The Adventures of Miss Gregory/A Season of Miracles
III.
A SEASON OF MIRACLES
THEY buried Doña Fortuna in the late afternoon, while the sun still quelled the streets of Tete and held them silent. Her grave was on the bank of the river, at a spot whence one might look forth from the shadow of palms and follow with one's eyes the great stream of the Zambesi, sliding smoothly into the haze of distance. Her half-caste women sobbed and whined at that last significant parting, but restrainedly; the presence of the tall priest and the cool, calm Englishwoman who had gone downstream to bring him subdued them. It was in a hush as of reverence that the priest, shaking with his ague, raised his voice in that final office; the forgotten city was voiceless behind his shoulder; the palms overhead drooped motionless in the heat. His voice quavered and broke as his malady shook him; it had the effect of tears and grief. The awed women caught their breath and stared; only the Englishwoman, trim, grey-haired, austere, kept her manner of invincible composure. And in that tenseness of silence and wonder the business was done. The priest dropped his hand, stood a moment gazing down, and turned away. The Englishwoman looked at him sharply, and went with him. The palms overhead rustled with the first touch of the evening breeze from the east, and the women made way for the two Kaffirs with shovels. Anna, the eldest and stoutest of them all, stopped her ears as the first shovelful of earth fell.
"The noise of it, like a dull drum, stops my heart," she explained, that evening. "I feel as though I were in the grave, with the boards over me and about me, and the lumps of earth falling."
Timotheo, the priest's "boy," nodded thoughtfully. The pair of them were sitting in the courtyard of Doña Fortuna's house, cross-legged on the flagstones, with their backs against the wall. The soft gloom set them in a confidential solitude; the sky over them was spangled with a wonder of great white stars. The light from an open doorway made a path across the courtyard and touched Anna's plump bare shoulders softly. She was all full curves and comfortable ripeness; Timotheo saw her with grave approval.
"I do not like it myself," he said. "Naturally I hear it oftener than you, since it is, in a manner, my business. But I do not like it."
He drew at his cigarette, and the glow of it lighted up his lean, sober face and pale, restless eyes.
"But, at any rate," he added, "it is always the last of a sorrowful business. It finishes the affair. To-night, for example, we may rest."
Anna agreed. "There are some of us that need it," she said, yawning. "Our Doña Fortuna—peace be with her!—was all that is great—a woman of notable splendour and many sorrows—but she was not reposeful. Seven maids she had, counting me, and Kaffirs enough to turn you sick. But do you think there was sleep of an afternoon or quiet in the evening?"
"What was there, then?" inquired Timotheo.
"What was there?" Anna sank her voice. "There was a woman with a sickness of the soul, who could not rest. God give her healing! No sooner were your eyes closed in the afternoon than the calling of your name woke you. 'My head is hot; fan me,' and there was your sleep gone. And always there were old letters to be brought and untied, and bound up again and put back. And many things of the same kind; but no repose."
Timotheo lighted a fresh cigarette from the stump of the last, and let himself slip lower against the wall, so that his bare brown feet fay in the path of light from the door, while the rest of him reclined in shadow. He was full-fed and inclined for conversation.
"This Englishwoman, now," he said, "this Mees Gregory that came down the river to summon the Padre and me—she is known to you?"
"I have spoken to her," replied Anna; "but I do not know her. She is English. She comes hither from the south, walking, with Kaffirs to carry her belongings. The English always come in this manner. Doña Fortuna was already ill then."
"But the Englishwoman?" persisted Timotheo. "Who sent her down the river? What was her concern with you and Doña Fortuna? These English—they are not so useful as all that."
"Give me a cigarette, then," said Anna, "and I will tell you."
Timotheo grunted, but produced a cigarette from the bosom of his shirt and handed it over. Anna bowed over him to light it from his.
"Well," she said, drawing at it strongly, "this, you must know, is not an Englishwoman at all like the rest of the English. The rest of them—what are they? Mostly lean and a little young, with loud voices and given to facetiousness. But this one—you have seen her—is of a decent figure. At a guess, she weighs as much as I do. And though she is chill and remote in her manner, and very stiff and formal as to her clothes, she is yet human. One feels that there is blood in her; for all her grey hair and the hardness of her countenance, she knows the heat of passion. One feels that she knows it. Here she comes afoot across the world, smiling that little smile of hers at our town and the people in it, and within two days she is in Doña Fortuna's chamber, easing her in her pain and whispering to her things which give her peace.
"How she got in? That was simple. The German that gives people medicine, he sent to her to ask her for quinine. She gave it at once, for nothing, only asking some questions about who was ill and the like. Teresa, who went for the quinine, told me. And that evening, soon after dark, she was knocking at the door.
" 'I came to see if I could do anything,' she said, when I opened to her, smiling at me in her strange manner. I was abashed—I confess it; I am not used to these ways. I knew not how to answer, for the moment, and that moment was enough for her. She passed in at the door as though I had bidden her enter; she has an air of lordship which it is not easy to deal with. Opposite to her was the door of Doña Fortuna's chamber, with light shining under it. 'That is the room?' she asked, pointing. And what could I do but nod?"
"Ah!" said Timotheo profoundly.
"But I assure you," went on Anna rapidly, gesticulating with the hand that held the cigarette so that its head of fire swooped to and fro in the darkness, "there is a compulsion in her. Our Doña Fortuna—rest her soul!—knew how to make herself obeyed, but not with that same quietness and speed. Do you think I am a woman to let any stranger walk into my mistress' chamber? And yet I meekly closed the outer door and followed her without a question. You smile, Timotheo, but if you had been there"
"I smile," said Timotheo, "because I, too, know this Mees Gregory. You forget that I came here with her. Well, she entered the chamber. What then?"
"It is a great chamber," said Anna. "To-morrow I will show it to you. Stone flags are underfoot, and the walls are all of great stones, with the window set high up. The bed is in one corner—a bed with a canopy, like a tent, and long, solemn curtains trailing about it. There is other furniture, too, but for the most part the room is bare, and when the candles are alight they make a little space of radiance at the heart of a great sombreness of shadow. It is a room that I have never liked; the shadows stand in the corners like men watching. This Mees Gregory, she stepped over the threshold, and took one more pace into the room, and then halted to gaze. It made its effect with her, too. Our Doña Fortuna was in the bed, with a long coverlet of blue across her breast and its end hanging over on the floor, and her gaze turned toward us. You did not know that face, Timotheo; you are the poorer by that. It is said—I have heard—that in the old days, before she came to her retirement at Tete, Doña Fortuna was famous for her beauty. That was before I served her. What I knew in her, and shall remember till my day comes to be carried out to the river-bank, was the fire that burned in her and would not be quenched, the darkness and quickness of her face, like a storm at the point of breaking, and all the power and brightness and weariness that stay in my mind as though she stood before me—which saints forbid! In that great bed with the shadows all about and the candles before her like the lights on an altar, she seemed not to be a real and living thing. Even I, who knew her and somewhat loved her, as you might say, caught my breath. She was of a sudden ghostly and remote; one trembled and hesitated as at an apparition.
"The Englishwoman stood but a few moments. Her manner of making herself known to Doña Fortuna has given me matter for thought. She approached the bed without formality, as one might go to one's own bed. 'You understand English, I hope?' she asked. 'I've come to see if I can help at all.' No more than that, and it was spoken as one might speak to any chance-met stranger on the Praça. Timotheo, these high people, who have men and women like you and me to serve them, have an understanding. They know how to recognise one another. I looked to see Doña Fortuna lift her head and call us to thrust the Englishwoman out; but, instead of that, she smiled wearily. 'You are very gracious,' she answered. 'Anna, set a chair for the senhora, idiota!' And Mees Gregory sat down by her bedside and took her gloves from her hands. They surveyed one another a little keenly, while they spoke small matters of politeness. But, I tell you, they have a means of knowing each other, those people. In half an hour they were talking closely, the smooth grey head bowed above the stormy black one. And something of calm descended upon our Doña Fortuna; she lay back and the lids drooped upon her great eyes. I, in my corner, was content; a moment's peace is never amiss, and I gained some trifle of sleep.
"She is as strong as a mule, that Mees Gregory; she has the endurance of a crocodile. Do you think she paid her visit and went away? Not she! One of us was despatched to her lodging for certain matters, and when these were brought she settled herself to stay all night. She made a strange toilet, in which she seemed half a nun and half a clown. She bound a shawl over her head and put shoes of soft cloth on her feet, and established herself serenely in the chair by the bedside. The chamber began to be warm, so all the candles but one were put out, and by the light of it, when my sleep broke, I saw her always there, motionless in the gloom, austere, courageous, and watchful. I tell you, Timotheo, I have my weaknesses. I do not like things that are awful or ominous in their appearance. I avoid them willingly. And I was glad in those still hours that this Englishwoman was at least never majestic or solemn. That pink face of hers—it does not daunt one."
"H'm!" grunted Timotheo.
"It does not daunt me," said Anna. "And Doña Fortuna—she did not shrink, either. That night she had rest; Mees Gregory tended her with her own hands. She had a kind of slow deftness which was surprising to see; in all her ministry she made no noise. She shifted the pillows and arranged the bed, brought cool water and a fan—everything. For me, who had been to Doña Fortuna as her right hand, there was nothing to do. As I have said, I made my profit of it.
"It was in the grey of morning that their voices woke me. When you have served a lady like Doña Fortuna you gain the habit of rousing at a whisper to save yourself from being beaten with a stick. I opened my eyes to see them close together, talking almost in murmurs, so that all they said was not to be heard.
" 'This languor that is upon me,' Doña Fortuna was saying, 'it tells me more than you can know. It has dried up my desires like dew in the morning—all save one.'
"Mees Gregory was leaning upon the edge of the bed, with her broad back to me. I could see Doña Fortuna's face over her shoulder.
" 'Yes,' she said; 'what is it?'
"Doña Fortuna opened her great dark eyes. 'To see him,' she said. 'To speak to him, even though it be only to confess.'
"I could not catch what Mees Gregory answered. She spoke briefly and very low. Whatever she said, Doña Fortuna smiled at it, a slow smile of great weariness.
" 'He was a man once,' she answered,—'a man. And now he is a priest. As good as dead, you see. And me—I am no better. What is it? To see him for a moment under lowered eyelids, in this shadowed room; to see him as across a broad river, beyond even the range of my voice—it is not much, and yet it will slake what is left to me of my fever.'
"I wondered at her voice, so even, so empty of passion; and her face, so tranquil. It was then I knew what was to come and how I should hear the earth upon her coffin. I felt wonder, too; for Doña Fortuna seemed to speak of that life she had before she came to this land. There was a tale—I had heard ends and scraps of it—of a young man and some desperate passages; but there are such tales about everybody.
"The Englishwoman hushed her as one stills a restless child, but Doña Fortuna had a need of speech. With her gaze upturned to the canopy of the bed, and a manner as though she dreamed, she went on.
" 'To see him!' she said. 'The sorrow of his face dwells in my mind, so that I cannot remember how he looked when he was glad. But he was happy once; that was before he knew I was wicked. When I close my eyes there is always one thing that I see—the bright room above Lisbon, and the youth who was holding my hand, and he—his face in the doorway, amazed, stricken suddenly wise and weary and sad. It never fails me; I have but to close my eyes and it is there. I see it now.'
"Mees Gregory moved the fan above her, and drew the sheet straight.
" 'He is near here?' she asked.
" 'Twelve hours away,' answered Doña Fortuna, 'and a priest. Is that not far enough?'
"Mees Gregory did not interrupt the fanning. 'Where is it?' she asked.
"Then Doña Fortuna gave her the name of the old Mission down the river. 'You would send for him?' she asked. 'But he would not come.'
" 'We shall see,' said the other, in her short way. 'And now you must try to sleep again.'
"That was a day that came in with a dull red sun floating up slowly—a day of heat. There are days in this town, Timotheo, when one could wish to be a dog, to be naked in shady places and scratch. This was one of them. Even Doña Fortuna's great stone chamber filled with the glow of it, and the fan seemed but to blow hot waves to and fro. She was very ill that day. Once in the morning her senses fled and she talked to some one who was not there. The German who gives medicines threw out his hands when he saw her. 'I am not a doctor,' he told the Englishwoman; 'I do only what I can, and this is outside of my little knowledge.' But they worked together about her without resting, sending the rest of us forth, so that I did not hear any more. But I was very curious."
"Yes," said Timotheo; "no doubt. But what happened?"
"Nothing happened till the afternoon," said Anna. "Then Mees Gregory came to the door and called me. She was dressed in her clothes again, looking very like a man in a guardape [petticoat], but pink and composed still. I was to remain with Doña Fortuna, she told me, and attend to her in a certain fashion. As she talked she took me into the room to show me the medicines. There were not many. Then she bade good-by to Doña Fortuna.
" 'You will really go yourself?' asked my mistress.
"Mees Gregory smiled at her and patted her hand. 'I'm off this very minute,' she said. 'Now you must take care of yourself till I come back. And don't fret!'
"She gave me her little, high, masterly nod, and marched forth. I had no notion whither she went. It was all outside my understanding. But she found you at the old Mission, did she not?"
"Yes." Timotheo pitched the end of his cigarette from him and shifted back against the wall again. "Yes, she found us," he said, fumbling in his bosom for another cigarette. He drew forth two, and held out the bent one of them to Anna. A good story is the best possible foundation for a better one; Timotheo felt this as he lit the cigarette and drew at it reflectively. Anna captured the match and lit her own; there was a while of silence as the priest's servant ordered his thoughts. As he smoked, the cigarette-end made brief illuminations of him. Anna waited respectfully for him to offer speech.
"Yes," he said again; "she found us in a season of miracles."
"Tell me," begged Anna. "I told you all that I knew."
Timotheo waved her to be silent. "In a season of miracles," he repeated. "We were at the old Mission, recently returned from a journey through the accursed country of M'Kombi, and the fruits of our labour were a malaria and an ague that left of the Padre the mere rag of a man. That Mission—it was built in the old times by folk who had yet to learn of fevers. It squats at the brim of the river, a long, slanting front of old gray stone, and within it is all little damp rooms like tombs. In one of these the Padre had his camp-bed, and on it he would burn and shiver from twelve o'clock to twelve o'clock. It was very melancholy there—nothing to do, nothing to see but the eternal river, no one to talk to. There was a pair of very wild and very timid Kaffirs to cook and clean up; there was the Padre with his teeth chattering like castanhetas; and there was I, solitary among them as a crow in a fowl-run. All day long the gaunt palms wagged their heads and the brown water slid past, and the stillness made me think of waiting for the Resurrection. I was sad. I tell you, Anna, I was ready for diversion, even though it should come with its face blacked. Therefore, when, in the afternoon, while I mixed his draught for the Padre, the door was darkened, and I looked round to see your Mees Gregory in the door, it was not surprise I felt, but joy. Here at length was something on two legs! And yet, it was astonishing enough. Imagine, then—out of that emptiness of bush and river, in that silence of heathendom, at the middle of the afternoon, there arrives your Englishwoman. She was as you have said—a man in a guardape, the strangest thing I ever saw, incredible, ridiculous; but I did not laugh."
"No," said Anna. "One does not laugh."
"She spoke the Padre's name, and he turned on his elbow to gaze at her," Timotheo continued. "A shivering fit had just passed, and he was yet limp and sweating. 'I have a message,' she said. 'I have come from Tete to deliver it.' Her eye rested on me rather noticeably.
" 'Timotheo,' bade the Padre, 'set a chair and get out!'
"That was of no consequence, for the rooms in the old Mission have no doors; one hears quite as well outside as in. I stood just out of sight, at the corner of the wall, and there I was able to see how she had come. There was a canoe under the bank, and in it were a pair of the weariest Kaffirs I have ever seen. I learned afterward that this Mees Gregory had constrained them to paddle through the heat of the day, such was her haste to reach us. How she was to get back yet awhile was not so clear; they lay in the canoe in a sprawl of arms and legs; there was no more work left in them.
"The talk at the Padre's bedside was brief.
" 'You are ill?' said the Englishwoman doubtfully.
" 'I am not too ill to hear you,' the Padre answered.
"She seemed not to be assured, but made up her mind to speak.
" 'Let me ask you,' she said, 'does the name of Fortuna carry any meaning to you?' I could not see, of course, how the Padre took her question, but I think he must have stared, for she went on at once. 'My message is from her.'
"The Padre answered after a pause. 'Senhora,' he said, 'I am a priest.'
" 'Yes,' said the Englishwoman. 'It is to a priest I was sent. There is grave need for a priest—if not you, then another. But it is you she desires.'
"He repeated the words: 'Grave need!'
" 'Grave need,' she said again. 'The gravest need of all. Your reverence, recall her. It is you she asks for—to see you and speak to you; but it is the priest she has the greatest need for. At least, it was so when I left.'
" 'You are sure?' he asked. 'She cannot live? She cannot recover? You are sure?'
"I suppose she nodded, for she answered nothing in words.
" 'There are priests in Tete,' he said, then.
" 'There will be no priest if it be not you,' she replied.
" 'Ah!' he said. 'The poor woman! So that is her need of me now?'
" 'That is her need,' answered Mees Gregory. 'But—but, father, you are ill.'
"I could hear the bed creak as he sat up.
" 'I have not been taught to encourage my weaknesses,' he said. 'Her case is worse than mine.' And he called for me."
"He is a saint," said Anna, with conviction.
"Largely by my assistance," replied Timotheo, with deliberation. "But he is somewhat of a saint, none the less. I could not at first believe that he was sober in his intention to rise and travel. The man was a sop, a piece of damp flesh; the fever had sodden his bones. I almost laughed at him as he gave me his orders; but this saint has enough of the devil in him to make himself obeyed. It was not possible for him to stand on his feet, but he stood! And what he proposed! There was no returning by water; the Englishwoman's Kaffirs had not the flap of a paddle remaining in their arms, and the way to Tete was upstream, besides. So it was twelve hours on foot through the infested bush, with night coming up and the land crawling with wild beasts. I would have kneeled to him but that I know him; he had a certain tone in his voice that told me I should be kicked if I did. Yes, he can kick, this saint. So I dressed him, as he bade, in the little room with moss on the wall like green and yellow paint, and the tireless Englishwoman strolling to and fro in the sun outside, while our Kaffirs hid in corners and gaped at her.
"But the Padre was like a nightmare to see. It was as if a corpse should rise up and go to work. His legs were like water under him; the ague took him by the throat and rattled him. as though the bones were loose in his skin. Nothing upheld him save the spirit within him, and that was like a tempest caged. He walked with his face uplifted, while his lips quivered with weakness, and your Mees Gregory kept glancing sideways at him with little considering frowns. But I was not comfortable in my mind—I! I had wished for diversion—true; but not to go forth into the raw wilderness with a priest who walked by supernatural power, and that strange figure of a woman. It was not company in which to take risks. But I did not know.
"The bush grows close about the Mission. One walks not two minutes and turns round, and one is at the heart of the wild. The paths, where there are any at all, are Kaffir paths, narrow trodden ruts that curl and snake bewilderingly between the bushes and trees, and on them you must go one behind the other. The Padre took the lead, with the Englishwoman behind him, and me at the tail, and behind me all the lurking dangers of darkness. The dusk came all too soon, and lasted too short a while, and then night was with us, crowded with fears. Ai?" Timotheo shivered and drew his breath through his teeth. "Even the telling of it makes my heart hesitate. I am without words to show it to you—our progress, always in a half-hurry; the great deeps of the bush, where things stirred unseen; the spaces of moonlight, and our panting haste to cross them; the back of the Padre, too thin, too straight, not poised as men poise themselves who have their senses; the unwearying, pounding trot of your stumpy Englishwoman; the noise of our breathing that might be the breathing of great beasts near at hand; the voices of lions that we heard; the strangeness, the unreality, the dread of it all. Of the long stages that we made, there remains in my memory as it were a flavour—the salt taste of fear in my mouth."
Anna made sounds of sympathy.
"And all to make your Doña Fortuna easy in her mind," said Timotheo. "But this was not all. There were things that occurred on which you may think when next you are deprived of your sleep. I spoke of a season of miracles. You shall hear. ... No; I have only one cigarette left....
"I judge it was near midnight, and we had been on our way, resting scarcely at all, for some eight hours. There was a broad moon aloft; where the bush was sparse there was plenty of light. I was weary; understand that I was weary to the point of forgetting the terror and strangeness of my situation and remembering only my legs. But the Padre held on. What he felt, what he suffered, if he felt and suffered at all, is not to be told in human speech; it belongs to another tongue. Mees Gregory flagged at moments, but she has strength, that Englishwoman; she could spur herself to the pace as she willed. I dared not be left behind; it was only that which maintained me, by which we see there is a purpose in all our afflictions. I went on blindly, and came to life, as it were, only when we halted.
"Well, at the time I have mentioned, we came of a sudden to one of those spots where the bush stands back and leaves a piece of the world bare to the sky. I was in the rear; I knew nothing; but Mees Gregory made a hissing noise with her mouth, and reached forward to the Padre's arm and checked him. There was an urgency in the gesture that startled me, and I did not forthwith sit down, as my custom was when we halted. I looked between them as they stood, and at the sight my weariness fell from me. Three times already we had heard lions, but this was the first we saw. He was near the middle of the clear space, plain in the moonlight—a great, lean beast, stiffened to attention at the sound of us, with his great head up and all the mass of him taut as a string. A breath of wind stirred the bush; I could see it move behind him, and the tops of it swing against the stars; and it carried the pungent smell of him down to us. We stood—I do not know how long; it may have been a minute or many minutes—and the great brute never moved. It might have been the carved figure of a lion set there in the pale light, intent and dreadful. I could not take my eyes from it. It crowded all else out of being. And then, suddenly, with a shock that made my heart check and bound, I heard the Padre begin to speak.
" 'I must not wait,' he said. 'I have my errand.'
"It was his voice of every day; they were the tones in which he would speak to me of his dinner. I could not think; there was nothing left to me to take hold of. At the sound of his voice, the great beast in the clearing moved a little.
" 'Hush! Oh, hush!' breathed the Englishwoman, with her hand on his arm.
"He put her hand from him.
" 'I am not bidden to be careful of myself,' he answered; 'only to go forward in faith.'
"And he went forward. He walked out of the shadow that screened us, into the pale light, and so forward. Anna, my friend, I do not speak of it willingly. For my part, I reached out and caught the hand of Mees Gregory and held it; and she did not rebuke me. We did not move from our place, nor stir, nor, I think, breathe. We watched the Padre. He went at his accustomed gait, neither in haste nor slowly. There was no faltering; there were not even the uncertain feet of the ague-stricken. His head was high held, even as it had been since we started; one would have said a tall spirit walked out into the moonlight. Thirty—forty yards before him there was the great beast, its huge head low, its body gathered in behind it, all lean, terrible strength—doom crouched along the ground, tense and imminent. There was a sense upon me as though somewhere something was stretched to the point of breaking; I felt myself waiting for the snap of it. And all the while there was the unbelievable thing, the Padre walking forward, eating up the moments at each stride, and not twenty strides between him and the shape of the lion. There was a catastrophe overdue; I knew it strangely; I was impatient for it."
"Yes?" said Anna. "Yes? What was the end of it? Go on!"
Timotheo wriggled his back against the wall. In the velvet darkness of the courtyard he blinked rapidly; his recital had shifted him from his balance.
"There was no end," he said coolly. "It was in no sense an ending at all. These miracles—they are not dramatic. The Padre went on without pausing; the affair still awaited the last swift effect; and he came as near to the beast as I am to that door. Yes, about that distance. And then the lion moved. 'Here it comes!' thought I. 'It was time.' But no! Nothing of the kind. It seemed to crawl to one side; it had the motion of a great snake. It rippled like a fluid, as smoothly and noiselessly, and, ere one could rub one's eyes, there was the crash of twigs, and it was gone. He, the Padre, did not even turn his head; he went on still, and he was across the clearing before Mees Gregory pulled her hand from mine, and the pair of us returned to our senses."
"They are like that," said Anna. "Look them in the eye and they always run away."
"Always," agreed Tirnotheo solemnly. "But who looks them in the eye if he can help it? That kind of fool, thank heaven, is as rare as a saint. Look them in the eye, indeed!"
"Somebody told me so," said Anna meekly. "Perhaps it is a lie. No doubt it is. And were there any more miracles?"
"You are hard to satisfy," said Timotheo. "But there was one more. Do not say this time, 'They are like that,' or I shall be displeased."
"I will not," promised Anna.
"Very well, then. The second was at dawn. We had gone on from the place of the lion without pausing to felicitate the Padre. He led us without ceasing, and we drove ourselves to keep up with him. There was something changed in his aspect, or it seemed so; we no longer saw him as the man we knew, full to the lips with fever and precarious on his feet. He was become a being armoured against the evil chances of the night and the bush, a man guarded invisibly. Therefore, when the bush led us out to the steep bank of a stream, under which the broad water ran calm and in great volume, we said nothing. We looked to him. It was one of those lesser rivers that come down after the rains and join themselves to the Zambesi; they are new in their course each season, and treacherous as a snake. The sky was pale in the east; the dawn gust was chill in our faces; the bush was ghostly and grey. The Padre stood, gaunt and upright, seeming taller than of old, and looked down at the black water below.
" 'Get a pole,' he bade me.
"I found a great cane as long as a mast, and slid down the bank with it. At the edge of the water I thrust it in to sound the depth. Up and down stream I scrambled with it; but everywhere there was depth to more than double the stature of a man, and no crossing at all. I let it go at last, and it floated slowly away.
"The Englishwoman came to me as I came up from the water.
" 'We must find a ford,' she said. 'You go that way and I will go this. It is the only thing. But what will he do if we don't find one?'
" 'Walk on the water, perhaps,' I answered. 'But this time I will not follow him.'
" 'I will,' she replied, looking at me strangely. I do not know what was in her mind. We went our ways to look for the drift, she down stream, I up.
"I did not find one. I went perhaps a mile. I was very weary, and I had small hopes. When I had gone so far, I took my occasion to sit down for a while. I would have rested longer, but I found it too hard to keep awake. So presently I went back. There was the Padre half-way down the bank, and no Mees Gregory. I called out to him.
"'Reverendo,' I called, 'it is deep. You saw me sound it with the bamboo.'
"He looked up at me, smiling a little with a serious face.
" 'I cannot wait,' he said gently. 'There is my errand. To-day I must be in Tete,' and he moved yet further down the bank.
" 'You will be drowned!' I cried. 'As sure as water is wet, you will be drowned and eaten by crocodiles. And I shall be abandoned in this wilderness.'
" 'Come after me, then,' he said, quite seriously.
"I fell on my knees on the parched grass and watched him. Here, again, he did not hesitate. He had the air of a man to whom a charge is given,, who spares thought for nothing else. He went into the hungry water with a calm, grave face, slipping from the bank to its unseen depths with scarce a splash. Ai! How one is palsied at such a time! One can only look, and look, and look. The great stream shut above him like lips that close over a mouthful, and it was tranquil again, and he was gone.
Then, ten yards down stream, his face came up; it emerged for a moment, with the water washing over it, and it was the same—the same, composed, rapt, looking up. His hands made weak movements; he could swim no more than a hen, and he went under again, a bundle of clothes and limbs which the stream bore along unheeding. Again he came up, further away, and too far for my blurred eyes to mark him; and then there was a space, during which I saw nothing, till your Mees Gregory shook me by the shoulder.
" 'There is a drift,' she said, 'a good one. Where is the Padre?'
" 'He is gone,' I said. 'He would not wait.' And I pointed her to the stream.
"She was insistent. Now that the thing was done, I wished to lie down and be still for a day and a night or so; but she would have an account from me. And when I answered her shortly, she struck me a most surprising blow with her open hand. Even the noise I made was surprising. So I told her all, as I am telling you.
" 'You are sure he was drowned?' she persisted. 'He could not swim at all?'
"My assurances could not satisfy her. I told her again and again that he was drowned, finished, ended, dead; but still she stared across the stream and made exclamations to herself. The day advanced, and the sun climbed into the world again.
" 'And yet,' she said, 'there was his errand. I would have followed him; I would have taken the chance.'
" 'You are saved from that, at least,' I told her.
"She looked at me in a strange way, as if astonished that I should be sensible and clear in my head. 1 believe she was in some degree moved and infected by that great air of inspiration which the Padre had shown her. Women are often accessible to such matters, even old women like her, as tough as a sjambok [cowhide]. But when she turned away from me, with a little shrug of impatience, she startled me with a shout.
" 'What is it?' I cried, in quick alarm.
"Her finger pointed, and my eyes went with it. On the further bank of the stream stood the Padre himself. He was waving to us with his arm, and his thin clothes were close about his body with wetness. He called something, but his words did not reach us.
"I made an interjection of amaze. 'And I saw him drown,' I added, for I was certain of it yet.
"Mees Gregory turned on me with a movement like a swoop, so that I stepped back from her. 'Dog!' she said, spitting the curt word at me. 'You have eyes and you see not. You will never see anything but the mud you were made of. Come to the drift!'
"I did not understand it, and 1 have not yet understood. I suppose she had some matter in her. Those people are furnished with thoughts as a mimosa is with thorns, and are not less awkward to go in close company with. She led the way across the river, and we rejoined the Padre after a chase of an hour, for he had not waited for us.
"Well, thanks be, that was the end of the miracles. The rest was walking like dogs through the day, till Tete came up in our path, and I was too far gone in fatigue even to be glad of it. I tell you, there is but a dull remembrance that stays with me of our coming in at the gate there and seeing you girls about the door of the house. I saw the Padre enter, but by that time I was on my back in the shade, and slumber pinned me down like an assassin. It was you that took the Padre in, eh?"
"Yes," replied Anna. "But I was bidden go forth from the room at once, and Mees Gregory was waiting in the hallway without, so I could hear nothing."
"But they knew each other?" persisted Timotheo.
Anna shrugged; her plump, bare shoulders rose and fell in the light from the door.
"Who shall say?" she answered. "Our Doña Fortuna was very weak. Only her face looked out from the bed, with veiled eyes under those thick lashes of hers. All expectancy was gone; it was a face that had been wiped clear like a window-pane. The Padre stood in the middle of the room. He is a very tall man; he looked down at her as if from a great distance.
" 'Jaime,' she said once, feebly; and he answered nothing. 'Padre,' she said then, after a moment.
" 'My daughter,' he answered, and nodded me to go forth. He held the door while I went, with his hand high up on it, so that I passed under his arm. Then it closed behind me.
"Mees Gregory was without. She took me by the arm very agreeably and drew me near to her. 'My child,' she said in a soft voice, 'I should like a wash.' "
"And then Doña Fortuna died," said Timotheo. "She cannot say we did not take trouble over her. Well, to-morrow we go back to our own place—by river this time."
"And that is the end of miracles, happily," suggested Anna.
Timotheo was stiffly uncoiling his legs preparatory to rising.
"Pooh!" he said. "Your Doña Fortuna was neither here nor there. Send him news of a dying Kaffir fifty miles away and he can always manage a miracle or so. Do I not know it, to my cost?"