And when the sounds of simple happiness had again died into silence, and he lay in his hammock, listening to the spirit of the jungle sighing through the night-blown palms, as the boat glided gently through the lights and shadows of the quiet river, his soul voiced a nameless yearning, a vague, unformed longing for an approach to the life of simple content and child-like happiness of the kind and gentle folk with whom he had been privileged to make this brief sojourn.
The crimson flush of the dawn-sky heralded another day of implacable heat. The emerald coronals of palms and towering caobas burned in the early beams of the torrid sun. Light fogs rose reluctantly from the river’s bosom and dispersed in delicate vapors of opal and violet. The tangled banks of dripping bush shone freshly green in the misty light. The wilderness, grim and trenchant, reigned in unchallenged despotism. Solitude, soul-oppressing, unbroken but for the calls of feathered life, brooded over the birth of Josè’s last day on the Magdalena. About midday the steamer touched at the little village of Bodega Central; but the iron-covered warehouse and the whitewashed mud hovels glittered garishly in the fierce heat and stifled all desire to go ashore. The call was brief, and the boat soon resumed its course through the solitude and heat of the mighty river.
Immediately after leaving Bodega Central, Don Jorge approached Josè and beckoned him to an unoccupied corner of the boat.
“Amigo,” he began, after assuring himself that his words would not carry to the other passengers, “the captain tells me the next stop is Badillo, where you leave us. If all goes well you will be in Simití to-night. No doubt a report of our meeting with Padre Diego has already reached Don Wenceslas, who, you may be sure, has no thought of forgetting you. I have no reason to tell you this other than the fact that I think, as Padre Diego put it, you are being jobbed––not by the Church, but by Wenceslas. I want to warn you, that is all. I hate priests! They got me early––got my wife and girl, too! I hate the Church, and the whole ghastly farce which it puts over on the ignorant people of this country! But––,” eying him sharply, “I would hardly class you as a real priest. There, never mind!” as Josè was about to interrupt. “I think I understand. You simply went wrong. You meant well, but something happened––as always does when one means well in this world. But now to the point.”
Shifting his chair closer to Josè, the man resumed earnestly.
“Your grandfather, Don Ignacio, was a very rich man. The war stripped him. He got just what he deserved. His fincas and herds and mines melted away from him like grease from a holy candle. And nobody cared––any more than the Lord cares about candle grease. Most of his property fell into the hands of his former slaves––and he had hundreds of them hereabouts. But his most valuable possession, the great mine of La Libertad, disappeared as completely as if blotted from the face of the earth.
“That mine––no, not a mine, but a mountain of free gold––was located somewhere in the Guamocó district. After the war this whole country slipped back into the jungle, and had to be rediscovered. The Guamocó region is to-day as unknown as it was before the Spaniards came. Somewhere in the district, but covered deep beneath brush and forest growth, is that mine, the richest in Colombia.
“Now, as you know, Don Ignacio left this country in considerable of a hurry. But I think he always intended to come back again. Death killed that ambition. I don’t know about his sons. But the fact remains that La Libertad has never been rediscovered since Don Ignacio’s day. The old records in Cartagena show the existence of such a mine in Spanish times, and give a more or less accurate statement of its production. Diablo! I hesitate to say how much! The old fellow had arrastras, mills, and so on, in which slaves crushed the ore. The bullion was melted into bars and brought down the trail to Simití, where he had agents and warehouses and a store or two. From there it was shipped down the river to Cartagena. But the war lasted thirteen years. And during that time everything was in a state of terrible confusion. The existence of mines was forgotten. The plantations were left unworked. The male population was all but killed off. And the country sank back into wilderness.