But then the shadows began to gather once more. He did not cling to the new truths and spiritual ideas tenaciously enough to work them out in demonstration. He had proved shallow soil, whereon the seed had fallen, only to be choked by the weeds which grew apace therein. The troubles which clustered thick about him after his first few months in Simití had seemed to hamper his freer limbs, and check his upward progress. Constant conflict with Diego, with Don Mario, and Wenceslas; the pressure from his mother and his uncle, had kept him looking, now at evil, now at good, giving life and power to each in turn, and wrestling incessantly with the false concepts which his own mentality kept ever alive. Worrying himself free from one set of human beliefs, he fell again into the meshes of others. Though he thought he knew the truth––though he saw it lived and demonstrated by Carmen––he had yet been afraid to throw himself unreservedly upon his convictions. And so he daily paid the dire penalty which error failed not to exact.
But Carmen, the object of by far the greater part of all his anxious thought, had moved as if in response to a beckoning hand that remained invisible to him. Each day she had grown more beautiful. And each day, too, she had seemed to draw farther away from him, as she rose steadily out of the limited 319 encompassment in which they dwelt. Not by conscious design did she appear to separate from him, but inevitably, because of his own narrow capacity for true spiritual intercourse with such a soul as hers. He shared her ideals; he had sought in his way to attain them; he had striven, too, to comprehend her spirit, which in his heart he knew to be a bright reflection of the infinite Spirit which is God. But as the years passed he had found his efforts to be like her more and more clumsy and blundering, and his responses to her spiritual demands less and less vigorous. At times he seemed to catch glimpses of her soul that awed him. At others he would feel himself half inclined to share the people’s belief that she was possessed of powers occult. And then he would sink into despair of ever understanding the girl––for he knew that to do so he must be like her, even as to understand God we must become like Him.
After her fourteenth birthday Josè found himself rapidly ceasing to regard Carmen as a mere child. Not that she did not still often seem delightfully immature, when her spirits would flow wildly, and she would draw him into the frolics which had yielded her such extravagant joy in former days; but that the growth of knowledge and the rapid development of her thought had seemed to bring to her a deepening sense of responsibility, a growing impression of maturity, and an increasing regard for the meaning of life and her part in it. She had ceased to insist that she would never leave Simití. And Josè often thought of late, as he watched her, that he detected signs of irksomeness at the limitations which her environment imposed upon her. But, if so, these were never openly expressed; nor did her manner ever change toward her foster-parents, or toward the simple and uncomprehending folk of her native town.
From the first, Josè had constituted himself her teacher, guide, and protector. And she had joyously accepted him. His soured and rebellious nature had been no barrier to her great love, which had twined about his heart like ivy around a crumbling tower. And his love for the child had swelled like a torrent, fed hourly by countless uncharted streams. He had watched over her like a father; he had rejoiced to see her bloom into a beauty as rich and luxuriant as the tropical foliage; he had gazed for hours into the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes and read there, in ecstasy, a wondrous response to his love; and when, but a few short days ago, she had again intimated a future union, a union upon which, even as a child, she had insisted, yet one which he knew––had always known––utterly, extravagantly impossible––he had, nevertheless, seized upon the thought with a joy that was passionate, desperate––and 320 had then flung it from him with a cry of agony. It was not the disparity of ages; it was not the girl’s present immaturity. In less than a year she would have attained the marriageable age of these Latin countries. But he could wait two, three, aye, ten years for such a divine gift! No; the shadow which lay upon his life was cast by the huge presence of the master whose chains he wore, the iron links of which, galling his soul, he knew to be unbreakable. And, as he sat in the gloom of the decayed old church where he was now a prisoner, the thought that his situation but symbolized an imprisonment in bonds eternal roused him to a half-frenzied resolve to destroy himself.
“Padre dear,” the girl had whispered to him that night, just before the American came again with his disquieting report, “Love will open the door––Love will set us free. We are not afraid. Remember, Paul thanked God for freedom even while he sat in chains. And I am just as thankful as he.”
Josè knew as he kissed her tenderly and bade her go to her place of rest on the bench beside Doña Maria that death stood between her and the stained hand of Wenceslas Ortiz.
As morning reddened in the eastern sky Don Mario, surrounded by an armed guard and preceded by his secretary, who beat lustily upon a small drum, marched pompously down the main street and across the plaza to the church. Holding his cane aloft he ascended the steps of the platform and again loudly demanded the surrender of the prisoners within.
“On what terms, Don Mario?” asked Josè.
“The same,” reiterated the Alcalde vigorously.
Josè sighed. “Then we will die, Don Mario,” he replied sadly, moving away from the door and leading his little band of harried followers to the rear of the altar.