Carmen Ariza Part 41

Jose often studied her features while she bent over her work. He spent hours, too, poring over the little locket which had been found among her mother's few effects. The portrait of the man was dim and soiled.

Jose wondered if the poor woman's kisses and tears had blurred it. The people of Badillo said she had died with it pressed to her lips. But its condition rendered futile all speculation in regard to its original. That of the mother, however, was still fresh and clear. Jose conjectured that she must have been either wholly Spanish, or one of the more refined and cultured women of Colombia. And she had doubtless been very young and beautiful when the portrait was made.

With what dark tragedy was that little locket a.s.sociated? Would it ever yield its secret?

But Carmen's brown curls and light skin--whence came they? Were they wholly Latin? Jose had grave doubts. And her keen mind, and deep religious instinct? Who knew? He could only be sure that they had come from a source far, far above her present lowly environment. With that much he must for the present be content.

Another month unfolded its length in quiet days, and Rosendo again returned. Not ill this time, nor even much exhausted. Nor did the little leathern pouch contain more than a few _pesos_ in gold dust.

But determination was written grim and trenchant upon his black face as he strode into the parish house and extended his great hand to the priest.

"I have only come for more supplies, Padre," he said. "I have some three _pesos_ worth of gold. Most of this I got around Culata, near Don Felipe's quartz vein, the Andandodias. _Caramba_, what veins in those hills! If we had money to build a mill, and knew how to catch the gold, we would not need to wash the river sands that have been gone over again and again for hundreds of years!"

But Jose's thoughts were of the Alcalde. He determined to send for him at once, while Rosendo was removing the soil of travel.

Don Mario came and estimated the weight of the gold by his hand. Then he coolly remarked: "_Bien, Senor Padre_, I will send Rosendo to my _hacienda_ to-morrow to cut cane and make _panela_."

"And how is that, Don Mario?" inquired Jose.

The Alcalde began to bl.u.s.ter. "He owes me thirty _pesos oro_, less this, if you wish me to keep it. I see no likelihood that he can ever repay me. And so he must now work out his debt."

"How long will that take him, _amigo_?"

"_Quien sabe?_ _Senor Padre_," the Alcalde replied, his eyes narrowing.

The priest braced himself, and his face a.s.sumed an expression that it had not worn before he came to Simiti. "Look you now, my friend," he began in tones pregnant with meaning. "I have made some inquiries regarding your system of peonage. I find that you pay your _peones_ from twenty to thirty cents a day for their hard labor, and at the same time charge them as much a day for food. Or you force them to buy from you tobacco and rum at prices which keep them always in your debt. Is it not so?"

"_Na_, Padre, you have been misinformed," the Alcalde demurred, with a deprecating gesture.

"I have not. Lazaro Ortiz is now working for you on that system. And daily he becomes more deeply indebted to you, is it not so?"

"But, Padre--"

"It is useless for you to deny it, Don Mario, for I have facts. Now listen to me. Let us understand each other clearly, nor attempt to dissimulate. That iniquitous system of peonage has got to cease in my paris.h.!.+"

"_Caramba_, but Padre Diego had _peones_!" the Alcalde exploded.

"And he was a wicked man," added Jose. Then he continued:

"I know not what information you may have from the Bishop regarding me, yet this I tell you: I shall report you to Bogota, and I will band the citizens of Simiti together to drive you out of town, if you do not at once release Lazaro, and put an end to this wicked practice.

The people will follow if I lead!"

It was a bold stroke, and the priest knew that he was standing upon shaky ground. But the man before him was superst.i.tious, untutored and child-like. A show of courage, backed by an a.s.sertion of authority, might produce the desired effect. Moreover, Jose knew that he was in the right. And right must prevail!

Don Mario glared at him, while an ugly look spread over his coa.r.s.e features. The priest went on:

"Lazaro has long since worked out his debt, and you shall release him at once. As to Rosendo, he must have the supplies he needs to return to Guamoco. You understand?"

"_Caramba!_" Don Mario's face was purple with rage. "You think you can tell me what to do--me, the Alcalde!" he volleyed. "You think you can make us change our customs! _Caramba!_ You are no better than the priest Diego, whom you try to make me believe so wicked! _Hombre_, you were driven out of Cartagena yourself! A nice sort to be teaching a little girl--!"

"Stop, man!" thundered Jose, striding toward him with upraised arm.

Don Mario fell back in his chair and quailed before the mountainous wrath of the priest.

A shadow fell across the open doorway. Glancing up, Jose saw Carmen.

For a moment the girl stood looking in wonder at the angry men. Then she went quickly to the priest and slipped a hand into his. A feeling of shame swept over him, and he went back to his chair. Carmen leaned against him, but she appeared to be confused. Silence fell upon them all.

"Cuc.u.mbra doesn't fight any more, Padre," the girl at length began in hesitation. "He and the puppy play together all the time now. He has learned a lot, and now he loves the puppy."

So had the priest learned much. He recalled the lesson. "_Bien_," he said in soft tones, "I think we became a bit too earnest, Don Mario.

We are good friends, is it not so? And we are working together for the good of Simiti. But to have good come to us, we must do good to others."

He went to his trunk and took out a wallet. "Here are twenty _pesos_, Don Mario." It was all he had in the world, but he did not tell the Alcalde so. "Take them on Rosendo's account. Let him have the new supplies he needs, and I will be his surety. And, friend, you are going to let me prove to you with time that the report you have from Cartagena regarding me is false."

Don Mario's features relaxed somewhat when his hand closed over the grimy bills.

"Do not forget, _amigo_," added Jose, a.s.suming an air of mystery as he pursued the advantage, "that you and I are a.s.sociated in various business matters, is it not so?"

The Alcalde's mouth twitched, but finally extended in an unctuous grin. After all, the priest was a descendant of the famous Don Ignacio, and--who knew?--he might have resources of which the Alcalde little dreamed.

"_Cierto, Padre!_" he cried, rising to depart. "And we will yet uncover La Libertad! You guarantee Rosendo's debt? _Bien_, he shall have the supplies. But I think he should take another man with him.

Lazaro might do, no?"

It was a gracious and unlooked for condescension.

"Send Lazaro to me, Don Mario," said Jose. "We will find use for him, I think."

And thus Rosendo was enabled to depart a third time to the solitudes of Guamoco.

CHAPTER 14

With Rosendo again on the trail, Jose and Carmen bent once more to their work. Within a few days the grateful Lazaro was sent to Rosendo's _hacienda_, biding the time when the priest should have a larger commission to bestow upon him. With the advent of the dry season, peace settled over the sequestered town, while its artless folk drowsed away the long, hot days and danced at night in the silvery moonlight to the tw.a.n.g of the guitar and the drone of the amorous canzonet. Jose was deeply grateful for these days of unbroken quiet, and for the opportunity they afforded him to probe the child's thought and develop his own. Day after day he taught her. Night after night he visited the members of his little parish, getting better acquainted with them, administering to their simple needs, talking to them in the church edifice on the marvels of the outside world, and then returning to his little cottage to prepare by the feeble rays of his flickering candle Carmen's lessons for the following day. He had no texts, save the battered little arithmetic; and even that was abandoned as soon as Carmen had mastered the decimal system.

Thereafter he wrote out each lesson for her, carefully wording it that it might contain nothing to shock her acute sense of the allness of G.o.d, and omitting from the vocabulary every reference to evil, to failure, disaster, sin and death. In mathematics he was sure of his ground, for there he dealt wholly with the metaphysical. But history caused him many an hour of perplexity in his efforts to purge it of the dross of human thought. If Carmen were some day to go out into the world she _must_ know the story of its past. And yet, as Jose faced her in the cla.s.sroom and looked down into her unfathomable eyes, in whose liquid depths there seemed to dwell a soul of unexampled purity, he could not bring himself even to mention the sordid events in the development of the human race which manifested the darker elements of the carnal mind. Perhaps, after all, she might never go out into the world. He had not the faintest idea how such a thing could be accomplished. And so under his tutelage the child grew to know a world of naught but brightness and beauty, where love and happiness dwelt ever with men, and wicked thoughts were seen as powerless and transient, harmless to the one who knew G.o.d to be "everywhere." The man taught the child with the sad remembrance of his own seminary training always before him, and with a desire, amounting almost to frenzy, to keep from her every limiting influence and benumbing belief of the carnal mind.

The decimal system mastered, Carmen was inducted into the elements of algebra.

"How funny," she exclaimed, laughing, "to use letters for numbers!"

"They are only general symbols, little one," he explained. "Symbols are signs, or things that stand for other things."

Then came suddenly into his mind how the great Apostle Paul taught that the things we see, or think we see, are themselves but symbols, reflections as from a mirror, and how we must make them out as best we can for the present, knowing that, in due season, we shall see the realities for which these things stand to the human mind. He knew that back of the mathematical symbols stood the eternal, unvarying, indestructible principles which govern their use. And he had begun to see that back of the symbols, the phenomena, of human existence stands the great principle--infinite G.o.d--the eternal mind. In the realm of mathematics the principles are omnipotent for the solution of problems--omnipotent in the hands of the one who understands and uses them aright. And is not G.o.d the omnipotent principle to the one who understands and uses Him aright in the solving of life's intricate problems?

"They are so easy when you know how, Padre dear," said Carmen, referring to her tasks.

"But there will be harder ones, _chiquita_."