Josè turned away in bitterness of heart. As he did so a murmur of awe arose from the spectators. The priest looked again down the river. Impelled from below, the body of the boy was hurled out of the water. Then, as it fell, it disappeared.
“Cayman!” gasped the horrified crew.
Josè stood spellbound, as the ghastly truth dawned upon him. A crocodile, gliding beneath the struggling lad, had tossed him upward, and caught him in its loathsome jaws when he fell. Then it had dragged him beneath the yellow waters, where he was seen no more.
Life is held cheaply by the Magdalena negro––excepting his own. Shiftless and improvident child of the tropics, his animal wants are readily satisfied by the fruits and fish which nature provides for him so bountifully. Spiritual wants he has none––until calamity touches him and he thinks he is about to die. Then witchcraft, charm, incantation, the priest––anything that promises help is hurriedly pressed into requisition to prolong his useless existence. If he recovers, he forgets it all as hurriedly. The tragedy which had just been enacted before the Honda’s crew produced a ripple of excitement––a momentary stirring of emotion––and was then speedily forgotten, while the boat turned and drove its way up-stream against the muddy waters.
But Josè could not forget. Nature had endowed him with a memory which recorded as minutely and as lastingly as the phonographic cylinder. The violent death of the boy haunted him, and mingled with the recurrent memories of the sad passing of the little Maria, and his own bitter life experience. Oh, the mystery of it all! The tragedy of life! The sudden blighting of hopes! The ruthless crushing of hearts! What did it mean? Did this infinite variety of good and evil which we call life unite to manifest an infinite Creator? Nay, for then were God more wicked than the lowest sinner! Was evil as real as good, and more powerful? Yes. Did love and the soul’s desire to be and do good count for nothing in the end? No; for the end is death––always death! And after that––who knows?
“We are coming to Banco, Padre,” said the man who had addressed Josè before, rousing him from his doleful meditations 136 and pointing to the lights of the distant town, now shimmering through the gathering dusk.
As the boat with shrilly shrieking whistle drew near the landing, a crowd hurriedly gathered on the bank to receive it. Venders of guava jelly, rude pottery, and straw mats hastily spread out their merchandise on the muddy ground and began to dilate loudly on their merits. A scantily clad man held aloft a rare leopard skin, which he vigorously offered for two pesos gold. Slatternly women, peddling queer delectables of uncertain composition, waved their thin, bare arms and shrilly advertised their wares. Black, naked children bobbed excitedly about; and gaunt dogs and shrieking pigs scampered recklessly through the crowd and added to the general confusion. Here and there Josè could see dignified looking men, dressed in white cotton, and wearing straw––jipijapa––hats. These were merchants, patiently awaiting consignments which they had perhaps ordered months before. Crazy, ramshackle dwellings, perched unsteadily upon long, slender stilts, rose from the water’s edge; but substantial brick buildings of fair size, with red-tile roofs and whitewashed walls, mingled at intervals with the thatched mud huts and rude hovels farther within the town. In a distant doorway he descried a woman nursing a babe at one breast and a suckling pig at the other. Convention is rigid in these Colombian river towns; but it is widely inclusive.
“Come ashore with me, Padre, and forget what is worrying you,” said Josè’s new acquaintance, taking him by the arm. “I have friends here––Hola! Padre Diego Guillermo!” he suddenly called, catching sight of a black-frocked priest standing in the crowd on the shore.
The priest addressed, a short, stout, coarse-featured man of perhaps forty, waved back a vigorous salutation.
“Hombre!” the man ejaculated, holding Josè’s arm and starting down the gangplank. “What new deviltry is the rogue up to now!”