Carmen Ariza Part 48

"Why do you ask? Would you go to them? _Bueno_, then across the lake, toward the Juncal. Don Mario stocked their boat last night, while you kept me out on the shales. _Buen arreglo, no?_"

"Yes, Rosendo," replied Jose gladly, "an excellent arrangement to keep you from dipping your hands in his foul blood. Why, man! is your vision so short? Have you no thought of Carmen and her future?"

"But--_Dios_! he has spread the report that he is her father!

_Caramba!_ For that I would tear him apart! He robbed me of one child; and now--_Caramba_! Why did you let him go?--why did you, Padre?"

Rosendo paced the floor like a caged lion, while great tears rolled down his black cheeks.

"But, Rosendo, if you had killed him--what then? Imprisonment for you, suffering for us all, and the complete wreck of our hopes. Is it worth it?"

"_Na_, Padre, but I would have escaped to Guamoco, to the gold I have discovered. There no one would have found me. And you would have kept me supplied; and I would have given you the gold I washed to care for her--"

The man sank into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

"_Caramba!_" he moaned. "But he will return when I am gone--and the Church is back of him, and they will come and steal her away--"

How childish, and yet how great he was in his wonderful love, thought Jose. He pitied him from the bottom of his heart; he loved him immeasurably; yet he knew the old man's judgment was unsound in this case.

"Come, Rosendo," he said gently, laying a hand upon the bent head.

"This is a time when expediency bids us suffer an evil to remain for a little while, that a much greater good may follow."

He hesitated. Then--"You do not think Diego is her father?"

"A thousand devils, no!" shouted Rosendo, springing up. "He the father of that angel-child? _Cielo!_ His brats would be serpents! But I am losing time--" He turned to the door.

"Rosendo!" cried the priest in fresh alarm. "Where are you going? What are you--"

"I am going after Diego! Juan and Lazaro go with me! Before sundown that devil's carca.s.s will be buzzard meat!"

Jose threw himself in front of Rosendo.

"Rosendo, think of Carmen! Would you kill her, too? If you kill Diego nothing can save her from Wenceslas! Rosendo, for G.o.d's sake, listen!"

But the old man, with his huge strength, tossed the frail priest lightly aside and rushed into the street. Blind with rage, he did not see Carmen standing a short distance from the door. The child had been sent to summon him to breakfast. Unable to check his momentum, the big man crashed full into her and bore her to the ground beneath him. As she fell her head struck the sharp edge of an ancient paving stone, and she lay quite still, while the warm blood slowly trickled through her long curls.

Uttering a frightened cry, Jose rushed to the dazed Rosendo and got him to his feet. Then he picked up the child, and, his heart numb with fear, bore her into the house.

Clasping Carmen fiercely in his arms, Jose tried to aid Dona Maria in staunching the freely flowing blood. Rosendo, crazed with grief, bent over them, giving vent to moans which, despite his own fears, wrung the priest's heart with pity for the suffering old man. At length the child opened her eyes.

"Praise G.o.d!" cried Rosendo, kneeling and showering kisses upon her hands. _"Loado sea el buen Dios! Caramba! Caramba!"_

"Padre Rosendo," the girl murmured, smiling down at him, "your thoughts were driving you, just like Benjamin drives his oxen. And they were bad, or you wouldn't have knocked me over."

"Bad!" Rosendo went to the doorway and squatted down upon the dirt floor in the sunlight. "Bad!" he repeated. "_Caramba_, but they were murder-thoughts!"

"And they tried to make you murder me, didn't they, padre dear?" She laughed. "But it didn't really happen, anyway," she added.

Rosendo buried his head in his hands and groaned aloud. Carmen slipped down from Jose's lap and went unsteadily to the old man.

"They were not yours, those thoughts, padre dear," putting her arms around his neck. "But they were whipping you hard, just as if you belonged to them. And see, it just shows that bad thoughts can't do anything. Look, I'm all right!" She stood off and smiled at him.

Rosendo reached out and clasped her in his long arms. "_Chiquita_," he cried, "if you were not, your old padre Rosendo would throw himself into the lake!"

"More bad thoughts, padre dear!" She laughed and held up a warning finger. "But I was to tell you the _desayuno_ was ready; and see, we have forgotten all about it!" Her merry laugh rang through the room like a silver bell.

After breakfast Jose took Rosendo, still shaking, into the parish house. "I think," he said gravely, "that we have learned another lesson, have we not, _amigo_?"

Rosendo's head sank upon his great chest.

"And, if we are wise, we will profit by it--will we not, _compadre_?"

He waited a moment, then continued:

"I have been seeing in a dim way, _amigo_, that our thought is always the vital thing to be reckoned with, more than we have even suspected before. I believe there is a mental law, though I cannot formulate it, that in some way the thoughts we hold use us, and become externalized in actions. You were wild with fear for Carmen, and your thoughts of Diego were murderous. Bien, they almost drove you to murder, and they reacted upon the very one you most love. Can you not see it, _amigo_?"

Rosendo looked up. His face was drawn. "Padre--I am almost afraid to think of anything--now."

"Ah, _amigo_," said Jose with deep compa.s.sion, "I, too, have had a deep lesson in thinking these past two days. I had evolved many beautiful theories, and worked out wonderful plans during these weeks of peace. Then suddenly came the news of the revolution, and, presto!

they all flew to pieces! But Carmen--nothing disturbs her. Is it because she is too young to fear? I think not, _amigo_, I think not. I think, rather, that it is because she is too wise."

"But--she is not of the earth, Padre." The old man shook his head dubiously.

"Rosendo, she is! She is human, just as we are. But in some way she has learned a great truth, and that is that wrong thinking brings all the discord and woe that afflict the human race. We know this is true, you and I. In a way we have known it all our lives. But why, _why_ do we not practice it? Why do I yield so readily to fear; and you to revenge? I rather think if we loved our enemies we would have none, for our only enemies are the thoughts that become externalized in wrong thought-concepts. And even this externalization is only in our own consciousness. It is there, and only there, that we see evil."

"_Quien sabe?_ Padre," replied Rosendo, slowly shaking his head. "We know so little--so little!"

"But, Rosendo, we know enough to try to be like Carmen--"

"_Caramba_, yes! And I try to be like her. But whenever danger threatens her, the very devils seize me, and I am no longer myself."

"Yes, yes; I know. But will not her G.o.d protect her? Can not we trust her to Him?" Jose spoke with the conviction of right, however inconsistent his past conduct might have been.

"True, Padre--and I must try to love Diego--I know--though I hate him as the devil hates the cross! Carmen would say that he was used by bad thoughts, wouldn't she?"

"Just so. She would not see the man, but the impersonal thought that seems to use him. And I believe she knows how to meet that kind of thought."

"I know it, Padre. _Bien_, I must try to love him. I _will_ try.

And--Padre, whenever he comes into my mind I will try to think of him as G.o.d's child--though I know he isn't!"

Jose laughed loudly at this. "_Hombre!_" he exclaimed. "You must not think of the human Diego as G.o.d's child! You must always think of the _real_ child of G.o.d for which this human concept, Diego, stands in your consciousness. Do you understand me?"

"No, Padre. But perhaps I can learn. I will try. But Diego shall live.

And--_Bien_, now let us talk about the company of militia. But here comes the Alcalde. _Caramba!_ what does he want?"

With much oily ceremony and show of affection, Don Mario greeted the pair.

"I bring a message from Padre Diego," he announced pompously, after the exchange of courtesies. "Bien, it is quite unfortunate that our friend Rosendo feels so hard toward him, especially as Don Diego has so long entrusted Carmen to Rosendo's care. But--his letter, _Senor Padre_," placing a folded paper in Jose's hand.

Silently, but with swelling indignation, Jose read: