Carmen Ariza Part 27

Jose wisely vouchsafed no answer.

"Come, Padre," continued Rosendo. "I would not want to have to spend the night here. For, you know, if a man spends a night in a cemetery an evil spirit settles upon him--is it not so?"

Jose still kept silence before the old man's inbred superst.i.tion. A few minutes later they stood before the old church. It was in the Spanish mission style, but smaller than the one in the central _plaza_.

"This was built in the time of your great-grandfather, Padre, the father of Don Ignacio," offered Rosendo. "The Rincon family had many powerful enemies throughout the country, and those in Simiti even carried their ill feeling so far as to refuse to hear Ma.s.s in the church which your family built. So they erected this one. No one ever enters it now. Strange noises are sometimes heard inside, and the people are afraid to go in. You see there are no houses built near it.

They say an angel of the devil lives here and thrashes around at times in terrible anger. There is a story that many years ago, when I was but a baby, the devil's angel came and entered this church one dark night, when there was a terrible storm and the waves of the lake were so strong that they tossed the crocodiles far up on the sh.o.r.e. And when the bad angel saw the candles burning on the altar before the sacred wafer he roared in anger and blew them out. But there was a beautiful painting of the Virgin on the wall, and when the lights went out she came down out of her picture and lighted the candles again.

But the devil's angel blew them out once more. And then, they say, the Holy Virgin left the church in darkness and went out and locked the wicked angel in, where he has been ever since. That was to show her displeasure against the enemies of the great Rincons for erecting this church. The _Cura_ died suddenly that night; and the church has never been used since The Virgin, you know, is the special guardian Saint of the Rincon family."

"But you do not believe the story, Rosendo?" Jose asked.

"_Quien sabe?_" was the noncommittal reply.

"Do you really think the Virgin could or would do such a thing, Rosendo?"

"Why not, Padre? She has the same power as G.o.d, has she not? The frame which held her picture"--reverting again to the story--"was found out in front of the church the next morning; but the picture itself was gone."

Jose glanced down at Carmen, who had been listening with a tense, rapt expression on her face. What impression did this strange story make upon her? She looked up at the priest with a little laugh.

"Let us go in, Padre," she said.

"No!" commanded Rosendo, seizing her hand.

"Are you afraid, Rosendo?" queried the amused Jose.

"I--I would--rather not," the old man replied hesitatingly. "The Virgin has sealed it." Physical danger was temperamental to this n.o.ble son of the jungle; yet the religious superst.i.tion which Spain had bequeathed to this oppressed land still shackled his limbs.

As they descended the hill Carmen seized an opportunity to speak to Jose alone. "Some day, Padre," she whispered, "you and I will open the door and let the bad angel out, won't we?"

Jose pressed her little hand. He knew that the door of his own mind had swung wide at her bidding in these few days, and many a bad angel had gone out forever.

CHAPTER 6

The dawn of a new day broke white and glistering upon the ancient _pueblo_. From their hard beds of palm, and their straw mats on the dirt floors, the provincial dwellers in this abandoned treasure house of Old Spain rose already dressed to resume the monotonous routine of their lowly life. The duties which confronted them were few, scarce extending beyond the procurement of their simple food. And for all, excepting the two or three families which const.i.tuted the shabby aristocracy of Simiti, this was limited in the extreme. Indian corn, _panela_, and coffee, with an occasional addition of _platanos_ or rice, and now and then bits of _bagre_, the coa.r.s.e fish yielded by the adjacent lake, const.i.tuted the staple diet of the average citizen of this decayed hamlet. A few might purchase a bit of lard at rare intervals; and this they h.o.a.rded like precious jewels. Some occasionally had wheat flour; but the long, difficult transportation, and its rapid deterioration in that hot, moist climate, where swarms of voracious insects burrow into everything not cased in tin or iron, made its cost all but prohibitive. A few had goats and chickens. Some possessed pigs. And the latter even exceeded in value the black, naked babes that played in the hot dust of the streets with them.

Jose was up at dawn. Standing in the warm, unadulterated sunlight in his doorway he watched the village awaken. At a door across the _plaza_ a woman appeared, smoking a cigar, with the lighted end in her mouth. Jose viewed with astonishment this curious custom which prevails in the _Tierra Caliente_. He had observed that in Simiti nearly everybody of both s.e.xes was addicted to the use of tobacco, and it was no uncommon sight to see children of tender age smoking heavy, black cigars with keen enjoyment. From another door issued two fishermen, who, seeing the priest, approached and asked his blessing on their day's work. Some moments later he heard a loud tattoo, and soon the Alcalde of the village appeared, marching pompously through the streets, preceded by his tall, black secretary, who was beating l.u.s.tily upon a small drum. At each street intersection the little procession halted, while the Alcalde with great impressiveness sonorously read a proclamation just received from the central Government at Bogota to the effect that thereafter no cattle might be killed in the country without the payment of a tax as therein set forth. Groups of _peones_ gathered slowly about the few little stores in the main street, or entered and inspected for the thousandth time the shabby stocks. Matrons with black, shining faces cheerily greeted one another from their doorways. Everywhere prevailed a gentle decorum of speech and manners. For, however lowly the station, however pinched the environment, the dwellers in this ancient town were ever gentle, courteous and dignified. Their conversation dealt with the simple affairs of their quiet life. They knew nothing of the complex problems, social, economic, or religious, which hara.s.sed their brethren of the North. No dubious aspirations or ambitions stirred their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Nothing of the frenzied greed and l.u.s.t of material acc.u.mulation touched their child-like minds. They dwelt upon a plane far, far removed, in whatever direction, from the mental state of their educated and civilized brothers of the great States, who from time to time undertake to advise them how to live, while ruthlessly exploiting them for material gain. And thus they have been exploited ever since the heavy hand of the Spaniard was laid upon them, four centuries ago. Thus they will continue to be, until that distant day when mankind shall have learned to find their own in another's good.

As his eyes swept his environment, the untutored folk, the old church, the dismally decrepit mud houses, with an air of desolation and utter abandon brooding over all; and as he reflected that his own complex nature, rather than any special malice of fortune, had brought this to him, Jose's heart began to sink under the sting of a condemning conscience. He turned back into his house. Its pitiful emptiness smote him sore. No books, no pictures, no furnishings, nothing that ministers to the comfort of a civilized and educated man! And yet, amid this barrenness he had resolved to live.

A song drifted to him through the pulsing heat of the morning air. It sifted through the mud walls of his poor dwelling, and poured into the open doorway, where it hovered, quivering, like the dust motes in the sunbeams. Instantly the man righted himself. It was Carmen, the child to whom his life now belonged. Resolutely he again set his wandering mind toward the great thing he would accomplish--the protection and training of this girl, even while, if might be, he found his life again in hers. Nothing on earth should shake him from that purpose!

Doubt and uncertainty were powerless to dull the edge of his efforts.

His bridges were burned behind him; and on the other side of the great gulf lay the dead self which he had abandoned forever.

A harsh medley of loud, angry growls, interspersed with shrill yelps, suddenly arose before his house, and Jose hastened to the door just in time to see Carmen rush into the street and fearlessly throw herself upon two fighting dogs.

"Cuc.u.mbra! Stop it instantly!" she exclaimed, dragging the angry brute from a thoroughly frightened puppy.

"Shame! shame! And after all I've talked to you about loving that puppy!"

The gaunt animal slunk down, with its tail between its legs.

"Did you ever gain anything at all by fighting? You know you never did! And right down in your heart you know you love that puppy. You've _got_ to love him; you can't help it! And you might as well begin right now."

The beast whimpered at her little bare feet.

"Cuc.u.mbra, you let bad thoughts use you, didn't you? Yes, you did; and you're sorry for it now. Well, there's the puppy," pointing to the little dog, which stood hesitant some yards away. "Now go and play with him," she urged. "Play with him!" rousing the larger dog and pointing toward the puppy. "Play with him! You _know_ you love him!"

Cuc.u.mbra hesitated, looking alternately at the small, resolute girl and the smaller dog. Her arm remained rigidly extended, and determination was written large in her set features. The puppy uttered a sharp bark, as if in forgiveness, and began to scamper playfully about. Cuc.u.mbra threw a final glance at the girl.

"Play with him!" she again commanded.

The large dog bounded after the puppy, and together they disappeared around the street corner.

The child turned and saw Jose, who had regarded the scene in mute astonishment.

"_Muy buenos dias, Senor Padre_," dropping a little courtesy. "But isn't Cuc.u.mbra foolish to have bad thoughts?"

"Why, yes--he certainly is," replied Jose slowly, hard pressed by the unusual question.

"He has just _got_ to love that puppy, or else he will never be happy, will he, Padre?"

Why would this girl persist in ending her statements with an interrogation! How could he know whether Cuc.u.mbra's happiness would be imperfect if he failed in love toward the puppy?

"Because, you know, Padre," the child continued, coming up to him and slipping her hand into his, "padre Rosendo once told me that G.o.d was Love; and after that I knew we just had to love everything and everybody, or else He can't see us--can He, Padre?"

He can't see us--if we don't love everything and everybody! Well! Jose wondered what sort of interpretation the Vatican, with its fiery hatred of heretics, would put upon this remark.

"Can He, Padre?" insisted the girl.

"Dear child, in these matters you are teaching me; not I you," replied the noncommittal priest.

"But, Padre, you are going to teach the people in the church," the girl ventured quizzically.

Ah, so he was! And he had wondered what. In his hour of need the answer was vouchsafed him.

"Yes, dearest child--and I am going to teach them what I learn from _you_."

Carmen regarded him for a moment uncertainly. "But, padre Rosendo says you are to teach _me_," she averred.

"And so I am, little one," the priest replied; "but not one half as much as I shall learn from you."

Dona Maria's summons to breakfast interrupted the conversation.

Throughout the repast Jose felt himself subjected to the closest scrutiny by Carmen. What was running through her thought, he could only vaguely surmise. But he instinctively felt that he was being weighed and appraised by this strange child, and that she was finding him wanting in her estimate of what manner of man a priest of G.o.d ought to be. And yet he knew that she embraced him in her great love.

Oftentimes his quick glance at her would find her serious gaze bent upon him. But whenever their eyes met, her sweet face would instantly relax and glow with a smile of tenderest love--a love which, he felt, was somehow, in some way, destined to reconstruct his shattered life.