Vagabond Life in Mexico

by Gabriel Ferry

I had seen too often in America torrents suddenly swollen by thunder-showers to such a degree as to uproot trees a hundred years old, and carry down rocks, to doubt for a moment the imminent danger of which I had been apprised by Fray Serapio. To this disheartening reply I had but one answer to make—we must have a fire, at any price. Unluckily, the monk had left his flint and steel with the student. I was not discouraged, however; and, unwilling to throw away any chance of extricating ourselves from our disagreeable position, I alighted from my horse, took in one of my hands the reata attached to the neck of the animal, and with the other tried to guide myself while holding on to the rocks. I was not long in finding my progress stopped by a precipitous bluff. I tried the other side; always a perpendicular wall of rock. Forced at last to stop after having unrolled the reata to its utmost length, I came back step by step to my horse, and, gathering it up again in my hand, remounted.

"This ravine is in truth a prison," said I.

"It is not the torrent alone that I fear," replied the monk. "Even if we escape drowning, we may be burned to death if the trees are set on fire by the lightning."

"Could we not leave our horses here, and try to gain on foot a place less exposed to danger?"

"We run a risk of tumbling into some quagmire. By the way the wind hits my face, I know that this ravine is of great extent. Let us remain where we are, and trust to Divine Providence."

I had exhausted all my expedients, and could find nothing to reply to those last words of Fray Serapio's, which were uttered in a truly mournful tone. Some moments passed. The storm was still at its height, and I could not shut my ears to its wild music. In the depths of the forests, a wail as of a thousand spirits came booming on the wind; torrents raged and dashed from rock to rock, the pines creaked like the masts of a vessel caught in a hard gale, and above our heads the wind whistled strangely among the leaves. During the temporary lulls of the tempest, we heard our companions, who, whether from ignorance or a wish to drown their sense of danger, were shouting and singing with all their might.

"Don't you think," said I to the monk, "that this gayety is somewhat out of place? I have a good mind to make them sensible of the danger they are running, to cause them to change their song for the 'De Profundis.'"

"What good would that do?" said the monk, gloomily. "Would it not be better for them to remain ignorant of their danger, and let death surprise them in their joyous thoughtlessness? At this moment, when the spirits of darkness are hovering about us, the human voice seems to bring with it an undefinable charm. I have not yet told you the story of Fray Epigmenio. I'll do it now. I would rather hear the sound of my own voice than the whistling of the wind among the firs. And now, when I think of it, it was in the convent of the Desierto, in the vicinity of this forest, and exactly at this time of the year, that the most interesting occurrence in the life of Fray Epigmenio took place."

"This circumstance," said I, "must add particular interest to your recital; but, at such a moment as this, I hardly feel disposed to listen to you. However, if you like to tell the story, I—"

"Fray Epigmenio," began the Franciscan, interrupting me, "was, even in his youth, but a melancholy companion. That is to say, he was not at all like me. Far from having wished, as I did, to be a soldier before donning the monk's habit, he was, when a mere boy, admitted as a novice into the Carmelite convent of the Desierto. At the time I refer to, that is, fifty years ago, the Desierto was not abandoned as it is now. It was then a retreat inhabited by several monks, who wished, by thus withdrawing themselves from the cities, to push austerity to its utmost limits. You may guess what influence a wild solitude like that would exercise upon a weak brain. For my part, I don't think I should be long in my right mind were I to live in such a place. The superiors of the young novice were soon alarmed at the ferocious exultation that soon took the place of his former solid piety. They represented to Epigmenio that the devil, jealous of his merits, was setting a trap for him, into which he would fall. It was a wise advice; but Epigmenio paid no heed to it. Worse than all, he isolated himself almost entirely from his brethren, and shut himself up more closely than ever in his cell—a sort of dark dungeon, whose windows opened upon the wood which surrounded the convent. This was the gloomiest cell in this gloomy cloister. Fray Epigmenio had chosen it in preference to those whose windows looked out upon the garden. The sight of the flowers seemed to this rigid cenobite too much of a worldly pleasure. The heavy masses of the dark woods, constantly agitated by the wind, and surrounded by an amphitheatre of rocks in fantastic forms, was the kind of landscape which had the greatest charm for Epigmenio. I told you before that the soundest head in the world could not long resist the combined influences of solitude and prayer. The monk confessed, when too late, that strange visions passed before his eyes in those long days of contemplation and silence. Mysterious voices assailed his ears, and it was not always the concerts of angels that he heard: the murmurs of the forest were often changed into voluptuous sighs and—"