Carmen Ariza Part 15

A week pa.s.sed. 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 cla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses. 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 hara.s.sed 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 a.s.signment 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--l.u.s.t! 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 n.o.ble; yea, the better things of life. I have loved my fellow-men; and I have sought their emanc.i.p.ation 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 gra.s.sy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale l.u.s.ter, 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 h.e.l.l, 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 G.o.d 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 const.i.tuted 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 h.e.l.l--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!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s 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."