny Spain, where, I
doubt not, they are now living in idleness and gentlemanly ease on
what they found in the big coffer they dug up near that old Spanish
city."
Josè listened eagerly. To him, cooped up for a year and more in the
narrow confines of Simití, the ready flow of this man's conversation
was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged
him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation.
"_Caramba_, but the old Indian chiefs were wise fellows!" Don Jorge
pursued. "They seemed to know that greedy vandals like myself would
some day poke around in their last resting places for the gold that
was always buried with them--possibly to pay their freight across the
dark river. And so they dug their graves in the form of an L, in the
extreme tip of which the royal carcasses were laid. In this way they
have deceived many a grave-hunter, who dug straight down without
finding the body, which was safely tucked away in the toe of the L. I
have gone back and reopened many a grave that I had abandoned as
empty, and found His Royal Highness five or six feet to one side of
the straight shaft I had previously sunk."
"I suppose," mused Josè, "that you now follow this work because of its
fascination--for you must have found and laid aside much treasure in
the years that you have pursued it."
_"Caramba!"_ ejaculated the _guaquero_. "I have been rich and poor,
like the rising and setting of the sun! What I find, I spend again
hunting more. It is the way of the world. The man who has enough money
never knows it. And his greed for more--more that he needs not, and
cannot possibly spend on himself--generally results, as in my case, in
the loss of what he already has. But there are reasons aside from the
excitement of the chase that keep me at it."
He fell strangely silent, and Josè knew that there were aroused within
him memories that seared the tissues of the brain as they entered.
"_Amigo_," Don Jorge resumed. His voice was low, tense and cold.
"There are some things which I am trying to forget. This exciting and
dangerous business of mine keeps my thought occupied. I care nothing
now for the treasure I may discover. But I crave forgetfulness. Do you
understand?"
"Surely, good friend," replied Josè quickly; "and I ask pardon for
recalling those things to you."
_"De nada, amigo!"_ said Don Jorge, with a gesture of deprecation.
Then: "I told you on the boat that I had lost a wife and girl. The
Church got them both. I tell you this because I know you, too, have
grievances against her. _Caramba!_ Yet I will tell you only a part. I
lived in Maganguey, where my wife's brother kept a store and did an
excellent commission business. I was mining and hunting graves in the
Cauca region, sometimes going up the Magdalena, too, and working on
both sides of the river. Maganguey was a convenient place for me to
live, as it stands at the junction of the two great rivers. Besides,
my wife wished to remain near her own people. _Bien_, we had a
daughter. She grew up fair and good. And then, one day, the priest
told my wife that the girl was destined to a great future, and must
enter a convent and consecrate herself to the Church. _Caramba!_ I am
not a Catholic--was never one! My parents were patriots, and both took
part in the great war that gave liberty to this country. But they were
liberal in thought; and I was never confirmed to the Church. _Bien_,
the priest made my life a hell--my wife became estranged from me--and
one day, returning from the Cauca, I found my house deserted. Wife and
girl and the child's nurse had gone down the river!"
The man's face darkened, and hard lines drew around his mouth.
"They had taken my money chest, some thousands of pesos. I sought the
priest. He laughed at me, and--_Caramba_! I struck him such a blow
between his pig eyes that he lay senseless for hours!"
Josè glanced at the broad shoulders and the great knots of muscle on
the man's arms. He was of medium height, but with a frame of iron.
"_Bien, Señor Padre_, I, too, fled wild and raving from Maganguey that
night, and plunged into the jungle. Months later I drifted down the
river, as far as Mompox. And there one day I chanced upon old
Marcelena, the child's nurse. Like a _cayman_ I seized her and dragged
her into an alley. She confessed that my wife and girl were living
there--the wife had become housekeeper for a young priest--the girl
was in the convent. _Caramba!_ I hurled the woman to the ground and
turned my back upon the city!"
Josè's interest in the all too common recital received a sudden
stimulus.
"Your daughter's name, Don Jorge, was--"
"Maria, _Señor Padre_."
"And--she would now be, how old, perhaps?"
"About twenty-two, I think."
"Her appearance?"
"Fair--complexion light, like her mother's. Maria was a beautiful
child--and good as she was beautiful."
"But--the child's nurse remained with her?"
"Marcelena? Yes. She was devoted to the little Maria. The woman was
old and ugly--but she loved the child."
"Did you not inquire for them when you were in Mompox a few months
ago?" pursued Josè eagerly.
"I made slight inquiry through the clerk in the office of the
Alcalde. I did not intend to--but I could not help it. _Caramba!_ He
made further inquiry, but said only that he was told they had long
since gone down to Cartagena, and nothing had been heard from them."
The gates of memory's great reservoir opened at the touch of this
man's story, and Josè again lived through that moonlit night in
Cartagena, when the little victim of Wenceslas breathed out her life
of sorrow and shame in his arms. He heard again the sobs of Marcelena
and the simple-minded Catalina. He saw again the figure of the
compassionate Christ in the smoke that drifted past the window. And
now the father of that wronged girl sat before him, wrapped in the
tatters of a shredded happiness! Should he tell him? Should he say
that he had cared for this man's little grandson since his advent into
this sense of existence that mortals call life? For there could be no
doubt now that the little Maria was his daughter.
"Don Jorge," he said, "you have suffered much. My heart bleeds for
you. And yet--"
"_Na_, Padre, there is nothing to do. Were I to find my family I could
only slay them and the priests who came between us!"
"But, Don Jorge," cried Josè in horror, "you surely meditate no such
vengeance as that!"
The man smiled grimly. "_Señor Padre_," he returned coldly, "I am
Spanish. The blood of the old cavaliers flows in my veins. I have been
betrayed, trapped, fooled, and my honored name has been foully soiled.
What will remove the stain, think you? Blood--nothing else! _Caramba!_
The priest of Maganguey who poured the first drop of poison into my
wife's too willing ears--_Bien_, I have said enough!"
"_Hombre!_ You don't mean--"
"I mean, _Señor Padre_, that I drifted down the river, unseen, to
Maganguey one night. I entered that priest's house. He did not awake
the next morning."
"God!" exclaimed Josè, starting up.
"_Na_, Padre, not God, but Satan! He rules this world."
Josè sank back in his chair. Don Jorge leaned forward and laid a hand
upon his knee. "My friend," he said evenly, "you are young--how old,
may I ask?"
"Twenty-seven," murmured Josè.
"_Caramba!_ A child! _Bien_, you have much to learn. I took to you on
the boat because I knew you had made a mess of things, and it was not
entirely your fault. I have seen others like you. You are no more in
the Church than I am. Now why do you stay here? Do I offend in
asking?"
Josè hesitated. "I--I have--work here, señor," he replied.
"True," said Don Jorge, "a chance to do much for these poor people--if
the odds are not too strong against you. But--are you working for them
alone? Or--does Diego's child figure in the case? No offense, I assure
you--I have reason to ask."
Josè sought to read his eyes. The man looked squarely into his own,
and the priest found no deception in their black depths.
"I--señor, she cannot be Diego's child--and I--I would save her!"
Don Jorge nodded his head. "_Bien_," he said, "to-morrow I leave for
San Lucas. I will return this way."
After the evening meal the _guaquero_ spread his _petate_ upon the
floor and disposed himself for the night. He stubbornly refused to
accept the priest's bed. _"Caramba!"_ he muttered, after he had lain
quiet for some time, "why does not the Church permit its clergy to
marry, like civilized beings! Do you know, _Señor Padre_, I once met a
woman in Bogotá and held some discussion with her on this topic. She
said, as between a priest who had children, and a married minister,
she would infinitely prefer the priest, because, as she put it, no
matter how dissolute the priest, the sacraments from his hands would
still retain their validity--but never from those of a married
minister! _Caramba!_ what can you do against such bigotry and awful
narrowness, such dense ignorance! Cielo!"
The following morning, before sunrise, Don Jorge and his boatmen were
on the lake, leaving Josè to meditate on the vivid experiences of the
past few days, their strange mental origin, and the lesson which they
brought.