Carmen Ariza Part 22

"No doctor!"

Jose kept silence for a few moments. Then--

"But perhaps I do not need one. What time did it occur?"

"It did not happen to-day, Padre," said Rosendo with pitying compa.s.sion. "It was nearly a week ago."

"Nearly a week! And have I lain here so long?"

"Yes, Padre."

The priest stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then--

"The dreams were frightful! I must have talked--raved! Rosendo--you heard me--?" His voice betrayed anxiety.

"There, Padre, think no more about it. You were wild--I fought to keep you in bed--we thought you must die--all but Carmen--but you have your senses now--and you must forget the past."

Forget the past! Then his wild delirium had laid bare his soul! And the man who had so faithfully nursed him through the crisis now possessed the sordid details of this wretched life!

Jose struggled to orient his undirected mind. A hot wave of anger swept over him at the thought that he was still living, that his battered soul had not torn itself from earth during his delirium and taken flight. Was he fated to live forever, to drag out an endless existence, with his heart written upon his sleeve for the world to read and turn to its own advantage? Rosendo had stood between him and death--but to what end? Had he not yet paid the score in full--good measure, pressed down and running over? His thoughts ran rapidly from one topic to another. Again they reverted to the little girl. He had dreamed of her in that week of black night. He wondered if he had also talked of her. He had lain at death's door--Rosendo had said so--but he had had no physician. Perhaps these simple folk brewed their own homely remedies--he wondered what they had employed in his case. Above the welter of his thoughts this question pressed for answer.

"What medicine did you give me, Rosendo?" he feebly queried.

"None, Padre."

Jose's voice rose querulously in a little excess of excitement. "What!

You left me here without medical aid, to live or die, as might be?"

The gentle Rosendo laid a soothing hand upon the priest's feverish brow. "_Na_, Padre,"--there was a hurt tone in the soft answer--"we did all we could for you. We have neither doctors nor medicines. But we cared for you--and we prayed daily for your recovery. The little Carmen said our prayers would be answered--and, you see, they were."

Again the child!

"And what had she to do with my recovery?" Jose demanded fretfully.

"_Quien sabe?_ It is sometimes that way when the little Carmen says people shall not die. And then," he added sadly, "sometimes they do die just the same. It is strange; we do not understand it." The gentle soul sighed its perplexity.

Jose looked up at him keenly. "Did the child say I should not die?" he asked softly, almost in a whisper.

"Yes, Padre; she says G.o.d's children do not die," returned Rosendo.

The priest's blood stopped in its mad surge and slowly began to chill.

G.o.d's children do not die! What uncanny influence had he met with here in this crumbling, forgotten town? He sought the index of his memory for the sensations he had felt when he looked into the girl's eyes on his first morning in Simiti. But memory reported back only impressions of goodness--beauty--love.

Then a dim light--only a feeble gleam--seemed to flash before him, but at a great distance. Something called him--not by name, but by again touching that unfamiliar chord which had vibrated in his soul when the child had first stood before him. He felt a strange psychic presentiment as of things soon to be revealed. A sentiment akin to awe stole over him, as if he were standing in the presence of a great mystery--a mystery so transcendental that the groveling minds of mortals have never apprehended it. He turned again to the man sitting beside his bed.

"Rosendo--where is she?"

"Asleep, Padre," pointing to the other bed. "But we must not wake her," he admonished quickly, as the priest again sought to rise; "we will talk of her to-morrow. I think--"

Rosendo stopped abruptly and looked at the priest as if he would fathom the inmost nature of the man. Then he continued uncertainly:

"I--I may have some things to say to you to-morrow--if you are well enough to hear them. But I will think about it to-night, and--if--_Bien_! I will think about it."

Rosendo rose slowly, as if weighted with heavy thoughts, and went out into the living room. Presently he returned with a rude, homemade broom and began to sweep a s.p.a.ce on the dirt floor in the corner opposite Jose. This done, he spread out a light straw mat for his bed.

"The senora is preparing you a bowl of chicken broth and rice, Padre,"

he said. "The little Carmen saved a hen for you when you should awake.

She has fed it all the week on rice and goat's milk. She said she knew you would wake up hungry."

Jose's eyes had closely followed Rosendo's movements, although he seemed not to hear his words. Suddenly he broke forth in protest.

"Rosendo," he cried, "have I your bed? And do you sleep there on the floor? I cannot permit this!"

"Say nothing, Padre," replied Rosendo, gently forcing Jose back again upon his bed. "My house is yours."

"But--the senora, your wife--where does she sleep?"

"She has her _petate_ in the kitchen," was the quiet answer.

Only the two poor beds, which were occupied by the priest and the child! And Rosendo and his good wife had slept on the hard dirt floor for a week! Jose's eyes dimmed when he realized the extent of their unselfish hospitality. And would they continue to sleep thus on the ground, with nothing beneath them but a thin straw mat, as long as he might choose to remain with them? Aye, he knew that they would, uncomplainingly. For these are the children of the "valley of the pleasant 'yes.'"

Jose awoke the next morning with a song echoing in his ears. He had dreamed of singing; and as consciousness slowly returned, the dream-song became real. It floated in from the living room on a clear, sweet soprano. When a child he had heard such voices in the choir loft of the great Seville cathedral, and he had thought that angels were singing. As he lay now listening to it, memories of his childish dreams swept over him in great waves. The soft, sweet cadences rose and fell. His own heart swelled and pulsated with them, and his barren soul once more surged under the impulse of a deep, potential desire to manifest itself, its true self, unhampered at last by limitation and convention, unfettered by superst.i.tion, human creeds and false ambition. Then the inevitable reaction set in; a sickening sense of the futility of his longing settled over him, and he turned his face to the wall, while hot tears streamed over his sunken cheeks.

Again through his wearied brain echoed the familiar admonition, "Occupy till I come." Always the same invariable response to his strained yearnings. The sweet voice in the adjoining room floated in through the dusty palm door. It spread over his perturbed thought like oil on troubled waters. Perhaps it was the child singing. At this thought the sense of awe seemed to settle upon him again. A child--a babe--had said that he should live! If a doctor had said it he would have believed. But a child--absurd! It was a dream! But no; Rosendo had said it; and there was no reason to doubt him. But what had this child to do with it? Nothing! And yet--was that wholly true? Then whence his sensations when first he saw her? Whence that feeling of standing in the presence of a great mystery? "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings--" Foolishness! To be sure, the child may have said he should not die; but if he were to live--which G.o.d forbid!--his own recuperative powers would restore him. Rosendo's lively imagination certainly had exaggerated the incident.

Exhausted by his mental efforts, and lulled by the low singing, the priest sank into fitful slumber. As he slept he dreamed. He was standing alone in a great desert. Darkness encompa.s.sed him, and a fearful loneliness froze his soul. About him lay bleaching bones.

Neither trees nor vegetation broke the dull monotony of the cheerless scene. Nothing but waste, unutterably dreary waste, over which a chill wind tossed the tinkling sand in fitful gusts. In terror he cried aloud. The desert mocked his hollow cry. The darkness thickened. Again he called, his heart sinking with despair.

Then, over the desolate waste, through the heavy gloom, a voice seemed borne faint on the cold air, "Occupy till I come!" He sank to his knees. His straining eyes caught the feeble glint of a light, but at an immeasurable distance. Again he called; and again the same response, but nearer. A glow began to suffuse the blackness about him.

Nearer, ever nearer drew the gleam. The darkness lifted. The rocks began to bud. Trees and vines sprang from the waste sand. As if in a tremendous explosion, a dazzling light burst full upon him, shattering the darkness, fusing the stones about him, and blinding his sight. A great presence stood before him. He struggled to his feet; and as he did so a loud voice cried, "Behold, I come _quickly_!"

"_Senor Padre_, you have been dreaming!"

The priest, sitting upright and clutching at the rough sides of his bed, stared with wooden obliviousness into the face of the little Carmen.

CHAPTER 3

"You are well now, aren't you, Padre?"

It was not so much an interrogation as an affirmation, an a.s.sumption of fact.

"Now you must come and see my garden--and Cuc.u.mbra, too. And Cantar-las-horas; have you heard him? I scolded him lots; and I know he wants to mind; but he just thinks he can't stop singing the Vespers--the old stupid!"

While the child prattled she drew a chair to the bedside and arranged the bowl of broth and the two wheat rolls she had brought.