She looked up at him with a tender, wistful smile. Then she shook her head. "Padre dear, I love you," she said, "but you make me lots of trouble. But--we are going to love all the fear away, and--" stamping her little bare foot--"we are going to get the right answer to your problem, too!"
The priest took her hand, and together they pa.s.sed out into the dazzling sunlight.
On the brow of the hill stood Rosendo, talking excitedly, and with much vehement gesticulation, to Dona Maria, who remained a safe distance from him. The latter and her good consort exclaimed in horror when they saw Carmen with the priest.
_"Caramba!"_ cried Rosendo, darting toward them. "I could kill you for this, Padre! _Hombre!_ How came the child here, and with you? _Dios mio!_ Have you no heart, but that, when you know you may die, you would take her with you?" He swung his long arms menacingly before the priest, and his face worked with pa.s.sion.
The girl ran between the two men. "Padre Rosendo!" she cried, seizing one of his hands in both of her own. "I came of myself. He did not call me. I found him asleep. And he isn"t going to die--nor I, either!"
Dona Maria approached and quietly joined the little group.
_"Caramba! Go back!"_ cried the distressed Rosendo, turning upon her.
"_Hombre! Dios y diablo!_ will you all die?" He stamped the ground and tore his hair in his impotent protest.
"_Na_, Rosendo," said the woman placidly, "if you are in danger, I will be too. If you must die, so will I. I will not be left alone."
A thrill of admiration swept over the priest. Then he smiled wanly.
"_Bien_," he said, "we have all been exposed to the plague now, and we will stand together. Shall we return home?"
Rosendo"s anger soon evaporated, but his face retained traces of deep anxiety. "Maria tells me, Padre," he said, "that Amado Sanchez fell sick last night with the flux, and n.o.body will stay with him, excepting his woman."
"Let us go to him, then," replied the priest. "Dona Maria, do you and Carmen return to your house, whilst Rosendo and I seek to be of service to those who may need us."
Together they started down the main street of the town. Dead silence reigned everywhere. Many of the inhabitants had fled to the hills. But there were still many whose circ.u.mstances would not permit of flight.
As they neared Rosendo"s house the little party were hailed from a distance by Juan Mendoza and Pedro Cardenas, neighbors living on either side of Rosendo and the priest.
"_Hola_, Padre and Don Rosendo!" they called; "you cannot return to your homes, for you would expose us to the plague! Go back! Go back!
We will burn the houses over your heads if you return!"
"But, _amigos_--" Jose began.
"_Na_, Padre," they cried in tense excitement, "it is for the best! Go back to the hill! We will supply you with food and blankets--but you must not come here! Amado Sanchez is sick; Guillermo Hernandez is sick. Go back! You must not expose us!" The att.i.tude of the frightened, desperate men was threatening. Jose saw that it would be unwise to resist them.
"_Bien, compadres_, we will go," he said, his heart breaking with sorrow for these children of fear. Then, a.s.sembling his little family, he turned and retraced his steps sadly through the street that burned in lonely silence in the torrid heat.
Carmen"s eyes were big with wonder; but a happy idea soon drove all apprehension from her thought. "Padre!" she exclaimed, "we will live in the old church, and we will play house there!" She clapped her hands in merriment.
"Never!" muttered Rosendo. "I will not enter that place! It would bring the plague upon me! _Na! na!_" he insisted, when they reached the steps, "do you go in if you wish; but I will stay outside in the shadow of the building." Nor would the combined entreaties of Carmen and Jose induce him to yield. Dona Maria calmly and silently prepared to remain with him.
"Pull off the old door, Padre!" cried Carmen excitedly. "And open all the shutters. Look! Look, Padre! There goes the bad angel that padre Rosendo was afraid of!" A number of bats, startled at the noise and the sudden influx of light, were scurrying out through the open door.
"Like the legion of demons which Jesus sent into the swine," said Jose. "I will tell you the story some day, _chiquita_," he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.
The day pa.s.sed quickly for the child, nor did she seem to cast another thought in the direction of the cloud which hung over the sorrowing town. At dusk, Mendoza and Cardenas came to the foot of the hill with food and blankets.
"Amado Sanchez has just died," they reported.
"What!" cried Jose. "So soon? Why--he fell sick only yesterday!"
"No, Padre, he had been ailing for many days--but it may have been the plague just the same. Perhaps it was with us before Feliz brought it.
But we have not exposed ourselves to the disease and--Padre--there is not a man in Simiti who will bury Amado. What shall we do?"
Jose divined the man"s thought. "_Bien, amigo_," he replied. "Go you back to your homes. To-night Rosendo and I will come and bury him."
Jose had sent Carmen and Dona Maria beyond the church, that they might not hear the grewsome tidings. When the men had returned to their homes, the little band on the hilltop ate their evening meal in silence. Then a bench was swept clean for Carmen"s bed, for she insisted on sleeping in the old church with Jose when she learned that he intended to pa.s.s the night there.
Again, as the heavy shadows were gathering, Jose and Rosendo descended into the town and bore out the body of Amado Sanchez to a resting place beside the poor lad who had died the day before. To a man of such delicate sensibilities as Jose, whose nerves were raw from continual friction with a world with which he was ever at variance, this task was one of almost unendurable horror. He returned to the old church in a state bordering on collapse.
"Rosendo," he murmured, as they seated themselves on the hillside in the still night, "I think we shall all die of the plague. And it were well so. I am tired, utterly tired of striving to live against such odds. _Bien_, let it come!"
"Courage, _compadre_!" urged Rosendo, putting his great arm about the priest"s shoulders. "We must all go some time, and perhaps now; but while we live let us live like men!"
"You do not fear death?"
"No--what is it that the old history of mine says? "Death is not departing, but arriving." I am not afraid. But the little Carmen--I wish that she might live. She--ah, Padre, she could do much good in the world. _Bien_, we are all in the hands of the One who brought us here--and He will take us in the way and at the time that He appoints--is it not so, Padre?"
Jose lapsed again into meditation. No, he could not say that it was so. The thoughts which he had expressed to Carmen that morning still flitted through his mind. The child was right--Rosendo"s philosophy was that of resignation born of ignorance. It was the despair of doubt. And he did not really think that Carmen would be smitten of the plague. Something seemed to tell him that it was impossible. But, on the other hand, he would himself observe every precaution in regard to her. No, he would not sleep in the church that night. He had handled the body of the plague"s second victim, and he could not rest near the child. Perhaps exposure to the night air and the heavy dews would serve to cleanse him. And so he wrapped himself in the blanket which Dona Maria brought from within the church, and lay down beside the faithful pair.
In the long hours of that lonely night Jose lay beneath the shimmering stars pondering, wondering. Down below in the smitten town the poor children of his flock were eating their hearts out in anxious dread and bitter sorrow. Was it through any fault of theirs that this thing had come upon them, like a bolt from a cloudless sky? No--except that they were human, mortal. And if the thing were real, it came from the mind that is G.o.d; if unreal--but it seemed real to these simple folk, terribly so!
His heart yearned toward them as his thought penetrated the still reaches of the night and hovered about their lonely vigil. Yet, what had he to offer? What balm could he extend to those wearing out weary hours on beds of agony below? Religion? True religion, if they could but understand it; but not again the empty husks of the faith that had been taught them in the name of Christ! Where did scholastic theology stand in such an hour as this? Did it offer eas.e.m.e.nt from their torture of mind and body? No. Strength to bear in patience their heavy burden? No. Hope? Not of this life--nay, naught but the thread-worn, undemonstrable promise of a life to come, if, indeed, they might happily avoid the pangs of purgatory and the horrors of the quenchless flames of h.e.l.l! G.o.d, what had not the Church to answer for!
And yet, these ignorant children were but succ.u.mbing to the evidence of their material senses--though small good it would do to tell them so! Could they but know--as did Carmen--that rejection of error and reception of truth meant life--ah, could they but know!
Could he himself but know--really _know_--that G.o.d is neither the producer of evil, nor the powerless witness of its ravages--could he but understand and prove that evil is not a self-existing ent.i.ty, warring eternally with G.o.d, what might he not accomplish!
For Jesus had said: "These signs"--the cure of disease, the rout of death--"shall follow them that believe," that understand, that know. Why could he not go down to those beds of torture and say with the Christ: "Arise, for G.o.d hath made thee whole"? He knew why--"without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh of G.o.d must believe"--must _know_--"that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." The suffering victims in the town below were asleep in a state of religious dullness. The task of independent thinking was onerous to such as they. Gladly did they leave it to the Church to do their thinking for them. And thus did they suffer for the trust betrayed!
But truth is omnipotent, and "one with G.o.d is a majority." Jesus gave few rules, but none more fundamental than that "with G.o.d all things are possible." Was he, Jose, walking with G.o.d? If so, he might arise and go down into the stricken town and bid its frightened children be whole. If he fully recognized "the Father" as all-powerful, all-good, and if he could clearly see and retain his grasp on the truth that evil, the supposit.i.tious opposite of good, had neither place nor power, except in the minds of mortals receptive to it--ah, then--then----
A soft patter of little feet on the shales broke in upon his thought.
He turned and beheld Carmen coming through the night.
"Padre dear," she whispered, "why didn"t you come and sleep in the church with me?" She crept close to him. He had not the heart nor the courage to send her away. He put out his arm and drew her to him.
"Padre dear," the child murmured, "it is nice out here under the stars--and I want to be with you--I love you--love you--" The whisper died away, and the child slept on his arm.
"Perfect love casteth out fear."
CHAPTER 20
Dawn brought Juan Mendoza and Pedro Cardenas again to the hill, and with them came others. "Mateo Gil, Pablo Polo, and Juanita Gomez are sick, Padre," announced Mendoza, the spokesman. "They ask for the last sacrament. You could come down and give it to them, and then return to the hill, is it not so?"
"Yes," a.s.sented Jose, "I will come."
"And, Padre," continued Mendoza, "we talked it over last night, after Amado Sanchez died, and we think it would help if you said a Ma.s.s for us in the church to-day."