Part 4

"And as your own distinguished countryman, Senor Orozco y Berra, has pointed out," I continued, "many dark places in primitive history may be made clear, many illusions may be dispelled, and many deeply interesting truths may be gathered by one who will go among these Indians, lending himself to their mode of life, and will note accurately what he thus learns from sources wholly original."

"Fray Antonio has professed the same belief," Don Rafael answered. "But that his love is greater for the saving of heathen souls than for the advancement of antiquarian knowledge, he long ago would have done what you now propose to do. He has done much towards gathering a portion of the information that you seek, even as it is."

"And who is this Fray Antonio, senor?"

"He is the man who of all men can give you the wisest help in your present need. We see but little of him here at the Museo, though he is one of our most honored members, for his time is devoted so wholly to the godly work to which he has given himself that but little remains to him to use in other ways. He is a monk, vowed to the Rule of St. Francis. As you know, since the promulgation of the Laws of the Reform, monks are not permitted in our country to live in communities; but, with only a few exceptions, the conventual churches which have not been secularized still are administered by members of the religious orders to which they formerly belonged. Fray Antonio has the charge of the church of San Francisco--over by the market-place, you know--and virtually is a parish priest. He is a religious enthusiast. In God's service he gives himself no rest. The common people here, since his loving labors are among them while the pestilence of small-pox raged, reverently believe him to be a saint; and those of a higher class, who know what heroic work he did in that dreadful time, and who see how perfectly his life conforms to the principles which he professes, and how like is the spirit of holiness that animates him to that of the sainted men who founded the order to which he belongs, are disposed to hold a like opinion. Truly, it is by the especial grace of God that men like Fray Antonio are permitted at times to dwell upon this sinful earth."

Don Rafael spoke with a depth of feeling and a reverence of tone that gave his strong words still greater strength and deeper meaning. After that moment's pause he resumed: "But that which is of most interest to you, senor, is the knowledge that Fray Antonio has gained of our native Indians during his ministrations among them. It is the dearest wish of his heart to carry to these heathen souls the saving grace of Christianity, and for the accomplishment of this good purpose he makes many journeys into the mountains; ministering in the chapels which his zeal has founded in the Indian towns, and striving earnestly by his preaching of God's word to bring these far-wandered sheep into the Christian fold. Very often his life has been in most imminent peril, for the idolatrous priests of the mountain tribes hate him with a most bitter hatred because of the inroads which his mild creed is making upon the cruel creed which they uphold. Yet is he careless of the danger to which he exposes himself; and there be those who believe, such is the temerity with which he manifests his zeal, that he rather seeks than shuns a martyr's crown."

Again Don Rafael paused, and again was it evident that deep feelings moved him as he spoke of the holy life of this most holy man. "You will thus understand, senor," he went on, "that Fray Antonio of all men is best fitted by his knowledge of the ways of these mountain Indians to advise you touching your going among them and studying them. You cannot do better than confer with him at once. It is but a step to the church of San Francisco. Let us go."

What Don Rafael had said had opened new horizons to me, and I was stirred by strange feelings as we passed out together from the shady silence of the Museo into the bright silence of the streets: for Morelia is a quiet city, wherein at all times is gentleness and rest. For priests in general, and for Mexican priests in particular, I had entertained always a profound contempt; but now, from an impartial source, I had heard of a Mexican priest whose life-springs seemed to be the soul-stirring impulses of the thirteenth century; who was devoted in soul and in body to the service of God and of his fellow-men; in whom, in a word, the seraphic spirit of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to live again. But by this way coming to such tangible evidence of the survival in the present time of forces which were born into the world six hundred years ago, my thoughts took a natural turn to my own especial interests; and, by perhaps not over-strong analogy, I reasoned that if this monk still lived so closely to the letter and to the spirit of the Rule that St. Francis, six centuries back, gave to his order, most reasonably might I hope to find still quick something of the life that was in full vigor in Mexico only a little more than half that many centuries ago.

We turned off from the Calle Principal by the little old church of La Cruz, and passed onward across the market-place, where buying and selling went on languidly, and where a drowsy hum of talk made a rhythmic setting to a scene that seemed to my unaccustomed eyes less a bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from an opera. Facing the market-place was the ancient church; and the change was a pleasant one, from the vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets to its cool, shadowy interior: where the only sign of life was a single old woman, her head muffled in her rebozo, praying her way along the Stations of the Cross. For more than two hundred and fifty years had prayer been made and praise been offered here; and as I thought of the many generations who here had ministered and worshipped--though evil hearts in plenty, no doubt, both within and without the chancel there had been--it seemed to me that some portion of the subtle essence of all the soul-longings for heavenly help and guidance that here had been breathed forth, by men and women truly struggling against the sinful forces at work in the world, had entered into the very fabric of that ancient church, and so had sanctified it.

We crossed to the eastern end of the church, where was a low door-way, closed by a heavy wooden door that was studded with rough iron nails and ornamented with rudely finished iron-work; pushing which door open briskly, as one having the assured right of entry there, Don Rafael courteously stood aside and motioned to me to enter the sacristy.

From the shadowy church I passed at a step into a small vaulted room brilliant with the sunlight that poured into it through a broad window that faced the south. Just where this flood of sunshine fell upon the flagged floor, rising from a base of stone steps built up in a pyramidal form, was a large cross of some dark wood, on which was the life-size figure of the crucified Christ; and there, on the bare stone pavement before this emblem of his faith, his face, on which the sunlight fell full, turned upward towards the holy image, and his arms raised in supplication, clad in his Franciscan habit, of which the hood had fallen back, knelt Fray Antonio; and upon his pale, holy face, that the rich sunlight glorified, was an expression so seraphic, so entranced, that it seemed as though to his fervent gaze the very gates of heaven must be open, and all the splendors and glories and majesties of paradise revealed.

It is as I thus first saw Fray Antonio--verily a saint kneeling before the cross--that I strive to think of him always. Yet even when that other and darker, but surely more glorious, picture of him rises before my mind I am not disconsolate; for at such times the thought possesses me--coming to me clearly and vehemently, as though from a strongly impelled force without myself--that what he prayed for at the moment when I beheld him was that which God granted to him in the end.

Some men being thus broken in upon while in the very act of communing with Heaven would have been distressed and ill at ease--as I assuredly was because I had so interrupted him. But to Fray Antonio, as I truly believe, communion with Heaven was so entirely a part of his daily life that our sudden entry in nowise ruffled him. After a moment, that he might recall his thoughts within himself and so to earth again, he arose from his knees, and with a grave, simple grace came forward to greet us. He was not more than eight-and-twenty years old, and he was slightly built and thin--not emaciated, but lean with the wholesome leanness of one who strove to keep his body in the careful order of a machine of which much work was required. His face still had in it the soft roundness and tenderness of youth, that accorded well with its expression of gracious sweetness; but there was a firmness about the fine, strong chin, and in the set of the delicate lips, that showed a reserve of masterful strength. And most of all did this strength shine forth from his eyes; which, truly, though at this first sight of him I did not perceive it fully, were the most wonderful eyes that ever I have seen. As I then beheld them I thought them black; but they really were a dark blue, and so were in keeping with his fair skin and hair. Yet that which gave them so strong an individuality was less their changing color than the marvellous way in which their expression changed with every change of feeling of the soul that animated them. When I first saw them, turned up towards heaven, they seemed to speak a heavenly language full of love; and when I saw them last, stern, but shining with the exultant light of joy triumphant, they fairly hurled the wrath of outraged Heaven against the conquered powers of hell. And I can give no adequate conception of the love that shone forth from them when pitying sympathy for human sorrow, or even for the pain which brute beasts suffered, touched that most tender heart for which they spoke in tones richer and fuller than the tones of words.

Don Rafael, standing without the door that he had opened in order that I might precede him, did not perceive that we had interrupted Fray Antonio in his prayers; and began, therefore, in the lively manner natural to him, when I had been in due form presented as an American archaeologist come to Mexico to pursue my studies of its primitive inhabitants, to commend the undertaking that I had in hand, and to ask of Fray Antonio the aid in prosecuting it that he so well could give.

Perhaps it was that Fray Antonio understood how wholly my heart already had gone out to him--assuredly, later, there was such close sympathy between us that our thoughts would go and come to each other without need for words--and so was disposed in some instinctive way to join his purposes with mine; but, be this as it may, before Don Rafael well could finish the explanation of my wishes, Fray Antonio had comprehended what I desired, and had promised to give me his aid.

"The senor already has a book-knowledge of our native tongues. That is well. The speaking knowledge will come easily. He shall have the boy Pablo for his servant. A good boy is Pablo. With him he can talk in the Nahua dialect--which is the most important, for it is sprung most directly from the ancient stock. And I will arrange that the senor shall live for a time in the mountains--it will be a hard life, I fear--at Santa Maria and at San Andres, in which villages he can gain a mouth-mastery of both Otomi and Tarascan. A little time must be given to all this--some months, no doubt. But the senor, who already has studied through ten years, will understand the needfulness of this short discipline. To a true student study in itself is a delight--still more that study which makes the realization of a long-cherished purpose possible. The senor, I know, reads Spanish, since so perfectly he speaks it"--this with a gracious movement of the hands and a courteous inclination of the body that enhanced the value of the compliment--"but does the senor read with ease our ancient Spanish script?"

"I have never attempted it," I answered. "But as I can read easily the old printed Spanish, I suppose," I added, a little airily, "that I shall have no great difficulty in reading the old script also."

Fray Antonio smiled a little as he glanced at Don Rafael, who smiled also, and as he turned out his hands, answered: "Perhaps. But it is not quite the same as print, as the senor will know when he tries. But it makes no difference; for what is most interesting in our archives I shall be glad--and so also will be Don Rafael--to aid him in reading.

"You must know, senor," he went on, dropping his formal mode of address as his interest in the subject augmented, and as his feeling towards me grew warmer, "that many precious documents are here preserved. So early as the year 1536 this western region was erected into a Custodia, distinct from the Province of the Santo Evangelio of Mexico; and from that time onward letters and reports relating to the work done by the missionaries of our order among the heathen have been here received. In truth, I doubt not that many historic treasures are hidden here. In modern times, during the last hundred years or more, but little thought has been given to the care of these old papers--which are so precious to such as Don Rafael and yourself because of their antiquarian value, and which are still more precious to me because they tell of the sowing among the heathen of the seed of God's own Word. It is probable that they have not been at all examined into since our learned brothers Pablo de Beaumont and Alonzo de la Rea were busy with the writing of their chronicles of this Province--and the labors of these brothers ended more than two hundred and fifty years ago. In the little time that I myself can give to such matters I already have found many manuscripts which cast new and curious light upon the strange people who dwelt here in Mexico before the Spaniards came. Some of these I will send for your examination, for they will prepare you for the work you have in contemplation by giving you useful knowledge of primitive modes of life and tones of faith and phases of thought. And while you are in the mountains, at Santa Maria and San Andres, I will make further searches in our archives, and what I find you shall see upon your return.

"With your permission, senores, I must now go about my work. Don Rafael knows that I am much too ready to forget my work in talk of ancient matters. It is a weakness with me--this love for the study of antiquity--that I struggle against, but that seems rather to increase upon me than to be overcome. This afternoon, senor, I will send a few of the ancient manuscripts to you. And so--until we meet again."

II.

THE CACIQUE'S SECRET.

Fray Antonio punctually fulfilled his promise in regard to the manuscripts, and I had but to glance at them in order to understand the smile that he had interchanged with Don Rafael when I so airily had expressed my confidence in my ability to read them. To say that I more easily could read Hebrew is not to the purpose, for I can read Hebrew very well; but it is precisely to the purpose to say that I could not read them at all! What with the curious, involved formation of the several letters, the extraordinary abbreviations, the antique spelling, the strange forms of expression, and the use of obsolete words I could not make sense of so much as a single line. Yet when, being forced into inglorious surrender, I carried the manuscripts to the Museo, and appealed to Don Rafael for assistance, he read to me in fluent Spanish all that I had found so utterly incomprehensible. "It is only a knack," he explained. "A little time and patience are required at first, but then all comes easily." But Don Rafael did here injustice to his own scholarship. More than a little time and patience have I since given to the study of ancient Spanish script, and I am even yet very far from being an expert in the reading of it.

In regard to the other promise that Fray Antonio made me--that he would send me a servant who also would serve as a practical instructor in the Nahua, or Aztec, dialect--he was equally punctual. While I was taking, in my bedroom, my first breakfast of bread and coffee the morning following my visit to the church of San Francisco, I heard a faint sound of music; but whether it was loud music at a distance or very soft music near at hand I could not tell. Presently I perceived that the musician was feeling about among the notes for the sabre song from La Grande Duchesse--selections from which semi-obsolete opera, as I then remembered, had been played by the military band on the plaza the evening before. Gradually the playing grew more assured; until it ended in an accurate and spirited rendering of the air. With this triumph, the volume of the sound increased greatly; and from its tones I inferred that the instrument was a concertina, and that whoever played it was in the inner court-yard of the hotel. Suddenly, in the midst of the music, there sounded--and this sound unmistakably came from the hotel court-yard--the prodigious braying of an ass; and accompanying this came the soft sound of bare feet hurrying away down the passage from near my door.

I opened the door and looked out, but the passage was empty. The gallery overlooked the court-yard, and stepping to the edge of the low stone railing, I beheld a sight that I never recall without a feeling of warm tenderness. Almost directly beneath me stood a small gray ass, a very delicately shaped and perfect little animal, with a coat of most extraordinary length and fuzziness, and with ears of a truly prodigious size. His head was raised, and his great ears were pricked forward in a fashion which indicated that he was most intently listening; and upon his face was an expression of such benevolent sweetness, joined to such thoughtfulness and meditative wisdom, that in my heart (which is very open to affection for his gentle kind) there sprung up in a moment a real love for him. Suddenly he lowered his head, and turned eagerly his regard towards the corner of the court-yard where descended the stair-way from the gallery on which I stood; and from this quarter came towards him a smiling, pleasant-faced Indian lad of eighteen or twenty years old, whose dress was a cotton shirt and cotton trousers, whose feet were bare, and on whose head was a battered hat of straw. And as the ass saw the boy, he strained at the cord that tethered him and gave another mighty bray.

"Dost thou call me, Wise One?" said the boy, speaking in Spanish. "Truly this Senor Americano is a lazy senor, that he rises so late, and keeps us waiting for his coming so long. But patience, Wise One. The Padre says that he is a good gentleman, in whose service we shall be treated as though we were kings. No doubt I now can buy my rain-coat. And thou, Wise One--thou shalt have beans!"

And being by this time come to the ass, the boy enfolded in his arms the creature's fuzzy head and gently stroked its preternaturally long ears. And the ass, for its part, responded to the caress by rubbing its head against the boy's breast and by most energetically twitching its scrag of a tail. Thus for a little time these friends manifested for each other their affection; and then the boy seated himself on the pavement beside the ass and drew forth from his pocket a large mouth-organ--on which he went to work with such a will that all the court-yard rang with the strains of Offenbach's music.

It was plain from what he had said that this was the boy whom Fray Antonio had promised to send to me; and notwithstanding his uncomplimentary comments upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre song again--to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a slightly critical yet pleased attention--and then I hailed him.

"The lazy Senor Americano is awake at last, Pablo," I called. "Come up hither, and we will talk about the buying of thy rain-coat, and about the buying of the Wise One's beans."