"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 Jose 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 Jose 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 compa.s.sionate 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 Jose in horror, "you surely meditate no such vengeance as that!"

The man smiled grimly. "_Senor 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, _Senor 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."

"G.o.d!" exclaimed Jose, starting up.

"_Na_, Padre, not G.o.d, but Satan! He rules this world."

Jose 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 Jose.

"_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?"

Jose hesitated. "I--I have--work here, senor," 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 a.s.sure you--I have reason to ask."

Jose sought to read his eyes. The man looked squarely into his own, and the priest found no deception in their black depths.

"I--senor, 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, _Senor Padre_, I once met a woman in Bogota 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 Jose to meditate on the vivid experiences of the past few days, their strange mental origin, and the lesson which they brought.

CHAPTER 22

"Padre dear," said Carmen, "you know the question that we put under the altar of the old church? Well, G.o.d answered it, didn't He?"

"I--why, I had forgotten it, child. What was it? You asked Him to tell us why the people thought they had to die, did you not? Well--and what was His answer?"

"Why, He told us that they were frightened to death, you know."

"True, _chiquita_. Fear killed them--nothing else! They paid the penalty of death for believing that Feliz Gomez had slept on a bed where a man had died of the plague. They died because they--"

"Because they didn't know that G.o.d was everywhere, Padre dear,"

interrupted Carmen.

"Just so, _chiquita_. And that is why all people die. And yet," he added sadly, "how are we going to make them know that He is everywhere?"

"Why, Padre dear, by showing them in our talk and our actions that we know it--by proving it, you know, just as we prove our problems in algebra."

"Yes, poor Feliz, and Amado, and Guillermo died because they sinned,"

he mused. "They broke the first Commandment by believing that there was another power than G.o.d. And that sin brought its inevitable wage, death. They 'missed the mark,' and sank into the oblivion of their false beliefs. G.o.d above! that I could keep my own mentality free from these same carnal beliefs, and so be a true missionary to suffering humanity! But you, Carmen, you are going to be such a missionary. And I believe," he muttered through his set teeth, "that I am appointed to shield the girl until G.o.d is ready to send her forth! But what, oh, what will she do when she meets that world which lies beyond her little Simiti?"

Rosendo had returned to Guamoco. "The deposit will not last much longer," he said to Jose, shaking his head dubiously. "And then--"

"Why, then we will find another, Rosendo," replied the priest optimistically.

_"Ojala!"_ exclaimed the old man, starting for the trail.

The day after Don Jorge's departure the Alcalde returned. He stole shamefacedly through the streets and barricaded himself in his house.

There he gave vent to his monumental wrath. He cruelly abused his long-suffering spouse, and ended by striking her across the face.

After which he sat down and laboriously penned a long letter to Padre Diego, in which the names of Jose and Carmen figured plentifully.

For Don Jorge had met the Alcalde in Juncal, and had roundly jeered him for his cowardly flight. He cited Jose and Rosendo as examples of valor, and pointed out that the Alcalde greatly resembled a captain who fled at the smell of gunpowder. Don Mario swelled with indignation and shame. His spleen worked particularly against Rosendo and the priest. Come what might, it was time Diego and his superiors in Cartagena knew what was going on in the parish of Simiti!

A few days later an unctuous letter came to Jose from Diego, requesting that Carmen be sent to him at once, as he now desired to place her in a convent and thus supplement the religious education which he was sure Jose had so well begun in her. The priest had scarcely read the letter when Don Mario appeared at the parish house.

"_Bien, Padre_," he began smoothly, but without concealing the malice which lurked beneath his oily words, "Padre Diego sends for the little Carmen, and bids me arrange to have her conveyed at once to Banco. I think Juan will take her down, is it not so?"

Jose looked him squarely in the eyes. "No, senor," he said in a voice that trembled with agitation, "it is not so!"

_"Hombre!"_ exclaimed Don Mario, swelling with suppressed rage. "You refuse to give Diego his own child?"

"No, _senor_, but I refuse to give him a child that is not his."

"_Caramba!_ but she is--he has the proofs! And I shall send her to him this day!"

The Alcalde shrilled forth his rage like a ruffled parrot. Jose seized him by the shoulders and, turning him swiftly about, pushed him out into the road. He then entered the rear door of Rosendo's house and bade Dona Maria keep the child close to her.

A few minutes later Fernando Perez appeared at Jose's door. He was munic.i.p.al clerk, secretary, and constable of Simiti, all in one. He saluted the priest gravely, and demanded the body of the child Carmen, to be returned to her proper father.

Jose groaned inwardly. What could he do against the established authority?

"_Bien, Padre_," said Fernando, after delivering his message, "the hour is too late to send her down the river to-day. But deliver her to me, and she shall go down at daybreak."