“But there is still gold in the Tiguí. I can find it. It means hard work––but I can do it. Padre, I will go back there and wash out gold for you to send to the Bishop of Cartagena, that you may stay here and protect and teach the little Carmen. Perhaps in time I can wash enough to get you both out of the country; but it will take many months, it may be, years.”
O, you, whose path in life winds among pleasant places, where roses nod in the scented breeze and fountains play, picture to yourself, if you may, the self-immolation of this sweet-souled man, who, in the winter of life, the shadows of eternity fast gathering about him, bends his black shoulders again to the burden which Love would lay upon them. Aye, Love, into which all else merged––Love for the unknown babe, left helpless and alone on the great river’s bank––Love for the radiant child, whose white soul the agents of carnal greed and lust would prostitute to their iniquitous system.
Night fell. By the light of their single candle the priest and Rosendo ate their simple fare in silence. Carmen was asleep, and the angels watched over her lowly bed.
The meal ended, Rosendo took up the candle, and Josè followed him into the bedroom. Reverently the two men approached the sleeping child and looked down upon her. The priest’s hand again sought Rosendo’s in a grasp which sealed anew the pact between them.
CHAPTER 8
Like the great Exemplar in the days of his preparation, Josè was early driven by the spirit into the wilderness, where temptation smote him sore. But his soul had been saved––“yet so as by fire.” Slowly old beliefs and faiths crumbled into dust, while the new remained still unrevealed. The drift toward atheism which had set in during his long incarceration in the convent of Palazzola had not made him yield to the temptation to raise the mask of hypocrisy and plunge into the pleasures of the world, nor accept the specious proffer of ecclesiastical preferment in exchange for his honest convictions. Honor, however bigoted the sense, bound him to his oath, or at least to a compromising observance of it harmless to the Church. Pride contributed to hold him from the degradation 55 of a renegade and apostate priest. And both rested primarily on an unshaken basis of maternal affection, which fell little short of obsession, leaving him without the strength to say, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”
But, though atheism in belief leads almost inevitably to disintegration of morals, Josè had kept himself untainted. For his vital problems he had now, after many days, found “grace sufficient.” In what he had regarded as the contemptible tricks of fate, he was beginning to discern the guiding hand of a wisdom greater than the world’s. The danger threatened by Cartagena was, temporarily, at least, averted by Rosendo’s magnificent spirit. Under the spur of that sacrifice his own courage rose mightily to second it.
Rosendo spent the day in preparation for his journey into the Guamocó country. He had discussed with Josè, long and earnestly, its probable effect upon the people of Simití, and especially upon Don Mario, the Alcalde; but it was decided that no further explanation should be made than that he was again going to prospect in the mineral districts already so familiar to him. As Rosendo had said, this venture, together with the unannounced and unsolicited presence of the priest in the town, could not but excite extreme curiosity and raise the most lively conjectures, which might, in time, reach Wenceslas. On the other hand, if success attended his efforts, it was more than probable that Cartagena would remain quiet, as long as her itching palm was brightened with the yellow metal which he hoped to wrest from the sands of Guamocó. “It is only a chance, Padre,” Rosendo said dubiously. “In the days of the Spaniards the river sands of Guamocó produced from two to ten reales a day to each slave. But the rivers have been almost washed out.”