But Josè slept not that night. The warm, sluggish air lay about him, mephitic in its touch. The great vampire bats that soughed through it symbolized the “pestilence that walketh in darkness.” Lonely calls drifted across the warm lake waters from the dripping jungle like the hollow echoes of lost souls. Rosendo tossed fitfully, and now and then uttered deep groans. The atmosphere was prescient with horror. He struggled to his feet and paced gloomily back and forth along the brow of the hill. The second church stood near, deserted, gloomy, no longer a temple of God, but a charnel house of fear and black superstition. In the distance the ghostly white walls of the Rincón church glowed faintly in the feeble light that dripped from the yellow stars. There was now no thought of God––no thought of divine aid. Josè was riding again the mountainous billows of fear and unbelief; nor did he look for the Master to come to him through the thick night across the heaving waters.
The tardy dawn brought Doña Maria to the foot of the hill, where she deposited food, and held distant converse with the exiles. Don Mario had just departed, taking the direction across the lake toward San Lucas. He had compelled his wife to remain in Simití to watch over the little store, while he fled with two boatmen and abundant supplies. Others likewise were preparing to flee, some to the Boque river, some up the Guamocó trail. Doña Maria was keeping Carmen closely, nor would she permit her to as much as venture from the house.
“Why should not the señora take Carmen and go to Boque, Rosendo?” asked Josè. “Then you and I could occupy our own houses until we knew what the future had in store for us.”
Rosendo agreed at once. Carmen would be safe in the protecting care of Don Nicolás. Doña Maria yielded only after much persuasion. From the hilltop Josè could descry the Alcalde’s boat slowly wending its way across the lake toward the Juncal. Rosendo, having finished his morning meal, prepared to meet the day.
“Bien, Padre,” he said, “when the sun gets high we cannot stay here. We must seek shade––but where?” He looked about dubiously.
“Why not in the old church, Rosendo?”
“Caramba, never!” cried Rosendo. “Hombre! that old church is haunted!”
Josè could never understand the nature of this man, so brave in the face of physical danger, yet so permeated with superstitious dread of those imaginary inhabitants of the invisible realm.
“Padre,” suggested Rosendo at length. “We will go down there, nearer the lake, to the old shack where the blacksmith had his forge. He died two years ago, and the place has since been empty.”