re terrible than the
thing they bore in their arms. The shales crossed, Rosendo left the
trail, cutting a way through the bush with his _machete_ a distance of
several hundred feet. Then, by the weird yellow light of a single
candle, he opened the moist earth and laid the hideous, twisted thing
within. Jose watched the procedure in dull apathy.

"And now, Padre," said Rosendo, at length breaking the awful silence,
"where will you sleep to-night? I cannot let you go back to your
house. It is too near the senora and Carmen. No man in town will let
you stay in his house, since you have handled the plague. Will you
sleep in the shed where the lad died? Or out on the shales with me? I
called to the senora when I went after the bar, and she will lay two
blankets out in the _plaza_ for us. And in the morning she will put
food where we can get it. What say you?"

Jose stood dazed. His mind had congealed with the horror of the
situation. Rosendo took him by the arm. "Come, Padre," he said gently.
"The hill up back of the second church is high, and no one lives near.
I will get the blankets and we will pass the night out there."

"But, Rosendo!" Jose found his voice. "What is it? Is it--_la
colera_?"

"_Quien sabe?_ Padre," returned Rosendo. "There has been plague
here--these people, some of them, still remember it--but it was long
ago. There have been cases along the river--and brought, I doubt not,
by Turks, like this one."

"And do you think that it is now all along the river? That Bodega
Central is being ravaged by the scourge? That it will sweep through
the country?"

"_Quien sabe?_ Padre. All I do know is that the people of Simiti are
terribly frightened, and the pestilence may wipe away the town before
it leaves."

"But--good God! what can we do, Rosendo?"

"Nothing, Padre--but stay and meet it," the man replied quietly.

They reached the hill in silence. Then Rosendo wrapped himself in one
of the blankets which he had picked up as he passed through the
_plaza_, and lay down upon the shale.

But Jose slept not that night. The warm, sluggish air lay about him,
mephitic in its touch. The great vampire bats that soughed through it
symbolized the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." Lonely calls
drifted across the warm lake waters from the dripping jungle like the
hollow echoes of lost souls. Rosendo tossed fitfully, and now and then
uttered deep groans. The atmosphere was prescient with horror. He
struggled to