The rainy season dragged its reeking length through the Simití valley
with fearful deliberation. Josè thought that he should never again see
the sun. The lake steamed like a cauldron. Great clouds of heavy vapor
rolled incessantly upward from the dripping jungle. The rain fell in
cloud-bursts, and the narrow streets of the old town ran like streams
in a freshet.
Then, one day, Rosendo abruptly announced, "Padre, the rains are
breaking. The dry season is at hand. And the little Carmen is fourteen
years old to-day."
It gave the priest a shock. He had been six years in Simití! And
Carmen was no longer a child. Youth ripens quickly into maturity in
these tropic lands. The past year had sped like a meteor across an
evening sky, leaving a train of mingled light and darkness. Of Diego's
fate Josè had learned nothing. Ricardo and his companion had
disappeared without causing even a ripple of comment in Simití. Don
Mario remained quiet for many weeks. But he often eyed Josè and
Rosendo malignantly through the wooden grill at his window, and once
he ordered Fernando to stop Rosendo and ply him with many and pointed
questions. The old man was noncommittal, but he left a dark suspicion,
which was transmitted to the receptive mind of the Alcalde.
Acting-Bishop Wenceslas likewise was growing apprehensive as the weeks
went by, and both Josè and Don Mario were the recipients of letters of
inquiry from him regarding the whereabouts of the priest Diego. In the
course of time came other letters from Cartagena, and at length an
order for a most scrutinizing search to be made for the Bishop's
confidential agent.
It was of no avail. Rosendo's oft-repeated testimony revealed nothing.
The citizens of Simití had not seen the man. The Alcalde had nothing
but his suspicions to offer. And these might have fallen harmlessly
upon the acting-Bishop's well occupied thought, had it not been for
the complicating influence of certain other events. The first of these
was the exhaustion of the gold which Josè and Carmen had discovered in
the old church. The other was the outbreak of the religio-political
revolution which Diego had predicted some six years before, and which,
in these latter days, Don Jorge, on his infrequent journeys through
Simití had repeatedly announced as inevitable and imminent. Their
combined effect was such as to wrest Carmen away from Josè, and to set
in a new direction the currents of their lives.
For some time past Josè had patched with growing anxiety the
shrinking of his gold supply, and had striven to lessen the monthly
contributions to Cartagena, meanwhile trying to know that the need
now looming daily larger before him would be met. He had not voiced
his apprehension to Carmen. But he and Rosendo had discussed the
situation long and earnestly, and had at length resolved that the
latter should again return to Guamocó to wash the Tiguí sands.
The old man sighed, but he uttered no protest. Yet each day Josè
thought he grew quieter. And each day, too, he seemed to become more
tender of his sad-faced daughter, Ana, and of the little grandson who
had come into his humble home only a few weeks before. He delayed his
preparations for specious reasons which Josè knew cost him much effort
to invent. He clung to Carmen. He told his rosary often before the
church altar, and with tears in his eyes. And at night he would come
to Josè and beg him to read from the Bible and explain what he thought
the Saviour had really meant to convey to the humble fishermen of
Galilee.
Josè's heart was wrung. But at last the day arrived when he had
nothing to send to Cartagena beyond the mere pittance which the poor
members of his little parish contributed. But this he sent as usual.
The next month he did the same. Then came a letter from Wenceslas,
requesting an explanation. And then it was that Josè realized that in
his excess of zeal he had fallen into his own trap. For, having
established the custom of remitting a certain amount to the Bishop
each month, he must not resent now the implication of dishonesty when
the remittances fell off, or ceased altogether. He took the letter to
Rosendo. "_Bien_, Padre," said the latter slowly, "the time has come.
I set out for Guamocó at dawn."
In the days that followed, Josè could frame no satisfactory reply to
Wenceslas, and so the latter wrote to the Alcalde. Don Mario eagerly
seized the proffered opportunity to ingratiate himself into
ecclesiastical favor. Rosendo was again in the hills, he wrote, and
with supplies not purchased from him. Nor had he been given even a
hint of Rosendo's mission, whether it be to search again for La
Libertad, or not. There could be no doubt, he explained in great
detail, of Josè's connivance with Rosendo, and of his unauthorized
conduct in the matter of educating the girl, Carmen, who, he made no
doubt, was the daughter of Padre Diego--now, alas! probably cold in
death at the violent hands of the girl's foster-father, and with the
priest Josè's full approbation. The letter cost the portly Don Mario
many a day of arduous labor; but it brought its reward in another
inquiry from Cartagena, and this time a request for specific details
regarding Carmen.
Don Mario bestrode the clouds. He dropped his customary well-oiled
manner, and carried his head with the air of a conqueror. His thick
lips became regnant, imperious. He treated his compatriots with
supercilious disdain. And to Josè he would scarce vouchsafe even a
cold nod as they passed in the street. Again he penned a long missive
to Cartagena, in which he dilated at wearisome length upon the
extraordinary beauty of the girl, as well as her unusual mental
qualities. He urged immediate action, and suggested that Carmen be
sent to the convent in Mompox.
* * * * *
Wenceslas mused long over the Alcalde's letters. Many times he smiled
as he read. Then he sent for a young clerical agent of the See, who
was starting on a mission to Bogotá, and requested that he stop off a
day at Badillo and go to Simití to report on conditions in that
parish. Incidentally, also, to gather what data he might as to the
family of one Rosendo Ariza.
In due course of time the agent made his report. The parish of Simití
stood in need of a new _Cura_, he said. And the girl--he found no
words to describe or explain her. She must be seen. The Church had
need of prompt action, however, to secure her. To that end, he advised
her immediate removal to Cartagena.
Again Wenceslas deliberated. Aside from the girl, to whom he found his
thought reverting oftener than he could wish in that particular hour
of stress, his interest in Simití did not extend beyond its
possibilities as a further contributor to the funds he was so greatly
needing for the furtherance of his complex political plans. As to the
Alcalde--here was a possibility of another sort. That fellow might
become useful. He should be cultivated. And at the same time warned
against precipitate action, lest he scatter Rosendo's family into
flight, and the graceful bird now dwelling in the rude nest escape the
sharp talons awaiting her.
He called for his secretary. "Send a message to Francisco, our Legate,
who is now in Bogotá. Bid him on his return journey stop again at
Simití. We require a full report on the character of the Alcalde of
that town."
* * * * *
Meantime, Josè did not permit his mental torture to interfere
with Carmen's education. For six years now that had progressed
steadily. And the results? Wonderful, he thought--and yet not
wholly attributable to his peculiar mode of tutelage. For, after
all, his work had been little more than the holding of her mind
unwarped, that her instinctive sense of logic might reach those
truthful conclusions which it was bound to attain if guided safely
past the tortuous shifts of human speculation and undemonstrable
theory. To his great joy, these six years had confirmed a belief
which he had held ever since the troublous days of his youth,
namely, that, as a recent writer has said, "adolescent understanding
is along straight lines, and leaps where the adult can only
laboriously creep." There had been no awful hold of early teaching
to loosen and throw off; there were no old landmarks in her mind
to remove; no tenacious, clinging effect of early associations to
neutralize. And, perhaps most important of all, the child had seemed
to enter the world utterly devoid of fear, and with a congenital
faith, amounting to absolute knowledge, in the immanence of an
omnipotent God of love. This, added to her eagerness and mental
receptivity, had made his task one of constant rejoicing in the
realization of his most extravagant dreams for her.
As a linguist, Carmen had become accomplished. She spoke English
fluently. And it was only a matter of practice to give her a similar
grasp of French, Italian, and German. As for other instruction,
such knowledge of the outside world as he had deemed wise to give her
in these six years had been seized upon with avidity and as
quickly assimilated. But he often speculated curiously--sometimes
dubiously--upon the great surprises in store for her should she ever
leave her native village. And yet, as often as such thought recurred
to him he would try to choke it back, to bar his mind against it, lest
the pull at his heartstrings snap them asunder.
Often as he watched her expanding so rapidly into womanhood and
exhibiting such graces of manner, such amiability of disposition,
such selfless regard for others, combined with a physical beauty
such as he thought he had never before gazed upon, a great yearning
would clutch his soul, and a lump would rise in his throat. And
when, as was so often the case, her arms flew impulsively about his
neck and she whispered words of tender endearment in his ear, a
fierce determination would seize him, and he would clutch her to
himself with such vehemence as to make her gasp for breath. That she
might marry he knew to be a possibility. But the idea pierced his
soul as with a sword, and he thought that to see her in the arms of
another, even the man of her choice, must excite him to murder. One
day, shortly after her fourteenth birthday, she came to him and,
perching herself as was her wont upon his knees, and twining her arms
about his neck, said, with traces of embarrassment, "Padre dear,
Juan--he asked me to-day to marry him."
Josè caught his breath. His ears rang. She--marry a peon of Simití! To
be sure, Juan had often reminded him of the request he had made for
her hand long ago. But Josè had not considered the likelihood of the
lad's taking his question directly to her. And the girl--
"And what did you reply?" he asked thickly.
"Padre dear--I told him that--" She stopped abruptly.
"Well, _chiquita_; you told him--what?" His voice trembled.
She flushed, still hesitating. He held her back from him and looked
squarely into her wide eyes.
"You told him, _chiquita_--"
"That--well, Padre dear, I told him that--that I might never marry."
Josè sighed. "And do you think, little girl, that you will always hold
to that resolution?"
"Yes, Padre, unless--"
"Well, _chiquita_, unless--"
"Unless you marry, too, Padre," she said, dropping her eyes.
"Unless I marry! I--a priest! But--what has that to do with it,
girl?"
"Well--oh, Padre dear--can't you see? For then I would marry--" She
buried her face in his shoulder.
"Yes, _chiquita_," he said, dully wondering.
Her arms tightened about his neck. "You," she murmured.
It was the first expression of the kind that had ever come from her
lips. Josè's heart thumped violently. The Goddess of Fortune had
suddenly thrown her most precious jewel into his lap. Joy welled up in
flood tides from unknown depths within. His eyes swam. Then--he
remembered. And thick night fell upon his soul.
Minutes passed, and the two sat very quiet. Then Carmen raised her
head. "Padre," she whispered, "you don't say anything. I know you love
me. And you will not always be a priest--not always," shaking her
beautiful curls with suggestive emphasis.
Why did she say that? He wondered vaguely. The people called her an
_hada_. He sometimes thought they had reason to. And then he knew that
she never moved except in response to a beckoning hand that still,
after all these years, remained invisible to him.
"_Chiquita_," he said in low response, "I fear--I fear that can never
be. And even if--ah, _chiquita_, I am so much older than you, little
girl--almost seventeen years!"
"You do not want to marry me, even if you could, Padre?" she queried,
looking wistfully into his eyes, while her own grew moist.
He clutched her to him again. "Carmen!" he cried wildly, "you little
know--you little know! But--child, we must not talk of these things!
Wait--wait!"
"But, Padre dear," she pleaded, "just say that you _do_ love me that
way--just say it--your little girl wants to hear it."
God above! She, pleading that he would say he loved her! His head sank
upon his breast. He silently prayed that his tortured soul might burst
and let his wasted life ebb into oblivion while his pent-up misery
poured out.
"Carmen!" he cried with the despair of the lost. "I love you--love
you--love you! Nay, child, I adore you! God! That I might hold you
thus forever!"
She reached up quickly and kissed him. "Some day, Padre dear," she
murmured softly, "you will stop thinking that two and two are seven.
Then everything good will come to you."
She sank back in his arms and nestled close to him, as if she longed
to enter his empty heart and fill the great void with her measureless
love.
"And, Padre dear," she whispered, "your little girl will wait for
you--yes, she will wait."
* * * * *
It was some days later that Rosendo, after returning almost empty
handed from the hills, came to Josè and said, "Padre, I have sold my
_hacienda_ to Don Luis. I need the money to purchase supplies and to
get the papers through for some denouncements which I have made in
Guamocó. I knew that Don Mario would put through no papers for me, and
so I have asked Lázaro to make the transaction and to deliver the
titles to me when the final papers arrive. I have a blank here to be
filled out with the name and description of a mineral property.
I--what would be a good name for a mine, Padre?"
"Why do you ask that, Rosendo?" queried Josè in surprise.
"Because, Padre, I want a foreign name--one not known, here. Give me
an American one. Think hard."
Josè reflected. "There is a city, a great city, that I have often
heard about, up in the States," he said finally.
He took up the little atlas which he had received long since with
other books from abroad. "Look," he said, "it is called Chicago. Call
your property the Chicago mine, Rosendo. It is a name unknown down
here, and there can no confusion arise because of it."
"_Caramba!_" Rosendo muttered, trying to twist his tongue around the
word, "it is certain that no one else will use that name in Guamocó!
But that makes my title still more secure, no?"
"But, Rosendo," said Josè, when the full significance of the old man's
announcement had finally penetrated, "you have sold your _finca_! And
to acquire title to property that you can never sell or work! Why,
man! do you realize what you have done? You are impoverished! What
will you do now? And what about Carmen? for we have nothing. And the
sword that hangs above us may fall any day!"
"_Bien_, Padre, it is for her sake that I have done it. Say no more.
It will work out in some way. I go back to-morrow. But, if the titles
should come from Cartagena during my absence--and, Padre, if anything
should happen to me--for the love of the Virgin do not let them out of
your hands! They are for her."
Yet Rosendo departed not on the morrow. He remained to mingle his
tears with those of the sorrowing Ana. For the woman, whose heart had
been lighter since the arrival of her babe, had come to the priest
that day to have the child christened. And so, before the sun might
fill the _plaza_ with its ardent midday heat, Rosendo and his family
repaired to the church. There before the altar Josè baptised the
little one and gave it his own name, thus triumphantly ushering the
pagan babe into the Christian Catholic world. The child cried at the
touch of the baptismal water.
"Now," commented Rosendo, "the devil has gone out of him, driven out
by the holy water."
But, as Josè leaned over the babe and looked into its dark eyes, his
hand stopped, and his heart stood still. He raised his head and bent a
look of inquiry upon the mother. She returned the look with one that
mutely voiced a stifled fear and confirmed his own. "Padre!" she
whispered hoarsely. "What is it? Quick!"
He took a candle from the altar and passed it before the child's
eyes.
"Padre! He sees! _Santa Virgen!_ Do not tell me--_Dios mío_!" The
mother's voice rose to a wail, as she snatched her babe away.
A loud exclamation escaped Rosendo. Doña Maria stood mute; but Josè as
he looked at her divined her thought and read therein a full knowledge
of the awful fact that she had never voiced to the heart-broken
mother.
"Padre!" cried the perplexed Rosendo. "Maria!" turning in appeal to
his wife. "Speak, some one! _Santa Virgen_, speak! Ana, what ails the
child?"
Josè turned his head aside. Carmen crowded close to the weeping Ana.
Doña Maria took Rosendo's arm.
"The babe, Rosendo," she said quietly, "was born--blind."