As the four were returning from the auriculum to the quarters of the corps, a week or more after the padre’s return, he overtook them and listened to their conversation unperceived. As each entertained one or two Manatitlan aura-lists in his ear, the conversation was strangely diversified in irrelevancy, which would have caused a stranger to the events transpiring, possessed with the least taint of superstition, to have supposed them insane or bewitched. The padre listened with wondering attraction to catch the drift of their mirthful sallies, hoping to learn the cause, or obtain a clew to their mysterious convocations. Their incoherent address of questions, which although unanswered, appeared to provoke outbursts of merriment, in one, without attracting the least notice from the others, caused him at first to think it was the prelude to one of Mr. Welson’s practical essays of humor designed to entrap him. But the earnest manner in which the conversation was conducted, and the unmistakable evidences of genuine mirth, put this conjecture to flight. His next suggestive impression was ushered in with a shudder; could it be possible that they were subject to a spell of enchantment, and that the seeming city of Heraclea was the abode of enchanters, the spirits of darkness against which the fathers had especially warned the heedless? This frightful ghost of a suspicion received such evident confirmation that he immediately had recourse to his rosary that had been 294bestowed by Fraile Gallagato, of Amelcoy, for numbering exorcising prayers. The rattling of the beads, with the muttering sound of his Ave Marias, attracted the attention of Mr. Welson, as he turned aside to allow the others to enter the puerta in advance, and he for the first time became aware of the padre’s presence. The anxious dismay of the padre’s countenance revealed the source of his emotions, prompting Mr. Welson to play upon his fears, but the Dosch auramented the inquiry:—
“Well padre, what is it that causes you to look so frightened?”
Padre. “Wha-wha-what does it all mean, I should like to know? Are you bewitched or leagued with the devil [crossing himself], or what are you doing at any rate? I wish to goodness I had gone back to Montevideo!”
Mr. Welson. “Are you not comfortable, padre? Just tell us what you lack, and we will endeavor to supply your wants. The pr?tor has within an hour made particular inquires for your welfare.”
Padre. “It’s not that, I have everything my body requires,—but my conscience,—my mind,—I declare upon the welfare of my soul, I can’t endure the thoughts of subjecting myself any longer to the temptations of the evil one.”
Mr. Welson. “Why padre, there is nothing to my knowledge that should alarm your conscience, or soul, for we are only holding intercourse with human beings, and as you must feel from your own thoughts, we are farther from evil than ever in our lives before. Ease your mind from alarm, and suspicious fears, for in good and seasonable time everything that now appears mysterious will be explained for your privileged understanding. For your assurance and relief from imaginary fears, you have only to turn your thoughts to your own improvement, both mental and physical; which should convince you that from whatever source 295derived, the influence is good. Do we not appear far more happy here, than on board of the Tortuga? If you would but think, and give heed to the promptings of your thoughts, you could not fail to realize that the source of your happiness is derived from an example of purity and goodness, and of necessity, in direct opposition to evil.”
Padre. “But I have had warnings clear and distinct, as from the voice of a spirit, in a still small voice, as if coming from afar. Then at another time, I felt like one possessed with thoughts that were not his own, and could not do as I had been taught, without self-reproof, and was lead away from parental instruction, and my Christian education. In fact, as it were, I have been prevented from keeping company with my own conscience, and could not pray and do as I liked.”
Mr. Welson (losing his prompted direction). “But you did attempt to do as you liked, when the viper offered visible objection to your taking the dried tobacco leaves in the garden of the old mission of Amyntas, in passing on your way to Amelcoy.”
The padre’s consternation when exposed to the reared head of the viper,—which had in fact darted from its coil upon a leaf beneath the one the padre’s hand was approaching, and struck its fangs into the loose sleeve of his coat,—was not greater than from this display of “second sight,” on the part of Mr. Welson, which revealed a scene that he felt confident was only known to himself and Fraile Gallagato, to whom he confessed in Amelcoy. Staring upon Mr. Welson with eyes aghast, he staggered backward with hands upraised, in repellant attitude, as if deprecatingly warding off some dangerous influence that had possessed itself of his personal embodiment.
Mr. Welson (laughing). “There now, you have tempted me to play with your superstitions, or rather I have been tempted. Be content for the present, 296and in time all will be revealed to you in freedom from supernatural agency.”
With this parting admonition Mr. Welson entered the house. The padre, after he had sufficiently recovered the use of his faculties, uttered in self-defense an abjuring protest of two Marias, kissing in addenda the beads and cross with transubstantial desire for their seal of effectual grace, then soliloquized: “They can’t convince me that they are not leagued with the spirit of darkness; and if I live to see the morrow’s sun I’ll shake the dust,—well, if they had any,—off the soles of my feet, if I am obliged to traverse the paths of the wilderness that separates me from civilization alone.”
As if to put his intention into immediate execution he walked rapidly down the avenue of the latifundium and out of the gate; but when skirting the copse of the temple grove he met the Heraclean herdsmen and their wives. Their jocund mirth, sportive with songs and gladness, withdrew his thoughts from self by their grateful tokens of affection bestowed in the full outflow of joyful greeting, which caused him to forget his impressions of their enchantment from supernatural agency, and he was soon engaged, with Manatitlan aid, in the laughing exchange of Latin and English terms of idiomatic phrase. On his return to the quarters of the corps suspicion had been banished from his memory; but his doubts and fears were again revived, when on entering the dining-room he encountered the same mysterious impression of a communion with the presence of unseen spirits. The entrance of Dr. Baāhar, with the buzz and genealogical curators of sound, dispelled the influence, but they, as well as the padre, had questioned the source of its power. After the evening meal the padre sought the opportunity of renewing his petition for permission to depart in the morning; anointing it with grateful acknowledgments 297for their kindness to him personally, while in the style of exorcism he urged the necessity with the quotation, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” The effect of this appeal, for instinctive self-preservation, was so comical in its misplaced application that the four were obliged to join the auriculars in giving gleeful vent to their mirth; this, however, was as suddenly checked, when their supposed derisive lack of sympathy affected the padre to the extent of producing tears. Unable to restrain his contempt for the selfimposed shallowness of the padre’s perception, Mr. Welson,—under the auricular direction of Coryc?us, the familiar who attended him on his journey,—gave a final touch to his victim’s superstitious fears, by asking: “Did your conscience or soul find themselves in a purer atmosphere, or in less suspicious companionship, when subjected by Fraile Gallagato to the sacramental spirits of a Rosario punch, and the fumes of tobacco, than with us who have abjured their use? You need not answer upon the impulse of the moment; but if, after a night’s reflection, your fears for your soul’s safety still prompt you to leave us, and the affectionate interest enlisted in your behalf on the part of the Heracleans and Kyronese, the means for your conveyance to Amelcoy and deliverance into the keeping of your noble compadre shall not be wanting. But in bidding you a personal farewell, from your self-will in adhering to delusions that require proxied aid granted from confession and absolution administered by a being so manifestly corrupt as the Fraile Gallagato, we shall be obliged to forego the hopeful retaining interest that we feel in your welfare, unless by the contrast, your thoughtful eyes are opened to see and feel the great loss you will have sustained in the sacrifice of truthful and affectionate sincerity.”
Padre. “But why, Mr. Welson, have you kept 298from me anything that it was proper and useful for the rest of you to know.”
Mr. Welson. “In the first place, you were not particularly interested in scientific investigations, or book lore, else you would have participated in the dis............