The testy Bishop's wrath flared up anew. "You demand! Am I to sit here and be catechised by _you_? It is enough that I know what occurs in my diocese, and am well informed of your conduct!"

The doorway darkened, and the priest turned to meet the object of his suspecting thought.

Bestowing a smile of patronage upon Jose, and bowing obsequiously before the Bishop, Wenceslas laid some papers upon the table, remarking as he did so, "The letters, Your Grace, to introduce our Jose to his new field. Also his instructions and expense money."

"Wenceslas!" The priest confronted him fiercely. "Do you accuse me before the Bishop?"

"Accuse, _amigo_?" Wenceslas queried in a tone of a.s.sumed surprise.

"Have I not said that your ready tongue and pen are your accusers?

But," with a conciliatory air, "we must remember that our good Bishop mercifully views your conduct in the light of your recent mental affliction, traces of which, unfortunately, have lingered to cause him sorrow. And so he graciously prepares a place for you, _caro amigo_, where rest and relief from the strain of teaching will do you much good, and where life among simple and affectionate people will restore you, he hopes, to soundness of mind."

The priest turned again to the Bishop in a complexity of appeal. The soft speech of Wenceslas, so full of a double _entendu_, so markedly in contrast with the Bishop's harsh but at least sincere tirade, left no doubt in his mind that he was now the victim of a plot, whose ramifications extended back to the confused circ.u.mstances of his early life, and the doubtful purposes of his uncle and his influence upon the sacerdotal directors in Rome. And he saw himself a helpless and hopelessly entangled victim.

"Father!" In piteous appeal Jose held out his hands to the Bishop, who had turned his back upon him and was busy with the papers on his table.

"_Amigo_, the interview is ended," said Wenceslas quietly, stepping between the priest and his superior.

Jose pushed wildly past the large form of Wenceslas and seized the Bishop's hand.

"_Santa Maria!_" cried the petulant churchman. "Do you obey me, or no?

If not, then leave the Church--and spend your remaining days as a hounded ex-priest and unfrocked apostate," he finished significantly.

"Go, prepare for your journey!"

Wenceslas slipped the letter and a few _pesos_ into the hand of the smitten, bewildered Jose, and turning him to the door, gently urged him out and closed it after him.

Just why the monastery gates had opened to him after two years'

deadening confinement, Jose had not been apprised. All he knew was that his uncle had appeared with a papal appointment for him to the University of Cartagena, and had urged his acceptance of it as the only course likely to restore him both to health and position, and to meet the deferred hopes of his sorrowing mother.

"Accept it, _sobrino mio_," the uncle had said. "Else, pa.s.s your remaining days in confinement. There can be no refutation of the charges against you. But, if these doors open again to you, think not ever to sever your connection with the Church of Rome. For, if the Rincon honor should prove inadequate to hold you to your oath, be a.s.sured that Rincon justice will follow you until the grave wipes out the stain upon our fair name."

"Then, _tio mio_, let the Church at once dismiss me, as unworthy to be her son!" pleaded Jose.

"What, excommunication?" cried the horrified uncle. "Never! Death first! Are you still mad?"

Jose looked into the cold, emotionless eyes of the man and shuddered.

The ancient spirit of the Holy Inquisition lurked there, and he cowered before it. But at least the semblance of freedom had been offered him. His numbed heart already had taken hope. He were indeed mad not to acquiesce in his uncle's demands, and accept the proffered opportunity to leave forever the scenes of his suffering and disgrace.

And so he bowed again before the inexorable.

Arriving in Cartagena some months before this narrative opens, he had gradually yielded himself to the restorative effects of changed environment and the hope which his uncle's warm a.s.surances aroused, that a career would open to him in the New World, unclouded by the climacteric episode of the publishing of his journal and his subsequent arrogant bearing before the Holy Father, which had provoked his fate. Under the beneficent influences of the soft climate and the new interests of this tropic land he began to feel a budding of something like confidence, and the suggestions of an unfamiliar ambition to retrieve past failure and yet gratify, even if in small measure, the parental hope which had first directed him as a child into the fold of the Church. The Bishop had a.s.signed him at once to pedagogical work in the University; and in the teaching of history, the languages, and, especially, his beloved Greek, Jose had found an absorption that was slowly dimming the memory of the dark days which he had left behind in the Old World.

But the University had not afforded him the only interest in his new field. He had not been many weeks on Colombian soil when his awakening perceptions sensed the people's oppression under the tyranny of ecclesiastical politicians. Nor did he fail to scent the approach of a tremendous conflict, in which the country would pa.s.s through violent throes in the struggle to shake off the galling yoke of Rome.

Maintaining an att.i.tude of strict neutrality, he had striven quietly to gauge the anticlerical movement, and had been appalled to find it so widespread and menacing. Only a miracle could save unhappy Colombia from being rent by the fiercest of religious wars in the near future.

Oh, if he but had the will, as he had the intellectual ability, to throw himself into the widening breach!

"There is but one remedy," he murmured aloud, as he sat one evening on a bench in the _plaza_ of Simon Bolivar, watching the stream of gaily dressed promenaders parading slowly about on the tesselated walks, but hearing little of their animated conversation.

"And what is that, may I ask, friend?"

The priest roused up with a start. He had no idea that his audible meditations had been overheard. Besides, he had spoken in English. But this question had been framed in the same tongue. He looked around. A tall, slender man, with thin, bronzed face and well-trimmed Van d.y.k.e beard, sat beside him. The man laughed pleasantly.

"Didn't know that I should find any one here to-night who could speak my lingo," he said cordially. "But, I repeat, what is the remedy?"

"Christianity," returned the amazed Jose, without knowing what he said.

"And the condition to be remedied?" continued the stranger.

"This country's diseased--but to whom have I the honor of speaking?"

drawing himself up a little stiffly, and glancing about to see who might be observing them.

"Oh, my credentials?" laughed the man, as he caught Jose's wondering look. "I'm quite unknown in Cartagena, unfortunately. You must pardon my Yankee inquisitiveness, but I've watched you out here for several evenings, and have wondered what weighty problems you were wrestling with. A quite unpardonable offense, from the Spanish viewpoint, but wholly forgivable in an uncouth American, I'm sure. Besides, when I heard you speak my language it made me a bit homesick, and I wanted to hear more of the rugged tongue of the Gentiles."

Laughing again good-naturedly, he reached into an inner pocket and drew out a wallet. "My name's. .h.i.tt," he said, handing Jose his card.

"But I didn't live up to it. That is, I failed to make a hit up north, and so I'm down here." He chuckled at his own facetiousness. "Amos A.

Hitt," he went on affably. "There used to be a 'Reverend' before it.

That was when I was exploring the Lord's throne. I've dropped it, now that I'm humbly exploring His footstool instead."

Jose yielded to the man's friendly advances. This was not the first American he had met; yet it seemed a new type, and one that drew him strongly.

"So you think this country diseased, eh?" the American continued.

Jose did not answer. While there was nothing in the stranger's appearance and frank, open countenance to arouse suspicion, yet he must be careful. He was living down one frightful mistake. He could not risk another. But the man did not wait for a reply.

"Well, I'm quite agreed with you. It has _priest-itis_." He stopped and looked curiously at Jose, as if awaiting the effect of his bold words. Then--"I take it you are not really one of 'em?"

Jose stared at the man in amazement. Hitt laughed again. Then he drew forth a cigar and held it out. "Smoke?" he said. The priest shook his head. Hitt lighted the cigar himself, then settled back on the bench, his hands jammed into his trousers pockets, and his long legs stuck straight out in front, to the unconcealed annoyance of the pa.s.sers-by.

But, despite his _brusquerie_ and his thoughtlessness, there was something about the American that was wonderfully attractive to the lonely priest.

"Yes, sir," Hitt went on abstractedly in corroboration of his former statement, "Colombia is absolutely stagnant, due to Jesuitical politics, the bane of all good Catholic countries. If she could shake off priestcraft she'd have a chance--provided she didn't fall into orthodox Protestantism."

Jose gasped, though he strove to hide his wonder. "You--" he began hesitatingly, "you were in the ministry--?"

"Yes. Don't be afraid to come right out with it. I was a Presbyterian divine some six years ago, in Cincinnati. Ever been there?"

Jose a.s.sured him that he had never seen the States.

"H'm," mused the ex-preacher; "great country--wonderful--none like it in the world! I've been all over, Europe, Asia, Africa--seen 'em all.

America's the original Eden, and our women are the only true descendants of mother Eve. No question about it, that apple incident took place up in the States somewhere--probably in Ohio."

Jose caught the man's infectious humor and laughed heartily. Surely, this American was a tonic, and of the sort that he most needed. "Then, you are--still touring--?"

"I'm exploring," Hitt replied. "I'm here to study what ancient records I may find in your library; then I shall go on to Medellin and Bogota.

I'm on the track of a prehistoric Inca city, located somewhere in the Andes--and no doubt in the most inaccessible spot imaginable.

Tradition cites this lost city as the cradle of Inca civilization.

Tampu Tocco, it is called in their legends, the place from which the Incas went out to found that marvelous empire which eventually included the greater part of South America. The difficulty is," he added, knotting his brows, "that the city was evidently unknown to the Spaniards. I can find no mention of it in Spanish literature, and I've searched all through the libraries of Spain. My only hope now is that I shall run across some doc.u.ment down here that will allude to it, or some one who has heard likely Indian rumors."

Jose rubbed his eyes and looked hard at the man. "Well!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "you are--if I may be permitted to say it--an original type."