"_Bien_," added the captain, addressing Fernando, "quarters for my men, and rations. We return to the Hercules at daybreak. And let all arms and ammunition be collected. Every house must be searched. And we shall want _peones_ to carry it to the river."
Jose turned away, sick with the horror of it all. A soldier approached him with a message from Don Mario. The condemned man was asking for the last rites. Faint and trembling, the priest accompanied the messenger to the jail.
"Padre! _Dios arriba_!" wailed the terrified and bewildered Don Mario.
"It was a mistake! Don Wenceslas--"
"Yes, I understand, Don Mario," interrupted Jose, tenderly taking the man"s hand. "He told you to do it."
"Yes, Padre," sobbed the unfortunate victim. "He said that I would be rich--that I would be elected to Congress--ah, the traitor! And, Padre--I burned his letters because it was his wish! Ah, _Santa Virgen_!" He put his head on the priest"s shoulder and wept violently.
Jose"s heart was wrung; but he was powerless to aid the man. And yet, as he dwelt momentarily on his own sorrows, he almost envied the fate which had overtaken the misguided Don Mario.
The lieutenant entered. "_Senor Padre_," he said, "the sun is low. In a quarter of an hour--"
Don Mario sank to the ground and clasped the priest"s knees. Jose held up his hand, and the lieutenant, bowing courteously, withdrew. The priest knelt beside the cowering prisoner.
"Don Mario," he said gently, holding the man"s hand, "confess all to me. It may be the means of saving other lives--and then you will have expiated your own crimes."
"Padre," moaned the stricken man, rocking back and forth, his head buried in his hands and tears streaming through his fingers, "Padre, you will forgive--?"
"Aye, Don Mario, everything. And the Christ forgives. Your sins are remitted. But remove now the last burden from your soul--the guilty knowledge of the part Don Wenceslas has had in the disaster which has come upon Simiti. Tell it all, friend, for you may save many precious lives thereby."
The fallen Alcalde roused himself by a mighty effort. Forgetting for the moment his own dire predicament, he opened his heart. Jose sat before him in wide-mouthed astonishment. Don Mario"s confession brought a revelation that left him cold. The lieutenant entered again.
"One moment," said Jose. Then, to Don Mario: "And Carmen?"
Don Mario leaned close to the priest and whispered low. "No, she is not Diego"s child! And, Padre, take her away, at once! But out of the country! There is not an inch of ground in all Colombia now where she would be safe from Don Wenceslas!"
Jose"s head sank upon his breast. Then he again took Don Mario"s hand.
"Friend," he said gravely, "rest a.s.sured, what you have told me saves at least one life, and removes the sin with which your own was stained. And now," rising and turning to the waiting lieutenant, "we are ready."
_Ora pro n.o.bis! Ora pro n.o.bis! Santa Virgen, San Salvador, ora pro n.o.bis!_
A few minutes later a sharp report echoed through the Simiti valley and startled the herons that were seeking their night"s rest on the wooded isle. Then Jose de Rincon, alone, and with a heart of lead, moved slowly down through the dreary village and crossed the deserted _plaza_ to his lowly abode.
CHAPTER 34
The low-hung moon, shrouded in heavy vapor, threw an eldritch shimmer upon the little group that silently bore the body of the martyred Lazaro from the old church late that night to the dreary cemetery on the hill. Jose took but a reluctant part in the proceedings. He would even have avoided this last service to his faithful friend if he could. It seemed to him as he stumbled along the stony road behind the body which Rosendo and Don Jorge carried that his human endurance had been strained so far beyond the elastic limit that there could now be no rebound. Every thought that touched his sore mind made it bleed anew, for every thought that he accepted was acrid, rasping, oppressive. The sheer weight of foreboding, of wild apprehension, of paralyzing fear, crushed him, until his shoulders bent low as he walked. How, lest he perform a miracle, could he hope to extricate himself and his loved ones from the meshes of the net, far-cast, but with unerring aim, which had fallen upon them?
As he pa.s.sed the town hall he saw through the open door the captain"s cot, and a guard standing motionless beside it. The captain had elected to remain there for the night, while his men found a p.r.i.c.kly hospitality among the cowering townsfolk. Jose knew now that the hand which Don Mario had dealt himself in the game inaugurated by Wenceslas had been from a stacked deck. He knew that the President of the Republic had ordered Morales to this inoffensive little town to quell an alleged anticlerical uprising, and that the execution of the misguided Alcalde had been determined long before the Hercules had got under way. He could see that it was necessary for the Government to sacrifice its agent in the person of the Alcalde, in order to prove its own loyalty to the Church. And in return therefor he knew it would expect, not without reason, the cooperation of the Church in case the President"s interference in the province of Bolivar should precipitate a general revolt.
But what had been determined upon as his own fate? He had not the semblance of an idea. From the confession of the ruined Alcalde he now knew that Don Mario had been poisoned against him from the beginning; that even the letters of introduction which Wenceslas had given him to the Alcalde contained the charge of his having accomplished the ruin of the girl Maria in Cartagena, and of his previous incarceration in the monastery of Palazzola. And Don Mario had confessed in his last moments that Wenceslas had sought to work through him and Jose in the hope that the location of the famous mine, La Libertad, might be revealed. Don Mario had been instructed to get what he could out of this scion of Rincon; and only his own greed and cupidity had caused him to play fast and loose with both sides until, falling before the allurements which Wenceslas held out, he had rushed madly into his own destruction. Jose realized that so far he himself had proved extremely useful to Wenceslas--but had his usefulness ended? At these thoughts his soul momentarily suffused with the pride of the old and hectoring Rincon stock and rose, instinct with revolt--but only to sink again in helpless resignation, while the shadow of despair rolled in and quenched his feeble determination.
Rosendo and Don Jorge placed the body in one of the vacant vaults and filled the entrance with some loose bricks. Then they stood back expectantly. It was now the priest"s turn. He had a part to perform, out there on the bleak hilltop in the ghostly light. But Jose remained motionless and silent, his head sunk upon his breast.
Then Rosendo, waxing troubled, spoke in gentle admonition. "He would expect it, you know, Padre."
Jose turned away from the lonely vault. Bitter tears coursed down his cheeks, and his voice broke. He laid his head on Rosendo"s stalwart shoulder and wept aloud.
The sickly, greenish cast of the moonlight silhouetted the figures of the three men in grotesque shapes against the cemetery wall and the crumbling tombs. The morose call of a toucan floated weirdly upon the heavy air. The faint wail of the frogs in the shallow waters below rose like the despairing sighs of lost souls.
Rosendo wound his long arm about the sorrowing priest. Don Jorge"s muscles knotted, and a muttered imprecation rose from his tight lips.
Strangely had the shift and coil of the human mind thrown together these three men, so different in character, yet standing now in united protest against the misery which men heap upon their fellow-men in the name of Christ. Jose, the apostate agent of Holy Church, his hands bound, and his heart bursting with yearning toward his fellow-men; Rosendo, simple-minded and faithful, chained to the Church by heredity and a.s.sociation, yet ashamed of its abuses and l.u.s.ts; Don Jorge, fierce in his denunciation of the political and religious sham and hypocrisy which he saw masking behind the cloak of imperial religion.
"I have nothing to say, friends," moaned Jose, raising his head; "nothing that would not still further reveal my own miserable weakness and the despicable falsity of the Church. If the Church had followed the Christ, it would have taught me to do likewise; and I should now call to Lazaro and bid him come forth, instead of shamefully confessing my impotency and utter lack of spirituality, even while I pose as an _Alter Christus_."
"You--you will leave a blessing with him before we go, Padre?" queried the anxious Rosendo, clinging still to the frayed edge of his fathers"
faith.
"My blessing, Rosendo," replied Jose sadly, "would do no good. He lies there because we have utterly forgotten what the Master came to teach.
He lies there because of our false, undemonstrable, mortal beliefs.
Oh, that the Church, instead of wasting time murmuring futile prayers over dead bodies, had striven to learn to do the deeds which the Christ said we should all do if we but kept his commandments!"
"But, Padre, you will say Ma.s.ses for him?" pursued Rosendo.
"Ma.s.ses? No, I can not--now. I would not take his or your money to give to the Church to get his soul out of an imagined purgatory which the Church long ago invented for the purpose of enriching herself materially--for, alas! after spiritual riches she has had little hankering."
"To pay G.o.d to get His own children out of the flames, eh?" suggested Don Jorge. "It is what I have always said, the religion of the Church is a _religion de dinero_. If there ever was a G.o.d, either He is still laughing Himself sick at our follies--or else He has wept Himself to death over them! Jesus Christ taught no such stuff!"
"Friend," said Jose solemnly, turning to Don Jorge, "I long since learned what the whole world must learn some time, that the Church stands to-day, not as the bride of the Christ, but as the incarnation of the human mind, as error opposed to Truth. It is the embodiment of "Who shall be greatest?" It is one of the various phenomena of the human mentality; and its adherents are the victims of authoritative falsehood. Its Ma.s.s and countless other ceremonies differ in no essential respect from ancient pagan worship. Of spirituality it has none. And so it can do none of the works of the Master. Its corrupting faith is foully materialistic. It has been weighed and found wanting.
And as the human mind expands, the incoming light must drive out the black beliefs and deeds of Holy Church, else the oncoming centuries will have no place for it."
"I believe you!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Don Jorge. "But why do you still remain a priest? _Hombre_! I knew when I saw you on the river boat that you were none. But," his voice dropping to a whisper, "there is a soldier in the road below. It would be well to leave. He might think we were here to plot."
When the soldier had pa.s.sed, they quietly left the gloomy cemetery and made their way quickly back through the straggling moonlight to Rosendo"s house. Dona Maria, with characteristic quietude, was preparing for the duties of the approaching day. Carmen lay asleep.
Jose went to her bedside and bent over her, wondering. What were the events of the past few days in her sight? How did she interpret them?
Was her faith still unshaken? What did Lazaro"s death and the execution of Don Mario mean to her? Did she, as he had done, look upon them as real events in a real world, created and governed by a good G.o.d? Or did she still hold such things to be the unreal phenomena of the human mentality?--unreal, because opposed to G.o.d, and without the infinite principle. As for himself, how had the current of his life been diverted by this rare child! What had she not sought to teach him by her simple faith, her unshaken trust in the immanence of good!
True, as a pure reflection of good she had seemed to be the means of stirring up tremendous evil. But had he not seen the evil eventually consume itself, leaving her unscathed? And yet, would this continue?
He himself had always conceded to the forces of evil as great power as to those of good--nay, even greater. And even now as he stood looking at her, wrapped in peaceful slumber, his strained sight caught no gleam of hope, no light flashing through the heavy clouds of misfortune that lowered above her. He turned away with an anxious sigh.
"Padre," said the gentle Dona Maria, "the two _Americanos_--"
"Ah, yes," interrupted Jose, suddenly remembering that he had sent word to them to use his house while they remained in the town. "They had escaped my thought. _Bien_, they are--?"
"They brought their baggage to your house an hour ago and set up their beds in your living room. They will be asleep by now."
"Good," he replied, a wistful sense of grat.i.tude stealing over him at the rea.s.suring thought of their presence. "_Bien_, we will not disturb them."
Summoning Rosendo and Don Jorge, the three men sought the lake"s edge.
There, seated on the loose shales, they wrestled with their problem until dawn spread her filmy veil over the shimmering stars.