Feliz Gomez, who had been sent to Bodega Central for merchandise which Don Mario was awaiting from the coast, had collapsed as he stepped from his boat on his return to Simiti. When he regained consciousness he called wildly for the priest.
"Padre!" he cried, when Jose arrived, "it is _la plaga_! Ah, _Santisima Virgen_--I am dying!--dying!" He writhed in agony on the ground.
The priest bent over him, his heart throbbing with apprehension.
"Padre--" The lad strove to raise his head. "The innkeeper at Bodega Central--he told me I might sleep in an empty house back of the inn. _Dios mio!_ There was an old cot there--I slept on it two nights--_Caramba!_ Padre, they told me then--Ah, _Bendita Virgen_!
Don"t let me die, Padre! _Carisima Virgen_, don"t let me die! _Ah, Dios--!_"
His body twisted in convulsions. Jose lifted him and dragged him to the nearby shed where the lad had been living alone. A terror-stricken concourse gathered quickly about the doorway and peered in wide-eyed horror through the narrow window.
"Feliz, what did they tell you?" cried Jose, laying the sufferer upon the bed and chafing his cold hands. The boy rallied.
"They told me--a Turk, bound for Zaragoza on the Nechi river--had taken the wrong boat--in Maganguey. He had been sick--terribly sick there. _Ah, Dios!_ It is coming again, Padre--the pain! _Caramba!_ _Dios mio!_ Save me, Padre, save me!"
"Jacinta! Rosa! I must have help!" cried Jose, turning to the stunned people. "Bring cloths--hot water--and send for Don Mario. Dona Lucia, prepare an _olla_ of your herb tea at once!"
"Padre"--the boy had become quieter--"when the Turk learned that he was on the wrong boat--he asked to be put off at the next town--which was Bodega Central. The innkeeper put him in the empty house--and he--_Dios_! he died--on that bed where I slept!"
"Well?" said Jose.
"Padre, he died--the day before I arrived there--and--ah_, Santisima Virgen_! they said--he died--of--of--_la colera_!"
"Cholera!" cried the priest, starting up. At the mention of the disease a loud murmur arose from the people, and they fell back from the shed.
"Padre!--_ah, Dios_, how I suffer! Give me the sacrament--I cannot live--! Padre--let me confess--now. Ah, Padre, shall I go--to heaven?
Tell me--!"
Jose"s blood froze. He stood with eyes riveted in horror upon the tormented lad.
"Padre"--the boy"s voice grew weaker--"I fell sick that day--I started for Simiti--I died a thousand times in the _cano_--_ah, caramba_! But, Padre--promise to get me out of purgatory--I have no money for Ma.s.ses.
_Caramba!_ I cannot stand it! Oh, _Dios_! Padre--quick--I have not been very wicked--but I stole--_Dios_, how I suffer!--I stole two pesos from the innkeeper at Bodega Central--he thought he lost them--but I took them out of the drawer--Padre, pay him for me--then I will not go to h.e.l.l! _Dios!_"
Rosendo at that moment entered the house.
"Don"t come in here!" cried Jose, turning upon him in wild apprehension.
"Keep away, for G.o.d"s sake, keep away!"
In sullen silence Rosendo disregarded the priest"s frenzied appeal.
His eyes widened when he saw the boy torn with convulsions, but he did not flinch. Only when he saw Carmen approaching, attracted by the great crowd, he hastily bade one of the women turn her back home.
Hour after hour the poor sufferer tossed and writhed. Again and again he lapsed into unconsciousness, from which he would emerge to piteously beg the priest to save him. _"Ah! Dios, Padre!"_ he pleaded, extending his trembling arms to Jose, "can you do nothing? Can you not help me? _Santisima Virgen_, how I suffer!"
Then, when the evening shadows were gathering, the final convulsions seized him and wrenched his poor soul loose. Jose and Rosendo were alone with him when the end came. The people had early fled from the stricken lad, and were gathering in little groups before their homes and on the corners, discussing in low, strained tones the advent of the scourge. Those who had been close to the sick boy were now cold with fear. Women wept, and children clung whimpering to their skirts.
The men talked excitedly in hoa.r.s.e whispers, or lapsed into a state of terrified dullness.
Jose went from the death-bed to the Alcalde. Don Mario saw him coming, and fled into the house, securing the door after him. "Go away, Padre!" he shouted through the shutters. "For the love of the Virgin do not come here! _Caramba!_"
"But, Don Mario, the lad is dead!" cried Jose in desperation. "And what shall we do? We must face the situation. Come, you are the Alcalde. Let us talk about--"
"_Caramba!_ Do what you want to! I shall get out! _Nombre de Dios!_ If I live through the night I shall go to the mountains to-morrow!"
"But we must have a coffin to bury the lad! You must let us have one!"
"No! You cannot enter here, Padre!" shrilled Don Mario, jumping up and down in his excitement. "Bury him in a blanket--anything--but keep away from my house!"
Jose turned sadly away and pa.s.sed through the deserted streets back to the lonely shed. Rosendo met him at the door. "_Bien, Padre_," he said quietly, "we are exiled."
"Have you been home yet?" asked Jose.
"_Hombre_, no! I cannot go home now. I might carry the disease to the senora and the little Carmen. I must stay here. And," he added, "you too, Padre."
Jose"s heart turned to lead. "But, the boy?" he exclaimed, pointing toward the bed.
"When it is dark, Padre," replied Rosendo, "we will take him out through the back door and bury him beyond the shales. _Hombre!_ I must see now if I can find a shovel."
Jose sank down upon the threshold, a prey to corroding despair, while Rosendo went out in search of the implement. The streets were dead, and few lights shone from the latticed windows. The pall of fear had settled thick upon the stricken town. Those who were standing before their houses as Rosendo approached hastily turned in and closed their doors. Jose, in the presence of death in a terrible form, sat mute. In an hour Rosendo returned.
"No shovel, Padre," he announced. "But I crept up back of my house and got this bar which I had left standing there when I came back from the mountains. I can sc.r.a.pe up the loose earth with my hands. Come now."
Jose wearily rose. He was but a tool in the hands of a man to whom physical danger was but a matter of temperament. He absently helped Rosendo wrap the black, distorted corpse in the frayed blanket; and then together they pa.s.sed out into the night with their grewsome burden.
"Why not to the cemetery, Rosendo?" asked Jose, as the old man took an opposite course.
"_Hombre_, no!" cried Rosendo. "The cemetery is on shale, and I could not dig through it in time. We must get the body under ground at once.
_Caramba!_ If we put it in one of the _bovedas_ in the cemetery the buzzards will eat it and scatter the plague all over the town. The _bovedas_ are broken, and have no longer any doors, you remember."
So beyond the shales they went, stumbling through the darkness, their minds freighted with a burden of apprehension more terrible than the thing they bore in their arms. The shales crossed, Rosendo left the trail, cutting a way through the bush with his _machete_ a distance of several hundred feet. Then, by the weird yellow light of a single candle, he opened the moist earth and laid the hideous, twisted thing within. Jose watched the procedure in dull apathy.
"And now, Padre," said Rosendo, at length breaking the awful silence, "where will you sleep to-night? I cannot let you go back to your house. It is too near the senora and Carmen. No man in town will let you stay in his house, since you have handled the plague. Will you sleep in the shed where the lad died? Or out on the shales with me? I called to the senora when I went after the bar, and she will lay two blankets out in the _plaza_ for us. And in the morning she will put food where we can get it. What say you?"
Jose stood dazed. His mind had congealed with the horror of the situation. Rosendo took him by the arm. "Come, Padre," he said gently.
"The hill up back of the second church is high, and no one lives near.
I will get the blankets and we will pa.s.s the night out there."
"But, Rosendo!" Jose found his voice. "What is it? Is it--_la colera_?"
"_Quien sabe?_ Padre," returned Rosendo. "There has been plague here--these people, some of them, still remember it--but it was long ago. There have been cases along the river--and brought, I doubt not, by Turks, like this one."
"And do you think that it is now all along the river? That Bodega Central is being ravaged by the scourge? That it will sweep through the country?"
"_Quien sabe?_ Padre. All I do know is that the people of Simiti are terribly frightened, and the pestilence may wipe away the town before it leaves."
"But--good G.o.d! what can we do, Rosendo?"
"Nothing, Padre--but stay and meet it," the man replied quietly.
They reached the hill in silence. Then Rosendo wrapped himself in one of the blankets which he had picked up as he pa.s.sed through the _plaza_, and lay down upon the shale.