Chapter XXIII: A Symbol with Two Meanings

"Captain," said Juan de Cabrera some few hours after his momentary disagreement with Montoro, and now once more with a smiling countenance. "See, Captain Cortes, I have but stepped forward to remind you that St. Peter hath well earned that handful of gold-dust, you vowed a while since to his shrine. And if you will be advised, you will entrust the gift, with an added pinch or two, to me."

Don Juan de Cabrera had inherited a good fortune from his father, who had been killed during the siege of Zarento in 1501, under the great Captain Gonsalvo. Cabrera was a child at that date; and by the time he was old enough to understand the use of wealth, and to wish to have the spending of some of that he had been brought up to believe he should enjoy, his mother and other guardians had so wasted the greater part, that they were glad to try if they could banish disappointment by filling his brain with other thoughts.

In those days of wonderful and incessant discovery, all ranks were tempted from time to time to try a turn of Fortune's wheel. Even the rich and prosperous frequently left luxury and friends and home, for many a long year, behind them, while they wandered about the world, seeking they scarcely knew what--change and variety, it might be, perhaps--change from slothful ease to the novel sensation of vigorous discomfort. And that they certainly obtained.

But however that might be, when his mother and his uncles and his confessor talked of the glorious voyagings, and journeyings, being now enjoyed by so many of his countrymen, the young Cabrera caught at the bait eagerly enough, and had very soon started off to make a new fortune for himself.

That fortune, however, was as far away from his hands now as when he set out to find it! But he took things easily, and looked bright enough as he stood there, with his laughing face, before Hernando Cortes, offering himself as gold-bearer to the shrine.

But Cortes was in no humour for a joke.

"I will get my handful of gold for St. Peter from St. Peter's namesake," he said sternly, and with his large brilliant eyes fixed on the glum, crestfallen Pedro de Alvarado, captain of one of the vessels, who had contrived to reach the shores of the island of Cozumel before the Captain-General of the expedition.

"And if you make such use of Fortune's favours in the future," said Hernando Cortes still more sternly, "it will prove a bad day for you, my worthy Señor, when you came under my command."

"What has he done?" muttered Cabrera to Diego, who was standing by with a wrathful countenance.

"Done!" was the retort. "Why, done like the rest of our Spanish wolves--spent the first hours of his arrival here in showing the natives what good thieves we make."

"Ay, verily," added the good Father Bartolomé de Olmedo. "And he hath added blows and beatings, doubtless, that the lesson may be the better remembered."

"Or," muttered that Juan de Cabrera beneath his breath, "to make some amends by those gifts for what he hath taken away."

But Señor Juan took some care that his companions should neither hear the words, nor see their author's smile at his own small witticism. He turned away from the groups collected together on the shore, and set off for a short walk inland.

"Whither away there?" questioned a voice behind him a few moments later.

Montoro and the priest had followed him.

"My son," said Father Olmedo, "methinks lonely saunters may be scarcely wise in a strange land at any time; but to indulge them now, when Pedro de Alvarado hath so angered and terrified the people, is too imprudent, I should have thought, even for thy careless courage."

"Say rather, for my careless indifference, father," said the young man with a touch of honest reverence for once. "I can lay no claim just now to brave fearlessness. I had even forgotten there was aught to fear. But see, who goes yonder?"

The three men stopped, as three other men, all Indians, passed them at a light run. One turned a few yards ahead and nodded gaily to Montoro.

"Why, Diego," exclaimed Cabrera in surprise, "surely that is thy man Melchorejo, whom thou hast had so many years?"

"Ay," was the reply, "even from his childhood, when I bound up his wounded hand for him. My slight deed of kindness hath reaped a rich reward since then."

"So it seems," rejoined the other, "if it is to be crowned by desertion, so soon as he has the fair chance of return to his own home."

"But it is not to be so crowned," answered Montoro quietly. "At any rate not now. He has but gone with those poor Indians just taken prisoners by Alvarado, to restore them to their friends."

"And to act as our interpreter from Hernando Cortes," added Olmedo; "to assure the Indians of his good-will towards them, and earnest desire for the maintenance of peace."

"And behold!--behold its emblem," suddenly cried Cabrera with an unusual expression of wondering awe upon his face.

And before his companions could question him, he had sprung forward and flung himself on his knees on the ground, with hands raised in adoration.

"What hast thou?" called Father Olmedo eagerly, and for the moment standing still in his amazement.

"What hast thou found?" called also Montoro de Diego equally bewildered.

And then the two hastened onwards a few paces; in their turn caught sight of some most unexpected object, and also in their turn sprang to their companion's side. One instant the eyes of the priest met those of the Spanish nobleman with an expression of deep rapture in them, and then Bartolomé de Olmedo was about to sink down on his knees beside Cabrera. But his purpose was arrested.

"Do it not, my father," hastily murmured Montoro. And clutching at the priest's arm he drew him sharply back to stand beside himself, where he remained gazing down at a stone cross about three feet high, erected in the outer court of a small temple they had reached.

The priest looked round at him for a moment reproachfully. The next a sort of mingled fear and horror showed themselves growing in his countenance. And he wrenched himself free from the detaining hand.

"Art thou a renegade from the most Holy Faith?" he asked in stern and heart-grieved tones.

"Not so," was the short and absent-minded answer, while eyes and thoughts were still equally fixed, it was very evident, upon that cross.

Father Olmedo was greatly puzzled, but very doubtful, he hardly knew of which--whether of his suspicions, or of Diego. In his turn laying a hand on the other's arm, he said impatiently--

"Rouse thyself, my son, and answer me like a man, and, if it may be, the Blessed Virgin grant it, like a true son of the Church--"

"Which I am."

"May the saints grant it, I have said."

"Why, father, I would vouch for that grave Toro's allegiance to Holy Mother Church with my life!" cried Juan de Cabrera springing to his feet to take part in the question.

There was a scarcely perceptible pause, and then Cabrera added--

"Why do you doubt him, my father?"

Montoro answered the question with quiet gravity.

"Because I hindered him from an act which, although innocent from its ignorance, I feared that his conscience would regret. I have prevented the father from paying adoration to the God of rain."

"What?" shouted Cabrera, retreating from the cross as if he had been stung, but at the same time staring at it with all his might.

"What?" repeated the priest with equal wonder, but more soberly. "What can be the reading of your strange riddle, my son?" he asked in amazement. "You stay me from the due reverence I would have hastened to pay to this most blessed symbol of our faith, and then you tell us--verily, my brain is perplexed--I know not what it is thou wouldst say!"

"I would say only that I have said," was the earnest answer. "Marvellous as it must appear to you, my father, marvellous as even yet it appears to me, it is nevertheless true, that the symbol, to us so sacred as the Christian symbol of salvation, is to these poor heathen people of this world the symbol of the God of rain."

"Umph," muttered Cabrera, eyeing the cross somewhat ruefully. "Father, I ever have so many penances lying upon my shoulders; shall I have yet another for having thus knelt in worship to a heathen god, and will it be a heavy one?"

"I were fain to say 'Yes' for thy levity," came the reply.

"Levity, i' faith!" ejaculated the young Spaniard. "My question arose from no careless merriment, I can assure you. But if I draw not a long face, like Toro yonder, with each word I say, I am ever twitted with my levity."

He turned away in one of his short-lived huffs, while the priest looked at him with no unkindly smile, and said more freely--

"Nay then, my son, pardon me. I do believe that now thou art something wounded in thy spirit, as I myself by now had likewise been, but for the ready thought and hand of our good friend here."

"Good to you, bad to me," retorted Cabrera. "If he could not speak in time to spare me the sin, and mortification, of bowing down to an idol he might have held his peace, and not thus have proclaimed my shame."

"Shame, nonsense," said Montoro good-humouredly. "In my boyhood, when I first came out here under the great Admiral, I and others paid loving reverence to our Saviour before one of these native crosses. And doubtless, He who sees the hearts of men accepted our prayers and praises, for the spirit with which they were offered."

Cabrera's superstitious fears seemed somewhat relieved.

"What sayest thou, father?" he asked.

Father Olmedo paused a few moments. He was a good and merciful man, and a good priest; but his training had cramped his intellect, and he could not quite as readily as Diego grasp at true and noble thoughts. Until now he had felt almost as horrified as the worshipper himself, that Christian prayers should have been offered up at an idol's feet. But Cabrera was impatient.

"Say, father, do you also think that I have placed my soul in no jeopardy?"

Bartolomé de Olmedo must reply.

"Thy soul in jeopardy?" he repeated hastily. "Nay, then, nay; there is here no question of thy soul, my son, seeing thou didst it but in ignorance; and for those who sin in ignorance our Lord hath said the stripes shall be few."

"But still, then, there will be those few," muttered the young Spaniard, eyeing the small cross vindictively, before he turned back to Montoro with the reproachful query--

"Diego, thou couldst stop the father from kneeling to false gods, why wert thou too careful of thy breath to spare me a word of warning?"

Montoro smiled at his unreasonable companion.

"Well thou knowest, Juan, or at any rate can guess, that I saw neither the cross, nor thine intention to do it reverence. The trees hid it from our view."

"And the waters of yon stream shall henceforth hide it from the view of all," exclaimed the discomfited disciple of Rome, as he stooped, and prepared to exert all his strength in uprooting it from its present position. But the politic priest stopped him.

"Hold!" he exclaimed quickly. And then more tranquilly: "My son, we will leave the sacred symbol of our faith standing where'er we meet with it. Only, cleansing it from its past unhallowed memories, we will reconsecrate it to Him who died thereon. Our conversion of the heathen shall thus be rendered easier, by seeing that we also reverence the cross."

Cabrera looked doubtful for a few moments.

"Dost thou not think, father, that, whatever thou mayst do to these crosses, they will still remain to the redskins their god of rain; and that, whatever thou mayst try to teach them, and they may profess, it will be still as the god of rain they will worship them?"

"So I should fear," murmured Montoro thoughtfully.

But the priest said sententiously--

"My son, those questions are for the blessed saints, and the pope."