As the only law at Quipai was the abbé’s will, and we had neither settlements to make, trousseaux to prepare, nor house to get ready (the abbé’s house being big enough for us all), there was no reason why our wedding should be delayed, and the week after Angela and I had plighted our troth, we were married at the church of San Cristobal.
The abbé’s wedding-present to Angela was a gold cross studded with large uncut diamonds. Where he got them I had no idea, but I heard afterward—and something more.
All this time nothing, save vague generalities, had passed between us on the subject of religion—rather to my surprise, for priests are not wont to ignore so completely their raison d’être, but I subsequently found that Balthazar, albeit a devout Christian, was no bigot. Either his early training, his long isolation from ecclesiastical influence, or his communings with Nature had broadened his horizon and spiritualized his beliefs. Dogma sat lightly on him, and he construed the apostolic exhortations to charity in their widest sense. But these views were reserved for Angela and myself. With his flock he was the Roman ecclesiastic—a sovereign pontiff—whom they must obey in this world on pain of being damned in the next. For he held that the only ways of successfully ruling semi-civilized races are by physical force, personal influence, or their fear of the unseen and the unknown. At the outset Balthazar, having no physical force at his command, had to trust altogether to personal influence, which, being now re-enforced by the highest religious sanctions, made his power literally absolute. Albeit Quipai possessed neither soldiers, constables, nor prison, his authority was never questioned; he was as implicitly obeyed as a general at the head of an army in the field.
I have spoken of the abbé’s communings with Nature. I ought rather to have said his searchings into her mysteries; for he was a shrewd philosopher and keen observer, and despite the disadvantages under which he labored, the scarcity of his books, and the rudeness of his instruments, he had acquired during his long life a vast fund of curious knowledge which he placed unreservedly at my disposal. I became his pupil, and it was he who first kindled in my breast that love of science which for nearly three-score years I have lived only to gratify.
[Chapter XXIX.]
The Abbé’s Legacy.
Life was easy at Quipai, and we were free from care. On the other hand, we had so much to do that time sped swiftly, and though we were sometimes tired we were never weary. The abbé made me the civil governor of the mission, and gave orders that I should be as implicitly obeyed as himself. My duties in this capacity, though not arduous, were interesting, including as they did all that concerned the well-being of the people, the maintenance of the azequia, and the irrigation of the oasis. My leisure hours were spent in study, working in the abbé’s laboratory, and with Angela, who nearly always accompanied me on my excursions to the head of the aqueduct which, as I have already mentioned was at the foot of the snow-line, two days’ journey from the valley lake.
It was during one of these excursions that we planned our new home, a mountain nest which we would have all to ourselves, and whither at the height of summer we might escape from the heat of the oasis, for albeit the climate of Quipai was fine on the whole, there were times when the temperature rose to an uncomfortable height. The spot on which we fixed was a hollow in the hills, some two miles beyond the crater reservoir and about eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. By tapping the azequia we turned the barren valley into a garden of roses, for in that rainless region water was a veritable magician, whatsoever it touched it vivified. This done we sent up timber, and built ourselves a cottage, which we called Alta Vista, for the air was superb and the view one of the grandest in the world.
Angela would fain have persuaded the abbé to join us; yet though I made a well-graded road and the journey was neither long nor fatiguing he came but seldom. He was so thoroughly acclimatized that he preferred the warmth of San Cristobal to the freshness of Alta Vista, and the growing burden of his years indisposed him to exertion, and made movement an effort. We could all see, and none more clearly than himself, that the end was not far off. He contemplated it with the fortitude of a philosopher and the faith of a Christian. For the spiritual wants of his people he provided by ordaining (as in virtue of his ecclesiastical rank he had the right to do), three young men, whom he had carefully educated for the purpose; the reins of government he gave over entirely to me.