Carmen Ariza Part 74

"Yes, Anita, yes; leave him with G.o.d!" pleaded the girl excitedly.

"Come away, Anita--"

"But where, child?" asked the bewildered woman.

"To Simiti!"

"Simiti! Never! Why--why, my father would kill me!"

"No, Anita dear; he loves you; he prays for you; he wants you! Oh, Anita, come! It is right--it is just what G.o.d has planned, I know! Pin my dress together, and then hurry!"

The woman moved as if in a cloud. Mechanically she descended the stairs and left the house, her hand tightly clasped by Carmen. Dully she suffered herself to be led hurriedly to the river. A boat, up-bound, was just docking. The captain stood leaning over the rail and shouting his commands. Ana recognized him. It was Captain Julio.

"_Loado sea Dios_!" murmured the weeping woman, hurrying up the gang plank with the child. She hastened past the astonished pa.s.sengers to the captain and drew him to one side.

"The child--" she gasped, "Rosendo Ariza's--of Simiti--leave her at Badillo--they will take her over--"

"Wait, senora," interrupted the captain tenderly. "Is it not time for you to go home, too?" He laid a hand on her shoulder and looked down into her streaming eyes. "Come," he said quietly. And, leading them down the deck, he opened the door of a vacant cabin and bade them enter. "You can tell me your story when we are under way," he said, smiling as he closed the door. "_Bien_," he muttered, his brow clouding as he strode off. "I have been looking for this for some time. But--the child--Ariza's--ah, the priest Diego! I think I see--_Caramba_! But we will not tarry long here!"

A few minutes later the big boat, her two long funnels vomiting torrents of smoke and sparks, thrust her huge wheel into the thick waters and, swinging slowly out into mid-stream, turned her flat nose toward the distant falls of Tequendama. In one of her aft cabins a woman lay on a cot, weeping hysterically. Over her bent a girl, with a face such as the masters have sought in vain. The tenderly whispered words might have been the lingering echo of those voiced in the little moonlit death-chamber of Cartagena long agone.

"Anita dear, He is with us, right here. And His arms are wide open.

And He says, 'Anita, come!'"

CHAPTER 26

"But, Padre dear, why are you so surprised that Padre Diego did not hurt me? I would have been much more surprised if he had. You are always so astonished when evil doesn't happen--don't you ever look for good? Why, I don't ever look for anything else! How could I when I know that G.o.d is everywhere?"

Jose strained her closer to himself. "The sense of evil--it overwhelms me at times, _carita_--"

"But, Padre dear, why don't you know right then that it is nothing? If you did, it would fade away, and only good would overwhelm you." She nestled closer to the man and clasped her arms more tightly about his neck. "Why, Padre," she resumed, "I was not a bit surprised when Captain Julio came and told us we were near Bodega Central, and that he could see you and Juan and Lazaro sitting on the steps of the inn."

"Yes, _chiquita_, we were resting for a moment. If a down-river boat came by we were going to take it. If not, we expected to go in the canoe."

"Padre dear, what did you intend to do in Banco?"

The man hesitated. "Don't speak of it, child--we--"

"Juan and Lazaro have knives. I saw them. Padre--have you one, too?"

"I?--_chiquita_--"

"Padre dear, G.o.d never fights with knives. Anita had a knife; but G.o.d wouldn't let her use it. He always has better ways than that. I don't know what happened to Padre Diego, except that he fell over his wicked thoughts. You know, Padre dear, somewhere in the Bible you read to me that 'With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our G.o.d to help us, and to fight our battles.' I thought of that when Padre Diego had his arm around me and held me so tight that I could hardly breathe. It was only an arm of flesh, after, all, and it couldn't hold me."

"_Bien_, Padre," interrupted Juan, coming up from the boat, "if we are to reach Simiti to-night we must start at once."

"_Bueno_, then let us set out," returned Jose, rising. A m.u.f.fled sob reached his ears. He turned to the woman huddled in the shadow of the door.

"Come, Ana," he said cheerily; "to-night you will again be home."

"No, Padre--I do not go with you. I--"

"Anita!" In an instant Carmen's arms were around her. "When padre Rosendo sees us, you and me, why--"

"_Carisima_!" The woman's tears flowed fast while she hugged the girl to her bosom. "No--no--he would drive me from his house! No--let me stay here. I will get work in the _posada_, perhaps. Or Captain Julio will take me to Honda on his next trip, and get me a place--"

"Then we must ask him to get a place for us both," interrupted Carmen, sitting calmly down beside her. "And think, Anita, how sad padre Rosendo will be when he sees the men come back without us!"

"Carmen! I shall throw myself into the river!" cried the sorrowing woman, rising. "You don't know what it is--"

"Yes, I do, Anita," returned the girl quickly; "it is nothing--just zero--and you can't drown it! If it would do any good we would both jump into the river--that is, if G.o.d told us to--wouldn't we? But it doesn't help any to die, you know, for then we would have it all to do over again."

"Ana," said Jose, laying a hand on the woman's shoulder, "you do not understand her--neither do I, wholly. But if she tells you to go with us to Simiti, why, I think I would go. I would leave it all with her.

You may trust her influence with Rosendo. Come."

He took her hand and led her, weeping, but no longer resisting, down to the canoe. Carmen followed, dancing like an animated sunbeam. "What fun, oh, what fun!" she chirped, clapping her hands. "And just as soon as we get home we will go right up to the _carcel_ and let padre Rosendo out!"

"_Na, chiquita_," said Jose, shaking his head mournfully; "we have no power to do that."

"Well, then, G.o.d has," returned the girl, nothing daunted.

Juan pushed the heavily laden canoe from its mooring, and set its direction toward Simiti. Silence drew over the little group, and the hours dragged while the boat crept slowly along the margin of the great river. The sun had pa.s.sed its meridian when the little craft turned into the _cano._ To Jose the change brought a most grateful relief. For, though his long residence in Simiti had somewhat inured him to the intense heat of this low region, he had not yet learned to endure it with the careless indifference of the natives. Besides, his mind was filled with vivid memories of the horrors of his first river trip. And he knew that every future experience on the water would be tinged by them.

In the shaded _cano_ the sunlight, sifting through the interlocking branches of ancient palms and _caobas_, mellowed and softened into a veil of yellow radiance that flecked the little stream with splashes of gold. Juan in the prow with the pole labored in silence. At times he stopped just long enough to roll a huge cigar, and to feast his bright eyes upon the fair girl whom he silently adored. Lazaro, as _patron_, sat in the stern, saturnine and unimpa.s.sioned. The woman, exhausted by the recent mental strain, dozed throughout the journey.

Carmen alone seemed alive to her environment. Every foot of advance unfolded to her new delights. She sang; she chirped; she mimicked the parrots; she chattered at the excited monkeys. It was with difficulty that Jose could restrain her when her sharp eyes caught the glint of brilliant Pa.s.sion flowers and orchids of gorgeous hue clinging to the dripping trees.

"Padre!" she exclaimed, "they are in us, you know. They are not out there at all! We see our thoughts of them--and lots of people wouldn't see anything beautiful about them at all, just because their thoughts are not beautiful. Padre, we see--what you said to me once--we see our interpretations of G.o.d's ideas, don't we? That is what I told Padre Diego. But--well, he will just _have_ to see some day, won't he, Padre dear? But now let us talk in English; you know, I haven't spoken it for such a long time."

Jose gazed at her in rapt silence. What a rare interpretation of the mind divine was this child! But he wondered why one so pure and beautiful should attract a mind so carnal as that of Diego. And yet--

"Ah!" he mused, "it is again that law. Good always stirs up its suppositional opposite. And the most abundant good and the greatest purity stir up the most carnal elements of the human mind. All history shows it. The greater the degree of good, the greater the seeming degree of evil aroused. The perfect Christ stirred the hatred of a world. Carmen arouses Diego simply because of her purity. Yet she knows that he can not harm her."

His eyes met the girl's, and she answered his unspoken thought in the tongue which she was fast adopting. "We _have_ to love him, you know, Padre dear."

"Love whom? Diego?"

"Why, yes, of course. We can't help loving him. Oh, not the 'him' that the human mind looks at, but the real 'him,' you know--the 'him' that is G.o.d's image. And you know there just isn't any other 'him,' now is there?"

"G.o.d above!" murmured Jose, "if I could but keep my thought as straight as she does!"

"But, Padre dear, your thought _is_ straight. You know, G.o.d's thought is the only thought there really is. Any other thought has the minus sign, and so it is zero. If we will always think of the real Padre Diego, and love that, why, the unreal one will fade away from our thought."

"Do you suppose, _chiquita_, that if we love him we will make him repent?"

The child pondered the question for a moment. Then: