The rainy season dragged its reeking length through the SimitÍ valley with fearful deliberation. JosÈ thought that he should never again see the sun. The lake steamed like a cauldron. Great clouds of heavy vapor rolled incessantly upward from the dripping jungle. The rain fell in cloud-bursts, and the narrow streets of the old town ran like streams in a freshet.

Then, one day, Rosendo abruptly announced, “Padre, the rains are breaking. The dry season is at hand. And the little Carmen is fourteen years old to-day.”

It gave the priest a shock. He had been six years in SimitÍ! And Carmen was no longer a child. Youth ripens quickly into maturity in these tropic lands. The past year had sped like a meteor across an evening sky, leaving a train of mingled light and darkness. Of Diego’s fate JosÈ had learned nothing. Ricardo and his companion had disappeared without causing even a ripple of comment in SimitÍ. Don Mario remained quiet for many weeks. But he often eyed JosÈ and Rosendo malignantly 275 through the wooden grill at his window, and once he ordered Fernando to stop Rosendo and ply him with many and pointed questions. The old man was noncommittal, but he left a dark suspicion, which was transmitted to the receptive mind of the Alcalde. Acting-Bishop Wenceslas likewise was growing apprehensive as the weeks went by, and both JosÈ and Don Mario were the recipients of letters of inquiry from him regarding the whereabouts of the priest Diego. In the course of time came other letters from Cartagena, and at length an order for a most scrutinizing search to be made for the Bishop’s confidential agent.

It was of no avail. Rosendo’s oft-repeated testimony revealed nothing. The citizens of SimitÍ had not seen the man. The Alcalde had nothing but his suspicions to offer. And these might have fallen harmlessly upon the acting-Bishop’s well occupied thought, had it not been for the complicating influence of certain other events. The first of these was the exhaustion of the gold which JosÈ and Carmen had discovered in the old church. The other was the outbreak of the religio-political revolution which Diego had predicted some six years before, and which, in these latter days, Don Jorge, on his infrequent journeys through SimitÍ had repeatedly announced as inevitable and imminent. Their combined effect was such as to wrest Carmen away from JosÈ, and to set in a new direction the currents of their lives.

For some time past JosÈ had patched with growing anxiety the shrinking of his gold supply, and had striven to lessen the monthly contributions to Cartagena, meanwhile trying to know that the need now looming daily larger before him would be met. He had not voiced his apprehension to Carmen. But he and Rosendo had discussed the situation long and earnestly, and had at length resolved that the latter should again return to GuamocÓ to wash the TiguÍ sands.

The old man sighed, but he uttered no protest. Yet each day JosÈ thought he grew quieter. And each day, too, he seemed to become more tender of his sad-faced daughter, Ana, and of the little grandson who had come into his humble home only a few weeks before. He delayed his preparations for specious reasons which JosÈ knew cost him much effort to invent. He clung to Carmen. He told his rosary often before the church altar, and with tears in his eyes. And at night he would come to JosÈ and beg him to read from the Bible and explain what he thought the Saviour had really meant to convey to the humble fishermen of Galilee.

JosÈ’s heart was wrung. But at last the day arrived when he had nothing to send to Cartagena beyond the mere pittance 276 which the poor members of his little parish contributed. But this he sent as usual. The next month he did the same. Then came a letter from Wenceslas, requesting an explanation. And then it was that JosÈ realized that in his excess of zeal he had fallen into his own trap. For, having established the custom of remitting a certain amount to the Bishop each month, he must not resent now the implication of dishonesty when the remittances fell off, or ceased altogether. He took the letter to Rosendo. “Bien, Padre,” said the latter slowly, “the time has come. I set out for GuamocÓ at dawn.”

In the days that followed, JosÈ could frame no satisfactory reply to Wenceslas, and so the latter wrote to the Alcalde. Don Mario eagerly seized the proffered opportunity to ingratiate himself into ecclesiastical favor. Rosendo was again in the hills, he wrote, and with supplies not purchased from him. Nor had he been given even a hint of Rosendo’s mission, whether it be to search again for La Libertad, or not. There could be no doubt, he explained in great detail, of JosÈ’s connivance with Rosendo, and of his unauthorized conduct in the matter of educating the girl, Carmen, who, he made no doubt, was the daughter of Padre Diego––now, alas! probably cold in death at the violent hands of the girl’s foster-father, and with the priest JosÈ’s full approbation. The letter cost the portly Don Mario many a day of arduous labor; but it brought its reward in another inquiry from Cartagena, and this time a request for specific details regarding Carmen.

Don Mario bestrode the clouds. He dropped his customary well-oiled manner, and carried his head with the air of a conqueror. His thick lips became regnant, imperious. He treated his compatriots with supercilious disdain. And to JosÈ he would scarce vouchsafe even a cold nod as they passed in the street. Again he penned a long missive to Cartagena, in which he dilated at wearisome length upon the extraordinary beauty of the girl, as well as her unusual mental qualities. He urged immediate action, and suggested that Carmen be sent to the convent in Mompox.

Wenceslas mused long over the Alcalde’s letters. Many times he smiled as he read. Then he sent for a young clerical agent of the See, who was starting on a mission to BogotÁ, and requested that he stop off a day at Badillo and go to SimitÍ to report on conditions in that parish. Incidentally, also, to gather what data he might as to the family of one Rosendo Ariza.

In due course of time the agent made his report. The parish of SimitÍ stood in need of a new Cura, he said. And the girl––he found no words to describe or explain her. She must be seen. 277 The Church had need of prompt action, however, to secure her. To that end, he advised her immediate removal to Cartagena.

Again Wenceslas deliberated. Aside from the girl, to whom he found his thought reverting oftener than he could wish in that particular hour of stress, his interest in SimitÍ did not extend beyond its possibilities as a further contributor to the funds he was so greatly needing for the furtherance of his complex political plans. As to the Alcalde––here was a possibility of another sort. That fellow might become useful. He should be cultivated. And at the same time warned against precipitate action, lest he scatter Rosendo’s family into flight, and the graceful bird now dwelling in the rude nest escape the sharp talons awaiting her.

He called for his secretary. “Send a message to Francisco, our Legate, who is now in BogotÁ. Bid him on his return journey stop again at SimitÍ. We require a full report on the character of the Alcalde of that town.”

Meantime, JosÈ did not permit his mental torture to interfere with Carmen’s education. For six years now that had progressed steadily. And the results? Wonderful, he thought––and yet not wholly attributable to his peculiar mode of tutelage. For, after all, his work had been little more than the holding of her mind unwarped, that her instinctive sense of logic might reach those truthful conclusions which it was bound to attain if guided safely past the tortuous shifts of human speculation and undemonstrable theory. To his great joy, these six years had confirmed a belief which he had held ever since the troublous days of his youth, namely, that, as a recent writer has said, “adolescent understanding is along straight lines, and leaps where the adult can only laboriously creep.” There had been no awful hold of early teaching to loosen and throw off; there were no old landmarks in her mind to remove; no tenacious, clinging effect of early associations to neutralize. And, perhaps most important of all, the child had seemed to enter the world utterly devoid of fear, and with a congenital faith, amounting to absolute knowledge, in the immanence of an omnipotent God of love. This, added to her eagerness and mental receptivity, had made his task one of constant rejoicing in the realization of his most extravagant dreams for her.

As a linguist, Carmen had become accomplished. She spoke English fluently. And it was only a matter of practice to give her a similar grasp of French, Italian, and German. As for other instruction, such knowledge of the outside world as he had deemed wise to give her in these six years had been seized upon with avidity and as quickly assimilated. But he often 278 speculated curiously––sometimes dubiously––upon the great surprises in store for her should she ever leave her native village. And yet, as often as such thought recurred to him he would try to choke it back, to bar his mind against it, lest the pull at his heartstrings snap them asunder.

Often as he watched her expanding so rapidly into womanhood and exhibiting such graces of manner, such amiability of disposition, such selfless regard for others, combined with a physical beauty such as he thought he had never before gazed upon, a great yearning would clutch his soul, and a lump would rise in his throat. And when, as was so often the case, her arms flew impulsively about his neck and she whispered words of tender endearment in his ear, a fierce determination would seize him, and he would clutch her to himself with such vehemence as to make her gasp for breath. That she might marry he knew to be a possibility. But the idea pierced his soul as with a sword, and he thought that to see her in the arms of another, even the man of her choice, must excite him to murder. One day, shortly after her fourteenth birthday, she came to him and, perching herself as was her wont upon his knees, and twining her arms about his neck, said, with traces of embarrassment, “Padre dear, Juan––he asked me to-day to marry him.”

JosÈ caught his breath. His ears rang. She––marry a peon of SimitÍ! To be sure, Juan had often reminded him of the request he had made for her hand long ago. But JosÈ had not considered the likelihood of the lad’s taking his question directly to her. And the girl––

“And what did you reply?” he asked thickly.

“Padre dear––I told him that––” She stopped abruptly.

“Well, chiquita; you told him––what?” His voice trembled.

She flushed, still hesitating. He held her back from him and looked squarely into her wide eyes.

“You told him, chiquita––”

“That––well, Padre dear, I told him that––that I might never marry.”

JosÈ sighed. “And do you think, little girl, that you will always hold to that resolution?”

“Yes, Padre, unless––”

“Well, chiquita, unless––”

“Unless you marry, too, Padre,” she said, dropping her eyes.

“Unless I marry! I––a priest! But––what has that to do with it, girl?”

“Well––oh, Padre dear––can’t you see? For then I would marry––” She buried her face in his shoulder.

“Yes, chiquita,” he said, dully wondering.

Her arms tightened about his neck. “You,” she murmured.

It was the first expression of the kind that had ever come from her lips. JosÈ’s heart thumped violently. The Goddess of Fortune had suddenly thrown her most precious jewel into his lap. Joy welled up in flood tides from unknown depths within. His eyes swam. Then––he remembered. And thick night fell upon his soul.

Minutes passed, and the two sat very quiet. Then Carmen raised her head. “Padre,” she whispered, “you don’t say anything. I know you love me. And you will not always be a priest––not always,” shaking her beautiful curls with suggestive emphasis.

Why did she say that? He wondered vaguely. The people called her an hada. He sometimes thought they had reason to. And then he knew that she never moved except in response to a beckoning hand that still, after all these years, remained invisible to him.

“Chiquita,” he said in low response, “I fear––I fear that can never be. And even if––ah, chiquita, I am so much older than you, little girl––almost seventeen years!”

“You do not want to marry me, even if you could, Padre?” she queried, looking wistfully into his eyes, while her own grew moist.

He clutched her to him again. “Carmen!” he cried wildly, “you little know––you little know! But––child, we must not talk of these things! Wait––wait!”

“But, Padre dear,” she pleaded, “just say that you do love me that way––just say it––your little girl wants to hear it.”

God above! She, pleading that he would say he loved her! His head sank upon his breast. He silently prayed that his tortured soul might burst and let his wasted life ebb into oblivion while his pent-up misery poured out.

“Carmen!” he cried with the despair of the lost. “I love you––love you––love you! Nay, child, I adore you! God! That I might hold you thus forever!”

She reached up quickly and kissed him. “Some day, Padre dear,” she murmured softly, “you will stop thinking that two and two are seven. Then everything good will come to you.”

She sank back in his arms and nestled close to him, as if she longed to enter his empty heart and fill the great void with her measureless love.

“And, Padre dear,” she whispered, “your little girl will wait for you––yes, she will wait.”

It was some days later that Rosendo, after returning almost empty handed from the hills, came to JosÈ and said, “Padre, I have sold my hacienda to Don Luis. I need the money to purchase 280 supplies and to get the papers through for some denouncements which I have made in GuamocÓ. I knew that Don Mario would put through no papers for me, and so I have asked LÁzaro to make the transaction and to deliver the titles to me when the final papers arrive. I have a blank here to be filled out with the name and description of a mineral property. I––what would be a good name for a mine, Padre?”

“Why do you ask that, Rosendo?” queried JosÈ in surprise.

“Because, Padre, I want a foreign name––one not known, here. Give me an American one. Think hard.”

JosÈ reflected. “There is a city, a great city, that I have often heard about, up in the States,” he said finally.

He took up the little atlas which he had received long since with other books from abroad. “Look,” he said, “it is called Chicago. Call your property the Chicago mine, Rosendo. It is a name unknown down here, and there can no confusion arise because of it.”

“Caramba!” Rosendo muttered, trying to twist his tongue around the word, “it is certain that no one else will use that name in GuamocÓ! But that makes my title still more secure, no?”

“But, Rosendo,” said JosÈ, when the full significance of the old man’s announcement had finally penetrated, “you have sold your finca! And to acquire title to property that you can never sell or work! Why, man! do you realize what you have done? You are impoverished! What will you do now? And what about Carmen? for we have nothing. And the sword that hangs above us may fall any day!”

“Bien, Padre, it is for her sake that I have done it. Say no more. It will work out in some way. I go back to-morrow. But, if the titles should come from Cartagena during my absence––and, Padre, if anything should happen to me––for the love of the Virgin do not let them out of your hands! They are for her.”

Yet Rosendo departed not on the morrow. He remained to mingle his tears with those of the sorrowing Ana. For the woman, whose heart had been lighter since the arrival of her babe, had come to the priest that day to have the child christened. And so, before the sun might fill the plaza with its ardent midday heat, Rosendo and his family repaired to the church. There before the altar JosÈ baptised the little one and gave it his own name, thus triumphantly ushering the pagan babe into the Christian Catholic world. The child cried at the touch of the baptismal water.

“Now,” commented Rosendo, “the devil has gone out of him, driven out by the holy water.”

But, as JosÈ leaned over the babe and looked into its dark eyes, his hand stopped, and his heart stood still. He raised his head and bent a look of inquiry upon the mother. She returned the look with one that mutely voiced a stifled fear and confirmed his own. “Padre!” she whispered hoarsely. “What is it? Quick!”

He took a candle from the altar and passed it before the child’s eyes.

“Padre! He sees! Santa Virgen! Do not tell me––Dios mÍo!” The mother’s voice rose to a wail, as she snatched her babe away.

A loud exclamation escaped Rosendo. DoÑa Maria stood mute; but JosÈ as he looked at her divined her thought and read therein a full knowledge of the awful fact that she had never voiced to the heart-broken mother.

“Padre!” cried the perplexed Rosendo. “Maria!” turning in appeal to his wife. “Speak, some one! Santa Virgen, speak! Ana, what ails the child?”

JosÈ turned his head aside. Carmen crowded close to the weeping Ana. DoÑa Maria took Rosendo’s arm.

“The babe, Rosendo,” she said quietly, “was born––blind.”