The Plumed Serpent | Project Gutenberg (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73677 ***

THE WORKS OF D. H. LAWRENCE

THIN-PAPER EDITION

The White Peaco*ck
The Trespasser
Sons and Lovers
The Prussian Officer
The Rainbow
The Lost Girl
Women in Love
Aaron’s Rod
The Ladybird
Kangaroo
England, my England
The Boy in the Bush
St. Mawr
The Plumed Serpent
The Woman Who Rode Away
The Virgin and the Gipsy
The Man Who Died
The Lovely Lady
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Love Among the Haystacks
Sea and Sardinia
Assorted Articles
Mornings in Mexico
Twilight in Italy
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
Fantasia of the Unconscious
A Modern Lover

CONTENTS

It was the Sunday after Easter, and the last bull-fight of theseason in Mexico City. Four special bulls had been broughtover from Spain for the occasion, since Spanish bulls aremore fiery than Mexican. Perhaps it is the altitude, perhapsjust the spirit of the western Continent which is to blame forthe lack of “pep,” as Owen put it, in the native animal.

Although Owen, who was a great socialist, disapproved ofbull-fights, “We have never seen one. We shall have togo,” he said.

“Oh yes, I think we must see it,” said Kate.

“And it’s our last chance,” said Owen.

Away he rushed to the place where they sold tickets, tobook seats, and Kate went with him. As she came into thestreet, her heart sank. It was as if some little person insideher were sulking and resisting. Neither she nor Owen spokemuch Spanish, there was a fluster at the ticket place, and anunpleasant individual came forward to talk American forthem.

It was obvious they ought to buy tickets for the “Shade.”But they wanted to economise, and Owen said he preferredto sit among the crowd, therefore, against the resistance ofthe ticket man and the onlookers, they bought reservedseats in the “Sun.”

The show was on Sunday afternoon. All the tram-cars andthe frightful little Ford omnibuses called Camions werelabelled Torero, and were surging away towards Chapultepec.Kate felt that sudden dark feeling, that she didn’twant to go.

“I’m not very keen on going,” she said to Owen.

“Oh, but why not? I don’t believe in them on principle,but we’ve never seen one, so we shall have to go.”

Owen was an American, Kate was Irish. “Never havingseen one” meant “having to go.” But it was Americanlogic rather than Irish, and Kate only let herself be overcome.

Villiers of course was keen. But then he too was American,and he too had never seen one, and being younger, morethan anybody he had to go.

[Pg 8]

They got into a Ford taxi and went. The busted carcareered away down the wide dismal street of asphalt andstone and Sunday dreariness. Stone buildings in Mexicohave a peculiar hard, dry dreariness.

The taxi drew up in a side street under the big iron scaffoldingof the stadium. In the gutters, rather lousy menwere selling pulque and sweets, cakes, fruit, and greasy food.Crazy motor-cars rushed up and hobbled away. Littlesoldiers in washed-out cotton uniforms, pinky drab, hungaround an entrance. Above all loomed the network ironframe of the huge, ugly stadium.

Kate felt she was going to prison. But Owen excitedlysurged to the entrance that corresponded to his ticket. Inthe depths of him, he too didn’t want to go. But he was aborn American, and if anything was on show, he had tosee it. That was “Life.”

The man who took the tickets at the entrance, suddenly,as they were passing in, stood in front of Owen, put bothhis hands on Owen’s chest and pawed down the front ofOwen’s body. Owen started, bridled, transfixed for a moment.The fellow stood aside. Kate remained petrified.

Then Owen jerked into a smiling composure as the manwaved them on. “Feeling for fire-arms!” he said, rollinghis eyes with pleased excitement at Kate.

But she had not got over the shock of horror, fearing thefellow might paw her.

They emerged out of a tunnel in the hollow of the concrete-and-ironamphitheatre. A real gutter-lout came to look attheir counterslips, to see which seats they had booked. Hejerked his head downwards, and slouched off. Now Kateknew she was in a trap—a big concrete beetle trap.

They dropped down the concrete steps till they were onlythree tiers from the bottom. That was their row. Theywere to sit on the concrete, with a loop of thick iron betweeneach numbered seat. This was a reserved place in the“Sun.”

Kate sat gingerly between her two iron loops, and lookedvaguely around.

“I think it’s thrilling!” she said.

Like most modern people, she had a will-to-happiness.

“Isn’t it thrilling,” cried Owen, whose will-to-happinesswas almost a mania. “Don’t you think so, Bud?”

[Pg 9]

“Why, yes, I think it may be,” said Villiers, non-committal.

But then Villiers was young, he was only over twenty,while Owen was over forty. The younger generation calculatesits “happiness” in a more business-like fashion.Villiers was out after a thrill, but he wasn’t going to sayhe’d got one till he’d got it. Kate and Owen—Kate wasalso nearly forty—must enthuse a thrill, out of a sort ofpoliteness to the great Show-man, Providence.

“Look here!” said Owen. “Supposing we try to protectour extremity on this concrete—” and thoughtfully hefolded his rain-coat and laid it along the concrete ledge sothat both he and Kate could sit on it.

They sat and gazed around. They were early. Patchesof people mottled the concrete slope opposite, like eruptions.The ring just below was vacant, neatly sanded; and abovethe ring, on the encircling concrete, great advertisem*nts forhats, with a picture of a city-man’s straw hat, and advertisem*ntsfor spectacles, with pairs of spectacles supinely folded,glared and shouted.

“Where is the ‘Shade’ then?” said Owen, twisting hisneck.

At the top of the amphitheatre, near the sky, were concreteboxes. This was the “Shade,” where anybody whowas anything sat.

“Oh but,” said Kate, “I don’t want to be perched rightup there, so far away.”

“Why no!” said Owen. “We’re much better where weare, in our ‘Sun,’ which isn’t going to shine a great dealafter all.”

The sky was cloudy, preparing for the rainy season.

It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, and thecrowd was filling in, but still only occupied patches of thebare concrete. The lower tiers were reserved, so the bulk ofthe people sat in the midway levels, and gentry like ourtrio were more or less isolated.

But the audience was already a mob, mostly of fattishtown men in black tight suits and little straw hats, and amixing-in of the dark-faced labourers in big hats. The menin black suits were probably employees and clerks and factoryhands. Some had brought their women, in sky-bluechiffon with brown chiffon hats and faces powdered to look[Pg 10]like white marshmallows. Some were families with two orthree children.

The fun began. The game was to snatch the hard strawhat off some fellow’s head, and send it skimming away downthe slope of humanity, where some smart bounder downbelow would catch it and send it skimming across in anotherdirection. There were shouts of jeering pleasure from themass, which rose almost to a yell as seven straw hats wereskimming, meteor-like, at one moment across the slope ofpeople.

“Look at that!” said Owen. “Isn’t that fun!”

“No,” said Kate, her little alter ego speaking out foronce, in spite of her will-to-happiness. “No, I don’t like it.I really hate common people.”

As a socialist, Owen disapproved, and as a happy man, hewas disconcerted. Because his own real self, as far as he hadany left, hated common rowdiness just as much as Kate did.

“It’s awfully smart though!” he said, trying to laugh insympathy with the mob. “There now, see that!”

“Yes, it’s quite smart, but I’m glad it’s not my hat,”said Villiers.

“Oh, it’s all in the game,” said Owen largely.

But he was uneasy. He was wearing a big straw hat ofnative make, conspicuous in the comparative isolation of thelower tiers. After a lot of fidgeting, he took off this hat andput it on his knees. But unfortunately he had a very definitelybald spot on a sunburnt head.

Behind, above, sat a dense patch of people in the unreservedsection. Already they were throwing things. Bum!came an orange, aimed at Owen’s bald spot, and hitting himon the shoulder. He glared round rather ineffectuallythrough his big shell spectacles.

“I’d keep my hat on if I were you,” said the cold voiceof Villiers.

“Yes, I think perhaps it’s wiser,” said Owen, with assumednonchalance, putting on his hat again.

Whereupon a banana skin rattled on Villiers’ tidy andladylike little panama. He glared round coldly, like a birdthat would stab with its beak if it got the chance, but whichwould fly away at the first real menace.

“How I detest them!” said Kate.

A diversion was created by the entrance, opposite, of the[Pg 11]military bands, with their silver and brass instruments undertheir arms. There were three sets. The chief band climbedand sat on the right, in the big bare tract of concrete reservedfor the Authorities. These musicians wore dark greyuniforms trimmed with rose colour, and made Kate feel almostre-assured, as if it were Italy and not Mexico City. Asilver band in pale buff uniforms sat opposite our party, highup across the hollow distance, and still a third “musica”threaded away to the left, on the remote scattered hillsideof the amphitheatre. The newspapers had said that thePresident would attend. But the Presidents are scarce atbull-fights in Mexico, nowadays.

There sat the bands, in as much pomp as they couldmuster, but they did not begin to play. Great crowds nowpatched the slopes, but there were still bare tracts, especiallyin the Authorities’ section. Only a little distance aboveKate’s row was a mass of people, as it were impending; avery uncomfortable sensation.

It was three o’clock, and the crowds had a new diversion.The bands, due to strike up at three, still sat there in lordlyfashion, sounding not a note.

“La musica! La musica!” shouted the mob, with thevoice of mob authority. They were the People, and therevolutions had been their revolutions, and they had wonthem all. The bands were their bands, present for theiramusem*nt.

But the bands were military bands, and it was the armywhich had won all the revolutions. So the revolutions weretheir revolutions, and they were present for their own gloryalone.

Musica pagada toca mal tono.

Spasmodically, the insolent yelling of the mob rose andsubsided. La musica! La musica! The shout becamebrutal and violent. Kate always remembered it. La musica!The band peaco*cked its nonchalance. The shouting was agreat yell: the degenerate mob of Mexico City!

At length, at its own leisure, the band in grey with darkrose facings struck up: crisp, martial, smart.

“That’s fine!” said Owen. “But that’s really good!And it’s the first time I’ve heard a good band in Mexico, aband with any backbone.”

The music was smart, but it was brief. The band seemed[Pg 12]scarcely to have started, when the piece was over. Themusicians took their instruments from their mouths with agesture of dismissal. They played just to say they’d played,making it as short as possible.

Musica pagada toca mal tono.

There was a ragged interval, then the silver band piped up.And at last it was half-past three, or more.

Whereupon, at some given signal, the masses in themiddle, unreserved seats, suddenly burst and rushed downon to the lowest, reserved seats. It was a crash like a burstreservoir, and the populace in black Sunday suits poureddown round and about our astonished, frightened trio. Andin two minutes it was over. Without any pushing or shoving.Everybody careful, as far as possible, not to touch anybodyelse. You don’t elbow your neighbour if he’s got apistol on his hip and a knife at his belly. So all the seatsin the lower tiers filled in one rush, like the flowing of water.

Kate now sat among the crowd. But her seat, fortunately,was above one of the track-ways that went round thearena, so at least she would not have anybody sitting betweenher knees.

Men went uneasily back and forth along this gangwaypast the feet, wanting to get in next their friends, but neverventuring to ask. Three seats away, on the same row, sata Polish bolshevist fellow who had met Owen. He leanedover and asked the Mexican next to Owen if he might changeseats with him. “No,” said the Mexican. “I’ll sit in myown seat.”

“Muy bien, Señor, muy bien!” said the Pole.

The show did not begin, and men like lost mongrels stillprowled back and forth on the track that was next step downfrom Kate’s feet. They began to take advantage of theledge on which rested the feet of our party, to squat there.

Down sat a heavy fellow, plumb between Owen’s knees.

“I hope they won’t sit on my feet,” said Kate anxiously.

“We won’t let them,” said Villiers, with bird-like decision.“Why don’t you shove him off, Owen? Shove himoff?”

And Villiers glared at the Mexican fellow ensconced betweenOwen’s legs. Owen flushed, and laughed uncomfortably.He was not good at shoving people off. The Mexican beganto look round at the three angry white people.

[Pg 13]

And in another moment, another fat Mexican in a blacksuit and a little black hat was lowering himself into Villiers’foot-space. But Villiers was too quick for him. He quicklybrought his feet together under the man’s sinking posterior,so the individual subsided uncomfortably on to a pair ofboots, and at the same time felt a hand shoving him quietlybut determinedly on the shoulder.

“No!” Villiers was saying in good American. “Thisplace is for my feet! Get off! You get off!”

And he continued, quietly but very emphatically, to pushthe Mexican’s shoulder, to remove him.

The Mexican half raised himself, and looked round murderouslyat Villiers. Physical violence was being offered, andthe only retort was death. But the young American’s facewas so cold and abstract, only the eyes showing a primitive,bird-like fire, that the Mexican was nonplussed. And Kate’seyes were blazing with Irish contempt.

The fellow struggled with his Mexican city-bred inferioritycomplex. He muttered an explanation in Spanish that he wasonly sitting there for a moment, till he could join his friends—wavinghis hand towards a lower tier. Villiers did notunderstand a word, but he reiterated:

“I don’t care what it is. This place is for my feet, andyou don’t sit there.”

Oh, home of liberty! Oh, land of the free! Which of thesetwo men was to win in the struggle for conflicting liberty?Was the fat fellow free to sit between Villiers’ feet, or wasVilliers free to keep his foot-space?

There are all sorts of inferiority complex, and the cityMexican has a very strong sort, that makes him all the moreaggressive, once it is roused. Therefore the intruder loweredhis posterior with a heavy, sudden bounce on Villiers’ feet,and Villiers, out of very distaste, had had to extricate hisfeet from such a compression. The young man’s face wentwhite at the nostrils, and his eyes took on that brightabstract look of pure democratic anger. He pushed the fatshoulders more decisively, repeating:

“Go away! Go away! You’re not to sit there.”

The Mexican, on his own ground, and heavy on his ownbase, let himself be shoved, oblivious.

“Insolence!” said Kate loudly. “Insolence!”

She glared at the fat back in the shoddily-fitting black[Pg 14]coat, which looked as if a woman dressmaker had made it,with loathing. How could any man’s coat-collar look sohome-made, so en famille!

Villiers remained with a fixed, abstract look on his thinface, rather like a death’s head. All his American will wassummoned up, the bald eagle of the north bristling in everyfeather. The fellow should not sit there.—But how to removehim?

The young man sat tense with will to annihilate his beetle-likeintruder, and Kate used all her Irish malice to helphim.

“Don’t you wonder who was his tailor?” she asked, witha flicker in her voice.

Villiers looked at the femalish black coat of the Mexican,and made an arch grimace at Kate.

“I should say he hadn’t one. Perhaps did it himself.”

“Very likely!” Kate laughed venomously.

It was too much. The man got up and betook himself,rather diminished, to another spot.

“Triumph!” said Kate. “Can’t you do the same,Owen?”

Owen laughed uncomfortably, glancing down at the manbetween his knees as he might glance at a dog with rabies,when it had its back to him.

“Apparently not yet, unfortunately,” he said, with someconstraint, turning his nose away again from the Mexican,who was using him as a sort of chair-back.

There was an exclamation. Two horsem*n in gay uniformsand bearing long staffs had suddenly ridden into the ring.They went round the arena, then took up their posts, sentry-wise,on either side the tunnel entrance through which theyhad come in.

In marched a little column of four toreadors wearing tightuniforms plastered with silver embroidery. They divided,and marched smartly in opposite directions, two and two,around the ring, till they came to the place facing the sectionof the Authorities, where they made their salute.

So this was a bull-fight! Kate already felt a chill of disgust.

In the seats of the Authorities were very few people, andcertainly no sparkling ladies in high tortoise-shell combs andlace mantillas. A few common-looking people, bourgeois[Pg 15]with not much taste, and a couple of officers in uniform.The President had not come.

There was no glamour, no charm. A few commonplacepeople in an expanse of concrete were the elect, and below,four grotesque and effeminate looking fellows in tight, ornateclothes were the heroes. With their rather fat posteriorsand their squiffs of pigtails and their clean-shaven faces,they looked like eunuchs, or women in tight pants, theseprecious toreadors.

The last of Kate’s illusions concerning bull-fights camedown with a flop. These were the darlings of the mob?These were the gallant toreadors! Gallant? Just about asgallant as assistants in a butcher’s shop. Lady-killers?Ugh!

There was an Ah! of satisfaction from the mob. Into thering suddenly rushed a smallish, dun-coloured bull with longflourishing horns. He ran out, blindly, as if from the dark,probably thinking that now he was free. Then he stoppedshort, seeing he was not free, but surrounded in an unknownway. He was utterly at a loss.

A toreador came forward and switched out a pink cloaklike a fan not far from the bull’s nose. The bull gave aplayful little prance, neat and pretty, and charged mildlyon the cloak. The toreador switched the cloak over theanimal’s head, and the neat little bull trotted on round thering, looking for a way to get out.

Seeing the wooden barrier around the arena, finding hewas able to look over it, he thought he might as well takethe leap. So over he went into the corridor or passage-waywhich circled the ring, and in which stood the servants ofthe arena.

Just as nimbly, these servants vaulted over the barrierinto the arena, that was now bull-less.

The bull in the gangway trotted inquiringly round till hecame to an opening on to the arena again. So back hetrotted into the ring.

And back into the gangway vaulted the servants, wherethey stood again to look on.

The bull trotted waveringly and somewhat irritated. Thetoreadors waved their cloaks at him, and he swerved on.Till his vague course took him to where one of the horsem*nwith lances sat motionless on his horse.

[Pg 16]

Instantly, in a pang of alarm, Kate noticed that the horsewas thickly blindfolded with a black cloth. Yes, and so wasthe horse on which sat the other picador.

The bull trotted suspiciously up to the motionless horsebearing the rider with the long pole; a lean old horse thatwould never move till Doomsday, unless someone shoved it.

O shades of Don Quixote! Oh four Spanish horsem*n ofthe Apocalypse! This was surely one of them.

The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly, to facethe bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-pointinto the bull’s shoulder. The bull, as if the horse werea great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered hishead in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight upinto the horse’s abdomen. And without more ado, over wenthorse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

The rider scrambled from under the horse and went runningaway with his lance. The old horse, in complete dazedamazement, struggled to rise, as if overcome with dumbincomprehension. And the bull, with a red place on hisshoulder welling a trickle of dark blood, stood looking aroundin equally hopeless amazement.

But the wound was hurting. He saw the queer sight of thehorse half reared from the ground, trying to get to its feet.And he smelled blood and bowels.

So rather vaguely, as if not quite knowing what he oughtto do, the bull once more lowered his head and pushed hissharp, flourishing horns in the horse’s belly, working themup and down inside there with a sort of vague satisfaction.

Kate had never been taken so completely by surprise inall her life. She had still cherished some idea of a gallantshow. And before she knew where she was, she was watchinga bull whose shoulders trickled blood goring his hornsup and down inside the belly of a prostrate and feeblyplunging old horse.

The shock almost overpowered her. She had come for agallant show. This she had paid to see. Human cowardiceand beastliness, a smell of blood, a nauseous whiff ofbursten bowels! She turned her face away.

When she looked again, it was to see the horse feebly anddazedly walking out of the ring, with a great ball of its ownentrails hanging out of its abdomen and swinging reddishagainst its own legs as it automatically moved.

[Pg 17]

And once more, the shock of amazement almost made herlose consciousness. She heard the confused small applauseof amusem*nt from the mob. And that Pole, to whom Owenhad introduced her, leaned over and said to her, in horribleEnglish:

“Now, Miss Leslie, you are seeing Life! Now you willhave something to write about, in your letters to England.”

She looked at his unwholesome face in complete repulsion,and wished Owen would not introduce her to such sordidindividuals.

She looked at Owen. His nose had a sharp look, like alittle boy who may make himself sick, but who is watchingat the shambles with all his eyes, knowing it is forbidden.

Villiers, the younger generation, looked intense andabstract, getting the sensation. He would not even feel sick.He was just getting the thrill of it, without emotion, coldlyand scientifically, but very intent.

And Kate felt a real pang of hatred against this Americanismwhich is coldly and unscrupulously sensational.

“Why doesn’t the horse move? Why doesn’t it run awayfrom the bull?” she asked in repelled amazement, of Owen.

Owen cleared his throat.

“Didn’t you see? It was blindfolded,” he said.

“But can’t it smell the bull?” she asked.

“Apparently not.—They bring the old wrecks here tofinish them off.—I know it’s awful, but it’s part of thegame.”

How Kate hated phrases like “part of the game.” Whatdo they mean, anyhow! She felt utterly humiliated, crushedby a sense of human indecency, cowardice of two-leggedhumanity. In this “brave” show she felt nothing butreeking cowardice. Her breeding and her natural pride wereoutraged.

The ring servants had cleaned away the mess and spreadnew sand. The toreadors were playing with the bull, unfurlingtheir foolish cloaks at arm’s length. And the animal,with the red sore running on his shoulder, foolishly caperedand ran from one rag to the other, here and there.

For the first time, a bull seemed to her a fool. She hadalways been afraid of bulls, fear tempered with reverence ofthe great Mithraic beast. And now she saw how stupid hewas, in spite of his long horns and his massive maleness.[Pg 18]Blindly and stupidly he ran at the rag, each time, and thetoreadors skipped like fat-hipped girls showing off. Probablyit needed skill and courage, but it looked silly.

Blindly and foolishly the bull ran ducking its horns eachtime at the rag, just because the rag fluttered.

“Run at the men, idiot!” said Kate aloud, in her overwroughtimpatience. “Run at the men, not at the cloaks.”

“They never do, isn’t it curious!” replied Villiers, withcool scientific interest. “They say no toreador will face acow, because a cow always goes for him instead of the cloak.If a bull did that there’d be no bull-fights. Imagine it!”

She was bored now. The nimbleness and the skippingtricks of the toreadors bored her. Even when one of thebanderilleros reared himself on tiptoe, his plump posteriormuch in evidence, and from his erectness pushed two razor-sharpdarts with frills at the top into the bull’s shoulder,neatly and smartly, Kate felt no admiration. One of thedarts fell out, anyway, and the bull ran on with the otherswinging and waggling in another bleeding place.

The bull now wanted to get away, really. He leaped thefence again, quickly, into the attendants’ gangway. Theattendants vaulted over into the arena. The bull trottedin the corridor, then nicely leaped back. The attendantsvaulted once more into the corridor. The bull trotted roundthe arena, ignoring the toreadors, and leaped once more intothe gangway. Over vaulted the attendants.

Kate was beginning to be amused, now that the mongrelmen were skipping for safety.

The bull was in the ring again, running from cloak tocloak, foolishly. A banderillero was getting ready with twomore darts. But first another picador put nobly forward onhis blindfolded old horse. The bull ignored this little lottoo, and trotted away again, as if all the time looking forsomething, excitedly looking for something. He stood stilland excitedly pawed the ground, as if he wanted something.A toreador advanced and swung a cloak. Up pranced thebull, tail in air, and with a prancing bound charged—uponthe rag, of course. The toreador skipped round with aladylike skip, then tripped to another point. Very pretty!

The bull, in the course of his trotting and prancing andpawing, had once more come near the bold picador. Thebold picador shoved forward his ancient steed, leaned forwards,[Pg 19]and pushed the point of his lance in the bull’sshoulder. The bull looked up, irritated and arrested. Whatthe devil!

He saw the horse and rider. The horse stood with thatfeeble monumentality of a milk horse, patient as if betweenthe shafts, waiting while his master delivered the milk. Howstrange it must have been to him when the bull, giving alittle bound like a dog, ducked its head and dived its hornsupwards into his belly, rolling him over with his rider as onemight push over a hat-stand.

The bull looked with irritable wonder at the incomprehensiblemedley of horse and rider kicking on the ground a fewyards away from him. He drew near to investigate. Therider scrambled out and bolted. And the toreadors runningup with their cloaks, drew off the bull. He went caracolinground, charging at more silk-lined rags.

Meanwhile an attendant had got the horse on its feet again,and was leading it totteringly into the gangway and roundto the exit, under the Authorities. The horse crawled slowly.The bull, running from pink cloak to red cloak, rag to rag,and never catching anything, was getting excited, impatientof the rag game. He jumped once more into the gangwayand started running, alas, on towards where the woundedhorse was still limping its way to the exit.

Kate knew what was coming. Before she could lookaway, the bull had charged on the limping horse from behind,the attendants had fled, the horse was up-ended absurdly,one of the bull’s horns between his hind legs anddeep in his inside. Down went the horse, collapsing in front,but his rear was still heaved up, with the bull’s horn workingvigorously up and down inside him, while he lay on his neckall twisted. And a huge heap of bowels coming out. Anda nauseous stench. And the cries of pleased amusem*ntamong the crowd.

This pretty event took place on Kate’s side of the ring,and not far from where she sat, below her. Most of thepeople were on their feet craning to look down over the edgeto watch the conclusion of this delightful spectacle.

Kate knew if she saw any more she would go into hysterics.She was getting beside herself.

She looked swiftly at Owen, who looked like a guilty boyspell-bound.

[Pg 20]

“I’m going!” she said, rising.

“Going!” he cried, in wonder and dismay, his flushedface and his bald flushed forehead a picture, looking up ather.

But she had already turned, and was hurrying away towardsthe mouth of the exit-tunnel.

Owen came running after her, flustered, and drawn in alldirections.

“Really going!” he said in chagrin, as she came to thehigh, vaulted exit-tunnel.

“I must. I’ve got to get out,” she cried. “Don’t youcome.”

“Really!” he echoed, torn all ways.

The scene was creating a very hostile attitude in the audience.To leave the bull-fight is a national insult.

“Don’t come! Really! I shall take a tram-car,” shesaid hurriedly.

“Really! Do you really think you’ll be all right?”

“Perfectly. You stay. Goodbye! I can’t smell any moreof this stink.”

He turned like Orpheus looking back into hell, and waveringmade towards his seat again.

It was not so easy, because many people were now on theirfeet and crowding to the exit vault. The rain which hadsputtered a few drops suddenly fell in a downward splash.People were crowding to shelter; but Owen, unheeding,fought his way back to his seat, and sat in his rain-coat withthe rain pouring on his bald head. He was as nearly inhysterics as Kate. But he was convinced that this was life.He was seeing LIFE, and what can an American domore!

“They might just as well sit and enjoy somebody else’sdiarrhœa” was the thought that passed through Kate’s distractedbut still Irish mind.

There she was in the great concrete archway under thestadium, with the lousy press of the audience crowding inafter her. Facing outwards, she saw the straight downpourof the rain, and a little beyond, the great wooden gates thatopened to the free street. Oh to be out, to be out of this,to be free!

But it was pouring tropical rain. The little shoddysoldiers were pressing back under the brick gateway, for[Pg 21]shelter. And the gates were almost shut. Perhaps theywould not let her out. Oh horror!

She stood hovering in front of the straight downpour.She would have dashed out, but for the restraining thoughtof what she would look like when her thin gauze dress wasplastered to her body by drenching rain. On the brink shehovered.

Behind her, from the inner end of the stadium tunnel, thepeople were surging in in waves. She stood horrified andalone, looking always out to freedom. The crowd was in astate of excitement, cut off in its sport, on tenterhooks lestit should miss anything. Thank goodness the bulk stayednear the inner end of the vault. She hovered near the outerend, ready to bolt at any moment.

The rain crashed steadily down.

She waited on the outer verge, as far from the people aspossible. Her face had that drawn, blank look of a womannear hysterics. She could not get out of her eyes the lastpicture of the horse lying twisted on its neck with its hind-quartersh*tched up and the horn of the bull goring slowlyand rhythmically in its vitals. The horse so utterly passiveand grotesque. And all its bowels slipping on to the ground.

But a new terror was the throng inside the tunnel entrance.The big arched place was filling up, but still thecrowd did not come very near her. They pressed towardsthe inner exit.

They were mostly loutish men in city clothes, the mongrelmen of a mongrel city. Two men stood making wateragainst the wall, in the interval of their excitement. Onefather had kindly brought his little boys to the show, andstood in fat, sloppy paternal benevolence above them. Theywere pale mites, the elder about ten years old, highly dressedup in Sunday clothes. And badly they needed protectingfrom that paternal benevolence, for they were oppressed,peaked and a bit wan from the horrors. To those childrenat least bull-fights did not come natural, but would be anacquired taste. There were other children, however, andfat mammas in black satin that was greasy and grey at theedges with an overflow of face-powder. These fat mammashad a pleased, excited look in their eyes, almost sexual, andvery distasteful in contrast to their soft passive bodies.

Kate shivered a little in her thin frock, for the ponderous[Pg 22]rain had a touch of ice. She stared through the curtain ofwater at the big rickety gates of the enclosure surroundingthe amphitheatre, at the midget soldiers cowering in theirshoddy, pink-white cotton uniforms, and at the glimpse ofthe squalid street outside, now running with dirty brownstreams. The vendors had all taken refuge, in dirty-whiteclusters, in the pulque shops, one of which was sinisterlynamed: A Ver que Sale.

She was afraid more of the repulsiveness than of anything.She had been in many cities of the world, but Mexico had anunderlying ugliness, a sort of squalid evil, which madeNaples seem debonair in comparison. She was afraid, shedreaded the thought that anything might really touch herin this town, and give her the contagion of its crawling sortof evil. But she knew that the one thing she must do wasto keep her head.

A little officer in uniform, wearing a big, pale-blue cape,made his way through the crowd. He was short, dark,and had a little black beard like an imperial. He camethrough the people from the inner entrance, and cleared hisway with a quiet, silent unobtrusiveness, yet with the peculiarheavy Indian momentum. Even touching the crowddelicately with his gloved hand, and murmuring almost inaudiblythe Con permiso! formula, he seemed to be keepinghimself miles away from contact. He was brave too: becausethere was just the chance some lout might shoot himbecause of his uniform. The people knew him too. Katecould tell that by the flicker of a jeering, self-conscioussmile that passed across many faces, and the exclamation:“General Viedma! Don Cipriano!”

He came towards Kate, saluting and bowing with a brittleshyness.

“I am General Viedma. Did you wish to leave? Let meget you an automobile,” he said, in very English English,that sounded strange from his dark face, and a little stiffon his soft tongue.

His eyes were dark, quick, with the glassy darkness thatshe found so wearying. But they were tilted up with acurious slant, under arched black brows. It gave him anodd look of detachment, as if he looked at life with raisedbrows. His manner was superficially assured, underneathperhaps half-savage, shy and farouche, and deprecating.

[Pg 23]

“Thank you so much,” she said.

He called to a soldier in the gateway.

“I will send you in the automobile of my friend,” hesaid. “It will be better than a taxi. You don’t like thebull-fight?”

“No! Horrible!” said Kate. “But do get me a yellowtaxi. That is quite safe.”

“Well, the man has gone for the automobile. You areEnglish, yes?”

“Irish,” said Kate.

“Ah Irish!” he replied, with the flicker of a smile.

“You speak English awfully well,” she said.

“Yes! I was educated there. I was in England sevenyears.”

“Were you! My name is Mrs Leslie.”

“Ah Leslie! I knew James Leslie in Oxford. He waskilled in the war.”

“Yes. That was my husband’s brother.”

“Oh really!”

“How small the world is!” said Kate.

“Yes indeed!” said the general.

There was a pause.

“And the gentlemen who are with you, they are—?”

“American,” said Kate.

“Ah Americans! Ah yes!”

“The older one is my cousin—Owen Rhys.”

“Owen Rhys! Ah yes! I think I saw in the newspaperyou were here in town—visiting Mexico.”

He spoke in a peculiar quiet voice, rather suppressed, andhis quick eyes glanced at her, and at his surroundings, likethose of a man perpetually suspecting an ambush. But hisface had a certain silent hostility, under his kindness. Hewas saving his nation’s reputation.

“They did put in a not very complimentary note,” saidKate. “I think they don’t like it that we stay in the HotelSan Remo. It is too poor and foreign. But we are none ofus rich, and we like it better than those other places.”

“The Hotel San Remo? Where is that?”

“In the Avenida del Peru. Won’t you come and see usthere, and meet my cousin and Mr Thompson?”

“Thank you! Thank you! I hardly ever go out. ButI will call if I may, and then perhaps you will all[Pg 24]come to see me at the house of my friend, Señor RamónCarrasco.”

“We should like to,” said Kate.

“Very well. And shall I call, then?”

She told him a time, and added:

“You mustn’t be surprised at the hotel. It is small, andnearly all Italians. But we tried some of the big ones, andthere is such a feeling of lowness about them, awful! Ican’t stand the feeling of prostitution. And then the cheapinsolence of the servants. No, my little San Remo may berough, but it’s kindly and human, and it’s not rotten. Itis like Italy as I always knew it, decent, and with a bit ofhuman generosity. I do think Mexico City is evil, underneath.”

“Well,” he said, “the hotels are bad. It is unfortunate,but the foreigners seem to make the Mexicans worse thanthey are, naturally. And Mexico, or something in it, certainlymakes the foreigners worse than they are at home.”

He spoke with a certain bitterness.

“Perhaps we should all stay away,” she said.

“Perhaps!” he said, lifting his shoulders a little. “ButI don’t think so.”

He relapsed into a slightly blank silence. Peculiar howhis feelings flushed over him, anger, diffidence, wistfulness,assurance, and an anger again, all in little flushes, and somewhatnaïve.

“It doesn’t rain so much,” said Kate. “When will thecar come?”

“It is here now. It has been waiting some time,” hereplied.

“Then I’ll go,” she said.

“Well,” he replied, looking at the sky. “It is still raining,and your dress is very thin. You must take my cloak.”

“Oh!” she said, shrinking. “It is only two yards.”

“It is still raining fairly fast. Better either wait, or letme lend you my cloak.”

He swung out of his cloak with a quick little movement,and held it up to her. Almost without realising, she turnedher shoulders to him, and he put the cape on her. Shecaught it round her, and ran out to the gate, as if escaping.He followed, with a light yet military stride. The soldierssaluted rather slovenly, and he responded briefly.

[Pg 25]

A not very new Fiat stood at the gate, with a chauffeurin a short red-and-black check coat. The chauffeur openedthe door. Kate slipped off the cloak as she got in, andhanded it back. He stood with it over his arm.

“Goodbye!” she said. “Thank you ever so much. Andwe shall see you on Tuesday. Do put your cape on.”

“On Tuesday, yes. Hotel San Remo. Calle de Peru,”he added to the chauffeur. Then turning again to Kate:“The hotel, no?”

“Yes,” she said, and instantly changed. “No, take meto Sanborn’s, where I can sit in a corner and drink tea tocomfort me.”

“To comfort you after the bull-fight?” he said, withanother quick smile. “To Sanborn’s, Gonzalez.”

He saluted and bowed and closed the door. The carstarted.

Kate sat back, breathing relief. Relief to get away fromthat beastly place. Relief even to get away from that niceman. He was awfully nice. But he made her feel shewanted to get away from him too. There was that heavy,black Mexican fatality about him, that put a burden on her.His quietness, and his peculiar assurance, almost aggressive;and at the same time, a nervousness, an uncertainty. Hisheavy sort of gloom, and yet his quick, naïve, childish smile.Those black eyes, like black jewels, that you couldn’t lookinto, and which were so watchful; yet which, perhaps, werewaiting for some sign of recognition and of warmth! Perhaps!

She felt again, as she felt before, that Mexico lay in herdestiny almost as a doom. Something so heavy, so oppressive,like the folds of some huge serpent that seemed as if itcould hardly raise itself.

She was glad to get to her corner in the tea-house, to feelherself in the cosmopolitan world once more, to drink hertea and eat strawberry shortcake and try to forget.

Owen came back to the hotel at about half-past six, tired,excited, a little guilty, and a good deal distressed at havinglet Kate go alone. And now the whole thing was over, ratherdreary in spirit.

“Oh, how did you get on?” he cried, the moment he sawher, afraid almost like a boy of his own sin of omission.

“I got on perfectly. Went to Sanborn’s for tea, and hadstrawberry shortcake—so good!”

“Oh, good for you!” he laughed in relief. “Then youweren’t too much overcome! I’m so glad. I had such awfulqualms after I’d let you go. Imagined all the things thatare supposed to happen in Mexico—chauffeur driving awaywith you into some horrible remote region, and robbing youand all that—but then I knew really you’d be all right. Oh,the time I had—the rain!—and the people throwing thingsat my bald patch—and those horses—wasn’t that horrible?—Iwonder I’m still alive.” And he laughed with tired excitement,putting his hand over his stomach and rolling hiseyes.

“Aren’t you drenched?” she said.

“Drenched!” he replied. “Or at least I was. I’vedried off quite a lot. My rain-coat is no good—I don’t knowwhy I don’t buy another. Oh, but what a time! The rainstreaming on my bald head, and the crowd behind throwingoranges at it. Then simply gored in my inside about lettingyou go alone. Yet it was the only bull-fight I shall ever see.I came then before it was over. Bud wouldn’t come. Isuppose he’s still there.”

“Was it as awful as the beginning?” she asked.

“No! No! It wasn’t. The first was worst—that horse-shambles.Oh, they killed two more horses. And five bulls!Yes, a regular butchery. But some of it was very neat work;those toreadors did some very pretty feats. One stood on hiscloak while a bull charged him.”

“I think,” interrupted Kate, “if I knew that some ofthose toreadors were going to be tossed by the bull, I’d go tosee another bull-fight. Ugh, how I detest them! The longerI live the more loathesome the human species becomes tome. How much nicer the bulls are!”

[Pg 27]

“Oh, quite!” said Owen vaguely. “Exactly. But stillthere was some very skilful work, very pretty. Really veryplucky.”

“Yah!” snarled Kate. “Plucky! They with all theirknives and their spears and cloaks and darts—and they knowjust how a bull will behave. It’s just a performance ofhuman beings torturing animals, with those common fellowsshowing off, how smart they are at hurting a bull. Dirtylittle boys maiming flies—that’s what they are. Only grown-up,they are bastards, not boys. Oh, I wish I could be abull, just for five minutes. Bastard, that’s what I callit!”

“Well!” laughed Owen uneasily. “It is rather.”

“Call that manliness!” cried Kate. “Then thank Goda million times that I’m a woman, and know poltroonery anddirty-mindedness when I see it.”

Again Owen laughed uncomfortably.

“Go upstairs and change,” she said. “You’ll die.”

“I think I’d better. I feel I might die any minute, as amatter of fact. Well, till dinner then. I’ll tap at your doorin half an hour.”

Kate sat trying to sew, but her hand trembled. She couldnot get the bull-ring out of her mind, and something feltdamaged in her inside.

She straightened herself, and sighed. She was really veryangry, too, with Owen. He was naturally so sensitive, andso kind. But he had the insidious modern disease of tolerance.He must tolerate everything, even a thing thatrevolted him. He would call it Life! He would feel hehad lived this afternoon. Greedy even for the most sordidsensations.

Whereas she felt as if she had eaten something which wasgiving her ptomaine poisoning. If that was life!

Ah men, men! They all had this soft rottenness of thesoul, a strange perversity which made even the squalid, repulsivethings seem part of life to them. Life! And whatis life? A louse lying on its back and kicking? Ugh!

At about seven o’clock Villiers came tapping. He lookedwan, peaked, but like a bird that had successfully peckeda bellyful of garbage.

“Oh it was GREAT!” he said, lounging on one hip.“GREAT! They killed seven BULLS.”

[Pg 28]

“No calves, unfortunately,” said Kate, suddenly furiousagain.

He paused to consider the point, then laughed. Her angerwas another slight sensational amusem*nt to him.

“No, no calves,” he said. “The calves have come hometo be fattened. But several more horses after you’d gone.”

“I don’t want to hear,” she said coldly.

He laughed, feeling rather heroic. After all, one must beable to look on blood and bursten bowels calmly: even witha certain thrill. The young hero! But there were dark ringsround his eyes, like a debauch.

“Oh but!” he began, making a rather coy face. “Don’tyou want to hear what I did after! I went to the hotel ofthe chief toreador, and saw him lying on his bed all dressedup, smoking a fat cigar. Rather like a male Venus who isnever undressed. So funny!”

“Who took you there?” she said.

“That Pole, you remember?—and a Spaniard who talkedEnglish. The toreador was great, lying on his bed in all hisget-up, except his shoes, and quite a crowd of men going overit all again—wawawawawa!—you never heard such a row!”

“Aren’t you wet?” said Kate.

“No, not at all. I’m perfectly dry. You see I had mycoat. Only my head, of course. My poor hair was allstreaked down my face like streaks of dye.” He wiped histhin hair across his head with rather self-conscious humour.“Hasn’t Owen come in?” he asked.

“Yes, he’s changing.”

“Well I’ll go up. I suppose it’s nearly supper time. Ohyes, it’s after!” At which discovery he brightened as if he’dreceived a gift.

“Oh by the way, how did you get on? Rather mean ofus to let you go all alone like that,” he said, as he hungpoised in the open doorway.

“Not at all,” she said. “You wanted to stay. And Ican look after myself, at my time of life.”

“We-ell!” he said, with an American drawl. “Maybeyou can!” Then he gave a little laugh. “But you shouldhave seen all those men rehearsing in that bedroom, throwingtheir arms about, and the toreador lying on the bed likeVenus with a fat cigar, listening to her lovers.”

“I’m glad I didn’t,” said Kate.

[Pg 29]

Villiers disappeared with a wicked little laugh.

And as she sat her hands trembled with outrage and passion.A-moral! How could one be a-moral, or non-moral,when one’s soul was revolted! How could one be like theseAmericans, picking over the garbage of sensations, and gobblingit up like carrion birds. At the moment, both Owenand Villiers seemed to her like carrion birds, repulsive.

She felt, moreover, that they both hated her first becauseshe was a woman. It was all right so long as she fell inwith them in every way. But the moment she stood outagainst them in the least, they hated her mechanically forthe very fact that she was a woman. They hated her womanness.

And in this Mexico, with its great under-drift of squalorand heavy reptile-like evil, it was hard for her to bear up.

She was really fond of Owen. But how could she respecthim? So empty, and waiting for circ*mstance to fill himup. Swept with an American despair of having lived in vain,or of not having really lived. Having missed something.Which fearful misgiving would make him rush like mechanicalsteel filings to a magnet, towards any crowd in the street.And then all his poetry and philosophy gone with the cigarette-endhe threw away, he would stand craning his neck inone more frantic effort to see—just to see. Whatever it was,he must see it. Or he might miss something. And then,after he’d seen an old ragged woman run over by a motor-carand bleeding on the floor, he’d come back to Kate paleat the gills, sick, bewildered, daunted, and yet, yes, gladhe’d seen it. It was Life!

“Well,” said Kate, “I always thank God I’m not Argus.Two eyes are often two too many for me, in all the horrors.I don’t feed myself on street-accidents.”

At dinner they tried to talk of pleasanter things than bull-fights.Villiers was neat and tidy and very nicely mannered,but she knew he was keeping a little mocking laugh up hissleeve, because she could not stomach the afternoon’s garbage.He himself had black rings under his eyes, but thatwas because he had “lived.”

The climax came with the dessert. In walked the Poleand that Spaniard who spoke American. The Pole was unhealthyand unclean-looking. She heard him saying toOwen, who of course had risen with automatic cordiality:

[Pg 30]

“We thought we’d come here to dinner. Well, how areyou.”

Kate’s skin was already goose-flesh. But the next instantshe heard that dingy voice, that spoke so many languagesdingily, assailing her with familiarity:

“Ah, Miss Leslie, you missed the best part of it. Youmissed all the fun! Oh, I say—”

Rage flew into her heart and fire into her eyes. She gotup suddenly from her chair, and faced the fellow behindher.

“Thank you!” she said. “I don’t want to hear. Idon’t want you to speak to me. I don’t want to know you.”

She looked at him once, then turned her back, sat downagain, and took a pitahaya from the fruit plate.

The fellow went green, and stood a moment speechless.

“Oh, all right!” he said mechanically, turning away tothe Spaniard who spoke American.

“Well—see you later!” said Owen rather hurriedly, andhe went back to his seat at Kate’s table.

The two strange fellows sat at another table. Kate ateher cactus fruit in silence, and waited for her coffee. Bythis time she was not so angry, she was quite calm. Andeven Villiers hid his joy in a new sensation under a mannerof complete quiet composure.

When coffee came she looked at the two men at the othertable, and at the two men at her own table.

“I’ve had enough of canaille, of any sort,” she said.

“Oh, I understand, perfectly,” said Owen.

After dinner, she went to her room. And through thenight she could not sleep, but lay listening to the noises ofMexico City, then to the silence and the strange, grisly fearthat so often creeps out on to the darkness of a Mexicannight. Away inside her, she loathed Mexico City. She evenfeared it. In the daytime it had a certain spell—but atnight, the underneath grisliness and evil came forth.

In the morning Owen also announced that he had not sleptat all.

“Oh, I never slept so well since I was in Mexico,” saidVilliers, with a triumphant look of a bird that has justpecked a good morsel from the garbage-heap.

“Look at the frail aesthetic youth!” said Owen, in ahollow voice.

[Pg 31]

“His frailty and his aestheticism are both bad signs, tome,” said Kate ominously.

“And the youth. Surely that’s another!” said Owen,with a dead laugh.

But Villiers only gave a little snort of cold, pleased amusem*nt.

Someone was calling Miss Leslie on the telephone, saidthe Mexican chambermaid. It was the only person Kateknew in the capital—or in the Distrito Federal—a MrsNorris, widow of an English embassador of thirty years ago.She had a big, ponderous old house out in the village ofTlacolula.

“Yes! Yes! This is Mrs Norris. How are you? That’sright, that’s right. Now, Mrs Leslie, won’t you come out totea this afternoon and see the garden? I wish you would.Two friends are coming in to see me, two Mexicans: DonRamón Carrasco and General Viedma. They are bothcharming men, and Don Ramón is a great scholar. Iassure you, they are both entirely the exception amongMexicans. Oh, but entirely the exception! So now, mydear Mrs Leslie, won’t you come with your cousin? I wishyou would.”

Kate remembered the little general; he was a good dealsmaller than herself. She remembered his erect, alert littlefigure, something bird-like, and the face with eyes slantingunder arched eyebrows, and the little black tuft of an imperialon the chin: a face with a peculiar Chinese suggestion,without being Chinese in the least, really. An odd, detached,yet co*cky little man, a true little Indian, speakingOxford English in a rapid, low, musical voice, with extraordinarilygentle intonation. Yet those black, inhuman eyes!

Till this minute she had not really been able to recall himto herself, to get any sharp impression. Now she had it.He was an Indian pure and simple. And in Mexico, sheknew, there were more generals than soldiers. There hadbeen three generals in the Pullman coming down from ElPaso, two, more or less educated, in the “drawing-room,”and the third, a real peasant Indian, travelling with a frizzyhalf-white woman who looked as if she had fallen into a flour-sack,her face was so deep in powder, and her frizzy hair andher brown silk dress so douched with the white dust of it.Neither this “general” nor this woman had ever been in a[Pg 32]Pullman before. But the general was sharper than thewoman. He was a tall wiry fellow with a reddened pock-markedface and sharp little black eyes. He followed Owento the smoking room, and watched with sharp eyes, to seehow everything was done. And soon he knew. And hewould wipe his wash-bowl dry as neatly as anybody. Therewas something of a real man about him. But the poor, half-whitewoman, when she wanted the ladies’ toilet, got lost inthe passage and wailed aloud: I don’t know where to go!No sé adonde! No sé adonde!—until the general sent thePullman boy to direct her.

But it had annoyed Kate to see this general and thiswoman eating chicken and asparagus and jelly in the Pullman,paying fifteen pesos for a rather poor dinner, when fora peso-and-a-half apiece they could have eaten a bettermeal, and real Mexican, at the meal-stop station. And allthe poor, barefoot people clamouring on the platform, whilethe “general,” who was a man of their own sort, noblyswallowed his asparagus on the other side of the window-pane.

But this is how they save the people, in Mexico and elsewhere.Some tough individual scrambles up out of thesqualor and proceeds to save himself. Who pays for theasparagus and jelly and face-powder, nobody asks, becauseeverybody knows.

And so much for Mexican generals: as a rule, a class tobe strictly avoided.

Kate was aware of all this. She wasn’t much interestedin any sort of Mexican in office. There is so much in theworld that one wants to avoid, as one wants to avoid thelice that creep on the unwashed crowd.

Being rather late, Owen and Kate bumped out to Tlacolulain a Ford taxi. It was a long way, a long way throughthe peculiar squalid endings of the town, then along thestraight road between trees, into the valley. The sun ofApril was brilliant, there were piles of cloud about the sky,where the volcanoes would be. The valley stretched away toits sombre, atmospheric hills, in a flat dry bed, parched exceptwhere there was some crop being irrigated. The soilseemed strange, dry, blackish, artificially wetted, and old.The trees rose high, and hung bare boughs, or witheredshade. The buildings were either new and alien, like the[Pg 33]Country Club, or cracked and dilapidated, with all theplaster falling off. The falling of thick plaster from crackedbuildings—one could almost hear it!

Yellow tram-cars rushed at express speed away down thefenced-in car-lines, rushing round towards Xochimilco orTlalpam. The asphalt road ran outside these lines, and onthe asphalt rushed incredibly dilapidated Ford omnibuses,crowded with blank dark natives in dirty cotton clothes andbig straw hats. At the far edge of the road, on the dust-tracksunder the trees, little donkeys under huge loadsloitered towards the city, driven by men with blackenedfaces and bare, blackened legs. Three-fold went the traffic;the roar of the tram-trains, the clatter of the automobiles,the straggle of asses and of outside-seeming individuals.

Occasional flowers would splash out in colour from a ruinof falling plaster. Occasional women with strong, dark-brownarms would be washing rags in a drain. An occasionalhorseman would ride across to the herd of motionlessblack-and-white cattle on the field. Occasional maize fieldswere already coming green. And the pillars that mark thewater conduits passed one by one.

They went through the tree-filled plaza of Tlacolula, wherenatives were squatting on the ground, selling fruits orsweets, then down a road between high walls. They pulledup at last at big gate-doors, beyond which was a heavypink-and-yellow house, and beyond the house, high, darkcypress trees.

In the road two motor-cars were already standing. Thatmeant other visitors. Owen knocked on the studded fortressdoors: there was an imbecile barking of dogs. At last alittle footman with a little black moustache opened silently.

The square, inner patio, dark, with sun lying on the heavyarches of one side, had pots of red and white flowers, butwas ponderous, as if dead for centuries. A certain dead,heavy strength and beauty seemed there, unable to passaway, unable to liberate itself and decompose. There wasa stone basin of clear but motionless water, and the heavyreddish-and-yellow arches went round the courtyard withwarrior-like fatality, their bases in dark shadow. Dead,massive house of the Conquistadores, with a glimpse of tall-growngarden beyond, and further Aztec cypresses risingto strange dark heights. And dead silence, like the black,[Pg 34]porous, absorptive lava rock. Save when the tram-carsbattered past outside the solid wall.

Kate went up the jet-like stone staircase, through theleather doors. Mrs Norris came forward on the terrace ofthe upper patio to receive her guests.

“I’m so glad, my dear, that you came. I should haverung you up before, but I’ve had such trouble with myheart. And the doctor wanting to send me down to a loweraltitude! I said to him, I’ve no patience! If you’re goingto cure me, cure me at an altitude of seven thousand feet orelse admit your incompetence at once. Ridiculous, thisrushing up and down from one altitude to another. I’velived at this height all these years. I simply refuse to bebundled down to Cuernavaca or some other place where Idon’t want to go. Well, my dear, and how are you?”

Mrs Norris was an elderly woman, rather like a conquistadorherself in her black silk dress and her little blackshoulder-shawl of fine cashmere, with a short silk fringe, andher ornaments of black enamel. Her face had gone slightlygrey, her nose was sharp and dusky, and her voice hammeredalmost like metal, a slow, distinct, peculiar hard music ofits own. She was an archaeologist, and she had studied theAztec remains so long, that now some of the black-grey lookof the lava rock, and some of the experience of the Aztecidols, with sharp nose and slightly prominent eyes and anexpression of tomb-like mockery, had passed into her face.A lonely daughter of culture, with a strong mind and a densewill, she had browsed all her life on the hard stones ofarchaeological remains, and at the same time she had retaineda strong sense of humanity, and a slightly fantastichumorous vision of her fellow men.

From the first instant, Kate respected her for her isolationand her dauntlessness. The world is made up of a massof people and a few individuals. Mrs Norris was one of thefew individuals. True, she played her social game all thetime. But she was an odd number; and all alone, she couldgive the even numbers a bad time.

“But come in. Do come in!” she said, after keepingher two guests out on the terrace that was lined with blackidols and dusty native baskets and shields and arrows andtapa, like a museum.

In the dark sitting-room that opened on to the terrace[Pg 35]were visitors: an old man in a black morning coat and whitehair and beard, and a woman in black crêpe-de-chine, withthe inevitable hat of her sort upon her grey hair: a stiff satinturned up on three sides and with black ospreys underneath.She had the baby face and the faded blue eyes and themiddle-west accent inevitable.

“Judge and Mrs Burlap.”

The third visitor was a youngish man, very correct and notquite sure. He was Major Law, American military attachéat the moment.

The three people eyed the newcomers with cautious suspicion.They might be shady. There are indeed so manyshady people in Mexico that it is taken for granted, if youarrive unannounced and unexpected in the capital, that youare probably under an assumed name, and have some dirtygame up your sleeve.

“Been long in Mexico?” snapped the Judge; the policeenquiry had begun.

“No!” said Owen, resonantly, his gorge rising. “Abouttwo weeks.”

“You are an American?”

“I,” said Owen, “am American. Mrs Leslie is English—orrather Irish.”

“Been in the club yet?”

“No,” said Owen, “I haven’t. American clubs aren’tmuch in my line. Though Garfield Spence gave me a letterof introduction.”

“Who? Garfield Spence?” The Judge started as if hehad been stung. “Why the fellow’s nothing better than abolshevist. Why he went to Russia!”

“I should rather like to go to Russia myself,” said Owen.“It is probably the most interesting country in the worldto-day.”

“But weren’t you telling me,” put in Mrs Norris, in herclear, metal-musical voice, “that you loved China so much,Mr Rhys?”

“I did like China very much,” said Owen.

“And I’m sure you made some wonderful collections.Tell me now, what was your particular fancy?”

“Perhaps, after all,” said Owen, “it was jade.”

“Ah jade! Yes! Jade! Jade is beautiful! Thosewonderful little fairy-lands they carve in jade!”

[Pg 36]

“And the stone itself! It was the delicate stone thatfascinated me,” said Owen. “The wonderful quality ofit!”

“Ah wonderful, wonderful! Tell me now, dear MrsLeslie, what you have been doing since I saw you?”

“We went to a bull-fight, and hated it,” said Kate. “Atleast I did. We sat in the Sun, near the ring, and it was allhorrible.”

“Horrible, I am sure. I never went to a bull-fight inMexico. Only in Spain, where there is wonderful colour.Did you ever try a bull-fight, Major?”

“Yes, I have been several times.”

“You have! Then you know all about it. And how areyou liking Mexico, Mrs Leslie?”

“Not much,” said Kate. “It strikes me as evil.”

“It does! It does!” said Mrs Norris. “Ah, if you hadknown it before! Mexico before the revolution! It wasdifferent then. What is the latest news, Major?”

“About the same,” said the Major. “There is a rumourthat the new President will be turned down by the army, afew days before he comes into office. But you never know.”

“I think it would be a great shame not to let him have atry,” put in Owen hotly. “He seems a sincere man, andjust because he is honestly a Labour man, they want toshut him out.”

“Ah, my dear Mr Rhys, they all talk so nobly beforehand.If only their deeds followed their words, Mexico wouldbe heaven on earth.”

“Instead of hell on earth,” snapped the Judge.

A young man and his wife, also Americans, were introducedas Mr and Mrs Henry. The young man was freshand lively.

“We were talking about the new President,” said MrsNorris.

“Well, why not!” said Mr Henry breezily. “I’m justback from Orizaba. And do you know what they’ve gotpasted up on the walls?—Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!Viva el Jesús Cristo de Mexico, Socrates Tomas Montes!”

“Why, did you ever hear of such a thing!” said MrsNorris.

“Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! To the new LabourPresident! I think it’s rich,” said Henry.

[Pg 37]

The Judge stamped his stick on the ground in a speechlessaccess of irritability.

“They pasted on my luggage,” said the Major, “when Icame through Vera Cruz: La degenerada media clasa, Seráregenerada, por mi, Montes. The degenerate middle classshall be regenerated by me, Montes.”

“Poor Montes!” said Kate. “He seems to have got hiswork cut out.”

“He has indeed!” said Mrs Norris. “Poor man, I wishhe might come in peacefully and put a strong hand on thecountry. But there’s not much hope, I’m afraid.”

There was a silence, during which Kate felt that bitterhopelessness that comes over people who know Mexico well.A bitter barren hopelessness.

“How can a man who comes in on a Labour vote, even adoctored one, put a strong hand on a country!” snappedthe Judge. “Why he came in on the very cry of Down withthe strong hand!” And again the old man stamped hisstick in an access of extreme irritability.

This was another characteristic of the old residents of thecity: A state of intense, though often suppressed irritation,an irritation amounting almost to rabies.

“Oh, but mayn’t it be possible that he will change hisviews a little on coming into power?” said Mrs Norris.“So many Presidents have done so.”

“I should say very probable, if ever he gets into power,”said young Henry. “He’ll have all his work cut out savingSocrates Tomas, he won’t have much time left for savingMexico.”

“He’s a dangerous fellow, and will turn out a scoundrel,”said the Judge.

“Myself,” said Owen, “as far as I have followed him, Ibelieve he is sincere, and I admire him.”

“I thought it was so nice,” said Kate, “that they receivedhim in New York with loud music by the StreetSweepers’ Band. The Street Sweepers’ Band they sent toreceive him from the ship!”

“You see,” said the Major, “no doubt the Labour peoplethemselves wished to send that particular band.”

“But to be President Elect, and to be received by theStreet Sweepers’ Band!” said Kate. “No, I can’t believeit!”

[Pg 38]

“Oh, it actually was so,” said the Major. “But that isLabour hailing Labour, surely.”

“The latest rumour,” said Henry, “is that the army willgo over en bloc to General Angulo about the twenty-third,a week before the inauguration.”

“But how is it possible?” said Kate, “when Montesis so popular?”

“Montes popular!” they all cried at once. “Why!”snapped the Judge, “he’s the most unpopular man inMexico.”

“Not with the Labour Party!” said Owen, almost atbay.

“The Labour Party!” the Judge fairly spat like a cat.“There is no such thing. What is the Labour Party inMexico? A bunch of isolated factory hands here and there,mostly in the State of Vera Cruz. The Labour Party!They’ve done what they could already. We know them.”

“That’s true,” said Henry. “The Labourites have triedevery little game possible. When I was in Orizaba theymarched to the Hotel Francia to shoot all the gringos andthe Gachupines. The hotel manager had pluck enough toharangue them, and they went off to the next hotel. Whenthe man came out there to talk to them, they shot him beforehe got a word out. It’s funny, really! If you have togo to the Town Hall, and you’re dressed in decent clothes,they let you sit on a hard bench for hours. But if a street-sweepercomes in, or a fellow in dirty cotton drawers, it isBuenos Dios! Señor! Pase Usted! Quiere Usted algo?—whileyou sit there waiting their pleasure. Oh, it’s quitefunny.”

The Judge trembled with irritation like an access of gout.The party sat in gloomy silence, that sense of doom anddespair overcoming them as it seems to overcome all peoplewho talk seriously about Mexico. Even Owen was silent.He too had come through Vera Cruz, and had had his fright;the porters had charged him twenty pesos to carry his trunkfrom the ship to the train. Twenty pesos is ten dollars, forten minutes’ work. And when Owen had seen the man infront of him arrested and actually sent to jail, a Mexicanjail at that, for refusing to pay the charge, “the legalcharge,” he himself had stumped up without a word.

“I walked into the National Museum the other day,” said[Pg 39]the Major quietly. “Just into that room on the patiowhere the stones are. It was rather a cold morning, with aNorte blowing. I’d been there about ten minutes whensomebody suddenly poked me on the shoulder. I turnedround, and it was a lout in tight boots. You spik English?I said yes! Then he motioned me to take my hat off: I’dgot to take my hat off. What for? said I, and I turned awayand went on looking at their idols and things: ugliest setof stuff in the world, I believe. Then up came the fellowwith the attendant—the attendant of course wearing his cap.They began gabbling that this was the National Museum,and I must take off my hat to their national monuments.Imagine it: those dirty stones! I laughed at them andjammed my hat on tighter and walked out. They arereally only monkeys, when it comes to nationalism.”

“Exactly!” cried Henry. “When they forget all aboutthe Patria and Mexico and all that stuff, they’re as nice apeople as you’d find. But as soon as they get national,they’re just monkeys. A man up from Mixcoatl told me anice story. Mixcoatl is a capital way in the South, andthey’ve got a sort of Labour bureau there. Well, theIndians come in from the hills, as wild as rabbits. And theyget them into that bureau, and the Laboristas, the agitatorfellows, say to them: Now Señores, have you anything toreport from your native village? Haven’t you anything forwhich you would like redress? Then of course the Indiansstart complaining about one another, and the Secretarysays: Wait a minute, gentlemen! Let me ring up theGovernor and report this. So he goes to the telephone andstarts ringing: ringing: Ah! Is that the Palace? Is theGovernor in? Tell him Señor Fulano wants to speak tohim! The Indians sit gaping with open mouths. To themit’s a miracle. Ah! Is that you. Governor! Good morning!How are you! Can I have your attention for a moment?Many thanks! Well I’ve got some gentlemen here downfrom Apaxtle, in the hills: José Garcia, Jesus Querido, etc.—andthey wish to report so-and-so. Yes! Yes! That’s it!Yes! What? You will see that justice is done and thething is made right? Ah señor, many thanks! In the nameof these gentlemen from the hills, from the village of Apaxtle,many thanks.

There sit the Indians staring as if heaven had opened and[Pg 40]the Virgin of Guadalupe was standing tiptoe on their chins.And what do you expect? The telephone is a dummy. Itisn’t connected with anywhere. Isn’t that rich? But it’sMexico.”

The moment’s fatal pause followed this funny story.

“Oh but!” said Kate, “it’s wicked! It is wicked.I’m sure the Indians would be all right, if they were leftalone.”

“Well,” said Mrs Norris. “Mexico isn’t like any otherplace in the world.”

But she spoke with fear and despair in her voice.

“They seem to want to betray everything,” said Kate.“They seem to love criminals and ghastly things. Theyseem to want the ugly things. They seem to want the uglythings to come up to the top. All the foulness that lies atthe bottom, they want to stir up to the top. They seem toenjoy it. To enjoy making everything fouler. Isn’t itcurious!”

“It is curious,” said Mrs Norris.

“But that’s what it is,” said the Judge. “They wantto turn the country into one big crime. They don’t likeanything else. They don’t like honesty and decency andcleanliness. They want to foster lies and crime. What theycall liberty here is just freedom to commit crime. That’swhat Labour means, that’s what they all mean. Free crime,nothing else.”

“I wonder all the foreigners don’t go away,” said Kate.

“They have their occupations here,” snapped the Judge.

“And the good people are all going away. They havenearly all gone, those that have anything left to go to,” saidMrs Norris. “Some of us, who have our property here, andwho have made our lives here, and who know the country,we stay out of a kind of tenacity. But we know it’s hopeless.The more it changes, the worse it is.—Ah, here is DonRamón and Don Cipriano. So pleased to see you. Let meintroduce you.”

Don Ramón Carrasco was a tall, big, handsome man whogave the effect of bigness. He was middle aged, with alarge black moustache and large, rather haughty eyes understraight brows. The General was in civilian clothes, lookingvery small beside the other man, and very smartly built,almost co*cky.

[Pg 41]

“Come,” said Mrs Norris. “Let us go across and havetea.”

The Major excused himself, and took his departure.

Mrs Norris gathered her little shawl round her shouldersand led through a sombre antechamber to a little terrace,where creepers and flowers bloomed thick on the low walls.There was a bell-flower, red and velvety, like blood that isdrying: and clusters of white roses: and tufts of bougainvillea,papery magenta colour.

“How lovely it is here!” said Kate. “Having the greatdark trees beyond.”

But she stood in a kind of dread.

“Yes it is beautiful,” said Mrs Norris, with the gratificationof a possessor. “I have such a time trying to keepthese apart.” And going across in her little black shawl,she pushed the bougainvillea away from the rust-scarlet bell-flowers,stroking the little white roses to make them intervene.

“I think the two reds together interesting,” said Owen.

“Do you really!” said Mrs Norris, automatically, payingno heed to such a remark.

The sky was blue overhead, but on the lower horizon wasa thick, pearl haze. The clouds had gone.

“One never sees Popocatepetl nor Ixtaccihuatl,” saidKate, disappointed.

“No, not at this season. But look, through the treesthere, you see Ajusco!”

Kate looked at the sombre-seeming mountain, betweenthe huge dark trees.

On the low stone parapet were Aztec things, obsidianknives, grimacing squatting idols in black lava, and a queerthickish stone stick, or bâton. Owen was balancing thelatter: it felt murderous even to touch.

Kate turned to the general, who was near her, his faceexpressionless, yet alert.

“Aztec things oppress me,” she said.

“They are oppressive,” he answered, in his beautifulcultured English, that was nevertheless a tiny bit like aparrot talking.

“There is no hope in them,” she said.

“Perhaps the Aztecs never asked for hope,” he said,somewhat automatically.

[Pg 42]

“Surely it is hope that keeps one going?” she said.

“You, maybe. But not the Aztec, nor the Indian to-day.”

He spoke like a man who has something in reserve, whois only half attending to what he hears, and even to his ownanswer.

“What do they have, if they don’t have hope?” shesaid.

“They have some other strength, perhaps,” he saidevasively.

“I would like to give them hope,” she said. “If theyhad hope, they wouldn’t be so sad, and they would becleaner, and not have vermin.”

“That of course would be good,” he said, with a littlesmile. “But I think they are not so very sad. They laugha good deal and are gay.”

“No,” she said. “They oppress me, like a weight on myheart. They make me irritable, and I want to go away.”

“From Mexico?”

“Yes. I feel I want to go away from it and never, neversee it again. It is so oppressive and gruesome.”

“Try it a little longer,” he said. “Perhaps you will feeldifferently. But perhaps not,” he ended vaguely, driftingly.

She could feel in him a sort of yearning towards her. Asif a sort of appeal came to her from him, from his physicalheart in his breast. As if the very heart gave out dark raysof seeking and yearning. She glimpsed this now for thefirst time, quite apart from the talking, and it made her shy.

“And does everything in Mexico oppress you?” headded, almost shyly, but with a touch of mockery, lookingat her with a troubled naïve face that had its age heavy andresistant beneath the surface.

“Almost everything!” she said. “It always makes myheart sink. Like the eyes of the men in the big hats—I callthem the peons. Their eyes have no middle to them. Thosebig handsome men, under their big hats, they aren’t reallythere. They have no centre, no real I. Their middle is araging black hole, like the middle of a maelstrom.”

She looked with her troubled grey eyes into the black,slanting, watchful, calculating eyes of the small man oppositeher. He had a pained expression, puzzled, like a child.[Pg 43]And at the same time something obstinate and mature, ademonish maturity, opposing her in an animal way.

“You mean we aren’t real people, we have nothing of ourown, except killing and death,” he said, quite matter of fact.

“I don’t know,” she said, startled by his interpretation.“I only say how it makes me feel.”

“You are very clever, Mrs Leslie,” came Don Ramón’squiet, but heavy teasing voice behind her. “It is quitetrue. Whenever a Mexican cries Viva! he ends up withMuera! When he says Viva! he really means Death forSomebody or Other! I think of all the Mexican revolutions,and I see a skeleton walking ahead of a great number ofpeople, waving a black banner with Viva la Muerte! writtenin large white letters. Long live Death! Not Viva CristoRey! but Viva Muerte Rey! Vamos! Viva!”

Kate looked round. Don Ramón was flashing his knowingbrown Spanish eyes, and a little sardonic smile lurked underhis moustache. Instantly Kate and he, Europeans inessence, understood one another. He was waving his armto the last Viva!

“But,” said Kate, “I don’t want to say Viva laMuerte!”

“But when you are real Mexican—” he said, teasing.

“I never could be,” she said hotly, and he laughed.

“I’m afraid Viva la Muerte! hits the nail on the head,”said Mrs Norris, rather stonily. “But won’t you come totea! Do!”

She led the way in her black little shawl and neat greyhair, going ahead like a Conquistador herself, and turningto look with her Aztec eyes through her pince-nez, to see ifthe others were coming.

“We are following,” said Don Ramón in Spanish, teasingher. Stately in his black suit, he walked behind her on thenarrow terrace, and Kate followed, with the small, struttingDon Cipriano, also in a black suit, lingering oddly near her.

“Do I call you General or Don Cipriano?” she asked,turning to him.

An amused little smile quickly lit his face, though his eyesdid not smile. They looked at her with a black, sharp look.

“As you wish,” he said. “You know General is a termof disgrace in Mexico. Shall we say Don Cipriano?”

“Yes, I like that much the best,” she said.

[Pg 44]

And he seemed pleased.

It was a round tea-table, with shiny silver tea-service,and silver kettle with a little flame, and pink and whiteoleanders. The little neat young footman carried the tea-cups,in white cotton gloves. Mrs Norris poured tea and cutcakes with a heavy hand.

Don Ramón sat on her right hand, the Judge on her left.Kate was between the Judge and Mr Henry. Everybodyexcept Don Ramón and the Judge was a little nervous. MrsNorris always put her visitors uncomfortably at their ease, asif they were captives and she the chieftainess who had capturedthem. She rather enjoyed it, heavily, archaeologicallyqueening at the head of the table. But it was evidentthat Don Ramón, by far the most impressive person present,liked her. Cipriano, on the other hand, remained mute anddisciplined, perfectly familiar with the tea-table routine,superficially quite at ease, but underneath remote and unconnected.He glanced from time to time at Kate.

She was a beautiful woman, in her own unconventionalway, and with a certain richness. She was going to be fortynext week. Used to all kinds of society, she watched peopleas one reads the pages of a novel, with a certain disinterestedamusem*nt. She was never in any society: too Irish,too wise.

“But of course nobody lives without hope,” Mrs Norriswas saying banteringly to Don Ramón. “If it’s only thehope of a real, to buy a litre of pulque.”

“Ah, Mrs Norris!” he replied in his quiet, yet curiouslydeep voice, like a violincello: “If pulque is the highesthappiness!”

“Then we are fortunate, because a tostón will buy paradise,”she said.

“It is a bon mot, Señora mia,” said Don Ramón, laughingand drinking his tea.

“Now won’t you try these little native cakes with sesameseeds on them!” said Mrs Norris to the table at large.“My cook makes them, and her national feeling is flatteredwhen anybody likes them. Mrs Leslie, do take one.”

“I will,” said Kate. “Does one say Open Sesame!”

“If one wishes,” said Mrs Norris.

“Won’t you have one?” said Kate, handing the plate toJudge Burlap.

[Pg 45]

“Don’t want any,” he snapped, turning his face away asif he had been offered a plate of Mexicans, and leaving Katewith the dish suspended.

Mrs Norris quickly but definitely took the plate, saying:

“Judge Burlap is afraid of Sesame Seed, he prefers thecave shut.” And she handed the dish quietly to Cipriano,who was watching the old man’s bad manners with black,snake-like eyes.

“Did you see that article by Willis Rice Hope, in theExcelsior?” suddenly snarled the Judge, to his hostess.

“I did. I thought it very sensible.”

“The only sensible thing that’s been said about theseAgrarian Laws. Sensible! I should think so. Why RiceHope came to me, and I put him up to a few things. Buthis article says everything, doesn’t miss an item of importance.”

“Quite!” said Mrs Norris, with rather stony attention.“If only saying would alter things, Judge Burlap.”

“Saying the wrong thing has done all the mischief!”snapped the Judge. “Fellows like Garfield Spence comingdown here and talking a lot of criminal talk. Why the town’sfull of Socialists and Sinvergüenzas from New York.”

Mrs Norris adjusted her pince-nez.

“Fortunately,” she said, “they don’t come out to Tlacolula,so we needn’t think about them. Mrs Henry, let megive you some more tea.”

“Do you read Spanish?” the Judge spat out, at Owen.Owen, in his big shell spectacles, was evidently a red rag tohis irritable fellow-countryman.

“No!” said Owen, round as a cannon-shot.

Mrs Norris once more adjusted her eye-glasses.

“It’s such a relief to hear someone who is altogether innocentof Spanish, and altogether unashamed,” she said.“My father had us all speaking four languages by the timewe were twelve, and we have none of us ever quite recovered.My stockings were all dyed blue for me before I put my hairup. By the way! How have you been for walking, Judge?You heard of the time I had with my ankle?”

“Of course we heard!” cried Mrs Burlap, seeing dry landat last. “I’ve been trying so hard to get out to see you,to ask about it. We were so grieved about it.”

“What happened?” said Kate.

[Pg 46]

“Why I foolishly slipped on a piece of orange peel intown—just at the corner of San Juan de Latrán and Madero.And I fell right down. And of course, the first thing I didwhen I got up was to push the piece of orange peel into thegutter. And would you believe it, that lot of Mex—” shecaught herself up—“that lot of fellows standing there at thecorner laughed heartily at me, when they saw me doing it.They thought it an excellent joke.”

“Of course they would,” said the Judge. “They werewaiting for the next person to come along and fall.”

“Did nobody help you?” asked Kate.

“Oh no! If anyone has an accident in this country, youmust never, never help. If you touch them even, you maybe arrested for causing the accident.”

“That’s the law!” said the Judge. “If you touch thembefore the police arrive, you are arrested for complicity. Letthem lie and bleed, is the motto.”

“Is that true?” said Kate to Don Ramón.

“Fairly true,” he replied. “Yes, it is true you must nottouch the one who is hurt.”

“How disgusting!” said Kate.

“Disgusting!” cried the Judge. “A great deal is disgustingin this country, as you’ll learn if you stay here long.I nearly lost my life on a banana skin; lay in a darkenedroom for days, between life and death, and lame for life fromit.”

“How awful!” said Kate. “What did you do whenyou fell?”

“What did I do? Just smashed my hip.”

It had truly been a terrible accident, and the man hadsuffered bitterly.

“You can hardly blame Mexico for a banana skin,” saidOwen, elated. “I fell on one in Lexington Avenue; butfortunately I only bruised myself on a soft spot.”

“That wasn’t your head, was it?” said Mrs Henry.

“No,” laughed Owen. “The other extreme.”

“We’ve got to add banana skins to the list of publicmenaces,” said young Henry. “I’m an American, and Imay any day turn bolshevist, to save my pesos, so I canrepeat what I heard a man saying yesterday. He said thereare only two great diseases in the world to-day—Bolshevismand Americanism; and Americanism is the worst of the[Pg 47]two, because Bolshevism only smashes your house or yourbusiness or your skull, but Americanism smashes your soul.”

“Who was he?” snarled the Judge.

“I forget,” said Henry, wickedly.

“One wonders,” said Mrs Norris slowly, “what he meantby Americanism.”

“He didn’t define it,” said Henry. “Cult of the dollar,I suppose.”

“Well,” said Mrs Norris. “The cult of the dollar, in myexperience, is far more intense in the countries that haven’tgot the dollar, than in the United States.”

Kate felt that the table was like a steel disc to whichthey were all, as victims, magnetised and bound.

“Where is your garden, Mrs Norris?” she asked.

They trooped out, gasping with relief, to the terrace. TheJudge hobbled behind, and Kate had to linger sympatheticallyto keep him company.

They were on the little terrace.

“Isn’t this strange stuff!” said Kate, picking up one ofthe Aztec stone knives on the parapet. “Is it a sort ofjade?”

“Jade!” snarled the Judge. “Jade’s green, not black.That’s obsidian.”

“Jade can be black,” said Kate. “I’ve got a lovelylittle black tortoise of jade from China.”

“You can’t have. Jade’s bright green.”

“But there’s white jade too. I know there is.”

The Judge was silent from exasperation for a few moments,then he snapped:

“Jade’s bright green.”

Owen, who had the ears of a lynx, had heard.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Surely there’s more than green jade!” said Kate.

“What!” cried Owen. “More! Why there’s everyimaginable tint—white, rose, lavender—”

“And black?” said Kate.

“Black? Oh yes, quite common. Why you should seemy collection. The most beautiful range of colour! Onlygreen jade! Ha-ha-ha!”—and he laughed a rather stagelaugh.

They had come to the stairs, which were old stone, waxedand polished in some way till they were a glittering black.

[Pg 48]

“I’ll catch hold of your arm down here,” said the Judgeto young Henry. “This staircase is a death-trap.”

Mrs Norris heard without comment. She only tilted herpince-nez on her sharp nose.

In the archway downstairs, Don Ramón and the Generaltook their leave. The rest trailed on into the garden.

Evening was falling. The garden was drawn up tall,under the huge dark trees on the one side, and the tall,reddish-and-yellow house on the other. It was like being atthe bottom of some dusky, flowering garden down in Hades.Hibiscus hung scarlet from the bushes, putting out yellowbristling tongues. Some roses were scattering scentlesspetals on the twilight, and lonely-looking carnations hungon weak stalks. From a huge dense bush the mysteriouswhite bells of the dattura were suspended, large and silent,like the very ghosts of sound. And the dattura scent wasmoving thick and noiseless from the tree, into the littlealleys.

Mrs Burlap had hitched herself on to Kate, and from hersilly, social baby-face was emitting searching questions.

“What hotel are you staying at?”

Kate told her.

“I don’t know it. Where is it?”

“In the Avenida del Peru. You wouldn’t know it, it isa little Italian hotel.”

“Are you staying long?”

“We aren’t certain.”

“Is Mr Rhys on a newspaper?”

“No, he’s a poet.”

“Does he make a living by poetry?”

“No, he doesn’t try to.”

It was the sort of secret service investigation one is submittedto, in the capital of shady people, particularly shadyforeigners.

Mrs Norris was lingering by a flowering arch of little whiteflowers.

Already a firefly was sparking. It was already night.

“Well, goodbye, Mrs Norris! Won’t you come and lunchwith us. I don’t mean come out to our house. Only let meknow, and lunch with me anywhere you like, in town.”

“Thank you my dear! Thank you so much! Well! I’llsee!”

[Pg 49]

Mrs Norris was almost regal, stonily, Aztec-regal.

At last they had all made their adieus, and the great doorswere shut behind them.

“How did you come out!” Mrs Burlap asked, impertinent.

“In an old Ford taxi—but where is it?” said Kate,peering into the dark. It should have been under the fresnotrees opposite, but it wasn’t.

“What a curious thing!” said Owen, and he disappearedinto the night.

“Which way do you go?” said Mrs Burlap.

“To the Zócalo,” said Kate.

“We have to take a tram, the opposite way,” said thebaby-faced, withered woman from the Middle-West.

The Judge was hobbling along the pavement like a cat onhot bricks, to the corner. Across the road stood a groupof natives in big hats and white calico clothes, all a little theworse for the pulque they had drunk. Nearer, on this sideof the road, stood another little gang, of workmen in townclothes.

“There you have them,” said the Judge, flourishing hisstick with utter vindictiveness. “There’s the two lots of’em.”

“What two lots?” said Kate, surprised.

“Those peon fellows and those obreros, all drunk, the lotof them. The lot of them!” And in a spasm of pure,frustrated hate, he turned his back on her.

At the same time they saw the lights of a tram-car rushingdragon-like up the dark road, between the high wall and thehuge trees.

“Here’s our car!” said the Judge, beginning to scrambleexcitedly with his stick.

“You go the other way,” flung the baby-faced, fadedwoman in the three-cornered satin hat, also beginning tofluster as if she were going to swim off the pavement.

The couple clambered avidly into the brightly-lighted car,first class; hobbling up. The natives crowded into thesecond class.

Away whizzed the tren. The Burlap couple had not evensaid good-night! They were terrified lest they might have toknow somebody whom they might not want to know; whomit might not pay to know.

[Pg 50]

“You commonplace little woman!” said Kate aloud,looking after the retreating tram-car. “You awful ill-bredlittle pair.”

She was a bit afraid of the natives, not quite sober, whowere waiting for the car in the opposite direction. Butstronger than her fear was a certain sympathy with thesedark-faced silent men in their big straw hats and naïve littlecotton blouses. Anyhow they had blood in their veins:they were columns of dark blood.

Whereas the other bloodless, acidulous couple from theMiddle-West, with their nasty whiteness...!

She thought of the little tale the natives tell. When theLord was making the first men, he made them of clay andput them into the oven to bake. They came out black.They’re baked too much! said the Lord. So he madeanother batch, and put them in. They came out white.They’re baked too little! He said. So He had a third try.These came out a good warm brown. They’re just right!said the Lord.

The couple from the Middle-West, that withered baby-faceand that limping Judge, they weren’t baked. Theywere hardly baked at all.

Kate looked at the dark faces under the arc-lamp. Theyfrightened her. They were a sort of menace to her. Butshe felt they were at least baked hot and to a certain satisfactorycolour.

The taxi came lurching up, with Owen poking his headout and opening the door.

“I found the man in a pulqueria,” he said. “But Idon’t think he’s quite drunk. Will you risk driving backwith him?”

“The pulqueria was called La Flor de un Dia—the Flowerof a Day,” said Owen, with an apprehensive laugh.

Kate hesitated, looking at her man.

“We may as well,” she said.

Away gallivanted the Ford, full speed to Hell.

“Do tell him not so fast,” said Kate.

“I don’t know how,” said Owen.

He shouted in good English:

“Hey! chauffeur! Not so fast! Don’t drive so fast.”

“No presto. Troppo presto. Va troppo presto!” saidKate.

[Pg 51]

The man looked at them with black, dilated eyes offathomless incomprehension. Then he put his foot on theaccelerator.

“He’s only going faster!” laughed Owen nervously.

“Ah! Let him alone!” said Kate, with utter weariness.

The fellow drove like a devil incarnate, as if he had thedevil in his body. But also, he drove with the devil’s ownnonchalant skill. There was nothing to do but let him rip.

“Wasn’t that a ghastly tea party!” said Owen.

“Ghastly!” said Kate.

Kate woke up one morning, aged forty. She did not hidethe fact from herself, but she kept it dark from the others.

It was a blow, really. To be forty! One had to crossa dividing line. On this side there was youth and spontaneityand “happiness.” On the other side something different:reserve, responsibility, a certain standing back from“fun.”

She was a widow, and a lonely woman now. Havingmarried young, her two children were grown up. The boywas twenty-one, and her daughter nineteen. They stayedchiefly with their father, from whom she had been divorcedten years before, in order to marry James Joachim Leslie.Now Leslie was dead, and all that half of life was over.

She climbed up to the flat roofs of the hotel. It was abrilliant morning, and for once, under the blue sky of thedistance, Popocatepetl stood aloof, a heavy giant presenceunder heaven, with a cape of snow. And rolling a longdark roll of smoke like a serpent.

Ixtaccihuatl, the White Woman, glittered and seemednear, but the other mountain, Popocatepetl, stood furtherback, and in shadow, a pure cone of atmospheric shadow,with glinting flashes of snow. There they were, the twomonsters, watching gigantically and terribly over their lofty,bloody cradle of men, the Valley of Mexico. Alien, ponderous,the white-hung mountains seemed to emit a deep purringsound, too deep for the ear to hear, and yet audible onthe blood, a sound of dread. There was no soaring or upliftor exaltation, as there is in the snowy mountains of Europe.Rather a ponderous white-shouldered weight, pressingterribly on the earth, and murmuring like two watchfullions.

Superficially, Mexico might be all right: with its suburbsof villas, its central fine streets, its thousands of motor-cars,its tennis and its bridge-parties. The sun shone brilliantlyevery day, and big bright flowers stood out from the trees.It was a holiday.

Until you were alone with it. And then the undertone waslike the low angry, snarling purring of some jaguar spotted[Pg 53]with night. There was a ponderous, down-pressing weightupon the spirit: the great folds of the dragon of the Aztecs,the dragon of the Toltecs winding around one and weighingdown the soul. And on the bright sunshine was a darksteam of an angry, impotent blood, and the flowers seemedto have their roots in spilt blood. The spirit of place wascruel, down-dragging, destructive.

Kate could so well understand the Mexican who had saidto her: El Grito mexicano es siempre el Grito del Odio—TheMexicano shout is always a shout of hate. The famous revolutions,as Don Ramón said, began with Viva! but endedalways with Muera! Death to this, death to the other, it wasall death! death! death! as insistent as the Aztec sacrifices.Something for ever gruesome and macabre.

Why had she come to this high plateau of death? As awoman, she suffered even more than men suffer: and in theend, practically all men go under. Once, Mexico had had anelaborate ritual of death. Now it has death ragged, squalid,vulgar, without even the passion of its own mystery.

She sat on a parapet of the old roof. The street beyondwas like a black abyss, but around her was the rough glareof uneven flat roofs, with loose telephone wires trailingacross, and the sudden, deep, dark wells of the patios, showingflowers blooming in shade.

Just behind was a huge old church, its barrel roof humpingup like some crouching animal, and its domes, likebubbles inflated, glittering with yellow tiles, and blue andwhite tiles, against the intense blue heaven. Quiet nativewomen in long skirts were moving on the roofs, hanging outwashing or spreading it on the stones. Chickens perchedhere and there. An occasional bird soared huge overhead,trailing a shadow. And not far away stood the brownishtower-stumps of the Cathedral, the profound old bell tremblinghuge and deep, so soft as to be almost inaudible, uponthe air.

It ought to have been all gay, allegro, allegretto, in thatsparkle of bright air and old roof surfaces. But no! Therewas the dark undertone, the black, serpent-like fatality allthe time.

It was no good Kate’s wondering why she had come.Over in England, in Ireland, in Europe, she had heard theconsummatum est of her own spirit. It was finished, in a[Pg 54]kind of death agony. But still this heavy continent of dark-souleddeath was more than she could bear.

She was forty: the first half of her life was over. Thebright page with its flowers and its love and its stations of theCross ended with a grave. Now she must turn over, andthe page was black, black and empty.

The first half of her life had been written on the bright,smooth vellum of hope, with initial letters all gorgeous upona field of gold. But the glamour had gone from station tostation of the Cross, and the last illumination was the tomb.

Now the bright page was turned, and the dark page laybefore her. How could one write on a page so profoundlyblack?

She went down, having promised to go and see the frescoesin the university and schools. Owen and Villiers anda young Mexican were waiting for her. They set off throughthe busy streets of the town, where automobiles and thelittle omnibuses called camions run wild, and where thenatives in white cotton clothes and sandals and big hatslinger like heavy ghosts in the street, among the bourgeoisie,the young ladies in pale pink crêpe-de-chine andhigh heels, the men in little shoes and American straw hats.A continual bustle in the glitter of sunshine.

Crossing the great shadeless plaza in front of the Cathedral,where the tram-cars gather as in a corral, and slide awaydown their various streets, Kate lingered again to look atthe things spread for sale on the pavement: the little toys,the painted gourd-shells, brilliant in a kind of lacquer, thenovedades from Germany, the fruits, the flowers. And thenatives squatting with their wares, large-limbed, silent,handsome men looking up with their black, centreless eyes,speaking so softly, and lifting with small sensitive brownhands the little toys they had so carefully made and painted.A strange gentle appeal and wistfulness, strange male voices,so deep, yet so quiet and gentle. Or the women, the smallquick women in their blue rebozos, looking up quickly withdark eyes, and speaking in their quick, coaxing voices. Theman just setting out his oranges, wiping them with a clothso carefully, almost tenderly, and piling them in bright tinypyramids, all neat and exquisite. A certain sensitive tendernessof the heavy blood, a certain chirping charm of thebird-like women, so still and tender with a bud-like femininity.[Pg 55]And at the same time, the dirty clothes, and theunwashed skin, the lice, and the peculiar hollow glint of theblack eyes, at once so fearsome and so appealing.

Kate knew the Italian fruit vendors, vigorously polishingtheir oranges on their coat-sleeves. Such a contrast, the big,handsome Indian, sitting so soft and as it were lonely by thekerb, softly, lingeringly polishing his yellow oranges to aclean gleam, and lingeringly, delicately arranging the littlepiles, the pyramids for two or three cents each.

Queer work, for a big, handsome, male-looking man. Butthey seem to prefer these childish jobs.

The University was a Spanish building that had been doneup spick and span, and given over to the young artists todecorate. Since the revolutions, nowhere had authority andtradition been so finally overthrown as in the Mexican fieldsof science and art. Science and art are the sport of theyoung. Go ahead, my boys!

The boys had gone ahead. But even then, the one artistof distinction was no longer a boy, and he had served a longapprenticeship in Europe.

Kate had seen the reproductions of some of Riberas’ frescoes.Now she went round the patios of the University,looking at the originals. They were interesting: the manknew his craft.

But the impulse was the impulse of the artist’s hate. Inthe many frescoes of the Indians, there was sympathy withthe Indian, but always from the ideal, social point of view.Never the spontaneous answer of the blood. These flatIndians were symbols in the great script of modern socialism,they were figures of the pathos of the victims of modernindustry and capitalism. That was all they were used for:symbols in the weary script of socialism and anarchy.

Kate thought of the man polishing his oranges half-an-hourbefore: his peculiar beauty, a certain richness ofphysical being, a ponderous power of blood within him, anda helplessness, a profound unbelief that was fatal anddemonish. And all the liberty, all the progress, all thesocialism in the world would not help him. Nay, it wouldonly help further to destroy him.

On the corridors of the University, young misses in bobbedhair and boys’ jumpers were going around, their chins pushedforward with the characteristic, deliberate youth-and-eagerness[Pg 56]of our day. Very much aware of their own youth andeagerness. And very American. Young professors werepassing in soft amiability, young and apparently harmless.

The artists were at work on the frescoes, and Kate andOwen were introduced to them. But they were men—orboys—whose very pigments seemed to exist only to épaterle bourgeois. And Kate was weary of épatisme, just asmuch as of the bourgeoisie. She wasn’t interested inépatant le bourgeois. The épateurs were as boring as thebourgeois, two halves of one dreariness.

The little party passed on to the old Jesuit convent, nowused as a secondary school. Here were more frescoes.

But they were by another man. And they were caricaturesso crude and so ugly that Kate was merely repelled.They were meant to be shocking, but perhaps the verydeliberateness prevents them from being so shocking asthey might be. But they were ugly and vulgar. Stridentcaricatures of the Capitalist and the Church, and of the RichWoman, and of Mammon painted life-size and as violentlyas possible, round the patios of the grey old building, wherethe young people are educated. To anyone with the sparkof human balance, the things are a misdemeanour.

“Oh, but how wonderful!” cried Owen.

His susceptibilities were shocked, therefore, as at the bull-fight,he was rather pleased. He thought it was novel andstimulating to decorate your public buildings in thisway.

The young Mexican who was accompanying the party wasa professor in the University too: a rather short, soft youngfellow of twenty-seven or eight, who wrote the inevitablepoetry of sentiment, had been in the Government, even asa member of the House of Deputies, and was longing to go toNew York. There was something fresh and soft, petulantabout him. Kate liked him. He could laugh with real hotyoung amusem*nt, and he was no fool.

Until it came to these maniacal ideas of socialism, politics,and La Patria. Then he was as mechanical as a mousetrap.Very tedious.

“Oh no!” said Kate in front of the caricatures. “Theyare too ugly. They defeat their own ends.”

“But they are meant to be ugly,” said young Garcia.“They must be ugly, no? Because capitalism is ugly, and[Pg 57]Mammon is ugly, and the priest holding his hand to get themoney from the poor Indians is ugly. No?” He laughedrather unpleasantly.

“But,” said Kate, “these caricatures are too intentional.They are like vulgar abuse, not art at all.”

“Isn’t that true?” said Garcia, pointing to a hideouspicture of a fat female in a tight short dress, with hips andbreasts as protuberances, walking over the faces of thepoor.

“That is how they are, no?”

“Who is like that?” said Kate. “It bores me. Onemust keep a certain balance.”

“Not in Mexico!” said the young Mexican brightly, hisplump cheeks flushing. “In Mexico you can’t keep abalance, because things are so bad. In other countries, yes,perhaps you can remain balanced, because things are notso bad as they are here. But here they are so very bad, youcan’t be human. You have to be Mexican. You have to bemore Mexican than human, no? You can’t do no other.You have to hate the capitalist, you have to, in Mexico, ornobody can live. We can’t live. Nobody can live. If youare Mexican you can’t be human, it is impossible. You haveto be a socialist Mexican, or you have to be a capitalistMexican, and you hate. What else is there to be done?We hate the capitalist because he ruins the country and thepeople. We must hate him.”

“But after all,” said Kate, “what about the twelvemillion poor—mostly Indians—whom Montes talks about?You can’t make them all rich, whatever you do. And theydon’t understand the very words, capital and socialism.They are Mexico, really, and nobody ever looks at them,except to make a casus belli of them. Humanly, they neverexist for you.”

“Humanly they can’t exist, they are too ignorant!”cried Garcia. “But when we can kill all the capitalists,then—”

“You’ll find somebody killing you,” said Kate. “No,I don’t like it. You aren’t Mexico. You aren’t even Mexican,really. You are just half Spaniards full of Europeanideas, and you care for asserting your own ideas and nothingelse. You have no real bowels of compassion. You areno good.”

[Pg 58]

The young man listened with round eyes, going ratheryellow in the face. At the end he lifted his shoulders andspread his hands in a pseudo-Mediterranean gesture.

“Well! It may be!” he said, with a certain jeeringflippancy. “Perhaps you know everything. Maybe!Foreigners, they usually know everything about Mexico.”And he ended on a little cackling laugh.

“I know what I feel,” said Kate. “And now I want ataxi, and I want to go home. I don’t want to see any morestupid, ugly pictures.”

Off she drove back to the hotel, once more in a toweringrage. She was amazed at herself. Usually she was so good-temperedand easy. But something about this country irritatedher and put her into such a violent anger, she felt shewould die. Burning, furious rage.

And perhaps, she thought to herself, the white and half-whiteMexicans suffered some peculiar reaction in their bloodwhich made them that they too were almost always in astate of suppressed irritation and anger, for which they mustfind a vent. They must spend their lives in a complicatedgame of frustration, frustration of life in its ebbing andflowing.

Perhaps something came out of the earth, the dragon ofthe earth, some effluence, some vibration which militatedagainst the very composition of the blood and nerves inhuman beings. Perhaps it came from the volcanoes. Orperhaps even from the silent, serpent-like dark resistance ofthose masses of ponderous natives whose blood was principallythe old, heavy, resistant Indian blood.

Who knows? But something there was, and somethingvery potent. Kate lay on her bed and brooded her ownorganic rage. There was nothing to be done?

But young Garcia was really nice. He called in the afternoonand sent up his card. Kate, feeling sore, received himunwillingly.

“I came,” he said, with a little stiff dignity, like anambassador on a mission, “to tell you that I, too, don’tlike those caricatures. I, too, don’t like them. I don’tlike the young people, boys and girls, no?—to be seeingthem all the time. I, too, don’t like. But I think, also,that here in Mexico, we can’t help it. People are very bad,very greedy, no?—they only want to get money here, and[Pg 59]they don’t care. So we must hate them. Yes, we must.But I, too, I don’t like it.”

He held his hat in his two hands, and twisted his shouldersin a conflict of feelings.

Kate suddenly laughed, and he laughed too, with a certainpain and confusion in his laughter.

“That’s awfully nice of you to come and say so,” shesaid, warming to him.

“No, not nice,” he said, frowning. “But I don’t knowwhat to do. Perhaps you think I am—different—I am notthe thing that I am. And I don’t want it.”

He flushed and was uncomfortable. There was a curiousnaïve sincerity about him, since he was being sincere. Ifhe had chosen to play a game of sophistication, he couldhave played it better. But with Kate he wanted to be sincere.

“I know, really,” laughed Kate, “you feel a good deallike I do about it. I know you only pretend to be fierceand hard.”

“No!” he said, suddenly making solemn, flashing eyes.“I do also feel fierce. I do hate these men who take, onlytake everything from Mexico—money, and all—everything!”he spread his hands with finality. “I hate thembecause I must, no? But also, I am sorry—I am sorry Ihave to hate so much. Yes, I think I am sorry. I think so.”

He knitted his brows rather tense. And over his plump,young, fresh face was a frown of resentment and hatred,quite sincere too.

Kate could see he wasn’t really sorry. Only the twomoods, of natural, soft, sensuous flow, and of heavy resentmentand hate, alternated inside him like shadow and shineon a cloudy day, in swift, unavoidable succession. Whatwas nice about him was his simplicity, in spite of the complicationof his feelings, and the fact that his resentments werenot personal, but beyond persons, even beyond himself.

She went out with him to tea, and while she was out, DonRamón called and left cards with the corners turned down,and an invitation to dinner for her and Owen. Thereseemed an almost old-fashioned correctness in those cards.

Looking over the newspaper, she came on an odd littleitem. She could read Spanish without much difficulty. Thetrouble lay in talking it, when Italian got in her way and[Pg 60]caused a continual stumble. She looked on the English pageof the Excelsior or the Universal for the news—if there wasany. Then she looked through the Spanish pages for bitsof interest.

This little item was among the Spanish information, andwas headed: The Gods of Antiquity Return to Mexico.

“There was a ferment in the village of Sayula, Jalisco,on the Lake of Sayula, owing to an incident of more or lesscomic nature, yesterday morning towards mid-day. Thewomen who inhabit the shores of the lake are to be seeneach day soon after sunrise descending to the water’s edgewith large bundles. They kneel on the rocks and stones,and in little groups, like water-fowl, they wash their dirtylinen in the soft water of the lake, pausing at times as anold canoa sails by with large single sail. The scene is littlechanged since the days of Montezuma, when the natives ofthe lake worshipped the spirit of the waters, and threw inlittle images and idols of baked clay, which the lake sometimesreturns to the descendants of the dead idolaters, tokeep them in mind of practices not yet altogether forgotten.

As the hot sun rises in the sky, the women spread theirwashing on the sand and pebbles of the shore, and retire tothe shade of the willow trees that grow so gracefully andretain their verdant hue through the dryest season of theyear. While thus reposing after their labours, these humbleand superstitious women were astonished to see a man ofgreat stature rise naked from the lake and wade towards theshore. His face, they said, was dark and bearded, but hisbody shone like gold.

As if unaware of any watchful eyes, he advanced calmlyand majestically towards the shore. There he stood amoment, and selecting with his eye a pair of the loose cottonpants worn by the peasants in the fields, that was spreadwhitening in the sun, he stooped and proceeded to cover hisnakedness with the said garment.

The woman who thus saw her husband’s apparel robbedbeneath her eye, rose, calling to the man and summoningthe other women. Whereupon the stranger turned his darkface upon them, and said in a quiet voice: ‘Why are youcrying? Be quiet! It will be given back to you. Yourgods are ready to return to you. Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc,the old gods, are minded to come back to you. Be quiet,[Pg 61]don’t let them find you crying and complaining. I havecome from out of the lake to tell you the gods are comingback to Mexico, they are ready to return to their ownhome.’

Little comforted by this speech, the woman who had losther washing was overcome and said no more. The strangerthen appropriated a cotton blouse, which he donned, anddisappeared.

After a while, the simple women gathered courage to returnto their humble dwellings. The story thus reached theears of the police, who at once set out to search for thethief.

The story, however, is not yet concluded. The husbandof the poor woman of the lake-shore, returning from hislabours in the field, approached the gates of the village towardssunset, thinking, no doubt, of nothing but repose andthe evening meal. A man in a black serape stepped towardshim, from the shadows of a broken wall, and asked: Areyou afraid to come with me? The labourer, a man of spirit,promptly replied; No señor! He therefore followed the unknownman through the broken wall and through the bushesof a deserted garden. In a dark room, or cellar, a smalllight was burning, revealing a great basin of gold, intowhich four little men, smaller than children, were pouringsweet-scented water. The astounded peasant was now toldto wash and put on clean clothes, to be ready for the returnof the gods. He was seated in the golden basin and washedwith sweet-smelling soap, while the dwarfs poured waterover him. This, they said, is the bath of Quetzalcoatl.The bath of fire is yet to come. They gave him clean clothingof pure white cotton, and a new hat with star embroidery,and sandals with straps of white leather. Butbeside this, a new blanket, white with bars of blue andblack, and flowers like stars at the centre, and two piecesof silver money. Go, he was told. And when they ask you,where did you get your blanket? answer that Quetzalcoatlis young again. The poor fellow went home in sore fear,lest the police should arrest him for possessing stolen goods.

The village is full of excitement, and Don Ramón Carrasco,our eminent historian and archaeologist, whose hacienda liesin the vicinity, has announced his intention of proceeding assoon as possible to the spot to examine the origin of this new[Pg 62]legend. Meanwhile, the police are watching attentively thedevelopment of affairs, without taking any steps for themoment. Indeed, these little fantasies create a pleasantdiversion in the regular order of banditry, murder, andoutrage, which it is usually our duty to report.”

Kate wondered what was at the back of this: if anythingmore than a story. Yet, strangely, a different light than thecommon light seemed to gleam out of the words of even thisnewspaper paragraph.

She wanted to go to Sayula. She wanted to see the biglake where the gods had once lived, and whence they weredue to emerge. Amid all the bitterness that Mexico producedin her spirit, there was still a strange beam of wonderand mystery, almost like hope. A strange darkly-iridescentbeam of wonder, of magic.

The name Quetzalcoatl, too, fascinated her. She had readbits about the god. Quetzal is the name of a bird that liveshigh up in the mists of tropical mountains, and has verybeautiful tail-feathers, precious to the Aztecs. Coatl is aserpent. Quetzalcoatl is the Plumed Serpent, so hideous inthe fanged, feathered, writhing stone of the National Museum.

But Quetzalcoatl was, she vaguely remembered, a sort offair-faced bearded god; the wind, the breath of life, the eyesthat see and are unseen, like the stars by day. The eyes thatwatch behind the wind, as the stars beyond the blue of day.And Quetzalcoatl must depart from Mexico to merge againinto the deep bath of life. He was old. He had gone eastwards,perhaps into the sea, perhaps he had sailed intoheaven, like a meteor returning, from the top of the Volcanoof Orizaba: gone back as a peaco*ck streaming into the night,or as a bird of Paradise, its tail gleaming like the wake ofa meteor. Quetzalcoatl! Who knows what he meant to thedead Aztecs, and to the older Indians, who knew him beforethe Aztecs raised their deity to heights of horror and vindictiveness?

All a confusion of contradictory gleams of meaning, Quetzalcoatl.But why not? Her Irish spirit was weary todeath of definite meanings, and a God of one fixed purport.Gods should be iridescent, like the rainbow in the storm.Man creates a God in his own image, and the gods grow oldalong with the men that made them. But storms sway in[Pg 63]heaven, and the god-stuff sways high and angry over ourheads. Gods die with men who have conceived them. Butthe god-stuff roars eternally, like the sea, with too vast asound to be heard. Like the sea in storm, that beats againstthe rocks of living, stiffened men, slowly to destroy them.Or like the sea of the glimmering, ethereal plasm of theworld, that bathes the feet and the knees of men as earth-sapbathes the roots of trees. Ye must be born again.Even the gods must be born again. We must be born again.

In her vague, woman’s way, Kate knew this. She hadlived her life. She had had her lovers, her two husbands.She had her children.

Joachim Leslie, her dead husband, she had loved as muchas a woman can love a man: that is, to the bounds of humanlove. Then she had realised that human love has its limits,that there is a beyond. And Joachim dead, willy nilly herspirit had passed the bounds. She was no longer in love withlove. She no longer yearned for the love of a man, or thelove even of her children. Joachim had gone into eternityin death, and she had crossed with him into a certain eternityin life. There, the yearning for companionship andsympathy and human love had left her. Something infinitelyintangible but infinitely blessed took its place: a peacethat passes understanding.

At the same time, a wild and angry battle raged betweenher and the thing that Owen called life: such as the bull-fight,the tea-party, the enjoyments; like the arts in theirmodern aspect of hate effusion. The powerful, degeneratething called life, wrapping one or other of its tentacles roundher.

And then, when she could escape into her true loneliness,the influx of peace and soft, flower-like potency which wasbeyond understanding. It disappeared even if you thoughtabout it, so delicate, so fine. And yet, the only reality.

Ye must be born again. Out of the fight with the octopusof life, the dragon of degenerate or of incomplete existence,one must win this soft bloom of being, that is damaged bya touch.

No, she no longer wanted love, excitement, and somethingto fill her life. She was forty, and in the rare, lingeringdawn of maturity, the flower of her soul was opening.Above all things, she must preserve herself from worldly[Pg 64]contacts. Only she wanted the silence of other unfoldedsouls around her, like a perfume. The presence of that whichis forever unsaid.

And in the horror and climax of death-rattles, which isMexico, she thought she could see it in the black eyes of theIndians. She felt that Don Ramón and Don Cipriano bothhad heard the soundless call, across all the hideous choking.

Perhaps this had brought her to Mexico: away fromEngland and her mother, away from her children, away fromeverybody. To be alone with the unfolding flower of herown soul, in the delicate, chiming silence that is at themidst of things.

The thing called “Life” is just a mistake we have madein our own minds. Why persist in the mistake any further?

Owen was the mistake itself: so was Villiers: so was thatMexico City.

She wanted to get out, to disentangle herself again.

They had promised to go out to dinner to the house of DonRamón. His wife was away in the United States with hertwo boys, one of whom had been ill, not seriously, at hisschool in California. But Don Ramón’s aunt would behostess.

The house was out at Tlalpam. It was May, the weatherwas hot, the rains were not yet started. The shower at thebull-fight had been a sort of accident.

“I wonder,” said Owen, “whether I ought to put on adinner-coat. Really, I feel humiliated to the earth everytime I put on evening dress.”

“Then don’t do it!” said Kate, who was impatient ofOwen’s kicking at these very little social pricks, and swallowingthe whole porcupine.

She herself came down in a simple gown with a blackvelvet top and a loose skirt of delicate brocaded chiffon, ofa glimmering green and yellow and black. She also wore along string of jade and crystal.

It was a gift she had, of looking like an Ossianic goddess,a certain feminine strength and softness glowing in the verymaterial of her dress. But she was never “smart.”

“Why you’re dressed up to the eyes!” cried Owen inchagrin, pulling at his soft collar. “Bare shoulders notwithstanding!”

They went out to the distant suburb in the tram-car,[Pg 65]swift in the night, with big clear stars overhead, droppingand hanging with a certain gleam of menace. In Tlalpamthere was a heavy scent of nightflowers, a feeling of ponderousdarkness, with a few sparks of intermittent fireflies.And always the heavy calling of nightflower scents. ToKate, there seemed a faint whiff of blood in all tropical-scentedflowers: of blood or sweat.

It was a hot night. They banged on the iron doors of theentrance, dogs barked, and a mozo opened to them, warily,closing fast again the moment they had entered the darkgarden of trees.

Don Ramón was in white, a white dinner-jacket: DonCipriano the same. But there were other guests, youngGarcia, another pale young man called Mirabal, and anelderly man in a black cravat, named Toussaint. The onlyother woman was Doña Isabel, aunt to Don Ramón. Shewore a black dress with a high collar of black lace, and somestrings of pearls, and seemed shy, frightened, absent as anun before all these men. But to Kate she was very kind,caressive, speaking English in a plaintive faded voice. Thisdinner was a sort of ordeal and ritual combined, to thecloistered, elderly soul.

But it was soon evident that she was trembling with fearfuljoy. She adored Ramón with an uncritical, nun-likeadoration. It was obvious she hardly heard the things thatwere said. Words skimmed the surface of her consciousnesswithout ever penetrating. Underneath, she was tremblingin nun-like awareness of so many men, and in almost sacredexcitement at facing Don Ramón as hostess.

The house was a fairly large villa, quietly and simplyfurnished, with natural taste.

“Do you always live here?” said Kate to Don Ramón.“Never at your hacienda?”

“How do you know I have a hacienda?” he asked.

“I saw it in a newspaper—near Sayula.”

“Ah!” he said, laughing at her with his eyes. “Yousaw about the returning of the Gods of Antiquity.”

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t you think it is interesting?”

“I think so,” he said.

“I love the word Quetzalcoatl.”

“The word!” he repeated.

His eyes laughed at her teasingly all the time.

[Pg 66]

“What do you think, Mrs Leslie,” cried the pale-facedyoung Mirabal, in curiously resonant English, with a Frenchaccent. “Don’t you think it would be wonderful if thegods came back to Mexico? our own gods?” He sat inintense expectation, his blue eyes fixed on Kate’s face, hissoup-spoon suspended.

Kate’s face was baffled with incomprehension.

“Not those Aztec horrors!” she said.

“The Aztec horrors! The Aztec horrors! Well, perhapsthey were not so horrible after all. But if they were, it wasbecause the Aztecs were all tied up. They were in a cul desac, so they saw nothing but death. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know enough!” said Kate.

“Nobody knows any more. But if you like the wordQuetzalcoatl, don’t you think it would be wonderful if hecame back again? Ah, the names of the gods! Don’t youthink the names are like seeds, so full of magic, of the unexploredmagic? Huitzilopochtli!—how wonderful! AndTlaloc! Ah! I love them! I say them over and over, likethey say Mani padma Om! in Thibet. I believe in the fertilityof sound. Itzpapalotl—the Obsidian Butterfly! Itzpapalotl!But say it, and you will see it does good to yoursoul. Itzpapalotl! Tezcatlipocá! They were old when theSpaniards came, they needed the bath of life again. Butnow, re-bathed in youth, how wonderful they must be!Think of Jehovah! Jehovah! Think of Jesus Christ! Howthin and poor they sound! Or Jesús Cristo! They are deadnames, all the life withered out of them. Ah, it is time nowfor Jesus to go back to the place of the death of the gods,and take the long bath of being made young again. He isan old-old young god, don’t you think?” He looked longat Kate, then dived for his soup.

Kate widened her eyes in amazement at this torrent fromthe young Mirabal. Then she laughed.

“I think it’s a bit overwhelming!” she said, non-committal.

“Ah! Yes! Exactly! Exactly! But how good to be overwhelmed!How splendid if something will overwhelm me!Ah, I am so glad!”

The last word came with a clapping French resonance,and the young man dived for his soup again. He was leanand pale, but burning with an intense, crazy energy.

[Pg 67]

“You see,” said young Garcia, raising his full, bright darkeyes to Kate, half aggressive and half-bashful: “we mustdo something for Mexico. If we don’t, it will go under, no?You say you don’t like socialism. I don’t think I do either.But if there is nothing else but socialism, we will have socialism.If there is nothing better. But perhaps there is.”

“Why should Mexico go under?” said Kate. “Thereare lots of children everywhere.”

“Yes. But the last census of Porfirio Diaz gave seventeenmillion people in Mexico, and the census of last yeargave only thirteen millions. Maybe the count was not quiteright. But you count four million people fewer, in twentyyears, then in sixty years there will be no Mexicans: onlyforeigners, who don’t die.”

“Oh, but figures always lie!” said Kate. “Statisticsare always misleading.”

“Maybe two and two don’t make four,” said Garcia. “Idon’t know if they do. But I know, if you take two awayfrom two, it leaves none.”

“Do you think Mexico might die out?” she said to DonRamón.

“Why!” he replied. “It might. Die out and becomeAmericanised.”

“I quite see the danger of Americanisation,” said Owen.“That would be ghastly. Almost better die out.”

Owen was so American, he invariably said these things.

“But!” said Kate. “The Mexicans look so strong!”

“They are strong to carry heavy loads,” said DonRamón. “But they die easily. They eat all the wrongthings, they drink the wrong things, and they don’t minddying. They have many children, and they like their childrenvery much. But when the child dies, the parents say:Ah, he will be an angelito! So they cheer up and feel asif they had been given a present. Sometimes I think theyenjoy it when their children die. Sometimes I think theywould like to transfer Mexico en bloc into Paradise, or whateverlies behind the walls of death. It would be betterthere!”

There was a silence.

“But how sad you are!” said Kate, afraid.

Doña Isabel was giving hurried orders to the man-servant.

“Whoever knows Mexico below the surface, is sad!”[Pg 68]said Julio Toussaint, rather sententiously, over his blackcravat.

“Well,” said Owen, “it seems to me, on the contrary, agay country. A country of gay, irresponsible children. Orrather, they would be gay, if they were properly treated.If they had comfortable homes, and a sense of real freedom.If they felt that they could control their lives and their owncountry. But being in the grip of outsiders, as they havebeen for hundreds of years, life of course seems hardly worthwhile to them. Naturally, they don’t care if they live ordie. They don’t feel free.”

“Free for what?” asked Toussaint.

“To make Mexico their own. Not to be so poor and atthe mercy of outsiders.”

“They are at the mercy of something worse than outsiders,”said Toussaint. “Let me tell you. They are at themercy of their own natures. It is this way. Fifty per cent.of the people in Mexico are pure Indian: more or less. Ofthe rest, a small proportion are foreigners or Spaniard. Youhave then the mass which is on top, of mixed blood, Indianand Spaniard mixed, chiefly. These are the Mexicans,those with the mixed blood. Now, you take us at thistable. Don Cipriano is pure Indian. Don Ramón is almostpure Spaniard, but most probably he has the blood ofTlaxcalan Indians in his veins as well. Señor Mirabal ismixed French and Spanish. Señor Garcia most probablyhas a mixture of Indian blood with Spanish. I myself, haveFrench, Spanish, Austrian and Indian blood. Very well!Now you mix blood of the same race, and it may be allright. Europeans are all Aryan stock, the race is the same.But when you mix European and American Indian, you mixdifferent blood races, and you produce the half-breed. Now,the half-breed is a calamity. For why? He is neither onething nor another, he is divided against himself. His bloodof one race tells him one thing, his blood of another race tellshim another. He is an unfortunate, a calamity to himself.And it is hopeless.

“And this is Mexico. The Mexicans of mixed blood arehopeless. Well then! There are only two things to be done.All the foreigners and the Mexicans clear out and leave thecountry to the Indians, the pure-blooded Indians. Butalready you have a difficulty. How can you distinguish the[Pg 69]pure-blooded Indian, after so many generations? Or else thehalf-breed or mixed-blood Mexicans who are all the time ontop shall continue to destroy the country till the Americansfrom the United States flood in. We are as California andNew Mexico now are, swamped under the dead whitesea.

“But let me tell you something further. I hope we are notPuritans. I hope I may say that it depends on the momentof coition. At the moment of coition, either the spirit of thefather fuses with the spirit of the mother, to create a newbeing with a soul, or else nothing fuses but the germ ofprocreation.

“Now consider. How have these Mexicans of mixed bloodbeen begotten, for centuries? In what spirit? What wasthe moment of coition like? Answer me that, and you havetold me the reason for this Mexico which makes us despairand which will go on making everybody despair, till it destroysitself. In what spirit have the Spanish and otherforeign fathers gotten children of the Indian women? Whatsort of spirit was it? What sort of coition? And then,what sort of race do you expect?”

“But what sort of a spirit is there between white menand white women!” said Kate.

“At least,” replied the didactic Toussaint, “the blood ishom*ogenous, so that consciousness automatically unrolls incontinuity.”

“I hate its unrolling in automatic continuity,” said Kate.

“Perhaps! But it makes life possible. Without developingcontinuity in consciousness, you have chaos. And thiscomes of mixed blood.”

“And then,” said Kate, “surely the Indian men arefond of their women! The men seem manly, and the womenseem very lovable and womanly.”

“It is possible that the Indian children are pure-blooded,and there is the continuity of blood. But the Indian consciousnessis swamped under the stagnant water of the whiteman’s Dead Sea consciousness. Take a man like BenitoJuarez, a pure Indian. He floods his old consciousness withthe new white ideas, and there springs up a whole forest ofverbiage, new laws, new constitutions and all the rest. Butit is a sudden weed. It grows like a weed on the surface,saps the strength of the Indian soil underneath, and helps[Pg 70]the process of ruin. No, madam! There is no hope forMexico short of a miracle.”

“Ah!” cried Mirabal, flourishing his wine glass. “Isn’tthat wonderful, when only the miracle will save us! Whenwe must produce the miracle? We! We! We must makethe miracle!” He hit his own breast emphatically. “Ah,I think that is marvellous!” And he returned to his turkeyin black sauce.

“Look at the Mexicans!” Toussaint flared on. “Theydon’t care about anything. They eat food so hot with chili,it burns holes in their insides. And it has no nourishment.They live in houses that a dog would be ashamed of, andthey lie and shiver with cold. But they don’t do anything.They could make, easily, easily, a bed of maize leaves orsimilar leaves. But they don’t do it. They don’t do anything.They roll up in a thin sarape and lie on a thin maton the bare ground, whether it is wet or dry. And Mexicannights are cold. But they lie down like dogs, anyhow, as ifthey lay down to die. I say dogs! But you will see thedogs looking for a dry sheltered place. The Mexicans, no!Anywhere, nothing, nothing! And it is terrible. It is terrible!As if they wanted to punish themselves for being alive!”

“But then, why do they have so many children?” saidKate.

“Why do they? The same, because they don’t care.They don’t care. They don’t care about money, they don’tcare about making anything, they don’t care about nothing,nothing, nothing. Only they get an excitement out ofwomen, as they do out of chili. They like to feel the redpepper burning holes in their insides, and they like to feelthe other thing, the sex, burning holes in them too. Butafter the moment, they don’t care. They don’t care a bit.

“And that is bad. I tell you, excuse me, but all, everything,depends on the moment of coition. At that momentmany things can come to a crisis: all a man’s hope, hishonour, his faith, his trust, his belief in life and creation andGod, all these things can come to a crisis in the moment ofcoition. And these things will be handed on in continuityto the child. Believe me, I am a crank on this idea, but itis true. It is certainly absolutely true.”

“I believe it is true,” said Kate, rather coldly.

“Ah! you do! Well then! Look at Mexico! The only[Pg 71]conscious people are half-breeds, people of mixed blood, begottenin greed and selfish brutality.”

“Some people believe in the mixed blood,” said Kate.

“Ah! They do, do they? Who?”

“Some of your serious-minded men. They say the half-breedis better than the Indian.”

“Better! Well! The Indian has his hopelessness. Themoment of coition is his moment of supreme hopelessness,when he throws himself down the pit of despair.”

The Austrian, European blood, which fans into fire ofconscious understanding, died down again, leaving what wasMexican in Julio Toussaint sunk in irredeemable gloom.

“It is true,” said Mirabal, out of the gloom. “TheMexicans who have any feeling always prostitute themselves,one way or another, and so they can never do anything.And the Indians can never do anything either, because theyhaven’t got hope in anything. But it is always darkest beforethe dawn. We must make the miracle come. Themiracle is superior even to the moment of coition.”

It seemed, however, as if he said it by an effort of will.

The dinner was ending in silence. During the whirl oftalk, or of passionate declaration, the servants had carriedround the food and wine. Doña Isabel, completely obliviousof the things that were being said, watched and directedthe servants with nervous anxiety and excitement, her handswith their old jewellery trembling with agitation. DonRamón had kept his eye on his guests’ material comfort, atthe same time listening, as it were, from the back of hishead. His big brown eyes were inscrutable, his face impassive.But when he had anything to say, it was alwayswith a light laugh and a teasing accent. And yet his eyesbrooded and smouldered with an incomprehensible, unyieldingfire.

Kate felt she was in the presence of men. Here were menface to face not with death and self-sacrifice, but with thelife-issue. She felt for the first time in her life, a pangalmost like fear, of men who were passing beyond what sheknew, beyond her depth.

Cipriano, his rather short but intensely black, curved eyelasheslowering over his dark eyes, watched his plate, onlysometimes looking up with a black, brilliant glance, eitherat whomsoever was speaking, or at Don Ramón, or at Kate.[Pg 72]His face was changeless and intensely serious, serious almostwith a touch of childishness. But the curious blackness of hiseyelashes lifted so strangely, with such intense unconsciousmaleness from his eyes, the movement of his hand was soodd, quick, light as he ate, so easily a movement of shooting,or of flashing a knife into the body of some adversary, andhis dark-coloured lips were so helplessly savage, as he ate orbriefly spoke, that her heart stood still. There was somethingundeveloped and intense in him, the intensity and thecrudity of the semi-savage. She could well understand thepotency of the snake upon the Aztec and Maya imagination.Something smooth, undeveloped, yet vital in this man suggestedthe heavy-ebbing blood of reptiles in his veins. Thatwas what it was, the heavy-ebbing blood of powerful reptiles,the dragon of Mexico.

So that unconsciously she shrank when his black, big,glittering eyes turned on her for a moment. They were not,like Don Ramón’s, dark eyes. They were black, as black asjewels into which one could not look without a sensation offear. And her fascination was tinged with fear. She feltsomewhat as the bird feels when the snake is watching it.

She wondered almost that Don Ramón was not afraid.Because she had noticed that usually, when an Indian lookedto a white man, both men stood back from actual contact,from actual meeting of each other’s eyes. They left a widespace of neutral territory between them. But Ciprianolooked at Ramón with a curious intimacy, glittering, steady,warrior-like, and at the same time betraying an almost menacingtrust in the other man.

Kate realised that Ramón had a good deal to stand up to.But he kept a little, foiling laugh on his face, and loweredhis beautiful head with the black hair touched with grey,as if he would put a veil before his countenance.

“Do you think one can make this miracle come?” sheasked of him.

“The miracle is always there,” he said, “for the manwho can pass his hand through to it, to take it.”

They finished dinner, and went to sit out on the verandah,looking into the garden where the light from the house felluncannily on the blossoming trees and the dark tufts ofYucca and the strange great writhing trunks of the Laurelde India.

[Pg 73]

Cipriano had sat down next to her, smoking a cigarette.

“It is a strange darkness, the Mexican darkness!” she said.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Do you?”

“Yes. Very much. I think I like best the time whenthe day is falling and the night coming on like somethingelse. Then, one feels more free, don’t you think? Like theflowers that send out their scent at night, but in the daytimethey look at the sun and don’t have any smell.”

“Perhaps the night here scares me,” she laughed.

“Yes. But why not? The smell of the flowers at nightmay make one feel afraid, but it is a good fear. One likesit, don’t you think?”

“I am afraid of fear,” she said.

He laughed shortly.

“You speak such English English,” she said. “Nearlyall the Mexicans who speak English speak American English.Even Don Ramón does, rather.”

“Yes. Don Ramón graduated in Columbia University.But I was sent to England, to school in London, and thento Oxford.”

“Who sent you?”

“My god-father. He was an Englishman: BishopSevern, Bishop of Oaxaca. You have heard of him?”

“No,” said Kate.

“He was a very well-known man. He died only aboutten years ago. He was very rich, too, before the revolution.He had a big hacienda in Oaxaca, with a very fine library.But they took it away from him in the revolution, and theysold the things, or broke them. They didn’t know the valueof them, of course.”

“And did he adopt you?”

“Yes! In a way. My father was one of the overseers onthe hacienda. When I was a little boy I came running to myfather, when the Bishop was there, with something in myhands—so!”—and he made a cup of his hand. “I don’tremember. This is what they tell me. I was a small child—threeor four years of age—somewhere there. What I hadin my hands was a yellow scorpion, one of the small ones,very poisonous, no?”

And he lifted the cup of his small, slender, dark hands, asif to show Kate the creature.

[Pg 74]

“Well, the Bishop was talking to my father, and he sawwhat I had got before my father did. So he told me at once,to put the scorpion in his hat—the Bishop’s hat, no? Ofcourse I did what he told me, and I put the scorpion in hishat, and it did not bite me. If it had stung me I shouldhave died, of course. But I didn’t know, so I suppose thealacran was not interested. The Bishop was a very goodman, very kind. He liked my father, so he became mygod-father. Then he always took an interest in me, and hesent me to school, and then to England. He hoped I shouldbe a priest. He always said that the one hope for Mexicowas if she had really fine native priests.” He ended ratherwistfully.

“And didn’t you want to become a priest?” said Kate.

“No!” he said sadly. “No!”

“Not at all?” she asked.

“No! When I was in England it was different fromMexico. Even God was different, and the Blessed Mary.They were changed so much, I felt I didn’t know them anymore. Then I came to understand better, and when I understoodI didn’t believe any more. I used to think it was theimages of Jesus, and the Virgin, and the Saints, that weredoing everything in the world. And the world seemed to meso strange, no? I couldn’t see that it was bad, because itwas all so very strange and mysterious, when I was a child,in Mexico. Only in England I learned about the laws oflife, and some science. And then when I knew why the sunrose and set, and how the world really was, I felt quitedifferent.”

“Was your god-father disappointed?”

“A little, perhaps. But he asked me if I would ratherbe a soldier, so I said I would. Then when the revolutioncame, and I was twenty-two years old, I had to come backto Mexico.”

“Did you like your god-father?”

“Yes, very much. But the revolution carried everythingaway. I felt I must do what my god-father wished. ButI could see that Mexico was not the Mexico he believed in.It was different. He was too English, and too good tounderstand. In the revolutions, I tried to help the man Ibelieved was the best man. So you see, I have always beenhalf a priest and half a soldier.”

[Pg 75]

“You never married?”

“No. I couldn’t marry, because I always felt my god-fatherwas there, and I felt I had promised him to be apriest—all those things, you know. When he died he toldme to follow my own conscience, and to remember thatMexico and all the Indians were in the hands of God, andhe made me promise never to take sides against God. Hewas an old man when he died, seventy-five.”

Kate could see the spell of the old bishop’s strong, rathergrandiose personality upon the impressionable Indian. Shecould see the curious recoil into chastity, perhaps characteristicof the savage. And at the same time she felt the intensemasculine yearning, coupled with a certain male ferocity,in the man’s breast.

“Your husband was James Joachim Leslie, the famousIrish leader?” he asked her: and added:

“You had no children?”

“No. I wanted Joachim’s children so much, but Ididn’t have any. But I have a boy and a girl from my firstmarriage. My first husband was a lawyer, and I wasdivorced from him for Joachim.”

“Did you like him—that first one?”

“Yes. I liked him. But I never felt anything very deepfor him. I married him when I was young, and he was agood deal older than I. I was fond of him, in a way. ButI had never realised that one could be more than fond of aman, till I knew Joachim. I thought that was all one couldever expect to feel—that you just liked a man, and that hewas in love with you. It took me years to understand thata woman can’t love a man—at least a woman like Iam can’t—if he is only the sort of good, decent citizen. WithJoachim I came to realise that a woman like me can onlylove a man who is fighting to change the world, to make itfreer, more alive. Men like my first husband, who are goodand trustworthy and who work to keep the world going onwell in the same state they found it in, they let you downhorribly, somewhere. You feel so terribly sold. Everythingis just a sell: it becomes so small. A woman who isn’t quiteordinary herself can only love a man who is fighting forsomething beyond the ordinary life.”

“And your husband fought for Ireland.”

“Yes—for Ireland, and for something he never quite realised.[Pg 76]He ruined his health. And when he was dying, hesaid to me: Kate, perhaps I’ve let you down. Perhaps Ihaven’t really helped Ireland. But I couldn’t help myself.I feel as if I’d brought you to the doors of life, andwas leaving you there. Kate, don’t be disappointed inlife because of me. I didn’t really get anywhere. I haven’treally got anywhere. I feel as if I’d made a mistake. Butperhaps when I’m dead I shall be able to do more for youthan I have done while I was alive. Say you’ll never feeldisappointed!”

There was a pause. The memory of the dead man wascoming over her again, and all her grief.

“And I don’t feel disappointed,” she went on, her voicebeginning to shake. “But I loved him. And it was bitter,that he had to die, feeling he hadn’t—hadn’t.”

She put her hands before her face, and the bitter tearscame through her fingers.

Cipriano sat motionless as a statue. But from his breastcame that dark, surging passion of tenderness the Indiansare capable of. Perhaps it would pass, leaving him indifferentand fatalistic again. But at any rate for the moment hesat in a dark, fiery cloud of passionate male tenderness. Helooked at her soft, wet white hands over her face, and atthe one big emerald on her finger, in a sort of wonder. Thewonder, the mystery, the magic that used to flood over himas a boy and a youth, when he kneeled before the babyishfigure of the Santa Maria de la Soledad, flooded him again.He was in the presence of the goddess, white-handed, mysterious,gleaming with a moon-like power and the intensepotency of grief.

Then Kate hastily took her hands from her face and withhead ducked looked for her handkerchief. Of course shehadn’t got one. Cipriano lent her his, nicely folded. Shetook it without a word, and rubbed her face and blew hernose.

“I want to go and look at the flowers,” she said in astrangled voice.

And she dashed into the garden with his handkerchief inher hand. He stood up and drew aside his chair, to let herpass, then stood a moment looking at the garden, before hesat down again and lighted a cigarette.

Owen had to return to the United States, and he asked Katewhether she wanted to stay on in Mexico.

This put her into a quandary. It was not an easy countryfor a woman to be alone in. And she had been beating herwings in an effort to get away. She felt like a bird roundwhose body a snake has coiled itself. Mexico was thesnake.

The curious influence of the country, pulling one down,pulling one down. She had heard an old American, who hadbeen forty years in the Republic, saying to Owen: “No manwho hasn’t a strong moral backbone should try to settle inMexico. If he does, he’ll go to pieces, morally and physically,as I’ve seen hundreds of young Americans do.”

To pull one down. It was what the country wanted to doall the time, with a slow, reptilian insistence, to pull onedown. To prevent the spirit from soaring. To take awaythe free, soaring sense of liberty.

“There is no such thing as liberty,” she heard the quiet,deep, dangerous voice of Don Ramón repeating. “There isno such thing as liberty. The greatest liberators are usuallyslaves of an idea. The freest people are slaves to conventionand public opinion, and more still, slaves to the industrialmachine. There is no such thing as liberty. You only changeone sort of domination for another. All we can do is tochoose our master.”

“But surely that is liberty—for the mass of people.”

“They don’t choose. They are tricked into a new formof servility, no more. They go from bad to worse.”

“You yourself—aren’t you free?” she asked.

“I?” he laughed. “I spent a long time trying to pretend.I thought I could have my own way. Till I realisedthat having my own way meant only running about smellingall the things in the street, like a dog that will pick up something.Of myself, I have no way. No man has any way inhimself. Every man who goes along a way is led by one ofthree things: by an appetite—and I class ambition amongappetite; or by an idea; or by an inspiration.”

[Pg 78]

“I used to think my husband was inspired about Ireland,”said Kate doubtfully.

“And now?”

“Yes! Perhaps he put his wine in old, rotten bottlesthat wouldn’t hold it. No!—Liberty is a rotten old wine-skin.It won’t hold one’s wine of inspiration or passion anymore,” she said.

“And Mexico!” he said. “Mexico is another Ireland.Ah no, no man can be his own master. If I must serve, Iwill not serve an idea, which cracks and leaks like an oldwine-skin. I will serve the God that gives me my manhood.There is no liberty for a man, apart from the God of his manhood.Free Mexico is a bully, and the old, colonial, ecclesiasticalMexico was another sort of bully. When man hasnothing but his will to assert—even his good-will—it is alwaysbullying. Bolshevism is one sort of bullying, capitalismanother: and liberty is a change of chains.”

“Then what’s to be done?” said Kate. “Just nothing?”

And with her own will, she wanted nothing to be done.Let the skies fall!

“One is driven, at last, back to the far distance, to lookfor God,” said Ramón uneasily.

“I rather hate this search-for-God business, and religiosity,”said Kate.

“I know!” he said, with a laugh. “I’ve suffered fromwould-be-co*cksure religion myself.”

“And you can’t really ‘find God’!” she said. “It’s asort of sentimentalism, and creeping back into old, hollowshells.”

“No!” he said slowly. “I can’t find God, in the oldsense. I know it’s a sentimentalism if I pretend to. But Iam nauseated with humanity and the human will: even withmy own will. I have realised that my will, no matter howintelligent I am, is only another nuisance on the face of theearth, once I start exerting it. And other people’s wills areeven worse.”

“Oh! isn’t human life horrible!” she cried. “Everyhuman being exerting his will all the time—over otherpeople, and over himself, and nearly always self-righteous!”

Ramón made a grimace of repulsion.

“To me,” he said, “that is just the weariness of life![Pg 79]For a time, it can be amusing: exerting your own will, andresisting all the other people’s wills, that they try to putover you. But at a certain point, a nausea sets in at the verymiddle of me: my soul is nauseated. My soul is nauseated,and there is nothing but death ahead, unless I find somethingelse.”

Kate listened in silence. She knew the road he had gone,but she herself had not yet come to the end of it. As yetshe was still strong in the pride of her own—her very ownwill.

“Oh, people are repulsive!” she cried.

“My own will becomes even more repulsive at last,” hesaid. “My own will, merely as my own will, is even moredistasteful to me than other people’s wills. From being thegod in my own machine, I must either abdicate, or die ofdisgust—self-disgust, at that.”

“How amusing!” she cried.

“It is rather funny,” he said sardonically.

“And then?” she asked, looking at him with a certainmalevolent challenge.

He looked back at her slowly, with an ironical light in hiseyes.

“Then!” he repeated. “Then!—I ask, what else isthere in the world, besides human will, human appetite?because ideas and ideals are only instruments of human willand appetite.”

“Not entirely,” said Kate. “They may be disinterested.”

“May they? If the appetite isn’t interested, the will is.”

“Why not?” she mocked. “We can’t be mere detachedblocks.”

“It nauseates me—I look for something else.”

“And what do you find?”

“My own manhood!”

“What does that mean?” she cried, jeering.

“If you looked, and found your own womanhood, youwould know.”

“But I have my own womanhood!” she cried.

“And then—when you find your own manhood—yourwomanhood,” he went on, smiling faintly at her—“thenyou know it is not your own, to do as you like with. Youdon’t have it of your own will. It comes from—from the[Pg 80]middle—from the God. Beyond me, at the middle, is theGod. And the God gives me my manhood, then leaves me toit. I have nothing but my manhood. The God gives it me,and leaves me to do further.”

Kate would not hear any more. She broke off into banalities.

The immediate question, for her, was whether she wouldstay in Mexico or not. She was not really concerned withDon Ramón’s soul—or even her own. She was concernedwith her immediate future. Should she stay in Mexico?Mexico meant the dark-faced men in cotton clothes, bighats: the peasants, peons, pelados, Indians, call them whatyou will. The mere natives.

Those pale-faced Mexicans of the Capital, politicians,artists, professionals, and business people, they did not interesther. Neither did the hacendados and the ranch-owners,in their tight trousers and weak, soft sensuality, pale victimsof their own emotional undiscipline. Mexico still meantthe mass of silent peons, to her. And she thought of themagain, these silent, stiff-backed men, driving their strings ofasses along the country roads, in the dust of Mexico’s infinitedryness, past broken walls, broken houses, brokenhaciendas, along the endless desolation left by the revolutions;past the vast stretches of maguey, the huge cactus, oraloe, with its gigantic rosette of upstarting, pointed leaves,that in its iron rows covers miles and miles of ground in theValley of Mexico, cultivated for the making of that bad-smellingdrink, pulque. The Mediterranean has the darkgrape, old Europe has malted beer, and China has opiumfrom the white poppy. But out of the Mexican soil a bunchof black-tarnished swords bursts up, and a great unfoldedbud of the once-flowering monster begins to thrust at thesky. They cut the great phallic bud and crush out thesperm-like juice for the pulque. Agua miel! Pulque!

But better pulque than the fiery white brandy distilledfrom the maguey: mescal, tequila: or in the low lands, thehateful sugar-cane brandy, aguardiente.

And the Mexican burns out his stomach with thosebeastly fire-waters and cauterises the hurt with red-hot chili.Swallowing one hell-fire to put out another.

Tall fields of wheat and maize. Taller, more brilliantfields of bright-green sugar-cane. And threading in white[Pg 81]cotton clothes, with dark, half-visible face, the eternal peonof Mexico, his great white calico drawers flopping round hisankles as he walks, or rolled up over his dark, handsomelegs.

The wild, sombre, erect men of the north! The too-oftendegenerate men of Mexico Valley, their heads through themiddle of their ponchos! The big men in Tascala, sellingice-cream or huge half-sweetened buns and fancy bread!The quick little Indians, quick as spiders, down in Oaxaca!The queer-looking half-Chinese natives towards Vera Cruz!The dark faces and the big black eyes on the coast of Sinaloa!The handsome men of Jalisco, with a scarlet blanketfolded on one shoulder!

They were of many tribes and many languages, and farmore alien to one another than Frenchmen, English, andGermans are. Mexico! It is not really even the beginningsof a nation: hence the rabid assertion of nationalism in thefew. And it is not a race.

Yet it is a people. There is some Indian quality whichpervades the whole. Whether it is men in blue overalls anda slouch, in Mexico City, or men with handsome legs in skin-tighttrousers, or the floppy, white, cotton-clad labourers inthe fields, there is something mysteriously in common. Theerect, prancing walk, stepping out from the base of thespine with lifted knees and short steps. The jaunty balancingof the huge hats. The thrown-back shoulders with afolded sarape like a royal mantle. And most of them handsome,with dark, warm-bronze skin so smooth and living,their proudly-held heads, whose black hair gleams like wild,rich feathers. Their big, bright black eyes that look at youwonderingly, and have no centre to them. Their sudden,charming smile, when you smile first. But the eyes unchanged.

Yes, and she had to remember, too, a fair proportion ofsmaller, sometimes insignificant looking men, some of themscaly with dirt, who looked at you with a cold, mud-likeantagonism as they stepped cattishly past. Poisonous, thin,stiff little men, cold and unliving like scorpions, and asdangerous.

And then the truly terrible faces of some creatures in thecity, slightly swollen with the poison of tequila, and withblack, dimmed, swivel eyes swinging in pure evil. Never[Pg 82]had she seen such faces of pure brutish evil, cold and insect-like,as in Mexico City.

The country gave her a strange feeling of hopelessness andof dauntlessness. Unbroken, eternally resistant, it was apeople that lived without hope, and without care. Gayeven, and laughing with indifferent carelessness.

They were something like her own Irish, but gone to amuch greater length. And also, they did what the self-consciousand pretentious Irish rarely do, they touched herbowels with a strange fire of compassion.

At the same time, she feared them. They would pull herdown, pull her down, to the dark depths of nothingness.

It was the same with the women. In their full long skirtsand bare feet, and with the big, dark-blue scarf or shawlcalled a rebozo over their womanly small heads and tightround their shoulders, they were images of wild submissiveness,the primitive womanliness of the world, that is sotouching and so alien. Many women kneeling in a dimchurch, all hooded in their dark-blue rebozos, the pallor oftheir skirts on the floor, their heads and shoulders wrappeddark and tight, as they swayed with devotion of fear andecstasy! A churchful of dark-wrapped women sunk there inwild, humble supplication of dread and of bliss filled Katewith tenderness and revulsion. They crouched like peoplenot quite created.

Their soft, untidy black hair, which they scratched forlice; the round-eyed baby joggling like a pumpkin in theshawl slung over the woman’s shoulder, the never-washedfeet and ankles, again somewhat reptilian under the long,flounced, soiled cotton skirt; and then, once more, the darkeyes of half-created women, soft, appealing, yet with a queervoid insolence! Something lurking, where the womanlycentre should have been; lurking snake-like. Fear! Thefear of not being able to find full creation. And the inevitablemistrust and lurking insolence, insolent against ahigher creation, the same thing that is in the striking of asnake.

Kate, as a woman, feared the women more than the men.The women were little and insidious, the men were biggerand more reckless. But in the eyes of each, the uncreatedcentre, where the evil and the insolence lurked.

And sometimes she wondered whether America really was[Pg 83]the great death-continent, the great No! to the Europeanand Asiatic and even African Yes! Was it really the greatmelting pot, where men from the creative continents weresmelted back again, not to a new creation, but down intothe hom*ogeneity of death? Was it the great continent ofthe undoing, and all its peoples the agents of the mysticdestruction! Plucking, plucking at the created soul in aman, till at last it plucked out the growing germ, and lefthim a creature of mechanism and automatic reaction, withonly one inspiration, the desire to pluck the quick out ofevery living spontaneous creature.

Was that the clue to America, she sometimes wondered.Was it the great death-continent, the continent that destroyedagain what the other continents had built up. Thecontinent whose spirit of place fought purely to pick the eyesout of the face of God. Was that America?

And all the people who went there, Europeans, negroes,Japanese, Chinese, all the colours and the races, were theythe spent people, in whom the God impulse had collapsed,so they crossed to the great continent of the negation, wherethe human will declares itself “free,” to pull down the soulof the world? Was it so? And did this account for thegreat drift to the New World, the drift of spent souls passingover to the side of Godless democracy, energetic negation?The negation which is the life-breath of materialism. Andwould the great negative pull of the Americans at lastbreak the heart of the world?

This thought would come to her, time and again.

She herself, what had she come to America for?

Because the flow of her life had broken, and she knew shecould not re-start it, in Europe.

These handsome natives! Was it because they weredeath-worshippers, Moloch-worshippers, that they were souncowed and handsome? Their pure acknowledgment ofdeath, and their undaunted admission of nothingness keptso erect and careless.

White men had had a soul, and lost it. The pivot of firehad been quenched in them, and their lives had started tospin in the reversed direction, widdershins. That reversedlook which is in the eyes of so many white people, the lookof nullity, and life wheeling in the reversed direction.Widdershins.

[Pg 84]

But the dark-faced natives, with their strange soft flame oflife wheeling upon a dark void: were they centreless andwiddershins too, as so many white men now are?

The strange, soft flame of courage in the black Mexicaneyes. But still it was not knit to a centre, that centre whichis the soul of a man in a man.

And all the efforts of white men to bring the soul of thedark men of Mexico into final clinched being has resulted innothing but the collapse of the white man. Against thesoft, dark flow of the Indian the white man at last collapses,with his God and his energy he collapses. In attempting toconvert the dark man to the white man’s way of life, thewhite man has fallen helplessly down the hole he wanted tofill up. Seeking to save another man’s soul, the white manlost his own, and collapsed upon himself.

Mexico! The great, precipitous, dry, savage country,with a handsome church in every landscape, rising as it wereout of nothing. A revolution broken landscape, with lingering,tall, handsome churches whose domes are like inflationsthat are going to burst, and whose pinnacles and towers arelike the trembling pagodas of an unreal race. Gorgeouschurches waiting, above the huts and straw hovels of thenatives, like ghosts to be dismissed.

And noble ruined haciendas, with ruined avenues approachingtheir broken splendour.

And the cities of Mexico, great and small, that theSpaniards conjured up out of nothing. Stones live and diewith the spirit of the builders. And the spirit of Spaniardsin Mexico dies, and the very stones in the building die. Thenatives drift into the centre of the plazas again, and inunspeakable empty weariness the Spanish buildings standaround, in a sort of dry exhaustion.

The conquered race! Cortes came with his iron heel andhis iron will, a conqueror. But a conquered race, unlessgrafted with a new inspiration, slowly sucks the blood of theconquerors, in the silence of a strange night and the heavinessof a hopeless will. So that now, the race of the conquerorsin Mexico is soft and boneless, children crying inhelpless hopelessness.

Was it the dark negation of the continent?

Kate could not look at the stones of the National Museumin Mexico without depression and dread. Snakes coiled like[Pg 85]excrement, snakes fanged and feathered beyond all dreamsof dread. And that was all.

The ponderous pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan, theHouse of Quetzalcoatl wreathed with the snake of all snakes,his huge fangs white and pure to-day as in the lost centurieswhen his makers were alive. He has not died. He is not sodead as the Spanish churches, this all-enwreathing dragon ofthe horror of Mexico.

Cholula, with its church where the altar was! And thesame ponderousness, the same unspeakable sense of weightand downward pressure of the blunt pyramid. Down-sinkingpressure and depression. And the great market-placewith its lingering dread and fascination.

Mitla under its hills, in the parched valley where a windblows the dust and the dead souls of the vanished race interrible gusts. The carved courts of Mitla, with a hard,sharp-angled, intricate fascination, but the fascination offear and repellance. Hard, four-square, sharp-edged, cutting,zigzagging Mitla, like continual blows of a stone axe.Without gentleness or grace or charm. Oh America, withyour unspeakable hard lack of charm, what then is yourfinal meaning! Is it forever the knife of sacrifice, as you putout your tongue at the world?

Charmless America! With your hard, vindictive beauty,are you waiting forever to smite death? Is the world youreverlasting victim?

So long as it will let itself be victimised.

But yet! But yet! The gentle voices of the natives.The voices of the boys, like birds twittering among the treesof the plaza of Tehuacan! The soft touch, the gentleness.Was it the dark-fingered quietness of death, and the musicof the presence of death in their voices?

She thought again of what Don Ramón had said toher.

“They pull you down! Mexico pulls you down, thepeople pull you down like a great weight! But it may bethey pull you down as the earth’s pull of gravitation does,that you can balance on your feet. Maybe they draw youdown as the earth draws down the roots of a tree, so thatit may be clinched deep in soil. Men are still part of theTree of Life, and the roots go down to the centre of theearth. Loose leaves, and aeroplanes, blow away on the[Pg 86]wind, in what they call freedom. But the Tree of Life hasfixed, deep, gripping roots.

“It may be you need to be drawn down, down, till yousend roots into the deep places again. Then you can sendup the sap and the leaves back to the sky; later.

“And to me, the men in Mexico are like trees, forests thatthe white men felled in their coming. But the roots of thetrees are deep and alive and forever sending up new shoots.

“And each new shoot that comes up overthrows a Spanishchurch or an American factory. And soon the dark forestwill rise again, and shake the Spanish buildings from the faceof America.

“All that matters to me are the roots that reach down beyondall destruction. The roots and the life are there. Whatelse it needs is the word, for the forest to begin to rise again.And some man among men must speak the word.”

The strange doom-like sound of the man’s words! Butin spite of the sense of doom on her heart, she would not goaway yet. She would stay longer in Mexico.

Owen left, Villiers stayed on a few days to escort Kate tothe lake. If she liked it there, and could find a house, shecould stay by herself. She knew sufficient people in Mexicoand in Guadalajara to prevent her from being lonely. Butshe still shrank from travelling alone in this country.

She wanted to leave the city. The new President hadcome in quietly enough, but there was an ugly feeling ofuppishness in the lower classes, the bottom dog clamberingmangily to the top. Kate was no snob. Man or woman,she cared nothing about the social class. But meanness,sordidness she hated. She hated bottom dogs. They allwere mangy, they all were full of envy and malice, manyhad the rabies. Ah no, let us defend ourselves from thebottom dog, with its mean growl and its yellow teeth.

She had tea with Cipriano before leaving.

“How do you get along with the Government?” sheasked.

“I stand for the law and the constitution,” he said.“They know I don’t want anything to do with cuartelazosor revolutions. Don Ramón is my chief.”

“In what way?”

“Later, you will see.”

He had a secret, important to himself, on which he wassitting tight. But he looked at her with shining eyes, asmuch as to say that soon she would share the secret, andthen he would be much happier.

He watched her curiously, from under his wary blacklashes. She was one of the rather plump Irishwomen, withsoft brown hair and hazel eyes, and a beautiful, rather distantrepose. Her great charm was her soft repose, and hergentle, unconscious inaccessibility. She was taller and biggerthan Cipriano: he was almost boyishly small. But he wasall energy, and his eyebrows tilted black and with a barbarianconceit, above his full, almost insolent black eyes.

He watched her continually, with a kind of fascination: thesame spell that the absurd little figures of the doll Madonnahad cast over him as a boy. She was the mystery, and hethe adorer, under the semi-ecstatic spell of the mystery.[Pg 88]But once he rose from his knees, he rose in the same struttingconceit of himself as before he knelt: with all his adorationin his pocket again. But he had a good deal of magneticpower. His education had not diminished it. Hiseducation lay like a film of white oil on the black lake of hisbarbarian consciousness. For this reason, the things he saidwere hardly interesting at all. Only what he was. He madethe air around him seem darker, but richer and fuller.Sometimes his presence was extraordinarily grateful, like ahealing of the blood. And sometimes he was an intolerableweight on her. She gasped to get away from him.

“You think a great deal of Don Ramón?” she said tohim.

“Yes,” he said, his black eyes watching her. “He is avery fine man.”

How trivial the words sounded! That was another boringthing about him: his English seemed so trivial. He wasn’treally expressing himself. He was only flipping at the whiteoil that lay on his surface.

“You like him better than the Bishop, your god-father?”

He lifted his shoulders in a twisted, embarrassed shrug.

“The same!” he said. “I like him the same.”

Then he looked away into the distance, with a certainhauteur and insolence.

“Very different, no?” he said. “But in some ways, thesame. He knows better what is Mexico. He knows betterwhat I am. Bishop Severn did not know the real Mexico:how could he, he was a sincere Catholic! But Don Ramónknows the real Mexico, no?”

“And what is the real Mexico?” she asked.

“Well—you must ask Don Ramón. I can’t explain.”

She asked Cipriano about going to the lake.

“Yes!” he said. “You can go! You will like it. Gofirst to Orilla, no?—you take a ticket on the railway toIxtlahuacan. And in Orilla is an hotel with a Germanmanager. Then from Orilla you can go in a motor-boat, ina few hours, to Sayula. And there you will find a house tolive in.”

He wanted her to do this, she could tell.

“How far is Don Ramón’s hacienda from Sayula?” sheasked.

“Near! About an hour in a boat. He is there now. And[Pg 89]at the beginning of the month I am going with my divisionto Guadalajara: now there is a new Governor. So I shall bequite near too.”

“That will be nice,” she said.

“You think so?” he asked quickly.

“Yes,” she said, on her guard, looking at him slowly.“I should be sorry to lose touch with Don Ramón andyou.”

He had a little tension on his brow, haughty, unwilling,conceited, and at the same time, yearning and desirous.

“You like Don Ramón very much?” he said. “Youwant to know him more?”

There was a peculiar anxiety in his voice.

“Yes,” she said. “One knows so few people in the worldnowadays, that one can respect—and fear a little. I am alittle afraid of Don Ramón: and I have the greatest respectfor him—” she ended on a hot note of sincerity.

“It is good!” he said. “It is very good. You mayrespect him more than any other man in the world.”

“Perhaps that is true,” she said, turning her eyes slowlyto his.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried impatiently. “It is true. Youwill find out later. And Ramón likes you. He told me toask you to come to the lake. When you come to Sayula,when you are coming, write to him, and no doubt he cantell you about a house, and all those things.”

“Shall I?” she said, hesitant.

“Yes. Yes! of course, we say what we mean.”

Curious little man, with his odd, inflammable hauteur andconceit, something burning inside him, that gave him nopeace. He had an almost childish faith in the other man.And yet she was not sure that he did not, in some cornerof his soul, resent Ramón somewhat.

Kate set off by the night train for the west, with Villiers.The one Pullman coach was full: people going to Guadalajaraand Colima and the coast. There were three militaryofficers, rather shy in their new uniforms, and rather swaggeringat the same time, making eyes at the empty air, asif they felt they were conspicuous, and sitting quickly intheir seats, as if to obliterate themselves. There were twocountry farmers or ranchers, in tight trousers and cartwheelhats stitched with silver. One was a tall man with a[Pg 90]big moustache, the other was smaller, grey man. But theyboth had the handsome, alive legs of the Mexicans, and therather quenched faces. There was a widow buried in crape,accompanied by a criada, a maid. The rest were townsmen,Mexicans on business, at once shy and fussy, unobtrusiveand self-important.

The Pullman was clean and neat, with its hot green-plushseats. But, full of people, it seemed empty compared with aPullman in the United States. Everybody was very quiet,very soft and guarded. The farmers folded their beautifulsarapes and laid them carefully on the seats, sitting as iftheir section were a lonely little place. The officers foldedtheir cloaks and arranged dozens of little parcels, little cardboardhatboxes and heterogeneous bundles, under the seatsand on the seats. The business men had the oddest luggage,canvas hold-alls embroidered in wool, with long, touchingmottoes.

And in all the crowd, a sense of guardedness and softnessand self-effacement: a curious soft sensibilité, touched withfear. It was already a somewhat conspicuous thing to travelin the Pullman, you had to be on your guard.

The evening for once was grey: the rainy season reallyapproaching. A sudden wind whirled dust and a few spotsof rain. The train drew out of the formless, dry, dust-smittenareas fringing the city, and wound mildly on for afew minutes, only to stop in the main street of Tacubaya,the suburb-village. In the grey approach of evening thetrain halted heavily in the street, and Kate looked out at themen who stood in groups, with their hats tilted against thewind and their blankets folded over their shoulders and upto their eyes, against the dust, motionless standing likesombre ghosts, only a glint of eyes showing between thedark sarape and the big hat-brim; while donkey-drivers ina dust-cloud ran frantically, with uplifted arms like demons,uttering short, sharp cries to prevent their donkeys frompoking in between the coaches of the train. Silent dogstrotted in-and-out under the train, women, their faceswrapped in their blue rebozos, came to offer tortillas foldedin a cloth to keep them warm, or pulque in an earthenwaremug, or pieces of chicken smothered in red, thick, oilysauce; or oranges or bananas or pitahayas, anything. Andwhen few people bought, because of the dust, the women[Pg 91]put their wares under their arm, under the blue rebozo, andcovered their faces and motionless watched the train.

It was about six o’clock. The earth was utterly dry andstale. Somebody was kindling charcoal in front of a house.Men were hurrying down the wind, balancing their great hatscuriously. Horsem*n on quick, fine little horses, guns slungbehind, trotted up to the train, lingered, then trotted quicklyaway again into nowhere.

Still the train stood in the street. Kate and Villiers gotdown. They watched the sparks blowing from the charcoalwhich a little girl was kindling in the street, to cook tortillas.

The train had a second-class coach and a first-class. Thesecond class was jam-full of peasants, Indians, piled in likechickens with their bundles and baskets and bottles, endlessthings. One woman had a fine peaco*ck under her arm. Sheput it down and in vain tried to suppress it beneath hervoluminous skirts. It refused to be suppressed. She tookit up and balanced it on her knee, and looked round againover the medley of jars, baskets, pumpkins, melons, guns,bundles and human beings.

In the front was a steel car with a guard of little scrubbysoldiers in their dirty cotton uniforms. Some soldiers weremounted on top of the train with their guns: the look-out.

And the whole train, seething with life, was curiously still,subdued. Perhaps it is the perpetual sense of danger whichmakes the people so hushed, without clamour or stridency.And with an odd, hushed politeness among them. A sort ofdemon-world.

At last the train moved on. If it had waited forever, noone would have been deeply surprised. For what might notbe ahead? Rebels, bandits, bridges blown up—anything.

However, quietly, stealthily, the train moved out andalong the great weary valley. The circling mountains, sorelentless, were invisible save near at hand. In a few brokenadobe huts, a bit of fire sparked red. The adobe was grey-black,of the lava dust, depressing. Into the distance thefields spread dry, with here and there patches of green irrigation.There was a broken hacienda with columns thatsupported nothing. Darkness was coming, dust still blewin the shadow; the valley seemed encompassed in a dry,stale, weary gloom.

Then there came a heavy shower. The train was passing[Pg 92]a pulque hacienda. The rows of the giant maguey stretchedbristling their iron-black barbs in the gloom.

All at once, the lights came on, the Pullman attendantcame swiftly lowering the blinds, so that the brilliance ofthe windows should attract no bullets from the dark outside.

There was a poor little meal at exorbitant prices, and whenthis was cleared away, the attendant came with a clash tomake the beds, pulling down the upper berths. It was onlyeight o’clock, and the passengers looked up in resentment.But no good. The pug-faced Mexican in charge, and hissmall-pox-pitted assistant insolently came in between theseats, inserted the key overhead, and brought down theberth with a crash. And the Mexican passengers humblycrawled away to the smoking-room or the toilet, like whippeddogs.

At half-past eight everybody was silently and with intensediscretion going to bed. None of the collar-stud-snappingbustle and “homely” familiarity of the United States.Like subdued animals they all crept in behind their greenserge curtains.

Kate hated a Pullman, the discreet indiscretion, thehorrible nearness of other people, like so many larvae in somany sections, behind the green serge curtains. Above all,the horrible intimacy of the noise of going to bed. She hatedto undress, struggling in the oven of her berth, with herelbow butting into the stomach of the attendant who wasbuttoning up the green curtain outside.

And yet, once she was in bed and could put out her lightand raise the window blind, she had to admit it was betterthan a wagon-lit in Europe: and perhaps the best that canbe done for people who must travel through the night intrains.

There was a rather cold wind, after the rain, up there onthat high plateau. The moon had risen, the sky was clear.Rocks, and tall organ cactus, and more miles of maguey.Then the train stopped at a dark little station on the rimof the slope, where men swathed in dark sarapes held dusky,ruddy lanterns that lit up no faces at all, only dark gaps.Why did the train stay so long? Was something wrong?

At last they were going again. Under the moon she sawbeyond her a long downslope of rocks and cactus, and in the[Pg 93]distance below, the lights of a town. She lay in her berthwatching the train wind slowly down the wild, rugged slope.Then she dozed.

To wake at a station that looked like a quiet inferno, withdark faces coming near the windows, glittering eyes in thehalf-light, women in their rebozos running along the trainbalancing dishes of meat, tamales, tortillas on one hand,black-faced men with fruit and sweets, and all calling in asubdued, intense, hushed hubbub. Strange and glaring, shesaw eyes at the dark screen of the Pullman, sudden handsthrusting up something to sell. In fear, Kate dropped herwindow. The wire screen was not enough.

The platform below the Pullman all was dark. But at theback of the train she could see the glare of the first-classwindows, on the dark station. And a man selling sweetmeats—Cajetas!Cajetas! La de Celaya!

She was safe inside the Pullman, with nothing to do butto listen to an occasional cough behind the green curtains,and to feel the faint bristling apprehension of all the Mexicansin their dark berths. The dark Pullman was full of asubdued apprehension, fear lest there might be some attackon the train.

She went to sleep and woke at a bright station: probablyQueretaro. The green trees looked theatrical in the electriclight. Opales! she heard the men calling softly. If Owenhad been there he would have got up in his pyjamas to buyopals. The call would have been too strong.

She slept fitfully, in the shaken saloon, vaguely aware ofstations and the deep night of the open country. Then shestarted from a complete sleep. The train was dead still, nosound. Then a tremendous jerking as the Pullman wasshunted. It must be Irapuato, where they branched to thewest.

She would arrive at Ixtlahuacan soon after six in the morning.The man woke her at daybreak, before the sun hadrisen. Dry country with mesquite bushes, in the dawn: thengreen wheat alternating with ripe wheat. And men alreadyin the pale, ripened wheat reaping with sickles, cutting shortlittle handfuls from the short straw. A bright sky, with abluish shadow on earth. Parched slopes with ragged maizestubble. Then a forlorn hacienda and a man on horseback,in a blanket, driving a silent flock of cows, sheep, bulls,[Pg 94]goats, lambs, rippling a bit ghostly in the dawn, from undera tottering archway. A long canal beside the railway, a longcanal paved with bright green leaves from which poked themauve heads of the lirio, the water hyacinth. The sun waslifting up, red. In a moment, it was the full, dazzling goldof a Mexican morning.

Kate was dressed and ready, sitting facing Villiers, whenthey came to Ixtlahuacan. The man carried out her bags.The train drifted in to a desert of a station. They got down.It was a new day.

In the powerful light of morning, under a turquoise bluesky, she gazed at the helpless-looking station, railway lines,some standing trucks, and a remote lifelessness. A boyseized their bags and ran across the lines to the station yard,which was paved with cobble stones, but overgrown withweeds. At one side stood an old tram-car with two mules,like a relic. One or two men, swathed up to the eyes inscarlet blankets, were crossing on silent white legs.

“Adonde?” said the boy.

But Kate went to see her big luggage taken out. It was allthere.

“Orilla Hotel,” said Kate.

The boy said they must go in the tram-car, so in the tram-carthey went. The driver whipped his mules, they rolledin the still, heavy morning light away down an uneven,cobbled road with holes in it, between walls with fallingmortar and low, black adobe houses, in the peculiar vacuousdepression of a helpless little Mexican town, towards theplaza. The strange emptiness, everything empty oflife!

Occasional men on horseback clattered suddenly by, occasionalbig men in scarlet sarapes went noiselessly on theirown way, under the big hats. A boy on a high mule wasdelivering milk from red globe-shaped jars slung on eitherside his mount. The street was stony, uneven, vacuous,sterile. The stones seemed dead, the town seemed made ofdead stone. The human life came with a slow, sterile unwillingness,in spite of the low-hung power of the sun.

At length they were in the plaza, where brilliant treesflowered in a blaze of pure scarlet, and some in pure lavender,around the basins of milky-looking water. Milky-dimthe water bubbled up in the basins, and women, bleary with[Pg 95]sleep, uncombed, came from under the delapidated arches ofthe portales, and across the broken pavement, to fill theirwater-jars.

The tram stopped and they got down. The boy got downwith the bags, and told them they must go to the river totake a boat.

They followed obediently down the smashed pavements,where every moment you might twist your ankle or breakyour leg. Everywhere the same weary indifference andbrokenness, a sense of dirt and of helplessness, squalor of far-goneindifference, under the perfect morning sky, in the puresunshine and the pure Mexican air. The sense of life ebbingaway, leaving dry ruin.

They came to the edge of the town, to a dusty, humpedbridge, a broken wall, a pale-brown stream flowing full.Below the bridge a cluster of men.

Each one wanted her to hire his boat. She demanded amotor-boat: the boat from the hotel. They said therewasn’t one. She didn’t believe it. Then a dark-faced fellowwith his black hair down his forehead, and a certain intensityin his eyes, said: Yes, yes; The Hotel had a boat, but itwas broken. She must take a row-boat. In an hour and ahalf he would row her there.

“How long?” said Kate.

“An hour and a half.”

“And I am so hungry!” cried Kate. “How much doyou charge?”

“Two pesos.” He held up two fingers.

Kate said yes, and he ran down to his boat. Then shenoticed he was a cripple with inturned feet. But how quickand strong!

She climbed with Villiers down the broken bank to theriver, and in a moment they were in the boat. Pale greenwillow trees fringed from the earthen banks to the fuller-flowing,pale-brown water. The river was not very wide,between deep banks. They slipped under the bridge, andpast a funny high barge with rows of seats. The boatmansaid it went up the river to Jocotlan: and he waved his handto show the direction. They were slipping down-stream,between lonely banks of willow-trees.

The crippled boatman was pulling hard, with greatstrength and energy. When she spoke to him in her bad[Pg 96]Spanish and he found it hard to understand, he knitted hisbrow a little, anxiously. And when she laughed he smiledat her with such a beautiful gentleness, sensitive, wistful,quick. She felt he was naturally honest and truthful, andgenerous. There was a beauty in these men, a wistfulbeauty and a great physical strength. Why had she felt sobitterly about the country?

Morning was still young on the pale buff river, betweenthe silent earthen banks. There was a blue dimness in thelower air, and black water-fowl ran swiftly, unconcernedlyback and forth from the river’s edge, on the dry, bakedbanks that were treeless now, and wider. They had entereda wide river, from the narrow one. The blueness and moistnessof the dissolved night seemed to linger under the scatteredpepper-trees of the far shore.

The boatman rowed short and hard upon the flimsy, soft,sperm-like water, only pausing at moments swiftly to smearthe sweat from his face with an old rag he kept on the benchbeside him. The sweat ran from his bronze-brown skin likewater, and the black hair on his high-domed, Indian head,smoked with wetness.

“There is no hurry,” said Kate, smiling to him.

“What does the Señorita say?”

“There is no hurry,” she repeated.

He paused, smiling, breathing deeply, and explained thatnow he was rowing against stream. This wider river flowedout of the lake, full and heavy. See! even as he rested amoment, the boat began to turn and drift! He quickly tookhis oars.

The boat moved slowly, in the hush of departed night,upon the soft, full-flowing buff water, that carried littletufts of floating water-hyacinth. Some willow-trees stoodnear the edge, and some pepper trees of most delicate greenfoliage. Beyond the trees and the level of the shores, bighills rose up to high, blunt points, baked incredibly dry,like biscuit. The blue sky settled against them nakedly,they were leafless and lifeless save for the iron-green shaftsof the organ cactus, that glistered blackly, yet atmospherically,in the ochreous aridity. This was Mexico again, stark-dryand luminous with powerful light, cruel and unreal.

On a flat near the river a peon, perched on the rump ofhis ass, was slowly driving five luxurious cows towards the[Pg 97]water to drink. The big black-and-white animals steppedin a dream-pace past the pepper-trees to the bank, like movingpieces of light-and-shade: the dun cows trailed after,in the incredible silence and brilliance of the morning.

Earth, air, water were all silent with new light, the lastblue of night dissolving like a breath. No sound, even nolife. The great light was stronger than life itself. Only, upin the blue, some turkey-buzzards were wheeling with dirty-edgedwings, as everwhere in Mexico.

“Don’t hurry!” Kate said again to the boatman, whowas again mopping his face, while his black hair ran sweat.“We can go slowly.”

The man smiled deprecatingly.

“If the Señorita will sit in the back,” he said.

Kate did not understand his request at first. He hadrowed in towards a bend in the right bank, to be out of thecurrent. On the left bank Kate had noticed some menbathing: men whose wet skins flashed with the beautifulbrown-rose colour and glitter of the naked natives, and onestout man with the curious creamy-biscuit skin of the cityMexicans. Low against the water across-stream she watchedthe glitter of naked men, half-immersed in the river.

She rose to step back into the stern of the boat, whereVilliers was. As she did so, she saw a dark head and theflashing ruddy shoulders of a man swimming towards theboat. She wavered—and as she was sitting down, the manstood up in the water and was wading near, the water washingat the loose little cloth he had round his loins. He wassmooth and wet and of a lovely colour, with the rich smooth-muscledphysique of the Indians. He was coming towardsthe boat, pushing back his hair from his forehead.

The boatman watched him, transfixed, without surprise,a little subtle half-smile, perhaps of mockery, round his nose.As if he had expected it!

“Where are you going?” asked the man in the water,the brown river running softly at his strong thighs.

The boatman waited a moment for his patrons to answer,then, seeing they were silent, replied in a low, unwillingtone:

“Orilla.”

The man in the water took hold of the stern of the boat, asthe boatman softly touched the water with the oars to keep[Pg 98]her straight, and he threw back his longish black hair with acertain effrontery.

“Do you know whom the lake belongs to?” he asked,with the same effrontery.

“What do you say?” asked Kate, haughty.

“If you know whom the lake belongs to?” the youngman in the water repeated.

“To whom?” said Kate, flustered.

“To the old gods of Mexico,” the stranger said. “Youhave to make a tribute to Quetzalcoatl, if you go on thelake.”

The strange calm effrontery of it! But truly Mexican.

“How?” said Kate.

“You can give me something,” he said.

“But why should I give something to you, if it is a tributeto Quetzalcoatl?” she stammered.

“I am Quetzalcoatl’s man, I,” he replied, with calmeffrontery.

“And if I don’t give you anything?” she said.

He lifted his shoulders and spread his free hand, staggeringa little, losing his footing in the water as he did so.

“If you wish to make an enemy of the lake!—” he said,coolly, as he recovered his balance.

And then for the first time he looked straight at her. Andas he did so, the demonish effrontery died down again, andthe peculiar American tension slackened and left him.

He gave a slight wave of dismissal with his free hand,and pushed the boat gently forward.

“But it doesn’t matter,” he said, with a slight insolentjerk of his head sideways, and a faint, insolent smile. “Wewill wait till the Morning Star rises.”

The boatman softly but powerfully pulled the oars. Theman in the water stood with the sun on his powerful chest,looking after the boat in half-seeing abstraction. His eyeshad taken again the peculiar gleaming far-awayness, suspendedbetween the realities, which, Kate suddenly realised,was the central look in the native eyes. The boatman,rowing away, was glancing back at the man who stood in thewater, and his face, too, had the abstracted, transfiguredlook of a man perfectly suspended between the world’s twostrenuous wings of energy. A look of extraordinary, arrestingbeauty, the silent, vulnerable centre of all life’s quivering,[Pg 99]like the nucleus gleaming in tranquil suspense, within acell.

“What does he mean,” said Kate, “by ‘We will waittill the Morning Star rises?’”

The man smiled slowly.

“It is a name,” he said.

And he seemed to know no more. But the symbolism hadevidently the power to soothe and sustain him.

“Why did he come and speak to us?” asked Kate.

“He is one of those of the god Quetzalcoatl, Señorita.”

“And you? are you one too?”

“Who knows!” said the man, putting his head on oneside. Then he added: “I think so. We are many.”

He watched Kate’s face with that gleaming, intense semi-abstraction,a gleam that hung unwavering in his black eyes,and which suddenly reminded Kate of the morning star, orthe evening star, hanging perfect between night and thesun.

“You have the morning star in your eyes,” she said to theman.

He flashed her a smile of extraordinary beauty.

“The Señorita understands,” he said.

His face changed again to a dark-brown mask, like semi-transparentstone, and he rowed with all his might. Ahead,the river was widening, the banks were growing lower, downto the water’s level, like shoals planted with willow treesand with reeds. Above the willow trees a square white sailwas standing, as if erected on the land.

“Is the lake so near?” said Kate.

The man hastily mopped his running wet face.

“Yes, Señorita! The sailing boats are waiting for thewind, to come into the river. We will pass by the canal.”

He indicated with a backward movement of the head anarrow, twisting passage of water between deep reeds. Itmade Kate think of the little river Anapo: the same mysteryunbroken. The boatman, with creases half of sadness andhalf of exaltation in his bronze, still face, was pulling withall his might. Water-fowl went swimming into the reeds, orrose on wing and wheeled into the blue air. Some willowtrees hung a dripping, vivid green, in the stark dry country.The stream was narrow and winding. With a nonchalantmotion, first of the right then of the left hand, Villiers was[Pg 100]guiding the boatman, to keep him from running aground inthe winding, narrow water-way.

And this put Villiers at his ease, to have something practicaland slightly mechanical to do and to assert. He wasstriking the American note once more, of mechanical dominance.

All the other business had left him incomprehending, andwhen he asked Kate, she had pretended not to hear him.She sensed a certain delicate, tender mystery in the river,in the naked man in the water, in the boatman, and shecould not bear to have it subjected to the tough Americanflippancy. She was weary to death of American automatismand American flippant toughness. It gave her a feeling ofnausea.

“Quite a well-built fellow, that one who laid hold of theboat. What did he want, anyway?” Villiers insisted.

“Nothing!” said Kate.

They were slipping out past the clay-coloured, loose stonyedges of the land, through a surge of ripples, into the widewhite light of the lake. A breeze was coming from the east,out of the upright morning, and the surface of the shallow,flimsy, dun-coloured water was in motion. Shoal-waterrustled near at hand. Out to the open, large, square whitesails were stepping gingerly forward, and beyond the buff-coloured,pale desert of water rose far-away blue, sharp hillsof the other side, many miles away, pure pale blue with distance,yet sharp-edged and clear in form.

“Now,” said the boatman, smiling to Kate, “it is easier.Now we are out of the current.”

He pulled rhythmically through the frail-rippling, sperm-likewater, with a sense of peace. And for the first time Katefelt she had met the mystery of the natives, the strange andmysterious gentleness between a scylla and a charybdis ofviolence; the small poised, perfect body of the bird thatwaves wings of thunder and wings of fire and night, in itsflight. But central between the flash of day and the blackof night, between the flash of lightning and the break ofthunder, the still, soft body of the bird poised and soaring,forever. The mystery of the evening-star brilliant in silenceand distance between the downward-surging plunge of thesun and the vast, hollow seething of inpouring night. Themagnificence of the watchful morning-star, that watches[Pg 101]between the night and the day, the gleaming clue to the twoopposites.

This kind of frail, pure sympathy she felt at the momentbetween herself and the boatman, between herself and theman who had spoken from the water. And she was not goingto have it broken by Villiers’ American jokes.

There was a sound of breaking water. The boatman drewaway, and pointed across to where a canoa, a native sailing-boat,was lying at an angle. She had run aground in a wind,and now must wait till another wind would carry her off thesubmerged bank again. Another boat was coming down thebreeze, steering cautiously among the shoals, for the riveroutlet. She was piled high with petates, the native leafmats, above her hollowed black sides. And bare-legged menwith loose white drawers rolled up, and brown chests showing,were running with poles as the shallows heaved upagain, pushing her off, and balancing their huge hats withsmall, bird-like shakes of the head.

Beyond the boats, sea-wards, were rocks outcropping andstrange birds like pelicans standing in silhouette, motionless.

They had been crossing a bay of the lake-shore, and werenearing the hotel. It stood on a parched dry bank above thepale-brown water, a long, low building amid a tender greenof bananas and pepper-trees. Everywhere the shores rose uppale and cruelly dry, dry to cruelty, and on the little hillsthe dark statues of the organ cactus poised in nothingness.

There was a broken-down landing-place, and a boat-housein the distance, and someone in white flannel trousers wasstanding on the broken masonry. Upon the filmy waterducks and black water-fowl bobbed like corks. The bottomwas stony. The boatman suddenly backed the boat, andpulled round. He pushed up his sleeve and hung over thebows, reaching into the water. With a quick motion hegrabbed something, and scrambled into the boat again. Hewas holding in the pale-skinned hollow of his palm a littleearthenware pot, crusted by the lake deposit.

“What is it?” she said.

“Ollitta of the gods,” he said. “Of the old dead gods.Take it, Señorita.”

“You must let me pay for it,” she said.

“No, Señorita. It is yours,” said the man, with that[Pg 102]sensitive, masculine sincerity which comes sometimes soquickly from a native.

It was a little, rough round pot with protuberances.

“Look!” said the man, reaching again for the little pot.He turned it upside-down, and she saw cut-in eyes and thesticking-out ears of an animal’s head.

“A cat!” she exclaimed. “It is a cat.”

“Or a coyote!”

“A coyote!”

“Let’s look!” said Villiers. “Why how awfully interesting!Do you think it’s old?”

“It is old?” Kate asked.

“The time of the old gods,” said the boatman. Then witha sudden smile: “The dead gods don’t eat much rice, theyonly want little casseroles while they are bone under thewater.” And he looked her in the eyes.

“While they are bone?” she repeated. And she realisedhe meant the skeletons of gods that cannot die.

They were at the landing stage; or rather, at the heap ofcollapsed masonry which had once been a landing stage.The boatman got out and held the boat steady while Kateand Villiers landed. Then he scrambled up with the bags.

The man in white trousers, and a mozo appeared. It wasthe hotel manager. Kate paid the boatman.

“Adios, Señorita!” he said with a smile. “May yougo with Quetzalcoatl.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Goodbye!”

They went up the slope between the tattered bananas,whose ragged leaves were making a hushed, distant patterin the breeze. The green fruit curved out its bristly-softbunch, the purple flower-bud depending stiffly.

The German manager came to talk to them: a young manof about forty, with his blue eyes going opaque and stonybehind his spectacles, though the centres were keen. Evidentlya German who had been many years out in Mexico—outin the lonely places. The rather stiff look, the slight lookof fear in the soul—not physical fear—and the look of defeat,characteristic of the European who has long been subjectedto the unbroken spirit of place! But the defeat was in thesoul, not the will.

He showed Kate to her room in the unfinished quarter,and ordered her breakfast. The hotel consisted of an old[Pg 103]low ranch-house with a verandah—and this was the dining-room,lounge, kitchen and office. Then there was a two-storeynew wing, with a smart bath-room between each twobedrooms, and almost up-to-date fittings: very incongruous.

But the new wing was unfinished—had been unfinished fora dozen years and more, the work abandoned when PorfirioDiaz fled. Now it would probably never be finished.

And this is Mexico. Whatever pretentiousness andmodern improvements it may have, outside the capital, theyare either smashed or raw and unfinished, with rusty bonesof iron girders sticking out.

Kate washed her hands and went down to breakfast.Before the long verandah of the old ranch-house, the greenpepper-trees dropped like green light, and small cardinalbirds with scarlet bodies and blazing impertinent heads likepoppy-buds flashed among the pinkish pepper-heads, closingtheir brown wings upon the audacity of their glowing redness.A train of geese passed in the glaring sun, automatic, towardsthe eternal tremble of pale, earth-coloured water beyondthe stones.

It was a place with a strange atmosphere: stony, hard,broken, with round cruel hills and the many-fluted bunchesof the organ-cactus behind the old house, and an ancient roadtrailing past, deep in ancient dust. A touch of mystery andcruelty, the stonyness of fear, a lingering, cruel sacredness.

Kate loitered hungrily, and was glad when the Mexican inshirt-sleeves and patched trousers, another lingering remnantof Don Porfirio’s day, brought her her eggs andcoffee.

He was muted as everything about the place seemedmuted, even the very stones and the water. Only thosepoppies on wing, the cardinal birds, gave a sense of liveliness:and they were uncanny.

So swiftly one’s moods changed! In the boat, she hadglimpsed the superb rich stillness of the morning-star, thepoignant intermediate flashing its quiet between the energiesof the cosmos. She had seen it in the black eyes of thenatives, in the sunrise of the man’s rich, still body, Indian-warm.

And now again already the silence was of vacuity, arrest,and cruelty: the uncanny empty unbearableness of manyMexican mornings. Already she was uneasy, suffering from[Pg 104]the malaise which tortures one inwardly in that country ofcactuses.

She went up to her room, pausing at the corridor windowto look out at the savage little hills that stood at the backof the hotel in dessicated heaps, with the dark-green bulksof organ-cactus sticking up mechanically and sinister, sombrein all the glare. Grey ground-squirrels like rats slitheredceaselessly around. Sinister, strangely dark and sinister, inthe great glare of the sun!

She went to her room to be alone. Below her window, inthe bricks and fallen rubble of unfinished masonry, a hugewhite turkey-co*ck, dim-white, strutted with his brown hens.And sometimes he stretched out his pink wattles and gavevent to fierce, powerful turkey-yelps, like some strong dogyelping; or else he ruffled all his feathers like a great, soiledwhite peony, and chuffed, hissing here and there, raging themetal of his plumage.

Below him, the eternal tremble of pale-earth, unrealwaters, far beyond which rose the stiff resistance of mountainslosing their pristine blue. Distinct, frail distances faroff on the dry air, dim-seeing, yet sharp and edged withmenace.

Kate took her bath in the filmy water that was hardlylike water at all. Then she went and sat on the collapsedmasonry, in the shade of the boat-house below. Smallwhite ducks bobbed about on the shallow water below her,or dived, raising clouds of submarine dust. A canoe camepaddling in; a lean fellow with sinewy brown legs. Heanswered Kate’s nod with the aloof promptness of anIndian, made fast his canoe inside the boat-house, and wasgone, stepping silent and barefoot over the bright greenwater-stones, and leaving a shadow, cold as flint, on the airbehind him.

No sound on the morning save a faint touching of water,and the occasional powerful yelping of the turkey-co*ck.Silence, an aboriginal, empty silence, as of life withheld.The vacuity of a Mexican morning. Resounding sometimesto the turkey-co*ck.

And the great, lymphatic expanse of water, like a sea,trembling, trembling, trembling to a far distance, to themountains of substantial nothingness.

Near at hand, a ragged shifting of banana trees, bare hills[Pg 105]with immobile cactus, and to the left, a hacienda with peon’ssquare mud boxes of houses. An occasional ranchero inskin-tight trousers and big hat, rode trotting through thedust on a small horse, or peons on the rump of their asses,in floppy white cotton, going like ghosts.

Always something ghostly. The morning passing all of apiece, empty, vacuous. All sound withheld, all life withheld,everything holding back. The land so dry as to havea quality of invisibility, the water earth-filmy, hardly waterat all. The lymphatic milk of fishes, somebody said.

In Portfirio Diaz’ day, the Lake-side began to be theRiviera of Mexico, and Orilla was to be the Nice, or at least,the Mentone of the country. But revolutions started eruptingagain, and in 1911 Don Portfirio fled to Paris with, it issaid, thirty million gold pesos in his pocket: a peso beinghalf a dollar, nearly half-a-crown. But we need not believeall that is said, especially by a man’s enemies.

During the subsequent revolutions, Orilla, which had begunto be a winter paradise for the Americans, lapsed backinto barbarism and broken brickwork. In 1921 a feeble newstart had been made.

The place belonged to a German-Mexican family, whoalso owned the adjacent hacienda. They acquired the propertyfrom the American Hotel Company, who had undertakento develop the lake-shore, and who had gone bankruptduring the various revolutions.

The German-Mexican owners were not popular with thenatives. An angel from heaven would not have been popular,these years, if he had been known as the owner of property.However, in 1921 the hotel was very modestlyopened again, with an American manager.

Towards the end of the year, José, son of the German-Mexicanowner, came to stay with his wife and children inthe hotel, in the new wing. José was a bit of a fool, as mostforeigners are, after the first generation in Mexico. Havingbusiness to settle, he went into Guadalajara to the bank andreturned with a thousand gold pesos in a bag, keeping thematter, as he thought, a dead secret.

Everyone had just gone to bed, on a brilliant moonlightnight in winter, when two men appeared in the yard callingfor José: they had to speak to him. José, suspecting nothing,left his wife and two children, and went down. In amoment he called for the American manager. The manager,thinking it was some bargaining to be done, also came down.As he came out of the door, two men seized him by the arms,and said: “Don’t make a noise!”

“What’s amiss?” said Bell, who had built up Orilla,and had been twenty years on the lake.

[Pg 107]

Then he noticed that two other men had hold of José.“Come,” they said.

There were five Mexicans—Indians, or half-Indians—andthe two captives. They went, the captives in slippers andshirt-sleeves, to the little office away at the end of the otherpart of the hotel, which had been the old ranch-house.

“What do you want?” said Bell.

“Give us the money,” said the bandits.

“Oh, all right,” said the American. There were a fewpesos only in the safe. He opened, showed them, and theytook the money.

“Now give us the rest,” they said.

“There is no more,” said the manager, in all sincerity;for José had not confessed to the thousand pesos.

The five peons then began to search the poor little office.They found a pile of red blankets—which they appropriated—anda few bottles of red wine—which they drank.

“Now,” they said, “give us the money.”

“I can’t give you what there isn’t to give,” said themanager.

“Good!” they said, and pulled out the hideous machetes,the heavy knives of the Mexicans.

José, intimidated, produced the suit-case with thethousand pesos. The money was wrapped up in the cornerof a blanket.

“Now, come with us,” said the bandits.

“Where to?” asked the manager, beginning at last to bescared.

“Only out on to the hill, where we will leave you, so thatyou cannot telephone to Ixtlahuacan before we have time toget away,” said the Indians.

Outside, in the bright moon, the air was chill. The Americanshivered, in his trousers and shirt and a pair of bedroomslippers.

“Let me take a coat,” he said.

“Take a blanket,” said the tall Indian.

He took a blanket, and with two men holding his arms, hefollowed José, who was likewise held captive, out of thelittle gate, across the dust of the road, and up the steeplittle round hill on which the organ cactus thrust up theirsinister clumps, like bunches of cruel fingers, in the moonlight.The hill was stony and steep, the going, slow. José,[Pg 108]a fat young man of twenty-eight, protested in the feeblemanner of the well-to-do Mexicans.

At last they came to the top of the hill. Three men tookJosé apart, leaving Bell alone near a cactus clump. Themoon shone in a perfect Mexican heaven. Below, the biglake glimmered faintly, stretching its length towards thewest. The air was so clear, the mountains across, thirtymiles away, stood sharp and still in the moonlight. And nota sound nor a motion anywhere! At the foot of the hillwas the hacienda, with the peons asleep in their huts. Butwhat help was there in them?

José and the three men had gone behind a cactus tree thatstuck up straight like a great black bundle of poles, poised onone central foot, and cast a sharp, iron shadow. The Americancould hear the voices, talking low and rapidly, butcould not distinguish the words. His two guards drew awayfrom him a little, to hear what the others were saying, behindthe cactus.

And the American, who knew the ground he stood on andthe sky that hung over him, felt again the black vibrationof death in the air, the black thrill of the death-lust. Unmistakeablehe felt it seething in the air, as any man mayfeel it, in Mexico. And the strange aboriginal fiendishnessawake now in the five bandits, communicated itself to hisblood.

Loosening his blanket, he listened tensely in the moonlight.And came the thud! thud! thud! of a machete strikingwith lust in a human body, then the strange voice ofJosé: “Perdoneme!—Forgive me!” the murdered mancried as he fell.

The American waited for no more. Dropping his blankethe jumped for the cactus cover, and stooping, took the downslopelike a rabbit. The pistol-shots rang out after him, butthe Mexicans don’t as a rule take good aim. His bedroomslippers flew off, and barefoot, the man, thin and lightsped down over the stones and the cactus, down to thehotel.

When he got down, he found everyone in the hotel awakeand shouting.

“They are killing José!” he said, and he rushed to thetelephone, expecting every moment the five bandits wouldbe on him.

[Pg 109]

The telephone was in the old ranch-building, in the dining-room.There was no answer—no answer—no answer. Inher little bedroom over the kitchen, the cook-woman, thetraitress, was yelling. Across in the new wing, a little distanceaway, José’s Mexican wife was screaming. One of theservant boys appeared.

“Try and get the police in Ixtlahuacan,” said the American,and he ran to the new wing, to get his gun and to barricadethe doors. His daughter, a motherless girl, was cryingwith José’s wife.

There was no answer on the telephone. At dawn, thecook, who said the bandits would not hurt a woman, wentacross to the hacienda to fetch the peons. And when thesun rose, a man was sent for the police.

They found the body of José, pierced with fourteen holes.The American was carried to Ixtlahuacan, and kept in bed,having cactus spines dug out of his feet by two nativewomen.

The bandits fled across the marshes. Months later, theywere identified by the stolen blankets, away in Michoacan;and, pursued, one of them betrayed the others.

After this, the hotel was closed again, and had been re-openedonly three months, when Kate arrived.

But Villiers came with another story. Last year the peonshad murdered the manager of one of the estates across thelake. They had stripped him and left him naked on hisback, with his sexual organs cut off and put into his mouth,his nose slit and pinned back, the two halves, to his cheeks,with long cactus spines.

“Tell me no more!” said Kate.

She felt there was doom written on the very sky, doom andhorror.

She wrote to Don Ramón in Sayula, saying she wanted togo back to Europe. True, she herself had seen no horrors,apart from the bull-fight. And she had had some exquisitemoments, as coming to this hotel in the boat. The nativeshad a certain mystery and beauty, to her. But she couldnot bear the unease, and the latest sense of horror.

True, the peons were poor. They used to work for twentycents, American, a day; and now the standard price wasfifty cents, or one peso. But then in the old days they receivedtheir wage all the year round. Now, only at harvest[Pg 110]time or sowing time. No work, no pay. And in the long dryseason, it was mostly no work.

“Still,” said the German manager of the hotel, a man whohad run a rubber plantation in Tabasco, a sugar plantationin the state of Vera Cruz, and a hacienda growing wheat,maize, oranges, in Jalisco: “Still, it isn’t a question ofmoney with the peons. It doesn’t start with the peons. Itstarts in Mexico City, with a lot of malcontents who wantto put their spoke in the wheel, and who lay hold of piouscatchwords, to catch the poor. There’s no more in it thanthat. Then the agitators go round and infect the peons.It is nothing but a sort of infectious disease, like syphilis, allthis revolution and socialism.”

“But why does no one oppose it,” said Kate. “Whydon’t the hacendados put up a fight, instead of caving in andrunning away?”

“The Mexican hacendado!” The man’s German eyesgave out a spark. “The Mexican gentleman is such a braveman, that while the soldier is violating his wife on the bed,he is hiding under the bed and holding his breath so theyshan’t find him. He’s as brave as that.”

Kate looked away uncomfortably.

“They all want the United States to intervene. Theyhate the Americans; but they want the United States to intervene,to save them their money and their property. That’show brave they are! They hate the Americans personally,but they love them because they can look after money andproperty. So they want the United States to annex Mexico,the beloved patria; leaving the marvellous green and whiteand red flag, and the eagle with the snake in its claws, forthe sake of appearances and honour! They’re simply bottledfull of honour; of that sort.”

Always the same violence of bitterness, Kate thought toherself. And she was so weary of it. How, how weary shewas of politics, of the very words “Labour” and “Socialism!”and all that sort! It suffocated her.

“Have you heard of the men of Quetzalcoatl?” askedKate.

“Quetzalcoatl!” exclaimed the manager, giving a littleclick of the final ‘l,’ in a peculiar native fashion. “That’sanother try-on of the Bolshevists. They thought socialismneeded a god, so they’re going to fish him out of this lake.[Pg 111]He’ll do for another pious catchword in another revolution.”

The man went away, unable to stand any more.

“Oh dear!” thought Kate. “It really is hard to bear.”

But she wanted to hear more of Quetzalcoatl.

“Did you know,” she said to the man later, showing himthe little pot, “that they find those things in the lake?”

“They’re common enough!” he said. “They used tothrow them in, in the idolatrous days. May still do so, forwhat I know. Then get them out again to sell to tourists.”

“They call them ollitas of Quetzalcoatl.”

“That’s a new invention.”

“Why, do you think?”

“They’re trying to start a new thing, that’s all. They’vegot this society on the lake here, of the Men of Quetzalcoatl,and they go round singing songs. It’s another dodge fornational-socialism, that’s all.”

“What do they do, the Men of Quetzalcoatl?”

“I can’t see they do anything, except talk and get excitedover their own importance.”

“But what’s the idea?”

“I couldn’t say. Don’t suppose they have any. But ifthey have, they won’t let on to you. You’re a gringo—or agringita, at the best. And this is for pure Mexicans. Forlos señores, the workmen, and los caballeros, the peons.Every peon is a caballero nowadays, and every workman isa señor. So I suppose they’re going to get themselves aspecial god, to put the final feather in their caps.”

“Where did it start, the Quetzalcoatl thing?”

“Down in Sayula. They say Don Ramón Carrasco is atthe back of it. Maybe he wants to be the next President—ormaybe he’s aiming higher, and wants to be the first MexicanPharoah.”

Ah, how tired it made Kate feel; the hopelessness, theugliness, the cynicism, the emptiness. She felt she couldcry aloud, for the unknown gods to put the magic back intoher life, and to save her from the dry-rot of the world’ssterility.

She thought again of going back to Europe. But what wasthe good? She knew it! It was all politics or jazzing orslushy mysticism or sordid spiritualism. And the magic hadgone. The younger generation, so smart and interesting,but so without any mystery, any background. The younger[Pg 112]the generation, the flatter and more jazzy, more and moredevoid of wonder.

No, she could not go back to Europe.

And no! She refused to take the hotel manager’s estimateof Quetzalcoatl. How should a hotel manager judge?—evenif he was not really an hotel manager, but a ranch-overseer.She had seen Ramón Carrasco, and Cipriano.And they were men. They wanted something beyond. Shewould believe in them. Anything, anything rather than thissterility of nothingness which was the world, and into whichher life was drifting.

She would send Villiers away, too. He was nice, she likedhim. But he, too, was widdershins, unwinding the sensationsof disintegration and anti-life. No, she must send him away.She must, she must free herself from these mechanical connections.

Every one of them, like Villiers, was like a cog-wheel incontact with which all one’s workings were reversed. Everythinghe said, everything he did, reversed her real life flow,made her go against the sun.

And she did not want to go against the sun. After all,in spite of the horrors latent in Mexico, when you got thesedark-faced people away from wrong contacts like agitatorsand socialism, they made one feel that life was vast, if fearsome,and death was fathomless.

Horrors might burst out of them. But something mustburst out, sometimes, if men are not machines.

No! no! no! no! no! she cried to her own soul. Let mestill believe in some human contact. Let it not be all cutoff for me!

But she made up her mind, to be alone, and to cut herselfoff from all the mechanical widdershin contacts. Villiersmust go back to his United States. She would be alone inher own milieu. Not to be touched by any, any of themechanical cog-wheel people. To be left alone, not to betouched. To hide, and be hidden, and never really bespoken to.

Yet at the same time, with her blood flowing softly sunwise,to let the sunwise sympathy of unknown people stealin to her. To shut doors of iron against the mechanicalworld. But to let the sunwise world steal across to her, andadd its motion to her, the motion of the stress of life, with[Pg 113]the big sun and the stars like a tree holding out itsleaves.

She wanted an old Spanish house, with its inner patio offlowers and water. Turned inwards, to the few flowerswalled in by shadow. To turn one’s back on the cog-wheelworld. Not to look out any more on to that horrible machineof the world. To look at one’s own quiet little fountain andone’s own little orange trees, with only heaven above.

So, having soothed her heart, she wrote Don Ramónagain, that she was coming to Sayula to look for a house.She sent Villiers away. And the next day she set off witha man-servant, in the old motor-boat of the hotel, down tothe village of Sayula.

It was thirty-five miles to travel, down the long lake. Butthe moment she set off, she felt at peace. A tall dark-facedfellow sat in the stern of the boat, steering and attendingto the motor. She sat on cushions in the middle. And theyoung man-servant perched in the prow.

They started before sunrise, when the lake was bathed inmotionless light. Odd tufts of water-hyacinth were travellingon the soft spermy water, holding up a green leaf likea little sail of a boat, and nodding a delicate, mauve blueflower.

Give me the mystery and let the world live again for me!Kate cried to her own soul. And deliver me from man’sautomatism.

The sun rose, and a whiteness of light played on the topsof the mountains. The boat hugged the north shore, turningthe promontory on which the villas had started sojauntily, twenty years ago, but now were lapsing back towilderness. All was still and motionless in the light. Sometimes,on the little bare patches high up on the dry hills werewhite specks; birds? No, men in their white cotton, peonshoeing. They were so tiny and so distinct, they looked likewhite birds settled.

Round the bend were the hot springs, the church, theinaccessible village of the pure Indians, who spoke no Spanish.There were some green trees, under the precipitous,dry mountain-side.

So on and on, the motor-boat chugging incessantly, theman in the bows coiled up like a serpent, watching; the fish-milkwater gleaming and throwing off a dense light, so that[Pg 114]the mountains away across were fused out. And Kate, underthe awning, went into a kind of sleep.

They were passing the island, with its ruins of fortress andprison. It was all rock and dryness, with great broken wallsand the shell of a church among its hurtful stones and itsdry grey herbage. For a long time the Indians had defendedit against the Spaniards. Then the Spaniards used theisland as a fortress against the Indians. Later, as a penalsettlement. And now the place was a ruin, repellant, fullof scorpions, and otherwise empty of life. Only one or twofishermen lived in the tiny cove facing the mainland, and aflock of goats, specks of life creeping among the rocks. Andan unhappy fellow put there by the Government to registerthe weather.

No, Kate did not want to land. The place looked toosinister. She took food from the basket, and ate a littlelunch, and dozed.

In this country, she was afraid. But it was her soul morethan her body that knew fear. She had realised, for thefirst time, with finality and fatality, what was the illusionshe laboured under. She had thought that each individualhad a complete self, a complete soul, an accomplished I.And now she realised as plainly as if she had turned into anew being, that this was not so. Men and women had incompleteselves, made up of bits assembled together looselyand somewhat haphazard. Man was not created ready-made.Men to-day were half-made, and women were half-made.Creatures that existed and functioned with certainregularity, but which ran off into a hopeless jumble of inconsequence.

Half-made, like insects that can run fast and be so busyand suddenly grow wings, but which are only winged grubsafter all. A world full of half-made creatures on two legs,eating food and degrading the one mystery left to them,sex. Spinning a great lot of words, burying themselves insidethe cocoons of words and ideas that they spin roundthemselves, and inside the cocoons, mostly perishing inertand overwhelmed.

Half-made creatures, rarely more than half-responsibleand half-accountable, acting in terrible swarms, like locusts.

Awful thought! And with a collective insect-like will,to avoid the responsibility of achieving any more perfected[Pg 115]being or identity. The queer, rabid hate of being urged oninto purer self. The morbid fanaticism of the non-integrate.

In the great seething light of the lake, with the terribleblue-ribbed mountains of Mexico beyond, she seemedswallowed by some grisly skeleton, in the cage of his death-anatomy.She was afraid, mystically, of the man crouchingthere in the bows with his smooth thighs and supple loinslike a snake, and his black eyes watching. A half-being,with a will to disintegration and death. And the tall manbehind her at the tiller, he had the curious smoke-grey phosphoruseyes under black lashes, sometimes met among theIndians. Handsome, he was, and quiet and seemingly self-contained.But with that peculiar devilish half-smile lurkingunder his face, the half jeering look of a part-thing, whichknows its power to destroy the purer thing.

And yet, Kate told herself, both these men were manlyfellows. They would not molest her, unless she communicatedthe thought to them, and by a certain cowardliness,prompted them. Their souls were nascent, there was nofixed evil in them, they could sway both ways.

So in her soul she cried aloud to the greater mystery, thehigher power that hovered in the interstices of the hot air,rich and potent. It was as if she could lift her hands andclutch the silent, stormless potency that roved everywhere,waiting. “Come then!” she said, drawing a long slowbreath, and addressing the silent life-breath which hungunrevealed in the atmosphere, waiting.

And as the boat ran on, and her fingers rustled in thewarm water of the lake, she felt the fulness descend into heronce more, the peace, and the power. The fulfilment fillingher soul like the fulness of ripe grapes. And she thought toherself: “Ah, how wrong I have been, not to turn soonerto the other presence, not to take the life-breath sooner!How wrong to be afraid of these two men.”

She did what she had been half-afraid to do before; sheoffered them the oranges and sandwiches still in the basket.And each of the men looked at her, the smoke-grey eyeslooked her in the eyes, and the black eyes looked her in theeyes. And the man with the smoke-grey eyes, who wascunninger than the other man, but also prouder, said to herwith his eyes: We are living! I know your sex, and youknow mine. The mystery we are glad not to meddle with.[Pg 116]You leave me my natural honour, and I thank you for thegrace.

In his look; so quick and proud, and in his quiet Muchasgrazias! she heard the touch of male recognition, a manglad to retain his honour, and to feel the communion ofgrace. Perhaps it was the Spanish word Grazias! But inher soul she was thinking of the communion of grace.

With the black-eyed man it was the same. He washumbler. But as he peeled his orange and dropped theyellow peel on the water, she could see the stillness, thehumility, and the pathos of grace in him; something verybeautiful and truly male, and very hard to find in a civilisedwhite man. It was not of the spirit. It was of the dark,strong, unbroken blood, the flowering of the soul.

Then she thought to herself: After all, it is good to be here.It is very good to be in this boat on this lake with these twosilent, semi-barbarous men. They can receive the gift ofgrace, and we can share it like a communion, they and I.I am very glad to be here. It is so much better than love:the love I knew with Joachim. This is the fullness of the vine.

“Sayula!” said the man in the bows, pointing ahead.

She saw, away off, a place where there were green trees,where the shore was flat, and a biggish building stood out.

“What is the building?” she asked.

“The railway station.”

She was suitably impressed, for it was a new-looking imposingstructure.

A little steamer was smoking, lying off from a woodenjetty in the loneliness, and black, laden boats were poling outto her, and merging back to shore. The vessel gave a hoot,and slowly yet busily set off on the bosom of the water,heading in a slanting line across the lake, to where the tinyhigh white twin-towers of Tuliapan showed above the water-line,tiny and far-off, on the other side.

They had passed the jetty, and rounding the shoal wherethe willows grew, she could see Sayula; white fluted twin-towersof the church, obelisk shaped above the pepper trees;beyond, a mound of a hill standing alone, dotted with drybushes, distinct and Japanese looking; beyond this, thecorrugated, blue-ribbed, flat-flanked mountains of Mexico.

It looked peaceful, delicate, almost Japanese. As shedrew nearer she saw the beach with the washing spread on[Pg 117]the sand; the fleecy green willow trees and pepper-trees, andthe villas in foliage and flowers, hanging magenta curtainsof bougainvillea, red dots of hibiscus, pink abundance oftall oleander trees; occasional palm-trees sticking out.

The boat was steering round a stone jetty, on which, inblack letters, was painted an advertisem*nt for motor-cartyres. There were a few seats, some deep fleecy trees growingout of the sand, a booth for selling drinks, a little promenade,and white boats on a sandy beach. A few womensitting under parasols, a few bathers in the water, and treesin front of the few villas deep in green or blazing scarletblossoms.

“This is very good,” thought Kate. “It is not toosavage, and not over civilised. It isn’t broken, but it israther out of repair. It is in contact with the world, but theworld has got a very weak grip on it.”

She went to the hotel, as Don Ramón had advised her.

“Do you come from Orilla? You are Mrs Leslie? DonRamón Carrasco sent us a letter about you.”

There was a house. Kate paid her boatmen and shookhands with them. She was sorry to be cut off from themagain. And they looked at her with a touch of regret as theyleft. She said to herself:

“There is something rich and alive in these people. Theywant to be able to breathe the Great Breath. They are likechildren, helpless. And then they’re like demons. Butsomewhere, I believe, they want the breath of life and thecommunion of the brave, more than anything.”

She was surprised at herself, suddenly using this language.But her weariness and her sense of devastation had been socomplete, that the Other Breath in the air, and the bluishdark power in the earth had become, almost suddenly, morereal to her than so-called reality. Concrete, jarring, exasperatingreality had melted away, and a soft world ofpotency stood in its place, the velvety dark flux from theearth, the delicate yet supreme life-breath in the inner air.Behind the fierce sun the dark eyes of a deeper sun werewatching, and between the bluish ribs of the mountains apowerful heart was secretly beating, the heart of the earth.

Her house was what she wanted; a low L-shaped, tiledbuilding with rough red floors and deep verandah, and theother two sides of the patio completed by the thick, dark[Pg 118]little mango-forest outside the low wall. The square of thepatio, within the precincts of the house and the mango trees,was gay with oleanders and hibiscus, and there was a basinof water in the seedy grass. The flower-pots along theverandah were full of flowering geranium and foreignflowers. At the far end of the patio, the chickens werescratching under the silent motionlessness of ragged bananatrees.

There she had it; her stone, cool, dark house, every roomopening on to the verandah; her deep, shady verandah,or piazza, or corridor, looking out to the brilliant sun, thesparkling flowers and the seed-grass, the still water and theyellowing banana trees, the dark splendour of the shadow-densemango trees.

With the house went a Mexican Juana with two thick-haireddaughters and one son. This family lived in a den atthe back of the projecting bay of the dining-room. There,half screened, was the well and the toilet, and a little kitchenand a sleeping room where the family slept on mats on thefloor. There the paltry chickens paddled, and the bananatrees made a chitter as the wind came.

Kate had four bedrooms to choose from. She chose theone whose low, barred window opened on the rough, grassand cobble-stone street, closed her doors and windows, andwent to sleep, saying to herself as she lay down: Now I amalone. And now I have only one thing to do; not to getcaught up into the world’s cog-wheels any more, and not tolose my hold on the hidden greater thing.

She was tired with a strange weariness, feeling she couldmake no further effort. She woke up at tea-time, but therewas no tea. Juana hastened off to the hotel to buy a bit.

Juana was a woman of about forty, rather short, with fulldark face, centreless dark eyes, untidy hair, and a limpingway of walking. She spoke rapidly, a rather plum-in-the-mouthSpanish, adding “n” to all her words. Something ofa sloven, down to her speech.

“No, Niña, no hay masn”—masn instead of mas. Andcalling Kate, in the old Mexican style, Niña, which meanschild. It is the honourable title for a mistress.

Juana was going to be a bit of a trial. She was a widowof doubtful antecedents, a creature with passion, but notmuch control, strong with a certain indifference and looseness.[Pg 119]The hotel owner assured Kate that she was honest,but that if Kate would rather find another criada, all welland good.

There was a bit of a battle to be fought between the twowomen. Juana was obstinate and reckless; she had notbeen treated very well by the world. And there was a touchof bottom-dog insolence about her.

But also, sudden touches of passionate warmth and thepeculiar selfless generosity of the natives. She would behonest out of rough defiance and indifference, so long asshe was not in a state of antagonism.

As yet, however, she was cautiously watching her ground,with that black-eyed touch of malice and wariness to beexpected. And Kate felt that the cry: Niña—child! bywhich she was addressed, held in it a slight note of malevolentmockery.

But there was nothing to do but to go ahead and trust thedark-faced, centreless woman.

The second day, Kate had the energy to cast out one suiteof bent-wood and cane furniture from her salon, removepictures and little stands.

If there is one social instinct more dreary than all the othersocial instincts in the world, it is the Mexican. In the centreof Kate’s red-tiled salon were two crescents: a black bent-woodcane settee flanked on each side by two black bent-woodcane chairs, exactly facing a brown bent-wood canesettee flanked on each side by two brown bent-wood canechairs. It was as if the two settees and the eight chairswere occupied by the ghosts of all the Mexican banaltiesever uttered, sitting facing one another with their kneestowards one another, and their feet on the terrible piece ofgreen-with-red-roses carpet, in the weary centre of the salon.The very sight of it was frightening.

Kate shattered this face-to-face symmetry, and had thetwo girls, Maria and Concha, assisted by the ironic Juana,carrying off the brown bent-wood chairs and the bamboostands into one of the spare bedrooms. Juana looked oncynically, and assisted officiously. But when Kate had hertrunk, and fished out a couple of light rugs and a couple offine shawls and a few things to make the place human, thecriada began to exclaim:

“Que bonita! Que bonita, Niña! Mire que bonita!”

Sayula was a little lake resort; not for the idle rich, forMexico has few left; but for tradespeople from Guadalajara,and week-enders. Even of these, these were few.

Nevertheless, there were two hotels, left over, really, fromthe safe quiet days of Don Porfirio, as were most of thevillas. The outlying villas were shut up, some of themabandoned. Those in the village lived in a perpetual quakeof fear. There were many terrors, but the two regnant werebandits and bolshevists.

Bandits are merely men who, in the outlying villages, havingvery often no money, no work, and no prospects, taketo robbery and murder for a time—occasionally for a life-time—asa profession. They live in their wild villages untiltroops are sent after them, when they retire into the savagemountains, or the marshes.

Bolshevists, somehow, seem to be born on the railway.Wherever the iron rails run, and passengers are hauled backand forth in railway coaches, there the spirit of rootlessness,of transitoriness, of first and second class in separate compartments,of envy and malice, and of iron and demonishpanting engines, seems to bring forth the logical children ofmaterialism, the bolshevists.

Sayula had her little branch of railway, her one train aday. The railway did not pay, and fought with extinction.But it was enough.

Sayula also had that real insanity of America, the automobile.As men used to want a horse and a sword, nowthey want a car. As women used to pine for a home and abox at the theatre, now it is a “machine.” And the poorfollow the middle class. There was a perpetual rush of“machines,” motor-cars and motor-buses—called camions—alongthe one forlorn road coming to Sayula from Guadalajara.One hope, one faith, one destiny; to ride in a camion,to own a car.

There was a little bandit scare when Kate arrived in thevillage, but she did not pay much heed. At evening shewent into the plaza, to be with the people. The plaza was asquare with big trees and a disused bandstand in the centre,[Pg 121]a little promenade all round, and then the cobbled streetswhere the donkeys and the camions passed. There was afurther little section of real market-place, on the northside.

The band played no more in Sayula, and the eleganciastrolled no more on the inner pavement around the plaza,under the trees. But the pavement was still good, and thebenches were still more-or-less sound. Oh Don Porfirio’sday! And now it was the peons and Indians, in theirblankets and white clothes, who filled the benches and monopolisedthe square. True, the law persisted that the peonsmust wear trousers in the plaza, and not the loose greatfloppy drawers of the fields. But then the peons also wantedto wear trousers, instead of the drawers that were the garbof their humble labour.

The plaza now belonged to the peons. They sat thick onthe benches, or slowly strolled round in their sandals andblankets. Across the cobbled road on the north side, thelittle booths selling soup and hot food were crowded withmen, after six o’clock; it was cheaper to eat out, at the endof a day’s work. The women at home could eat tortillas,never mind the caldo, the soup or the meat mess. At thebooths which sold tequila, men, women, and boys sat on thebenches with their elbows on the board. There was a mildgambling game, where the man in the centre turned thecards, and the plaza rang to his voice: Cinco de Spadas!Rey de Copas! A large, stout, imperturbable woman, witha cigarette on her lip and danger in her lowering black eye,sat on into the night, selling tequila. The sweet-meat manstood by his board and sold sweets at one centavo each.And down on the pavement, small tin torch-lamps flaredupon tiny heaps of mangoes or nauseous tropical red plums,two or three centavos the little heap, while the vendor, awoman in the full wave of her skirt, or a man with curiouspatient humility, squatted waiting for a purchaser, with thatstrange fatal indifference and that gentle sort of patience sopuzzling to a stranger. To have thirty cents’ worth of littlered plums to sell; to pile them on the pavement in tinypyramids, five in a pyramid; and to wait all day and on intothe night, squatting on the pavement and looking up fromthe feet to the far-off face of the passer-by and potentialpurchaser, this, apparently, is an occupation and a living.[Pg 122]At night by the flare of the tin torch, blowing its flame onthe wind.

Usually there would be a couple of smallish young menwith guitars of different sizes, standing close up facing oneanother like two fighting co*cks that are uttering a long, endlessswansong, singing in tense subdued voices the eternalballads, not very musical, mournful, endless, intense, audibleonly within close range; keeping on and on till their throatswere scraped. And a few tall, dark men in red blanketsstanding around, listening casually, and rarely, very rarelymaking a contribution of one centavo.

In among the food booths would be another trio, this timetwo guitars and a fiddle, and two of the musicians blind; theblind ones singing at a high pitch, full speed, yet not veryaudible. The very singing seemed secretive, the singerspressing close in, face to face, as if to keep the wild, melancholyballad re-echoing in their private breasts, their backsto the world.

And the whole village was in the plaza, it was like a camp,with the low, rapid sound of voices. Rarely, very rarely avoice rose above the deep murmur of the men, the musicalripple of the women, the twitter of children. Rarely anyquick movement; the slow promenade of men in sandals, thesandals, called huaraches, making a slight co*ckroach shuffleon the pavement. Sometimes, darting among the trees,bare-legged boys went sky-larking in and out of the shadow,in and out of the quiet people. They were the irrepressibleboot-blacks, who swarm like tiresome flies in a barefootedcountry.

At the south end of the plaza, just across from the treesand cornerwise to the hotel, was a struggling attempt at anout-door café, with little tables and chairs on the pavement.Here, on week days, the few who dared flaunt their prestigewould sit and drink a beer or a glass of tequila. They weremostly strangers. And the peons, sitting immobile on theseats in the background, looked on with basilisk eyes fromunder the great hats.

But on Saturdays and Sundays there was something of ashow. Then the camions and motor-cars came in lurchingand hissing. And, like strange birds alighting, you had slimand charming girls in organdie frocks and face powder andbobbed hair, fluttering into the plaza. There they strolled,[Pg 123]arm in arm, brilliant in red organdie and blue chiffon andwhite muslin and pink and mauve and tangerine frail stuffs,their black hair bobbed out, their dark slim arms interlaced,their dark faces curiously macabre in the heavy make-up;approximating to white, but the white of a clown or acorpse.

In a world of big, handsome peon men, these flappersflapped with butterfly brightness and an incongruous shrillness,manless. The supply of fifis, the male young elegantswho are supposed to equate the flappers, was small. Butstill, fifis there were, in white flannel trousers and whiteshoes, dark jackets, correct straw hats, and canes. Fifis farmore ladylike than the reckless flappers; and far more nervous,wincing. But fifis none the less, gallant, smoking acigarette with an elegant flourish, talking elegant Castilian,as near as possible, and looking as if they were going to besacrificed to some Mexican god within a twelvemonth; whenthey were properly plumped and perfumed. The sacrificialcalves being fattened.

On Saturday, the fifis and the flappers and the motor-carpeople from town—only a forlorn few, after all—tried to bebutterfly-gay, in sinister Mexico. They hired the musicianswith guitars and fiddle, and the jazz music began to quaver,a little too tenderly, without enough kick.

And on the pavement under the trees of the alameda—underthe trees of the plaza, just near the little tables andchairs of the café, the young couples began to gyrate à lamode. The red and the pink and the yellow and the blueorgandie frocks were turning sharply with all the whiteflannel trousers available, and some of the white flanneltrousers had smart shoes, white with black strappings orwith tan brogue bands. And some of the organdie frockshad green legs and green feet, some had legs à la nature,and white feet. And the slim, dark arms went around thedark blue fifi shoulders—or dark blue with a white thread.And the immeasurably soft faces of the males would smilewith a self-conscious fatherliness at the whitened, pretty,reckless little faces of the females; soft, fatherly, sensuoussmiles, suggestive of a victim’s luxuriousness.

But they were dancing on the pavement of the plaza, andon this pavement the peons were slowly strolling, or standingin groups watching with black, inscrutable eyes the uncanny[Pg 124]butterfly twitching of the dancers. Who knows what theythought?—whether they felt any admiration and envy atall, or only just a silent, cold, dark-faced opposition. Oppositionthere was.

The young peons in their little white blouses, and thescarlet serape folded jauntily on one shoulder, strolled slowlyon under their big, heavy, poised hats, with a will to ignorethe dancers. Slowly, with a heavy, calm balance, theymoved irresistibly through the dance, as if the dance did notexist. And the fifis in white trousers, with organdie in theirarms, steered as best they might, to avoid the heavy relentlesspassage of the young peons, who went on talking to oneanother, smiling and flashing powerful white teeth, in ablack, heavy sang-froid that settled like a blight even onthe music. The dancers and the passing peons nevertouched, never jostled. In Mexico you do not run intopeople accidentally. But the dance broke against the invisibleopposition.

The Indians on the seats, they too watched the dancersfor a while. Then they turned against them the heavynegation of indifference, like a stone on the spirit. Themysterious faculty of the Indians, as they sit there, so quietand dense, for killing off any ebullient life, for quenchingany light and colourful effervescence.

There was indeed a little native dance-hall. But it wasshut apart within four walls. And the whole rhythm andmeaning was different, heavy, with a touch of violence.And even there, the dancers were artizans and mechanics orrailway-porters, the half-urban people. No peons at all—orpractically none.

So, before very long, the organdie butterflies and theflannel-trouser fifis gave in, succumbed, crushed once morebeneath the stone-heavy passivity of resistance in the demonishpeons.

The curious, radical opposition of the Indians to the thingwe call the spirit. It is spirit which makes the flapper flapher organdie wings like a butterfly. It is spirit, whichcreases the white flannel trousers of the fifi and makes himcut his rather pathetic dash. They try to talk the eleganciesand flippancies of the modern spirit.

But down on it all, like a weight of obsidian, comes thepassive negation of the Indian. He understands soul, which[Pg 125]is of the blood. But spirit, which is superior, and is thequality of our civilisation, this, in the mass, he darkly andbarbarically repudiates. Not until he becomes an artizan orconnected with machinery does the modern spirit get him.

And perhaps it is this ponderous repudiation of the modernspirit which makes Mexico what it is.

But perhaps the automobile will make roads even throughthe inaccessible soul of the Indian.

Kate was rather sad, seeing the dance swamped. She hadbeen sitting at a little table, with Juana for dueña, sippinga glass of absinthe.

The motor-cars returning to town left early, in a littlegroup. If bandits were out, they had best keep together.Even the fifis had a pistol on their hips.

But it was Saturday, so some of the young “elegance”was staying on, till the next day; to bathe and flutter in thesun.

It was Saturday, so the plaza was very full, and along thecobble streets stretching from the square, many torchesfluttered and wavered upon the ground, illuminating a darksalesman and an array of straw hats, or a heap of straw matscalled petates, or pyramids of oranges from across the lake.

It was Saturday, and Sunday morning was market. So,as it were suddenly, the life in the plaza was dense and heavywith potency. The Indians had come in from all thevillages, and from far across the lake. And with them theybrought the curious heavy potency of life which seems tohum deeper and deeper when they collect together.

In the afternoon, with the wind from the south, the bigcanoas, sailing-boats with black hulls and one huge sail, hadcome drifting across the waters, bringing the market-produceand the natives to their gathering ground. All the whitespecks of villages on the far shore, and on the far-off slopes,had sent their wild quota to the throng.

It was Saturday, and the Indian instinct for living on intothe night, once they are gathered together, was now aroused.The people did not go home. Though market would beginat dawn, men had no thought of sleep.

At about nine o’clock, after the fifi dance was shattered,Kate heard a new sound, the sound of a drum, or tom-tom,and saw a drift of the peons away to the dark side of theplaza, where the side market would open to-morrow. Already[Pg 126]places had been taken, and little stalls set up, andhuge egg-shaped baskets, big enough to hold two men, werelolling against the wall.

There was a rippling and a pulse-like thudding of thedrum, strangely arresting on the night air, then the long noteof a flute playing a sort of wild, unemotional melody, withthe drum for a syncopated rhythm. Kate, who had listenedto the drums and the wild singing of the Red Indians inArizona and New Mexico, instantly felt that timeless,primeval passion of the prehistoric races, with their intenseand complicated religious significance, spreading on the air.

She looked inquiringly at Juana, and Juana’s black eyesglanced back at her furtively.

“What is it?” said Kate.

“Musicians, singers,” said Juana evasively.

“But it’s different,” said Kate.

“Yes, it is new.”

“New?”

“Yes, it has only been coming for a short time.”

“Where does it come from?”

“Who knows!” said Juana, with an evasive shrug of hershoulders.

“I want to hear,” said Kate.

“It’s purely men,” said Juana.

“Still, one can stand a little way off.”

Kate moved towards the dense, silent throng of men inbig hats. They all had their backs to her.

She stood on the step of one of the houses, and saw a littleclearing at the centre of the dense throng of men, under thestone wall over which bougainvillea and plumbago flowerswere hanging, lit up by the small, brilliantly flaring torchesof sweet-smelling wood, which a boy held in his two hands.

The drum was in the centre of the clearing, the drummerstanding facing the crowd. He was naked from the waistup, wore snow-white cotton drawers, very full, held roundthe waist by a red sash, and bound at the ankles with redcords. Round his uncovered head was a red cord, withthree straight scarlet feathers rising from the back of hishead, and on his forehead, a turquoise ornament, a circle ofblue with a round blue stone in the centre. The flute playerwas also naked to the waist, but over his shoulder was foldeda fine white sarape with blue-and-dark edges, and fringe.[Pg 127]Among the crowd, men with naked shoulders were givinglittle leaflets to the onlookers. And all the time, high andpure, the queer clay flute was repeating a savage, ratherdifficult melody, and the drum was giving the blood-rhythm.

More and more men were drifting in from the plaza. Katestepped from her perch and went rather shyly forward. Shewanted one of the papers. The man gave her one withoutlooking at her. And she went into the light to read. It wasa sort of ballad, but without rhyme, in Spanish. At the topof the leaflet was a rough print of an eagle within the ringof a serpent that had its tail in its mouth; a curious deviationfrom the Mexican emblem, which is an eagle standingon a nopal, a cactus with great flat leaves, and holding inits beak and claws a writhing snake.

This eagle stood slim upon the serpent, within the circleof the snake, that had black markings round its back, likeshort black rays pointing inwards. At a little distance, theemblem suggested an eye.

There was a dense throng of men gathered now, and fromthe centre, the ruddy glow of ocote torches rose warm andstrong, and the sweet scent of the cedar-like resin was on theair. Kate could see nothing, for the mass of men in bighats.

The flute had stopped its piping, and the drum was beatinga slow, regular thud, acting straight on the blood. Theincomprehensible hollow barking of the drum was like aspell on the mind, making the heart burst each stroke, anddarkening the will.

The men in the crowd began to subside, sitting and squattingon the ground, with their hats between their knees.And now it was a little sea of dark, proud heads leaning alittle forward above the soft, strong male shoulders.

Near the wall was a clear circle, with the drum in thecentre. The drummer with the naked torso stood tilting hisdrum towards him, his shoulders gleaming smooth and ruddyin the flare of light. Beside him stood another man holdinga banner that hung from a light rod. On the blue field of thebanneret was the yellow sun with a black centre, and betweenthe four greater yellow rays, four black rays emerging,[Pg 129]so that the sun looked like a wheel spinning with adazzling motion.

The crowd having all sat down, the six men with nakedtorsos, who had been giving out the leaflets and ordering thecrowd, now came back and sat down in a ring, of which thedrummer, with the drum tilted between his knees as hesquatted on the ground, was the key. On his right hand satthe banner-bearer, on his left the flautist. They were ninemen in the ring, the boy, who sat apart watching the twoocote torches, which he had laid upon a stone supported ona long cane tripod, being the tenth.

The night seemed to have gone still. The curious seed-rattlinghum of voices that filled the plaza was hushed.Under the trees, on the pavements, people were still passingunconcerned, but they looked curiously lonely, isolatedfigures drifting in the twilight of the electric lamps, and goingabout some exceptional business. They seemed outside thenucleus of life.

Away on the north side, the booths were still flaring,people were buying and selling. But this quarter too, lookedlonely, and outside the actual reality, almost like memory.

When the men sat down, the women began to drift upshyly, and seat themselves on the ground at the outer rim,their full cotton skirts flowering out around them, and theirdark rebozos drawn tight over their small, round, shy heads,as they squatted on the ground. Some, too shy to comeright up, lingered on the nearest benches of the plaza. Andsome had gone away. Indeed, a good many men and womenhad disappeared as soon as the drum was heard.

So that the plaza was curiously void. There was thedense clot of people round the drum, and then the outerworld, seeming empty and hostile. Only in the dark littlestreet that gave on to the darkness of the lake, people werestanding like ghosts, half lit-up, the men with their sarapesover their faces, watching erect and silent and concealed,from the shadow.

But Kate, standing back in the doorway, with Juana sittingon the doorstep at her feet, was fascinated by the silent,half-naked ring of men in the torchlight. Their heads wereblack, their bodies soft and ruddy with the peculiar Indianbeauty that has at the same time something terrible in it.The soft, full, handsome torsos of silent men with heads[Pg 130]softly bent a little forward; the soft, easy shoulders, thatare yet so broad, and which balance upon so powerful abackbone; shoulders drooping a little, with the relaxationof slumbering, quiescent power; the beautiful ruddy skin,gleaming with a dark fineness; the strong breasts, so maleand so deep, yet without the muscular hardening that belongsto white men; and the dark, closed faces, closed upona darkened consciousness, the black moustaches and delicatebeards framing the closed silence of the mouth; all thiswas strangely impressive, moving strange, frightening emotionsin the soul. Those men who sat there in their dark,physical tenderness, so still and soft, they looked at thesame time frightening. Something dark, heavy, and reptilianin their silence and their softness. Their very nakedtorsos were clothed with a subtle shadow, a certain secretobscurity. White men sitting there would have been strong-muscledand frank, with an openness in their very physique,a certain ostensible presence. But not so these men. Theirvery nakedness only revealed the soft, heavy depths of theirnatural secrecy, their eternal invisibility. They did notbelong to the realm of that which comes forth.

Everybody was quite still; the expectant hush deepened toa kind of dead, night silence. The naked-shouldered men satmotionless, sunk into themselves, and listening with the darkears of the blood. The red sash went tight round theirwaists, the wide white trousers, starched rather stiff, werebound round the ankles with red cords, and the dark feet inthe glare of the torch looked almost black, in huaraches thathad red thongs. What did they want then, in life, thesem*n who sat so softly and without any assertion, yet whoseweight was so ponderous, arresting?

Kate was at once attracted and repelled. She was attracted,almost fascinated by the strange nuclear power ofthe men in the circle. It was like a darkly glowing, vividnucleus of new life. Repellant the strange heaviness, thesinking of the spirit into the earth, like dark water. Repellantthe silent, dense opposition to the pale-faced spiritualdirection.

Yet here and here alone, it seemed to her, life burned witha deep new fire. The rest of life, as she knew it, seemedwan, bleached and sterile. The pallid wanness and wearinessof her world! And here, the dark, ruddy figures in the[Pg 131]glare of a torch, like the centre of the everlasting fire, surelythis was a new kindling of mankind!

She knew it was so. Yet she preferred to be on the fringe,sufficiently out of contact. She could not bear to come intoactual contact.

The man with the banner of the sun lifted his face as ifhe were going to speak. And yet he did not speak. He wasold; in his sparse beard were grey hairs, grey hairs over histhick dark mouth. And his face had the peculiar thickness,with a few deep-scored lines, of the old among these people.Yet his hair rose vigorous and manly from his forehead, hisbody was smooth and strong. Only, perhaps, a littlesmoother, heavier, softer than the shoulders of the youngermen.

His black eyes gazed sightless for some time. Perhaps hewas really blind; perhaps it was a heavy abstraction, a sortof heavy memory working in him, which made his face seemsightless.

Then he began, in a slow, clear, far-off voice, that seemedstrangely to echo the vanished barking of the drum:

“Listen to me, men! Listen to me, women of thesem*n! A long time ago, the lake started calling for men, inthe quiet of the night. And there were no men. The littlecharales were swimming round the shore, looking for something,and the bágari and the other big fish would jump outof the water, to look around. But there were no men.

“So one of the gods with hidden faces walked out of thewater, and climbed the hill—” he pointed with his hand inthe night towards the invisible round hill at the back of thevillage—“and looked about. He looked up at the sun, andthrough the sun he saw the dark sun, the same that madethe sun and the world, and will swallow it again like adraught of water.

“He said: Is it time? And from behind the bright sunthe four dark arms of the greater sun shot out, and in theshadow men arose. They could see the four dark arms of thesun in the sky. And they started walking.

“The man on the top of the hill, who was a god, looked atthe mountains and the flat places, and saw men very thirsty,their tongues hanging out. So he said to them: Come!Come here! Here is my sweet water!

“They came like dogs running with their tongues out, and[Pg 132]kneeled on the shore of the lake. And the man on the topof the hill heard them panting with having drunk muchwater. He said to them: Have you drunk too much intoyourselves? Are your bones not dry enough?

“The men made houses on the shore, and the man on thehill, who was a god, taught them to sow maize and beans,and build boats. But he said to them: No boat will saveyou, when the dark sun ceases to hold out his dark armsabroad in the sky.

“The man on the hill said: I am Quetzalcoatl, whobreathed moisture on your dry mouths. I filled your breastswith breath from beyond the sun. I am the wind thatwhirls from the heart of the earth, the little winds that whirllike snakes round your feet and your legs and your thighs,lifting up the head of the snake of your body, in whom isyour power. When the snake of your body lifts its head,beware! It is I, Quetzalcoatl, rearing up in you, rearingup and reaching beyond the bright day, to the sun of darknessbeyond, where is your home at last. Save for the darksun at the back of the day-sun, save for the four dark armsin the heavens, you were bone, and the stars were bone, andthe moon an empty sea-shell on a dry beach, and the yellowsun were an empty cup, like the dry thin bone of a deadcoyote’s head. So beware!

“Without me you are nothing. Just as I, without thesun that is back of the sun, am nothing.

“When the yellow sun is high in the sky, then say: Quetzalcoatlwill lift his hand and screen me from this, else I shallburn out, and the land will wither.

“For, say I, in the palm of my hand is the water of life,and on the back of my hand is the shadow of death. Andwhen men forget me, I lift the back of my hand, farewell!Farewell, and the shadow of death.

“But men forgot me. Their bones were moist, their heartsweak. When the snake of their body lifted its head, theysaid: This is the tame snake that does as we wish. Andwhen they could not bear the fire of the sun, they said: Thesun is angry. He wants to drink us up. Let us give himblood of victims.

“And so it was, the dark branches of shade were gonefrom heaven, and Quetzalcoatl mourned and grew old, holdinghis hand before his face, to hide his face from men.

[Pg 133]

“He mourned and said: Let me go home. I am old, I amalmost bone. Bone triumphs in me, my heart is a drygourd. I am weary in Mexico.

“So he cried to the Master-Sun, the dark one, of theunuttered name: I am withering white like a perishinggourd-vine. I am turning to bone. I am denied ofthese Mexicans. I am waste and weary and old. Takeme away.

“Then the dark sun reached an arm, and lifted Quetzalcoatlinto the sky. And the dark sun beckoned with afinger, and brought white men out of the east. And theycame with a dead god on the Cross, saying: Lo! This isthe Son of God! He is dead, he is bone! Lo, your god isbled and dead, he is bone. Kneel and sorrow for him, andweep. For your tears he will give you comfort again, fromthe dead, and a place among the scentless rose-trees of theafter-life, when you are dead.

“Lo! His mother weeps, and the waters of the world arein her hands. She will give you drink, and heal you, andlead you to the land of God. In the land of God you shallweep no more. Beyond the gates of death, when you havepassed from the house of bone, into the garden of whiteroses.

“So the weeping Mother brought her Son who was deadon the Cross to Mexico, to live in the temples. And thepeople looked up no more, saying: The Mother weeps.The Son of her womb is bone. Let us hope for the placeof the west, where the dead have peace among the scentlessrose-trees, in the Paradise of God.

“For the priests would say: It is beautiful beyond thegrave.

“And then the priests grew old, and the tears of theMother were exhausted, and the Son on the Cross criedout to the dark sun far beyond the sun: What is thisthat is done to me? Am I dead for ever, and onlydead? Am I always and only dead, but bone on a Crossof bone?

“So this cry was heard in the world, and beyond the starsof the night, and beyond the sun of the day.

“Jesus said again: Is it time? My Mother is old like asinking moon, the old bone of her can weep no more. Arewe perished beyond redeem?

[Pg 134]

“Then the greatest of the great suns spoke aloud from theback of the sun: I will take my Son to my bosom, I willtake His Mother on my lap. Like a woman I will put themin My womb, like a mother I will lay them to sleep, inmercy I will dip them in the bath of forgetting and peaceand renewal.

“That is all. So hear now, you men, and you women ofthese men.

“Jesus is going home, to the Father, and Mary isgoing back, to sleep in the belly of the Father. Andthey both will recover from death, during the long longsleep.

“But the Father will not leave us alone. We are notabandoned.

“The Father has looked around, and has seen the MorningStar, fearless between the rush of the oncoming yellow sun,and the backward reel of the night. So the Great One,whose name has never been spoken, says: Who art thou,bright watchman? And the down-star answering: It is I,the Morning Star, who in Mexico was Quetzalcoatl. It isI, who look at the yellow sun from behind, have my eye onthe unseen side of the moon. It is I, the star, midway betweenthe darkness and the rolling of the sun. I, calledQuetzalcoatl, waiting in the strength of my days.

“The Father answered: It is well. It is well. Andagain: It is time.

“Thus the big word was spoken behind the back of theworld. The Nameless said: It is time.

“Once more the word has been spoken: It is time.

“Listen, men, and the women of men: It is time. Knownow it is time. Those that left us are coming back. Thosethat came are leaving again. Say welcome, and then farewell!

“Welcome! Farewell!”

The old man ended with a strong, suppressed cry, as ifreally calling to the gods:

“Bienvenido! Bienvenido! Adios! Adios!”

Even Juana, seated at Kate’s feet, cried out withoutknowing what she did:

“Bienvenido! Bienvenido! Adios! Adios! Adios-n!”

On the last adios! she trailed out to a natural human“n.”

[Pg 135]

The drum began to beat with an insistent, intensiverhythm, and the flute, or whistle, lifted its odd, far-off callingvoice. It was playing again and again the peculiar melodyKate had heard at first.

Then one of the men in the circle lifted his voice, andbegan to sing the hymn. He sang in the fashion of the OldRed Indians, with intensity and restraint, singing inwardly,singing to his own soul, not outward to the world, nor yeteven upward to God, as the Christians sing. But with a sortof suppressed, tranced intensity, singing to the inner mystery,singing not into space, but into the other dimensionof man’s existence, where he finds himself in the infiniteroom that lies inside the axis of our wheeling space. Space,like the world, cannot but move. And like the world, thereis an axis. And the axis of our worldly space, when youenter, is a vastness where even the trees come and go, andthe soul is at home in its own dream, noble and unquestioned.

The strange, inward pulse of the drum, and the singersinging inwardly, swirled the soul back into the very centreof time, which is older than age. He began on a high, remotenote, and holding the voice at a distance, ran on insubtle, running rhythms, apparently unmeasured, yet pulsedunderneath by the drum, and giving throbbing, three-foldlilts and lurches. For a long time, no melody at all wasrecognisable: it was just a lurching, running, far-off crying,something like the distant faint howling of a coyote. It wasreally the music of the old American Indian.

There was no recognisable rhythm, no recognisable emotion,it was hardly music. Rather a far-off, perfect cryingin the night. But it went straight through to the soul, themost ancient and everlasting soul of all men, where alonecan the human family assemble in immediate contact.

Kate knew it at once, like a sort of fate. It was no goodresisting. There was neither urge nor effort, nor any speciality.The sound sounded in the innermost far-off place ofthe human core, the ever-present, where there is neitherhope nor emotion, but passion sits with folded wings on thenest, and faith is a tree of shadow.

Like fate, like doom. Faith is the Tree of Life itself,inevitable, and the apples are upon us, like the apples of theeye, the apples of the chin, the apple of the heart, the apples[Pg 136]of the breast, the apple of the belly, with its deep core, theapples of the loins, the apples of the knees, the little, side-by-sideapples of the toes. What do change and evolutionmatter? We are the Tree with the fruit forever upon it.And we are faith forever. Verbum Sat.

The one singer had finished, and only the drum kept on,touching the sensitive membrane of the night subtly andknowingly. Then a voice in the circle rose again on thesong, and like birds flying from a tree, one after the other,the individual voices arose, till there was a strong, intense,curiously weighty soaring and sweeping of male voices, likea dark flock of birds flying and dipping in unison. And allthe dark birds seemed to have launched out of the heart,in the inner forest of the masculine chest.

And one by one, voices in the crowd broke free, like birdslaunching and coming in from a distance, caught by thespell. The words did not matter. Any verse, any words,no words, the song remained the same: a strong, deep windrushing from the caverns of the breast, from the everlastingsoul! Kate herself was too shy and wincing to sing: tooblenched with disillusion. But she heard the answer awayback in her soul, like a far-off mocking-bird at night. AndJuana was singing in spite of herself, in a crooning femininevoice, making up the words unconsciously.

The half-naked men began to reach for their serapes:white serapes, with borders of blue and earth-brown bars,and dark fringe. A man rose from the crowd and wenttowards the lake. He came back with ocote and withfa*ggots that a boat had brought over. And he started alittle fire. After a while, another man went for fuel, andstarted another fire in the centre of the circle, in front ofthe drum. Then one of the women went off soft and barefoot,in her full cotton skirt. And she made a little bonfireamong the women.

The air was bronze with the glow of flame, and sweet withsmoke like incense. The song rose and fell, then died away.Rose, and died. The drum ebbed on, faintly touching thedark membrane of the night. Then ebbed away. In theabsolute silence could be heard the soundless stillness of thedark lake.

Then the drum started again, with a new, strong pulse.One of the seated men, in his white poncho with the dark[Pg 137]blackish-and-blue border, got up, taking off his sandals ashe did so, and began softly to dance the dance step. Mindless,dancing heavily and with a curious bird-like sensitivenessof the feet, he began to tread the earth with his baresoles, as if treading himself deep into the earth. Alone,with a curious pendulum rhythm, leaning a little forwardfrom a powerful backbone, he trod to the drum-beat, hiswhite knees lifting and lifting alternately against the darkfringe of his blanket, with a queer dark splash. And anotherman put his huaraches into the centre of the ring, near thefire, and stood up to dance. The man at the drum lifted uphis voice in a wild, blind song. The men were taking offtheir ponchos. And soon, with the firelight on their breastsand on their darkly abstracted faces, they were all afoot,with bare torsos and bare feet, dancing the savage bird-tread.

“Who sleeps shall wake! Who sleeps shall wake! Whotreads down the path of the snake in the dust shall arriveat the place; in the path of the dust shall arrive at the placeand be dressed in the skin of the snake: shall be dressed inthe skin of the snake of the earth, that is father of stone;that is father of stone and the timber of earth; of the silverand gold, of the iron, the timber of earth from the bone of thefather of earth, of the snake of the world, of the heart of theworld, that beats as a snake beats the dust in its motion onearth, from the heart of the world.

“Who slee-eeps, sha-all wake! Who slee-eeps, sha-allwake! Who sleeps, sha-ll wake in the way of the snakeof the dust of the earth, of the stone of the earth, of thebone of the earth.”

The song seemed to take new wild flights, after it hadsunk and rustled to a last ebb. It was like waves that riseout of the invisible, and rear up into form, and a flying, disappearingwhiteness and a rustle of extinction. And thedancers, after dancing in a circle in a slow, deep absorption,each man changeless in his own place, treading the same dustwith the soft churning of bare feet, slowly, slowly began torevolve, till the circle was slowly revolving round the fire,with always the same soft, down-sinking, churning tread.And the drum kept the changeless living beat, like a heart,and the song rose and soared and fell, ebbed and ebbed to asort of extinction, then heaved up again.

[Pg 138]

Till the young peons could stand it no more. They putoff their sandals and their hats and their blankets, andshyly, with inexpert feet that yet knew the old echo of thetread, they stood behind the wheeling dancers, and dancedwithout changing place. Till soon the revolving circle had afixed yet throbbing circle of men outside.

Then suddenly one of the naked-shouldered dancers fromthe inner circle stepped back into the outer circle and with aslow leaning, slowly started the outer circle revolving in thereverse direction from the inner. So now there were twowheels of the dance, one within the other, and revolving indifferent directions.

They kept on and on, with the drum and the song, revolvinglike wheels of shadow-shapes around the fire. Till thefired died low, and the drum suddenly stopped, and the mensuddenly dispersed, returning to their seats again.

There was silence, then the low hum of voices and thesound of laughter. Kate had thought, so often, that thelaughter of the peons broke from them in a sound almostlike pain. But now the laughs came like little invisibleflames, suddenly from the embers of the talk.

Everybody was waiting, waiting. Yet nobody moved atonce, when the thud of the drum struck again like a summons.They sat still talking, listening with a second consciousness.Then a man arose and threw off his blanket,and threw wood on the central fire. Then he walked throughthe seated men to where the women clustered in the fullnessof their skirts. There he waited, smiling with a look ofabstraction. Till a girl rose and came with utmost shynesstowards him, holding her rebozo tight over her lowered headwith her right hand, and taking the hand of the man in herleft. It was she who lifted the motionless hand of the manin her own, shyly, with a sudden shy snatching. He laughed,and led her through the now risen men, towards the innerfire. She went with dropped head, hiding her face in confusion.But side by side and loosely holding hands, theybegan to tread the soft, heavy dance-step, forming the firstsmall segment of the inner, stationary circle.

And now all the men were standing facing outwards, waitingto be chosen. And the women quickly, their shawledheads hidden, were slipping in and picking up the looseright hand of the man of their choice. The inner men with[Pg 139]the naked shoulders were soon chosen. The inner circle, ofmen and women in pairs, hand in hand, was closing.

“Come, Niña, come!” said Juana, looking up at Katewith black, gleaming eyes.

“I am afraid!” said Kate. And she spoke the truth.

One of the bare-breasted men had come across the street,out of the crowd, and was standing waiting, near the doorwayin which Kate stood, silently, with averted face.

“Look! Niña! This master is waiting for you. Thencome! Oh Niña, come!”

The voice of the criada had sunk to the low, crooning,almost magical appeal of the women of the people, and herblack eyes glistened strangely, watching Kate’s face. Kate,almost mesmerised, took slow, reluctant steps forward, towardsthe man who was standing with averted face.

“Do you mind?” she said in English, in great confusion.And she touched his fingers with her own.

His hand, warm and dark and savagely suave, loosely,almost with indifference, and yet with the soft barbaric nearness,held her fingers, and he led her to the circle. Shedropped her head, and longed to be able to veil her face.In her white dress and green straw hat, she felt a virginagain, a young virgin. This was the quality these men hadbeen able to give back to her.

Shyly, awkwardly, she tried to tread the dance-step. Butin her shoes she felt inflexible, insulated, and the rhythm wasnot in her. She moved in confusion.

But the man beside her held her hand in the same light,soft grasp, and the slow, pulsing pendulum of his bodyswayed untrammelled. He took no notice of her. And yethe held her fingers in his soft, light touch.

Juana had discarded her boots and stockings, and withher dark, creased face like a mask of obsidian, her eyesgleaming with the timeless female flame, dark and unquenchable,she was treading the step of the dance.

“As the bird of the sun, treads the earth at the dawn ofthe day like a brown hen under his feet, like a hen and thebranches of her belly droop with the apples of birth, withthe eggs of gold, with the eggs that hide the globe of thesun in the waters of heaven, in the purse of the shell ofearth that is white from the fire of the blood, tread theearth, and the earth will conceive like the hen ’neath the feet[Pg 140]of the bird of the sun; ’neath the feet of the heart, ’neaththe heart’s twin feet. Tread the earth, tread the earth thatsquats as a pullet with wings closed in—”

The circle began to shift, and Kate was slowly movinground between two silent and absorbed men, whose armstouched her arms. And the one held her fingers softly,loosely, but with transcendant nearness. And the wild songrose again like a bird that has alighted for a second, andthe drum changed rhythm incomprehensibly.

The outer wheel was all men. She seemed to feel thestrange dark glow of them upon her back. Men, dark, collectivemen, non-individual. And herself woman, wheelingupon the great wheel of womanhood.

Men and women alike danced with faces lowered andexpressionless, abstract, gone in the deep absorption of meninto the greater manhood, women into the great womanhood.It was sex, but the greater, not the lesser sex. Thewaters over the earth wheeling upon the waters under theearth, like an eagle silently wheeling above its own shadow.

She felt her sex and her womanhood caught up and identifiedin the slowly revolving ocean of nascent life, the darksky of the men lowering and wheeling above. She was notherself, she was gone, and her own desires were gone in theocean of the great desire. As the man whose fingers touchedhers was gone in the ocean that is male, stooping over theface of the waters.

The slow, vast, soft-touching revolution of the oceanabove upon ocean below, with no vestige of rustling or foam.Only the pure sliding conjunction. Herself gone into hergreater self, her womanhood consummated in the greaterwomanhood. And where her fingers touched the fingers ofthe man, the quiet spark, like the dawn-star, shining betweenher and the greater manhood of men.

How strange, to be merged in desire beyond desire, to begone in the body beyond the individualism of the body, withthe spark of contact lingering like a morning star betweenher and the man, her woman’s greater self, and the greaterself of man. Even of the two men next to her. What abeautiful slow wheel of dance, two great streams streamingin contact, in opposite directions.

She did not know the face of the man whose fingers sheheld. Her personal eyes had gone blind, his face was the[Pg 141]face of dark heaven, only the touch of his fingers a star thatwas both hers and his.

Her feet were feeling the way into the dance-step. Shewas beginning to learn softly to loosen her weight, to loosenthe uplift of all her life, and let it pour slowly, darkly, withan ebbing gush, rhythmical in soft, rhythmic gushes fromher feet into the dark body of the earth. Erect, strong likea staff of life, yet to loosen all the sap of her strength andlet it flow down into the roots of the earth.

She had lost count of time. But the dance of itself seemedto be wheeling to a close, though the rhythm remainedexactly the same to the end.

The voice finished singing, only the drum kept on. Suddenlythe drum gave a rapid little shudder, and there wassilence. And immediately the hands were loosened, thedance broke up into fragments. The man gave her a quick,far-off smile and was gone. She would never know him bysight. But by presence she might know him.

The women slipped apart, clutching their rebozos tightround their shoulders. The men hid themselves in theirblankets. And Kate turned to the darkness of the lake.

“Already you are going, Niña?” came Juana’s voice ofmild, aloof disappointment.

“I must go now,” said Kate hurriedly.

And she hastened towards the dark of the lake, Juanarunning behind her with shoes and stockings in her hand.

Kate wanted to hurry home with her new secret, thestrange secret of her greater womanhood, that she could notget used to. She would have to sink into this mystery.

She hastened along the uneven path of the edge of thelake shore, that lay dark in shadow, though the stars gaveenough light to show the dark bulks and masts of the sailing-canoesagainst the downy obscurity of the water. Night,timeless, hourless night! She would not look at her watch.She would lay her watch face down, to hide its phosphorusfigures. She would not be timed.

And as she sank into sleep, she could hear the drum again,like a pulse inside a stone beating.

Over the gateway of Kate’s house was a big tree called acuenta tree, because it dropped its fruits, that were little,round, hard balls like little dark marbles, perfect in shape,for the natives to gather up and string for beads, cuentas,or more particularly, for the Pater Noster beads of therosary. At night, the little road outside was quite dark, andthe dropping of the cuentas startled the silence.

The nights, which at first had seemed perfectly friendly,began to be full of terrors. Fear had risen again. A bandof robbers had gathered in one of the outlying villages on thelake, a village where the men had bad characters, as beingready to turn bandit at any moment. And this gang, invisiblein the daytime, consisting during the day of lake fishermenand labourers on the land, at night would set off on horsebackto sack any lonely, or insufficiently-protected house.

Then the fact that a gang of bandits was out always setthe isolated thieves and scoundrels in action. Whateverhappened, it would be attributed to the bandits. And so,many an unsuspected, seemingly honest man, with the oldlust in his soul, would steal out by night with his machete andperhaps a pistol, to put his fingers in the pie of the darkness.

And again Kate felt the terror clot and thicken in theblack silence of the Mexican night, till the sound of a cuentafalling was terrible. She would lie and listen to the thickeningdarkness. A little way off would sound the long, shrillwhistle of the police watch. And in a while, the policepatrol, on horseback, would go clattering lightly by. Butthe police in most countries are never present save wherethere is no trouble.

The rainy season was coming, and the night-wind rosefrom the lake, making strange noises in the trees, and shakingthe many loose doors of the house. The servants wereaway in their distant recess. And in Mexico, at night, eachlittle distance isolates itself absolutely, like a man in a blackcloak turning his back.

In the morning, Juana would appear from the plaza, hereyes blob-like and inky, and the old, weary, monkey lookof subjection to fear, settled on her bronze face. A race old[Pg 143]in subjection to fear, and unable to shake it off. She wouldimmediately begin to pour forth to Kate, in a babbling, halfintelligent stream, some story of a house broken into and awoman stabbed. And she would say, the owner of the hotelhad sent word that it was not safe for Kate to sleep alone inthe house. She must go to the hotel to sleep.

The whole village was in that state of curious, reptileapprehension which comes over dark people. A panic fear,a sense of devilment and horror thick in the night air. Whenblue morning came they would cheer up. But at night,like clotting blood the air would begin to thicken again.

The fear, of course, was communicated from one personto another. Kate was sure that if Juana and her familyhad not been huddled in reptile terror away at the far endof the house, she herself would have been unafraid. As itwas, Juana was like a terror-struck lizard.

There was no man about the place. Juana had two sons,Jesús, who was about twenty, and Ezequiel, about seventeen.But Jesús—she pronounced it Hezoosn—ran the littlegasoline motor for the electric light, and he and Ezequielslept together on the floor of the little engine house. Sothat Juana huddled with her two girls, Concha and Maria,in the den at the end of Kate’s house, and seemed to sweata rank odour of fear.

The village was submerged. Usually the plaza kept alivetill ten o’clock, with the charcoal fires burning and the ice-creamman going round with his bucket on his head, endlesslycrying: Nieve! Nieve! and the people gossiping onthe streets or listening to the young men with guitars.

Now, by nine o’clock, the place was deserted, curiouslystony and vacuous. And the Jefe sent out the order thatanybody in the streets after ten o’clock would be arrested.

Kate hurried to her house and locked herself in. It isnot easy to withstand the panic fear of a black-eyed, semi-barbaricpeople. The thing communicates itself like somedrug on the air, wringing the heart and paralysing the soulwith a sense of evil; black, horrible evil.

She would lie in her bed in the absolute dark: the electriclight was cut off completely, everywhere, at ten o’clock,and primitive darkness reigned. And she could feel thedemonish breath of evil moving on the air in waves.

She thought of the grisly stories of the country, which she[Pg 144]had heard. And she thought again of the people, outwardlyso quiet, so nice, with a gentle smile. But even Humboldthad said of the Mexicans, that few people had such a gentlesmile, and at the same time, such fierce eyes. It was notthat their eyes were exactly fierce. But their blackness wasinchoate, with a dagger of white light in it. And in theinchoate blackness the blood-lust might arise, out of thesediment of the uncreated past.

Uncreated, half-created, such a people was at the mercyof old black influences that lay in a sediment at the bottomof them. While they were quiet, they were gentle andkindly, with a sort of limpid naïveté. But when anythingshook them at the depths, the black clouds would arise, andthey were gone again in the old grisly passions of death,blood-lust, incarnate hate. A people incomplete, and at themercy of old, upstarting lusts.

Somewhere at the bottom of their souls, she felt, was afathomless resentment, like a raw wound. The heavy,bloody-eyed resentment of men who have never been ableto win a soul for themselves, never been able to win themselvesa nucleus, an individual integrity out of the chaos ofpassions and potencies and death. They are caught in thetoils of old lusts and old activities as in the folds of a blackserpent that strangles the heart. The heavy, evil-smellingweight of an unconquered past.

And under this weight they live and die, not really sorryto die. Clogged and tangled in the elements, never able toextricate themselves. Blackened under a too-strong sun,surcharged with the heavy sundering electricity of the Mexicanair, and tormented by the bubbling of volcanoes awaybelow the feet. The tremendous potent elements of theAmerican continent, that give men powerful bodies, butwhich weigh the soul down and prevent its rising into birth.Or, if a man arrives with a soul, the maleficent elementsgradually break it, gradually, till he decomposes into ideasand mechanistic activities, in a body full of mechanicalenergy, but with his blood-soul dead and putrescent.

So, these men, unable to overcome the elements, men helddown by the serpent tangle of sun and electricity and volcanicemission, they are subject to an ever-recurring, fathomlesslust of resentment, a demonish hatred of life itself.Then, the instriking thud of a heavy knife, stabbing into a[Pg 145]living body, this is the best. No lust of women can equalthat lust. The clutching throb of gratification as the knifestrikes in and the blood spurts out!

It is the inevitable supreme gratification of a people entangledin the past, and unable to extricate itself. A peoplethat has never been redeemed, that has not known aSaviour.

For Jesus is no Saviour to the Mexicans. He is a deadgod in their tomb. As a miner who is entombed undergroundby the collapsing of the earth in the gangways, sodo whole nations become entombed under the slow subsidenceof their past. Unless there comes some Saviour, someRedeemer to drive a new way out, to the sun.

But the white men brought no salvation to Mexico. Onthe contrary, they find themselves at last shut in the tombalong with their dead god and the conquered race.

Which is the status quo.

Kate lay and thought hard, in the black night. At thesame time, she was listening intensely, with a clutch ofhorror. She could not control her heart. It seemedwrenched out of place, and really hurt her. She was, as shehad never been before, absolute physically afraid, bloodafraid. Her blood was wrenched in a paralysis of fear.

In England, in Ireland, during the war and the revolutionshe had known spiritual fear. The ghastly fear of therabble; and during the war, nations were nearly all rabble.The terror of the rabble that, mongrel-like, wanted to breakthe free spirit in individual men and women. It was thecold, collective lust of millions of people, to break the spiritin the outstanding individuals. They wanted to break thisspirit, so that they could start the great downhill rush backto old underworld levels, old gold worship and murder lust.The rabble.

In those days, Kate had known the agony of cold socialfear, as if a democracy were a huge, huge cold centipedewhich, if you resisted it, would dig every claw into you.And the flesh would mortify around every claw.

That had been her worst agony of fear. And she hadsurvived.

Now she knew the real heart-wrench of blood fear. Herheart seemed pulled out of place, in a stretched pain.

She dozed, and wakened suddenly, at a small noise. She[Pg 146]sat up in bed. Her doors on to the verandah had shutters.The doors themselves were fastened, but the shutters wereopen for air, leaving the upper space, like the window of thedoor, open. And against the dark grey of the night she sawwhat looked like a black cat crouching on the bottom of thepanel-space.

“What is that?” she said automatically.

Instantly, the thing moved, slid away, and she knew itwas the arm of a man that had been reaching inside to pullthe bolt of the door. She lay for a second paralysed, preparedto scream. There was no movement. So she leanedand lit a candle.

The curious panic fear was an agony to her. It paralysedher and wrenched her heart out of place. She lay prostratein the anguish of night-terror. The candle blazed duskily.There was a far-off mutter of thunder. And the night washorrible, horrible, Mexico was ghastly to her beyond description.

She could not relax, she could not get her heart intoplace. “Now,” she thought to herself, “I am at the mercyof this thing, and I have lost myself.” And it was a terriblefeeling, to be lost, scattered, as it were, from herself in ahorror of fear.

“What can I do?” she thought, summoning her spirit.“How can I help myself?” She knew she was all alone.

For a long time she could do nothing. Then a certainrelief came to her as she thought: “I am believing in evil.I musn’t believe in evil. Panic and murder never start unlessthe leading people let slip the control. I don’t really believein evil. I don’t believe the old Pan can wrench usback into the old, evil forms of consciousness, unless wewish it. I do believe there is a greater power, which will giveus the greater strength, while we keep the faith in it, andthe spark of contact. Even the man who wanted to breakin here, I don’t think he really had the power. He was justtrying to be mean and wicked, but something in him wouldhave to submit to a greater faith and a greater power.”

So she re-assured herself, till she had the courage to getup and fasten her door-shutters at the top. After whichshe went from room to room, to see that all was made fast.And she was thankful to realise that she was afraid ofscorpions on the floor, as well as of the panic horror.

[Pg 147]

Now she had seen that the five doors and the six windowsof her wing of communicating rooms were fast. She wassealed inside the darkness, with her candle. To get to theother part of the house, the dining-room and kitchen, shehad to go outside on the verandah.

She grew quieter, shut up with the dusky glow of hercandle. And her heart, still wrenched with the pain of fear,was thinking: “Joachim said that evil was the lapsing backto old life-modes that have been surpassed in us. Thisbrings murder and lust. But the drums of Saturday nightare the old rhythm, and that dancing round the drum is theold savage form of expression. Consciously reverting to thesavage. So perhaps it is evil.”

But then again her instinct to believe came up.

“No! It’s not a helpless, panic reversal. It is conscious,carefully chosen. We must go back to pick up old threads.We must take up the old, broken impulse that will connectus with the mystery of the cosmos again, now we are at theend of our own tether. We must do it. Don Ramón isright. He must be a great man, really. I thought therewere no really great men any more: only great financiersand great artists and so on, but no great men. He must bea great man.”

She was again infinitely re-assured by this thought.

But again, just as she had blown out the candle, vividflares of white light spurted through all the window-cracks,and thunder broke in great round balls, smashing down.The bolts of thunder seemed to fall on her heart. She layabsolutely crushed, in a kind of quiescent hysterics, tortured.And the hysterics held her listening and tense andabject, until dawn. And then she was a wreck.

In the morning came Juana, also looking like a deadinsect, with the conventional phrase: “How have youpassed the night, Niña?”

“Badly!” said Kate. Then she told the story of theblack cat, or the man’s arm.

“Mire!” said Juana, in a hushed voice. “The poorinnocent will be murdered in her bed. No, Niña, you mustgo and sleep in the hotel. No no, Niña, you can’t leaveyour window shutter open. No, no, impossible. See now,will you go to the hotel to sleep? The other señora doesit.”

[Pg 148]

“I don’t want to,” said Kate.

“You don’t want to, Niña? Ah! Entonces! Entonces,Niña, I will tell Ezequiel to sleep here outside your door,with his pistol. He has a pistol, and he will sleep outsideyour door, and you can leave your shutter open, for air inthe hot night. Ah, Niña, we poor women, we need a manand a pistol. We ought not to be left alone all the night.We are afraid, the children are afraid. And imagine it,that there was a robber trying to open the bolt of your door!Imagine it to yourself! No, Niña, we will tell Ezequiel atmid-day.”

Ezequiel came striding proudly in, at mid-day. He wasa wild, shy youth, very erect and proud, and half savage.His voice was breaking, and had a queer resonance.

He stood shyly while the announcement was being madeto him. Then he looked at Kate with flashing black eyes,very much the man to the rescue.

“Yes! Yes!” he said. “I will sleep here on the corridor.Don’t have any fear. I shall have my pistol.”

He marched off, and returned with the pistol, an old long-barrelledaffair.

“It has five shots,” he said, showing the weapon. “Ifyou open the door in the night, you must say a word to mefirst. Because if I see anything move, I shall fire five shots.Pst! Pst!”

She saw by the flash of his eyes what satisfaction it wouldgive him to fire five shots at something moving in the night.The thought of shots being fired at him gave him not theleast concern.

“And Niña,” said Juana, “If you come home late, afterthe light is out, you must call Ezequiel! Because if not,Brumm! Brumm!—and who knows who will be killed!”

Ezequiel slept on a straw mat on the brick verandah outsideKate’s door, rolled up in his blanket, and with the pistolat his side. So she could leave her shutter open for air.And the first night she was kept awake once more by hisfierce snoring. Never had she heard such a tremendousresonant sound! What a chest that boy must have! It wassound from some strange, savage other world. The noisekept her awake, but there was something in it which sheliked. Some sort of wild strength.

Kate was soon fond of the limping, untidy Juana, and ofthe girls. Concha was fourteen, a thick, heavy, barbaricgirl with a mass of black waving hair which she was alwaysscratching. Maria was eleven, a shy, thin bird-like thing withbig eyes that seemed almost to absorb the light round her.

It was a reckless family. Juana admitted a differentfather for Jesús, but to judge from the rest, one would havesuspected a different father for each of them. There was abasic, sardonic carelessness in the face of life, in all thefamily. They lived from day to day, a stubborn, heavy,obstinate life of indifference, careless about the past, carelessabout the present, careless about the future. They hadeven no interest in money. Whatever they got they spentin a minute, and forgot it again.

Without aim or purpose, they lived absolutely à terre,down on the dark, volcanic earth. They were not animals,because men and women and their children cannot beanimals. It is not granted us. Go, for once gone, thounever canst return! says the great Urge which drives uscreatively on. When man tries brutally to return to theolder, previous levels of evolution, he does so in the spiritof cruelty and misery.

So in the black eyes of the family, a certain vicious fearand wonder and misery. The misery of human beings whosquat helpless outside their own unbuilt selves, unable towin their souls out of the chaos, and indifferent to all othervictories.

White people are becoming soulless too. But they haveconquered the lower worlds of metal and energy, so theywhizz around in machines, circling the void of their ownemptiness.

To Kate, there was a great pathos in her family. Also acertain repulsiveness.

Juana and her children, once they accepted their Niña astheir own, were honest with intensity. Point of honour, theywere honest to the least little plum in the fruit bowl. Andalmost intensely eager to serve.

Themselves indifferent to their surroundings, they would[Pg 150]live in squalor. The earth was the great garbage bowl.Everything discarded was flung on the earth and they didnot care. Almost they liked to live in a milieu of fleas andold rags, bits of paper, banana skins and mango stones.Here’s a piece torn off my dress! Earth, take it. Here’sthe combings of my hair! Earth, take them!

But Kate could not bear it. She cared. And immediately,the family was quite glad, thrilled that she cared.They swept the patio with the twig broom till they sweptthe very surface of the earth away. Fun! The Niña hadfeelings about it.

She was a source of wonder and amusem*nt to them. Butshe was never a class superior. She was a half-incomprehensible,half-amusing wonder-being.

The Niña wanted the aquador to bring two botes of hotwater, quick, from the hot springs, to wash herself all overevery morning. Fun! Go, Maria, tell the aquador to runwith the Niña’s water.

Then they almost resented it that she shut herself off tohave her bath. She was a sort of goddess to them, to providethem with fun and wonder; but she ought always to beaccessible. And a god who is forever accessible to humanbeings has an unenviable time of it, Kate soon discovered.

No, it was no sinecure, being a Niña. At dawn beganthe scrape-scrape of the twig broom outside. Kate stayedon in bed, doors fastened but shutters open. Flutter outside!Somebody wanted to sell two eggs. Where is theNiña. She is sleeping! The visitor does not go. Continualflutter outside.

The aquador! Ah, the water for the Niña’s bath! Sheis sleeping, she is sleeping. “No!” called Kate, slippinginto a dressing-gown and unbolting the door. In come thechildren with the bath tub, in comes the aquador with thetwo square kerosene cans full of hot water. Twelvecentavos! Twelve centavos for the aquador! No hay! Wehaven’t got twelve centavos. Later! Later! Away trotsthe aquador, pole over his shoulder. Kate shuts her doorsand shutters and starts her bath.

“Niña? Niña?”

“What do you want?”

“Eggs boiled or fried or rancheros? Which do youwant?”

[Pg 151]

“Boiled.”

“Coffee or chocolate?”

“Coffee.”

“Or do you want tea?”

“No, coffee.”

Bath proceeds.

“Niña?”

“Yes.”

“There is no coffee. We are going to buy some.”

“I’ll take tea.”

“No, Niña! I am going. Wait for me.”

“Go then.”

Kate comes out to breakfast on the verandah. The tableis set, heaped with fruit and white bread and sweet buns.

“Good morning, Niña. How have you passed the night?Well! Ah, praised be God! Maria, the coffee. I’m goingto put the eggs in the water. Oh, Niña, that they may notbe boiled hard!—Look, what feet of the Madonna! Look!Bonitos!”

And Juana stooped down fascinated to touch with herblack finger Kate’s white soft feet, that were thrust in lightsandals, just a thong across the foot.

The day had begun. Juana looked upon herself as dedicatedentirely to Kate. As soon as possible she shooed hergirls away, to school. Sometimes they went: mostly theydidn’t. The Niña said they must go to school. Listen!Listen now! Says the Niña that you must go to school!Away! Walk!

Juana would limp back and forth down the long verandahfrom kitchen to the breakfast table, carrying away the dishesone by one. Then, with a great splash, she was washing up.

Morning! Brilliant sun pouring into the patio, on thehibiscus flowers and the fluttering yellow and green rags ofthe banana trees. Birds swiftly coming and going, withtropical suddenness. In the dense shadow of the mango-grove,white clad Indians going like ghosts. The sense offierce sun and almost more impressive, of dark, intenseshadow. A twitter of life, yet a certain heavy weight ofsilence. A dazzling flicker and brilliance of light, yet thefeeling of weight.

Kate would sit alone, rocking on her verandah, pretendingto sew. Silently appears an old man with one egg held up[Pg 152]mysteriously, like some symbol. Would the patrons buy itfor five centavos. La Juana only gives four centavos. Allright? Where is Juana?

Juana appears from the plaza with more purchases. Theegg! The four centavos! The account of the spendings.Entonces! Entonces! Luego! Luego! Ah, Niña, notengo memoria! Juana could not read nor write. Shescuffled off to the market with her pesos, bought endlesslittle things at one or two centavos each, every morning.And every morning there was a reckoning up. Ah! Ah!Where are we? I have no memory. Well then—ah—yes—Ibought ocote for three centavos! How much? How much,Niña? How much is it now?

It was a game which thrilled Juana to the marrow, reckoningup the centavos to get it just right. If she was a centavoshort in the change, she was paralysed. Time after timeshe would re-appear. There is a centavo short, Niña? Ah,how stupid I am? But I will give you one of mine!

“Don’t bother,” said Kate. “Don’t think of it anymore.”

“But yes. But yes!” and away she limped in distraction.

Till an hour later, loud cry from the far end of the house.Juana waving a scrap of greenery.

“Mire! Niña! Compré perjil a un centavo—I boughtparsley for one cent. Is it right?”

“It is right,” said Kate.

And life could proceed once more.

There were two kitchens, the one next the dining-room,belonging to Kate, and the narrow little shed under thebanana trees, belonging to the servants. From her verandahKate looked away down to Juana’s kitchen shed. It had ablack window hole.

Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Why I thought Concha wasat school! said Kate to herself.

No!—there, in the darkness of the window hole wasConcha’s swarthy face and mane, peering out like someanimal from a cave, as she made the tortillas. Tortillas areflat pancakes of maize dough, baked dry on a flat earthenwareplate over the fire. And the making consists of clappinga bit of new dough from the palm of one hand to theother, till the tortilla is of the requisite thinness, roundness,and so-called lightness.

[Pg 153]

Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! It was asinevitable as the tick of some spider, the sound of Conchamaking tortillas in the heat of the morning, peering out ofher dark window hole. And some time after mid-day, thesmoke would be coming out of the window hole; Concha wasthrowing the raw tortillas on the big earthen plate over theslow wood fire.

Then Ezequiel might or might not stride in, very muchthe man, serape poised over one shoulder and big straw hatjauntily curled, to eat the mid-day tortillas. If he hadwork in the fields at any distance, he would not appear tillnightfall. If he appeared, he sat on the doorstep and thewomen served him his tortillas and fetched him his drink ofwater as if he was a king, boy though he might be. And hisrough, breaking voice was heard in quiet command.

Command was the word. Though he was quiet andgentle, and very conscientious, there was calm, kingly commandin his voice when he spoke to his mother or sisters.The old male prerogative. Somehow, it made Kate want toridicule him.

Came her own meal: one of her trials. Hot, rathergreasy soup. Inevitable hot, greasy, rather peppery rice.Inevitable meat in hot, thick, rather greasy sauce. Boiledcalabacitas or egg-plant, salad, perhaps some dulce madewith milk—and the big basket of fruit. Overhead, the blazingtropical sun of late May.

Afternoon, and greater heat. Juana set off with the girlsand the dishes. They would do the washing up in the lake.Squatting on the stones, they would dabble the plates oneby one, the spoons and the forks one by one in the filmywater of the lake, then put them in the sun to dry. Afterwhich Juana might wash a couple of towels in the lake andthe girls might bathe. Sauntering the day away—saunteringthe day away.

Jesús, the eldest son, a queer, heavy, greasy fellow,usually appeared in the afternoon, to water the garden. Buthe ate his meals at the hotel, and really lived there, had hishome there. Not that he had any home, any more thana zopilote had a home. But he ran the planta, and did oddjobs about the hotel, and worked every day in the year tillhalf past ten at night, earning twenty-two pesos, elevendollars, a month. He wore a black shirt, and his thick,[Pg 154]massive black hair dropped over his low brow. Very nearto an animal. And though, to order, he wore a blackFascisti shirt, he had the queer, animal jeering of the socialists,an instinct for pulling things down.

His mother and he had a funny little intimacy of quietand indifferent mutual taunting of one another. He wouldgive her some money if she were in a strait. And there wasa thin little thread of blood-bondage between them. Apartfrom that, complete indifference.

Ezequiel was a finer type. He was slender and so erectthat he almost curved backwards. He was very shy,farouche. Proud also, and more responsible to his family.He would not go to work in an hotel. No. He was a workerin the fields, and he was proud of it. A man’s work. Noequivocal sort of half-service for him.

Though he was just a hired labourer, yet, working on theland he never felt he was working for a master. It was theland he worked for. Somewhere inside himself he felt thatthe land was his, and he belonged in a measure to it. Perhapsa lingering feeling of tribal, communal land-ownershipand service.

When there was work, he was due to earn a peso a day.There was often no work: and often only seventy-five centavosa day for wage. When the land was dry, he wouldtry to get work on the road, though this he did not like.But he earned his peso a day.

Often, there was no work. Often, for days, sometimes forweeks, he would have to hang about, nothing to do, nothingto do. Only, when the Socialist Government had begungiving the peasants bits of land, dividing up the big haciendas,Ezequiel had been allotted a little piece outside thevillage. He would go and gather the stone together there,and prepare to build a little hut. And he would break theearth with a hoe, his only implement, as far as possible.But he had no blood connection with this square allotmentof unnatural earth, and he could not get himself into relationswith it. He was fitful and diffident about it. Therewas no incentive, no urge.

On workdays he would come striding in about six o’clock,shyly greeting Kate as he passed. He was a gentleman inhis barbarism. Then, away in the far recess, he wouldrapidly fold tortilla after tortilla, sitting on the floor with[Pg 155]his back to the wall, rapidly eating the leathery things thattaste of mortar, because the maize is first boiled with limeto loosen the husk, and accepting another little pile, servedon a leaf, from the cook, Concha. Juana, cook for the Niña,would no longer condescend to cook for her own family.And sometimes there was a mess of meat and chile forEzequiel to scoop up out of the earthenware casserole, withhis tortillas. And sometimes there was not. But always, heate with a certain blind, rapid indifference, that also seemsto be Mexican. They seem to eat even with a certain hostilereluctance, and have a strange indifference to what or whenthey eat.

His supper finished, as a rule he was off again like a shot,to the plaza, to be among men. And the women would sitdesultorily about, on the ground. Sometimes Kate wouldcome in at nine o’clock to an empty place—Ezequiel in theplaza, Juana and Maria disappeared somewhere or other,and Concha lying asleep like a heap of rags on the gravelof the patio. When Kate called her, she would raise herhead, stupefied and hopeless; then get up like a dog andcrawl away to the gate. The strange stupor of boredom andhopelessness that was always sinking upon them would makeKate’s heart stand still with dread.

The peculiar indifference to everything, even to oneanother. Juana washed a cotton shirt and a pair of cottontrousers for each of her sons, once a week, and there hermaternal efforts ended. She saw hardly anything of them,and was often completely unaware of what Ezequiel wasdoing, where he was working, or at what. He had just goneoff to work, no more.

Yet again, sometimes she had hot, fierce pangs of maternalprotectiveness, when the boy was unjustly treated, as heoften was. And if she thought he were ill, a black sort offatalistic fear came over her. But Kate had to rouse herinto getting some simple medicine.

Like animals, yet not at all like animals. For animals arecomplete in their isolation and their insouciance. With themit is not indifference. It is completeness in themselves. Butwith the family there was always a kind of bleeding of incompleteness,a terrible stupor of boredom settling down.

The two girls could not be apart: they must always berunning after one another. Yet Concha continually teased[Pg 156]the big-eyed, naïve simpleton of a Maria. And Maria wasalways in tears. Or the two were suddenly throwing stonesat one another. But with no real aim to hit. And Juana wasabusing them with sudden vehemence, that flickered in aminute to complete indifference again.

Queer, the savage ferocity with which the girls would suddenlybe throwing stones at one another. But queerer still,they always aimed just to miss. Kate noticed the same inthe savage attacks the boys made on one another, on thebeach; hurling large stones with intense, terrible ferocity.But almost always, aiming with a curious cast in the eyes,just to miss.

But sometimes not. Sometimes hitting with a sharp cut.And then the wounded one would drop right down, with ahowl, as if dead. And the other boys would edge away, ina silent kind of dread. And the wounded boy would beprostrate, not really much hurt, but as if he was killed.

Then, maybe, suddenly he would be up, with a convulsionof murder in his face, pursuing his adversary with a stone.And the adversary would abjectly flee.

Always the same thing among the young: a ceaseless,endless taunting and tormenting. The same as among theRed Indians. But the Pueblo Indians rarely lapsing fromspeech into violence. The Mexican boys almost always.And almost always, one boy in murderous rage, pursuinghis taunter till he had hurt him: then an abject collapse ofthe one hurt. Then, usually, a revival of the one hurt, themurderous frenzy transferred to him, and the first attackerfleeing abjectly, in terror. One or the other always abject.

They were a strange puzzle to Kate. She felt somethingmust be done. She herself was inspired to help. So shehad the two girls for an hour a day, teaching them to read,to sew, to draw. Maria wanted to learn to read: that shedid want. For the rest, they began well. But soon, theregularity and the slight insistence of Kate on their attentionmade them take again that peculiar invisible jeeringtone, something peculiar to the American Continent. Aquiet, invisible, malevolent mockery, a desire to wound.They would press upon her, trespassing upon her privacy,and with a queer effrontery, doing all they could to walkover her. With their ugly little wills, trying to pull her willdown.

[Pg 157]

“No, don’t lean on me, Concha. Stand on your ownfeet.”

The slight grin of malevolence on Concha’s face, as shestood on her own feet. Then:

“Do you have lice in your hair, Niña?”

The question asked with a peculiar, subtle, Indian insolence.

“No!” said Kate, suddenly angry. “And now go! Go!Go away from me! Don’t come near me.”

They slunk out, abject. So much for educating them.

Kate had visitors from Guadalajara—great excitement.But while the visitors were drinking tea with Kate on theverandah, at the other side of the patio, full in view, Juana,Concha, Maria, and Felipa, a cousin of about sixteen,squatted on the gravel with their splendid black hair downtheir backs, displaying themselves as they hunted in eachother’s hair for lice. They wanted to be full in view. Andthey were it. They wanted the basic fact of lice to be thrustunder the noses of those white people.

Kate strode down the verandah.

“If you must pick lice,” she said in a shaking voice toJuana, shaking with anger, “pick them there, in your ownplace, where you can’t be seen.”

One instant, Juana’s black inchoate eyes gleamed with amalevolent ridicule, meeting Kate’s. The next instant,humble and abject, the four with their black hair downtheir backs slunk into the recess out of sight.

But it pleased Juana that she had been able to makeKate’s eyes blaze with anger. It pleased her. She felt acertain low power in herself. True, she was a little afraid ofthat anger. But that was what she wanted. She would haveno use for a Niña of whom she was not a bit afraid. Andshe wanted to be able to provoke that anger, of which shefelt a certain abject twinge of fear.

Ah the dark races! Kate’s own Irish were near enough,for her to have glimpsed some of the mystery. The darkraces belong to a bygone cycle of humanity. They are leftbehind in a gulf out of which they have never been able toclimb. And on to the particular white man’s levels they neverwill be able to climb. They can only follow as servants.

While the white man keeps the impetus of his own proud,onward march, the dark races will yield and serve, perforce.[Pg 158]But let the white man once have a misgiving about his ownleadership, and the dark races will at once attack him, topull him down into the old gulfs. To engulf him again.

Which is what is happening. For the white man, let himbluster as he may, is hollow with misgiving about his ownsupremacy.

Full speed ahead, then, for the débâcle.

But once Kate had been roused to a passion of revulsionfrom these lice-picking, down-dragging people, they changedagain, and served her with a certain true wistfulness thatcould not but touch her. Juana cared really about nothing.But just that last thread of relationship that connected herwith Kate and the upper world of daylight and fresh air,she didn’t want to break. No, no, she didn’t want finallyto drive her Niña away. No no, the only one thing she didwant, ultimately, was to serve her Niña.

But at the same time, she cherished a deep malevolentgrudge against rich people, white people, superior people.Perhaps the white man has finally betrayed his own leadership.Who knows! But it is a thing of the brave, on-marchingsoul, and perhaps this has been betrayed alreadyby the white man. So that the dark are rising upon him.

Juana would come to Kate, telling her stories from thepast. And the sinister mocking film would be on her blackeyes, and her lined copper face would take on its reptilemask as she would continue: “Usted sabe, Niña, los gringos,los gringitos llevan todo—you know, Niña, the gringosand the gringitos take away everything...?”

The gringos are the Americans. But Kate herself was includedby Juana in the gringitos: the white foreigners. Thewoman was making another sliding, insolent attack.

“It is possible,” said Kate coldly. “But tell me whatI take away from Mexico.”

“No, Niña, No!” The subtle smile of satisfactionlurked under the bronze tarnish of Juana’s face. She hadbeen able to get at the other woman, touch the raw. “Idon’t speak of you, Niña!” But there was too muchprotest in it.

Almost, they wanted to drive her away: to insult her anddrag her down and make her want to go away. Theycouldn’t help it. Like the Irish, they could cut off theirnose to spite their face.

[Pg 159]

The backward races!

At the same time there was a true pathos about them.Ezequiel had worked for a man for two months, buildinga house, when he was a boy of fourteen, in order to get aserape. At the end of the two months, the man had put himoff, and he had not got the serape: had never got it. Abitter disappointment.

But then, Kate was not responsible for that. And Juanaseemed almost to make her so.

A people without the energy of getting on, how could theyfail to be hopelessly exploited. They had been hopelesslyand cruelly exploited, for centuries. And their backboneswere locked in malevolent resistance.

“But,” as Kate said to herself, “I don’t want to exploitthem. Not a bit. On the contrary, I am willing to givemore than I get. But that nasty insinuating insultingnessis not fair in the game. I never insult them. I am so carefulnot to hurt them. And then they deliberately make thesecentipede attacks on me, and are pleased when I am hurt.”

But she knew her own Irish at the game. So she was ableto put Juana and the girls away from her, and isolate herselffrom them. Once they were put away, their malevolencesubsided and they remembered what Kate wanted.While she stayed amiable, they forgot. They forgot tosweep the patio, they forgot to keep themselves clean. Onlywhen they were shoved back, into isolation, did they rememberagain.

The boy, Ezequiel, seemed to her to have more honourthan the women. He never made these insidious attacks.

And when her house was clean and quiet and the airseemed cleaned again, the soul renewed, her old fondnessfor the family came back. Their curious flitting, comingand going, like birds: the busy clap—clap—clapping oftortillas, the excited scrunching of tomatoes and chile onthe metate, as Juana prepared sauce. The noise of thebucket in the well. Jesús, come to water the garden.

The game, the game of it all! Everything they did mustbe fun, or they could not do it. They could not abstractthemselves to a routine. Never. Everything must be fun,must be variable, must be a bit of an adventure. It wasconfusion, but after all, a living confusion, not a dead,dreary thing. Kate remembered her English servants in the[Pg 160]English kitchens: so mechanical and somehow inhuman.Well, this was the other extreme.

Here there was no discipline nor method at all. AlthoughJuana and her brats really wanted to do the things Katewished, they must do them their own way. SometimesKate felt distracted: after all, the mechanical lines are somuch easier to follow. But as far as possible, she let thefamily be. She had to get used, for example, to the vagariesof her dining table: a little round table that alwaysstood on the verandah. At breakfast time it would be discreetlyset under the plantas by the salon; for dinner, atone o’clock, it would have travelled way down the verandah;for tea it might be under a little tree on the grass.And then Juana would decide that the Niña must takesupper, two eggs, rancheros, in the dining-room itself,isolated at the corner of the long dining-table meant forfourteen people.

The same with the dishes. Why they should, after washingup in the big bowls in the kitchen for several days,suddenly struggle way down to the lake with the unwashedpots in a basket on Concha’s shoulder, Kate never knew.Except for the fun of the thing.

Children! But then, not at all children. None of thewondering insouciance of childhood. Something dark andcognisant in their souls all the time: some heavy weight ofresistance. They worked in fits and starts, and could bevery industrious; then came days when they lay about onthe ground like pigs. At times they were merry, seatedround on the ground in groups, like Arabian nights, andlaughing away. Then suddenly resisting even merriment inthemselves, relapsing into the numb gloom. When theywere busily working, suddenly for no reason, throwing awaythe tool, as if resenting having given themselves. Carelessin their morals, always changing their loves, the men atleast resisted all the time any real giving of themselves.They didn’t want the thing they were pursuing. It was thewomen who drew them on. And a young man and a girlgoing down the road from the lake in the dark, teasing andpoking each other in excitement, would startle Kate becauseof their unusualness—the men and women neverwalked their sex abroad, as white people do. And thesudden, sexual laugh of the man, so strange a sound of pain[Pg 161]and desire, obstinate reluctance and helpless passion, anoise as if something tearing in his breast, was a sound toremember.

Kate felt her household a burden. In a sense, they werelike parasites, they wanted to live on her life, and pull herdown, pull her down. Again, they were so generous withher, so good and gentle, she felt they were wonderful. Andthen once more she came up against that unconscious, heavy,reptilian indifference in them, indifference and resistance.

Her servants were the clue to all the native life, for her.The men always together, erect, handsome, balancing theirgreat hats on the top of their heads and sitting, standing,crouching with a snake-like impassivity. The women togetherseparately, soft, and as if hidden, wrapped tight intheir dark rebozos. Men and women seemed always to beturning their backs on one another, as if they didn’t wantto see one another. No flirting, no courting. Only an occasionalquick, dark look, the signal of a weapon-like desire,given and taken.

The women seemed, on the whole, softly callous and determinedto go their own way: to change men if they wished.And the men seemed not to care very profoundly. But itwas the women who wanted the men.

The native women, with their long black hair streamingdown their full, ruddy backs, would bathe at one end of thebeach, usually wearing their chemise, or a little skirt. Themen took absolutely no notice. They didn’t even look theother way. It was the women bathing, that was all. Asif it were, like the charales swimming, just a natural part ofthe lake life. The men just left that part of the lake to thewomen. And the women sat in the shallows of the lake,isolated in themselves like moor-fowl, pouring water overtheir heads and over their ruddy arms from a gourd scoop.

The quiet, unobtrusive, but by no means down-troddenwomen of the peon class. They went their own way,enveloped in their rebozos as in their own darkness. Theyhurried nimbly along, their full cotton skirts swinging,chirping and quick like birds. Or they sat in the lake withlong hair streaming, pouring water over themselves: againlike birds. Or they passed with a curious slow inevitabilityup the lake-shore, with a heavy red jar of water perched onone shoulder, one arm over the head, holding the rim of the[Pg 162]jar. They had to carry all water from the lake to theirhouses. There was no town supply. Or, especially onSunday afternoons, they sat in their doorways lousing oneanother. The most resplendent belles, with magnificentblack wavy hair, were most thoroughly loused. It was asif it were a meritorious public act.

The men were the obvious figures. They assert themselveson the air. They are the dominant. Usually they are inloose groups, talking quietly, or silent: always standing orsitting apart, rarely touching one another. Often a singleman would stand alone at a street corner in his serape,motionless for hours, like some powerful spectre. Or a manwould lie on the beach as if he had been cast up dead fromthe waters. Impassive, motionless, they would sit side byside on the benches of the plaza, not exchanging a word.Each one isolated in his own fate, his eyes black and quicklike a snake’s, and as blank.

It seemed to Kate that the highest thing this countrymight produce would be some powerful relationship of manto man. Marriage itself would always be a casual thing.Though the men seemed very gentle and protective to thelittle children. Then they forgot them.

But sex itself was a powerful, potent thing, not to beplayed with or paraded. The one mystery. And a mysterygreater than the individual. The individual hardly counted.

It was strange to Kate to see the Indian huts on theshore, little holes built of straw or corn-stalks, with half-nakedchildren squatting on the naked earth floor, and alousy woman-squalor around, a litter of rags and bones, anda sharp smell of human excrement. The people have nonoses. And standing silent and erect not far from the holeof the doorway, the man, handsome and impassive. Howcould it be, that such a fine-looking human male should beso absolutely indifferent, content with such paltry squalor?

But there he was, unconscious. He seemed to have life andpassion in him. And she knew he was strong. No men inthe world can carry heavier loads on their backs, for longerdistances, than these Indians. She had seen an Indian trottingdown a street with a piano on his back: holding it, also,by a band round his forehead. From his forehead, and onhis spine he carried it, trotting along. The women carrywith a brand round the breast.

[Pg 163]

So there is strength. And apparently, there is passionatelife. But no energy. Nowhere in Mexico is there any signof energy. This is, as it were, switched off.

Even the new artizan class, though it imitates the artizanclass of the United States, has no real energy. There areworkmen’s clubs. The workmen dress up and parade a bestgirl on their arm. But somehow, it seems what it is, onlya weak imitation.

Kate’s family was increased, without her expecting it.One day there arrived from Ocotlan a beautiful ox-eyedgirl of about fifteen, wrapped in her black cotton rebozo,and somewhat towny in her Madonna-meekness: Maria delCarmen. With her, Julio, a straight and fierce young manof twenty-two. They had just been married, and had cometo Sayula for a visit. Julio was Juana’s cousin.

Might they sleep in the patio with herself and the girls,was Juana’s request. They would stay only two days.

Kate was amazed. Maria del Carmen must have had someSpanish blood, her beauty was touched with Spain. Sheseemed even refined and superior. Yet she was to sleep out onthe ground like a dog, with her young husband. And he, soerect and proud-looking, possessed nothing in the world butan old serape.

“There are three spare bedrooms,” said Kate. “Theymay sleep in one of those.”

The beds were single beds. Would they need moreblankets? she asked Juana.

No! They would manage with the one serape of Julio’s.

The new family had arrived. Julio was a bricklayer.That is to say, he worked building the adobe walls of thelittle houses. He belonged to Sayula, and had come backfor a visit.

The visit continued. Julio would come striding in at mid-dayand at evening; he was looking for work. Maria delCarmen, in her one black dress, would squat on the floorand pat tortillas. She was allowed to cook them in Juana’skitchen hole. And she talked and laughed with the girls.At night, when Julio was home, he would lie on the groundwith his back to the wall, impassive, while Maria del Carmenfondled his thick black hair.

They were in love. But even now, he was not yieldingto his love.

[Pg 164]

She wanted to go back to Ocotlan, where she was at home,and more a señorita than here in Sayula. But he refused.There was no money: the young ménage lived on aboutfive American cents a day.

Kate was sewing. Maria del Carmen, who didn’t evenknow how to put a chemise together, watched with greateyes. Kate taught her, and bought a length of cottonmaterial. Maria del Carmen was sewing herself a dress!

Julio had got work at a peso a day. The visit continued.Kate thought Julio wasn’t very nice with Maria del Carmen:his quiet voice was so overbearing in command when hespoke to her. And Maria del Carmen, who was a bit towny,did not take it well. She brooded a little.

The visit stretched into weeks. And now Juana was gettinga bit tired of her relative.

But Julio had got a bit of money. He had rented a littleone-room adobe house, at one peso fifty per week. Mariadel Carmen was going to move into her own home.

Kate saw the new outfit got together. It consisted of onestraw mat, three cooking plates of earthenware, five bits ofnative crockery, two wooden spoons, one knife and Julio’sold blanket. That was all. But Maria del Carmen wasmoving in.

Kate presented her with a large old eiderdown, whosesilk was rather worn, a couple of bowls, and a few morebits of crockery. Maria del Carmen was set up. Good!Good! Oh Good! Kate heard her voice down the patio.I have got a coverlet! I have got a coverlet!

In the rainy season, the nights can be very cold, owingto evaporation. Then the natives lie through the smallhours like lizards, numb and prostrate with cold. They arelying on the damp earth on a thin straw mat, with a cornerof an old blanket to cover them. And the same terribleinertia makes them endure it, without trying to make anychange. They could carry in corn husks or dry bananaleaves for a bed. They could even cover themselves withbanana leaves.

But no! On a thin mat on damp cold earth they lie andtremble with cold, night after night, night after night,night after night.

But Maria del Carmen was a bit towny. Oh good! Ohgood! I’ve got a coverlet!

Kate had been in Sayula ten days before she had any signfrom Don Ramón. She had been out in a boat on the lake,and had seen his house, round the bend of the westernpoint. It was a reddish-and-yellow two-storey house with alittle stone basin for the boats, and a mango grove betweenit and the lake. Among the trees, away from the lake, werethe black adobe huts, two rows, of the peons.

The hacienda had once been a large one. But it had beenirrigated from the hills, and the revolutions had broken allthe aqueducts. Only a small supply of water was available.Then Don Ramón had had enemies in the Government. Sothat a good deal of his land was taken away to be dividedamong the peons. Now, he had only some three hundredacres. The two hundred acres along the lake shore weremostly lost to him. He worked a few acres of fruit landround the house, and in a tiny valley just in the hills, heraised sugar cane. On the patches of the mountain slope,little patches of maize were to be seen.

But Doña Carlota had money. She was from Torreon,and drew still a good income from the mines.

A mozo came with a note from Don Ramón: might hebring his wife to call on Kate.

Doña Carlota was a thin, gentle, wide-eyed woman, witha slightly startled expression, and soft, brownish hair. Shewas pure European in extraction, of a Spanish father andFrench mother: very different from the usual stout, overpowdered,ox-like Mexican matron. Her face was pale,faded, and without any make-up at all. Her thin, eagerfigure had something English about it, but her strange,wide brown eyes were not English. She spoke only Spanish—orFrench. But her Spanish was so slow and distinct andslightly plaintive, that Kate understood her at once.

The two women understood one another quickly, but werea little nervous of one another. Doña Carlota was delicateand sensitive like a Chihuahua dog, and with the sameslightly prominent eyes. Kate felt she had rarely met awoman with such a doglike finesse of gentleness. And thetwo women talked. Ramón, large and muted, kept himself[Pg 166]in reserve. It was as if the two women rushed together tounite against his silence and his powerful, different significance.

Kate knew at once that Doña Carlota loved him, but witha love that was now nearly all will. She had worshippedhim, and she had had to leave off worshipping him. She hadhad to question him. And she would never now cease fromquestioning.

So he sat apart, a little constrained, his handsome headhanging a little, and his dark, sensitive hands danglingbetween his thighs.

“I had such a wonderful time!” Kate said suddenly tohim. “I danced a dance round the drum with the Men ofQuetzalcoatl.”

“I heard,” he said, with a rather stiff smile.

Doña Carlota understood English, though she would notspeak it.

“You danced with the men of Quetzalcoatl!” she saidin Spanish, in a pained voice. “But, Señora, why did youdo such a thing? Oh why?”

“I was fascinated,” said Kate.

“No, you must not be fascinated. No! No! It is notgood. I tell you, I am so sorry my husband interests himselfin this thing. I am so sorry.”

Juana was bringing a bottle of vermouth: all that Katehad to offer her visitors, in the morning.

“You went to see your boys in the United States?”said Kate to Doña Carlota. “How were they?”

“Oh, better, thank you. They are well; that is, theyounger is very delicate.”

“You didn’t bring him home?”

“No! No! I think they are better at school. Here—here—thereare so many things to trouble them. No! Butthey will come home next month, for the vacation.”

“How nice!” said Kate. “Then I shall see them. Theywill be here, won’t they?—on the lake?”

“Well!—I am not sure. Perhaps for a little while. Yousee I am so busy in Mexico with my Cuna.”

“What is a Cuna?” said Kate; she only knew it was theSpanish for cradle.

It turned out to be a foundlings’ home, run by a fewobscure Carmelite sisters. And Doña Carlota was the[Pg 167]director. Kate gathered that Don Ramón’s wife was anintense, almost exalted Catholic. She exalted herself in theChurch, and in her work for the Cuna.

“There are so many children born in Mexico,” said DoñaCarlota, “and so many die. If only we could save them,and equip them for life. We do a little, all we can.”

It seemed, the waste, unwanted babies could be deliveredin at the door of the Cuna, like parcels. The mother hadonly to knock, and hand in the little living bundle.

“It saves so many mothers from neglecting their babies,and letting them die,” said Doña Carlota. “Then we dowhat we can. If the mother doesn’t leave a name, I namethe child. Very often I do. The mothers just hand overa little naked thing, sometimes without a name or a rag tocover it. And we never ask.”

The children were not all kept in the Home. Only a smallnumber. Of the others, some decent Indian woman waspaid a small sum to take the child into her home. Everymonth she must come with the little one to the Cuna, toreceive her wage. The Indians are so very rarely unkind tochildren. Careless, yes. But rarely, rarely unkind.

In former days, Doña Carlota said, nearly every well-bornlady in Mexico would receive one or more of these foundlingsinto her home, and have it brought up with the family. Itwas the loose, patriarchal generosity innate in the bosoms ofthe Spanish-Mexicans. But now, few children were adopted.Instead, they were taught as far as possible to be carpentersor gardeners or house-servants, or, among the girls, dressmakers,even school-teachers.

Kate listened with uneasy interest. She felt there was somuch real human feeling in this Mexican charity: she wasalmost rebuked. Perhaps what Doña Carlota was doing wasthe best that could be done, in this half-wild, helplesscountry. At the same time, it was such a forlorn hope, itmade one’s heart sink.

And Doña Carlota, confident as she was in her good works,still had just a bit the look of a victim; a gentle, sensitive,slightly startled victim. As if some secret enemy drainedher blood.

Don Ramón sat there impassive, listening without heeding;solid and unmoving against the charitable quiver of hiswife’s emotion. He let her do as she would. But against[Pg 168]her work and against her flow he was in silent, heavy, unchangingopposition. She knew this, and trembled in hernervous eagerness, as she talked to Kate about the Cuna,and won Kate’s sympathy. Till it seemed to her that therewas something cruel in Don Ramón’s passive, masked poise.An impassive male cruelty, changeless as a stone idol.

“Now won’t you come and spend the day with me whileI am here with Don Ramón?” said Doña Carlota. “Thehouse is very poor and rough. It is no longer what it usedto be. But it is your house if you will come.”

Kate accepted, and said she would prefer to walk out. Itwas only four miles, and surely she would be safe, withJuana.

“I will send a man to come with you,” said Don Ramón.“It might not be quite safe.”

“Where is General Viedma?” asked Kate.

“We shall try to get him out when you come,” repliedDoña Carlota. “I am so very fond of Don Cipriano, I haveknown him for many years, and he is the god-father of myyounger son. But now he is in command of the Guadalajaradivision, he is not very often able to come out.”

“I wonder why he is a general?” said Kate. “He seemsto me too human.”

“Oh, but he is very human too. But he is a general;yes, yes, he wants to be in command of the soldiers. AndI tell you, he is very strong. He has great power with hisregiments. They believe in him, oh, they believe in him.He has that power, you know, that some of the highertypes of Indians have, to make many others want to followthem and fight for them. You know? Don Cipriano is likethat. You can never change him. But I think a womanmight be wonderful for him. He has lived so withoutany woman in his life. He won’t care about them.”

“What does he care about?” asked Kate.

“Ah!” Doña Carlota started as if stung. Then sheglanced quickly, involuntarily at her husband, as she added:“I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.”

“The Men of Quetzalcoatl,” said Don Ramón heavily,with a little smile.

But Doña Carlota seemed to be able to take all the easeand the banter out of him. He seemed stiff and a bit stupid.

“Ah, there! There! There you have it! The Men of[Pg 169]Quetzalcoatl—that is a nice thing for him to care about!A nice thing, I say,” fluttered Doña Carlota, in her gentle,fragile, scolding way. And it was evident to Kate that sheadored both the men, and trembled in opposition to theirwrongness, and would never give in to them.

To Ramón it was a terrible burden, his wife’s quivering,absolute, blind opposition, taken in conjunction with herhelpless adoration.

A man-servant appeared at nine o’clock one morning, toaccompany Kate to the hacienda, which was called Jamiltepec.He had a basket, and had been shopping in themarket. An elderly man, with grey in his moustache, he hadbright young eyes and seemed full of energy. His bare feetin the huaraches were almost black with exposure, but hisclothes were brilliantly white.

Kate was glad to be walking. The one depressing thingabout life in the villages was that one could not walk outinto the country. There was always the liability to be heldup or attacked. And she had walked already, as far aspossible, in every direction, in the neighbourhood of thevillage, accompanied usually by Ezequiel. Now she wasbeginning to feel a prisoner.

She was glad, then, to be setting off. The morning wasclear and hot, the pale brown lake quite still, like a phantom.People were moving on the beach, in the distance tiny, likedots of white: white dots of men following the faint dustof donkeys. She wondered often why humanity was likespecks in the Mexican landscape; just specks of life.

They passed from the lake shore to the rough, dusty roadgoing west, between the steep slope of the hills and the bitof flat by the lake. For almost a mile there were villas,most of them shut up fast, some of them smashed, withbroken walls and smashed windows. Only flowers bloomedin masses above the rubble.

In the empty places were flimsy straw huts of the natives,haphazard, as if blown there. By the road under the hill,were black-grey adobe huts, like boxes, and fowls runningabout, and brown pigs or grey pigs spotted with blackcareered and grunted, and half naked children, dark orange-brown,trotted or lay flat on their faces in the road, theirlittle naked posteriors hunched up, fast asleep. Alreadyasleep again.

[Pg 170]

The houses were many of them being re-thatched, or thetiled roofs were being patched by men who assumed agreat air of importance at having undertaken such a task.They were pretending to hurry, too, because the real rainsmight begin any day. And in the little stony levels by thelake, the land was being scratch-ploughed by a pair of oxenand a lump of pointed wood.

But this part of the road Kate knew. She knew the finevilla on the knoll, with its tufts of palms, and the laid-outavenues that were laid out, indeed, as the dead are, tocrumble back again. She was glad to be past the villas,where the road came down to the lake again, under bigshady trees that had twisted, wriggly beans. On the leftwas the water, the colour of turtle doves, lapping the palefawn stones. At a water-hole of a stream in the beach, acluster of women were busily washing clothes. In theshallows of the lake itself two women sat bathing, theirblack hair hanging dense and wet. A little further along, aman was wading slowly, stopping to throw his round netskilfully upon the water, then slowly stooping and gatheringit in, picking out the tiny, glittery fish called charales.Strangely silent and remote everything, in the gleamingmorning, as if it were some distant period of time.

A little breeze was coming from the lake, but the deepdust underfoot was hot. On the right the hill rose precipitous,baked and yellowish, giving back the sun and theintense dryness, and exhaling the faint, dessicated, peculiarsmell of Mexico, that smells as if the earth had sweated itselfdry.

All the time strings of donkeys trotted laden through thedust, their drivers stalking erect and rapid behind, watchingwith eyes like black holes, but always answering Kate’ssalute with a respectful Adios! And Juana echoed herlaconic Adiosn! She was limping, and she thought it horribleof Kate to walk four miles, when they might have struggledout in an old hired motor-car, or gone in a boat, or evenridden donkey-back.

But to go on foot! Kate could hear all her criada’sfeelings in the drawled, sardonic Adiosn! But the manbehind strode bravely and called cheerfully. His pistol wasprominent in his belt.

A bluff of yellow rock came jutting at the road. The road[Pg 171]wound round it, and into a piece of flat open country. Therewere fields of dry stone, and hedges of dusty thorn andcactus. To the left the bright green of the willows by thelake-shore. To the right the hills swerved inland, to meetthe sheer, fluted sides of dry mountains. Away ahead, thehills curved back at the shore, and a queer little crack orniche showed. This crack in the hills led from Don Ramón’sshore-property to the little valley where he grew the sugarcane. And where the hills approached the lake again, therewas a dark clustering of mango trees, and the red upper-storeyof the hacienda house.

“There it is!” cried the man behind. “Jamiltepec,Señorita. La hacienda de Don Ramón!”

And his eyes shone as he said the name. He was a proudpeon, and he really seemed happy.

“Look! How far!” cried Juana.

“Another time,” said Kate, “I shall come alone, or withEzequiel.”

“No, Niña! Don’t say so. Only my foot hurts thismorning.”

“Yes. Better not to bring you.”

“No, Niña! I like to come, very much!”

The tall windmill fan for drawing up water from the lakewas spinning gaily. A little valley came down from theniche in the hills, and at the bottom a little water running.Towards the lake, where this valley flattened out, was agrove of banana plants, screened a little from the lakebreeze by a vivid row of willow-trees. And on the top of theslope, where the road ran into the shade of mango trees, werethe two rows of adobe huts, like a village, set a little backfrom the road.

Women were coming up between the trees, on the patchfrom the lake, with jars of water on their shoulders; childrenwere playing around the doors, squatting with little nakedposteriors in deep dust; and here and there a goat wastethered. Men in soiled white clothes were lounging, withfolded arms and one leg crossed in front of the other, againstthe corner of a house, or crouching under the walls. Notby any means dolce far niente. They seemed to be waiting,eternally waiting for something.

“That way, Señorita!” called the man with the basket,running to her side and indicating the smoother road sloping[Pg 172]down between some big trees, towards the white gate of thehacienda. “We are here!”

Always he spoke with pleased delight, as if the place werea wonder-place to him.

The big doors of the zaguan, the entrance, stood open,and in the shade of the entrance-way a couple of littlesoldiers were seated. Across the cleared, straw-litteredspace in front of the gates two peons were trotting, eachwith a big bunch of bananas on his head. The soldiers saidsomething, and the two peons halted in their trotting, andslowly turned under their yellow-green load, to look back atKate and Juana and the man Martin, approaching down theroad. Then they turned again and trotted into the courtyard,barefoot.

The soldiers stood up. Martin, trotting at Kate’s sideagain, ushered her into the arched entrance, where theox-wagons rumbling through had worn deep ruts. Juanacame behind, making a humble nose.

Kate found herself in a big, barren yard, that seemedempty. There were high walls on the three sides, with shedsand stables. The fourth side, facing, was the house, withheavily-barred windows looking on to the courtyard, butwith no door. Instead, there was another zaguan, or passagewith closed doors, piercing the house.

Martin trotted ahead to knock on the closed doors. Katestood looking round at the big yard. In a shed in onecorner, four half-naked men were packing bunches of bananas.A man in the shade was sawing poles, and two menin the sun were unloading tiles from a donkey. In a cornerwas a bullock wagon, and a pair of big black-and-white oxenstanding with heads pressed down, waiting.

The big doors opened, and Kate entered the secondzaguan. It was a wide entrance way, with stairs going upon one side, and Kate lingered to look through the open irongates in front of her, down a formal garden hemmed in withhuge mango trees, to the lake, with its little artificial harbourwhere two boats were moored. The lake seemed to giveoff a great light, between the dark walls of mango.

At the back of the newcomers the servant woman closedthe big doors on to the yard, then waved Kate to the stairs.

“Pass this way, Señorita.”

A bell tinkled above. Kate climbed the stone stairs. And[Pg 173]there above her was Doña Carlota, in white muslin and withwhite shoes and stockings, her face looking curiously yellowand faded by contrast. Her soft brown hair was low overher ears, and she held out her thin brownish arms withqueer effusiveness.

“So, you have come! And you have walked, walked allthe way? Oh, imagine walking in so much sun and dust!Come, come in and rest.”

She took Kate’s hands and led her across the open terraceat the top of the stairs.

“It is beautiful here,” said Kate.

She stood on the terrace, looking out past the mangotrees at the lake. A distant sailing canoe was going downthe breeze, on the pallid, unreal water. Away across rose thebluish, grooved mountains, with the white speck of a village:far away in the morning it seemed, in another world, inanother life, in another mode of time.

“What is that village?” Kate asked.

“That one? That one there? It is San Ildefonso,” saidDoña Carlota, in her fluttering eagerness.

“But it is beautiful here!” Kate repeated.

“Hermoso—si! Si, bonito!” quavered the other womanuneasily, always answering in Spanish.

The house, reddish and yellow in colour, had two shortwings towards the lake. The terrace, with green plants onthe terrace wall, went round the three sides, the roof abovesupported by big square pillars that rose from the ground.Down below, the pillars made a sort of cloisters around thethree sides, and in the little stone court was a pool of water.Beyond, the rather neglected formal garden with strong sunand deep mango-shade.

“Come, you will need to rest!” said Doña Carlota.

“I would like to change my shoes,” said Kate.

She was shown into a high, simple, rather bare bedroomwith red-tiled floor. There she changed into the shoes andstockings Juana had carried, and rested a little.

As she lay resting, she heard the dulled thud-thud of thetom-tom drum, but, save the crowing of a co*ck in the distance,no other sound on the bright, yet curiously hollowMexican morning. And the drum, thudding with its dulled,black insistence, made her uneasy. It sounded like somethingcoming over the horizon.

[Pg 174]

She rose, and went into the long, high salon where DoñaCarlota was sitting talking to a man in black. The salon,with its three window-doors open on to the terrace, its worn,red floor tiled with old square bricks, its high walls colour-washeda faint green, and the many-beamed ceiling whitewashed;and with its bareness of furniture; seemed like partof the out-of-doors, like some garden-arbour put for shade.The sense, which houses have in hot climates, of being justthree walls wherein one lingers for a moment, then goes awayagain.

As Kate entered the room, the man in black rose andshook hands with Doña Carlota, bowing very low and deferential.Then with a deferential sideways sort of bow toKate, he vanished out of doors.

“Come!” said Doña Carlota to Kate. “Are you surenow you are rested?” And she pulled forward one of thecane rocking-chairs that had poised itself in the room, enroute to nowhere.

“Perfectly!” said Kate. “How still it seems here!Except for the drum. Perhaps it is the drum that makesit seem so still. Though I always think the lake makes asort of silence.”

“Ah, the drum!” cried Doña Carlota, lifting her handwith a gesture of nervous, spent exasperation. “I cannothear it. No, I cannot, I cannot bear to hear it.”

And she rocked herself in a sudden access of agitation.

“It does hit one rather below the belt,” said Kate.“What is it?”

“Ah, do not ask me! It is my husband.”

She made a gesture of despair, and rocked herself almostinto unconsciousness.

“Is Don Ramón drumming?”

“Drumming?” Doña Carlota seemed to start. “No!Oh no! He is not drumming, himself. He brought downtwo Indians from the north to do that.”

“Did he!” said Kate, non-committal.

But Doña Carlota was rocking in a sort of semi-consciousness.Then she seemed to pull herself together.

“I must talk to somebody, I must!” she said, suddenlystraightening herself in her chair, her face creamy andcreased, her soft brown hair sagging over her ears, her browneyes oddly desperate. “May I talk to you?”

[Pg 175]

“Do!” said Kate, rather uneasy.

“You know what Ramón is doing?” she said, looking atKate almost furtively, suspiciously.

“Does he want to bring back the old gods?” said Katevaguely.

“Ah!” cried Doña Carlota, again with that desperate,flying jerk of her hand. “As if it were possible! As if itwere possible! The old gods! Imagine it, Señora! The oldgods! Why what are they? Nothing but dead illusions.And ugly, repulsive illusions! Ah! I always thought myhusband such a clever man, so superior to me! Ah, it isterrible to have to change one’s idea! This is such nonsense.How dare he! How dare he take such nonsenseseriously! How does he dare!”

“Does he believe in it himself?” asked Kate.

“Himself? But, Señora—” and Doña Carlota gave apitiful, pitying smile of contempt. “How could he! Asif it were possible. After all he is an educated man! Howcould he believe in such nonsense!”

“Then why does he do it?”

“Why? Why?” There was a tone of unspeakableweariness in Doña Carlota’s voice. “I wish I knew. Ithink he has gone insane, as Mexicans do. Insane likeFrancisco Villa, the bandit.”

Kate thought of the pug-faced notorious Pancho Villa inwonder, unable to connect him with Don Ramón.

“All the Mexicans, as soon as they rise above themselves,go that way,” said Doña Carlota. “Their pridegets the better of them. And then they understand nothing,nothing but their own foolish will, their will to be very,very important. It is just the male vanity. Don’t youthink, Señora, that the beginning and the end of a man is hisvanity? Don’t you think it was just against this dangerthat Christ came, to teach men a proper humility. To teachthem the sin of pride. But that is why they hate Christ somuch, and His teaching. First and last, they want theirown vanity.”

Kate had often thought so herself. Her own final conclusionabout men was that they were the vanity of vanities,nothing but vanity. They must be flattered and madeto feel great: Nothing else.

“And now, my husband wants to go to the other extreme[Pg 176]of Jesus. He wants to exalt pride and vanity higher thanGod. Ah, it is terrible, terrible! And foolish like a littleboy! Ah, what is a man but a little boy who needs a nurseand a mother! Ah, Señora, I can’t bear it.”

Doña Carlota covered her face with her hand, as if swooning.

“But there is something wonderful, too, about DonRamón,” said Kate coaxingly: though at the moment shehated him.

“Wonderful! Ah yes, he has gifts. He has great gifts!But what are gifts to a man who perverts them!”

“Tell me what you think he really wants,” said Kate.

“Power! Just power! Just foolish, wicked power. Asif there had not been enough horrible, wicked power letloose in this country. But he—he—he wants to be beyondthem all. He—he—he wants to be worshipped. To beworshipped! To be worshipped! A God! He, whom I’veheld, I’ve held in my arms! He is a child, as all men arechildren. And now he wants—to be worshipped—!” Shewent off into a shrill, wild laughter, covering her face withher hands, and laughing shrilly, her laughter punctuated byhollow, ghastly sobs.

Kate sat in absolute dismay, waiting for the other womanto recover herself. She felt cold against these hysterics, andexerted all her heavy female will to stop them.

“After all,” she said, when Doña Carlota became quiet,her face in her hands, “it isn’t your fault. We can’t beresponsible, even for our husbands. I know that, since myhusband died, and I couldn’t prevent him dying. And then—thenI learned that no matter how you love another person,you can’t really do anything, you are helpless when it comesto the last things. You have to leave them to themselves,when they want to die: or when they want to do thingsthat seem foolish, so, so foolish, to a woman.”

Doña Carlota looked up at the other woman.

“You loved your husband very much—and he died?”she said softly.

“I did love him. And I shall never, never love anotherman. I couldn’t. I’ve lost the power.”

“And why did he die?”

“Ah, even that was really his own fault. He broke hisown soul and spirit, in those Irish politics. I knew it was[Pg 177]wrong. What does Ireland matter, what does nationalismand all that rubbish matter, really! And revolutions!They are so, so stupid and vieux jeu. Ah! It would havebeen so much better if Joachim had been content to livehis life in peace, with me. It could be so jolly, so lovely.And I tried and tried and tried with him. But it was nogood. He wanted to kill himself with that beastly Irishbusiness, and I tried in vain to prevent him.”

Doña Carlota stared slowly at Kate.

“As a woman must try to prevent a man, when he isgoing wrong,” she said. “As I try to prevent Ramón. Ashe will get himself killed, as surely as they all do, down toFrancisco Villa. And when they are dead, what good is itall?”

“When they are dead,” said Kate, “then you knowit’s no good.”

“You do! Oh, Señora, if you think you can help mewith Ramón, do help me, do! For it means the death eitherof me or him. And I shall die, though he is wrong. Unlesshe gets killed.”

“Tell me what he wants to do,” said Kate. “Whatdoes he think he wants to do, anyhow?—Like my husbandthought he wanted to make a free Ireland and a great Irishpeople. But I knew all the time, the Irish aren’t a greatpeople any more, and you can’t make them free. They areonly good at destroying—just mere stupid destroying. Howcan you make a people free, if they aren’t free. If somethinginside them compels them to go on destroying!”

“I know! I know! And that is Ramón. He wants todestroy even Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, for this people.Imagine it! To destroy Jesus and the Blessed Virgin! thelast thing they’ve got!”

“But what does he say himself, that he wants to do?”

“He says he wants to make a new connection betweenthe people and God. He says himself, God is always God.But man loses his connection with God. And then he cannever recover it again, unless some new Saviour comes togive him his new connection. And every new connectionis different from the last, though God is always God. Andnow, Ramón says, the people have lost God. And theSaviour cannot lead them to Him any more. There mustbe a new Saviour with a new vision. But ah, Señora, that[Pg 178]is not true for me. God is love, and if Ramón would onlysubmit to love, he would know that he had found God. Buthe is perverse. Ah, if we could be together, quietly loving,and enjoying the beautiful world, and waiting in the love ofGod! Ah, Señora, why, why, why can’t he see it? Oh,why can’t he see it! Instead of doing all these—”

The tears came to Doña Carlota’s eyes, and spilled overher cheeks. Kate also was in tears, mopping her face.

“It’s no good!” she said, sobbing. “I know it’s nogood, no matter what we do. They don’t want to be happyand peaceful. They want this strife and these other false,horrible connections. It’s no good whatever we do! That’swhat’s so bitter, so bitter!”

The two women sat in their bent-wood rocking-chairs andjust sobbed. And as they sobbed, they heard a step comingalong the terrace, the faint swish of the sandals of thepeople.

It was Don Ramón, drawn unconsciously by the emotionaldisturbance of the two women.

Doña Carlota hastily dabbed her eyes and her sniffingnose, Kate blew her nose like a trumpet, and Don Ramónstood in the doorway.

He was dressed in white, dazzling, in the costume of thepeons, the white blouse jacket and the white, wide pantaloontrousers. But the white was linen, slightly starched,and brilliant, almost unnatural in its whiteness. From underhis blouse, in front, hung the ends of a narrow woollen sash,white, with blue and black bars, and a fringe of scarlet.And on his naked feet were the plaited huaraches, of blueand black strips of leather, with thick, red-dyed soles. Hisloose trousers were bound round the ankles with blue, redand black woollen braids.

Kate glanced at him as he stood in the sun, so dazzlinglywhite, that his black hair and dark face looked like a hole inthe atmosphere. He came forward, the ends of his sashswinging against his thighs, his sandals slightly swishing.

“I am pleased to see you,” he said, shaking hands withKate. “How did you come?”

He dropped into a chair, and sat quite still. The twowomen hung their heads, hiding their faces. The presenceof the man seemed to put their emotion out of joint. Heignored all the signs of their discomfort, overlooking it with[Pg 179]a powerful will. There was a certain strength in his presence.They all cheered up a bit.

“You didn’t know my husband had become one of thepeople—a real peon—a Señor Peon, like Count Tolstoybecame a Señor Moujik?” said Doña Carlota, with anattempt at raillery.

“Anyway it suits him,” said Kate.

“There!” said Don Ramón. “Give the devil his dues.”

But there was something unyielding, unbending abouthim. He laughed and spoke to the women only from asurface self. Underneath, powerful and inscrutable, he madeno connection with them.

So it was at lunch. There was a flitting conversation,with intervals of silence. It was evident that Ramón wasthinking in another world, in the silence. And the ponderousstillness of his will, working in another sphere, made thewomen feel overshadowed.

“The Señora is like me, Ramón,” said Doña Carlota.“She cannot bear the sound of that drum. Must it playany more this afternoon?”

There was a moment’s pause, before he answered:

“After four o’clock only.”

“Must we have that noise to-day?” Carlota persisted.

“Why not to-day like other days!” he said. But acertain darkness was on his brow, and it was evident hewanted to leave the presence of the two women.

“Because the Señora is here: and I am here: and weneither of us like it. And to-morrow the Señora will not behere, and I shall be gone back to Mexico. So why not spareus to-day! Surely you can show us this consideration.”

Ramón looked at her, and then at Kate. There was angerin his eyes. And Kate could almost feel, in his powerfulchest, the big heart swelling with a suffocation of anger.Both women kept mum. But it pleased them, anyhow,that they could make him angry.

“Why not row with Mrs Leslie on the lake!” he said,with quiet control.

But under his dark brows was a level, indignant anger.

“We may not want to,” said Carlota.

Then he did what Kate had not known anyone to dobefore. He withdrew his consciousness away from them asthey all three sat at table, leaving the two women, as it[Pg 180]were, seated outside a closed door, with nothing morehappening. Kate felt for the time startled and forlorn, thena slow anger burned in her warm ivory cheek.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I can start home before then.”

“No! No!” said Doña Carlota, with a Spanish wail.“Don’t leave me. Stay with me till evening, and help meto amuse Don Cipriano. He is coming to supper.”

When lunch was over, Ramón went to his room, to sleepfor an hour. It was a hot, still afternoon. Clouds werestanding erect and splendid, at the west end of the lake, likemessengers. Ramón went into his room and closed thewindow-doors and the shutters, till it was quite dark, savefor yellow pencils of light that stood like substance on thedarkness, from the cracks of the shutters.

He took off his clothes, and in the darkness thrust hisclenched fists upwards above his head, in a terrible tensionof stretched, upright prayer. In his eyes was only darkness,and slowly the darkness revolved in his brain, too, till hewas mindless. Only a powerful will stretched itself andquivered from his spine in an immense tension of prayer.Stretched the invisible bow of the body in the darknesswith inhuman tension, erect, till the arrows of the soul,mindless, shot to the mark, and the prayer reached its goal.

Then suddenly, the clenched and quivering arms dropped,the body relaxed into softness. The man had reached hisstrength again. He had broken the cords of the world, andwas free in the other strength.

Softly, delicately, taking great care not to think, not toremember, not to disturb the poisonous snakes of mentalconsciousness, he picked up a thin, fine blanket, wrapped itround him, and lay down on the pile of mats on the floor.In an instant he was asleep.

He slept in complete oblivion for about an hour. Thensuddenly he opened his eyes wide. He saw the velvetydarkness, and the pencils of light gone frail. The sun hadmoved. Listening, there seemed not a sound in the world:there was no world.

Then he began to hear. He heard the faint rumble ofan ox wagon: then leaves in a wind: then a faint tappingnoise: then the creak of some bird calling.

He rose and quickly dressed in the dark, and threw openthe doors. It was mid-afternoon, with a hot wind blowing,and clouds reared up dark and bronze in the west, the sunhidden. But the rain would not fall yet. He took a bigstraw hat and balanced it on his head. It had a round crest[Pg 182]of black and white and blue feathers, like an eye, or a sun,in front. He heard the low sound of women talking. Ah,the strange woman! He had forgotten her. And Carlota!Carlota was here! He thought of her for a moment, and ofher curious opposition. Then, before he could be angry,he lifted his breast again in the black, mindless prayer, hiseyes went dark, and the sense of opposition left him.

He went quickly, driftingly along the terrace to the stonestairs that led down to the inner entrance-way. Goingthrough to the courtyard, he saw two men packing bales ofbananas upon donkeys, under a shed. The soldiers weresleeping in the zaguan. Through the open doors, up theavenue of trees, he could see an ox-wagon slowly retreating.Within the courtyard there was the sharp ringing of metalhammered on an anvil. It came from a corner where wasa smithy, where a man and a boy were working. In anothershed, a carpenter was planing wood.

Don Ramón stood a moment to look around. This washis own world. His own spirit was spread over it like asoft, nourishing shadow, and the silence of his own powergave it peace.

The men working were almost instantly aware of hispresence. One after the other the dark, hot faces glancedup at him, and glanced away again. They were men, andhis presence was wonderful to them; but they were afraidto approach him, even by staring at him. They workedthe quicker for having seen him, as if it gave them new life.

He went across to the smithy, where the boy was blowingthe old-fashioned bellows, and the man was hammering apiece of metal, with quick, light blows. The man worked onwithout lifting his head, as the patrón drew near.

“It is the bird?” said Ramón, standing watching thepiece of metal, now cold upon the anvil.

“Yes, Patrón! It is the bird. Is it right?” And theman looked up with black, bright, waiting eyes.

The smith lifted with the tongs the black, flat, tongue-shapedpiece of metal, and Ramón looked at it a long time.

“I put the wings on after,” said the smith.

Ramón traced with his dark, sensitive hand an imaginaryline, outside the edge of the iron. Three times he did it.And the movement fascinated the smith.

“A little more slender—so!” said Ramón.

[Pg 183]

“Yes, Patrón! Yes! Yes! I understand,” said the maneagerly.

“And the rest?”

“Here it is!” The man pointed to two hoops of iron, onesmaller than the other, and to some flat discs of iron, triangularin shape.

“Lay them on the ground.”

The man put the hoops on the ground, one within theother. Then, taking the triangular discs, he placed themwith quick, sensitive hands, so that their bases were uponthe outer circle, and their apices touched the inner. Therewere seven. And thus they made a seven-pointed sun ofthe space inside.

“Now the bird,” said Ramón.

The man quickly took the long piece of iron: it was therudimentary form of a bird, with two feet, but as yetwithout wings. He placed it in the centre of the innercircle, so that the feet touched the circle and the crest ofthe head touched opposite.

“So! It fits,” said the man.

Ramón stood looking at the big iron symbol on the ground.He heard the doors of the inner entrance: Kate and Carlotawalking across the courtyard.

“I take it away?” asked the workman quickly.

“Never mind,” Ramón answered quietly.

Kate stood and stared at the great wreath of iron on theground.

“What is it?” she asked brightly.

“The bird within the sun.”

“Is that a bird?”

“When it has wings.”

“Ah, yes! When it has wings. And what is it for?”

“For a symbol to the people.”

“It is pretty.”

“Yes.”

“Ramón!” said Doña Carlota, “will you give me thekey for the boat? Martin will row us out.”

He produced the key from under his sash.

“Where did you get that beautiful sash?” asked Kate.

It was the white sash with blue and brown-black bars,and with a heavy red fringe.

“This?” he said. “We wove it here.”

[Pg 184]

“And did you make the sandals too?”

“Yes! They were made by Manuel. Later I will showyou.”

“Oh, I should like to see!—They are beautiful, don’t youthink, Doña Carlota?”

“Yes! Yes! It is true. But whether beautiful thingsare wise things, I don’t know. So much I don’t know,Señora. Ay, so much!—And you, do you know what iswise?”

“I?” said Kate. “I don’t care very much.”

“Ah! You don’t care!—You think Ramón is wise, towear the peasants’ clothes, and the huaraches?” For onceDoña Carlota was speaking in slow English.

“Oh, yes!” cried Kate. “He looks so handsome!—Men’sclothes are so hideous, and Don Ramón looks sohandsome in those!” With the big hat poised on his head,he had a certain air of nobility and authority.

“Ah!” cried Doña Carlota, looking at the other womanwith intelligent, half-scared eyes, and swinging the key ofthe boat. “Shall we go to the lake?”

The two women departed. Ramón, laughing to himself,went out of the gate and across the outer yard, to where abig, barn-like building stood near the trees. He enteredthe barn, and gave a low whistle. It was answered from theloft above, and a trap-door opened. Don Ramón went upthe steps, and found himself in a sort of studio and carpenter’sshop. A fattish young man with curly hair, wearingan artist’s blouse, and with mallet and chisels in his hand,greeted him.

“How is it going?” asked Ramón.

“Yes—well—”

The artist was working on a head, in wood. It was largerthan life, conventionalised. Yet under the conventionallines the likeness to Ramón revealed itself.

“Sit for me for half an hour,” said the sculptor.

Ramón sat in silence, while the other man bent over hismodel, working in silent concentration. And all the time,Ramón sat erect, almost motionless, with a great stillnessof repose and concentration, thinking about nothing, butthrowing out the dark aura of power, in the spell of whichthe artist worked.

“That is enough,” he said at last, quietly rising.

[Pg 185]

“But give me the pose before you go,” said the artist.

Ramón slowly took off his blouse-skirt, and stood withnaked torso, the sash with its blue and black bars tightround his naked waist. For some moments he stood gatheringhimself together. Then suddenly, in a concentration ofintense, proud prayer, he flung his right arm up above hishead, and stood transfixed, his left arm hanging softly byhis side, the fingers touching his thigh. And on his facethat fixed, intense look of pride which was at once a prayer.

The artist gazed with wonder, and with an appreciationtouched with fear. The other man, large and intense, withbig dark eyes staring with intense pride, yet prayerful,beyond the natural horizons, sent a thrill of dread and ofjoy through the artist. He bowed his head as he looked.

Don Ramón turned to him.

“Now you!” he said.

The artist was afraid. He seemed to quail. But he metRamón’s eyes. And instantly, that stillness of concentrationcame over him, like a trance. And then suddenly, out of thetrance, he shot his arm aloft, and his fat, pale face took onan expression of peace, a noble, motionless transfiguration,the blue-grey eyes calm, proud, reaching into the beyond,with prayer. And though he stood in his blouse, with arather pudgy figure and curly hair, he had the perfectstillness of nobility.

“It is good!” said Ramón, bowing his head.

The artist suddenly changed; Ramón held out his twohands, the artist took them in his two hands. Then he liftedRamón’s right hand and placed the back of it on his brow.

“Adios!” said Ramón, taking his blouse again.

“Adios, señor!” said the artist.

And with a proud, white look of joy in his face, he turnedagain to his work.

Ramón visited the adobe house, its yard fenced withcane and overshadowed by a great mango tree, where Manueland his wife and children, and two assistants, were spinningand weaving. Two little girls were assiduously carding whitewool and brown wool under a cluster of banana trees: thewife and a young maiden were spinning fine, fine thread.On the line hung dyed wool, red, and blue, and green. Andunder the shed stood Manuel and a youth, weaving at twoheavy hand-looms.

[Pg 186]

“How is it going?” called Don Ramón.

“Muy bien! Muy bien!” answered Manuel, with thatcurious look of transfiguration glistening in his black eyesand in the smile of his face. “It is going well, very well,Señor!”

Ramón paused to look at the fine white serape on theloom. It had a zigzag border of natural black wool andblue, in little diamonds, and the ends a complication ofblackish and blue diamond-pattern. The man was justbeginning to do the centre—called the boca, the mouth:and he looked anxiously at the design that was tacked tothe loom. But it was simple: the same as the iron symbolthe smith was making: a snake with his tail in his mouth,the black triangles on his back being the outside of thecircle: and in the middle, a blue eagle standing erect, withslim wings touching the belly of the snake with their tips,and slim feet upon the snake, within the hoop.

Ramón went back to the house, to the upper terrace, andround to the short wing where his room was. He put afolded serape over his shoulder, and went along the terrace.At the end of this wing, projecting to the lake, was a squareterrace with a low, thick wall and a tiled roof, and a coral-scarletbignonia dangling from the massive pillars. Theterrace, or loggia, was strewn with the native palm-leafmats, petates, and there was a drum in one corner, withthe drum-stick upon it. At the far inner corner, went downan enclosed stone staircase, with an iron door at the bottom.

Ramón stood a while looking out at the lake. The cloudswere dissolving again, the sheet of water gave off a whitishlight. In the distance he could see the dancing speck of aboat, probably Martin with the two women.

He took off his hat and his blouse, and stood motionless,naked to the waist. Then he lifted the drum-stick, andafter waiting a moment or two, to become still in soul, hesounded the rhythmic summons, rather slow, yet with acurious urge in its strong-weak, one-two rhythm. He hadgot the old barbaric power into the drum.

For some time he stood alone, the drum, or tom-tom,lifted by its thong against his legs, his right hand drumming,his face expressionless. A man entered, bareheaded, runningfrom the inner terrace. He was in the white cotton clothes,snow white, but with a dark serape folded on his shoulder,[Pg 187]and he held a key in his hand. He saluted Ramón byputting the back of his right hand in front of his eyes fora moment, then he went down the stone stairway and openedthe iron door.

Immediately men were coming up, all dressed alike, inthe white cotton clothes and the huaraches, each with afolded serape over his shoulder. But their sashes were allblue, and their sandals blue and white. The sculptor cametoo, and Mirabal was there, also dressed in the cottonclothes.

There were seven men, besides Ramón. At the top ofthe stairs, one after another, they saluted. Then they tooktheir serapes, dark brown, with blue eyes filled with white,along the edges, and threw them down along the wall, theirhats beside them. Then they took off their blouses, andflung them on their hats.

Ramón left the drum, and sat down on his own serape,that was white with the blue and black bars, and the scarletfringe. The drummer sat down and took the drum. Thecircle of men sat cross-legged, naked to the waist, silent.Some were of a dark, ruddy coffee-brown, two were white,Ramón was of a soft creamy brown. They sat in silence fora time, only the monotonous, hypnotic sound of the drumpulsing, touching the inner air. Then the drummer beganto sing, in the curious, small, inner voice, that hardlyemerges from the circle, singing in the ancient falsetto ofthe Indians:

“Who sleeps—shall wake! Who sleeps—shall wake!Who treads down the path of the snake shall arrive at theplace; in the path of the dust shall arrive at the place andbe dressed in the skin of the snake—”

One by one the voices of the men joined in, till theywere all singing in the strange, blind infallible rhythm ofthe ancient barbaric world. And all in the small, inwardvoices, as if they were singing from the oldest, darkest recessof the soul, not outwards, but inwards, the soul singing backto herself.

They sang for a time, in the peculiar unison like a flockof birds that fly in one consciousness. And when the drumshuddered for an end, they all let their voices fade out, withthe same broad, clapping sound in the throat.

There was silence. The men turned, speaking to one[Pg 188]another, laughing in a quiet way. But their daytime voices,and their daytime eyes had gone.

Then Ramón’s voice was heard, and the men weresuddenly silent, listening with bent heads. Ramón sat withhis face lifted, looking far away, in the pride of prayer.

“There is no Before and After, there is only Now,” hesaid, speaking in a proud, but inward voice.

“The great Snake coils and uncoils the plasm of his folds,and stars appear, and worlds fade out. It is no more thanthe changing and easing of the plasm.

“I always am, says his sleep.

“As a man in a deep sleep knows not, but is, so is theSnake of the coiled cosmos, wearing its plasm.

“As a man in a deep sleep has no to-morrow, no yesterday,nor to-day, but only is, so is the limpid, far-reachingSnake of the eternal Cosmos, Now, and forever Now.

“Now, and only Now, and forever Now.

“But dreams arise and fade in the sleep of the Snake.

“And worlds arise as dreams, and are gone as dreams.

“And man is a dream in the sleep of the Snake.

“And only the sleep that is dreamless breathes I Am!

“In the dreamless Now, I Am.

“Dreams arise as they must arise, and man is a dreamarisen.

“But the dreamless plasm of the Snake is the plasm of aman, of his body, his soul, and his spirit at one.

“And the perfect sleep of the Snake I Am is the plasm ofa man, who is whole.

“When the plasm of the body, and the plasm of the soul,and the plasm of the spirit are at one, in the Snake I Am.

“I am Now.

“Was-not is a dream, and shall-be is a dream, like twoseparate, heavy feet.

“But Now, I Am.

“The trees put forth their leaves in their sleep, andflowering emerge out of dreams, into pure I Am.

“The birds forget the stress of their dreams, and singaloud in the Now, I Am! I Am!

“For dreams have wings and feet, and journeys to take,and efforts to make.

“But the glimmering Snake of the Now is wingless andfootless, and undivided, and perfectly coiled.

[Pg 189]

“It is thus the cat lies down, in the coil of Now, and thecow curves round her nose to her belly, lying down.

“In the feet of a dream the hare runs uphill. But whenhe pauses, the dream has passed, he has entered the timelessNow, and his eyes are the wide I Am.

“Only man dreams, dreams, and dreams, and changesfrom dream to dream, like a man who tosses on his bed.

“With his eyes and his mouth he dreams, with his handsand his feet, with phallos and heart and belly, with body andspirit and soul, in a tempest of dreams.

“And rushes from dream to dream, in the hope of theperfect dream.

“But I, I say to you, there is no dream that is perfect, forevery dream has an ache and an urge, an urge and an ache.

“And nothing is perfect, save the dream pass out into thesleep, I Am.

“When the dream of the eyes is darkened, and encompassedwith Now.

“And the dream of the mouth resounds in the last I Am.

“And the dream of the hands is a sleep like a bird on thesea, that sleeps and is lifted and shifted, and knows not.

“And the dreams of the feet and the toes touch the coreof the world, where the Serpent sleeps.

“And the dream of the phallos reaches the great I KnowNot.

“And the dream of the body is the stillness of a flower inthe dark.

“And the dream of the soul is gone in the perfume ofNow.

“And the dream of the spirit lapses, and lays down itshead, and is still with the Morning Star.

“For each dream starts out of Now, and is accomplishedin Now.

“In the core of the flower, the glimmering, wakeless Snake.

“And what falls away is a dream, and what accrues is adream. There is always and only Now, Now and I Am.”

There was silence in the circle of men. Outside, thesound of the bullock-wagon could be heard, and from thelake, the faint knocking of oars. But the seven men satwith their heads bent, in the semi-trance, listening inwardly.

Then the drum began softly to beat, as if of itself. Anda man began to sing, in a small voice:

[Pg 190]

“Listen!” said Ramón, in the stillness. “We will bemasters among men, and lords among men. But lords ofmen, and masters of men we will not be. Listen! We arelords of the night. Lords of the day and night. Sons ofthe Morning Star, sons of the Evening Star. Men of theMorning and the Evening Star.

“We are not lords of men: how can men make us lords?Nor are we masters of men, for men are not worth it.

“But I am the Morning and the Evening Star, and lord ofthe day and the night. By the power that is put in myleft hand, and the power that I grasp in my right, I amlord of the two ways.

“And my flower on earth is the jasmine flower, and inheaven the flower Hesperus.

“I will not command you, nor serve you, for the snakegoes crooked to his own house.

“Yet I will be with you, so you depart not from yourselves.

“There is no giving, and no taking. When the fingers thatgive touch the fingers that receive, the Morning Star shinesat once, from the contact, and the jasmine gleams betweenthe hands. And thus there is neither giving nor taking, norhand that proffers nor hand that receives, but the starbetween them is all, and the dark hand and the light handare invisible on each side. The jasmine takes the givingand the receiving in her cup, and the scent of the onenessis fragrant on the air.

“Think neither to give nor to receive, only let the jasmineflower.

“Let nothing spill from you in excess, let nothing bereived from you.

“And reive nothing away. Not even the scent from the[Pg 192]rose, nor the juice from the pomegranate, nor the warmthfrom the fire.

“But say to the rose: Lo! I take you away from yourtree, and your breath is in my nostrils, and my breath iswarm in your depths. Let it be a sacrament between us.

“And beware when you break the pomegranate; it issunset you take in your hands. Say: I am coming, comethou. Let the Evening Star stand between us.

“And when the fire burns up and the wind is cold and youspread your hands to the blaze, listen to the flame saying:Ah! Is it thou? Comest thou to me? Lo, I was going thelongest journey, down the path of the greatest snake. Butsince thou comest to me, I come to thee. And where thoufallest into my hands, fall I into thine, and jasmine flowerson the burning bush between us. Our meeting is the burningbush, whence the jasmine flowers.

“Reive nothing away, and let nothing be reived fromyou. For reiver and bereaved alike break the root of thejasmine flower, and spit upon the Evening Star.

“Take nothing, to say: I have it! For you can possessnothing, not even peace.

“Nought is possessible, neither gold, nor land nor love,nor life, nor peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yetsalvation.

“Say of nothing: It is mine.

“Say only: It is with me.

“For the gold that is with thee lingers as a departingmoon, looking across space thy way, saying: Lo! We arebeholden of each other. Lo! for this little while, to eachother thou and I are beholden.

“And thy land says to thee: Ah, my child of a far-offfather! Come, lift me, lift me a little while, that poppiesand wheat may blow on the level wind that moves betweenmy breast and thine! Then sink with me, and we will makeone mound.

“And listen to thy love saying: Beloved! I am mown bythy sword like mown grass, and darkness is upon me, andthe tremble of the Evening Star. And to me thou art darknessand nowhere. Oh thou, when thou risest up and goestthy way, speak to me, only say: The star rose between us.

“And say to thy life: Am I thine? Art thou mine? Am Ithe blue curve of day around thine uncurved night? Are[Pg 193]my eyes the twilight of neither of us, where the star hangs?Is my upper lip the sunset and my lower lip the dawn, doesthe star tremble inside my mouth?

“And say to thy peace: Ah! risen, deathless star!Already the waters of dawn sweep over thee, and wash meaway on the flood!

“And say to thy sorrow: Axe, thou art cutting me down!

“Yet did a spark fly from out of thy edge and mywound!

“Cut then, while I cover my face, father of the Star.

“And say to thy strength: Lo, the night is foaming up myfeet and my loins, day is foaming down from my eyes andmy mouth to the sea of my breast. Lo, they meet! Mybelly is a flood of power, that races in down the sluice ofbone at my back, and a star hangs low on the flood, over atroubled dawn.

“And say to thy death: Be it so! I, and my soul, wecome to thee, Evening Star. Flesh, go thou into the night.Spirit, farewell, ’tis thy day. Leave me now. I go in lastnakedness now to the nakedest Star.”

The men had risen and covered themselves, and put on theirhats, and covered their eyes for a second, in salute beforeRamón, as they departed down the stone stair. And theiron door at the bottom had clanged, the doorkeeper hadreturned with the key, laid it on the drum, and softly,delicately departed.

Still Ramón sat on his serape, leaning his naked shoulderson the wall, and closing his eyes. He was tired, and in thatstate of extreme separateness which makes it very hard tocome back to the world. On the outside of his ears he couldhear the noises of the hacienda, even the tinkle of tea-spoons,and the low voice of women, and later, the low, labouringsound of a motor-car struggling over the uneven road, thenswirling triumphantly into the courtyard.

It was hard to come back to these things. The noise ofthem sounded on the outside of his ears, but inside themwas the slow, vast, inaudible roar of the cosmos, like in asea-shell. It was hard to have to bear the contact of commonplacedaily things, when his soul and body were nakedto the cosmos.

He wished they would leave him the veils of his isolationawhile. But they would not: especially Carlota. Shewanted him to be present to her: in familiar contact.

She was calling: “Ramón! Ramón! Have you finished?Cipriano is here.” And even so, in her voice was fear, andan over-riding temerity.

He pushed back his hair and rose, and very quickly wentout, as he was, with naked torso. He didn’t want to dresshimself into everyday familiarity, since his soul was unfamiliar.

They had a tea-table out on the terrace, and Cipriano, inuniform, was there. He got up quickly, and came down theterrace with outstretched arms, his black eyes gleamingwith an intensity almost like pain, upon the face of theother man. And Ramón looked back at him with wide, seeing,yet unchanging eyes.

The two men embraced, breast to breast, and for a momentCipriano laid his little blackish hands on the naked shoulders[Pg 195]of the bigger man, and for a moment was perfectly still onhis breast. Then very softly, he stood back and looked athim, saying not a word.

Ramón abstractly laid his hand on Cipriano’s shoulder,looking down at him with a little smile.

“Que tal?” he said, from the edge of his lips. “Howgoes it?”

“Bien! Muy bien!” said Cipriano, still gazing into theother man’s face with black, wondering, childlike, searchingeyes, as if he, Cipriano, were searching for himself, inRamón’s face. Ramón looked back into Cipriano’s black,Indian eyes with a faint, kind smile of recognition, andCipriano hung his head as if to hide his face, the black hair,which he wore rather long and brushed sideways, droppingover his forehead.

The women watched in absolute silence. Then, as thetwo men began slowly to come along the terrace to the tea-table,Carlota began to pour tea. But her hand trembled somuch, the teapot wobbled as she held it, and she had to putit down and clasp her hands in the lap of her white muslindress.

“You rowed on the lake?” said Ramón abstractedly,coming up.

“It was lovely!” said Kate. “But hot when the suncame.”

Ramón smiled a little, then pushed his hand through hishair. Then, leaning one hand on the parapet of the terracewall, he turned to look at the lake, and a sigh lifted hisshoulders unconsciously.

He stood thus, naked to the waist, his black hair ruffledand splendid, his back to the women, looking out at the lake.Cipriano stood lingering beside him.

Kate saw the sigh lift the soft, quiescent, cream-brownshoulders. The soft, cream-brown skin of his back, of asmooth, pure sensuality, made her shudder. The broad,square, rather high shoulders, with neck and head risingsteep, proudly. The full-fleshed, deep chested, rich bodyof the man made her feel dizzy. In spite of herself, shecould not help imagining a knife stuck between those pure,male shoulders. If only to break the arrogance of theirremoteness.

That was it. His nakedness was so aloof, far-off and intangible,[Pg 196]in another day. So that to think of it was almost aviolation, even to look at it with prying eyes. Kate’s heartsuddenly shrank in her breast. This was how Salome hadlooked at John. And this was the beauty of John, that hehad had; like a pomegranate on a dark tree in the distance,naked, but not undressed! Forever still and clothe-less,and with another light about it, of a richer day than ourpaltry, prying, sneak-thieving day.

The moment Kate had imagined a knife between hisshoulders, her heart shrank with grief and shame, and agreat stillness came over her. Better to take the hush intoone’s heart, and the sharp, prying beams out of one’s eyes.Better to lapse away from one’s own prying, assertive self,into the soft, untrespassing self, to whom nakedness isneither shame nor excitement, but clothed like a flower inits own deep, soft consciousness, beyond cheap awareness.

The evening breeze was blowing very faintly. Sailing boatswere advancing through the pearly atmosphere, far off, thesun above had a golden quality. The opposite shore, twentymiles away, was distinct, and yet there seemed an opalescent,spume-like haze in the air, the same quality as in thefilmy water. Kate could see the white specks of the far-offchurch towers of Tuliapan.

Below, in the garden below the house, was a thick groveof mango trees. Among the dark and reddish leaves of themangoes, scarlet little birds were bustling, like suddenly-openingpoppy-buds, and pairs of yellow birds, yellow underneathas yellow butterflies, so perfectly clear, went skimmingpast. When they settled for a moment and closedtheir wings, they disappeared, for they were grey on top.And when the cardinal birds settled, they too disappeared,for the outside of their wings was brown, like a sheath.

“Birds in this country have all their colour below,” saidKate.

Ramón turned to her suddenly.

“They say the word Mexico means below this!” he said,smiling, and sinking into a rocking chair.

Doña Carlota had made a great effort over herself, andwith eyes fixed on the tea-cups, she poured out the tea.She handed him his cup without looking at him. She didnot trust herself to look at him. It made her tremble witha strange, hysterical anger: she, who had been married to[Pg 197]him for years, and knew him, ah, knew him: and yet, andyet, had not got him at all. None of him.

“Give me a piece of sugar, Carlota,” he said, in his quietvoice.

But at the sound of it, his wife stopped as if some handhad suddenly grasped her.

“Sugar! Sugar!” she repeated abstractedly to herself.

Ramón sat forward in his rocking-chair, holding his cupin his hand, his breasts rising in relief. And on his thighsthe thin linen seemed to reveal him almost more than hisown dark nakedness revealed him. She understood whythe cotton pantaloons were forbidden on the plaza. Theliving flesh seemed to emanate through them.

He was handsome, almost horribly handsome, with hisblack head poised as it were without weight, above hisdarkened, smooth neck. A pure sensuality, with a powerfulpurity of its own, hostile to her sort of purity. With theblue sash round his waist, pressing a fold in the flesh, andthe thin linen seeming to gleam with the life of his hips andhis thighs, he emanated a fascination almost like a narcotic,asserting his pure, fine sensuality against her. The strange,soft, still sureness of him, as if he sat secure within his owndark aura. And as if this dark aura of his militated againsther presence, and against the presence of his wife. Heemitted an effluence so powerful, that it seemed to hamperher consciousness, to bind down her limbs.

And he was utterly still and quiescent, without desire,soft and unroused, within his own ambiente. Cipriano goingthe same, the pair of them so quiet and dark and heavy,like a great weight bearing the women down.

Kate knew now how Salome felt. She knew now how Johnthe Baptist had been, with his terrible, aloof beauty, inaccessibleyet so potent.

“Ah!” she said to herself. “Let me close my eyes tohim, and open only my soul. Let me close my prying,seeing eyes, and sit in dark stillness along with these twomen. They have got more than I, they have a richness thatI haven’t got. They have got rid of that itching of the eye,and the desire that works through the eye. The itching,prurient, knowing, imagining eye, I am cursed with it, I amhampered up in it. It is my curse of curses, the curse ofEve. The curse of Eve is upon me, my eyes are like hooks,[Pg 198]my knowledge is like a fish-hook through my gills, pullingme in spasmodic desire. Oh, who will free me from thegrappling of my eyes, from the impurity of sharp sight!Daughter of Eve, of greedy vision, why don’t these mensave me from the sharpness of my own eyes!”

She rose and went to the edge of the terrace. Yellow asdaffodils underneath, two birds emerged out of their owninvisibility. In the little shingle bay, with a small breakwater,where the boat was pulled up and chained, two menwere standing in the water, throwing out a big, fine roundnet, catching the little silvery fish called charales, whichflicked out of the brownish water sometimes like splintersof glass.

“Ramón!” Kate heard Doña Carlota’s voice. “Won’tyou put something on?”

The wife had been able to bear it no more.

“Yes! Thank you for the tea,” said Ramón, rising.

Kate watched him go down the terrace, in his own peculiarsilence, his sandals making a faint swish on the tiles.

“Oh, Señora Caterina!” came the voice of Carlota.“Come and drink your tea. Come!”

Kate returned to the table, saying:

“It seems so wonderfully peaceful here.”

“Peaceful!” echoed Carlota. “Ah, I do not find itpeaceful. There is a horrible stillness, which makes meafraid.”

“Do you come out very often?” said Kate, to Cipriano.

“Yes. Fairly often. Once a week. Or twice,” he replied,looking at her with a secret consciousness which she couldnot understand, lurking in his black eyes.

These men wanted to take her will away from her, as ifthey wanted to deny her the light of day.

“I must be going home now,” she said. “The sun willbe setting.”

“Ya va?” said Cipriano, in his soft, velvety Indian voice,with a note of distant surprise and reproach. “Will yougo already?”

“Oh, no, Señora!” cried Carlota. “Stay until to-morrow.Oh, yes, stay until to-morrow, with me.”

“They will expect us home,” she said, wavering.

“Ah, no! I can send a boy to say you will come to-morrow.Yes? You will stay? Ah, good, good!”

[Pg 199]

And she laid her hand caressively on Kate’s arm, thenrose to hurry away to the servants.

Cipriano had taken out his cigarette case. He offered itto Kate.

“Shall I take one?” she said. “It is my vice.”

“Do take one,” he said. “It isn’t good, to be perfect.”

“It isn’t, is it?” she laughed, puffing her cigarette.

“Now would you call it peace?” he asked with incomprehensibleirony.

“Why?” she cried.

“Why do white people always want peace?” he asked.

“Surely peace is natural! Don’t all people want it?Don’t you?”

“Peace is only the rest after war,” he said. “So it isnot more natural than fighting: perhaps not so natural.”

“No, but there is another peace: the peace that passesall understanding. Don’t you know that?”

“I don’t think I do,” he said.

“What a pity!” she cried.

“Ah!” he said. “You want to teach me! But to meit is different. Each man has two spirits in him. The oneis like the early morning in the time of rain, very quiet,and sweet, moist, no?—with the mocking-bird singing, andbirds flying about, very fresh. And the other is like thedry season, the steady, strong hot light of the day, whichseems as if it will never change.”

“But you like the first better,” she cried.

“I don’t know!” he replied. “The other lasts longer.”

“I am sure you like the fresh morning better,” she said.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” He smiled a crumpledsort of smile, and she could tell he really did not know. “Inthe first time, you can feel the flowers on their stem, thestem very strong and full of sap, no?—and the flower openingon top like a face that has the perfume of desire. Anda woman might be like that.—But this passes, and the sunbegins to shine very strong, very hot, no? Then everythinginside a man changes, goes dark, no! And the flowerscrumple up, and the breast of a man becomes like a steelmirror. And he is all darkness inside, coiling and uncoilinglike a snake. All the flowers withered up on shrunk stems,no? And then women don’t exist for a man. They disappearlike the flowers.”

[Pg 200]

“And then what does he want?” said Kate.

“I don’t know. Perhaps he wants to be a very big man,and master all the people.”

“Then why doesn’t he?” said Kate.

He lifted his shoulders.

“And you,” he said to her. “You seem to me like thatmorning I told you about.”

“I am just forty years old,” she laughed shakily.

Again he lifted his shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It is the same. Yourbody seems to me like the stem of the flower I told youabout, and in your face it will always be morning, of thetime of the rains.”

“Why do you say that to me?” she said, as an involuntarystrange shudder shook her.

“Why not say it!” he replied. “You are like the coolmorning, very fresh. In Mexico, we are the end of the hotdry day.”

He watched her, with a strange lingering desire in hisblack eyes, and what seemed to her a curious, lurking sortof insolence. She dropped her head to hide from him, androcked in her chair.

“I would like to marry you,” he said; “if ever you willmarry. I would like to marry you.”

“I don’t think I shall ever marry again,” she flashed,her bosom heaving like suffocation, and a dark flush suffusingover her face, against her will.

“Who knows!” said he.

Ramón was coming down the terrace, his fine white serapefolded over his naked shoulder, with its blue-and-darkpattern at the borders, and its long scarlet fringe danglingand swaying as he walked. He leaned against one of thepillars of the terrace, and looked down at Kate and Cipriano.Cipriano glanced up with that peculiar glance of primitiveintimacy.

“I told the Señora Caterina,” he said, “if ever shewanted to marry a man, she should marry me.”

“It is plain talk,” said Ramón, glancing at Cipriano withthe same intimacy, and smiling.

Then he looked at Kate, with a slow smile in his browneyes, and a shadow of curious knowledge on his face. Hefolded his arms over his breast, as the natives do when it is[Pg 201]cold and they are protecting themselves; and the cream-brownflesh, like opium, lifted the bosses of his breast, fulland smooth.

“Don Cipriano says that white people always wantpeace,” she said, looking up at Ramón with haunted eyes.“Don’t you consider yourselves white people?” she asked,with a slight, deliberate impertinence.

“No whiter than we are,” smiled Ramón. “Not lily-white,at least.”

“And don’t you want peace?” she asked.

“I? I shouldn’t think of it. The meek have inherited theearth, according to prophecy. But who am I, that I shouldenvy them their peace! No, Señora. Do I look like agospel of peace?—or a gospel of war either? Life doesn’tsplit down that division, for me.”

“I don’t know what you want,” said she, looking up athim with haunted eyes.

“We only half know ourselves,” he replied, smiling withchangeful eyes. “Perhaps not so much as half.”

There was a certain vulnerable kindliness about him, whichmade her wonder, startled, if she had ever realised whatreal fatherliness meant. The mystery, the nobility, the inaccessibility,and the vulnerable compassion of man in hisseparate fatherhood.

“You don’t like brown-skinned people?” he asked hergently.

“I think it is beautiful to look at,” she said. “But”—witha faint shudder—“I am glad I am white.”

“You feel there could be no contact?” he said, simply.

“Yes!” she said. “I mean that.”

“It is as you feel,” he said.

And as he said it, she knew he was more beautiful to herthan any blond white man, and that, in a remote, far-offway, the contact with him was more precious than anycontact she had known.

But then, though he cast over her a certain shadow, hewould never encroach on her, he would never seek any closecontact. It was the incompleteness in Cipriano that soughther out, and seemed to trespass on her.

Hearing Ramón’s voice, Carlota appeared uneasily in adoorway. Hearing him speak English, she disappearedagain, on a gust of anger. But after a little while, she came[Pg 202]once more, with a little vase containing the creamy-coloured,thick flowers that are coloured like freesias, and that smellvery sweet.

“Oh, how nice!” said Kate. “They are temple flowers!In Ceylon the natives tiptoe into the little temples and layone flower on the table at the foot of the big Buddha statues.And the tables of offering are all covered with these flowers,all put so neatly. The natives have that delicate orientalway of putting things down.”

“Ah!” said Carlota, setting the vase on the table. “Idid not bring them for any gods, especially strange ones. Ibrought them for you, Señora. They smell so sweet.”

“Don’t they!” said Kate.

The two men went away, Ramón laughing.

“Ah, Señora!” said Carlota, sitting down tense at thetable. “Could you follow Ramón? Could you give up theBlessed Virgin?—I could sooner die!”

“Ha!” said Kate, with a little weariness. “Surely wedon’t want any more gods.”

“More gods, Señora!” said Doña Carlota, shocked.“But how is it possible!—Don Ramón is in mortal sin.”

Kate was silent.

“And he wants to lead more and more people into thesame,” continued Carlota. “It is the sin of pride. Menwise in their own conceit!—The cardinal sin of men. Ah,I have told him.—And I am so glad, Señora, that you feelas I feel. I am so afraid of American women, women likethat. They wish to have men’s minds, so they accept allthe follies and wickedness of men.—You are Catholic,Señora?”

“I was educated in a convent,” said Kate.

“Ah, of course! Of course!—Ah, Señora, as if a womanwho had ever known the Blessed Virgin could ever part fromher again. Ah, Señora, what woman would have the heartto put Christ back on the Cross, to crucify him twice! Butmen, men! This Quetzalcoatl business! What buffoonery,Señora; if it were not horrible sin! And two clever, well-educatedmen! Wise in their own conceit!”

“Men usually are,” said Kate.

It was sunset, with a big level cloud like fur overhead, onlythe sides of the horizon fairly clear. The sun was not visible.It had gone down in a thick, rose-red fume behind the wavy[Pg 203]ridge of the mountains. Now the hills stood up bluish, allthe air was a salmon-red flush, the fawn water had pinkishripples. Boys and men, bathing a little way along the shore,were the colour of deep flame.

Kate and Carlota had climbed up to the azotea, the flatroof, from the stone stairway at the end of the terrace.They could see the world: the hacienda with its courtyardlike a fortress, the road between deep trees, the black mudhuts near the broken highroad, and little naked fires alreadytwinkling outside the doors. All the air was pinkish, meltingto a lavender blue, and the willows on the shore, in the pinklight, were apple-green and glowing. The hills behind roseabruptly, like mounds, dry and pinky. Away in the distance,down the lake, the two white obelisk towers of Sayula glintedamong the trees, and villas peeped out. Boats were creepinginto the shadow, from the outer brightness of the lake.

And in one of these boats was Juana, being rowed, disconsolate,home.

Ramón and Cipriano were out by the lake. Cipriano also hadchanged into the white clothes and sandals, and he lookedbetter than when in uniform.

“I had a talk with Montes when he came to Guadalajara,”Cipriano said to Ramón. Montes was the Presidentof the Republic.

“And what did he say?”

“He is careful. But he doesn’t like his colleagues. Ithink he feels lonely. I think he would like to know youbetter.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps that you could give him your moral support.Perhaps that you might be Secretary, and President whenMontes’ term is up.”

“I like Montes,” said Ramón. “He is sincere andpassionate. Did you like him?”

“Yes!” said Cipriano. “More or less. He is suspicious,and jealous for fear anyone else might want to share in hispower. He has the cravings of a dictator. He wanted tofind out if I would stick to him.”

“You let him know you would?”

“I told him that all I cared for was for you and forMexico.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he is no fool. He said: ‘Don Ramón sees theworld with different eyes from mine. Who knows whichof us is right. I want to save my country from poverty andunenlightenment, he wants to save its soul. I say, a hungryand ignorant man has no place for a soul. An empty bellygrinds upon itself, so does an empty mind, and the souldoesn’t exist. Don Ramón says, if a man has no soul, itdoesn’t matter whether he is hungry or ignorant. Well, hecan go his way, and I mine. We shall never hinder oneanother, I believe. I give you my word I won’t have himinterfered with. He sweeps the patio and I sweep thestreet.’”

“Sensible!” said Ramón. “And honest in his convictions.”

[Pg 205]

“Why should you not be Secretary in a few months’time? And follow to the Presidency?” said Cipriano.

“You know I don’t want that. I must stand in anotherworld, and act in another world.—Politics must go their ownway, and society must do as it will. Leave me alone,Cipriano. I know you want me to be another PorfirioDiaz, or something like that. But for me that would befailure pure and simple.”

Cipriano was watching Ramón with black, guarded eyes,in which was an element of love, and of fear, and of trust,but also incomprehension, and the suspicion that goes withincomprehension.

“I don’t understand, myself, what you want,” hemuttered.

“Yes, yes, you do. Politics, and all this social religionthat Montes has got is like washing the outside of the egg, tomake it look clean. But I, myself, I want to get inside theegg, right to the middle, to start it growing into a new bird.Ay! Cipriano! Mexico is like an old, old egg that the bird ofTime laid long ago; and she has been sitting on it forcenturies, till it looks foul in the nest of the world. Butstill, Cipriano, it is a good egg. It is not addled. Onlythe spark of fire has never gone into the middle of it, to startit.—Montes wants to clean the nest and wash the egg. Butmeanwhile, the egg will go cold and die. The more yousave these people from poverty and ignorance, the quickerthey will die: like a dirty egg that you take from under thehen-eagle, to wash it. While you wash the egg, it chills anddies. Poor old Montes, all his ideas are American andEuropean. And the old Dove of Europe will never hatchthe egg of dark-skinned America. The United States can’tdie, because it isn’t alive. It is a nestful of china eggs, madeof pot. So they can be kept clean.—But here, Cipriano,here, let us hatch the chick before we start cleaning up thenest.”

Cipriano hung his head. He was always testing Ramón,to see if he could change him. When he found he couldn’t,then he submitted, and new little fires of joy sprang up inhim. But meanwhile, he had to try, and try again.

“It is no good, trying to mix the two things. At thisstage of affairs, at least, they won’t mix. We have to shutour eyes and sink down, sink away from the surface, away,[Pg 206]like shadows, down to the bottom. Like the pearl divers.But you keep bobbing up like a cork.”

Cipriano smiled subtly. He knew well enough.

“We’ve got to open the oyster of the cosmos, and getour manhood out of it. Till we’ve got the pearl, we areonly gnats on the surface of the ocean,” said Ramón.

“My manhood is like a devil inside me,” said Cipriano.

“It’s very true,” said Ramón. “That’s because the oldoyster has him shut up, like a black pearl. You must lethim walk out.”

“Ramón,” said Cipriano, “Wouldn’t it be good to bea serpent, and be big enough to wrap one’s folds round theglobe of the world, and crush it like that egg?”

Ramón looked at him and laughed.

“I believe we could do that,” said Cipriano, a slow smilecurling round his mouth. “And wouldn’t it be good?”

Ramón shook his head, laughing.

“There would be one good moment, at least,” he said.

“Who asks for more!” said Cipriano.

A spark flashed out of Ramón’s eyes too. Then hechecked himself, and gathered himself together.

“What would be the good!” he said heavily. “If theegg was crushed, and we remained, what could we do butgo howling down the empty passages of darkness. What’sthe good, Cipriano?”

Ramón got up and walked away. The sun had set, thenight was falling. And in his soul the great, writhing angerwas alive again. Carlota provoked it into life: the twowomen seemed to breathe life into the black monster of hisinward rage, till it began to lash again. And Cipriano stirredit up till it howled with desire.

“My manhood is like a demon howling inside me,” saidRamón to himself, in Cipriano’s words.

And he admitted the justice of the howling, his manhoodbeing pent up, humiliated, goaded with insult inside him.And rage came over him, against Carlota, against Cipriano,against his own people, against all mankind, till he was filledwith rage like the devil.

His people would betray him, he knew that. Ciprianowould betray him. Given one little vulnerable chink, theywould pierce him. They would leap at the place out ofnowhere, like a tarantula, and bite in the poison.

[Pg 207]

While ever there was one little vulnerable chink. Andwhat man can be invulnerable?

He went upstairs by the outer stairway, through the irondoor at the side of the house, under the heavy trees, up tohis room, and sat on his bed. The night was hot, heavy,and ominously still.

“The waters are coming,” he heard a servant say. Heshut the doors of his room till it was black dark inside. Thenhe threw aside his clothing, saying: I put off the world withmy clothes. And standing nude and invisible in the centreof his room he thrust his clenched fist upwards, with all hismight, feeling he would break the walls of his chest. And hisleft hand hung loose, the fingers softly curving downwards.

And tense like the gush of a soundless fountain, he thrustup and reached down in the invisible dark, convulsed withpassion. Till the black waves began to wash over hisconsciousness, over his mind, waves of darkness broke overhis memory, over his being, like an incoming tide, till at lastit was full tide, and he trembled, and fell to rest. Invisiblein the darkness, he stood soft and relaxed, staring with wideeyes at the dark, and feeling the dark fecundity of the innertide washing over his heart, over his belly, his mind dissolvedaway in the greater, dark mind, which is undisturbed bythoughts.

He covered his face with his hands, and stood still, in pureunconsciousness, neither hearing nor feeling nor knowing,like a dark sea-weed deep in the sea. With no Time andno World, in the deeps that are timeless and worldless.

Then when his heart and his belly were restored, his mindbegan to flicker again softly, like a soft flame flowing withoutdeparting.

So he wiped his face with his hands, and put his serapeover his head, and, silent inside an aura of pain, he went outand took the drum, carrying it downstairs.

Martin, the man who loved him, was hovering in thezaguan.

“Ya, Patrón?” he said.

“Ya!” said Ramón.

The man ran indoors, where a lamp was burning in thebig, dark kitchen, and ran out again with an armful of thewoven straw mats.

“Where, Patrón?” he said.

[Pg 208]

Ramón hesitated in the centre of the courtyard, andlooked at the sky.

“Viene el agua?” he said.

“Creo que si, Patrón.”

They went to the shed where the bananas had been packedand carried away on donkeys. There the man threw downthe petates. Ramón arranged them. Guisleno ran withcanes. He was going to make lights, the simplest possible.Three pieces of thick cane, tied at the neck with a cord, stoodup three-legged, waist high. In the three-pronged fork atthe top he laid a piece of flat, slightly hollow lava stone.Then he came running from the house with a bit of burningocote wood. Three or four bits of ocote, each bit no biggerthan a long finger, flickered and rose in quick flames from thestone, and the courtyard danced with shadow.

Ramón took off his serape, folded it, and sat upon it.Guisleno lit another tripod-torch. Ramón sat with his backto the wall, the firelight dancing on his dark brows, thatwere sunk in a sort of frown. His breast shone like goldin the flame. He took the drum and sounded the summons,slow, monotonous, rather sad. In a moment two or threemen came running. The drummer came, Ramón stood upand handed him the drum. He ran with it to the greatouter doorway, and out into the dark lane, and theresounded the summons, quick, sharp.

Ramón put on his serape, whose scarlet fringe touched hisknees, and stood motionless, with ruffled hair. Round hisshoulders went the woven snake, and his head was throughthe middle of the blue, woven bird.

Cipriano came from the house. He was wearing a serapeall scarlet and dark brown, a great scarlet sun at the centre,deep scarlet zigzags at the borders, and dark brown fringeat his knees. He came and stood at Ramón’s side, glancingup into Ramón’s face. But the other man’s brows were low,his eyes were fixed in the darkness of the sheds away acrossthe courtyard. He was looking into the heart of the world;because the faces of men, and the hearts of men are helplessquicksands. Only in the heart of the cosmos man can lookfor strength. And if he can keep his soul in touch with theheart of the world, then from the heart of the world newblood will beat in strength and stillness into him, fulfillinghis manhood.

[Pg 209]

Cipriano turned his black eyes to the courtyard. Hissoldiers had drawn near, in a little group. Three or fourmen were standing in dark serapes, round the fire.Cipriano stood brilliant like a cardinal bird, next to Ramón.Even his sandals were bright, sealing-wax red, and hisloose linen trousers were bound at the ankles with redand black bands. His face looked very dark and ruddyin the firelight, his little black tuft of a beard hung odd anddevilish, his eyes were glittering sardonically. But he caughtRamón’s hand in his small hand, and stood holding it.

The peons were coming through the entrance-way,balancing their big hats. Women were hurrying barefoot,swishing their full skirts, carrying babies inside the darkwrap of their rebozos, children running after. They allclustered towards the flame-light, like wild animals gazingin at the circle of men in dark sarapes, Ramón, magnificentin his white and blue and shadow, poising his beautifulhead, Cipriano at his side like a glittering cardinal bird.

Carlota and Kate emerged from the inner doorway of thehouse. But there Carlota remained, wrapped in a blacksilk shawl, seated on a wooden bench where the soldiersusually sat, looking across at the ruddy flare of light, thecircle of dark men, the tall beauty of her husband, thepoppy-petal glitter of red, of Cipriano, the group of little,dust-coloured soldiers, and the solid throng of peons andwomen and children, standing gazing like animals. Whilethrough the gate men still came hurrying, and from outside,the drum sounded, and a high voice sang again andagain:

[Pg 210]

There was a queer, wild yell each time on the Ay! andlike a bugle refrain: Shall you? Shall I? It madeCarlota shiver.

Kate, wrapping her yellow shawl round her, walkedslowly towards the group.

The drum outside gave a rapid shudder, and wasfinished. The drummer came in, the great doors wereshut and barred, the drummer took his place in the ringof standing men. A dead silence supervened.

Ramón continued to gaze from under lowered brows,into space. Then in a quiet, inward voice, he said:

“As I take off this cover, I put away the day that isgone from upon me.”

He took off his serape, and stood with it over his arm.All the men in the circle did the same, till they stood withnaked breasts and shoulders, Cipriano very dark and strong-looking,in his smallness, beside Ramón.

“I put away the day that is gone,” Ramón continued,in the same still, inward voice, “and stand with my heartuncovered in the night of the gods.”

Then he looked down at the ground.

“Serpent of the earth,” he said; “snake that lies inthe fire at the heart of the world, come! Come! Snakeof the fire of the heart of the world, coil like gold roundmy ankles, and rise like life around my knee, and lay yourhead against my thigh. Come, put your head in myhand, cradle your head in my fingers, snake of the deeps.Kiss my feet and my ankles with your mouth of gold, kissmy knees and my inner thigh, snake branded with flameand shadow, come! and rest your head in my finger-basket!So!”

The voice was soft and hypnotic. It died upon a stillness.And it seemed as if really a mysterious presencehad entered unseen from the underworld. It seemed tothe peons as if really they saw a snake of brilliant gold andliving blackness softly coiled around Ramón’s ankle andknee, and resting its head in his fingers, licking his palmwith forked tongue.

He looked out at the big, dilated, glittering eyes of hispeople, and his own eyes were wide and uncanny.

“I tell you,” he said, “and I tell you truly. At theheart of this earth sleeps a great serpent, in the midst of[Pg 211]fire. Those that go down in mines feel the heat and thesweat of him, they feel him move. It is the living fireof the earth, for the earth is alive. The snake of theworld is huge, and the rocks are his scales, trees growbetween them. I tell you the earth you dig is alive asa snake that sleeps. So vast a serpent you walk on, thislake lies between his folds as a drop of rain in the folds ofa sleeping rattlesnake. Yet he none the less lives. Theearth is alive.

“And if he died, we should all perish. Only his livingkeeps the soil sweet, that grows you maize. From theroots of his scales we dig silver and gold, and the treeshave root in him, as the hair of my face has root in my lips.

“The earth is alive. But he is very big, and we are verysmall, smaller than dust. But he is very big in his life,and sometimes he is angry. These people, smaller thandust, he says, they stamp on me and say I am dead. Evento their asses they speak, and shout Harreh! Burro! Butto me they speak no word. Therefore I will turn againstthem, like a woman who lies angry with her man in bed,and eats away his spirit with her anger, turning her backto him.

“That is what the earth says to us. He sends sorrow intoour feet, and depression into our loins.

“Because as an angry woman in the house can make aman heavy, taking his life from him, so the earth can makeus heavy, make our souls cold, and our life dreary in ourfeet.

“Speak then to the snake of the heart of the world, put oilon your fingers and lower your fingers for him to taste theoil of the earth, and let him send life into your feet andankles and knees, like sap in the young maize pressingagainst the joints and making the milk of the maize budamong its hair.

“From the heart of the earth man feels his manhood riseup in him, like the maize that is proud, turning its greenleaves outwards. Be proud like the maize, and let yourroots go deep, deep, for the rains are here, and it is timefor us to be growing in Mexico.”

Ramón ceased speaking, the drum softly pulsed. Allthe men of the ring were looking down at the earth andsoftly letting their left hands hang.

[Pg 212]

Carlota, who had not been able to hear, drifted up toKate’s side, spell-bound by her husband. Kate unconsciouslyglanced down at the earth, and secretly let herfingers hang softly against her dress. But then she wasafraid of what might happen to her, and she caught herhand up into her shawl.

Suddenly the drum began to give a very strong note,followed by a weak: a strange, exciting thud.

Everybody looked up. Ramón had flung his right armtense into the air, and was looking up at the black darksky. The men of the ring did the same, and the nakedarms were thrust aloft like so many rockets.

“Up Up! Up!” said a wild voice.

“Up! Up!” cried the men of the ring, in a wildchorus.

And involuntarily the men in the crowd twitched, thenshot their arms upwards, turning their faces to the darkheavens. Even some of the women boldly thrust uptheir naked arms, and relief entered their hearts as theydid so.

But Kate would not lift her arm.

There was dead silence, even the drum was silent. Thenthe voice of Ramón was heard, speaking upwards to theblack sky:

“Your big wings are dark, Bird, you are flying low to-night.You are flying low over Mexico, we shall soon feelthe fan of your wings on our face.

“Ay, Bird! You fly about where you will. You fly pastthe stars, and you perch on the sun. You fly out of sight,and are gone beyond the white river of the sky. But youcome back like the ducks of the north, looking for waterand winter.

“You sit in the middle of the sun, and preen yourfeathers. You crouch in the river of stars, and make thestar-dust rise around you. You fly away into the deepesthollow place of the sky, whence there seems no return.

“You come back to us, and hover overhead, and wefeel your wings fanning our faces—”

Even as he spoke the wind rose, in sudden gusts, and adoor could be heard slamming in the house, with a shiveringof glass, and the trees gave off a tearing sound.

“Come then, Bird of the great sky!” Ramón called wildly.[Pg 213]“Come! Oh Bird, settle a moment on my wrist, over myhead, and give me power of the sky, and wisdom. OhBird! Bird of all the wide heavens, even if you drumyour feathers in thunder, and drop the white snake of firefrom your beak back to the earth again, where he can runin, deep down the rocks again, home: even if you come asthe Thunderer, come! Settle on my wrist a moment, withthe clutch of the power of thunder, and arch your wingsover my head, like a shadow of clouds; and bend yourbreast to my brow, and bless me with the sun. Bird, roamingBird of the Beyond, with thunder in your pinions andthe snake of lightning in your beak, with the blue heavenin the socket of your wings and cloud in the arch of yourneck, with sun in the burnt feathers of your breast andpower in your feet, with terrible wisdom in your flight,swoop to me a moment, swoop!”

Sudden gusts of wind tore at the little fires of flame, tillthey could be heard to rustle, and the lake began to speakin a vast hollow noise, beyond the tearing of trees. Distantlightning was beating far off, over the black hills.

Ramón dropped his arm, which had been bent over hishead. The drum began to beat. Then he said:

“Sit down a moment, before the Bird shakes water outof his wings. It will come soon. Sit down.”

There was a stir. Men put their serapes over their faces,women clutched their rebozos tighter, and all sat down onthe ground. Only Kate and Carlota remained standing,on the outer edge. Gusts of wind tore at the flames, themen put their hats on the ground in front of them.

“The earth is alive, and the sky is alive,” said Ramón inhis natural voice, “and between them, we live. Earth haskissed my knees, and put strength in my belly. Skyhas perched on my wrist, and sent power into my breast.

“But as in the morning the Morning-star stands betweenearth and sky, a star can rise in us, and stand between theheart and the loins.

“That is the manhood of man, and for woman, herwomanhood.

“You are not yet men. And women, you are not yetwomen.

“You run about and toss about and die, and still youhave not found the star of your manhood rise within you,[Pg 214]the stars of your womanhood shine out serene betweenyour breasts, women.

“I tell you, for him that wishes it, the star of his manhoodshall rise within him, and he shall be proud, andperfect even as the Morning-star is perfect.

“And the star of a woman’s womanhood can rise at last,from between the heavy rim of the earth and the lost greyvoid of the sky.

“But how? How shall we do it? How shall it be?

“How shall we men become Men of the Morning Star?And the women the Dawn-Star Women?

“Lower your fingers to the caress of the Snake of the earth.

“Lift your wrist for a perch to the far-lying Bird.

“Have the courage of both, the courage of lightning andthe earthquake.

“And wisdom of both, the wisdom of the snake and theeagle.

“And the peace of both, the peace of the serpent and thesun.

“And the power of both, the power of the innermostearth and the outermost heaven.

“But on your brow, Men! the undimmed Morning Star,that neither day nor night, nor earth nor sky can swallowand put out.

“And between your breasts, Women! the Dawn-Star,that cannot be dimmed.

“And your home at last is the Morning Star. Neitherheaven nor earth shall swallow you up at the last, but youshall pass into the place beyond both, into the bright starthat is lonely yet feels itself never alone.

“The Morning Star is sending you a messenger, a godwho died in Mexico. But he slept his sleep, and the invisibleOnes washed his body with water of resurrection. So hehas risen, and pushed the stone from the mouth of the tomb,and has stretched himself. And now he is striding acrossthe horizons even quicker than the great stone from thetomb is tumbling back to the earth, to crush those thatrolled it up.

“The Son of the Star is coming back to the Sons of Men,with big, bright strides.

“Prepare to receive him. And wash yourselves, and putoil on your hands and your feet, on your mouth and eyes[Pg 215]and ears and nostrils, on your breast and navel and on thesecret places of your body, that nothing of the dead days,no dust of skeletons and evil things may pass into you andmake you unclean.

“Do not look with the eyes of yesterday, nor like yesterdaylisten, nor breathe, nor smell, nor taste, nor swallowfood and drink. Do not kiss with the mouths of yesterday,nor touch with the hands, nor walk with yesterday’sfeet. And let your navel know nothing of yesterday, andgo into your women with a new body, enter the new bodyin her.

“For yesterday’s body is dead, and carrion, the Xopiloteis hovering above it.

“Put yesterday’s body from off you, and have a newbody. Even as your God who is coming. Quetzalcoatl iscoming with a new body, like a star, from the shadows ofdeath.

“Yes, even as you sit upon the earth this moment, withthe round of your body touching the round of the earth,say: Earth! Earth! you are alive as the globes of mybody are alive. Breathe the kiss of the inner earth uponme, even as I sit upon you.

“And so, it is said. The earth is stirring beneath you,the sky is rushing its wings above. Go home to yourhomes, in front of the waters that will fall and cut youoff forever from your yesterdays.

“Go home, and hope to be Men of the Morning Star,Women of the Star of Dawn.

“You are not yet men and women——”

He rose up and waved to the people to be gone. Andin a moment they were on their feet, scurrying and hasteningwith the quiet Mexican hurry, that seems to run lowdown upon the surface of the earth.

The black wind was all loose in the sky, tearing withthe thin shriek of torn fabrics, in the mango trees. Menheld their big hats on their heads and ran with bent knees,their serapes blowing. Women clutched their rebozostighter and ran barefoot to the zaguan.

The big doors were open, a soldier stood with a gunacross his back, holding a hurricane lamp. And the peoplefled like ghosts through the doors, and away up the blacklane like bits of paper veering away into nothingness, blown[Pg 216]out of their line of flight. In a moment, they had all silentlygone.

Martin barred the great doors. The soldier put down hislamp on the wooden bench, and he and his comrades sathuddled in their dark shawls, in a little bunch like toadstoolsin the dark cavern of the zaguan. Already one had curledhimself up on the wooden bench, wrapped like a snail in hisblanket, head disappeared.

“The water is coming!” cried the servants excitedly,as Kate went upstairs with Doña Carlota.

The lake was quite black, like a great pit. The windsuddenly blew with violence, with a strange ripping soundin the mango trees, as if some membrane in the air werebeing ripped. The white-flowered oleanders in the gardenbelow leaned over quite flat, their white flowers ghostly,going right down to the earth, in the pale beam of the lamp—likea street lamp—that shone on the wall at the frontentrance. A young palm-tree bent and spread its leaveson the ground. Some invisible juggernaut car rolling in thedark over the outside world.

Away across the lake, south-west, lightning blazed andran down the sky like some portentous writing. And soft,velvety thunder broke inwardly, strangely.

“It frightens me!” cried Doña Carlota, putting herhand over her eyes and hastening into a far corner of thebare salon.

Cipriano and Kate stood on the terrace, watching thecoloured flowers in the pots shake and fly to bits, disappearingup into the void of darkness. Kate clutched her shawl.But the wind suddenly got under Cipriano’s blanket, andlifted it straight up in the air, then dropped it in a scarletflare over his head. Kate watched his deep, strong Indianchest lift as his arms quickly fought to free his head. Howdark he was, and how primitively physical, beautiful anddeep-breasted, with soft, full flesh! But all, as it were, forhimself. Nothing that came forth from him to meet withone outside. All oblivious of the outside, all for himself.

“Ah! the water!” he cried, holding down his serape.

The first great drops were flying darkly at the flowers,like arrows. Kate stood back into the doorway of the salon.A pure blaze of lightning slipped three-fold above the blackhills, seemed to stand a moment, then slip back into the dark.

[Pg 217]

Down came the rain with a smash, as if some great vesselhad broken. With it, came a waft of icy air. And all thetime, first in one part of the sky, then in another, in quicksuccession the blue lightning, very blue, broke out of heavenand lit up the air for a blue, breathless moment, loomingtrees and ghost of a garden, then was gone, while thunderdropped and exploded continually.

Kate watched the dropping masses of water in wonder.Already, in the blue moments of lightning, she saw thegarden below a pond, the walks were rushing rivers. It wascold. She turned indoors.

A servant was going round the rooms with a lantern, tolook if scorpions were coming out. He found one scuttlingacross the floor of Kate’s room, and one fallen from theceiling beams on to Carlota’s bed.

They sat in the salon in rocking chairs, Carlota and Kate,and rocked, smelling the good wetness, breathing the good,chilled air. Kate had already forgotten what really chillair was like. She wrapped her shawl tighter round her.

“Ah, yes, you feel cold! You must take care in thenights, now. Sometimes in the rainy season the nights arevery cold. You must be ready with an extra blanket.And the servants, poor things, they just lie and shudder,and they get up in the morning like corpses.—But the sunsoon warms them again, and they seem to think they mustbear what comes. So they complain sometimes, but stillthey don’t provide.”

The wind had gone, suddenly. Kate was uneasy, uneasy,with the smell of water, almost of ice, in her nostrils, andher blood still hot and dark. She got up and went againto the terrace. Cipriano was still standing there, motionlessand inscrutable, like a monument, in his red and darkserape.

The rain was abating. Down below in the garden, twobarefooted women-servants were running through the water,in the faint light of the zaguan lamp, running across thegarden and putting ollas, and square gasoline cans under thearching spouts of water that seethed down from the roof,then darting away while they filled, then struggling in withthe frothy vessel. It would save making trips to the lake,for water.

“What do you think of us?” Cipriano said to her.

[Pg 218]

“It is strange to me,” she replied, wondering and a littleawed by the night.

“Good, no?” he said, in an exultant tone.

“A little scaring,” she replied, with a slight laugh.

“When you are used to it,” he said, “it seems natural,no? It seems natural so—as it is. And when you go to acountry like England, where all is so safe and ready-made,then you miss it. You keep saying to yourself: ‘What amI missing? What is it that is not here?’”

He seemed to be gloating in his native darkness. It wascurious, that though he spoke such good English, it seemedalways foreign to her, more foreign than Doña Carlota’sSpanish.

“I can’t understand that people want to have everything,all life, no?—so safe and ready-made as in England andAmerica. It is good to be awake. On the qui vive, no?”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“So I like it,” he said, “when Ramón tells the peoplethe earth is alive, and the sky has a big bird in it, that youdon’t see. I think it is true. Certainly! And it is goodto know it, because then one is on the qui vive, no?

“But it’s tiring to be always on the qui vive,” she said.

“Why? Why tiring? No, I think, on the contrary, itis refreshing.—Ah, you should marry, and live in Mexico.At last, I am sure, you would like it. You would keepwaking up more and more to it.”

“Or else going more and more deadened,” she said.“That is how most foreigners go, it seems to me.”

“Why deadened?” he said to her. “I don’t understand.Why deadened? Here you have a country wherenight is night, and rain comes down and you know it.And you have a people with whom you must be on thequi vive all the time, all the time. And that is very good,no? You don’t go sleepy. Like a pear! Don’t you say apear goes sleepy, no?—cuando sé echa a perder?”

“Yes!” she said.

“And here you have also Ramón. How does Ramónseem to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything. But Ido think he is almost too much: too far.—And I don’tthink he is Mexican.”

“Why not? Why not Mexican? He is Mexican.”

[Pg 219]

“Not as you are.”

“How not as I am? He is Mexican.”

“He seems to me to belong to the old, old Europe,”she said.

“And he seems to me to belong to the old, old Mexico—andalso to the new,” he added quickly.

“But you don’t believe in him.”

“How?”

“You—yourself. You don’t believe in him. You thinkit is like everything else, a sort of game. Everything is asort of game, a put-up job, to you Mexicans. You don’treally believe, in anything.”

“How not believe? I not believe in Ramón?—Well,perhaps not, in that way of kneeling before him and spreadingout my arms and shedding tears on his feet. But I—Ibelieve in him, too. Not in your way, but in mine. I tellyou why. Because he has the power to compel me. If hehadn’t the power to compel me, how should I believe?”

“It is a queer sort of belief that is compelled,” she said.

“How else should one believe, except by being compelled?I like Ramón for that, that he can compel me. When Igrew up, and my god-father could not compel me to believe,I was very unhappy. It made me very unhappy.—ButRamón compels me, and that is very good. It makes mevery happy, when I know I can’t escape. It would makeyou happy too.”

“To know I could not escape from Don Ramón?” shesaid ironically.

“Yes, that also. And to know you could not escapefrom Mexico. And even from such a man, as me.”

She paused in the dark before she answered, sardonically:

“I don’t think it would make me happy to feel I couldn’tescape from Mexico. No, I feel, unless I was sure I couldget out any day, I couldn’t bear to be here.”

In her mind she thought: And perhaps Ramón is theonly one I couldn’t quite escape from, because he reallytouches me somewhere inside. But from you, you littleCipriano, I should have no need even to escape, because Icould not be caught by you.

“Ah!” he said quickly. “You think so. But then youdon’t know. You can only think with American thoughts.It is natural. From your education, you have only American[Pg 220]thoughts, U.S.A. thoughts, to think with. Nearly all womenare like that: even Mexican women of the Spanish-Mexicanclass. They are all thinking nothing but U.S.A. thoughts,because those are the ones that go with the way they dresstheir hair. And so it is with you. You think like a modernwoman, because you belong to the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonicworld, and dress your hair in a certain way, and have money,and are altogether free.—But you only think like this becauseyou have had these thoughts put in your head, justas in Mexico you spend centavos and pesos, because thatis the Mexican money you have put in your pocket. It’swhat they give you at the bank.—So when you say you arefree, you are not free. You are compelled all the time tobe thinking U.S.A. thoughts—compelled, I must say. Youhave not as much choice as a slave. As the peons musteat tortillas, tortillas, tortillas, because there is nothing else,you must think these U.S.A. thoughts, about being a womanand being free. Every day you must eat those tortillas,tortillas.—Till you don’t know how you would like somethingelse.”

“What else should I like?” she said, with a grimaceat the darkness.

“Other thoughts, other feelings.—You are afraid of sucha man as me, because you think I should not treat youà l’américaine. You are quite right. I should not treatyou as an American woman must be treated. Why shouldI? I don’t wish to. It doesn’t seem good to me.”

“You would treat a woman like a real old Mexican,would you? Keep her ignorant, and shut her up?” saidKate sarcastically.

“I could not keep her ignorant if she did not startignorant. But what more I had to teach her wouldn’t bein the American style of teaching.”

“What then?”

“Quien sabe! Ça reste à voir.”

“Et continuera a y rester,” said Kate, laughing.

The morning came perfectly blue, with a freshness in theair and a blue luminousness over the trees and the distantmountains, and birds so bright, absolutely like new-openedbuds sparking in the air.

Cipriano was returning to Guadalajara in the automobile,and Carlota was going with him. Kate would be rowedhome on the lake.

To Ramón, Carlota was still, at times, a torture. Sheseemed to have the power still to lacerate him, inside hisbowels. Not in his mind or spirit, but in his old emotional,passional self: right in the middle of his belly, to tear himand make him feel he bled inwardly.

Because he had loved her, he had cared for her: for theaffectionate, passionate, whimsical, sometimes elfish creatureshe had been. He had made much of her, and spoiled her,for many years.

But all the while, gradually, his nature was changinginside him. Not that he ceased to care for her, or wantedother women. That she could have understood. But insidehim was a slow, blind imperative, urging him to cast hisemotional and spiritual and mental self into the slow furnace,and smelt them into a new, whole being.

But he had Carlota to reckon with. She loved him, andthat, to her, was the outstanding factor. She loved him,emotionally. And spiritually, she loved mankind. Andmentally, she was sure she was quite right.

Yet as time went on, he had to change. He had to castthat emotional self, which she loved, into the furnace, to besmelted down to another self.

And she felt she was robbed, cheated. Why couldn’t hego on being gentle, good, and loving, and trying to make thewhole world more gentle, good, and loving?

He couldn’t, because it was borne in upon him that theworld had gone as far as it could go in the good, gentle,and loving direction, and anything further in that linemeant perversity. So the time had come for the slow, greatchange to something else—what, he didn’t know.

The emotion of love, and the greater emotion of liberty[Pg 222]for mankind seemed to go hard and congeal upon him, likethe shell on a chrysalis. It was the old caterpillar stageof Christianity evolving into something else.

But Carlota felt this was all she had, this emotion oflove, for her husband, her children, for her people, forthe animals and birds and trees of the world. It was herall, her Christ, and her Blessed Virgin. How could shelet it go?

So she continued to love him, and to love the world,steadily, pathetically, obstinately and devilishly. Sheprayed for him, and she engaged in works of charity.

But her love had turned from being the spontaneousflow, subject to the unforseen comings and goings of theHoly Ghost, and had turned into will. She loved now withher will: as the white world now tends to do. She becamefilled with charity: that cruel kindness.

Her winsomeness and her elvishness departed from her,she began to wither, she grew tense. And she blamedhim, and prayed for him. Even as the spontaneous mysterydied in her, the will hardened, till she was nothing but awill: a lost will.

She soon succeeded in drawing the life of her young boysall to herself, with her pathos and her subtle will. Ramónwas too proud and angry to fight for them. They were herchildren. Let her have them.

They were the children of his old body. His new bodyhad no children: would probably never have any.

“But remember,” he said to her, with southern logic,“you do not love, save with your will. I don’t like thelove you have for your god: it is an assertion of your ownwill. I don’t like the love you have for me: it is the same.I don’t like the love you have for your children. If ever Isee in them a spark of desire to be saved from it, I shalldo my best to save them. Meanwhile have your love, haveyour will. But you know I dislike it. I dislike your insistence.I dislike your monopoly of one feeling, I dislikeyour charity works. I disapprove of the whole trend of yourlife. You are weakening and vitiating the boys. You donot love them, you are only putting your love-will overthem. One day they will turn and hate you for it. RememberI have said this to you.”

Doña Carlota had trembled in every fibre of her body,[Pg 223]under the shock of this. But she went away to the chapelof the Annunciation Convent, and prayed. And, praying forhis soul, she seemed to gain a victory over him, in the odourof sanctity. She came home in frail, pure triumph, like aflower that blooms on a grave: his grave.

And Ramón henceforth watched her in her beautiful,rather fluttering, rather irritating gentleness, as he watchedhis closest enemy.

Life had done its work on one more human being,quenched the spontaneous life and left only the will. Killedthe god in the woman, or the goddess, and left only charity,with a will.

“Carlota,” he had said to her, “how happy you wouldbe if you could wear deep, deep mourning for me.—I shallnot give you this happiness.”

She gave him a strange look from her hazel-brown eyes.

“Even that is in the hands of God,” she had replied,as she hurried away from him.

And now, on this morning after the first rains, she cameto the door of his room as he was sitting writing. Asyesterday, he was naked to the waist, the blue-markedsash tied round his middle confined the white linen, loosetrousers—like big, wide pyjama trousers crossed in front andtied round his waist.

“May I come in?” she said nervously.

“Do!” he replied, putting down his pen and rising.

There was only one chair—he was offering it her, but shesat down on the unmade bed, as if asserting her naturalright. And in the same way she glanced at his naked breast—asif asserting her natural right.

“I am going with Cipriano after breakfast,” she said.

“Yes, so you said.”

“The boys will be home in three weeks.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to see them?”

“If they want to see me.”

“I am sure they do.”

“Then bring them here.”

“Do you think it is pleasant for me?” she said, claspingher hands.

“You do not make it pleasant for me, Carlota.”

“How can I? You know I think you are wrong. When[Pg 224]I listened to you last night—there is something so beautifulin it all—and yet so monstrous. So monstrous!—Oh! Ithink to myself: What is this man doing? This man of allmen, who might be such a blessing to his country andmankind—”

“Well,” said Ramón. “And what is he instead?”

“You know! You know! I can’t bear it.—It isn’t foryou to save Mexico, Ramón. Christ has already saved it.”

“It seems to me not so.”

“He has! He has! And He made you the wonderfulbeing that you are, so that you should work out the salvation,in the name of Christ and of love. Instead of which—”

“Instead of which, Carlota, I try something else.—Butbelieve me, if the real Christ has not been able to saveMexico,—and He hasn’t—then I am sure, the white Anti-Christof Charity, and socialism, and politics, and reform,will only succeed in finally destroying her. That, and thatalone makes me take my stand.—You, Carlota, with yourcharity works and your pity: and men like Benito Juarez,with their Reform and their Liberty: and the rest of thebenevolent people, politicians and socialists and so forth,surcharged with pity for living men, in their mouths, butreally with hate—the hate of the materialist have-nots forthe materialist haves: they are the Anti-Christ. The oldworld, that’s just the world. But the new world, thatwants to save the People, this is the Anti-Christ. This isChrist with real poison in the communion cup.—And forthis reason I step out of my ordinary privacy and individuality.I don’t want everybody poisoned. About thegreat mass I don’t care. But I don’t want everybodypoisoned.”

“How can you be so sure that you yourself are not apoisoner of the people?—I think you are.”

“Think it then. I think of you, Carlota, merely thatyou have not been able to come to your complete, finalwomanhood: which is a different thing from the old womanhoods.”

“Womanhood is always the same.”

“Ah, no it isn’t! Neither is manhood.”

“But what do you think you can do? What do youthink this Quetzalcoatl nonsense amounts to?”

“Quetzalcoatl is just a living word, for these people, no[Pg 225]more. All I want them to do is to find the beginnings ofthe way to their own manhood, their own womanhood.Men are not yet men in full, and women are not yet women.They are all half and half, incoherent, part horrible, partpathetic, part good creatures. Half arrived.—I meanyou as well, Carlota. I mean all the world.—But thesepeople don’t assert any righteousness of their own, theseMexican people of ours. That makes me think that graceis still with them. And so, having got hold of some kind ofclue to my own whole manhood, it is part of me now totry with them.”

“You will fail.”

“I shan’t. Whatever happens to me, there will be a newvibration, a new call in the air, and a new answer insidesome men.”

“They will betray you.—Do you know what even yourfriend Toussaint said of you?—Ramón Carrasco’s future isjust the past of mankind.”

“A great deal of it is the past. Naturally Toussaint seesthat part.”

“But the boys don’t believe in you. Instinctively, theydisbelieve. Cyprian said to me, when I went to see him:‘Is father doing any more of that silly talk about old godscoming back, mother? I wish he wouldn’t. It would bepretty nasty for us if he got himself into the newspaperswith it.’”

Ramón laughed.

“Little boys,” he said, “are like little gramaphones.They only talk according to the record that’s put intothem.”

“You don’t believe out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,”said Carlota bitterly.

“Why Carlota, the babes and sucklings don’t get muchchance. Their mothers and their teachers turn them intolittle gramaphones from the first, so what can they do, butsay and feel according to the record the mother and teacherputs into them. Perhaps in the time of Christ, babes andsucklings were not so perfectly exploited by their elders.”

Suddenly, however, the smile went off his face. He roseup, and pointed to the door.

“Go away,” he said in a low tone. “Go away! I havesmelt the smell of your spirit long enough.”

[Pg 226]

She sat on the bed, spell-bound, gazing at him withfrightened, yet obstinate, insolent eyes, wincing from hisoutstretched arm as if he had threatened to strike her.

Then again the fire went out of his eyes, and his arm sank.The still, far-away look came on his face.

“What have I to do with it!” he murmured softly.

And taking up his blouse and his hat, he went silently outon to the terrace, departing from her in body and in soul.She heard the soft swish of his sandals. She heard the faintresonance of the iron door to the terrace, to which he alonehad access. And she sat like a heap of ash on his bed, ashesto ashes, burnt out, with only the coals of her will stillsmouldering.

Her eyes were very bright, as she went to join Kate andCipriano.

After breakfast, Kate was rowed home down the lake.She felt a curious depression at leaving the hacienda: as if,for her, life now was there, and not anywhere else.

Her own house seemed empty, banal, vulgar. For thefirst time in her life, she felt the banality and emptiness evenof her own milieu. Though the Casa de las Cuentas wasnot purely her own milieu.

“Ah Niña, how good! How good that you have come!Ay, in the night, how much water! Much! Much! Butyou were safe in the hacienda, Niña. Ah, how nice, thathacienda of Jamiltepec. Such a good man, Don Ramón—isn’the, Niña? He cares a great deal for his people. Andthe Señora, ah, how sympathetic she is!”

Kate smiled and was pleasant. But she felt more likegoing into her room and saying: For God’s sake, leave mealone, with your cheap rattle.

She suffered again from the servants. Again that quiet,subterranean insolence against life, which seems to belong tomodern life. The unbearable note of flippant jeering, whichis underneath almost all modern utterance. It was underneathJuana’s constant cry.—Niña! Niña!

At meal-times Juana would seat herself on the ground ata little distance from Kate, and talk, talk in her rapidmouthfuls of conglomerate words with trailing, wistful endings:and all the time watch her mistress with those black,unseeing eyes on which the spark of light would stir withthe peculiar slow, malevolent jeering of the Indian.

[Pg 227]

Kate was not rich—she had only her moderate income.

“Ah, the rich people—!” Juana would say.

“I am not rich,” said Kate.

“You are not rich, Niña?” came the singing, caressivebird-like voice: “Then, you are poor?”—this was indescribableirony.

“No, I am not poor either. I am not rich, and I amnot poor,” said Kate.

“You are not rich, and you are not poor, Niña!” repeatedJuana, in her bird-like voice, that covered the real bird’sendless, vindictive jeering.

For the words meant nothing to her. To her, who hadnothing, could never have anything, Kate was one of thatweird class, the rich. And, Kate felt, in Mexico it wasa crime to be rich, or to be classed with the rich. Noteven a crime, really, so much as a freak. The rich classwas a freak class, like dogs with two heads or calves withfive legs. To be looked upon, not with envy, but with theslow, undying antagonism and curiosity which “normals”have towards “freaks.” The slow, powerful, corrosiveIndian mockery, issuing from the lava-rock Indian nature,against anything which strives to be above the grey, lava-rocklevel.

“Is it true, Niña, that your country is through there?”Juana asked, jabbing her finger downward, towards thebowels of the earth.

“Not quite!” said Kate. “My country is more there—”and she slanted her finger at the earth’s surface.

“Ah—that way!” said Juana. And she looked at Katewith a subtle leer, as if to say: what could you expect frompeople who came out of the earth sideways, like sprouts ofcamote!

“And is it true, that over there, there are people withonly one eye—here!” Juana punched herself in the middleof her forehead.

“No. That isn’t true. That is just a story.”

“Ah!” said Juana. “Isn’t it true! Do you know?Have you been to the country where they are, thesepeople?”

“Yes,” said Kate. “I have been to all the countries,and there are no such people.”

“Verdad! Verdad!” breathed Juana, awestruck. “You[Pg 228]have been to all the countries, and there are no such people!—Butin your country, they are all gringos? Nothing butgringos?”

She meant, no real people and salt of the earth like herown Mexican self.

“They are all people like me,” said Kate coldly.

“Like you, Niña? And they all talk like you?”

“Yes! Like me.”

“And there are many?”

“Many! Many!”

“Look now!” breathed Juana, almost awestruck to thinkthat there could be whole worlds of these freak, mockablepeople.

And Concha, that young, belching savage, would starethrough her window-grating at the strange menagerie of theNiña and the Niña’s white visitors. Concha, slappingtortillas, was real.

Kate walked down towards the kitchen. Concha wasslapping the masa, the maize dough which she bought in theplaza at eight centavos a kilo.

“Niña!” she called in her raucous voice. “Do you eattortillas?”

“Sometimes,” said Kate.

“Eh?” shouted the young savage.

“Sometimes.”

“Here! Eat one now!” And Concha thrust a brownpaw with a pinkish palm, and a dingy-looking tortilla, atKate.

“Not now,” said Kate.

She disliked the heavy plasters that tasted of lime.

“Don’t you want it? Don’t you eat it?” said Concha,with an impudent, strident laugh. And she flung the rejectedtortilla on the little pile.

She was one of those who won’t eat bread: say they don’tlike it, that it is not food.

Kate would sit and rock on her terrace, while the sunpoured in the green square of the garden, the palm-treespread its great fans translucent at the light, the hibiscusdangled great double-red flowers, rosy red, from its verydark tree, and the dark green oranges looked as if they weresweating as they grew.

Came lunch time, madly hot: and greasy hot soup, greasy[Pg 229]rice, splintery little fried fishes, bits of boiled meat andboiled egg-plant vegetables, a big basket piled with mangoes,papayas, zapotes—all the tropical fruits one did not want,in hot weather.

And the barefoot little Maria, in a limp, torn, faded redfrock, to wait at table. She was the loving one. She wouldstand by Juana as Juana bubbled with talk, like darkbubbles in her mouth, and she would stealthily touch Kate’swhite arm; stealthily touch her again. Not being rebuked,she would stealthily lay her thin little black arm on Kate’sshoulder, with the softest, lightest touch imaginable, andher strange, wide black eyes would gleam with ghostly blackbeatitude, very curious, and her childish, pock-marked,slightly imbecile face would take on a black, arch,beatitudinous look. Then Kate would quickly remove thethin, dark, pock-marked arm, the child would withdraw halfa yard, the beatitudinous look foiled, but her very black eyesstill shining exposed and absorbedly, in a rapt, reptilian sortof ecstasy.

Till Concha came to hit her with her elbow, making somebrutal, savage remark which Kate could not understand. Sothe glotzing black eyes of the child would twitch, and Mariawould break into meaningless tears, Concha into a loud,brutal, mocking laugh, like some violent bird. And Juanainterrupted her black and gluey flow of words to glance ather daughters and throw out some ineffectual remark.

The victim, the inevitable victim, and the inevitablevictimiser.

The terrible, terrible hot emptiness of the Mexican mornings,the weight of black ennui that hung in the air! It madeKate feel as if the bottom had fallen out of her soul. Shewent out to the lake, to escape that house, that family.

Since the rains, the trees in the broken gardens of thelake front had flamed into scarlet, and poured themselvesout into lavender flowers. Rose red, scarlet and lavender,quick, tropical flowers. Wonderful splashes of colour. Butthat was all: splashes! They made a splash, like fireworks.

And Kate thought of the black-thorn puffing white, inthe early year, in Ireland, and hawthorn with coral grains,in a damp still morning in the lanes, and foxgloves by thebare rock, and tufts of ling and heather, and a ravel of harebells.And a terrible, terrible longing for home came over[Pg 230]her. To escape from these tropical brilliancies and meaninglessnesses.

In Mexico, the wind was a hard draught, the rain was asluice of water, to be avoided, and the sun hit down on onewith hostility, terrific and stunning. Stiff, dry, unrealland, with sunshine beating on it like metal. Or blacknessand lightning and crashing violence of rain.

No lovely fusion, no communion. No beautiful minglingof sun and mist, no softness in the air, never. Either hardheat or hard chill. Hard, straight lies and zigzags, woundingthe breast. No soft, sweet smell of earth. The smellof Mexico, however subtle, suggested violence and thingsin chemical conflict.

And Kate felt herself filled with an anger of resentment.She would sit under a willow tree by the lake, reading a PioBaroja novel that was angry and full of No! No! No!—ichbin der Geist der stets verneint! But she herself was somuch angrier and fuller of repudiation than Pio Baroja.Spain cannot stand for No! as Mexico can.

The tree hung fleecy above her. She sat on the warmsand in the shadow, careful not to let even her ankles lie inthe biting shine of the sun. There was a faint, old smellof urine. The lake was so still and filmy as to be almostinvisible. In the near distance, some dark women werekneeling on the edge of the lake, dressed only in their longwet chemises in which they had bathed. Some were washinggarments, some were pouring water over themselves,scooping it up in gourd scoops and pouring it over theirblack heads and ruddy-dark shoulders, in the intense pressureof the sunshine. On her left were two big trees, and acane fence, and little straw huts of Indians. There thebeach itself ended, and the little Indian plots of land wentdown to the lake-front.

Glancing around in the great light, she seemed to besitting isolated in a dark core of shadow, while the worldmoved in inconsequential specks through the hollow glare.She noticed a dark urchin, nearly naked, marching withnaked, manly solemnity down to the water’s edge. Hewould be about four years’ old, but more manly than anadult man. With sex comes a certain vulnerability whichthese round-faced, black-headed, stiff-backed infant menhave not got. Kate knew the urchin. She knew his[Pg 231]tattered rag of a red shirt, and the weird rags that were hislittle man’s white trousers. She knew his black round head,his stiff, sturdy march of a walk, his round eyes, and hisswift, scuttling run, like a bolting animal.

“What’s the brat got,” she said to herself, gazing at themoving little figure within the great light.

Dangling from his tiny outstretched arm, held by thewebbed toe, head down and feebly flapping its out-sinkingwings, was a bird, a water-fowl. It was a black mud-chickwith a white bar across the under-wing, one of the many darkfowl that bobbed in little flocks along the edge of the sun-stunnedlake.

The urchin marched stiffly down to the water’s edge, holdingthe upside-down bird, that seemed big as an eagle inthe tiny fist. Another brat came scuttling after. Thetwo infant men paddled a yard into the warm, lapping water,under the great light, and gravely stooping, like old men,set the fowl on the water. It floated, but could hardlypaddle. The lift of the ripples moved it. The urchinsdragged it in, like a rag, by a string tied to its leg.

So quiet, so still, so dark, like tiny, chubby little infantmen, the two solemn figures with the rag of a bird!

Kate turned uneasily to her book, her nerves on edge.She heard the splash of a stone. The bird was on thewater, but apparently the string that held it by the leg wastied to a stone. It lay wavering, a couple of yards out.And the two little he-men, with sober steadfastness and aquiet, dark lust, were picking up stones, and throwing themwith the fierce Indian aim at the feebly fluttering bird: rightdown upon it. Like a little warrior stood the mite in the redrag, his arm upraised, to throw the stone with all his mightdown on the tethered bird.

In a whiff, Kate was darting down the beach.

“Ugly boys! Ugly children! Go! Go away, ugly children,ugly boys!” she said on one breath, with quiet intensity.

The round-headed dot gave her one black glance from hismanly eyes, then the two of them scuttled up the beach intoinvisibility.

Kate went into the water, and lifted the wet, warm bird.The bit of coarse fibre-string hung from its limp, greenish,water-fowl’s ankle. It feebly tried to bite her.

She rapidly stepped out of the water and stood in the sun[Pg 232]to unfasten the string. The bird was about as big as apigeon. It lay in her hand with the absolute motionlessnessof a caught wild thing.

Kate stooped and pulled off her shoes and stockings. Shelooked round. No sign of life from the reed huts dark inthe shadow of the trees. She lifted her skirts and staggeredout barefoot in the hot shallows of the water, almost fallingon the cruel stones under the water. The lake-side wasvery shallow. She staggered on and on, in agony, holdingup her skirts in one hand, holding the warm, wet, motionlessbird in the other. Till at last she was up to her knees.Then she launched the greeny-black bird, and gave it a littlepush to the uprearing expanse of filmy water, that wasalmost dim, invisible with the glare of light.

It lay wet and draggled on the pale, moving sperm ofthe water, like a buoyant rag.

“Swim then! Swim!” she said, trying to urge it awayinto the lake.

Either it couldn’t or wouldn’t. Anyhow it didn’t.

But it was out of reach of those urchins. Kate struggledback from those stones, to her tree, to her shade, to herbook, away from the rage of the sun. Silent with slowanger, she kept glancing up at the floating bird, and sidewaysat the reed huts of the Indians in the black shadow.

Yes, the bird was dipping its beak in the water, andshaking its head. It was coming to itself. But it didnot paddle. It let itself be lifted, lifted on the ripples, andthe ripples would drift it ashore.

“Fool of a thing!” said Kate nervously, using all herconsciousness to make it paddle away into the lake.

Two companions, two black dots with white specks offaces, were coming out of the pale glare of the lake. Twomud-chicks swam busily forward. The first swam up andpoked its beak at the inert bird, as if to say Hello! What’sup? Then immediately it turned away and paddled incomplete oblivion to the shore, its companion following.

Kate watched the rag of feathered misery anxiously.Would it not rouse itself, wouldn’t it follow?

No! There it lay, slowly, inertly drifting on the ripples,only sometimes shaking its head.

The other two alert birds waded confidently, busilyamong the stones.

[Pg 233]

Kate read a bit more.

When she looked again, she could not see her bird. Butthe other two were walking among the stones, jauntily.

She read a bit more.

The next thing was a rather loutish youth of eighteen orso, in overall trousers, running with big strides towards thewater, and the stiff little man-brat scuttling after withdetermined bare feet. Her heart stood still.

The two busy mud-chicks rose in flight and went low overthe water into the blare of light. Gone!

But the lout in the big hat and overall trousers and thosestiff Indian shoulders she sometimes hated so much, waspeering among the stones. She, however, was sure her birdhad gone.

No! Actually no! The stiff-shoulder lout stooped andpicked up the damp thing. It had let itself drift back.

He turned, dangling it like a rag from the end of onewing, and handed it to the man-brat. Then he stalkedself-satisfied up the shore.

Ugh! and that moment how Kate hated these people:their terrible lowness, à terre, à terre. Their stiff broadAmerican shoulders, and high chests, and above all, theirwalk, their prancing, insentient walk. As if some motor-enginedrove them at the bottom of their back.

Stooping rather forward and looking at the ground so thathe could turn his eyes sideways to her, without showing herhis face, the lout returned to the shadow of the huts. Andafter him, diminutive, the dot of a man marched stiffly,hurriedly, dangling the wretched bird, that stirred veryfeebly, downwards from the tip of one wing. And fromtime to time turning his round, black-eyed face in Kate’sdirection, vindictively, apprehensively, lest she shouldswoop down on him again. Black, apprehensive maledefiance of the great, white, weird female.

Kate glared back from under her tree.

“If looks would kill you, brat, I’d kill you,” she said.And the urchin turned his face like clockwork at her fromtime to time, as he strutted palpitating towards the gap inthe cane hedge, into which the youth had disappeared.

Kate debated whether to rescue the foolish bird again.But what was the good!

This country would have its victim. America would[Pg 234]have its victim. As long as time lasts, it will be thecontinent divided between Victims and Victimisers. Whatis the good of trying to interfere!

She rose up in detestation of the flabby bird, and of thesulky-faced brat turning his full moon on her in apprehension.

Lumps of women were by the water’s edge. Westwards,down the glare, rose the broken-looking villas and the whitetwin towers of the church, holding up its two fingers inmockery above the scarlet flame-trees and the dark mangoes.She saw the rather lousy shore, and smelt the smell ofMexico, come out in the hot sun after the rains: excrement,human and animal dried in the sun on a dry, dry earth; anddry leaves; and mango leaves; and pure air with a littlerefuse-smoke in it.

“But the day will come when I shall go away,” she saidto herself.

And sitting rocking once more on her verandah, hearingthe clap-clap of tortillas from the far end of the patio, theodd, metallic noises of birds, and feeling the clouds alreadyassembling in the west, with a weight of unborn thunderupon them, she felt she could bear it no more: the vacuity,and the pressure: the horrible uncreate elementality, souncouth, even sun and rain uncouth, uncouth.

And she wondered over the black vision in the eyes of thaturchin. The curious void.

He could not see that the bird was a real living creaturewith a life of its own. This, his race had never seen.With black eyes they stared out on an elemental world,where the elements were monstrous and cruel, as the sunwas monstrous, and the cold, crushing black water of therain was monstrous, and the dry, dry, cruel earth.

And among the monstrosity of the elements flickered andtowered other presences: terrible uncouth things calledgringos, white people, and dressed up monsters of richpeople, with powers like gods, but uncouth, demonish gods.And uncouth things like birds that could fly and snakesthat could crawl and fish that could swim and bite. Anuncouth, monstrous universe of monsters big and little, inwhich man held his own by sheer resistance and guardedness,never, never going forth from his own darkness.

And sometimes, it was good to have revenge on the[Pg 235]monsters that fluttered and strode. The monsters bigand the monsters little. Even the monster of that bird,which had its own monstrous bird-nature. On this themite could wreck the long human vengeance, and for oncebe master.

Blind to the creature as a soft, struggling thing finding itsown fluttering way through life. Seeing only anothermonster of the outer void.

Walking forever through a menace of monsters, blind tothe sympathy in things, holding one’s own, and not givingin, nor going forth. Hence the lifted chests and the prancingwalk. Hence the stiff, insentient spines, the richphysique, and the heavy, dreary natures, heavy like thedark-grey mud-bricks, with a terrible obstinate ponderosityand a dry sort of gloom.

The electric light in Sayula was as inconstant as everythingelse. It would come on at half-past six in theevening, and it might bravely burn till ten at night, whenthe village went dark with a click. But usually it didno such thing. Often it refused to sputter into being tillseven, or half-past, or even eight o’clock. But its worsttrick was that of popping out just in the middle of supper,or just when you were writing a letter. All of a sudden,the black Mexican night came down on you with a thud.And then everybody running blindly for matches andcandles, with a calling of frightened voices. Why werethey always frightened? Then the electric light, like awounded thing, would try to revive, and a red glow wouldburn in the bulbs, sinister. All held their breath—was itcoming or not? Sometimes it expired for good, sometimesit got its breath back and shone, rather dully, but betterthan nothing.

Once the rainy season had set in, it was hopeless. Nightafter night it collapsed. And Kate would sit with herweary, fluttering candle, while blue lightning revealed thedark shapes of things in the patio. And half-seen peoplewent swiftly down to Juana’s end of the patio, secretly.

On such a night Kate sat on her verandah facing thedeepness of the black night. A candle shone in her desertsalon. Now and again she saw the oleanders and thepapaya in the patio garden, by the blue gleam of lightningthat fell with a noiseless splash into the pitch darkness.There was a distant noise of thunders, several storms prowlinground like hungry jaguars, above the lake.

And several times the gate clicked, and crunching stepscame along the gravel, someone passed on the gravel walk,saluting her, going down to Juana’s quarters, where thedull light of a floating oil wick shone through the gratedwindow-hole. Then there was a low, monotonous soundof a voice, reciting or reading. And as the wind blewand the lightning alighted again like a blue bird among[Pg 237]the plants, there would come the sharp noise of the roundcuentas falling from the cuenta tree.

Kate was uneasy and a bit forlorn. She felt somethingwas happening down in the servants’ corner, somethingsecret in the dark. And she was stranded in her isolationon her terrace.

But after all, it was her house, and she had a right toknow what her own people were up to. She rose fromher rocking chair and walked down the verandah and roundthe dining-room bay. The dining-room, which had itsown two doors on the patio, was already locked up.

In the far corner beyond the well, she saw a group sittingon the ground, outside the doorway of Juana’s kitchen-hole.Out of this little kitchen-shed shone the light of thefloating-wick lamp, and a voice was slowly intoning, allthe faces were looking into the dim light, the women dark-hoodedin rebozos, the men with their hats on, theirsarapes over their shoulders.

When they heard Kate’s footsteps, the faces looked herway, and a voice murmured in warning. Juana struggledto her feet.

“It is the Niña!” she said. “Come, then, Niña, youpoor innocent all alone in the evening.”

The men in the group rose to their feet—she recognizedthe young Ezequiel, taking his hat off to her. And therewas Maria del Carmen, the bride. And inside the littleshed, with the wick-lamp on the floor, was Julio, the bridegroomof a few weeks ago. Concha and little Maria werethere, and a couple of strangers.

“I could hear the voice—” said Kate. “I didn’t knowit was you, Julio. How do you do?—And I wondered somuch what it was.”

There was a moment’s dead silence. Then Juanaplunged in.

“Yes, Niña! Come! It’s very nice that you come.Concha, the chair for the Niña!”

Concha got up rather unwillingly, and fetched the littlelow chair which formed Juana’s sole article of furniture,save the one bed.

“I don’t disturb you?” said Kate.

“No, Niña, you are a friend of Don Ramón, verdad?”

“Yes,” said Kate.

[Pg 238]

“And we—we are reading the Hymns.”

“Yes?” said Kate.

“The Hymns of Quetzalcoatl,” said Ezequiel, in his barkingyoung voice, with sudden bravado.

“Do go on! May I listen!”

“You hear! The Niña wants to listen. Read, Julio,read! Read then.”

They all sat down once more on the ground, and Juliosat down by the lamp, but he hung his head, hiding his facein the shadow of his big hat.

“Entonces!—Read then,” said Juana.

“He is afraid,” murmured Maria del Carmen, layingher hand on the young man’s knee. “However, read,Julio! Because the Niña wants to hear.”

And after a moment’s struggle, Julio said in a muffledvoice:

“Do I begin from the beginning.”

“Yes, from the beginning! Read!” said Juana.

The young man took a sheet of paper, like an advertisem*ntleaflet, from under his blanket. At the top it hadthe Quetzalcoatl symbol, called the Eye, the ring with thebird-shape standing in the middle.

He began to read in a rather muffled voice:

“I am Quetzalcoatl with the dark face, who lived inMexico in other days.

“Till there came a stranger from over the seas, and hisface was white, and he spoke with strange words. Heshowed his hands and his feet, that in both there were holes.And he said: ‘My name is Jesus, and they called me Christ.Men crucified me on a Cross till I died. But I rose up outof the place where they put me, and I went up to heavento my Father. Now my Father has told me to come toMexico.’

“Quetzalcoatl said: You alone?

“Jesus said: My mother is here. She shed many tearsfor me, seeing me crucify. So she will hold the Sons ofMexico on her lap, and soothe them when they suffer, andwhen the women of Mexico weep, she will take them on herbosom and comfort them. And when she cries to theFather for her people, He will make everything well.

“Quetzalcoatl said: That is well. And Brother with thename Jesus, what will you do in Mexico?

[Pg 239]

“Jesus said: I will bring peace into Mexico. And onthe naked I will put clothes, and food between the lips ofthe hungry, and gifts in all men’s hands, and peace andlove in their hearts.

“Quetzalcoatl said: It is very good. I am old. I couldnot do so much. I must go now. Farewell, people of Mexico.Farewell, strange brother called Jesus. Farewell, womancalled Mary. It is time for me to go.

“So Quetzalcoatl looked at his people; and he embracedJesus, the Son of Heaven; and he embraced Maria, theBlessed Virgin, the Holy Mother of Jesus, and he turnedaway. Slowly he went. But in his ears was the soundof the tearing down of his temples in Mexico. Neverthelesshe went on slowly, being old, and weary with much living.He climbed the steep of the mountain, and over the whitesnow of the volcano. As he went, behind him rose a cryof people dying, and a flame of places burning. He said tohimself: Surely those are Mexicans crying! Yet I must nothear, for Jesus has come to the land, and he will wipe thetears from all eyes, and his Mother will make them all glad.

“He also said: Surely that is Mexico burning. ButI must not look, for all men will be brothers, now Jesushas come to the land, and the women will sit by the blueskirts of Mary, smiling with peace and with love.

“So the old god reached the top of the mountain, andlooked up into the blue house of heaven. And through adoor in the blue wall he saw a great darkness, and stars anda moon shining. And beyond the darkness he saw one greatstar, like a bright gateway.

“Then fire rose from the volcano around the old Quetzalcoatl,in wings and glittering feathers. And with thewings of fire and the glitter of sparks Quetzalcoatl flew up,up, like a wafting fire, like a glittering bird, up, into thespace, and away to the white steps of heaven, that lead tothe blue walls, where is the door to the dark. So heentered in and was gone.

“Night fell, and Quetzalcoatl was gone, and men in theworld saw only a star travelling back into heaven, departingunder the low branches of darkness.

“Then men in Mexico said: Quetzalcoatl has gone. Evenhis star has departed. We must listen to this Jesus, whospeaks in a foreign tongue.

[Pg 240]

“So they learned a new speech from the priests that camefrom upon the great waters to the east. And they becameChristians.”

Julio, who had become absorbed, ended abruptly, as thetale of the leaflet was ended.

“It is beautiful,” said Kate.

“And it is true!” cried the sceptical Juana.

“It seems to me true,” said Kate.

“Señora!” yelled Concha. “Is it true that heaven isup there, and you come down steps like clouds to theedge of the sky, like the steps from the mole into the lake?Is it true that El Señor comes and stands on the steps andlooks down at us like we look down into the lake to see thecharales?”

Concha shoved up her fierce swarthy face, and shook hermasses of hair, glaring at Kate, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know everything,” laughed Kate. “But itseems to me true.”

“She believes it,” said Concha, turning her face to hermother.

“And is it true,” asked Juana, “that El Señor, ElCristo del Mundo, is a gringo, and that He comes from yourcountry, with His Holy Mother?”

“Not from my country, but from a country near.”

“Listen!” exclaimed Juana, awestruck. “El Señor isa gringito, and His Holy Mother is a gringita. Yes, onereally knows. Look! Look at the feet of the Niña! Purefeet of the Santísima! Look!” Kate was barefoot,wearing sandals with a simple strap across the foot. Juanatouched one of the Niña’s white feet, fascinated. “Feetof the Santísima. And She, the Holy Mary is a gringita.She came over the sea, like you, Niña?”

“Yes, she came over the sea!”

“Ah! You know it?”

“Yes. We know that.”

“Think of it! The Santísima is a gringita, and Shecame over the Sea like the Niña, from the countries of theNiña!” Juana spoke in a wicked wonder, horrified,delighted, mocking.

“And the Lord is a Gringito—pure Gringito?” barkedConcha.

“And Niña—It was the gringos who killed El Señor?[Pg 241]It wasn’t the Mexicans? It was those other gringos whoput Him on the Cross?”

“Yes!” said Kate. “It wasn’t the Mexicans.”

“The gringos?”

“Yes, the gringos.”

“And He Himself was a Gringo?”

“Yes!” said Kate, not knowing what else to say.

“Look!” said Juana, in her hushed, awed, malevolentvoice. “He was a Gringo, and the gringos put him on theCross.”

“But a long time ago,” said Kate hastily.

“A long time ago, says the Niña,” echoed Juana, inher awed voice.

There was a moment of silence. The dark faces of thegirls and men seated on the ground were turned up to Kate,watching her fixedly, in the half light, counting every word.In the outer air, thunder muttered in different places.

“And now, Niña,” came the cool, clear voice of Mariadel Carmen, “El Señor is going back again to His Father,and our Quetzalcoatl is coming back to us?”

“And the Santísima is leaving us?” put in the hurriedvoice of Juana. “Think of it! The Santísima is leavingus, and this Quetzalcoatl is coming! He has no mother,he!”

“Perhaps he has a wife,” said Kate.

“Quien sabe!” murmured Juana.

“They say,” said the bold Concha, “that in Paradisehe has grown young.”

“Who?” asked Juana.

“I don’t know how they call him,” muttered Concha,ashamed to say the word.

“Quetzalcoatl!” said Ezequiel, in his barking strongyoung voice. “Yes, he is young. He is a god in theflower of life, and finely built.”

“They say so! They say so!” murmured Juana.“Think of it!”

“Here it says so!” cried Ezequiel. “Here it is written.In the second Hymn.”

“Read it then, Julio.”

And Julio, now nothing loth, took out a second paper.

“I, Quetzalcoatl, of Mexico, I travelled the longestjourney.

[Pg 242]

“Beyond the blue outer wall of heaven, beyond the brightplace of the Sun, across the plains of darkness where thestars spread out like trees, like trees and bushes, far awayto the heart of all the worlds, low down like the MorningStar.

“And at the heart of all the worlds those were waitingwhose faces I could not see. And in voices like bees theymurmured among themselves: This is Quetzalcoatl whosehair is white with fanning the fires of life. He comesalone, and slowly.

“Then with hands I could not see, they took my hands,and in their arms that I could not see, at last I died.

“But when I was dead, and bone, they cast not my bonesaway, they did not give me up to the four winds, nor to thesix. No, not even to the wind that blows down to themiddle of earth, nor to him that blows upward like a fingerpointing, did they give me.

“He is dead, they said, but unrelinquished.

“So they took the oil of the darkness, and laid it on mybrow and my eyes, they put it in my ears and nostrils andmy mouth, they put it on the two-fold silence of my breasts,and on my sunken navel, and on my secret places, beforeand behind: and in the palms of my hands, and on themounds of my knees, and under the tread of my feet.

“Lastly, they anointed all my head with the oil thatcomes out of the darkness. Then they said: He is sealedup. Lay him away.

“So they laid me in the fountain that bubbles darkly atthe heart of the worlds, far, far behind the sun, and therelay I, Quetzalcoatl, in warm oblivion.

“I slept the great sleep, and dreamed not.

“Till a voice was calling: Quetzalcoatl!

“I said: Who is that?

“No one answered, but the voice said: Quetzalcoatl!

“I said: Where art thou?

“So! he said. I am neither here nor there. I am thyself.Get up.

“Now all was very heavy upon me, like a tomb-stone ofdarkness.

“I said: Am I not old? How shall I roll this stone away?

“How art thou old, when I am new man? I will rollaway the stone. Sit up!

[Pg 243]

“I sat up, and the stone went rolling, crashing down thegulfs of space.

“I said to myself: I am new man. I am younger thanthe young and older than the old. Lo! I am unfolded onthe stem of time like a flower, I am at the midst of theflower of my manhood. Neither do I ache with desire,to tear, to burst the bud; neither do I yearn away like aseed that floats into heaven. The cup of my flowering isunfolded, in its middle the stars float balanced with array.My stem is in the air, my roots are in all the dark, the sunis no more than a cupful within me.

“Lo! I am neither young nor old, I am the flower unfolded,I am new.

“So I rose and stretched my limbs and looked around.The sun was below me in a daze of heat, like a hot humming-birdhovering at mid-day over the worlds. Andhis beak was long and very sharp, he was like a dragon.

“And a faint star was hesitating wearily, waiting topass.

“I called aloud, saying: ‘Who is that?’

“I caught the sun and held him, and in my shade thefaint star slipped past, going slowly into the dark reachesbeyond the burning of the sun. Then on the slope of silencehe sat down and took off his sandals, and I put them on.

“‘How do they wear the wings of love, Jesus, theMexican people?’

“‘The souls of the Mexican people are heavy for thewings of love, they have swallowed the stone of despair.’

“‘Where is your Lady Mother in the mantle of blue, shewith comfort in her lap?’

“‘Her mantle faded in the dust of the world, she wasweary without sleep, for the voices of people cried night[Pg 244]and day, and the knives of the Mexican people were sharperthan the pinions of love, and their stubbornness was strongerthan hope. Lo! the fountain of tears dries up in the eyesof the old, and the lap of the aged is comfortless, they lookfor rest. Quetzalcoatl, Sir, my mother went even beforeme, to her still white bed in the moon.’

“‘She is gone, and thou are gone, Jesus, the Crucified.Then what of Mexico?’

“‘The images stand in their churches, Oh Quetzalcoatl,they don’t know that I and my Mother have departed. Theyare angry souls, Brother, my Lord! They vent theiranger. They broke my Churches, they stole my strengththey withered the lips of the Virgin. They drove us away,and we crept away like a tottering old man and a woman,tearless and bent double with age. So we fled while theywere not looking. And we seek but rest, to forget foreverthe children of men who have swallowed the stone ofdespairs.’

“Then said I: It is good, pass on. I, Quetzalcoatl, willgo down. Sleep thou the sleep without dreams. Farewellat the cross-roads, Brother Jesus.

“He said: Oh, Quetzalcoatl! They have forgotten thee.The feathered snake! The serpent—silent bird! They areasking for none of thee.

“I said: Go thy way, for the dust of earth is in thy eyesand on thy lips. For me the serpent of middle-earth sleepsin my loins and my belly, the bird of the outer air percheson my brow and sweeps her bill across my breast. But I,I am lord of two ways. I am master of up and down. I amas a man who is a new man, with new limbs and life, and thelight of the Morning Star in his eyes. Lo! I am I! Thelord of both ways. Thou wert lord of the one way. Nowit leads thee to the sleep. Farewell!

“So Jesus went on towards the sleep. And Mary theMother of Sorrows lay down on the bed of the white moon,weary beyond any more tears.

“And I, I am on the threshold. I am stepping across theborder. I am Quetzalcoatl, lord of both ways, star betweenday and the dark.”

There was silence as the young man finished reading.

On Saturday afternoons the big black canoes with theirlarge square sails came slowly approaching out of the thinhaze across the lake, from the west, from Tlapaltepec, withbig straw hats and with blankets and earthenware stuff,from Ixtlahuacan and Jaramay and Las Zemas with matsand timber and charcoal and oranges, from Tuliapan andCuxcueco and San Cristobal with boatloads of dark-green,globular water-melons, and piles of red tomatoes, mangoes,vegetables, oranges: and boatloads of bricks and tiles, burntred, but rather friable; then more charcoal, more wood,from the stark dry mountains over the lake.

Kate nearly always went out about five o’clock, onSaturdays, to see the boats, flat-bottomed, drift up to theshallow shores, and begin to unload in the glow of the evening.It pleased her to see the men running along the plankswith the dark-green melons, and piling them in a moundon the rough sand, melons dark-green like creatures with palebellies. To see the tomatoes all poured out into a shallowplace in the lake, bobbing about while the women washedthem, a bobbing scarlet upon the water.

The long, heavy bricks were piled in heaps along the scrapof demolished breakwater, and little gangs of asses cametrotting down the rough beach, to be laden, pressing theirlittle feet in the gravelly sand, and flopping their ears.

The cargadores were busy at the charcoal boats, carryingout the rough sacks.

“Do you want charcoal, Niña?” shouted a grimy cargador,who had carried the trunks from the station on hisback.

“At how much?”

“Twenty-five reales the two sacks.”

“I pay twenty reales.”

“At twenty reales then, Señorita. But you give me tworeales for the transport?”

“The owner pays the transport,” said Kate. “But Iwill give you twenty centavos.”

Away went the man, trotting bare-legged, barefoot, overthe stony ground, with two large sacks of charcoal on his[Pg 246]shoulders. The men carry huge weights, without seemingever to think they are heavy. Almost as if they liked tofeel a huge weight crushing on their iron spines, and to beable to resist it.

Baskets of spring guavas, baskets of sweet lemons calledlimas, baskets of tiny green and yellow lemons, big aswalnuts; orange-red and greenish mangoes, oranges, carrots,cactus fruits in great abundance, a few knobby potatoes,flat, pearl-white onions, little calabasitas and speckled greencalabasitas like frogs, camotes cooked and raw—she lovedto watch the baskets trotting up the beach past the church.

Then, rather late as a rule, big red pots, bulging red ollasfor water-jars, earthenware casseroles and earthenware jugswith cream and black scratched pattern in glaze, bowls, bigflat earthenware discs for cooking tortillas—much earthenware.

On the west shore, men were running up the beach wearingtwelve enormous hats at once, like a trotting pagoda.Men trotting with finely woven huaraches and rough stripsandals. And men with a few dark serapes, with gaudyrose-pink patterns, in a pile on their shoulders.

It was fascinating. But at the same time, there was aheavy, almost sullen feeling on the air. These peoplecame to market to a sort of battle. They came, not forthe joy of selling, but for the sullen contest with those whowanted what they had got. The strange, black resentmentalways present.

By the time the church bells clanged for sunset, themarket had already begun. On all the pavements roundthe plaza squatted the Indians with their wares, pyramidsof green water-melons, arrays of rough earthenware, hatsin piles, pairs of sandals side by side, a great array of fruit,a spread of collar-studs and knick-knacks, called novedades,little trays with sweets. And people arriving all the timeout of the wild country, with laden asses.

Yet never a shout, hardly a voice to be heard. Noneof the animation and the frank wild clamour of a Mediterraneanmarket. Always the heavy friction of the will;always, always, grinding upon the spirit, like the grey-blackgrind of lava-rock.

When dark fell, the vendors lighted their tin torch-lamps,and the flames wavered and streamed as the dark-faced men[Pg 247]squatted on the ground in their white clothes and big hats,waiting to sell. They never asked you to buy. Theynever showed their wares. They didn’t even look at you.It was as if their static resentment and indifference wouldhardly let them sell at all.

Kate sometimes felt the market cheerful and easy. Butmore often she felt an unutterable weight slowly, invisiblysinking on her spirits. And she wanted to run. Shewanted above all, the comfort of Don Ramón and the Hymnsof Quetzalcoatl. This seemed to her the only escape froma world gone ghastly.

There was talk of revolution again, so the market wasuneasy and grinding the black grit into the spirit. Foreign-lookingsoldiers were about, with looped-hats, and knivesand pistols, and savage northern faces: tall, rather thinfigures. They would loiter about in pairs, talking in astrange northern speech, and seeming more alien even thanKate herself.

The food-stalls were brilliantly lighted. Rows of mensat at the plank boards, drinking soup and eating hot foodwith their fingers. The milkman rode in on horseback,his two big cans of milk slung before him, and he madehis way slowly through the people to the food-stalls. There,still sitting unmoved on horseback, he delivered bowls ofmilk from the can in front of him, and then, on horsebacklike a monument, took his supper, his bowl of soup, andhis plate of tamales, or of minced, fiery meat spread ontortillas. The peons drifted slowly round. Guitars weresounding, half-secretly. A motor-car worked its way infrom the city, choked with people, girls, young men, citypapas, children, in a pile.

The rich press of life, above the flare of torches upon theground! The throng of white-clad, big-hatted men circulatingslowly, the women with dark rebozos slipping silently.Dark trees overhead. The doorway of the hotel brightwith electricity. Girls in organdie frocks, white, cherry-red,blue, from the city. Groups of singers singing inwardly.And all the noise subdued, suppressed.

The sense of strange, heavy suppression, the dead blackpower of negation in the souls of the peons. It was almostpitiful to see the pretty, pretty slim girls from Guadalajaragoing round and round, their naked arms linked together,[Pg 248]so light in their gauzy, scarlet, white, blue, orange dresses,looking for someone to look at them, to take note of them.And the peon men only emitting from their souls the blackvapor of negation, that perhaps was hate. They seemed,the natives, to have the power of blighting the air withtheir black, rock-bottom resistance.

Kate almost wept over the slim, eager girls, pretty as ratherpapery flowers, eager for attention, but thrust away,victimised.

Suddenly there was a shot. The market-place was on itsfeet in a moment, scattering, pouring away into the streetsand the shops. Another shot! Kate, from where she stood,saw across the rapidly-emptying plaza a man sitting backon one of the benches, firing a pistol into the air. He wasa lout from the city, and he was half drunk. The peopleknew what it was. Yet any moment he might lower thepistol and start firing at random. Everybody hurriedsilently, melting away, leaving the plaza void.

Two more shots, pap-pap! still into the air. And at thesame moment a little officer in uniform darted out of thedark street where the military station was, and where nowthe big hats were piled on the ground; he rushed straight tothe drunkard, who was spreading his legs and waving thepistol: and before you could breathe, slap! and again slap!He had slapped the pistol-firer first on one side of the face,then on the other, with slaps that resounded almost likeshots. And in the same breath he seized the arm that heldthe pistol and wrested the weapon away.

Two of the strange soldiers instantly rushed up andseized the man by the arms. The officer spoke two words,they saluted and marched off their prisoner.

Instantly the crowd was ebbing back into the plaza, unconcerned.Kate sat on a bench with her heart beating.She saw the prisoner pass under a lamp, streaks of bloodon his cheek. And Juana, who had fled, now came scuttlingback and took Kate’s hand, saying:

“Look! Niña! It is the General!”

She rose startled to her feet. The officer was salutingher.

“Don Cipriano!” she said.

“The same!” he replied. “Did that drunken fellowfrighten you?”

[Pg 249]

“Not much! Only startled me. I didn’t feel anyevil intention behind it.”

“No, only drunk.”

“But I shall go home now.”

“Shall I walk with you?”

“Would you care to?”

He took his place at her side, and they turned down bythe church, to the lake shore. There was a moon abovethe mountain and the air was coming fresh, not too strong,from the west. From the Pacific. Little lights wereburning ruddy by the boats at the water’s edge, some outside,and some inside, under the roof-tilt of the boat’slittle inward shed. Women were preparing a mouthfulof food.

“But the night is beautiful,” said Kate, breathing deep.

“With the moon clipped away just a little,” he said.

Juana was following close on her heels: and behind, twosoldiers in slouched hats.

“Do the soldiers escort you?” she said.

“I suppose so,” said he.

“But the moon,” she said, “isn’t lovely and friendlyas it is in England or Italy.”

“It is the same planet,” he replied.

“But the moonshine in America isn’t the same. Itdoesn’t make one feel glad as it does in Europe. Onefeels it would like to hurt one.”

He was silent for some moments. Then he said:

“Perhaps there is in you something European, whichhurts our Mexican Moon.”

“But I come in good faith.”

“European good faith. Perhaps it is not the same asMexican.”

Kate was silent, almost stunned.

“Fancy your Mexican moon objecting to me!” shelaughed ironically.

“Fancy your objecting to our Mexican moon!” said he.

“I wasn’t,” said she.

They came to the corner of Kate’s road. At the cornerwas a group of trees, and under the trees, behind thehedge, several reed huts. Kate often laughed at the donkeylooking over the dry-stone low wall, and at the black sheepwith curved horns, tied to a bitten tree, and at the lad,[Pg 250]naked but for a bit of a shirt, fleeing into the corner underthe thorn screen.

Kate and Cipriano sat on the verandah of the House ofthe Cuentas. She offered him vermouth, but he refused.

They were still. There came the faint pip!-pip! fromthe little electric plant just up the road, which Jesústended. Then a co*ck from beyond the bananas crowedpowerfully and hoarsely.

“But how absurd!” said Kate. “co*cks don’t crow atthis hour.”

“Only in Mexico,” laughed Cipriano.

“Yes! Only here!”

“He thinks your moon is the sun, no?” he said, teasingher.

The co*ck crowed powerfully, again and again.

“This is very nice, your house, your patio,” saidCipriano.

But Kate was silent.

“Or don’t you like it?” he said.

“You see,” she answered, “I have nothing to do! Theservants won’t let me do anything. If I sweep my room,they stand and say Que Niña! Que Niña! As if I wasstanding on my head for their benefit. I sew, though I’veno interest in sewing.—What is it, for a life?”

“And you read!” he said, glancing at the magazines andbooks.

“Ah, it is all such stupid, lifeless stuff, in the books andpapers,” she said.

There was a silence. After which he said:

“But what would you like to do? As you say, youtake no interest in sewing. You know the Navajo women,when they weave a blanket, leave a little place for theirsoul to come out, at the end: not to weave their soul intoit.—I always think England has woven her soul into herfabrics, into all the things she has made. And she neverleft a place for it to come out. So now all her soul is inher goods, and nowhere else.”

“But Mexico has no soul,” said Kate. “She’sswallowed the stone of despair, as the hymn says.”

“Ah! You think so? I think not. The soul is alsoa thing you make, like a pattern in a blanket. It is very[Pg 251]nice while all the wools are rolling their different threadsand different colours, and the pattern is being made. Butonce it is finished—then finished it has no interest anymore. Mexico hasn’t started to weave the pattern of hersoul. Or she is only just starting: with Ramón. Don’tyou believe in Ramón?”

Kate hesitated before she answered.

“Ramón, yes! I do! But whether it’s any good tryinghere in Mexico, as he is trying—” she said slowly.

“He is in Mexico. He tries here. Why should notyou?”

“I?”

“Yes! You! Ramón doesn’t believe in womanlessgods, he says. Why should you not be the woman in theQuetzalcoatl pantheon? If you will, the goddess!”

“I, a goddess in the Mexican pantheon?” cried Kate,with a burst of startled laughter.

“Why not?” said he.

“But I am not Mexican,” said she.

“You may easily be a goddess,” said he, “in the samepantheon with Don Ramón and me.”

A strange, inscrutable flame of desire seemed to be burningon Cipriano’s face, as his eyes watched her glittering.Kate could not help feeling that it was a sort of intense,blind ambition, of which she was partly an object: apassionate object also: which kindled the Indian to thehottest pitch of his being.

“But I don’t feel like a goddess in a Mexican pantheon,”she said. “Mexico is a bit horrible to me. Don Ramón iswonderful: but I’m so afraid they will destroy him.”

“Come, and help to prevent it.”

“How?”

“You marry me. You complain you have nothing todo. Then marry me. Marry me, and help Ramón and me.We need a woman, Ramón says, to be with us. And youare the woman. There is a great deal to do.”

“But can’t I help without marrying anybody?” saidKate.

“How can you?” he said simply.

And she knew it was true.

“But you see,” she said, “I have no impulse to marryyou, so how can I?”

[Pg 252]

“Why?” he said.

“You see, Mexico is really a bit horrible to me. Andthe black eyes of the people really make my heart contract,and my flesh shrink. There’s a bit of horror in it. AndI don’t want horror in my soul.”

He was silent and unfathomable. She did not knowin the least what he was thinking, only a black cloudseemed over him.

“Why not?” he said at last. “Horror is real. Whynot a bit of horror, as you say, among all the rest?”

He gazed at her with complete, glittering earnestness,something heavy upon her.

“But——” she stammered in amazement.

“You feel a bit of horror for me too—But why not?Perhaps I feel a bit of horror for you too, for your light-colouredeyes and your strong white hands. But that isgood.”

Kate looked at him in amazement. And all she wantedwas to flee, to flee away beyond the bounds of this gruesomecontinent.

“Get used to it,” he said. “Get used to it that theremust be a bit of fear, and a bit of horror in your life. Andmarry me, and you will find many things that are nothorror. The bit of horror is like the sesame seed in thenougat, it gives the sharp wild flavour. It is good tohave it there.”

He sat watching her with black, glittering eyes, andtalking with strange, uncanny reason. His desireseemed curiously impersonal, physical, and yet not personalat all. She felt as if, for him, she had some other name,she moved within another species. As if her name were,for example, Itzpapalotl, and she had been born in unknownplaces, and was a woman unknown to herself.

Yet surely, surely he was only putting his will overher?

She was breathless with amazement, because he hadmade her see the physical possibility of marrying him: athing she had never even glimpsed before. But surely,surely it would not be herself who could marry him. Itwould be some curious female within her, whom she didnot know and did not own.

He was emanating a dark, exultant sort of passion.

[Pg 253]

“I can’t believe,” she said, “that I could do it.”

“Do it,” he said. “And then you will know.”

She shuddered slightly, and went indoors for a wrap.She came out again in a silk Spanish shawl, brown, butdeeply embroidered in silver-coloured silk. She tangledher fingers nervously in the long brown fringe.

Really, he seemed sinister to her, almost repellant. Yetshe hated to think that she merely was afraid: that shehad not the courage. She sat with her head bent, thelight falling on her soft hair and on the heavy, silvery-colouredembroidery of her shawl, which she wrappedround her tight, as the Indian women do their rebozos.And his black eyes watched her, and watched the richshawl, with a peculiar intense glitter. The shawl, too,fascinated him.

“Well!” he said suddenly. “When shall it be?”

“What?” she said, glancing up into his black eyes withreal fear.

“The marriage.”

She looked at him, almost hypnotised with amazementthat he should have gone so far. And even now, she hadnot the power to make him retreat.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Will you say in August? On the first of August?”

“I won’t say any time,” she said.

Suddenly the black gloom and anger of the Indians cameover it. Then again he shook it off, with a certain callousindifference.

“Will you come to Jamiltepec to-morrow to seeRamón?” he asked. “He wants to speak with you.”

Kate also wanted to see Ramón: she always did.

“Shall I?” she said.

“Yes! Come with me in the morning in the automobile.Yes?”

“I would like to see Don Ramón again,” she said.

“You are not afraid of him, eh? Not the bit of horror,eh?” he said, smiling peculiarly.

“No. But Don Ramón isn’t really Mexican,” she said.

“Not really Mexican?”

“No!—He feels European.”

“Really! To me he is—Mexico.”

She paused and gathered herself together.

[Pg 254]

“I will row in a boat to Jamiltepec to-morrow, or I willtake Alonso’s motor-boat. I will come about ten o’clock.”

“Very good!” said Cipriano, rising to leave.

When he had gone, she heard the sound of the drumfrom the plaza. It would be another meeting of the menof Quetzalcoatl. But she had not the desire nor thecourage to set out afresh that day.

Instead, she went to bed, and lay breathing the innerdarkness. Through the window-cracks she saw the whitenessof the moon, and through the walls she heard thesmall pulse of the drum. And it all oppressed her andmade her afraid. She lay forming plans to escape. Shemust escape. She would hurriedly pack her trunks anddisappear: perhaps take the train to Manzanillo, on thecoast, and thence sail up to California, to Los Angelesor to San Francisco. Suddenly escape, and flee away toa white man’s country, where she could once more breathefreely. How good it would be!—Yes, this was what shewould do.

The night grew late, the drum ceased, she heardEzequiel come home and lie down on the mattress outsideher door. The only sound was the hoarse crowing of co*cksin the moonlit night. And in her room, like someonestriking a match, came the greenish light of a firefly, intermittent,now here, now there.

Thoroughly uneasy and cowed, she went to sleep. Butthen she slept deeply.

And curiously enough, she awoke in the morning witha new feeling of strength. It was six o’clock, the sun wasmaking yellow pencils through her shutter-cracks. Shethrew open her window to the street, and looked throughthe iron grating at the little lane with deep shadow underthe garden wall, and above the wall, banana leaves frayingtranslucent green, and shaggy mops of palm-treesperching high, towards the twin white tower-tips of thechurch, crowned by the Greek cross with four equalarms.

In the lane it was already motion: big cows marchingslowly to the lake, under the bluish shadow of the wall, anda small calf, big-eyed and adventurous, trotting aside togaze through her gate at the green watered grass and theflowers. The silent peon, following, lifted his two arms with[Pg 255]a sudden swoop upwards, noiselessly, and the calf careeredon. Only the sound of the feet of calves.

Then two boys vainly trying to urge a young bull-calf tothe lake. It kept on jerking up its sharp rump, and givingdry little kicks, from which the boys ran away. Theypushed its shoulder, and it butted them with its blunt younghead. They were in the state of semi-frenzied bewildermentwhich the Indians fall into when they are opposed andfrustrated. And they took the usual recourse of running toa little distance, picking up heavy stones, and hurling themviciously at the animal.

“No!” cried Kate from her window. “Don’t throwstones. Drive it sensibly!”

They started as if the skies had opened, dropped theirstones, and crept very much diminished after the see-sawingbull-calf.

An ancient crone appeared at the window with a plateof chopped-up young cactus leaves, for three centavos.Kate didn’t like cactus vegetable, but she bought it. Anold man was thrusting a young co*ckerel through thewindow-bars.

“Go,” said Kate, “into the patio.”

And she shut her window on the street, for the invasionhad begun.

But it had only changed doors.

“Niña! Niña!” came Juana’s voice. “Says the oldman that you buy this chicken?”

“At how much?” shouted Kate, slipping on a dressinggown.

“At ten reales.”

“Oh, No!” said Kate, flinging open her patio doors,and appearing in her fresh wrap of pale pink cotton crêpe,embroidered with heavy white flowers. “Not more thana peso!”

“A peso and ten centavos!” pleaded the old man,balancing the staring-eyed red co*ck between his hands.“He is nice and fat, Señorita. See!”

And he held out the co*ck for Kate to take it and balanceit between her hands, to try its weight. She motionedto him to hand it to Juana. The red co*ck fluttered, andsuddenly crowed in the transfer. Juana balanced him,and made a grimace.

[Pg 256]

“No, only a peso!” said Kate.

The man gave a sudden gesture of assent, received thepeso, and disappeared like a shadow. Concha lurchedup and took the co*ck, and instantly she bawled in derision:

“Está muy flaco! He is very thin.”

“Put him in the pen,” said Kate. “We’ll let himgrow.”

The patio was liquid with sunshine and shadows.Ezequiel had rolled up his mattress and gone. Greatrose-coloured hibiscus dangled from the tips of their boughs,there was a faint scent from the half-wild, creamy roses.The great mango trees were most sumptuous in themorning, like cliffs, with their hard green fruits droppinglike the organs of some animal from the new bronze leaves,so curiously heavy with life.

“Está muy flaco!” the young Concha was bawling stillin derision as she bore off the young co*ck to the pen underthe banana trees. “He’s very scraggy.”

Everybody watched intent while the red co*ck was putin among the few scraggy fowls. The grey co*ck, elder,retreated to the far end of the pen, and eyed the newcomerwith an eye of thunder. The red co*ck, muy flaco,stood diminished in a dry corner. Then suddenly hestretched himself and crowed shrilly, his red gills liftedlike an aggressive beard. And the grey co*ck stirred around,preparing the thunders of his vengeance. The hens tooknot the slightest notice.

Kate laughed, and went back to her room to dress, inthe powerful newness of the morning. Outside her windowthe women were passing quietly, the red water-jar on oneshoulder, going to the lake for water. They always putone arm over their head, and held the jar on the othershoulder. It had a contorted look, different from theproud way the women carried water in Sicily.

“Niña! Niña!” Juana was crying outside.

“Wait a minute,” said Kate.

It was another of the hymn-sheets, with a Hymn ofQuetzalcoatl.

“See, Niña, the new hymn from last evening.”

Kate took the leaflet and sat upon her bed to read it.

[Pg 257]

Quetzalcoatl Looks Down on Mexico.

Kate read this long leaflet again, and again, and a swiftdarkness like a whirlwind seemed to envelop the morning.She drank her coffee on the verandah, and the heavypapayas in their grouping seemed to be oozing like greatdrops from the invisible spouting of the fountain of non-humanlife. She seemed to see the great sprouting andurging of the cosmos, moving into weird life. And menonly like green-fly clustering on the tender tips, an aberrationthere. So monstrous the rolling and unfolding ofthe life of the cosmos, as if even iron could grow likelichen deep in the earth, and cease growing, and prepareto perish. Iron and stone render up their life, when thehour comes. And men are less than the green-fly suckingthe stems of the bush, so long as they live by businessand bread alone. Parasites on the face of the earth.

She strayed to the shore. The lake was blue in themorning light, the opposite mountains pale and dry andribbed like mountains in the desert. Only at their feet,next the lake, the dark strip of trees and white specks ofvillages.

Near her against the light five cows stood with theirnoses to the water drinking. Women were kneeling onthe stones, filling red jars. On forked sticks stuck up[Pg 261]on the foreshore, frail fishing nets were hung out, drying,and on the nets a small bird sat facing the sun; he wasred as a drop of new blood, from the arteries of the air.

From the straw huts under the trees, her urchin of themud-chick was scuttling towards her, clutching somethingin his fist. He opened his hand to her, and on the palmlay three of the tiny cooking-pots, the ollitas which thenatives had thrown into the water long ago, to the gods.

“Muy chiquitas!” he said, in his brisk way, a little,fighting tradesman; “do you buy them?”

“I have no money. To-morrow!” said Kate.

“To-morrow!” he said, like a pistol shot.

“To-morrow.”

He had forgiven her, but she had not forgiven him.

Somebody in the fresh Sunday morning was singingrather beautifully, letting the sound, as it were, produceitself.

A boy was prowling with a sling, prowling like a cat, toget the little birds. The red bird like a drop of new bloodtwittered upon the almost invisible fish-nets, then in a flashwas gone. The boy prowled under the delicate green ofthe willow trees, stumbling over the great roots in thesand.

Along the edge of the water flew four dark birds, theirnecks pushed out, skimming silent near the silent surfaceof the lake, in a jagged level rush.

Kate knew these mornings by the lake. They hypnotisedher almost like death. Scarlet birds like drops ofblood, in very green willow trees. The aquador trottingto her house with a pole over his shoulder, and two heavysquare gasoline cans, one at each end of the pole, filledwith hot water. He had been to the hot spring for herdaily supply. Now barefoot, with one bare leg, the youngman trotted softly beneath the load, his dark, handsomeface sunk beneath the shadows of the big hat, as he trottedin a silence, mindlessness that was like death.

Dark heads out on the water in little groups, like blackwater-fowl bobbing. Were they birds? Were they heads?Was this human life, or something intermediate, that liftedits orange, wet, glistening shoulders a little out of the lake,beneath the dark head?

She knew so well what the day would be. Slowly the[Pg 262]sun thickening and intensifying in the air overhead. Andslowly the electricity clotting invisibly as afternoonapproached. The beach in the blind heat, strewn withrefuse, smelling of refuse and the urine of creatures.

Everything going vague in the immense sunshine, as theair invisibly thickened, and Kate could feel the electricitypressing like hot iron on the back of her head. It stupefiedher like morphine. Meanwhile the clouds rose likewhite trees from behind the mountains, as the afternoonswooned in silence, rose and spread black branches, quickly,in the sky, from which the lightning stabbed like birds.

And in the midst of the siesta stupor, the sudden roundbolts of thunder, and the crash and the chill of rain.

Tea-time, and evening coming. The last sailing-boatsmaking to depart, waiting for the wind. The wind wasfrom the west, the boats going east and south had gone,their sails were lapsing far away on the lake. But theboats towards the west were waiting, waiting, while thewater rattled under their black, flat keels.

The big boat from Tlapaltepec, bringing many peoplefrom the west, waited on into the night. She was anchoreda few yards out, and in the early night her passengerscame down the dark beach, weary of the day, to goon board. They clustered in a group at the edge of theflapping water.

The big, wide, flat-bottomed canoe, with her woodenawning and her one straight mast lay black, a few yardsout, in the dark night. A lamp was burning under thewooden roof; one looked in, from the shore. And this washome for the passengers.

A short man with trousers rolled up came to carry thepeople on board. The men stood with their backs to him,legs apart. He suddenly dived at them, ducked his headbetween the fork of their legs, and rose, with a man on hisshoulders. So he waded out through the water to the blackboat, and heaved his living load on board.

For a woman, he crouched down before her, and she saton one of his shoulders. He clasped her legs with his rightarm, she clasped his dark head. So he carried her to theship, as if she were nothing.

Soon the boat was full of people. They sat on the matsof the floor, with their backs to the sides of the vessel,[Pg 263]baskets hanging from the pent roof, swaying as the vesselswayed. Men spread their serapes and curled up to sleep.The light of the lantern lit them up, as they sat and lay,and slept, or talked in murmurs.

A little woman came up out of the darkness; thensuddenly ran back again. She had forgotten something.But the vessel would not sail without her, for the windwould not change yet.

The tall mast stood high, the great sail lay in foldsalong the roof, ready. Under the roof, the lanternswayed, the people slept and stretched. Probably theywould not sail till midnight. Then down the lake toTlapaltepec, with its reeds at the end of the lake, and itsdead, dead plaza, its dead dry houses of black adobe, itsruined streets, its strange, buried silence, like Pompeii.

Kate knew it. So strange and deathlike, it frightenedher, and mystified her.

But to-day! To-day she would not loiter by the shoreall morning. She must go to Jamiltepec in a motor-boat,to see Ramón. To talk to him even about marryingCipriano.

Ah, how could she marry Cipriano, and give her body tothis death? Take the weight of this darkness on herbreast, the heaviness of this strange gloom. Die beforedying, and pass away whilst still beneath the sun?

Ah no! Better to escape to the white men’s lands.

But she went to arrange with Alonso for the motor-boat.

The President of the Republic, as a new broom, hadbeen sweeping perhaps a little too clean for the commonliking, so there was a “rebellion.” It was not a verylarge one. But it meant, of course, banditry, robbery,and cowed villages.

Ramón was determined to keep free from the taint ofpolitics. But already the Church, and with the Church,the Knights of Cortes and a certain “black” faction, waspreparing against him. The priests began to denouncehim from the pulpits—but not very loudly—as an ambitiousAnti-Christ. With Cipriano beside him, however,and with Cipriano the army of the west, he had not muchto fear.

But it was possible Cipriano would have to march awayin defence of the government.

“Above all things,” said Ramón, “I don’t want toacquire a political smell. I don’t want to be pushed inthe direction of any party. Unless I can stand uncontaminated,I had better abandon everything. But theChurch will push me over to the socialists—and thesocialists will betray me on the first opportunity. It isnot myself. It is the new spirit. The surest way to killit—and it can be killed, like any other living thing—is toget it connected with any political party.”

“Why don’t you see the Bishop?” said Cipriano. “Iwill see him too. Am I to be chief of the division in thewest, for nothing?”

“Yes,” said Ramón slowly. “I will see Jimenez. Ihave thought of it. Yes, I intend to use every means inmy power.—Montes will stand for us, because he hates theChurch and hates any hint of dictation from outside. Hesees the possibility of a ‘national’ church. Though myself,I don’t care about national churches. Only one hasto speak the language of one’s own people. You knowthe priests are forbidding the people to read the Hymns?”

“What does that matter?” said Cipriano. “Thesepeople are nothing if not perverse, nowadays. They willread them all the more.”

[Pg 265]

“Maybe!—I shall take no notice. I’ll let my newlegend, as they call it, grow while the earth is moist. Butwe have to keep our eye very close on all the little bunchesof ‘interests’.”

“Ramón!” said Cipriano. “If you can turn Mexicoentirely into a Quetzalcoatl country, what then?”

“I shall be First Man of Quetzalcoatl—I know no more.”

“You won’t trouble about the rest of the world?”

Ramón smiled. Already he saw in Cipriano’s eye thegleam of a Holy War.

“I would like,” he said smiling, “to be one of theInitiates of the Earth. One of the Initiators. Everycountry its own Saviour, Cipriano: or every people its ownSaviour. And the First Men of every people, forming aNatural Aristocracy of the World. One must have aristocrats,that we know. But natural ones, not artificial. Andin some way the world must be organically united: theworld of man. But in the concrete, not in the abstract.Leagues and Covenants and International Programmes.Ah! Cipriano! it’s like an international pestilence.The leaves of one great tree can’t hang on theboughs of another great tree. The races of theearth are like trees, in the end they neither mix normingle. They stand out of each other’s way, like trees.Or else they crowd on one another, and their roots grapple,and it is the fight to the death.—Only from the flowers thereis commingling. And the flowers of every race are thenatural aristocrats of that race. And the spirit of theworld can fly from flower to flower, like a humming bird,and slowly fertilise the great trees in their blossoms. Onlythe Natural Aristocrats can rise above their nation; andeven then they do not rise beyond their race. Only theNatural Aristocrats of the World can be international, orcosmopolitan, or cosmic. It has always been so. Thepeoples are no more capable of it, than the leaves of themango tree are capable of attaching themselves to the pine.—Soif I want Mexicans to learn the name of Quetzalcoatl,it is because I want them to speak with the tongues of theirown blood. I wish the Teutonic world would once morethink in terms of Thor and Wotan, and the tree Igdrasil.And I wish the Druidic world would see, honestly, that inthe mistletoe is their mystery, and that they themselves[Pg 266]are the Tuatha De Danaan, alive, but submerged. And anew Hermes should come back to the Mediterranean, anda new Ashtaroth to Tunis; and Mithras again to Persia,and Brahma unbroken to India, and the oldest of dragonsto China. Then I, Cipriano, I, First Man of Quetzalcoatl,with you, First Man of Huitzilopochtli, and perhaps yourwife, First Woman of Itzpapalotl, could we not meet, withsure souls, the other great aristocrats of the world, theFirst Man of Wotan and the First Woman of Freya, FirstLord of Hermes, and the Lady of Astarte, the Best-Bornof Brahma, and the Son of the Greatest Dragon? I tellyou, Cipriano, then the earth might rejoice, when the FirstLords of the West met the First Lords of South and East,in the Valley of the Soul. Ah, the earth has Valleys of theSoul, that are not cities of commerce and industry. Andthe mystery is one mystery, but men must see it differently.The hibiscus and the thistle and the gentian all flower onthe Tree of Life, but in the world they are far apart; andmust be. And I am hibiscus and you are a yucca flower,and your Caterina is a wild daffodil, and my Carlota is awhite pansy. Only four of us, yet we make a curiousbunch. So it is. The men and women of the earth are notmanufactured goods, to be interchangeable. But the Treeof Life is one tree, as we know when our souls open in thelast blossoming. We can’t change ourselves, and we don’twant to. But when our souls open out in the final blossoming,then as blossoms we share one mystery with allblossoms, beyond the knowledge of any leaves and stemsand roots: something transcendent.

“But it doesn’t matter. At the present time I have tofight my way in Mexico, and you have to fight yours. Solet us go and do it.”

He went away to his workshops and his men who werelabouring under his directions, while Cipriano sat down tohis correspondence, and his military planning.They were both interrupted by the thudding of a motor-boatentering the little bay. It was Kate, escorted by theblack-scarved Juana.

Ramón, in his white clothes with the blue-and-blackfigured sash, and the big hat with the turquoise-inlaid Eyeof Quetzalcoatl, went down to meet her. She was in white,too, with a green hat and the shawl of pale yellow silk.

[Pg 267]

“I was so glad to come again,” she said, holding outher hand to him. “Jamiltepec has become a sort of Meccato me, my inside yearns for it.”

“Then why don’t you come oftener? I wish you wouldcome.”

“I am afraid of intruding.”

“No! You could help if you would.”

“Oh!” she said. “I am so frightened, and so scepticalof big undertakings. I think it is because, at the verybottom of me, I dislike the masses of people—anywhere.I’m afraid I rather despise people; I don’t want them totouch me, and I don’t want to touch them.—So how couldI pretend to join any—any—any sort of Salvation Army?—whichis a horrid way of putting it.”

Don Ramón laughed.

“I do myself,” he said. “I detest and despise massesof people. But these are my own people.”

“I, ever since I was a child, since I can remember.—Theysay of me, when I was a little girl of four, and myparents were having a big dinner party, they had the nursebring me in to say good-night to all the people they hadthere dressed up and eating and drinking. And I supposethey all said nice things to me, as they do. I onlyanswered: You are all monkeys! It was a great success!—ButI felt it even as a child, and I feel it now. People areall monkeys to me, performing in different ways.”

“Even the people nearest you?”

Kate hesitated. Then she confessed, rather unwillingly:

“Yes! I’m afraid so. Both my husbands—evenJoachim—they seemed, somehow, so obstinate in theirlittle stupidities—rather like monkeys. I felt a terriblerevulsion from Joachim when he was dead. I thought:What peaked monkey is that, that I have been losing myblood about.—Do you think it’s rather awful?”

“I do! But then I think we all feel like that, atmoments. Or we would if we dared. It’s only one ofour moments.”

“Sometimes,” said she, “I think that is my permanentfeeling towards people. I like the world, the sky and theearth and the greater mystery beyond. But people—yes,they are all monkeys to me.”

He could see that, at the bottom of her soul, it was true.

[Pg 268]

“Puras monas!” he said to himself in Spanish. “Y loque hacen, puras monerias.”

“Pure monkeys! And the things they do, sheer monkeydom!”Then he added: “Yet you have children!”

“Yes! Yes!” she said, struggling with herself. “Myfirst husband’s children.”

“And they?—monas y no mas?”

“No!” she said, frowning and looking angry with herself.“Only partly.”

“It is bad,” he said, shaking his head. “But then!”he added.—“What are my own children to me, but littlemonkeys? And their mother—and their mother—Ah, no!Señora Caterina! It is no good. One must be able to disentangleoneself from persons, from people. If I go to arose-bush, to be intimate with it, it is a nasty thing thathurts me. One must disentangle oneself from persons andpersonalities, and see people as one sees the trees in thelandscape. People in some way dominate you. In someway, humanity dominates your consciousness. So you musthate people and humanity, and you want to escape. Butthere is only one way of escape: to turn beyond them, tothe greater life.”

“But I do!” cried Kate. “I do nothing else. WhenI was with Joachim absolutely alone in a cottage, doing allthe work myself, and knowing nobody at all, just living,and feeling the greater thing all the time; then I was free,I was happy.”

“But he?” said Ramón. “Was he free and happy?”

“He was really. But that’s where the monkeyishnesscomes in. He wouldn’t let himself be content. He insistedon having people and a cause, just to torture himself with.”

“Then why didn’t you live in your cottage quite alone,and without him?” he said. “Why do you travel, andsee people?”

She was silent, very angry. She knew she could not livequite alone. The vacuity crushed her. She needed a manthere, to stop the gap, and to keep her balanced. But evenwhen she had him, in her heart of hearts she despised him,as she despised the dog and the cat. Between herself andhumanity there was the bond of subtle, helpless antagonism.

She was naturally quite free-handed and she left peopletheir liberty. Servants would get attached to her, and casual[Pg 269]people all liked and admired her. She had a strong life-flowof her own, and a certain assertive joie de vivre.

But underneath it all was the unconquerable dislike,almost disgust of people. More than hate, it was disgust.Whoever it was, wherever it was, however it was, after alittle while this disgust overcame her. Her mother, herfather, her sisters, her first husband, even her children whomshe loved, and Joachim, for whom she had felt such passionatelove, even these, being near her, filled her with acertain disgust and repulsion after a little while, and shelonged to fling them down the great and final oubliette.

But there is no great and final oubliette: or at least, itis never final, until one has flung oneself down.

So it was with Kate. Till she flung herself down the lastdark oubliette of death, she would never escape from herdeep, her bottomless disgust with human beings. Brief contactswere all right, thrilling even. But close contacts, orlong contacts, were short and long revulsions of violentdisgust.

She and Ramón had sat down on a bench under the white-floweringoleander of the garden downstairs. His face wasimpassive and still. In the stillness, with a certain painand nausea, he realised the state she was in, and realisedthat his own state, as regards personal people, was thesame. Mere personal contact, mere human contact filledhim, too, with disgust. Carlota disgusted him. Kate herselfdisgusted him. Sometimes, Cipriano disgusted him.

But this was because, or when, he met them on a merelyhuman, personal plane. To do so was disaster; it filled himwith disgust of them and loathing of himself.

He had to meet them on another plane, where the contactwas different; intangible, remote, and without intimacy.His soul was concerned elsewhere. So that the quick ofhim need not be bound to anybody. The quick of a manmust turn to God alone: in some way or other.

With Cipriano he was most sure. Cipriano and he, evenwhen they embraced each other with passion, when theymet after an absence, embraced in the recognition of eachother’s eternal and abiding loneliness; like the MorningStar.

But women would not have this. They wanted intimacy—andintimacy means disgust. Carlota wanted to be[Pg 270]eternally and closely identified with Ramón, consequentlyshe hated him and hated everything which she thoughtdrew him away from this eternal close identification withherself. It was just a horror, and he knew it.

Men and women should know that they cannot, absolutely,meet on earth. In the closest kiss, the dearesttouch, there is the small gulf which is none the less completebecause it is so narrow, so nearly non-existent. Theymust bow and submit in reverence, to the gulf. Eventhough I eat the body and drink the blood of Christ,Christ is Christ and I am I, and the gulf is impassable.Though a woman be dearer to a man than his own life,yet he is he and she is she, and the gulf can never closeup. Any attempt to close it is a violation, and the crimeagainst the Holy Ghost.

That which we get from the beyond, we get it alone. Thefinal me I am, comes from the farthest off, from the MorningStar. The rest is assembled. All that of me which isassembled from the mighty cosmos can meet and touchall that is assembled in the beloved. But this is neverthe quick. Never can be.

If we would meet in the quick, we must give up theassembled self, the daily I, and putting off ourselves oneafter the other, meet unconscious in the Morning Star.Body, soul and spirit can be transfigured into the MorningStar. But without transfiguration we shall never get there.We shall gnash at the leash.

Ramón knew what it was to gnash at his leashes. Hehad gnashed himself almost to pieces, before he had foundthe way to pass out in himself, in the quick of himself, tothe Quick of all being and existence, which he called theMorning Star, since men must give all things names. Topass in the quick of himself, with transfiguration, to theMorning Star, and there, there alone meet his fellow man.

He knew what it was to fail even now, and to keep onfailing. With Carlota he failed absolutely. She claimedhim and he restrained himself in resistance. Even his verynaked breast, when Carlota was there, was self-consciousand assertively naked. But then that was because sheclaimed it as her property.

When men meet at the quick of all things, they areneither naked nor clothed; in the transfiguration they are[Pg 271]just complete, they are not seen in part. The final perfectstrength has also the power of innocence.

Sitting on the seat beside Kate, Ramón was sad with thesense of heaviness and inadequacy. His third Hymn wasangry and bitter. Carlota almost embittered his soul. InMexico, turbulent fellows had caught at his idea and burlesquedit. They had invaded one of the churches of thecity, thrown out the sacred images, and hung in theirplace the grotesque papier-mâché Judas figures which theMexicans explode at Easter time. This of course made ascandal. And Cipriano, whenever he was away on his ownfor some time, slipped back into the inevitable MexicanGeneral, fascinated by the opportunity for furthering hisown personal ambition and imposing his own personal will.Then came Kate, with this centre of sheer repudiation deepin the middle of her, the will to explode the world.

He felt his spirits sinking again, his limbs going like lead.There is only one thing that a man really wants to do, allhis life; and that is, to find his way to his God, his MorningStar, and be alone there. Then afterwards, in the MorningStar, salute his fellow man, and enjoy the woman who hascome the long way with him.

But to find the way, far, far along, to the bright Quickof all things, this is difficult, and required all a man’sstrength and courage, for himself. If he breaks a trailalone, it is terrible. But if every hand pulls at him, tostay him in the human places; if the hands of love dragat his entrails and the hands of hate seize him by the hair,it becomes almost impossible.

This was how Ramón felt at the moment:—I amattempting the impossible. I had better either go and takemy pleasure of life while it lasts, hopeless of the pleasurewhich is beyond all pleasures. Or else I had better gointo the desert and take my way all alone, to the Starwhere at last I have my wholeness, holiness. The way ofthe anchorites and the men who went into the wilderness topray. For surely my soul is craving for her consummation,and I am weary of the thing men call life. Living, I wantto depart to where I am.

Yet, he said to himself, the woman that was with me inthe Morning Star, how glad I should be of her! And theman that was with me there, what a delight his presence[Pg 272]would be! Surely the Morning Star is a meeting-ground forus, for the joy!

Sitting side by side on the bench, Ramón and Kate forgotone another, she thinking back on the past, with the longdisgust of it all, he thinking on into his future, and tryingto revive his heavy spirits.

In the silence, Cipriano came out on to the balcony above,looking around. He almost started as he saw the twofigures seated on the bench below, under the white oleandertree, miles apart, worlds apart, in their silence.

Ramón heard the step, and glanced up.

“We are coming up!” he called, rising and looking roundat Kate. “Shall we go upstairs? Will you drink somethingcool, tepache, or squeezed oranges? There is no ice.”

“I would like orange juice and water,” she said.

He called to his servant and gave the order.

Cipriano was in the white pantaloons and blouse, likeRamón. But his sash was scarlet, with black curves, somethinglike the markings on a snake.

“I heard you come. I thought perhaps you had goneaway again,” he said, looking at her with a certain blackreproachfulness: an odd, hesitating wistfulness of the barbarian,who feels himself at a loss. Then also a certainresentment.

“Not yet,” she said.

Ramón laughed, and flung himself into a chair.

“The Señora Caterina thinks we are all monkeys, butperhaps this particular monkey-show is the most amusingafter all,” he said. “So she will see a little more ofit.”

Cipriano, a real Indian, was offended in his pride, andthe little black imperial on his chin seemed to become portentous.

“That’s rather an unfair way of putting it!” laughedKate.

The black eyes of Cipriano glanced at her in hostility.He thought she was laughing at him. And so, at the depthsof her female soul, she was. She was jeering at him inwardly.Which no man can stand, least of all a dark-skinnedman.

“No!” she said. “There’s something else besidesthat.”

[Pg 273]

“Ah!” said Ramón. “Take care! A little mercy is adangerous thing.”

“No! Not mercy!” she said, flushing. “Why are youbeing horrid to me?”

“Monkeys always end by being horrid to the spectators,”said Ramón.

She looked up at him, and caught the flash of anger inhis eyes.

“I came,” she said, “to hear about the Mexican pantheon.I was even given to understand I might be admitted.”

“Ah, that is good!” laughed Ramón. “A rare specimenof the female monkey has been added to the Ramón menagerie!I am sure you would be a good draw. There havebeen some pretty goddesses, I assure you, in the Aztecpantheon.”

“How horrid!” she said.

“Come! Come!” he cried. “Let us keep to the bedrockof things, Señora mia. We are all monkeys. Monossomos.—Ihr seid alle Affen! Out of the mouths of babesand sucklings was it spoken, as Carlota said. You see thatlittle male monkey, Cipriano. He had the monkey’s ideaof marrying you. Say the word. Marriage is a monkey’sgame. Say the word. He will let you go when you’ve hadenough; and he’s had enough. He is a general and a verygreat jefe. He can make you monkey-queen of monkey-Mexico,if it please you. And what should monkeys do,but amuse themselves! Vamos! Embobemonos! Shall Ibe priest? Vamos! Vamos!”

He rose with sudden volcanic violence, and rushed away.

Cipriano looked at Kate in wonder. She had gone pale.

“What have you been saying to him?” he asked.

“Nothing!” she said, rising. “I’d better go now.”

Juana was collected; and Alonso and Kate set off backdown the lake. She sat with a certain obstinate offendednessunder the awning of the boat. The sun was terrificallyhot, and the water blinded her. She put on black spectacles,in which she looked a monster.

“Mucho calor, Niña! Mucho calor!” Juana was repeatingbehind her. The criada had evidently imbibedtepache.

On the pale-brown water little tufts of water-hyacinth[Pg 274]were vaguely sailing, holding up the hand of a leaf for asail. Everywhere the lake was dotted with these sailingtufts. The heavy rains had washed in flood down the Lermariver into the lake, washing the acres of Lirio loose from themarshy end of the waters, thirty miles away, and slowlysetting them travelling over all the expanse of the inlandsea, till the shores began to be piled, and the far-off Santiagoriver, which flowed out of the lake, was choked.

That day Ramón wrote his Fourth Hymn.

What Quetzalcoatl Saw in Mexico.

Ramón put on his black city clothes, and a black hat,and went himself with this hymn to the printer in the city.The sign of Quetzalcoatl he had printed in black and red,and the sign of the dragon, at the end, in green and blackand red. And the sheet was folded.

Six soldiers of Cipriano’s command took the bundles ofhymns by train; one to the capital, one to Puebla andJalapa, one to Tampico and Monterrey, one to Torreon andChihuahua, one to Sinaloa and Sonora, and one to the minesin Pachucha, Guanajuato, and the central region. Eachsoldier took only a hundred sheets. But in every town therewas a recognised Reader of the Hymns; or two, or three, orfour, or even ten Readers in one city. And readers who wentround to the villages.

Because there was a strange, submerged desire in thepeople for things beyond the world. They were weary ofevents, and weary of news and the newspapers, weary evenof the things that are taught in education. Weary is the[Pg 279]spirit of man with man’s importunity. Of all things human,and humanly invented, we have had enough, they seemedto say. And though they took not much active notice ofthe Hymns, they craved for them, as men crave for alcohol,as a relief from the weariness and ennui of mankind’s man-madeworld.

Everywhere, in all the towns and villages, at night-timethe little flames would be seen flickering, a cluster of peoplewas seen, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting upon theground, listening to the slow voice of some Reader.

More rarely, in some small, out-of-the-way plaza, wouldsound the sinister thud of the tom-tom, beating out of thehollow of the ages. And there would be two men with whitesarapes with the blue edges. Then the singing of the Songsof Quetzalcoatl, and perhaps the slow round dance, with theancient rhythm of the feet on the earth, belonging toaboriginal America.

For the old dances of the Aztecs and the Zapotecs, of allthe submerged Indian races, are based upon the old, sinkingbird-step of the Red Indians of the north. It is in the bloodof the people; they cannot quite forget it. It comes backto them, with a sense of fear, and joy, and relief.

Of themselves, they dared not revive the old motion, norstir the blood in the old way. The spell of the past is tooterrible. But in the Songs and the Hymns of Quetzalcoatl,there spoke a new voice, the voice of a master and authority.And though they were slow to trust, the slowest and themost untrusting, they seized upon the new-old thrill, witha certain fear, and joy, and relief.

The Men of Quetzalcoatl avoided the great market-placesand centres of activity. They took their stand in the little,side places. On the rim of a fountain a man in a darkblanket with blue borders, or with the sign of Quetzalcoatlin his hat, would sit down and begin to read aloud. It wasenough. The people lingered to listen. He would read tothe end, then say: “I have finished this reading of theFourth Hymn of Quetzalcoatl. Now I will begin again.”

In this way, by a sort of far-away note in the voice, andby the slow monotony of repetition, the thing would driftdarkly into the consciousness of the listeners.

Already in the beginning there had been the scandal ofthe Judases. Holy Week, in Mexico City, is, to all appearance,[Pg 280]the great week of Judas. Everywhere you see mencarrying home in triumph the great, gaudily-varnished dollsof papier-mâché. They are all men-dolls, more or less lifelikegrotesque. Most frequently it is a fat Mexican-Spanishhacendado, landowner and big farmer, who is representedwith his tight trousers, sticking-out belly, and huge upturnedmoustaches. The old-fashioned patrón. Some ofthe figures are like Punch, some are like harlequin. But theyall have rosy faces and the white man’s get-up. You neversee the dark-faced image of a native-blooded Mexican;always a stiff, haughty grotesque of a white man.

And all these are Judases. Judas is the fun of the fair,the victim, the big man of Holy Week, just as the Skeleton,and the skeleton on horseback, is the idol of the first weekin November, the days of the dead and of all the saints.

On Easter Saturday the Judases are hung from the balconies,the string is lighted, and at length, bang! Shrieksof joy, Judas has exploded into nothingness, from a bigcracker in the middle of him!—All the town is popping withJudases.

There was the scandal of the Holy Images thrown out ofone of the churches in Mexico City, and these Judases putin their place. The Church began to move.

But then the Church in Mexico has to move gingerly; itis not popular, and its claws are cut. The priest may notring the church bells for more than three minutes. Neitherpriests nor monks may wear any habit in the street, beyondthe hideous black vest and white collar of the Protestantclergy. So that the priest shows himself as little as possiblein the street, and practically never in the chief streets andthe chief plazas.

Nevertheless, he still has influence. Processions in thestreets are forbidden, but not sermons from the pulpit, noradvice from the confessional. Montes, the President, hadno love for the church, and was meditating the expulsionof all foreign priests. The Archbishop himself was anItalian. But he was also a fighter.

He gave orders to all the priests, to forbid the people fromlistening to anything concerned with Quetzalcoatl, to destroyany hymn-sheet that might fall into their hands, and toprevent as far as possible the Hymns from being read, andthe Songs from being sung, in the parishes.

[Pg 281]

But Montes had given orders to the police and the militaryto afford such protection to the Men of Quetzalcoatlas was accorded to any other law-abiding citizen.

Mexico is not Mexico for nothing, however, and alreadyblood had been shed on both sides. This Ramón particularlywanted to avoid, as he felt that violent death was notso easily wiped out of the air and out of the souls of men,as spilt blood was washed off the pavements.

Therefore, when he was in the City, he asked the Bishopof the West if he would consent to an interview with himselfand Don Cipriano, and would he name the place. TheBishop—who was an old friend and adviser of Carlota, andwho knew Ramón well enough, replied that he should bepleased to see Don Ramón and the Señor General the nextday, if they would be so good as to come to his house.

The Bishop no longer occupied the great episcopal palace.This was turned into the post-office building. But he hada large house not far from the Cathedral, which had beenpresented by the faithful.

Ramón and Cipriano found the thin old man in a dusty,uninteresting library, waiting. He wore a simple blackcassock, not too clean, with purple buttons. He receivedRamón, who was in a black town suit, and Cipriano, whowas in uniform, with an affable manner and suspicious looks.But he played at being the lively, genial old bird.

“Ah, Don Ramón, it is long since I saw you! How goesit, eh? Well, well? That is good! That is very good!”And he patted Ramón on the sleeve like a fussy old uncle.“Ah, my General, much honour, much honour! Welcometo this poor house of yours. It is the house of your Honour!To serve you! Gentlemen! Won’t you take a seat?”

They all sat down, in the dusty, dreary room, in the oldleather chairs. The Bishop nervously looked at his thin oldhands, at the fine, but rather dull amethyst ring he wore.

“Good! Señores!” he said, glancing up with his littleblack eyes. “At your service! Entirely at the service ofyour Honours.”

“Doña Carlota is in the city, Father. You have seenher?” said Ramón.

“Yes, son of mine,” said the Bishop.

“Then you know the latest news about me. She told youeverything.”

[Pg 282]

“Somewhat! Somewhat! She spoke somewhat of you,the poor little thing. Thanks to God she has her sons withher. They are safely back in their native country, in goodhealth.”

“Did you see them?”

“Yes! Yes! Two of my dearest children! Very sympathetic,very intelligent, like their father; and, like him,promising to be of very handsome presence. Yes! Yes!Smoke if you will, my General. Don’t hesitate.”

Cipriano lit a cigarette. From old associations, he wasnervous, albeit amused.

“You know all about what I want to do, Father?” saidRamón.

“I don’t know all, son of mine, but I know enough. Iwouldn’t want to hear more. Eh!” he sighed. “It isvery sad.”

“Not so very sad, Father, if we don’t make it sad.Why make a sad thing out of it, Father? We are in Mexicofor the most part Indians. They cannot understand thehigh Christianity, Father, and the Church knows it. Christianityis a religion of the spirit, and must needs be understoodif it is to have any effect. The Indians cannot understandit, any more than the rabbits of the hills.”

“Very good! Very good! Son of mine! But we canconvey it to them. The rabbits of the hills are in the handsof God.”

“No, Father, it is impossible. And without a religionthat will connect them with the universe, they will allperish. Only religion will serve; not socialism, nor education,nor anything.”

“Thou speakest well,” said the Bishop.

“The rabbits of the hills may be in the hands of God,Father. But they are at the mercy of men. The same withMexico. The people sink heavier and heavier into inertia,and the Church cannot help them, because the Church doesnot possess the key-word to the Mexican soul.”

“Doesn’t the Mexican Soul know the Voice of God?”said the Bishop.

“Your own children may know your voice, Father. Butif you go out to speak to the birds on the lake, or the deeramong the mountains, will they know your voice? Willthey wait and listen?”

[Pg 283]

“Who knows? It is said they waited to listen to theHoly Francisco of Assisi.”

“Now, Father, we must speak to the Mexicans in theirown language, and give them the clue-word to their ownsouls. I shall say Quetzalcoatl. If I am wrong, let meperish. But I am not wrong.”

The Bishop fidgetted rather restlessly. He didn’t wantto hear all this. And he did not want to answer. He wasimpotent anyhow.

“Your Church is the Catholic Church, Father?”

“Surely!” said the Bishop.

“And Catholic Church means the Church of All, theUniversal Church?”

“Surely, son of mine.”

“Then why not let it be really catholic? Why call itcatholic, when it is not only just one among many churches,but is even hostile to all the rest of the churches? Father,why not let the Catholic Church become really the universalChurch?”

“It is the Universal Church of Christ, my son.”

“Why not let it be the Universal Church of Mohammetas well; since ultimately, God is One God, but the peoplesspeak varying languages, and each needs its own prophetto speak with its own tongue. The Universal Church ofChrist, and Mohammet, and Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl,and all the others—that would be a Catholic Church,Father.”

“You speak of things beyond me,” said the Bishop,turning his ring.

“Not beyond any man,” said Don Ramón. “A CatholicChurch is a church of all the religions, a home on earth forall the prophets and the Christs. A big tree under whichevery man who acknowledges the greater life of the soulcan sit and be refreshed. Isn’t that the Catholic Church,Father?”

“Alas, my son, I know the Apostolic Church of Christin Rome, of which I am a humble servant. I do not understandthese clever things you are saying to me.”

“I am asking you for peace, Father. I am not one whohates the Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church.But in Mexico I think it has no place. When my heart isnot bitter, I am grateful forever to Christ, the Son of God.[Pg 284]The affair of the Judases grieves me more than it does you,and the affairs of bloodshed are far bitterer to me.”

“I am no innovator, my son, to provoke bloodshed.”

“Listen! I am going to remove the holy images fromthe church at Sayula, with reverence, and with reverenceburn them upon the lake. Then I shall put the image ofQuetzalcoatl in the church at Sayula.”

The Bishop looked up furtively. For some moments hesaid nothing. But his silence was furtive, cornered.

“Would you dare do that, Don Ramón?” he said.

“Yes! And I shall not be prevented. General Viedmais with me.”

The Bishop glanced sideways at Cipriano.

“Certainly,” said Cipriano.

“Nevertheless it is illegal,” said the Bishop, with acidbitterness.

“What is illegal in Mexico?” said Ramón. “What isweak is illegal. I will not be weak, My Lord.”

“Lucky you!” said the Bishop, lifting his shoulders.

There was a break of silence.

“No!” said Ramón. “I come to ask you for peace.Tell the Archbishop what I say. Let him tell the Cardinalsand the Pope, that the time has come for a Catholic Churchof the Earth, the Catholic Church of All the Sons of Men.The Saviours are more than one, and let us pray they willstill be increased. But God is one God, and the Savioursare the Sons of the One God. Let the Tree of the Churchspread its branches over all the earth, and shelter theprophets in its shade, as they sit and speak their knowledgeof the beyond.”

“Are you one of these prophets, Don Ramón?”

“I surely am, Father. And I would speak about Quetzalcoatlin Mexico, and build his Church here.”

“Nay! You would invade the Churches of Christ andthe Blessed Virgin, I heard you say.”

“You know my intentions. But I do not want to quarrelwith the Church of Rome, nor have bloodshed and enmity,Father. Can you not understand me? Should there not bepeace between the men who strive down their different waysto the God-Mystery?”

“Once more desecrate the altars! Bring in strange idols.Burn the images of Our Lord and Our Lady, and ask for[Pg 285]peace?” said the poor Bishop, who helplessly longed to beleft alone.

“All that, Father,” said Ramón.

“Son, what can I answer? You are a good man smittenwith the madness of pride. Don Cipriano is one moreMexican general. I am the poor old Bishop of this diocese,faithful servant of the Holy Church, humble child of theHoly Father in Rome. What can I do? What can Ianswer? Take me out to the cemetery and shoot me atonce, General!”

“I don’t want to,” said Cipriano.

“It will end like that,” said the Bishop.

“But why?” cried Don Ramón. “Is there no sense inwhat I say? Cannot you understand?”

“My son, my understanding goes no further than myfaith, my duty, will allow. I am not a clever man. I liveby faith, and my duty to my sacred office. Understand thatI do not understand.”

“Good-day, Father!” said Ramón, suddenly rising.

“Go with God, my son,” said the Bishop, rising andlifting his fingers.

“Adios, Señor!” said Cipriano, clicking his spurs, andputting his hand on his sword as he turned to the door.

“Adios, Señor General,” said the Bishop, darting afterthem his eyes of old malice, which they could feel in theirbacks.

“He will say nothing,” said Cipriano, as he and Ramónwent down the steps. “The old jesuit, he only wants tokeep his job and his power, and prevent the heart’s beating.I know them. All they treasure, even more than theirmoney, is their centipede power over the frightened people;especially over the women.”

“I didn’t know you hated them,” laughed Ramón.

“Waste no more breath on them, my dear one,” saidCipriano. “Go forward, you can walk over broken snakessuch as those.”

As they went on foot past the post-office square, wherethe modern scribes at little tables under the arches sattapping out letters on their typewriters for the poor andilliterate, who waited with their few centavos to have theirmessages turned into florid Castilian, Ramón and Ciprianomet with an almost startled respect.

[Pg 286]

“Why talk to the Bishop?—he doesn’t exist any more.I hear his Knights of Cortes had a big dinner the otherevening, and it is said—I don’t believe it—that they drankoaths in blood to have my life and yours. But I think theoaths of the Catholic Dames would frighten me more. Why,if a man stops to unfasten his trousers to make water, theKnights of Cortes run for their lives, thinking the pistol ispointed at them. Don’t think about them, man! Don’ttry to conciliate them. They will only puff up and becomeinsolent, thinking you are afraid of them. Six soldiers willtrample down all that dirt,” said the General.

It was the city, and the spirit of the city.

Cipriano had a suite in the big Palace on the Plaza deArmas.

“If I marry,” he said, as they passed into the stonepatio, where soldiers stood at attention, “I shall take ahouse in the colony, to be more private.”

Cipriano in town was amusing. He seemed to exude prideand arrogant authority as he walked about. But his blackeyes, glancing above his fine nose and that little goat beard,were not to be laughed at. They seemed to get everything,in the stab of a glance. A demoniacal little fellow.

Ramón saw Carlota and his boys in the city, but it was arather fruitless meeting. The elder boy was just uncomfortablein the presence with his father, but the younger,Cyprian, who was delicate and very intelligent, had a ratherlofty air of displeasure with his parent.

“Do you know what they sing, papa?” he said.

“Not all the things they sing,” said Ramón.

“They sing—” the boy hesitated. Then, in his clearyoung voice, he piped up, to the tune of La Cucaracha:

“No, I’m not,” said Ramón, smiling. “Mine’s got asnake and a bird in the middle, and black zigzags and a redfringe. You’d better come and see it.”

“No, papa! I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to be mixed up in this affair. It makesus all look ridiculous.”

“But how do you think you look, anyhow, in your stripedlittle sailor suit and your little saintly look? We’d betterdress you as the Infant Jesus.”

“No, papa! You are in bad taste. One doesn’t saythose things.”

“Now you’ll have to confess to a fib. You say onedoesn’t say those things, when I, who am your father, saidthem only a moment ago, and you heard me.”

“I mean good people don’t. Decent people.”

“Now you’ll have to confess again, for calling yourfather indecent.—Terrible child!”

The child flushed, and tears rose to his eyes. There wassilence for a while.

“So you don’t want to come to Jamiltepec?” saidRamón, to his boys.

“Yes!” said the elder boy, slowly. “I want to come[Pg 288]and bathe in the lake, and have a boat. But—they say itis impossible.”

“Why?”

“They say you make yourself a peon, in your clothes.”—Theboy was shy.

“They’re very nice clothes, you know. Nicer than thoselittle breeches of yours.”

“They say, also, that you pretend to be the Aztec godQuetzalcoatl.”

“Not at all. I only pretend that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatlis coming back to the Mexicans.”

“But, papa, it is not true.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it is impossible.”

“Why?”

“There never was any Quetzalcoatl, except idols.”

“Is there any Jesus, except images?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Where?”

“In heaven.”

“Then in heaven there is also Quetzalcoatl. And whatis in heaven is capable of coming back to earth. Don’t youbelieve me?”

“I can’t.”

“Then go unbelieving,” said the father, laughing at themand rising to leave them.

“It is very bad that they sing songs about you, andput mama in; like about Pancho Villa,” said the youngerboy. “It hurts me very much.”

“Rub it with Vapor-rub, my pet,” said Ramón. “Rubit with Vapor-rub, where it hurts you.”

“What a real bad man you are, papa!”

“What a real good child are you, my son! Isn’t thatso?”

“I don’t know, papa. I only know you are bad.”

“Oh! Oh! Is that all they teach thee at thy Americanschool?”

“Next term,” said Ciprianito, “I want to change myname. I don’t want to be called Carrasco any more. Whenthou art in the newspapers, they will laugh at us.”

“Oh! Oh! I am laughing at thee now, little frog!What name wilt thou choose then? Espina, perhaps. Thou[Pg 289]knowest Carrasco is a wild bush, on the moors in Spain,where we come from. Wilt thou be the little thorn on thebush? Call thyself Espina, thou art a sprig of the old tree.Entonces, Adios! Señor Espina Espinita!”

“Adios!” said the boy abruptly, flushing with rage.

Ramón took a motor-car to Sayula, for there was a maderoad. But already the rains were washing it away. Thecar lurched and bumped in the great gaps. In one place, acamion lay on its back, where it had overturned.

On the flat desert, there were already small smears ofwater, and the pink cosmos flowers, and the yellow, werejust sprouting their tufts of buds. The hills in the distancewere going opaque, as leaves came out on the invisible treesand bushes. The earth was coming to life.

Ramón called in Sayula at Kate’s house. She was out,but the wild Concha came scouring across the beach, to fetchher.—“There is Don Ramón! There is Don Ramón!”

Kate hurried home, with sand in her shoes.

She thought Ramón looked tired, and, in his black suit,sinister.

“I didn’t expect you,” she said.

“I am on my way back from town.”

He sat very still, with that angry look on his creamydark face, and he kept pushing back his black moustachefrom his closed, angry lips.

“Did you see anybody in town?” she asked.

“I saw Don Cipriano—and Doña Carlota, and my boys!”

“Oh, how nice for you! Are they quite well?”

“In excellent health, I believe.”

She laughed suddenly.

“You are still cross,” she said. “Is it about the monkeysstill?”

“Señora,” he said, leaning forward, so that his blackhair dropped a little on his brow, “in monkeydom, I don’tknow who is prince. But in the kingdom of fools, I believeit is I.”

“Why?” she said.

And as he did not answer, she added:

“It must be a comfort to be a prince, even of fools.”

He looked daggers at her, then burst into a laugh.

“Oh, Señora mia! What ails us men, when we arealways wanting to be good?”

[Pg 290]

“Are you repenting of it?” she laughed.

“Yes!” he said. “I am a prince of fools! Why haveI started this Quetzalcoatl business? Why? Pray tell mewhy?”

“I suppose you wanted to.”

He pondered for a time, pushing up his moustache.

“Perhaps it is better to be a monkey than a fool. Iobject to being called a monkey, nevertheless. Carlota isa monkey, no more; and my two boys are prize youngmonkeys in sailor suits. And I am a fool. Yet what is thedifference between a fool and a monkey?”

“Quien sabe?” said Kate.

“One wants to be good, and the other is sure he isgood. So I make a fool of myself. They are sure they arealways good, so that makes monkeys of them. Oh, if onlythe world would blow up like a bomb!”

“It won’t!” said Kate.

“True enough.—Ah, well!”

He drew himself erect, pulling himself together.

“Do you think, Señora Caterina, you might marry ourmutual General?” Ramón had put himself aside again.

“I—I don’t know!” stammered Kate. “I hardlythink so.”

“He is not sympathetic to you at all?”

“Yes. He is. He is alive, and there is even a certainfascination about him.—But one shouldn’t try marrying aman of another race, do you think, even if he were moresympathetic?”

“Ah!” sighed Ramón. “It’s no good generalising. It’sno good marrying anybody, unless there will be a real fusionsomewhere.”

“And I feel there wouldn’t,” said Kate. “I feel he justwants something of me; and perhaps I just want somethingof him. But he would never meet me. He would nevercome forward himself, to meet me. He would come to takesomething from me and I should have to let him. And Idon’t want merely that. I want a man who will come half-way,just half-way, to meet me.”

Don Ramón pondered, and shook his head.

“You are right,” he said. “Yet, in these matters, onenever knows what is half-way, nor where it is. A womanwho just wants to be taken, and then to cling on, is a[Pg 291]parasite. And a man who wants just to take, withoutgiving, is a creature of prey.”

“And I’m afraid Don Cipriano might be that,” said Kate.

“Possibly,” said Ramón. “He is not so with me. Butperhaps he would be, if we did not meet—perhaps it is ourhalf-way—in some physical belief that is at the very middleof us, and which we recognise in one another. Don’t youthink there might be that between you and him?”

“I doubt if he’d feel it necessary, with a woman. Awoman wouldn’t be important enough.”

Ramón was silent.

“Perhaps!” he said. “With a woman, a man alwayswants to let himself go. And it is precisely with a womanthat he should never let himself go. It is precisely with awoman that he should never let himself go, but stick to hisinnermost belief, and meet her just there. Because whenthe innermost belief coincides in them both, if it’s physical,there, and then, and nowhere else, they can meet. And it’sno good unless there is a meeting. It’s no good a manravishing a woman, and it’s absolutely no good a womanravishing a man. It’s a sin, that is. There is such a thingas sin, and that’s the centre of it. Men and women keep onravishing one another. Absurd as it may sound, it is not Iwho would ravish Carlota. It is she who would ravish me.Strange and absurd and a little shameful, it is true.—Lettingoneself go, is either ravishing or being ravished. Oh, if wecould only abide by our own souls, and meet in the abidingplace.—Señora, I have not a very great respect for myself.Woman and I have failed with one another, and it is a badfailure to have in the middle of oneself.”

Kate looked at him in wonder, with a little fear. Whywas he confessing to her? Was he going to love her? Shealmost suspended her breathing. He looked at her with asort of sorrow on his brow, and in his dark eyes, anger,vexation, wisdom, and a dull pain.

“I am sorry,” he went on, “that Carlota and I are aswe are with one another. Who am I, even to talk aboutQuetzalcoatl, when my heart is hollow with anger againstthe woman I have married and the children she bore me.—Wenever met in our souls, she and I. At first I loved her,and she wanted me to ravish her. Then after a while aman becomes uneasy. He can’t keep on wanting to ravish[Pg 292]a woman, the same woman. He has revulsions. Then sheloved me, and she wanted to ravish me. And I liked it fora time. But she had revulsions too. The eldest boy isreally my boy, when I ravished her. And the youngest isher boy, when she ravished me. See how miserable it is!And now we can never meet; she turns to her crucifiedJesus, and I to my uncrucified and uncrucifiable Quetzalcoatl,who at least cannot be ravished.”

“And I’m sure you won’t make him a ravisher,” shesaid.

“Who knows? If I err, it will be on that side. Butyou know, Señora, Quetzalcoatl is to me only the symbol ofthe best a man may be, in the next days. The universeis a nest of dragons, with a perfectly unfathomable life-mysteryat the centre of it. If I call the mystery theMorning Star, surely it doesn’t matter! A man’s bloodcan’t beat in the abstract. And man is a creature who winshis own creation inch by inch from the nest of the cosmicdragons. Or else he loses it little by little, and goes topieces. Now we are all losing it, in the ravishing andravished disintegration. We must pull ourselves together,hard, both men and women, or we are all lost.—We mustpull ourselves together, hard.”

“But are you a man who needs a woman in his life?”she said.

“I am a man who yearns for the sensual fulfilment ofmy soul, Señora,” he said. “I am a man who has nobelief in abnegation of the blood desires. I am a man whois always on the verge of taking wives and concubines tolive with me, so deep is my desire for that fulfilment.Except that now I know that is useless—not momentarilyuseless, but in the long run—my ravishing a woman withhot desire. No matter how much she is in love with meand desires me to ravish her. It is no good, and the veryinside of me knows it is no good. Wine, woman, and song—allthat—all that game is up. Our insides won’t really haveit any more. Yet it is hard to pull ourselves together.”

“So that you really want a woman to be with you?”said Kate.

“Ah, Señora! If I could trust myself; and trust her! Iam no longer a young man, who can afford to make mistakes.I am forty-two years old, and I am making my last—and[Pg 293]perhaps in truth, my first great effort as a man. I hope Imay perish before I make a big mistake.”

“Why should you make a mistake? You needn’t?”

“I? It is very easy for me to make a mistake. Veryeasy, on the one hand, for me to become arrogant and aravisher. And very easy, on the other hand, for me todeny myself, and make a sort of sacrifice of my life. Whichis being ravished. Easy to let myself, in a certain sense,be ravished. I did it to a small degree even yesterday,with the Bishop of Guadalajara. And it is bad. If I hadto end my life in a mistake, Señora, I had rather end it inbeing a ravisher, than in being ravished. As a hot ravisher,I can still slash and cut at the disease of the other thing,the horrible pandering and the desire men have to beravished, the hateful, ignoble desire they have.”

“But why don’t you do as you say, stick by the innermostsoul that is in you, and meet a woman there, meether, as you say, where your two souls coincide in theirdeepest desire? Not always that horrible unbalance thatyou call ravishing.”

“Why don’t I? But which woman can I meet in thebody, without that slow degradation of ravishing, or beingravished, setting in? If I marry a Spanish woman or adark Mexican, she will give herself up to me to be ravished.If I marry a woman of the Anglo-Saxon or any blondenorthern stock, she will want to ravish me, with the will of allthe ancient white demons. Those that want to be ravishedare parasites on the soul, and one has revulsions. Thosethat want to ravish a man are vampires. And between thetwo, there is nothing.”

“Surely there are some really good women?”

“Well, show me them. They are all potential Carlotasor—or—yes, Caterinas. I am sure you ravished yourJoachim till he died. No doubt he wanted it; even morethan you wanted it. It is not just sex. It lies in the will.Victims and victimisers. The upper classes, craving to bevictims to the lower classes; or else craving to make victimsof the lower classes. The politicians, craving to make onepeople victims to another. The Church, with its evil willfor turning the people into humble, writhing things that shallcrave to be victimised, to be ravished.—I tell you, the earthis a place of shame.”

[Pg 294]

“But if you want to be different,” said Kate, “surelya few other people do—really.”

“It may be,” he said, becoming calm. “It may be.I wish I kept myself together better. I must keep myselftogether, keep myself within the middle place, where I amstill. My Morning Star. Now I am ashamed of havingtalked like this to you, Señora Caterina.”

“Why?” she cried. And for the first time, the flushof hurt and humiliation came into her face.

He saw it at once, and put his hand on hers for a moment.

“No,” he said. “I am not ashamed. I am relieved.”

She flushed deeply at his touch, and was silent. He rosehastily, to leave, craving to be alone again with his own soul.

“On Sunday,” he said, “will you come into the plaza,in the morning, when the drum sounds? Will you come?”

“What for?” she said.

“Well! Come, and you will see.”

He was gone in a flash.

There were many soldiers in the village. When she wentto the post-office, she saw the men in their cotton uniformslying about in the entrance to the military station. Theremust have been fifty or more, little men, not the tall soldiersin slouched hats. These were little, quick, compact men,like Cipriano, and they talked in a strange Indian language,very subdued. They were very rarely seen in the streets.They kept out of sight.

But at night, everyone was requested to be indoors byten o’clock, and through the darkness Kate heard the patrolsof horse-soldiers riding round.

There was an air of excitement and mystery in the place.The parish priest, a rather overbearing, fat man of fifty orso, had preached a famous Saturday evening sermon againstRamón and Quetzalcoatl, forbidding the heathen name tobe mentioned, threatening with all the penalties anyparishioner who read the Hymns, or even listened.

So, of course, he was attacked when he left the church,and had to be rescued by soldiers who were in the doorway.They marched him safely home. But his criada, the oldwoman who served him, was told by more women than onethat the next time the padre opened his mouth againstQuetzalcoatl, he would have a few inches of machete inhis fat guts.

[Pg 295]

So his reverence stayed at home, and a curate officiated.

Practically all the people who came over the lake in boatson Saturdays, went to mass in Sayula church. The greatdoors stood open all the day. Men as they passed to and froto the lake, took off their big hats, with a curious cringinggesture, as they went by the gateway of the church. All daylong, scattered people were kneeling in the aisles or amongthe benches, the men kneeling erect, their big hats down bytheir knees, their curious tall-shaped Indian heads with thethick black hair also erect; only the kneeling legs, closetogether, humble. The women hooded themselves in theirdark rebozos and spread their elbows as they kneeled at abench, in a slack sort of voluptuousness.

On Saturday night, a great ruddy flickering of manycandle-points, away down the dark cavern of the church;and a clustering of dark men’s heads, a shuffling of women,a come and go of men arriving from the lake, of men departingto the market. A hush, not exactly of worship, but of acertain voluptuous admiration of the loftiness and glitter, asensual, almost victimised self-abandon to the god of death,the Crucified streaked with blood, or to the pretty whitewoman in a blue mantle, with her little doll’s face under hercrown, Mary, the doll of dolls, Niña of Niñas.

It was not worship. It was a sort of numbness and lettingthe soul sink uncontrolled. And it was a luxury, after allthe week of unwashed dullness in their squalid villages ofstraw huts. But it irritated Kate.

The men got up and tiptoed away in their sandals, crossingthemselves front and back, on the navel and on the backof the head, with holy water. And their black eyes shonewith a loose, sensuous look. Instead of having gatheredthemselves together and become graver, stronger, more collectedand deep in their own integrity, they emerged onlythe more loose and sloppy and uncontrolled.

Oh, if there is one thing men need to learn, but theMexican Indians especially, it is to collect each man his ownsoul together deep inside him, and to abide by it. TheChurch, instead of helping men to this, pushes them moreand more into a soft, emotional helplessness, with the unpleasantsensuous gratification of feeling themselves victims,victimised, victimised, but at the same time with the lurkingsardonic consciousness that in the end a victim is stronger[Pg 296]than the victimiser. In the end, the victims pull down theirvictimiser, like a pack of hyænas on an unwary lion. Theyknow it. Cursed are the falsely meek, for they are inheritingthe earth.

On Sunday morning there was early mass at sunrise,another mass at seven o’clock, another at nine, another ateleven. Then there was a little band of violins and ’cellos,playing old-fashioned dance music; there was, especiallyearly in the morning, a solid mass of peons and women,kneeling on the floor; and a flapping of dusky candles, asmell of the exhaust air of candles, a heavy, rolling fume ofincense, and the heavy choir of men’s voices, solid, powerful,impressive, from the gallery.

And the people went away in sensuous looseness, whichsoon turned, in the market, to hate, the old, unfathomablehate which lies at the bottom of the Indian heart, and whichalways rises black and turbid when they have swayed awhilein sensuous gratification.

The church inside was a dead interior, like all Mexicanchurches, even the gorgeous Puebla cathedral. The interiorof almost any Mexican church gives the impressionof cynical barrenness, cynical meaninglessness, an empty,cynical, mocking shell. The Italian churches are built muchin the same style, and yet in them lingers a shadow andstillness of old, mysterious holiness. The hush.

But not in Mexico. The churches outside are impressive.Inside, and it is curious to define it, they are blatant; voidof sound and yet with no hush, simple, and yet completelyvulgar, barren, sterile. More barren than a bank or aschoolroom or an empty concert-hall, less mysterious thanany of these. You get a sense of plaster, of mortar, ofwhitewash, of smeared blue-wash or grey-wash; and of giltlaid on and ready to peel off. Even in the most gorgeouschurches, the gilt is hatefully gilt, never golden. Nothingis soft nor mellow.

So the interior of Sayula church; and Kate had oftenbeen in. The white exterior was charming, and so valuablein the landscape, with the twin white pagoda-towers peeringout of the green willow trees. But inside, it seemed nothingbut whitewash, stencilled over with grey scroll-work decorations.The windows were high, and many, letting in thelight as into a schoolroom. Jesus, streaked with blood, was[Pg 297]in one of the transepts, and the Virgin, a doll in faded satin,stood startled inside a glass case. There were rag flowersand paper flowers, coarse lace and silver that looked liketin.

Nevertheless, it was quite clean, and very much frequented.

The Month of Mary had gone by, the blue and whitepaper ribbons were all taken down, the palm trees in potswere all removed from the aisle, the little girls in whitedresses and little crowns of flowers no longer came withposies in their hand, at evening. Curious, the old gentleceremonials of Europe, how trashy they seem in Mexico,just a cheap sort of charade.

The day of Corpus Christi came, with high mass and thechurch full to the doors with kneeling peons, from dawn tillnoon. Then a feeble little procession of children within thechurch, because the law forbids religious processions outside.But all, somehow, for nothing. Just so that the people couldcall it a fiesta, and so have an excuse to be more slack,more sloshy and uncontrolled than ever. The one Mexicandesire; to let themselves go in sloppy inertia.

And this was the all-in-all of the religion. Instead of doingas it should, collecting the soul into its own strength andintegrity, the religious day left it all the more decomposedand degenerate.

However, the weeks passed, the crowd in the churchseemed the same as ever. But the crowd in the churchone hour was the crowd of Quetzalcoatl the next hour. Justa sensation.

Till the more socialistic Readers mingled a little anti-clericalbitterness in their reading. And all the peonsbegan to say: was El Señor a gringo, and the Santísima, wasshe nothing but a gringita?

This provoked retaliation on the part of the priests, firstmere admonitions, then at last the loud denunciations andthreat of that sermon. Which meant war.

Everybody waited for Saturday. Saturday came, andthe church remained shut. Saturday night, the church wasdark and closed. Sunday, the church was silent and thedoors blank fastened.

Something like consternation spread through the markethost. They had nowhere to go!—But among the consternation[Pg 298]was a piqued curiosity. Perhaps something excitingwas going to happen.

Things had happened before. In the revolutions, manyof the churches in Mexico have been used for stables and forbarracks. And churches are turned into schools, and concerthalls, and cinematograph theatres. The convents and themonasteries are most of them barracks for the rag-tag-and-bobtailsoldiers. The world changes, is bound to change.

The second Saturday of the closed church was, as ithappened, a big market. Much fruit and stuff had come upthe lake, from the south from far distances, even fromColima. There were men with lacquer wooden bowls, andwomen with glazed pottery. And as usual, men crouchingin guard over twenty centavos worth of nauseous tropicalplums, or chiles, or mangoes, in tiny pyramids along theroadway.

A crowded market, with the much and the little of theIndians. And the church doors shut and locked, the churchbells silent, even the clock stopped. True, the clock wasalways stopping. But not with such a final arrest.

No mass, no confession, no little orgy of incense and slackemotion! The low rumble of murmuring tones, the quick,apprehensive glances around. Vendors by the causewaysquatted tight, as if to make themselves dense and small,squatting down on their haunches with their knees up totheir shoulders, like the Aztec idols. And soldiers in twosand threes sprinkled everywhere. And Señoras andSeñoritas, in their black gauze scarves or mantillas, trippingto the church for mass and shrilling round the gateway ofthe church, all a bubble and a froth of chatter; though theyhad known quite well the church was shut.

But it was Sunday morning, and something was due tohappen.

At about half-past ten, a boat appeared, and men in snow-whiteclothes got out, one carrying a drum. They marchedquickly through the people, under the old trees on the sand,across to the church. They passed through the brokeniron gates into the stone courtyard in front of the church.

At the church doors, which were still shut, they took offtheir blouses, and stood in a ring, with dark naked shouldersand the blue-and-black sashes of Quetzalcoatl round theirwaists.

[Pg 299]

The drum began to beat, with a powerful, pounding note,as the men stood bareheaded and bare-breasted in a circleoutside the church doors; a strange ring of lustrous, bluey-blackheads and dark shoulders, above the snowy whitepantaloons. Monotonously the drum beat, on and on. Thenthe little clay flute with the husky sound wheezed a clearmelody.

The whole market pressed densely towards the gatewaysof the church. But there, soldiers stood guard. And onthe inside of the stone yard in front of the church, soldiersquietly guarded the low walls, letting nobody mount. Sothat outside, under the old willow and pepper trees, in thehot morning sun, the dense crowd stood gazing at the churchdoors. They were mostly men in big hats; but some townsmenwere there, and some women, and Kate with a parasollined with dark blue. A close, silent, tense throng underthe spangled shade, pressing round the trunks of the palmtrees, climbing on the roots of the pepper trees. And behindwere the camions and the motor-cars drawn up.

The drum shuddered and went still, and the earthenflute was silent. The lake could be heard lapping, and aclink of glasses and a sound of chauffeurs’ voices at the littlecantina-booth. For the rest, the silent breathing of thecrowd.—Soldiers were quickly distributing a few leafletsamong the crowd. A strong, far-carrying male voice beganto sing to the softened thud of the drum.

Jesus’ Farewell.

While this was singing, another boat had arrived, andsoldiers made way through the crowd for Ramón, in hiswhite sarape with the blue edges and scarlet fringe, and ayoung priest of the church in a black cassock, and six menin dark sarapes with the blue borders of Quetzalcoatl. Thisstrange procession marched through the crowd and throughthe gateways of the yard.

As they approached, the ring of men round the drumopened, and spread into a crescent. Ramón stood tallbehind the drum, the six men in dark sarapes divided andwent to the wings of the crescent, the young, slim priestin a black cassock stood alone, in front of the crescent,facing the crowd.

He lifted his hand; Ramón took off his hat; all the menin the crowd took off their hats.

The priest turned, met Ramón at the centre of thecrescent, and, across the drum, handed him the key of thechurch. Then the priest waited.

[Pg 301]

Ramón unlocked the church doors and flung them open.The men in front of the crowd kneeled down suddenly, seeingthe church dark like a cavern, but a trembling blaze ofmany candles, away, seemingly far down the mysteriousdarkness, shuddering with dark, rippling flame, like thePresence of the burning bush.

The crowd swayed and rustled, and subsided, kneeling.Only here and there a labourer, a chauffeur or a railwayman stood erect.

The priest raised his hand a little higher, returningtowards the people.

“My children,” he said; and as he spoke the lake seemedto rustle; “God the Almighty has called home His Son, andthe Holy Mother of the Son. Their days are over in Mexico.They go back to the Father.

The men in the circle said a deep Adios! And from thesoldiers, and from the kneeling crowd, a ragged, muttered,strange repeating of Adios! again and again, like a sort ofstorm.

Suddenly, in a blast, down the darkness of the churchinto which the kneeling people were staring, the burningbush of candles was gone, there was only darkness. Acrossthe sunshine, lit here and there by a frail light of a taper,was a cave of darkness.

Men in the crowd exclaimed and groaned.

Then the drum softly touched, and two men in thecrescent began to sing, in magnificent, terrible voices, theFarewell Hymn again. They were men whom Ramón, orhis followers, had found in low drinking dens in MexicoCity, men with trained and amazing voices, the powerfulMexican tenor that seemed to tear the earth open. Menwhom the “times” have reduced to singing in low citydives. And now they sang with all the terrible desperationthat was in them, the hopeless, demonish recklessness.

[Pg 302]

When they finished, the priest again lifted his hand, andgave the benediction; adding in a quiet voice:

“And now, with all the saints, let Me go, saith Jesus.For I go back to my Father which is in heaven, and I leadmy Mother in my right hand, home to peace.”

He turned and went into the church. Ramón followed.Then slowly, all the men of the crescent. Overhead thechurch bell rang a little while, on the deathly silence. Itceased.

And in a moment, from the depths of the church soundeda drum, with a remote, fearsome thud, and a slow monotony.

The priest, in his white vestments with rich lace, appearedin the doorway of the church, bearing a tall crucifix. Hehesitated, then came into the sun. The kneeling peopleclasped their hands.

Candles in the dark church were clustering towards thedoor, lonely flames. Don Ramón came out of the dark,naked to the waist, his sarape over one shoulder, bearingthe front pole of the great bier whereon lies, within a glasscase, the lifelike, terrible dead Christ of Holy Week. A tall,dark man, naked to the waist, held the other end of thepole on his shoulder. The crowd moaned and crossed themselves.The lifelike Dead Christ seemed really dead, as hepassed the gates. As He entered the crowd, kneeling menand women lifted sightless faces and flung their arms wideapart, and so remained, arms rigid and outflung, in an unspeakableecstasy of fear, supplication, acknowledgementof death.

After the bier of the Dead Christ, a slow procession ofmen naked to the waist, carrying litter after litter. Firstthe terrible scourged Christ, with naked body striped like atiger with blood. Then the image of the Saviour of theSacred Heart, the well-known figure from the side altar,with long hair and outstretched hands. Then the imageof Jesus of Nazareth, with a crown of Thorns.

Then the Virgin with the blue mantle and lace, and thegolden crown. The women began to moan as she emergedrather trashily into the blazing sunlight. Behind her, in thechurch, the candles were one by one going out.

Then came brown Saint Anthony of Padua, with a childin his arms. Then Saint Francis, looking strangely at across in his hand. Then Saint Anna. And last, Saint[Pg 303]Joaquin. And as he emerged, the last candles in the darkchurch went out, there were only open doors upon a darkness.

The images on the shoulders of the brown-skinned menrode rather childishly out through the blazing sun, into theshadow of trees. The drum followed last, slowly thudding.On the glass case of the big Dead Christ the sun flashedwith startling flashes, as the powerful men carrying it turnedtowards the water. The crowd murmured and swayed on itsknees. Women cried: Purisima! Purisima! Don’t leaveus! and some men ejacul*ted in strangled anguish, over andover again: Señor! Señor! Señor!

But the strange procession made its way slowly underthe trees, to the coarse sands, and descended again into thegreat light towards the lake. There was a little breeze undera blaze of sun. Folded sarapes on naked, soft shouldersswung unevenly, the images rocked and tottered a little.But onwards to the edge of the water went the tall crucifix,then the flashing glass box. And after, came Jesus in a redsilk robe, fluttering, then a wooden Jesus all paint andstreaks, then Jesus in white with a purple mantle that blewlike a kerchief, Mary in lace that fluttered upon stiff whiteand blue satin. But the saints were only painted; paintedwood.

The slim, lace-smocked priest staggered down the sandunder the heavy crucifix, which had a white Christ Crucifiedstretched aloft, facing the lake. By the little wall was alarge black canoa, sailing boat, with a broad plank gangwayup to her stern. Two bare-legged, white-clad men walkedby the slim priest, whose white sleeves blew like flags as heslowly climbed the gangway to the ship. Men helped himon board, and he walked away to the prow, where at lengthhe stood the big crucifix, with the Christ still facing outwards.

The ship was open, without deck or hatches, but withfixed tables for the images. Slowly Ramón ascended anddescended into the boat, the great glass case was laid downon its rest, the two men could wipe their wet brows and theirhot, black hair. Ramón put on his blanket and his hat,against the sun. The boat heaved very slightly. The windwas from the west. The lake was pale and unreal, sun-blinded.

[Pg 304]

One after another the images rose over the stern of theboat, against the sky, then descended into the vessel, tobe set down on their rests, where they rose above the blacksides of the canoa, in view of the throng on the shore.

It was a strange and tawdry collection of images. Andyet, each image had a certain pathos of its own, and acertain touch of horror, as they were grouped together fortheir last ride, upon the trestle-supports within the vessel.By each image stood the bearers, in hats and sarapes, keepinga steady hand on the poles.

There was a little line of soldiers on the shore, and threemotor-boats with soldiers waited by the big canoa. Theshore was covered with a mass of people. Many row-boatscame rowing inquisitively round, like fishes. But nonecame too near.

Bare-legged sailors began to pole the ship from the shore.They leaned heavily on the poles, and walked along the rimsof the vessel. Slowly she began to move upon the waters,in the shallows. Slowly, she was leaving the shore, and thethrong.

Two other sailors swiftly began to hoist the huge, squarewhite sail. Quickly, yet heavily it rose in the air, and tookthe wind. It had the great sign of Quetzalcoatl, the circlingblue snake and the blue eagle upon a yellow field, at thecentre, like a great eye.

The wind came from the west, but the boat was steeringsouth-east, for the little Island of the Scorpions, which roselike a small dim hummock from the haze of the lake. Sothe sail reached out, and the great eye seemed to be glancingback, at the village with the green willows and theempty white church, the throng on the shore.

Motor-boats circled the huge, slow canoe, small boatslike insects followed and ranged round at a distance, nevercoming too close. The running water clucked and spoke,the men by the images steadied the poles with one hand,their hats with the other, the great eye on the sail everlooked back at the land, the sweep of the white canvassweeping low above the glass case of death, the Christ cakedwith gore, the images in their fluttering mantles.

On the shore, the people wandered away, or sat on thesands waiting and watching in a sort of dumb patience thatwas half indifference. The canoe grew smaller, more inconspicuous,[Pg 305]lapsing into the light, the little boats circledaround it like mere dots. The lake tired the eyes with itslight.

Away under the trees, in a half silence, a half vacancy,a woman bought a dark water-melon, smashed it open ona stone, and gave the big pinky fragments to her children.In silence, men sprinkled salt on the thick slice of cucumbersold by the woman under the tree. In silence they wanderedinto the church, past the soldiers on guard at the door.

The church was absolutely dark, save for the light thatentered the doorway, and absolutely bare; walls, floor,altar, transepts, all stark bare and empty. The peoplewandered away again, in silence.

It was noon, and a hot day. The canoa slowly rangedto the small hummock of the island amid the waters, wherelived one family of Indians—fishers, with a few goats andone dry little place where they grew a few beans and headsof maize. For the rest, the island was all dry rock andthorny bushes, and scorpions.

The vessel was poled round to the one rocky bay. Slowlyshe drew near the island. The motor-boats and the littleboats hurried ahead. Already brown, naked men werebathing among the rocks.

The great sail sank, the canoa edged up to the rockyshore, men sprang from her into the water, the images werelowered and slowly carried on to the rocks. There theywaited for the bearers.

Slowly the procession went again up the bank of thedishevelled island, past the couple of huts, where a red co*ckwas crowing among the litter, and over to rocks, beyondthe bushes, on the far side.

The side facing Sayula was all rock, naked and painful totread on. In a rocky hollow at the waters’ edge, tall stoneshad been put up on end, with iron bars across the top, likea grill. Underneath, a pile of fa*ggots ready; and at theside, a pile of fa*ggots.

The images, the glass box of the great Dead Christ, werelaid on the iron bars of the grill, in a pathetic cluster alltogether. The crucifix was leaned against them. It wasnoon, the heat and the light were fierce and erect. Butalready down the lake clouds were pushing up fantastically.

Beyond the water, beyond the glare, the village looked[Pg 306]like a mirage, with its trees and villages and white churchtowers.

Men who had come in boats crowded on the rocks of thelittle amphitheatre. In silence, Ramón kindled shreds ofcane and ocote, with a burning glass. Little hasty flameslike young snakes arose in the solid sunlight, with vaporof smoke. He set fire to the carefully-arranged pyramid offa*ggots beneath the grill-table of the images.

There was a crackling, and a puffing of whitish smoke, thesweet scent of ocote, and orange-red tongues of half-substantialflame were leaping up in the hot white air. Hotbreaths blew suddenly, sudden flames gushed up, and theocote, full of sweet resin, began to roar. The glass of thegreat box emitted strange, painful yelps as it splintered andfell tinkling. Between the iron bars, brownish flames pushedup among the images, which at once went black. The littlevestments of silk and satin withered in a moment to blackness,the caked wounds of paint bubbled black.

The young priest took off his linen vestment, his stole andhis chasuble, and with flushed face flung them in the flame.Then he stripped off his black cassock, and emerged in thewhite cotton of the men of Quetzalcoatl, his white drawersrolled up to the knee. He threw his cassock in the fire.Someone handed him a big hat, and a white sarape withblue ends.

There was a smell of burning paint, and wool, and ocote.The fire rushed in a dusky mass upon the blackened, flickeringimages, till nothing was to be seen but a confused bushof smoke and brown-red flames, puthering, reeking, roaring.The flaming crucifix slipped aside, and fell. A man seizedit and pushed it into the fire, under the images. Men in asort of ecstasy threw on more of the heavy, resinous wood,that almost exploded into flame. Rocks cracked and explodedlike guns. Everybody drew back from that roaringtree of flame, which rose ever higher and higher, its darksmoke and its sparks unfolding into heaven.

One of the supporting stones burst with a bang, bars ofiron and blazing stumps of images tumbled in a confusedroar. The glass case had disappeared, but ribbons of ironwaved, then curled over red, into the torrent of the suddenfire. Strange rods of iron appeared out of nowhere, protrudingfrom solid red coals.

[Pg 307]

And soon, all that was left was a fierce glow of red coalsof wood, with a medley of half-fused iron.

Ramón stood aside and watched in silence, his dark browquite expressionless.

Then, when only the last bluish flames flickered out of atumble of red fire, from the eminence above, rockets beganto shoot into the air with a swish, exploding high in thesightless hot blue, with a glimmer of bluish showers, andof gold.

The people from the shore had seen the tree of smoke withits trunk of flame. Now they heard the heavy firing of therockets, they looked again, exclaiming, half in dismay, halfin the joyful lust of destruction:

“Señor! Señor! La Purisima! La Santísima!”

The flame and the smoke and the rockets melted as if bymiracle, into nothingness, leaving the hot air unblemished.The coals of fire were shovelled and dropped down a steephole.

As the canoa sailed back, the side of the lake, throughfilmy air, looked brownish and changeless. A cloud wasrising in the south-west, from behind the dry, silent mountains,like a vast white tail, like the vast white fleecy tailof some squirrel, that had just dived out of sight behindthe mountains. This wild white tail fleeced up and up, tothe zenith, straight at the sun. And as the canoa spread hersail to tack back, already a delicate film of shadow was overthe chalk-white lake.

Only on the low end of the isle of Scorpions, hot air stillquivered.

Ramón returned in one of the motor-boats. Slowly thesky was clouding for the thunder and the rain. The canoa,unable to make her way across, was sailing for Tuliapan.The little boats hurried in silence.

They landed before the wind rose. Ramón went andlocked the doors of the church.

The crowd scattered in the wind, rebozos waving wildly,leaves torn, dust racing. Sayula was empty of God, and, atheart, they were glad.

Suddenly, nearly all the soldiers disappeared from thevillage, there was a “rebellion” in Colima. A train hadbeen held up, people killed. And somebody, Generals Fulanoand Tulano, had “pronounced” against the government.

Stir in the air, everybody enjoying those periodical shiversof fear! But for these shivers, everything much the sameas usual. The church remained shut up, and dumb. Theclock didn’t go. Time suddenly fell off, the days walkednaked and timeless, in the old, uncounted manner of the past.The strange, old, uncounted, unregistered, unreckoning daysof the ancient heathen world.

Kate felt a bit like a mermaid trying to swim in a wrongelement. She was swept away in some silent tide, to theold, antediluvian silence, where things moved without contact.She moved and existed without contact. Even thestriking of the hours had ceased. As a drowning person seesnothing but the waters, so Kate saw nothing but the faceof the timeless waters.

So, of course, she clutched at her straw. She couldn’tbear it. She ordered an old, ricketty Ford car, to takeher bumping out to Jamiltepec, over the ruinous roads in theafternoon.

The country had gone strange and void, as it does whenthese “rebellions” start. As if the life-spirit were suckedaway, and only some empty, anti-life void, remained in thewicked hollow countryside. Though it was not far toJamiltepec, once outside the village, the chauffeur and hislittle attendant lad began to get frightened, and to go frog-likewith fear.

There is something truly mysterious about the Mexicanquality of fear. As if man and woman collapsed and laywriggling on the ground like broken reptiles, unable to rise.Kate used all her will, against this cringing nonsense.

They arrived without ado at Jamiltepec. The placeseemed quiet, but normal. An oxen wagon stood emptyin the courtyard. There were no soldiers on guard. Theyhad all been withdrawn, against the rebellion. But several[Pg 309]peons were moving round, in a desultory fashion. The daywas a fiesta, when not much work was doing. In thehouses of the peons, the women were patting tortillas, andpreparing hot chile sauce, grinding away on the metates. Afiesta! Only the windmill that pumped up water from thelake was spinning quickly, with a little noise.

Kate drove into the yard in silence, and two mozos withguns and belts of cartridges came to talk in low tones to thechauffeur.

“Is Doña Carlota here?” asked Kate.

“No Señora. The patrona is not here.”

“Don Ramón?”

“Si Señora! Està.”

Even as she hesitated, rather nervous, Ramón came outof the inner doorway of the courtyard, in his dazzling whiteclothes.

“I came to see you,” said Kate. “I don’t know if you’drather I hadn’t. But I can go back in the motor-car.”

“No,” he said. “I am glad. I was feeling deserted,I don’t know why. Let us go upstairs.”

“Patrón!” said the chauffeur, in a low voice. “Must Istay?”

Ramón said a few words to him. The chauffeur was uneasy,and didn’t want to stay. He said he had to be back inSayula at such and such a time. Excuses, anyhow. Butit was evident he wanted to get away.

“Then best let him go,” said Ramón to Kate. “Youdo not mind going home in the boat?”

“I don’t want to give you trouble.”

“It is least trouble to let this fellow go, and you canleave by boat just whenever you wish to. So we shall allbe more free.”

Kate paid the chauffeur, and the Ford started rattling.After rattling a while, it moved in a curve round the courtyard,and lurched through the zaguan, disappearing as fastas possible.

Ramón spoke to his two mozos with the guns. They wentto the outer doorway, obediently.

“Why do you have to have armed men?” she said.

“Oh, they’re afraid of bandits,” he said. “Wheneverthere’s a rebellion anywhere, everybody is afraid of bandits.So of course that calls bandits into life.”

[Pg 310]

“But where do they come from?” said Kate, as theypassed into the inner doorways.

“From the villages,” he said, closing the heavy door ofthat entrance behind him, and putting the heavy iron barsacross, from wall to wall.

The inner archway was now a little prison, for the strongiron gates at the lake end of the passage were shut fast. Shelooked through, at the little round pond. It had some bluewater-lilies on it. Beyond, the pallid lake seemed almostlike a ghost, in the glare of the sun.

A servant was sent to the kitchen quarters, Ramón andKate climbed the stone stairs to the upper terrace. Howlonely, stonily lonesome and forlorn the hacienda could feel!The very stone walls could give off emptiness, loneliness,negation.

“But which villages do the bandits come from?” sheinsisted.

“Any of them. Mostly, they say, from San Pablo orfrom Ahuajijic.”

“Quite near!” she cried.

“Or from Sayula,” he added. “Any of the ordinarymen in big hats you see around the plaza, may possibly bebandits, when banditry pays, as a profession, and isn’tpunished with any particular severity.”

“It is hard to believe!” she said.

“It is so obvious!” he said, dropping into one of therocking-chairs opposite her, and smiling across the onyxtable.

“I suppose it is!” she said.

He clapped his hands, and his mozo Martin came up.Ramón ordered something, in a low, subdued tone. Theman replied in an even lower, more subdued tone. Thenthe master and man nodded at one another, and the mandeparted, his huaraches swishing a little on the terrace.

Ramón had fallen into the low, crushed sort of voice socommon in the country, as if everyone were afraid to speakaloud, so they murmured guardedly. This was unusual,and Kate noticed it in him with displeasure. She sat lookingpast the thick mango-trees, whose fruit was changingcolour like something gradually growing hot, to the ruffled,pale-brown lake. The mountains of the opposite shorewere very dark. Above them lay a heavy, but distant[Pg 311]black cloud, out of which lightning flapped suddenly anduneasily.

“Where is Don Cipriano?” she asked.

“Don Cipriano is very much General Viedma at themoment,” he replied. “Chasing rebels in the State ofColima.”

“Will they be very hard to chase?”

“Probably not. Anyhow Cipriano will enjoy chasingthem. He is Zapotec, and most of his men are Zapotecans,from the hills. They love chasing men who aren’t.”

“I wondered why he wasn’t there on Sunday when youcarried away the images,” she said. “I think it was anawfully brave thing to do.”

“Do you?” he laughed. “It wasn’t. It’s never halfso brave, to carry something off, and destroy it, as to seta new pulse beating.”

“But you have to destroy those old things, first.”

“Those frowsty images—why, yes. But it’s no good untilyou’ve got something else moving, from the inside.”

“And have you?”

“I think I have. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, a little doubtful.

“I think I have,” he said. “I feel there’s a new thingmoving inside me.” He was laughing at her, for her hesitation.“Why don’t you come and join us?” he added.

“How?” she said. “By being married off to DonCipriano?”

“Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Not necessarily bybeing married to anybody.”

“What are you going to do next?” she said.

“I? I am going to re-open the church, for Quetzalcoatlto come in. But I don’t like lonely gods. There should beseveral of them, I think, for them to be happy together.”

“Does one need gods?” she said.

“Why yes. One needs manifestations, it seems to me.”

Kate sat in unwilling silence.

“One needs goddesses too. That is also a dilemma,” headded, with a laugh.

“How I would hate,” said Kate, “to have to be agoddess for people.”

“For the monkeys?” he said, smiling.

“Yes! Of course.”

[Pg 312]

At that moment, he sat erect, listening. There had beena shot, which Kate had heard, but which she had hardlynoticed; to her ears, it might have been a motor-car back-firing,or even a motor-boat.

Suddenly, a sharp little volley of shots.

Ramón rose swiftly, swift as a great cat, and slammed tothe iron door at the top of the stairway, shooting the bars.

“Won’t you go into that room?” he said to her, pointingto a dark doorway. “You will be all right there. Juststay a few minutes till I come back.”

As he spoke, there came a shriek from the courtyard at theback, and a man’s death-voice yelled Patrón!

Ramón’s eyes dilated with terrible anger, the anger ofdeath. His face went pale and strange, as he looked at herwithout seeing her, the black flame filling his eyes. He haddrawn a long-barreled steel revolver from his hip.

Still without seeing her, he strode rapidly, soft and catlikealong the terrace, and leaped up the end staircase on to theroof. The soft, eternal passion of anger in his limbs.

Kate stood in the doorway of the room, transfixed. Thelight of day seemed to have darkened before her face.

“Holá! You there!” she heard his voice from the roof,in such anger it was almost a laugh, from far away.

For answer, a confused noise from the courtyard, andseveral shots. The slow, steady answer of shots!

She started as a rushing hiss broke on the air. In terrorshe waited. Then she saw it was a rocket bursting witha sound like a gun, high over the lake, and emitting a showerof red balls of light. A signal from Ramón!

Unable to go into the dark room, Kate waited as if smittento death. Then something stirred deep in her, she flew alongthe terrace and up the steps to the roof. She realised thatshe didn’t mind dying so long as she died with that man.Not alone.

The roof was glaring with sunshine. It was flat, but itsdifferent levels were uneven. She ran straight out into thelight, towards the parapet wall, and had nearly come insight of the gateway of the courtyard below, when somethinggave a slight smack, and bits of plaster flew in herface and her hair. She turned and fled back like a bee tothe stairway.

The stairs came up in a corner, where there was a little[Pg 313]sort of stone turret, square, with stone seats. She sankon one of these seats, looking down in terror at the turnof the stairs. It was a narrow little stone stairway, betweenthe solid stone walls.

She was almost paralysed with shock and with fear. Yetsomething within her was calm. Leaning and looking outacross calm sunshine of the level roof, she could not believein death.

She saw the white figure and the dark head of Ramónwithin one of the small square turrets across the roof. Thelittle tower was open, and hardly higher than his head. Hewas standing in a corner, looking sideways down a loop-hole,perfectly motionless. Snap! went his revolver, deliberately.There was a muffled cry below, and a sudden volley of shots.

Ramón stood away from the loop-hole and took off hiswhite blouse, so that it should not betray him. Above hissash was a belt of cartridges. In the shadow of the turret,his body looked curiously dark, rising from the white of histrousers. Again he took his stand quietly at the side ofthe long, narrow, slanting aperture. He lifted his revolvercarefully, and the shots, one, two, three, slow and deliberate,startled her nerves. And again there was a volley of shotsfrom below, and bits of stone and plaster smoking againstthe sky. Then again, silence, long silence. Kate pressedher hands against her body, as she sat.

The clouds had shifted, the sun shone yellowish. In theheavier light, the mountains beyond the parapet showed afleece of young green, smoky and beautiful.

All was silent. Ramón in the shadow did not move, pressinghimself against the wall, and looking down. He commanded,she knew, the big inner doors.

Suddenly, however, he shifted. With his revolver in hishand he stooped and ran, like some terrible cat, the sungleaming on his naked back as he crouched under theshelter of the thick parapet wall, running along the roof tothe corresponding front turret.

This turret was roofless, and it was nearer to Kate, as shesat spell-bound, in a sort of eternity, on the stone seat atthe head of the stairs, watching Ramón. He pressed himselfa*gainst the wall, and lifted his revolver to the slit. Andagain, one, two, three, four, five, the shots explodeddeliberately. Some voice below yelled Ay-ee! Ay-ee![Pg 314]Ay-ee! in yelps of animal pain. A voice was heard shoutingcommand. Ramón kneeled on one knee, re-loading hisrevolver. Then he struck a match, and again Kate almoststarted out of her skin, as a rocket rushed ferociously upinto the sky, exploded like a gun, and let fall the balls of redflame that lingered as if loth to die away, in the high, remoteair.

She sighed, wondering what it all was. It was death, sheknew. But so strange, so vacant. Just these noises ofshots! And she could see nothing outside. She wanted tosee what was in the courtyard.

Ramón was at his post, pressing himself close to the wall,looking down, with bent head, motionless. There wereshots, and a spatter of lead from below. But he did notmove. She could not see his face, only part of his back;the proud, heavy, creamy-brown shoulders, the black headbent a little forward, in concentration, the cartridge-beltdropping above his loins, over the white, floppy linen of thetrousers. Still and soft in watchful concentration, almostlike silence itself. Then with soft, diabolic swiftness in hismovements, he changed his position, and took aim.

He was utterly unaware of her; even of her existence.Which was as it should be, no doubt. She sat motionless,waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, in that yellowish sunlightof eternity, with a certain changeless suspense of stillnessinside her. Someone would come from the village.There would be an end. There would be an end.

At the same time, she started every time he fired, andlooked at him. And she heard his voice saying: “Oneneeds manifestations, it seems to me.” Ah, how she hatedthe noise of shots.

Suddenly she gave a piercing shriek, and in one leap wasout of her retreat. She had seen a black head turning thestairs.

Before she knew it, Ramón jumped past her like a greatcat, and two men clashed in mid-air, as the unseen fellowleaped up from the stairs. Two men in a crash went downon the floor, a revolver went off, terrible limbs were writhing.

Ramón’s revolver was on the floor. But again there wasa shot from the tangled men, and a redness of blood suddenlyappearing out of nowhere, on the white cotton clothing, asthe two men twisted and fought on the floor.

[Pg 315]

They were both big men. Struggling on the ground, theylooked huge. Ramón had the bandit’s revolver-hand bythe wrist. The bandit, with a ghastly black face withrolling eyes and sparse moustache, had got Ramón’s nakedarm in his white teeth, and was hanging on, showing hisred gums, while with his free hand he was feeling for hisknife.

Kate could not believe that the black, ghastly face withthe sightless eyes and biting mouth was conscious. Ramónhad him clasped round the body. The bandit’s revolverfell, and the fellow’s loose black hand scrabbled on theconcrete, feeling for it. Blood was flowing over his teeth.Yet some blind super-consciousness seemed to possess him,as if he were a devil, not a man.

His hand nearly touched Ramón’s revolver. In horrorKate ran and snatched the weapon from the warm concrete,running away as the bandit gave a heave, a great suddenheave of his body, under the body of Ramón. Kate raisedthe revolver. She hated that horrible devil under Ramónas she had never hated in her life. Yet she dared not fire.

Ramón shouted something, glancing at her. She couldnot understand. But she ran round, to be able to shoot theman under Ramón. Even as she ran, the bandit twistedwith a great lunge of his body, heaved Ramón up, and withhis short free hand got Ramón’s own knife from the belt atthe groin, and stabbed.

Kate gave a cry! Oh, how she wanted to shoot! Shesaw the knife strike sideways, slanting in a short jab intoRamón’s back. At the same moment there was a stumbleon the stairs, and another black-headed man was leaping onto the roof from the turret.

She stiffened her wrist and fired without looking, in asudden second of pure control. The black head camecrashing at her. She recoiled in horror, lifted the revolverand fired again, and missed. But even as it passed her,she saw red blood among the black hairs of that head. Itcrashed down, the buttocks of the body heaving up, thewhole thing twitching and jerking along, the face seemingto grin in a mortal grin.

Glancing from horror to horror, she saw Ramón, his facestill as death, blood running down his arm and his back,holding down the head of the bandit by the hair and stabbing[Pg 316]him with short stabs in the throat, one, two, while bloodshot out like a red projectile; there was a strange sound likea soda-syphon, a ghastly bubbling, one final terrible convulsionfrom the loins of the stricken man, throwing Ramónoff, and Ramón lay twisted, still clutching the man’s hair inone hand, the bloody knife in the other, and gazing into thelivid, distorted face, in which ferocity seemed to have gonefrozen, with a steady, intent, inhuman gaze.

Then, without letting go his victim’s hair, he looked up,cautiously. To see Kate’s man, with black hair wet withblood, and blood running down into his glazed, awful eyes,slowly rising to his knees. It was the strangest face inthe world; the high, domed head with blood-soddened hair,blood running in several streams down the narrow, corrugatedbrow and along the black eyebrows above the glazed,black, numb eyes, in which the last glazing was of ferocity,stranger even than wonder, the glazed and absolute ferocitywhich the man’s last consciousness showed.

It was a long, thin, handsome face, save for those eyes ofglazed ferocity, and for the longish white teeth under thesparse moustache.

The man was reduced to his last, blank term of being; aglazed and ghastly ferocity.

Ramón dropped the hair of his victim, whose head droppedsideways with a gaping red throat, and rose to a crouchingposition. The second bandit was on his knees, but hishand already clasped his knife. Ramón crouched. Theywere both perfectly still. But Ramón had got his balance,crouching between his feet.

The bandit’s black, glazed eyes of blank ferocity took aglint of cunning. He was stretching. He was going toleap to his feet for his stroke.

And even as he leaped, Ramón shot the knife, that wasall bright red as a cardinal bird. It flew red like a bird,and the drops of Ramón’s handful of blood flew with it,splashing even Kate, who kept her revolver ready, watchingnear the stairway.

The bandit dropped on his knees again, and remained fora moment kneeling as if in prayer, the red pommel of theknife sticking out of his abdomen, from his white trousers.Then he slowly bowed over, doubled up, and went on hisface again, once more with his buttocks in the air.

[Pg 317]

Ramón still crouched at attention, almost supernatural,his dark eyes glittering with watchfulness, in pure, savageattentiveness. Then he rose, very smooth and quiet, crossedthe blood-stained concrete to the fallen man, picked up theclean, fallen knife that belonged to the fellow, lifted the red-drippingchin, and with one stroke drove the knife into theman’s throat. The man subsided with the blow, not eventwitching.

Then again, Ramón turned to look at the first man. Hegazed a moment attentively. But that horrible black facewas dead.

And then Ramón glanced at Kate, as she stood near thestairs with the revolver. His brow was like a boy’s, verypure and primitive, and the eyes underneath had a certainprimitive gleaming look of virginity. As men must havebeen, in the first awful days, with that strange beauty thatgoes with pristine rudimentariness.

For the most part, he did not recognise her. But therewas one remote glint of recognition.

“Are they both dead?” she asked, awestruck.

“Creo que si!” he replied in Spanish.

He turned to look once more, and to pick up the pistolthat lay on the concrete. As he did so, he noticed that hisright hand was bright red, with the blood that flowed stilldown his arm. He wiped it on the jacket of the dead man.But his trousers on his loins were also sodden with blood,they stuck red to his hips. He did not notice.

He was like a pristine being, remote in consciousness,and with far, remote sex.

Curious rattling, bubbling noises still came from the secondman, just physical sounds. The first man lay sprawling ina ghastly fashion, his evil face fixed above a pool of blackeningblood.

“Watch the stairs!” said Ramón in Spanish to her,glancing at her with farouche eyes, from some far remotejungle. Yet still the glint of recognition sparked furtivelyout of the darkness.

He crept to the turret, and stealthily looked out. Thenhe crept back, with the same stealth, and dragged the nearestdead man to the parapet, raising the body till the headlooked over. There was no sound. Then he raised himself,and peeped over. No sign, no sound.

[Pg 318]

He looked at the dead body as he let it drop. Then hewent to Kate, to look down the stairs.

“You grazed that man with your first shot, you onlystunned him I believe,” he said.

“Are there any more?” she asked, shuddering.

“I think they are all gone.”

He was pale, almost white, with that same pristine clearbrow, like a boy’s, a sort of twilight changelessness.

“Are you much hurt?” she said.

“I? No!” and he put his fingers round to his back, tofeel the slowly welling wound, with his bloody fingers.

The afternoon was passing towards yellow, heavyevening.

He went again to look at the terrible face of the first deadman.

“Did you know him?” she said.

He shook his head.

“Not that I am aware,” he said. Then; “Good thathe is dead. Good that he is dead.—Good that we killedthem both.”

He looked at her with that glint of savage recognitionfrom afar.

“Ugh! No! It’s terrible!” she said shuddering.

“Good for me that you were there! Good that wekilled them between us! Good they are dead.”

The heavy, luxurious yellow light from below the cloudsgilded the mountains of evening. There was the soundof a motor-car honking its horn.

Ramón went in silence to the parapet, the blood wettinghis pantaloons lower and lower, since they stuck to himwhen he bent down. Rich yellow light flooded the blood-stainedroof. There was a terrible smell of blood.

“There is a car coming,” he said.

She followed, frightened, across the roof.

She saw the hills and lower slopes inland swimming ingold light like lacquer. The black huts of the peons, thelurid leaves of bananas showed up uncannily, the trees green-goldstood up, with boughs of shadow. And away up theroad was a puther of dust, then the flash of glass as theautomobile turned.

“Stay here,” said Ramón, “while I go down.”

“Why didn’t your peons come and help you?” she said.

[Pg 319]

“They never do!” he replied. “Unless they are armedon purpose.”

He went, picking up his blouse and putting it on. Andimmediately the blood came through.

He went down. She listened to his steps. Below, thecourtyard was all shadow, and empty, save for two deadwhite-clothed bodies of men, one near the zaguan, oneagainst a pillar of the shed.

The motor-car came sounding its horn wildly all the waybetween the trees. It lurched into the zaguan. It wasfull of soldiers, soldiers standing on the running-boards,hanging on.

“Don Ramón! Don Ramón!” shouted the officer, leapingout of the car. “Don Ramón!” He was thunderingat the doors of the inner zaguan.

Why did not Ramón open? Where was he?

She leaned over the parapet and screamed like a wild bird:

“Viene! Viene Don Ramón! El viene!”

The soldiers all looked up at her. She drew back in terror.Then, in a panic, she turned downstairs, to the terrace.There was blood on the stone stairs, at the bottom, a greatpool. And on the terrace near the rocking-chairs, two deadmen in a great pool of blood.

One was Ramón! For a moment she went unconscious.Then slowly she crept forward. Ramón had fallen, reekingwith blood from his wound, his arms round the body of theother man, who was bleeding too. The second man openedhis eyes, wildly, and in a rattling voice, blind and dying,said:

“Patrón!”

It was Martin, Ramón’s own mozo. He was stiffeningand dying in Ramón’s arms. And Ramón, lifting him,had made his own wound gush with blood, and had fainted.He lay like dead. But Kate could see the faintest pulsein his neck.

She ran blindly down the stairs, and fought to get thegreat iron bars from across the door, screaming all the time:

“Come! Somebody! Come to Don Ramón! He willdie.”

A terrified boy and a woman appeared from the kitchenquarters. The door was opened, just as six horse-soldiersgalloped into the courtyard. The officer leaped from his[Pg 320]horse and ran like a hare, his revolver drawn, his spursflashing, straight through the doors and up the stairs, likea madman. When Kate got up the stairs again, the officerwas standing with drawn revolver, gazing down at Ramón.

“He is dead?” he said, stupefied, looking at Kate.

“No!” she said. “It is only loss of blood.”

The officers lifted Ramón and laid him on the terrace.Then quickly they got off his blouse. The wound wasbleeding thickly in the back.

“We’ve got to stop this wound,” said the lieutenant.“Where is Pablo?”

Instantly there was a cry for Pablo.

Kate ran into a bedroom for water, and she switched anold linen sheet from the bed. Pablo was a young doctoramong the soldiers. Kate gave him the bowl of water, andthe towel, and was tearing the sheet into bands. Ramónlay naked on the floor, all streaked with blood. And thelight was going.

“Bring light!” said the young doctor.

With swift hands he washed the wound, peering with hisnose almost touching it.

“It is not much!” he said.

Kate had prepared bandages and a pad. She crouchedto hand them to the young man. The woman-servant seta lamp with a white shade on the floor by the doctor. Helifted it, peering again at the wound.

“No!” he said. “It is not much.”

Then glancing up at the soldiers who stood motionless,peering down, the light on their dark faces.

“Té!” he said, making a gesture.

Quickly the lieutenant took the lamp, holding it over theinert body, and the doctor, with Kate to help, proceededto staunch and bind the wound. And Kate, as she touchedthe soft, inert flesh of Ramón, was thinking to herself:This too is he, this silent body! And that face that stabbedthe throat of the bandit was he! And that twilit brow,and those remote eyes, like a death-virgin, was he. Evena savage out of the twilight! And the man that knows me,where is he? One among these many men, no more! OhGod! give the man his soul back, into this bloody body.Let the soul come back, or the universe will be cold forme and for many men.

[Pg 321]

The doctor finished his temporary bandage, looked atthe wound in the arm, swiftly wiped the blood off the loinsand buttocks and legs, and said:

“We must put him in bed. Lift his head.”

Quickly Kate lifted the heavy, inert head. The eyeswere half open. The doctor pressed the closed lips, underthe sparse black moustache. But the teeth were firmly shut.

The doctor shook his head.

“Bring a mattress,” he said.

The wind was suddenly roaring, the lamp was leaping witha long, smoky needle of flame, inside its chimney. Leavesand dust flew rattling on the terrace, there was a splash oflightning. Ramón’s body lay there uncovered and motionless,the bandage was already soaked with blood, under thedarkening, leaping light of the lamp.

And again Kate saw, vividly, how the body is the flameof the soul, leaping and sinking upon the invisible wick ofthe soul. And now the soul, like a wick, seemed spent,the body was a sinking, fading flame.

“Kindle his soul again, oh God!” she cried to herself.

All she could see of the naked body was the terrible absenceof the living soul of it. All she wanted was for the soulto come back, the eyes to open.

They got him upon the bed and covered him, closing thedoors against the wind and the rain. The doctor chafedhis brow and hands with cognac. And at length the eyesopened; the soul was there, but standing far back.

For some moments Ramón lay with open eyes, withoutseeing or moving. Then he stirred a little.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Keep still, Don Ramón,” said the doctor, who with hisslim dark hands was even more delicate than a woman.“You have lost much blood. Keep still.”

“Where is Martin?”

“He is outside.”

“How is he?”

“He is dead.”

The dark eyes under the black lashes were perfectly steadyand changeless. Then came the voice:

“Pity we did not kill them all. Pity we did not killthem all. We have got to kill them all.—Where is theSeñora Inglesa?”

[Pg 322]

“Here she is.”

His black eyes looked up at Kate. Then more of hisconsciousness came back.

“Thank you for my life,” he said, closing his eyes.Then: “Put the lamp aside.”

Soldiers were tapping at the glass pane, for the lieutenant.A black little fellow entered, wiping the rain from his blackface and pushing his thick black hair back.

“There are two more dead on the azotea,” he announcedto his officer.

The lieutenant rose, and followed him out. Kate toowent on to the terrace. In the early darkness the rainwas threshing down. A lantern was coming down fromthe roof: it came along the terrace to the stairs, and afterit two soldiers in the pouring rain, carrying a dead body,then behind, two more, with the other body. The huarachesof the soldiers clicked and shuffled on the wet terrace. Thedismal cortège went downstairs.

Kate stood on the terrace facing the darkness, while therain threshed down. She felt uneasy here, in this houseof men and of soldiers. She found her way down to thekitchen, where the boy was fanning a charcoal fire, andthe woman was crushing tomatoes on the metate, for asauce.

“Ay, Señora!” cried the woman. “Five men dead, andthe Patrón wounded to death! Ay! Ay!”

“Seven men dead!” said the boy. “Two on the azotea!”

“Seven men! Seven men!”

Kate sat on her chair, stunned, unable to hear anythingbut the threshing rain, unable to feel anything more. Twoor three peons came in, and two more women, the menwrapped to their noses in their blankets. The womenbrought masa, and began a great clapping of tortillas. Thepeople conversed in low, rapid tones, in the dialect, andKate could not listen.

At length the rain began to abate. She knew it wouldleave off suddenly. There was a great sound of waterrunning, gushing, splashing, pouring into the cistern. Andshe thought to herself: The rain will wash the blood offthe roof and down the spouts into the cistern. There willbe blood in the water.

She looked at her own blood-smeared white frock. She[Pg 323]felt chilly. She rose to go upstairs again, into the dark,empty, masterless house.

“Ah, Señora! You are going upstairs? Go, Daniel,carry the lantern for the Señora!”

The boy lit a candle in a lantern, and Kate returned tothe upper terrace. The light shone out of the room whereRamón was. She went into the salon and got her hat andher brown shawl. The lieutenant heard her, and cameto her quickly, very kindly and respectful.

“Won’t you come in, Señora?” he said, holding the doorto the room where Ramón lay; the guest-room.

Kate went in. Ramón lay on his side, his black, ratherthin moustache pushed against the pillow. He was himself.

“It is very unpleasant for you here, Señora Caterina,” hesaid. “Would you like to go to your house? The lieutenantwill send you in the motor-car.”

“Is there nothing I can do here?” she said.

“Ah no! Don’t stay here! It is too unpleasant for you.—Ishall soon get up, and I shall come to thank you for mylife.”

He looked at her, into her eyes. And she saw that hissoul had come back to him, and with his soul he saw her andacknowledged her; though always from the peculiar remotenessthat was inevitable in him.

She went downstairs with the young lieutenant.

“Ah, what a horrible affair! They were not bandits,Señora!” said the young man, with passion. “Theydidn’t come to rob. They came to murder Don Ramón,you know, Señora! simply to murder Don Ramón. Andbut for your being here, they would have done it!—Ah,think of it, Señora! Don Ramón is the most precious manin Mexico. It is possible that in the world there is not aman like him. And personally, he hasn’t got enemies. Asa man among men, he hasn’t got enemies. No Señora.Not one! But do you know who it will be? the priests, andthe Knights of Cortes.”

“Are you sure?” said Kate.

“Sure, Señora!” cried the lieutenant indignantly.“Look! There are seven men dead. Two were the mozoswith guns, watching in the zaguan. One was Don Ramón’sown mozo Martin!—ah, what a faithful man, what a braveone! Never will Don Ramón pardon his death. Then[Pg 324]moreover, the two men killed on the azotea, and two menin the courtyard, shot by Don Ramón. Besides these, aman whom Martin wounded, who fell and broke his leg, sowe have got him. Come and see them, Señora.”

They were down in the wet courtyard. Little fires hadbeen lighted under the sheds, and the little, black, devil-may-caresoldiers were crouching round them, with a bunchof peons in blankets standing round. Across the courtyard,horses stamped and jingled their harness. A boy camerunning with tortillas in a cloth. The dark-faced littlesoldiers crouched like animals, sprinkled salt on the tortillas,and devoured them with small, white, strong teeth.

Kate saw the great oxen tied in their sheds, lying down,the wagons standing inert. And a little crowd of asses wasmunching alfalfa in a corner.

The officer marched beside Kate, his spurs sparking inthe firelight. He went to the muddy car, that stood in themiddle of the yard; then to his horse. From a saddle-pockethe took an electric torch, and led Kate across to theend shed.

There he suddenly flashed his light upon seven dead bodies,laid side by side. The two from the roof were wet. Ramón’sdead man lay with his dark, strong breast bare, and hisblackish, thick, devilish face sideways; a big fellow. Kate’sman lay rigid. Martin had been stabbed in the collar bone;he looked as if he were staring at the roof of the shed. Theothers were two more peons, and two fellows in black bootsand grey trousers and blue overall jackets. They were allinert and straight and dead, and somehow, a little ridiculous.Perhaps it is clothing that makes dead people gruesome andabsurd. But also, the grotesque fact that the bodies arevacant, is always present.

“Look!” said the lieutenant, touching a body with histoe. “This is a chauffeur from Sayula; this is a boatmanfrom Sayula. These two are peons from San Pablo. Thisman—” the lieutenant kicked the dead body—“we don’tknow.” It was Ramón’s dead man. “But this man—”he kicked her dead man, with the tall domed head—“isfrom Ahuajijic, and he was married to the woman that nowlives with a peon here.—You see, Señora! A chauffeur anda boatman from Sayula—they are Knights-of-Cortes men;and those two peons from San Pablo are priests’ men.—These[Pg 325]are not bandits. It was an attempt at assassination.But of course they would have robbed everything, everything,if they had killed Don Ramón.”

Kate was staring at the dead men. Three of them werehandsome; one, the boatman, with a thin line of blackbeard framing his shapely face, was beautiful. But dead, withthe mockery of death in his face. All of them men who hadbeen in the flush of life. Yet dead, they did not even matter.They were gruesome, but it did not matter that they weredead men. They were vacant. Perhaps even in life therehad been a certain vacancy, nothingness, in their handsomephysique.

For a pure moment, she wished for men who were nothandsome as these dark natives were. Even their beautywas suddenly repulsive to her; the dark beauty of half-created,half-evolved things, left in the old, reptile-likesmoothness. It made her shudder.

The soul! If only the soul in man, in woman, wouldspeak to her, not always this strange, perverse materialism,or a distorted animalism. If only people were souls, andtheir bodies were gestures from the soul! If one could butforget both bodies and facts, and be present with strong,living souls!

She went across the courtyard, that was littered withhorse-droppings, to the car. The lieutenant was choosingthe soldiers who should stay behind. The horse-soldierswould stay. A peon on a delicate speckled horse, a flea-bittenroan, came trotting past the soldiers in the zaguan.He had been to Sayula for doctor’s stuff, and to givemessages to the Jefe.

At last the car, with little soldiers clinging on to it allround, moved slowly out of the courtyard. The lieutenantsat beside Kate. He stopped the car again at the big whitebarn under the trees, to talk to two soldiers picketed there.

Then they moved slowly on, under the wet trees, in themud that crackled beneath the wheels, up the avenue tothe highroad, where were the little black huts of the peons.Little fires were flapping in front of one or two huts, womenwere baking tortillas on the flat earthenware plates, uponthe small wood fires. A woman was going to her hut witha blazing brand, like a torch, to kindle her fire. A fewpeons in dirty-white clothes squatted silent against the[Pg 326]walls of their houses, utterly silent. As the motor-carturned its great glaring head-lights upon the highroad,little sandy pigs with short, curly hair started up squealing,and faces and figures stood out blindly, as in a searchlight.

There was a hut with a wide opening in the black wall,and a grey old man was standing inside. The car stoppedfor the lieutenant to call to the peons under the wall. Theycame to the car with their black eyes glaring and glitteringapprehensively. They seemed very much abashed, andhumble, answering the lieutenant.

Meanwhile Kate watched a boy buy a drink for onecentavo and a piece of rope for three centavos, from thegrey old man at the dark hole, which was a shop.

The car went on, the great lights glaring unnaturallyupon the hedges of cactus and mesquite and palo blancotrees, and upon the great pools of water in the road. Itwas a slow progress.

Kate hid in her own house, numbed. She could not bearto talk to people. She could not bear even Juana’s bubblingdiscourse. The common threads that bound her to humanityseemed to have snapped. The little human things didn’tinterest her any more. Her eyes seemed to have gonedark, and blind to individuals. They were all just individuals,like leaves in the dark, making a noise. Andshe was alone under the trees.

The egg-woman wanted six centavos for an egg.

“And I said to her—I said to her—we buy them at fivecentavos!” Juana went on.

“Yes!” said Kate. She didn’t care whether they werebought at five or fifty, or not bought at all.

She didn’t care, she didn’t care, she didn’t care. Shedidn’t even care about life any more. There was no escapingher own complete indifference. She felt indifferent toeverything in the whole world, almost she felt indifferentto death.

“Niña! Niña! Here is the man with the sandals!Look! Look how nicely he has made them for you, Niña!Look what Mexican huaraches the Niña is going to wear!”

She tried them on. The man charged her too much.She looked at him with her remote, indifferent eyes. Butshe knew, in the world one must live, so she paid him lessthan he asked, though more than he really would haveaccepted.

She sat down again in her rocking-chair in the shade ofthe room. Only to be alone! Only that no one shouldspeak to her. Only that no one should come near her!Because in reality her soul and spirit were gone, departedinto the middle of some desert, and the effort of reachingacross to people to effect an apparent meeting, or contact,was almost more than she could bear.

Never had she been so alone, and so inert, and so utterlywithout desire; plunged in a wan indifference, like death.Never had she passed her days so blindly, so unknowingly,in stretches of nothingness.

Sometimes, to get away from her household, she satunder a tree by the lake. And there, without knowing it,[Pg 328]she let the sun scorch her foot and burn her face inflamed.Juana made a great outcry over her. The foot blisteredand swelled, her face was red and painful. But it all seemedto happen merely to her shell. And she was wearily, wanlyindifferent.

Only at the very centre of her sometimes a little flamerose, and she knew that what she wanted was for her soulto live. The life of days and facts and happenings wasdead on her, and she was like a corpse. But away insideher a little light was burning, the light of her innermostsoul. Sometimes it sank and seemed extinct. Then it wasthere again.

Ramón had lighted it. And once it was lighted theworld went hollow and dead, all the world-activities wereempty weariness to her. Her soul! Her frail, innermostsoul! She wanted to live its life, not her own life.

The time would come again when she would see Ramónand Cipriano, and the soul that was guttering would kindleagain in her, and feel strong. Meanwhile she only feltweak, weak, weak, weak as the dying. She felt that afternoonof bloodshed had blown all their souls into the twilightof death, for the time. But they would come back. Theywould come back. Nothing to do but to submit, and wait.Wait, with a soul almost dead, and hands and heart ofuttermost inert heaviness, indifference.

Ramón had lost much blood. And she, too, in otherways, had been drained of the blood of the body. She feltbloodless and powerless.

But wait, wait, wait, the new blood would come.

One day Cipriano came. She was rocking in her salon, ina cotton housedress, and her face red and rather swollen.She saw him, in uniform, pass by the window. He stoodin the doorway on the terrace, a dark, grave, small, handsomeman.

“Do come in,” she said with effort.

Her eyelids felt burnt. He looked at her with his fullblack eyes, that always had in them so many things she didnot understand. She felt she could not look back at him.

“Have you chased all your rebels?” she said.

“For the present,” he replied.

He seemed to be watching, watching for something.

“And you didn’t get hurt?”

[Pg 329]

“No, I didn’t get hurt.”

She looked away out of the door, having nothing to sayin the world.

“I went to Jamiltepec yesterday evening,” he said.

“How is Don Ramón?”

“Yes, he is better.”

“Quite better?”

“No. Not quite better. But he walks a little.”

“Wonderful how people heal.”

“Yes. We die very easily. But we also come quicklyback to life.”

“And you? Did you fight the rebels, or didn’t theywant to fight?”

“Yes, they wanted to. We fought once or twice; notvery much.”

“Men killed?”

“Yes! Some! Not many, no? Perhaps a hundred.We can never tell, no? Maybe two hundred.”

He waved his hand vaguely.

“But you had the worst rebellion at Jamiltepec, no?”he said suddenly, with heavy Indian gravity, gloom, suddenlysettling down.

“It didn’t last long, but it was rather awful while itdid.”

“Rather awful, no?—If I had known! I said to Ramón,won’t you keep the soldiers?—the guard, no? He said theywere not necessary. But here—you never know, no?”

“Niña!” cried Juana, from the terrace. “Niña! DonAntonio says he is coming to see you.”

“Tell him to come to-morrow.”

“Already he is on the way!” cried Juana, in helplessness.Don Antonio was Kate’s fat landlord; and, of course,Juana’s permanent master, more important in her eyes,then, even than Kate.

“Here he is!” she cried, and fled.

Kate leaned forward in her chair, to see the stout figureof her landlord on the walk outside the window, taking offhis cloth cap and bowing low to her. A cloth cap!—Sheknew he was a great Fascista, the reactionary Knights ofCortes held him in great esteem.

Kate bowed coldly.

He bowed low again, with the cloth cap.

[Pg 330]

Kate said not a word.

He stood on one foot, then on the other, and then marchedforward up the gravel walk, towards the kitchen quarters,as if he had not seen either Kate or General Viedma. Ina few moments he marched back, as if he could not seeeither Kate or the General, through the open door.

Cipriano looked at the passing stout figure of Don Antonioin a cloth cap as if it were the wind blowing.

“It is my landlord!” said Kate. “I expect he wantsto know if I am taking on the house for another threemonths.”

“Ramón wanted me to come and see you—to see howyou are, no?—and to ask you to come to Jamiltepec. Willyou come with me now? The car is here.”

“Must I?” said Kate, uneasily.

“No. Not unless you wish. Ramón said, not unlessyou wished. He said, perhaps it would be painful to you,no?—to go to Jamiltepec again—so soon after—”

How curious Cipriano was! He stated things as if theywere mere bare facts with no emotional content at all. Asfor its being painful to Kate to go to Jamiltepec, thatmeant nothing to him.

“Lucky thing you were there that day, no?” he said.“They might have killed him. Very likely they would!Very likely! Awful, no?”

“They might have killed me too,” she said.

“Yes! Yes! They might!” he acquiesced.

Curious he was! With a sort of glaze of the ordinaryworld on top, and underneath a black volcano with hellknows what depths of lava. And talking half-abstractedlyfrom his glazed, top self, the words came out small andquick, and he was always hesitating, and saying: No? Itwasn’t himself at all talking.

“What would you have done if they had killed Ramón?”she said, tentatively.

“I?”—He looked up at her in a black flare of apprehension.The volcano was rousing. “If they had killedhim?—” His eyes took on that fixed glare of ferocity,staring her down.

“Would you have cared very much?” she said.

“I? Would I?” he repeated, and the black suspiciouslook came into his Indian eyes.

[Pg 331]

“Would it have meant very much to you?”

He still watched her with a glare of ferocity and suspicion.

“To me!” he said, and he pressed his hand against thebuttons of his tunic. “To me Ramón is more than life.More than life.” His eyes seemed to glare and go sightless,as he said it, the ferocity melting in a strange blind, confidingglare, that seemed sightless, either looking inward,or out at the whole vast void of the cosmos, where novision is left.

“More than anything?” she said.

“Yes!” he replied abstractedly, with a blind nod ofthe head.

Then abruptly he looked at her and said:

“You saved his life.”

By this he meant that therefore—But she could notunderstand the therefore.

She went to change, and they set off to Jamiltepec.Cipriano made her a little uneasy, sitting beside him. Hemade her physically aware of him, of his small but strongand assertive body, with its black currents and stormsof desire. The range of him was very limited, really. Thegreat part of his nature was just inert and heavy, unresponsive,limited as a snake or a lizard is limited. Butwithin his own heavy, dark range he had a curious power.Almost she could see the black fume of power which heemitted, the dark, heavy vibration of his blood, whichcast a spell over her.

As they sat side by side in the motor-car, silent, swayingto the broken road, she could feel the curious tingling heatof his blood, and the heavy power of the will that layunemerged in his blood. She could see again the skiesgo dark, and the phallic mystery rearing itself like a whirlingdark cloud, to the zenith, till it pierced the sombre,twilit zenith; the old, supreme phallic mystery. And herselfin the everlasting twilight, a sky above where the sunran smokily, an earth below where the trees and creaturesrose up in blackness, and man strode along naked, dark,half-visible, and suddenly whirled in supreme power,towering like a dark whirlwind column, whirling to piercethe very zenith.

The mystery of the primeval world! She could feel it[Pg 332]now in all its shadowy, furious magnificence. She knewnow what was the black, glinting look in Cipriano’s eyes.She could understand marrying him, now. In the shadowyworld where men were visionless, and winds of fury roseup from the earth, Cipriano was still a power. Once youentered his mystery the scale of all things changed, andhe became a living male power, undefined, and unconfined.The smallness, the limitations ceased to exist. In his black,glinting eyes the power was limitless, and it was as if, fromhim, from his body of blood could rise up that pillar ofcloud which swayed and swung, like a rearing serpent or arising tree, till it swept the zenith, and all the earth belowwas dark and prone, and consummated. Those smallhands, that little natural tuft of black goats’ beard hanginglight from his chin, the tilt of his brows and the slight slantof his eyes, the domed Indian head with its thick blackhair, they were like symbols to her, of another mystery,the bygone mystery of the twilit, primitive world, whereshapes that are small suddenly loom up huge, gigantic onthe shadow, and a face like Cipriano’s is the face at onceof a god and a devil, the undying Pan face. The bygonemystery, that has indeed gone by, but has not passed away.Never shall pass away.

As he sat in silence, casting the old, twilit Pan-powerover her, she felt herself submitting, succumbing. He wasonce more the old dominant male, shadowy, intangible,looming suddenly tall, and covering the sky, making adarkness that was himself and nothing but himself, thePan male. And she was swooned prone beneath, perfectin her proneness.

It was the ancient phallic mystery, the ancient god-devilof the male Pan. Cipriano unyielding forever, in theancient twilight, keeping the ancient twilight around him.She understood now his power with his soldiers. He hadthe old gift of demon-power.

He would never woo; she saw this. When the powerof his blood rose in him, the dark aura streamed from himlike a cloud pregnant with power, like thunder, and roselike a whirlwind that rises suddenly in the twilight andraises a great pliant column, swaying and leaning withpower, clear between heaven and earth.

Ah! and what a mystery of prone submission, on her[Pg 333]part, this huge erection would imply! Submission absolute,like the earth under the sky. Beneath an over-archingabsolute.

Ah! what a marriage! How terrible! and how complete!With the finality of death, and yet more thandeath. The arms of the twilit Pan. And the awful, half-intelligiblevoice from the cloud.

She could conceive now her marriage with Cipriano; thesupreme passivity, like the earth below the twilight, consummatein living lifelessness, the sheer solid mystery ofpassivity. Ah, what an abandon, what an abandon, whatan abandon!—of so many things she wanted to abandon.

Cipriano put his hand, with its strange soft warmth andweight, upon her knee, and her soul melted like fusedmetal.

“En poco tiempo, verdad?” he said to her, lookinginto her eyes with the old, black, glinting look, of powerabout to consummate itself.

“In a little while, no?”

She looked back at him, wordless. Language hadabandoned her, and she leaned silent and helpless in thevast, unspoken twilight of the Pan world. Her self hadabandoned her, and all her day was gone. Only she saidto herself:

“My demon lover!”

Her world could end in many ways, and this was one ofthem. Back to the twilight of the ancient Pan world, wherethe soul of woman was dumb, to be forever unspoken.

The car had stopped, they had come to Jamiltepec. Helooked at her again, as reluctantly he opened the door.And as he stepped out, she realised again his uniform, hissmall figure in uniform. She had lost it entirely. She hadonly known his face, the face of the supreme god-demon;with the arching brows and slightly slanting eyes, and theloose, light tuft of a goat-beard. The Master. The everlastingPan.

He was looking back at her again, using all his power toprevent her seeing in him the little general in uniform, inthe worldly vision. And she avoided his eyes, and sawnothing.

They found Ramón sitting in his white clothes in a longchair on the terrace. He was creamy-brown in his pallor.

[Pg 334]

He saw at once the change in Kate. She had the faceof one waking from the dead, curiously dipped in death,with a tenderness far more new and vulnerable than achild’s. He glanced at Cipriano. Cipriano’s face seemeddarker than usual, with that secret hauteur and aloofnessof the savage. He knew it well.

“Are you better?” Kate asked.

“Very nearly!” he said, looking up at her gently.“And you?”

“Yes, I am all right.”

“You are?”

“Yes, I think so.—I have felt myself all lost, since thatday. Spiritually, I mean. Otherwise I am all right. Areyou healing well?”

“Oh, yes! I always heal quickly.”

“Knives and bullets are horrible things.”

“Yes—in the wrong place.”

Kate felt rather as if she were coming to, from a swoon,as Ramón spoke to her and looked at her. His eyes, hisvoice seemed kind. Kind? The word suddenly was strangeto her, she had to try to get its meaning.

There was no kindness in Cipriano. The god-demon Panpreceded kindness. She wondered if she wanted kindness.She did not know. Everything felt numb.

“I was wondering whether to go to England,” she said.

“Again?” said Ramón, with a slight smile. “Awayfrom the bullets and the knives, is that it?”

“Yes!—to get away.” And she sighed deeply.

“No!” said Ramón. “Don’t go away. You will findnothing in England.”

“But can I go on here?”

“Can you help it?”

“I wish I knew what to do.”

“How can one know? Something happens inside you,and all your decisions are smoke.—Let happen what willhappen.”

“I can’t quite drift as if I had no soul of my own,can I?”

“Sometimes it is best.”

There was a pause. Cipriano stayed outside the conversationaltogether, in a dusky world of his own, apartand secretly hostile.

[Pg 335]

“I have been thinking so much about you,” she said toRamón, “and wondering whether it is worth while.”

“What?”

“What you are doing; trying to change the religion ofthese people. If they have any religion to change. I don’tthink they are a religious people. They are only superstitious.I have no use for men and women who go crawlingdown a church aisle on their knees, or holding up theirarms for hours. There’s something stupid and wrong aboutit. They never worship a God. Only some little evil power.I have been wondering so much if it is worth while givingyourself to them, and exposing yourself to them. It wouldbe horrible if you were really killed. I have seen you lookdead.”

“Now you see me look alive again,” he smiled.

But a heavy silence followed.

“I believe Don Cipriano knows them better than youdo. I believe he knows best, if it is any good,” she said.

“And what does he say?” asked Ramón.

“I say I am Ramón’s man,” replied Cipriano stubbornly.

Kate looked at him, and mistrusted him. In the longrun he was nobody’s man. He was that old, masterlessPan-male, that could not even conceive of service; particularlythe service of mankind. He saw only glory; theblack mystery of glory consummated. And himself likea wind of glory.

“I feel they’ll let you down,” said Kate to Ramón.

“Maybe! But I shan’t let myself down. I do what Ibelieve in. Possibly I am only the first step round thecorner of change. But: ce n’est que le premier pas quicoute—Why will you not go round the corner with us? Atleast it is better than sitting still.”

Kate did not answer his question. She sat looking atthe mango trees and the lake, and the thought of thatafternoon came over her again.

“How did those two men get in; those two bandits onthe roof?” she asked wonderingly.

“It was a woman this time; a girl whom Carlota broughthere from the Cuna in Mexico, to be a sewing girl and toteach the peon’s wives to sew and do little things. Shehad a little room at the end of the terrace there—” Ramónpointed to the terrace projecting towards the lake, opposite[Pg 336]the one where his own room was, and the covered balcony.“She got entangled with one of the peons; a sort of secondoverseer, called Guillermo. Guillermo had got a wife andfour children, but he came to me to say could he changeand take Maruca—the sewing girl. I said no, he couldstay with his family. And I sent Maruca back to Mexico.But she had had a smattering of education, and thoughtshe was equal to anything. She got messages through toGuillermo, and he ran away and joined her in Mexico,leaving wife and four children here. The wife then wentto live with another peon—the blacksmith—whose wife haddied and who was supposed to be a good match; a decentfellow.

“One day appeared Guillermo, and said: could he comeback? I said not with Maruca. He said he didn’t wantMaruca, he wanted to come back. His wife was willing togo back to him again with the children. The blacksmithwas willing to let her go. I said very well; but he hadforfeited his job as sub-overseer, and must be a peon again.

“And he seemed all right—satisfied. But then Marucacame and stayed in Sayula, pretending to make her livingas a dressmaker. She was in with the priest; and she gotGuillermo again.

“It seems the Knights of Cortes had promised a bigreward for the man who would bring in my scalp; secretly,of course. The girl got Guillermo: Guillermo got thosetwo peons, one from San Pablo and one from Ahuajijic;somebody else arranged for the rest.

“The bedroom the girl used to have is that one, on theterrace not far from where the stairs go up to the roof.The bedroom has a lattice window, high up, looking out onthe trees. There’s a big laurel de India grows outside. Itappears the girl climbed on a table and knocked the ironlattice of the window loose, while she was living here, andthat Guillermo, by taking a jump from the bough—a veryrisky thing, but then he was one of that sort—could landon the window-sill and pull himself into the room.

“Apparently he and the other two men were going to getthe scalp and pillage the house before the others couldenter. So the first one, the man I killed, climbed the tree,and with a long pole shoved in the lattice of the window,and so got into the room, and up the terrace stairs.

[Pg 337]

“Martin, my man, who was waiting on the other stairs,ready if they tried to blow out the iron door, heard thesmash of the window and rushed round just as the secondbandit—the one you shot—was crouching on the window-sillto jump down into the room. The window is quitesmall, and high up.

“Before Martin could do anything the man had jumpeddown on top of him and stabbed him twice with his machete.Then he took Martin’s knife and came up the stairs, whenyou shot him in the head.

“Martin was on the floor when he saw the hands of athird man gripping through the window. Then the face ofGuillermo. Martin got up and gave the hands a slash withthe heavy machete, and Guillermo fell smash back down onto the rocks under the wall.

“When I came down, I found Martin lying outside thedoor of that room. He told me—They came through there.Patrón. Guillermo was one of them.

“Guillermo broke his thigh on the rocks, and the soldiersfound him. He confessed everything, and said he was sorry,and begged my pardon. He’s in the prison hospital now.”

“And Maruca?” said Kate.

“They’ve got her too.”

“There will always be a traitor,” said Kate gloomily.

“Let us hope there will also be a Caterina,” said Ramón

“But will you go on with it—your Quetzalcoatl?”

“How can I leave off? It’s my métier now. Why don’tyou join us? Why don’t you help me?”

“How?”

“You will see. Soon you will hear the drums again.Soon the first day of Quetzalcoatl will come. You will see.Then Cipriano will appear—in the red sarape—and Huitzilopochtliwill share the Mexican Olympus with Quetzalcoatl.Then I want a goddess.”

“But will Don Cipriano be the god Huitzilopochtli?”she asked, taken aback.

“First Man of Huitzilopochtli, as I am First Man ofQuetzalcoatl.”

“Will you?” said Kate to Cipriano. “That horribleHuitzilopochtli?”

“Yes, Señora!” said Cipriano, with a subtle smile ofhauteur, the secret savage coming into his own.

[Pg 338]

“Not the old Huitzilopochtli—but the new,” saidRamón. “And then there must come a goddess; wife orvirgin, there must come a goddess. Why not you, as theFirst Woman of—say Itzpapalotl, just for the sound of thename?”

“I?” said Kate. “Never! I should die of shame.”

“Shame?” laughed Ramón. “Ah, Señora Caterina,why shame? This is a thing that must be done. Theremust be manifestations. We must change back to thevision of the living cosmos; we must. The oldest Panis in us, and he will not be denied. In cold blood and inhot blood both, we must make the change. That is howman is made. I accept the must from the oldest Pan inmy soul, and from the newest me. Once a man gathershis whole soul together and arrives at a conclusion, thetime of alternatives has gone. I must. No more thanthat. I am the First Man of Quetzalcoatl. I am Quetzalcoatlhimself, if you like. A manifestation, as well as aman. I accept myself entire, and proceed to make destiny.Why, what else can I do?”

Kate was silent. His loss of blood seemed to have washedhim curiously fresh again, and he was carried again out ofthe range of human emotion. A strange sort of categoricalimperative! She saw now his power over Cipriano. It layin this imperative which he acknowledged in his own soul,and which really was like a messenger from the beyond.

She looked on like a child looking through a railing;rather wistful, and rather frightened.

Ah, the soul! The soul was always flashing and darkeninginto new shapes, each one strange to the other. Shehad thought Ramón and she had looked into each other’ssouls. And now, he was this pale, distant man, with acurious gleam, like a messenger from the beyond, in hissoul. And he was remote, remote from any woman.

Whereas Cipriano had suddenly opened a new world toher, a world of twilight, with the dark, half-visible face ofthe god-demon Pan, who can never perish, but ever returnsupon mankind from the shadows. The world of shadowsand dark prostration, with the phallic wind rushing throughthe dark.

Cipriano had to go to the town at the end of the lake,near the State of Colima; to Jaramay. He was going in[Pg 339]a motor-boat with a couple of soldiers. Would Kate gowith him?

He waited, in heavy silence, for her answer.

She said she would. She was desperate. She did notwant to be sent back to her own empty, dead house.

It was one of those little periods when the rain seemsstrangled, the air thick with thunder, silent, ponderousthunder latent in the air from day to day, among the thick,heavy sunshine. Kate, in these days in Mexico, felt thatbetween the volcanic violence under the earth, and theelectric violence of the air above, men walked dark andincalculable, like demons from another planet.

The wind on the lake seemed fresh, from the west, butit was a running mass of electricity, that burned her faceand her eyes and the roots of her hair. When she hadwakened in the night and pushed the sheets, heavy sparksfell from her finger-tips. She felt she could not live.

The lake was like some frail milk of thunder; the darksoldiers curled under the awning of the boat, motionless.They seemed dark as lava and sulphur, and full of a dormant,diabolic electricity. Like salamanders. The boatmanin the stern, steering, was handsome almost like theman she had killed. But this one had pale greyish eyes,phosphorescent with flecks of silver.

Cipriano sat in silence in front of her. He had removedhis tunic, and his neck rose almost black from his whiteshirt. She could see how different his blood was from hers,dark, blackish, like the blood of lizards among hot blackrocks. She could feel its changeless surge, holding up hislight, bluey-black head as on a fountain. And she wouldfeel her own pride dissolving, going.

She felt he wanted his blood-stream to envelop hers.As if it could possibly be. He was so still, so unnoticing,and the darkness of the nape of his neck was so like invisibility.Yet he was always waiting, waiting, waiting,invisibly and ponderously waiting.

She lay under the awning in the heat and light withoutlooking out. The wind made the canvas crackle.

Whether the time was long or short, she knew not. Butthey were coming to the silent lake-end, where the beachcurved round in front of them. It seemed sheer lonelysunlight.

[Pg 340]

But beyond the shingle there were willow trees, and alow ranch-house. Three anchored canoas rode with theirblack, stiff lines. There were flat lands, with maize halfgrown and blowing its green flags sideways. But all wasas if invisible, in the intense hot light.

The warm, thin water ran shallower and shallower, tothe reach of shingle beyond. Black water-fowl bobbedlike corks. The motor stopped. The boat ebbed on. Underthe thin water were round stones, with thin green hair ofweed. They would not reach the shore—not by twentyyards.

The soldiers took off their huaraches, rolled their cottontrousers up their black legs, and got into the water. Thetall boatman did the same, pulling forward the boat. Shewould go no farther. He anchored her with a big stone.Then with his uncanny pale eyes, under the black lashes,he asked Kate in a low tone if he could carry her ashore,offering her his shoulder.

“No, no!” she said. “I’ll paddle.”

And hastily she took off her shoes and stockings andstepped into the shallow water, holding up her thinskirt of striped silk. The man laughed; so did thesoldiers.

The water was almost hot. She went blindly forward,her head dropped. Cipriano watched her with the silent,heavy, changeless patience of his race, then when shereached the shingle he came ashore on the boatman’sshoulders.

They crossed the hot shingle to the willow-trees by themaize-fields, and sat upon boulders. The lake stretchedpale and unreal, far, far away into the invisible, withdimmed mountains rising on either side, bare and abstract.The canoas were black and stiff, their masts motionless.The white motor-boat rode near. Black birds were bobbinglike corks, at this place of the water’s end and the world’send.

A lonely woman went up the shingle with a water-jaron her shoulder. Hearing a sound, Kate looked, and sawa group of fishermen holding a conclave in a dug-out hollowby a tree. They saluted, looking at her with black, blackeyes. They saluted humbly, and yet in their black eyeswas that ancient remote hardness and hauteur.

[Pg 341]

Cipriano had sent the soldiers for horses. It was toohot to walk.

They sat silent in the invisibility of this end of the lake,the great light taking sight away.

“Why am I not the living Huitzilopochtli?” saidCipriano quietly, looking full at her with his black eyes.

“Do you feel you are?” she said, startled.

“Yes,” he replied, in the same low, secret voice. “Itis what I feel.”

The black eyes looked at her with a rather awful challenge.And the small, dark voice seemed to take all her will away.They sat in silence, and she felt she was fainting, losing herconsciousness for ever.

The soldiers came, with a black Arab horse for him; adelicate thing; and for her a donkey, on which she couldsit sideways. He lifted her into the saddle, where she satonly half-conscious. A soldier led the donkey, and theyset off, past the long, frail, hanging fishing nets, that madelong filmy festoons, into the lane.

Then out into the sun and the grey-black dust, towardsthe grey-black, low huts of Jaramay, that lined the wide,desert road.

Jaramay was hot as a lava oven. Black low hut-houseswith tiled roofs lined the broken, long, delapidated street.Broken houses. Blazing sun. A brick pavement all smashedand sun-worn. A dog leading a blind man along the littleblack walls, on the broken pavement. A few goats. Andunspeakable lifelessness, emptiness.

They came to the broken plaza, with sun-decayed churchand ragged palm trees. Emptiness, sun, sun-decay, sun-delapidation.One man on a dainty Arab horse trottinglightly over the stones, gun behind, big hat making a darkface. For the rest, the waste space of the centre of life.Curious how dainty the horse looked, and the horsemansitting erect, amid the sun-roasted ruin.

They came to a big building. A few soldiers were drawnup at the entrance. They saluted Cipriano as if they weretransfixed, rolling their dark eyes.

Cipriano was down from his horse in a moment. Emittingthe dark rays of dangerous power, he found the Jefe allobsequious; a fat man in dirty white clothes. They puttheir wills entirely in his power.

[Pg 342]

He asked for a room where his esposa could rest. Katewas pale and all her will had left her. He was carryingher on his will.

He accepted a large room with a brick-tiled floor and alarge, new brass bed with a coloured cotton cover thrownover it, and with two chairs. The strange, dry, starkemptiness, that looked almost cold in the heat.

“The sun makes you pale. Lie down and rest. I willclose the windows,” he said.

He closed the shutters till only a darkness remained.

Then in the darkness, suddenly, softly he touched her,stroking her hip.

“I said you were my wife,” he said, in his small, softIndian voice. “It is true, isn’t it?”

She trembled, and her limbs seemed to fuse like metalmelting down. She fused into a molten unconsciousness,her will, her very self gone, leaving her lying in moltenlife, like a lake of still fire, unconscious of everything savethe eternality of the fire in which she was gone. Gone inthe fadeless fire, which has no death. Only the fire canleave us, and we can die.

And Cipriano the master of fire. The Living Huitzilopochtli,he had called himself. The living firemaster. Thegod in the flame; the salamander.

One cannot have one’s own way, and the way of the gods.It has to be one or the other.

When she went out into the next room, he was sittingalone, waiting for her. He rose quickly, looking at her withblack, flashing eyes from which dark flashes of light seemedto play upon her. And he took her hand, to touch heragain.

“Will you come to eat at the little restaurant?” hesaid.

In the uncanny flashing of his eyes she saw a gladnessthat frightened her a little. His touch on her hand wasuncannily soft and inward. His words said nothing; wouldnever say anything. But she turned aside her face, a littleafraid of that flashing, primitive gladness, which was soimpersonal and beyond her.

Wrapping a big yellow-silk shawl around her, Spanishfashion, against the heat, and taking her white sunshadelined with green, she stepped out with him past the bowing[Pg 343]Jefe and the lieutenant, and the saluting soldiers. Sheshook hands with the Jefe and the lieutenant. They weremen of flesh and blood, they understood her presence, andbowed low, looking up at her with flashing eyes. And sheknew what it was to be a goddess in the old style, salutedby the real fire in men’s eyes, not by their lips.

In her big, soft velour hat of jade green, her breastwrapped round with the yellow brocade shawl, she steppedacross the sun-eaten plaza, a sort of desert made by man,softly, softly beside her Cipriano, soft as a cat, hiding herface under her green hat and her sunshade, keeping herbody secret and elusive. And the soldiers and the officersand clerks of the Jefatura, watching her with fixed blackeyes, saw, not the physical woman herself, but the inaccessible,voluptuous mystery of man’s physical consummation.

They ate in the dusky little cavern of a fonda kept by aqueer old woman with Spanish blood in her veins. Ciprianowas very sharp and imperious in his orders, the old womanscuffled and ran in a sort of terror. But she was thrilledto her soul.

Kate was bewildered by the new mystery of her ownelusiveness. She was elusive even to herself. Ciprianohardly talked to her at all; which was quite right. She didnot want to be talked to, and words addressed straight ather, without the curious soft veiling which these peopleknew how to put into their voices, speaking only to theunconcerned, third person in her, came at her like blows.Ah, the ugly blows of direct, brutal speech! She hadsuffered so much from them. Now she wanted this veiledelusiveness in herself, she wanted to be addressed in thethird person.

After the lunch they went to look at the sarapes whichwere being spun for Ramón. Their two soldiers escortedthem a few yards up a broken, sun-wasted wide street oflittle, low black houses, then knocked at big doors.

Kate entered the grateful shade of the zaguan. In thedark shade of the inner court, or patio, where sun blazedon bananas beyond, was a whole weaver’s establishment.A fat, one-eyed man sent a little boy to fetch chairs. ButKate wandered, fascinated.

In the zaguan was a great heap of silky white wool, very[Pg 344]fine, and in the dark corridor of the patio all the peopleat work. Two boys with flat square boards bristling withmany little wire bristles were carding the white wool into thinfilms, which they took off the boards in fine rolls like mist,and laid beside the two girls at the end of the shed.

These girls stood by their wheels, spinning, standingbeside the running wheel, which they set going with onehand, while with the other hand they kept a long, miraculousthread of white wool-yarn dancing at the very tip ofthe rapidly-spinning spool-needle, the filmy rolls of thecarded wool just touching the point of the spool, and atonce running out into a long, pure thread of white, whichwound itself on to the spool, and another piece of cardedwool was attached. One of the girls, a beautiful oval-facedone, who smiled shyly at Kate, was very clever. It wasalmost miraculous the way she touched the spool and drewout the thread of wool almost as fine as sewing cotton.

At the other end of the corridor, under the black shed,were two looms, and two men weaving. They treddled atthe wooden tread-looms, first with one foot and then theother, absorbed and silent, in the shadow of the black mudwalls. One man was weaving a brilliant scarlet sarape,very fine, and of the beautiful cochineal red. It was difficultwork. From the pure scarlet centre zigzags of blackand white were running in a sort of whorl, away to the edge,that was pure black. Wonderful to see the man, with smallbobbins of fine red and white yarn, and black, weaving abit of the ground, weaving the zigzag of black up to it, and,up to that, the zigzag of white, with deft, dark fingers,quickly adjusting his setting needle, quick as lightningthreading his pattern, then bringing down the beam heavilyto press it tight. The sarape was woven on a black warp,long fine threads of black, like a harp. But beautiful beyondwords the perfect, delicate scarlet weaving in.

“For whom is that?” said Kate to Cipriano. “Foryou?”

“Yes,” he said. “For me!”

The other weaver was weaving a plain white sarape withblue and natural-black ends, throwing the spool of yarn fromside to side, between the white harp-strings, pressing downeach thread of his woof heavily, with the wooden bar, thentreddling to change the long, fine threads of the warp.

[Pg 345]

In the shadow of the mud shed, the pure colours of thelustrous wool looked mystical, the cardinal scarlet, the pure,silky white, the lovely blue, and the black, gleaming in theshadow of the blackish walls.

The fat man with the one eye brought sarapes, and twoboys opened them one by one. There was a new one, white,with close flowers of blue on black stalks, and with greenleaves, forming the borders, and at the boca, the mouth,where the head went through, a whole lot of little, rainbow-colouredflowers, in a coiling blue circle.

“I love that!” said Kate. “What is that for?”

“It is one of Ramón’s; they are Quetzalcoatl’s colours,the blue and white and natural black. But this one is forthe day of the opening of the flowers, when he brings inthe goddess who will come,” said Cipriano.

Kate was silent with fear.

There were two scarlet sarapes with a diamond at thecentre, all black, and a border-pattern of black diamonds.

“Are these yours?”

“Well, they are for the messengers of Huitzilopochtli.Those are my colours: scarlet and black. But I myselfhave white as well, just as Ramón has a fringe of myscarlet.”

“Doesn’t it make you afraid?” she said to him, lookingat him rather blenched.

“How make me afraid?”

“To do this. To be the living Huitzilopochtli,” she said.

“I am the living Huitzilopochtli,” he said. “WhenRamón dares to be the living Quetzalcoatl, I dare to be theliving Huitzilopochtli. I am he.—Am I not?”

Kate looked at him, at his dark face with the little hangingtuft of beard, the arched brows, the slightly slantingblack eyes. In the round, fierce gaze of his eyes there wasa certain silence, like tenderness, for her. But beyond that,an inhuman assurance, which looked far, far beyond her,in the darkness.

And she hid her face from him, murmuring:

“I know you are.”

“And on the day of flowers,” he said, “you, too, shallcome, in a green dress they shall weave you, with blueflowers at the seam, and on your head the new moon offlowers.”

[Pg 346]

She hid her face, afraid.

“Come and look at the wools,” he said, leading heracross the patio to the shade where, on a line, the yarnhung in dripping tresses of colour, scarlet and blue andyellow and green and brown.

“See!” he said. “You shall have a dress of green,that leaves the arms bare, and a white under-dress withblue flowers.”

The green was a strong apple-green colour.

Two women under the shed were crouching over bigearthenware vessels, which sat over a fire which burnedslowly in a hole dug in the ground. They were watching thesteaming water. One took dried, yellow-brown flowers,and flung them in her water as if she were a witch brewingdecoctions. She watched as the flowers rose, watched asthey turned softly in the boiling water. Then she threwin a little white powder.

“And on the day of flowers you, too, will come. Ah!If Ramón is the centre of a new world, a world of newflowers shall spring up round him, and push the old worldback. I call you the First Flower.”

They left the courtyard. The soldiers had brought theblack Arab stallion for Cipriano, and for her the donkey, onwhich she could perch sideways, like a peasant woman.So they went through the hot, deserted silence of the mud-bricktown, down the lane of deep, dark-grey dust, undervivid green trees that were bursting into flower, again tothe silent shore of the lake-end, where the delicate fishingnets were hung in long lines and blowing in the wind, loopafter loop striding above the shingle and blowing delicatelyin the wind, as away on the low places the green maize wasblowing, and the fleecy willows shook like soft green feathershanging down.

The lake stretched pale and unreal into nowhere; themotor-boat rode near in, the black canoas stood motionlessa little further out. Two women, tiny as birds, were kneelingon the water’s edge, washing.

Kate jumped from her donkey on to the shingle.

“Why not ride through the water to the boat?” saidCipriano.

She looked at the boat, and thought of the donkeystumbling and splashing.

[Pg 347]

“No,” she said. “I will wade again.”

He rode his black Arab to the water. It sniffed, andentered with delicate feet into the warm shallows. Then,a little way in, it stood and suddenly started pawing thewater, as a horse paws the ground, in the oddest mannerpossible, very rapidly striking the water with its fore-foot,so that little waves splashed up over its black legs and belly.

But this splashed Cipriano too. He lifted the reins andtouched the creature with his spurs. It jumped, and wenthalf-stumbling, half-dancing through the water, prettily,with a splashing noise. Cipriano quieted it, and it wadedgingerly on through the shallows of the vast lake, bendingits black head down to look, to look in a sort of fascinationat the stony bottom, swaying its black tail as it movedits glossy, raven haunches gingerly.

Then again it stood still, and suddenly, with a rapidbeating of its fore-paw, sent the water hollowly splashingup, till its black belly glistened wet like a black serpent,and its legs were shiny wet pillars. And again Ciprianolifted its head and touched it with the spurs, so the delicatecreature danced in a churn of water.

“Oh, it looks so pretty! It looks so pretty when it pawsthe water!” cried Kate from the shore. “Why does itdo it?”

Cipriano turned in the saddle and looked back at herwith the sudden, gay Indian laugh.

“It likes to be wet—who knows?” he said.

A soldier hurried wading through the water and took thehorse’s bridle. Cipriano dismounted neatly from the stirrup,with a little backward leap into the boat, a real savagehorseman. The barefoot soldier leaped into the saddle,and turned the horse to shore. But the black horse, maleand wilful, insisted on stopping to paw the waters andsplash himself, with a naïve, wilful sort of delight.

“Look! Look!” cried Kate. “It’s so pretty.”

But the soldier was perching in the saddle, drawing uphis legs like a monkey, and shouting at the horse. It wouldwet its fine harness.

He rode the Arab slanting through the water, to wherean old woman, sitting in her own silence and almost invisiblebefore, was squatted in the water with brown bare shouldersemerging, ladling water from a half gourd-shell over her[Pg 348]matted grey head. The horse splashed and danced, the oldwoman rose with her rag of chemise clinging to her, scoldingin a quiet voice and bending forward with her calabashcup; the soldier laughed, the black horse joyfully and excitedlypawed the water and made it splash high up, thesoldier shouted again.—But the soldier knew he could makeCipriano responsible for the splashings.

Kate waded slowly to the boat, and stepped in. Thewater was warm, but the wind was blowing with strong,electric heaviness. Kate quickly dried her feet and legson her handkerchief, and pulled on her biscuit-colouredsilk stockings and brown shoes.

She sat looking back, at the lake-end, the desert ofshingle, the blowing, gauzy nets, and, beyond them, theblack land with green maize standing, a further fleecy greenof trees, and the broken lane leading deep into the rowsof old trees, where the soldiers from Jaramay were nowriding away on the black horse and the donkey. On theright there was a ranch, too; a long, low black buildingand a cluster of black huts with tiled roofs, empty gardenswith reed fences, clumps of banana and willow trees. Allin the changeless, heavy light of the afternoon, the longlake reaching into invisibility, between its unreal mountains.

“It is beautiful here!” said Kate. “One could almostlive here.”

“Ramón says he will make the lake the centre of a newworld,” said Cipriano. “We will be the gods of the lake.”

“I’m afraid I am just a woman,” said Kate.

His black eyes came round at her swiftly.

“What does it mean, just a woman?” he said, quickly,sternly.

She hung her head. What did it mean? What indeeddid it mean? Just a woman! She let her soul sink againinto the lovely elusiveness where everything is possible,even that oneself is elusive among the gods.

The motor-boat, with waves slapping behind, was runningquickly along the brownish pale water. The soldiers, whowere in the front, for balance, crouched on the floor withthe glazed, stupefied mask-faces of the people when theyare sleepy. And soon they were a heap in the bottomthe boat, two little heaps lying in contact.

[Pg 349]

Cipriano sat behind her, his tunic removed, spreading hiswhite-sleeved arms on the back of his seat. The cartridge-beltwas heavy on his hips. His face was completelyexpressionless, staring ahead. The wind blew his black hairon his forehead, and blew his little beard. He met her eyeswith a far-off, remote smile, far, far down his black eyes.But it was a wonderful recognition of her.

The boatman in the stern sat tall and straight, watchingwith pale eyes of shallow, superficial consciousness. Thegreat hat made his face dark, the chin-ribbon fell blackagainst his cheek. Feeling her look at him, he glancedat her as if she were not there.

Turning, she pushed her cushion on to the floor and sliddown. Cipriano got up, in the running, heaving boat, andpulled her another seat-cushion. She lay, covering herface with her shawl, while the motor chugged rapidly, theawning rattled with sudden wind, the hurrying waves rosebehind, giving the boat a slap and throwing her forward,sending spray sometimes, in the heat and silence of thelake.

Kate lost her consciousness, under her yellow shawl, inthe silence of men.

She woke to the sudden stopping of the engine, and satup. They were near shore; the white towers of San Pabloamong near trees. The boatman, wide-eyed, was bendingover the engine, abandoning the tiller. The waves pushedthe boat slowly round.

“What is it?” said Cipriano.

“More gasoline, Excellency!” said the boatman.

The soldiers woke and sat up.

The breeze had died.

“The water is coming,” said Cipriano.

“The rain?” said Kate.

“Yes—” and he pointed with his fine black finger, whichwas pale on the inside, to where black clouds were rushingup behind the mountains, and in another place farther off,great heavy banks were rising with strange suddenness.The air seemed to be knitting together overhead. Lightningflashed in various places, muffled thunder spoke far away.

Still the boat drifted. There was a smell of gasoline. Theman pottered with the engine. The motor started again,only to stop again in a moment.

[Pg 350]

The man rolled up his trousers, and, to Kate’s amazement,stepped into the lake, though they were a mile fromthe shore. The water was not up to his knees. They wereon a bank. He slowly pushed the boat before him, wadingin the silence.

“How deep is the lake further in?” asked Kate.

“There, Señorita, where the birds with the white breastsare swimming, it is eight and a half metres,” he said,pointing as he waded.

“We must make haste,” said Cipriano.

“Yes, Excellency!”

The man stepped in again, with his long, handsome brownlegs. The motor spluttered. They were under way, runningfast. A new chill wind was springing up.

But they rounded a bend, and saw ahead the flat promontorywith the dark mango-trees, and the pale yellowupper story of the hacienda house of Jamiltepec rising abovethe trees. Palm-trees stood motionless, the bougainvilleahung in heavy sheets of magenta colour. Kate could seehuts of peons among the trees, and women washing, kneelingon stones at the lake side where the stream ran in, anda big plantation of bananas just above.

A cool wind was spinning round in the heavens. Blackclouds were filling up. Ramón came walking slowly downto the little harbour as they landed.

“The water is coming,” he said in Spanish.

“We are in time,” said Cipriano.

Ramón looked them both in the face, and knew. Kate,in her new elusiveness, laughed softly.

“There is another flower opened in the garden of Quetzalcoatl,”said Cipriano in Spanish.

“Under the red cannas of Huitzilopochtli,” said Ramón.

“Yes, there, Señor,” said Cipriano. “Pero una florecitatan zarca! Y abrió en mi sombra, amigo.”

“Seis hombre de la alta fortuna.”

“Verdad!”

It was about five in the afternoon. The wind hissed inthe leaves, and suddenly the rain was streaming down in awhite smoke of power. The ground was a solid white smokeof water, the lake was gone.

“You will have to stay here to-night,” said Ciprianoto Kate, in Spanish, in the soft, lapping Indian voice.

[Pg 351]

“But the rain will leave off,” she said.

“You will have to stay here,” he repeated, in the sameSpanish phrase, in a curious voice like a breath of wind.

Kate looked at Ramón, blushing. He looked back ather, she thought, very remote, as if looking at her fromfar, far away.

“The bride of Huitzilopochtli,” he said, with a faintsmile.

“Thou, Quetzalcoatl, thou wilt have to marry us,” saidCipriano.

“Do you wish it?” said Ramón.

“Yes!” she said. “I want you to marry us, only you.”

“When the sun goes down,” said Ramón.

And he went away to his room. Cipriano showed Kateto her room, then left her and went to Ramón.

The cool water continued to come down, rushing with asmoke of speed down from heaven.

As the twilight came through the unceasing rain, awoman-servant brought Kate a sleeveless dress or chemiseof white linen, scalloped at the bottom and embroideredwith stiff blue flowers upside-down on the black stalks, withtwo stiff green leaves. In the centre of the flowers was thetiny Bird of Quetzalcoatl.

“The Patrón asks that you put this on!” said thewoman, bringing also a lamp and a little note.

The note was from Ramón, saying in Spanish: “Takethe dress of the bride of Huitzilopochtli, and put it on, andtake off everything but this. Leave no thread nor thingthat can touch you from the past. The past is finished.It is the new twilight.”

Kate did not quite know how to put on the slip, for ithad no sleeves nor arm-holes, but was just a straight slipwith a running string. Then she remembered the oldIndian way, and tied the string over her left shoulder;rather, slipped the tied string over her left shoulder, leavingher arms and part of her right breast bare, the slip gatheredfull over her breasts. And she sighed. For it was but ashirt with flowers upturned at the bottom.

Ramón, barefoot, in his white clothes, came for her andtook her in silence downstairs into the garden. The zaguanwas dark, the rain fell steadily in the twilight, but wasabating. All was dark twilight.

[Pg 352]

Ramón took off his blouse and threw it on the stairs.Then with naked breast he led her into the garden, intothe massive rain. Cipriano came forward, barefoot, withnaked breast, bareheaded, in the floppy white pantaloons.

They stood barefoot on the earth, that still threw backa white smoke of waters. The rain drenched them in amoment.

“Barefoot on the living earth, with faces to the livingrain,” said Ramón in Spanish, quietly; “at twilight, betweenthe night and the day; man, and woman, in presenceof the unfading star, meet to be perfect in one another.Lift your face, Caterina, and say: This man is my rain fromheaven.”

Kate lifted her face and shut her eyes in the downpour.

“This man is my rain from heaven,” she said.

“This woman is the earth to me—say that, Cipriano,”said Ramón, kneeling on one knee and laying his hand flaton the earth.

Cipriano kneeled and laid his hand on the earth.

“This woman is the earth to me,” he said.

“I, woman, kiss the feet and the heels of this man, forI will be strength to him, throughout the long twilight ofthe Morning Star.”

Kate kneeled and kissed the feet and heels of Cipriano,and said her say.

“I, man, kiss the brow and the breast of this woman,for I will be her peace and her increase, through the longtwilight of the Morning Star.”

Cipriano kissed her, and said his say.

Then Ramón put Cipriano’s hand over the rain-wet eyesof Kate, and Kate’s hand over the rain-wet eyes of Cipriano.

“I, a woman, beneath the darkness of this coveringhand, pray to this man to meet me in the heart of thenight, and never deny me,” said Kate. “But let it bean abiding place between us, for ever.”

“I, a man, beneath the darkness of this covering hand,pray to this woman to receive me in the heart of the night,in the abiding place that is between us for ever.”

“Man shall betray a woman, and woman shall betray aman,” said Ramón, “and it shall be forgiven them, eachof them. But if they have met as earth and rain, betweenday and night, in the hour of the Star; if the man has[Pg 353]met the woman with his body and the star of his hope, andthe woman has met the man with her body and the starof her yearning, so that a meeting has come to pass, andan abiding place for the two where they are as one star,then shall neither of them betray the abiding place wherethe meeting lives like an unsetting star. For if eitherbetray the abiding place of the two, it shall not be forgiven,neither by day nor by night nor in the twilight of thestar.”

The rain was leaving off, the night was dark.

“Go and bathe in the warm water, which is peace betweenus all. And put oil on your bodies, which is thestillness of the Morning Star. Anoint even the soles of yourfeet, and the roots of your hair.”

Kate went up to her room and found a big earthenwarebath with steaming water, and big towels. Also, in abeautiful little bowl, oil, and a soft bit of white wool.

She bathed her rain-wet body in the warm water, driedand anointed herself with the clear oil, that was clear aswater. It was soft, and had a faint perfume, and wasgrateful to the skin. She rubbed all her body, even amongher hair and under her feet, till she glowed softly.

Then she put on another of the slips with the invertedblue flowers, that had been laid on the bed for her, andover that a dress of green, hand-woven wool, made of twopieces joined openly together down the sides, showing abit of the white, full under-dress, and fastened on the leftshoulder. There was a stiff flower, blue, on a black stem,with two black leaves, embroidered at the bottom, at eachside. And her white slip showed a bit at the breast, andhung below the green skirt, showing the blue flowers.

It was strange and primitive, but beautiful. She pushedher feet into the plaited green huaraches. But she wanteda belt. She tied a piece of ribbon round her waist.

A mozo tapped to say supper was ready.

Laughing rather shyly, she went along to the salon.

Ramón and Cipriano were both waiting, in silence, in theirwhite clothes. Cipriano had his red serape loosely thrownover his shoulders.

“So!” said Cipriano, coming forward. “The bride ofHuitzilopochtli, like a green morning. But Huitzilopochtliwill put on your sash, and you will put on his shoes, so that[Pg 354]he shall never leave you, and you shall be always in hisspell.”

Cipriano tied round her waist a narrow woollen sash ofwhite wool, with white, terraced towers upon a red andblack ground. And she stooped and put on his small, darkfeet the huaraches of woven red strips of leather, with ablack cross on the toes.

“One more little gift,” said Ramón.

He made Kate put over Cipriano’s head a blue cord bearinga little symbol of Quetzalcoatl, the snake in silver andthe bird in blue turquoise. Cipriano put over her head thesame symbol, but in gold, with a bird in black dull jet, andhanging on a red cord.

“There!” said Ramón. “That is the symbol of Quetzalcoatl,the Morning Star. Remember the marriage is themeeting-ground, and the meeting-ground is the star. Ifthere be no star, no meeting-ground, no true coming togetherof man with the woman, into a wholeness, there is nomarriage. And if there is no marriage, there is nothing butan agitation. If there is no honourable meeting of man withwoman and woman with man, there is no good thing cometo pass. But if the meeting come to pass, then whosoeverbetrays the abiding place, which is the meeting-ground,which is that which lives like a star between day and night,between the dark of woman and the dawn of man, betweenman’s night and woman’s morning, shall never be forgiven,neither here nor in the hereafter. For man is frail andwoman is frail, and none can draw the line down whichanother shall walk. But the star that is between two peopleand is their meeting-ground shall not be betrayed.

“And the star that is between three people, and is theirmeeting-ground, shall not be betrayed.

“And the star that is between all men and all women,and between all the children of men, shall not be betrayed.

“Whosoever betrays another man, betrays a man likehimself, a fragment. For if there is no star between a manand a man, or even a man and a wife, there is nothing.But whosoever betrays the star that is between him andanother man, betrays all, and all is lost to the traitor.

“Where there is no star and no abiding place, nothingis, so nothing can be lost.”

Kate went back to her house in Sayula, and Cipriano wentback to his command in the city.

“Will you not come with me?” he said. “Shall wenot make a civil marriage, and live in the same housetogether?”

“No,” she said. “I am married to you by Quetzalcoatl,no other. I will be your wife in the world of Quetzalcoatl,no other. And if the star has risen between us, we willwatch it.”

Conflicting feelings played in his dark eyes. He couldnot bear even to be the least bit thwarted. Then the strong,rather distant look came back.

“It is very good,” he said. “It is the best.”

And he went away without looking back.

Kate returned to her house, to her servants and herrocking-chair. Inside herself she kept very still and almostthoughtless, taking no count of time. What was going tounfold must unfold of itself.

She no longer feared the nights, when she was shut alonein her darkness. But she feared the days a little. Sheshrank so mortally from contact.

She opened her bedroom window one morning, and lookeddown to the lake. The sun had come, and queer blottyshadows were on the hills beyond the water. Way downat the water’s edge a woman was pouring water from acalabash bowl over a statuesque pig, dipping rapidly andassiduously. The little group was seen in silhouette againstthe pale, dun lake.

But impossible to stand at her open window looking onthe little lane. An old man suddenly appeared from nowhere,offering her a leaf full of tiny fish, charales, likesplinters of glass, for ten centavos, and a girl was unfoldingthree eggs from the ragged corner of her rebozo, thrustingthem imploringly forward to Kate. An old woman wasshambling up with a sad story, Kate knew. She fled fromher window and the importunity.

At the same instant, the sound that always made herheart stand still woke on the invisible air. It was the sound[Pg 356]of drums, of tom-toms rapidly beaten. The same soundshe had heard in the distance, in the tropical dusk of Ceylon,from the temple at sunset. The sound she had heard fromthe edge of the forests in the north, when the Red Indianswere dancing by the fire. The sound that wakes dark,ancient echoes in the heart of every man, the thud of theprimeval world.

Two drums were violently throbbing against one another.Then gradually they were slowing down, in a peculiar unevenrhythm, till at last there was only left one slow, continual,monotonous note, like a great drop of darknessfalling heavily, continually, dripping in the bright morning.

The re-evoked past is frightening, and if it be re-evokedto overwhelm the present, it is fiendish. Kate felt a realterror of the sound of a tom-tom. It seemed to beat straighton her solar plexus, to make her sick.

She went to her window. Across the lane rose a tallgarden-wall of adobe brick, and above that, the sun onthe tops of the orange trees, deep gold. Beyond the orangegarden rose three tall, handsome, shaggy palm trees, sideby side on slim stems. And from the very top of the twoouter palms, rose the twin tips of the church towers. Shehad noticed it so often; the two ironwork Greek crossesseeming to stand on the mops of the palms.

Now in an instant she saw the glitter of the symbol ofQuetzalcoatl in the places where the cross had been; twocircular suns, with the dark bird at the centre. The goldof the suns—or the serpents—flashed new in the light of thesun, the bird lifted its wings dark in outline within thecircle.

Then again the two drums were speeding up, beatingagainst one another with the peculiar uneven savage rhythm,which at first seems no rhythm, and then seems to containa summons almost sinister in its power, acting on the helplessblood direct. Kate felt her hands flutter on her wrists,in fear. Almost, too, she could hear the heart of Ciprianobeating; her husband in Quetzalcoatl.

“Listen, Niña! Listen, Niña!” came Juana’s frightenedvoice from the verandah.

Kate went to the verandah. Ezequiel had rolled up hismattress and was hitching up his pants. It was Sundaymorning, when he sometimes lay on after sunrise. His thick[Pg 357]black hair stood up, his dark face was blank with sleep,but in his quiet aloofness and his slightly bowed head Katecould see the secret satisfaction he took in the barbaroussound of the drums.

“It comes from the Church!” said Juana.

Kate caught the other woman’s black, reptilian eyesunexpectedly. Usually, she forgot that Juana was dark,and different. For days she would not realise it. Tillsuddenly she met that black, void look with the glint in it,and she started inwardly, involuntarily asking herself:“Does she hate me?”

Or was it only the unspeakable difference in blood?

Now, in the dark glitter which Juana showed her for onemoment, Kate read fear, and triumph, and a slow, savage,nonchalant defiance. Something very inhuman.

“What does it mean?” Kate said to her.

“It means, Niña, that they won’t ring the bells anymore. They have taken the bells away, and they beat thedrums in the church. Listen! Listen!”

The drums were shuddering rapidly again.

Kate and Juana went across to the open window.

“Look! Niña! The Eye of the Other One! No morecrosses on the church. It is the Eye of the Other One.Look! How it shines! How nice!”

“It means,” said Ezequiel’s breaking young voice, whichwas just turning deep, “that it is the church of Quetzalcoatl.Now it is the temple of Quetzalcoatl; our ownGod.”

He was evidently a staunch Man of Quetzalcoatl.

“Think of it!” murmured Juana, in an awed voice.She seemed like a heap of darkness low at Kate’s side.

Then again she glanced up, and the eyes of the twowomen met for a moment.

“See the Niña’s eyes of the sun!” cried Juana, layingher hand on Kate’s arm. Kate’s eyes were a sort of hazel,changing, grey-gold, flickering at the moment with wonder,and a touch of fear and dismay. Juana sounded triumphant.

A man in a white serape, with the blue and black borders,suddenly appeared at the window, lifting his hat, on whichwas the sign of Quetzalcoatl, and pushing a little cardthrough the window.

The card said: Come to the church when you hear the[Pg 358]one big drum; about seven o’clock.—It was signed with thesign of Quetzalcoatl.

“Very well!” said Kate. “I will come.”

It was a quarter to seven already. Outside the roomwas the noise of Juana sweeping the verandah. Kate puton a white dress and a yellow hat, and a long string of pale-colouredtopaz that glimmered with yellow and mauve.

The earth was all damp with rain, the leaves were all freshand tropical thick, yet many old leaves were on the ground,beaten down.

“Niña! You are going out already! Wait! Wait!The coffee. Concha! quick!”

There was a running of bare feet, the children bringingcup and plate and sweet buns and sugar, the mother hastilylimping with the coffee. Ezequiel came striding along thewalk, lifting his hat. He went down to the servants’quarters.

“Ezequiel says—!” Juana came crying. When suddenlya soft, slack thud seemed to make a hole in the air, leavinga gap behind it. Thud!—Thud!—Thud!—rather slowly.It was the big drum, irresistible.

Kate rose at once from her coffee.

“I am going to the church,” she said.

“Yes Niña—Ezequiel says—I am coming, Niña—”

And Juana scuttled away, to get her black rebozo.

The man in the white serape with the blue and blackends was waiting by the gate. He lifted his hat, andwalked behind Kate and Juana.

“He is following us!” whispered Juana.

Kate drew her yellow shawl around her shoulders.

It was Sunday morning, sailing-boats lined the water’sedge, with their black hulls. But the beach was empty.As the great drum let fall its slow, bellowing note, the lastpeople were running towards the church.

In front of the church was a great throng of natives, themen with their dark serapes, or their red blankets over theirshoulders; the nights of rain were cold; and their hats intheir hands. The high, dark Indian heads!—Women inblue rebozos were pressing among. The big drum slowly,slackly exploded its note from the church-tower. Katehad her heart in her mouth.

In the middle of the crowd, a double row of men in the[Pg 359]scarlet serapes of Huitzilopochtli with the black diamondon the shoulders, stood with rifles, holding open a lanethrough the crowd.

“Pass!” said her guard to her. And Kate entered thelane of scarlet and black serapes, going slow and dazedbetween watchful black eyes of the men. Her guardfollowed her. But Juana had been turned back.

Kate looked at her feet, and stumbled. Then she lookedup.

In the gateway of the yard before the church stood abrilliant figure in a serape whose zigzag whorls of scarlet,white, and black ran curving, dazzling, to the blackshoulders; above which was the face of Cipriano, calm,superb, with the little black beard and the arching brows.He lifted his hand to her in salute.

Behind him, stretching from the gateway to the closeddoor of the church, was a double row of the guard of Quetzalcoatl,in their blankets with the blue and black borders.

“What shall I do?” said Kate.

“Stand here with me a moment,” said Cipriano, in thegateway.

It was no easy thing to do, to face all those dark facesand black, glittering eyes. After all, she was a gringita, andshe felt it. A sacrifice? Was she a sacrifice? She hungher head, under her yellow hat, and watched the string oftopaz twinkling and shaking its delicate, bog-watery coloursagainst her white dress. Joachim had given it her. Hehad had it made up for her, the string, in Cornwall. Sofar away! In another world, in another life, in anotherera! Now she was condemned to go through these strangeordeals, like a victim.

The big drum overhead ceased, and suddenly the littledrums broke like a shower of hail on the air, and as suddenlyceased.

In low, deep, inward voices, the guard of Quetzalcoatlbegan to speak, in heavy unison:

“Oye! Oye! Oye! Oye!”

The small, inset door within the heavy doors of the churchopened and Don Ramón stepped through. In his whiteclothes, wearing the Quetzalcoatl serape, he stood at thehead of his two rows of guards, until there was a silence.Then he raised his naked right arm.

[Pg 360]

“What is God, we shall never know!” he said, in astrong voice, to all the people.

The Guard of Quetzalcoatl turned to the people, thrustingup their right arm.

“What is God, you shall never know!” they repeated.

Then again, in the crowd, the words were re-echoed bythe Guard of Huitzilopochtli.

After which there fell a dead silence, in which Kate wasaware of a forest of black eyes glistening with white fire.

It was again the solemn, powerful voice of Ramón. Katelooked at his face; it was creamy-brown in its pallor, butchangeless in expression, and seemed to be sending a changeover the crowd, removing them from their vulgar complacency.

The Guard of Quetzalcoatl turned again to the crowd,and repeated Ramón’s words to the crowd.

With his words, Ramón was able to put the power of hisheavy, strong will over the people. The crowd began tofuse under his influence. As he gazed back at all theblack eyes, his eyes seemed to have no expression, save thatthey seemed to be seeing the heart of all darkness in frontof him, where his unknowable God-mystery lived andmoved.

[Pg 361]

He stood a moment in silence, gazing with dark browsat the crowd. Then he dropped his arm, and turned. Thebig doors of the church opened, revealing a dim interior.Ramón entered the church alone. Inside the church, thedrum began to beat. The guard of Quetzalcoatl slowlyfiled into the dim interior, the scarlet guard of Huitzilopochtlifiled into the yard of the church, taking the placeof the guard of Quetzalcoatl. Cipriano remained in thegateway of the churchyard. His voice rang out clear andmilitary.

“Hear me, people. You may enter the house ofQuetzalcoatl. Men must go to the right and left, andremove their shoes, and stand erect. To the new Godno man shall kneel.

“Women must go down the centre, and cover their faces.And they may sit upon the floor.

“But men must stand erect.

“Pass now, those who dare.”

Kate went with Cipriano into the church.

It was all different, the floor was black and polished, thewalls were in stripes of colour, the place seemed dark. Twofiles of the white-clad men of Quetzalcoatl stood in a longavenue down the centre of the church.

“This way,” said one of the men of Quetzalcoatl, in alow voice, drawing her into the centre between the motionlessfiles of men.

She went alone and afraid over the polished black floor,covering her face with her yellow shawl. The pillars ofthe nave were dark green, like trees rising to a deep, blueroof. The walls were vertically striped in bars of blackand white vermillion and yellow and green, with the windowsbetween rich with deep blue and crimson and black glass,having specks of light. A strange maze, the windows.

The daylight came only from small windows, high upunder the deep blue roof, where the stripes of the wallshad run into a maze of green, like banana leaves. Below,the church was all dark, and rich with hard colour.

Kate went forward to the front, near the altar steps.High at the back of the chancel, above where the altar hadbeen, burned a small but intense bluey-white light, andjust below and in front of the light stood a huge dark figure,a strange looming block, apparently carved in wood. It[Pg 362]was a naked man, carved archaic and rather flat, holdinghis right arm over his head, and on the right arm balanceda carved wooden eagle with outspread wings whose uppersurface gleamed with gold, near the light, whose undersurface was black shadow. Round the heavy left leg ofthe man-image was carved a serpent, also glimmering gold,and its golden head rested in the hand of the figure, nearthe thigh. The face of the figure was dark.

This great dark statue loomed stiff like a pillar, ratherfrightening in the white-lit blue chancel.

At the foot of the statue was a stone altar with a smallfire of ocote-wood burning. And on a low throne by thealtar sat Ramón.

People were beginning to file into the church. Kateheard the strange sound of the naked feet of the men onthe black, polished floor, the white figures stole forwardtowards the altar steps, the dark faces gazing round inwonder, men crossing themselves involuntarily. Throngsof men slowly flooded in, and women came half running,to crouch on the floor and cover their faces. Kate croucheddown too.

A file of the men of Quetzalcoatl came and stood alongthe foot of the altar steps, like a fence with a gap in themiddle, facing the people. Beyond the gap was the flickeringaltar, and Ramón.

Ramón rose to his feet. The men of Quetzalcoatl turnedto face him, and shot up their naked right arms, in thegesture of the statue, Ramón lifted his arm, so his blanketfell in towards his shoulder, revealing the naked side andthe blue sash.

“All men salute Quetzalcoatl!” said a clear voicein command.

The scarlet men of Huitzilopochtli were threading amongthe men of the congregation, pulling the kneeling ones totheir feet, causing all to thrust up their right arm, palmflat to heaven, face uplifted, body erect and tense. It wasthe statue receiving the eagle.

So that around the low dark shrubs of the crouchingwomen stood a forest of erect, upthrusting men, powerfuland tense with inexplicable passion. It was a forest ofdark wrists and hands up-pressing, with the striped wallvibrating above, and higher, the maze of green going to[Pg 363]the little, iron-barred windows that stood open, letting inthe light and air of the roof.

“I am the living Quetzalcoatl,” came the solemn, impassivevoice of Ramón.

The drum began to beat, the men of Quetzalcoatl suddenlytook off their serapes, and Ramón did the same. They werenow men naked to the waist. The eight men from the altar-stepsfiled up to the altar where the fire burned, and oneby one kindled tall green candles, which burned with a clearlight. They ranged themselves on either side the chancel,holding the lights high, so that the wooden face of the imageglowed as if alive, and the eyes of silver and jet flashed mostcuriously.

“A man shall take the wine of his spirit and the bloodof his heart, the oil of his belly and the seed of his loins, andoffer them first to the Morning Star,” said Ramón, in a loudvoice, turning to the people.

Four men came to him. One put a blue crown with thebird on his brow, one put a red belt round his breast, anotherput a yellow belt round his middle, and the last fasteneda white belt round his loins. Then the first one they[Pg 365]pressed a small glass bowl to Ramón’s brow, and in thebowl was white liquid like bright water. The next toucheda bowl to the breast, and the red shook in the bowl. Atthe navel the man touched a bowl with yellow fluid, and atthe loins a bowl with something dark. They held themall to the light.

Then one by one they poured them into a silver mixing-bowlthat Ramón held between his hands.

“For save the Unknown God pours His Spirit over myhead and fire into my heart, and sends his power like afountain of oil into my belly, and His lightning like a hotspring into my loins, I am not. I am nothing. I am adead gourd.

“And save I take the wine of my spirit and the red of myheart, the strength of my belly and the power of my loins,and mingle them all together, and kindle them to the MorningStar, I betray my body, I betray my soul, I betray myspirit and my God who is Unknown.

“Fourfold is man. But the star is one star. And oneman is but one star.”

He took the silver mixing-bowl and slowly circled itbetween his hands, in the act of mixing.

Then he turned his back to the people, and lifted thebowl high up, between his hands, as if offering it to theimage.

Then suddenly he threw the contents of the bowl into thealtar fire.

There was a soft puff of explosion, a blue flame leapedhigh into the air, followed by a yellow flame, and then arose-red smoke. In three successive instants the faces ofthe men inside the chancel were lit bluish, then gold, thendusky red. And in the same moment Ramón had turnedto the people and shot up his hand.

“Salute Quetzalcoatl!” cried a voice, and men began tothrust up their arms, when another voice came moaningstrangely:

“No! Ah no! Ah no!”—the voice rose in a hystericalcry.

It came from among the crouching women, who glancedround in fear, to see a woman in black, kneeling on thefloor, her black scarf falling back from her lifted face, thrustingup her white hands to the Madonna, in the old gesture.

[Pg 366]

“No! No! It is not permitted!” shrieked the voice.“Lord! Lord! Lord Jesus! Holy Virgin! Prevent him!Prevent him!”

The voice sank again to a moan, the white handsclutched the breast, and the woman in black began to workher way forward on her knees, through the throng of womenwho pressed aside to make her way, towards the altar steps.She came with her head lowered, working her way on herknees, and moaning low prayers of supplication.

Kate felt her blood run cold. Crouching near the altarsteps, she looked round. And she knew, by the shape ofthe head bent in the black scarf, it was Carlota, creepingalong on her knees to the altar steps.

The whole church was frozen in horror. “Saviour!Saviour! Jesus! Oh Holy Virgin!” Carlota was moaningto herself as she crawled along.

It seemed hours before she reached the altar steps. Ramónstill stood below the great Quetzalcoatl image with armupflung.

Carlota crouched black at the altar steps and flung up thewhite hands and her white face in the frenzy of the old way.

“Lord! Lord!” she cried, in a strange ecstatic voice thatfroze Kate’s bowels with horror: “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

Carlota strangled in her ecstasy. And all the while,Ramón, the living Quetzalcoatl, stood before the flickeringaltar with naked arm upraised, looking with dark, inalterableeyes down upon the woman.

Throes and convulsions tortured the body of Carlota. Shegazed sightlessly upwards. Then came her voice, in themysterious rhapsody of prayer:

“Lord! Lord! Forgive!

“God of love, forgive! He knows not what he does.

“Lord! Lord Jesus! Make an end. Make an end, Lordof the world, Christ of the cross, make an end. Havemercy on him, Father. Have pity on him!

“Oh, take his life from him now, now, that his soul maynot die.”

Her voice had gathered strength till it rang out metallicand terrible.

“Almighty God, take his life from him, and save hissoul.”

[Pg 367]

And in the silence after that cry her hands seemed toflicker in the air like flames of death.

“The Omnipotent,” came the voice of Ramón, speakingquietly, as if to her, “is with me, and I serve Omnipotence!”

She remained with her white clasped hands upraised, herwhite arms and her white face showing mystical, like onyx,from her thin black dress. She was absolutely rigid. AndRamón, with his arm too upraised, looked down on herabstractedly, his black brows a little contracted.

A strong convulsion seized her body. She became tenseagain, making inarticulate noises. Then another convulsionseized her. Once more she recovered herself, and thrustup her clenched hands in frenzy. A third convulsion seizedher as if from below, and she fell with a strangling moanin a heap on the altar steps.

Kate had risen suddenly and ran to her, to lift her up.She found her stiff, with a little froth on her discolouredlips, and fixed, glazed eyes.

Kate looked up in consternation at Ramón. He haddropped his arm, and stood with his hands against histhighs, like a statue. But he remained with his wide,absorbed dark eyes watching without any change. He metKate’s glance of dismay, and his eyes quickly glanced, likelightning, for Cipriano. Then he looked back at Carlota,across a changeless distance. Not a muscle of his facemoved. And Kate could see that his heart had died in itsconnection with Carlota, his heart was quite, quite dead inhim; out of the deathly vacancy he watched his wife. Onlyhis brows frowned a little, from his smooth, male forehead.His old connections were broken. She could hear himsay: There is no star between me and Carlota.—And howterribly true it was!

Cipriano came quickly, switched off his brilliant serape,wrapped it round the poor, stiff figure, and picking up theburden lightly, walked with it through the lane of womento the door, and out into the brilliant sun; Kate following.And as she followed, she heard the slow, deep voice ofRamón:

[Pg 368]

[Pg 369]

Kate lingered to hear the end of this hymn. Ciprianoalso had lingered in the porch, with the strange figure inthe brilliant serape in his arms. His eyes met Kate’s.In his black glance was a sort of homage, to the mysteryof the Two Ways; a sort of secret. And Kate was uneasy.

They crossed quickly under the trees to the hotel, whichwas very near, and Carlota was laid in bed. A soldier hadgone already to find a doctor; they sent also for a priest.

Kate sat by the bed. Carlota lay on the bed, making small,horrible moaning noises. The drums outside on the church-roofstarted to roll, in a savage, complicated rhythm. Katewent to the window and looked out. People were streamingdazzled from the church.

And then, from the church-roof, came the powerful singingof men’s voices, fanning like a dark eagle in the brightair; a deep relentless chanting, with an undertone ofpassionate assurance. She went to the window to look.She could see the men on the church-roof, the people swarmingdown below. And the roll of that relentless chanting,with its undertone of exultance in power and life, rolledthrough the air like an invisible dark presence.

Cipriano came in again, glancing at Carlota and at Kate.

“They are singing the song of Welcome to Quetzalcoatl,”said he.

“Is that it?” said Kate. “What are the words?”

“I will find you a song-sheet,” he said.

He stood beside her, putting the spell of his presenceover her. And she still struggled a little, as if she weredrowning. When she wasn’t drowning, she wanted to drown.But when it actually came, she fought for her old footing.

There was a crying noise from Carlota. Kate hurriedto the bed.

“Where am I?” said the white-faced, awful, deathly-lookingwoman.

“You are resting in bed,” said Kate. “Don’t trouble.”

“Where was I?” came Carlota’s voice.

“Perhaps the sun gave you a touch of sunstroke,” saidKate.

Carlota closed her eyes.

Then suddenly outside the noise of drums rolled again,a powerful sound. And outside in the sunshine life seemedto be rolling in powerful waves.

[Pg 370]

Carlota started, and opened her eyes.

“What is that noise?”

“It is a fiesta,” said Kate.

“Ramón, he’s murdered me, and lost his own soul,”said Carlota. “He has murdered me, and lost his ownsoul. He is a murderer, and one of the damned. Theman I married! The man I married! A murderer amongthe damned!”

It was evident she no longer heard the sounds outside.

Cipriano could not bear the sound of her voice. He camequickly to the side of the bed.

“Doña Carlota!” he said, looking down at her dulledhazel eyes, that were fixed and unseeing: “Do not diewith wrong words on your lips. If you are murdered, youhave murdered yourself. You were never married toRamón. You were married to your own way.”

He spoke fiercely, avengingly.

“Ah!” said the dying woman. “Ah! I never marriedRamón. No! I never married him! How could I?He was not what I would have him be. How could Imarry him? Ah! I thought I married him. Ah! I amso glad I didn’t—so glad.”

“You are glad! You are glad!” said Cipriano in anger,angry with the very ghost of the woman, talking to theghost. “You are glad because you never poured thewine of your body into the mixing-bowl! Yet inyour day you have drunk the wine of his bodyand been soothed with his oil. You are glad youkept yours back? You are glad you kept back the wineof your body and the secret oil of your soul? That yougave only the water of your charity? I tell you the waterof charity, the hissing water of the spirit is bitter at lastin the mouth and in the breast and in the belly, it puts outthe fire. You would have put out the fire, Doña Carlota.—Butyou cannot. You shall not. You have been charitableand compassionless to the man you called your own.So you have put out your own fire.”

“Who is talking?” said the ghost of Carlota.

“I, Cipriano Viedma, am talking.”

“The oil and the wine! The oil and the wine and thebread! They are the sacrament! They are the body andthe blessing of God! Where is the priest? I want the[Pg 371]sacrament. Where is the priest? I want to confess, andtake the sacrament, and have the peace of God,” said theghost of Carlota.

“The priest is coming.—But you can take no sacrament,unless you give it. The oil and the wine and the bread!They are not for the priest to give. They are to be pouredinto the mixing-bowl, which Ramón calls the cup of thestar. If you pour neither oil nor wine into the mixing-bowl,from the mixing-bowl you cannot drink. So youhave no sacrament.”

“The sacrament! The bread!” said the ghost of Carlota.

“There is no bread. There is no body without bloodand oil, as Shylock found out.”

“A murderer, lost among the damned!” murmuredCarlota. “The father of my children! The husband ofmy body! Ah no! It is better for me to call to the HolyVirgin, and die.”

“Call then, and die!” said Cipriano.

“My children!” murmured Carlota.

“It is well you must leave them. With your beggar’sbowl of charity you have stolen their oil and their wine aswell. It is good for you to steal from them no more, youstale virgin, you spinster, you born widow, you weepingmother, you impeccable wife, you just woman. You stolethe very sunshine out of the sky and the sap out of theearth. Because back again, what did you pour? Onlythe water of dead dilution into the mixing-bowl of life, youthief. Oh die!—die!—die! Die and be a thousand timesdead! Do nothing but utterly die!”

Doña Carlota had relapsed into unconsciousness; evenher ghost refused to hear. Cipriano flung his sinisterly-flamingserape over his shoulders and his face, over hisnose, till only his black, glittering eyes were visible as heblew out of the room.

Kate sat by the window, and laughed a little. Theprimeval woman inside her laughed to herself, for she hadknown all the time about the two thieves on the Cross withJesus; the bullying, marauding thief of the male in his ownrights, and the much more subtle, cold, sly, charitablethief of the woman in her own rights, forever chanting herbeggar’s whine about the love of God and the God of pity.

But Kate, too, was a modern woman and a woman in[Pg 372]her own rights. So she sat on with Carlota. And whenthe doctor came, she accepted the obsequiousness of theman as part of her rights. And when the priest came,she accepted the obsequiousness from him, just the same,as part of her woman’s rights. These two ministers oflove, what were they for, but to be obsequious to her? Asfor herself, she could hardly be called a thief, and a sneak-thiefof the world’s virility, when these men came forcingtheir obsequiousness upon her, whining to her to take itand relieve them of the responsibility of their own manhood.No, if women are thieves, it is only because menwant to be thieved from. If women thieve the world’svirility, it is only because men want to have it thieved,since for men to be responsible for their own manhoodseems to be the last thing men want.

So Kate sat on in the room of the dying Carlota, smilinga little cynically. Outside she heard the roll of the tom-tomsand the deep chanting of the men of Quetzalcoatl.Beyond, under the trees, in the smoothed, cleared spacebefore the church, she saw the half-naked men dancing ina circle, to the drum; the round dance. Then later, dancinga religious dance of the return of Quetzalcoatl. It wasthe old, barefooted, absorbed dancing of the Indians, thedance of downward-sinking absorption. It was the danceof these people too, just the same: the dance of the Aztecsand Zapotecs and the Huicholes, just the same in essence,indigenous to America; the curious, silent, absorbed danceof the softly-beating feet and ankles, the body comingdown softly, but with deep weight, upon powerful kneesand ankles, to the tread of the earth, as when a male birdtreads the hen. And women softly stepping in unison.

And Kate, listening to the drums, and the full-throatedsinging, and watching the rich, soft bodies in the dance,thought to herself a little sceptically: Yes! For these itis easier. But all the white men, of the dominant race,what are they doing at this moment?

In the afternoon there was a great dance of the Welcomeof Quetzalcoatl, Kate could only see a little of it, in frontof the church.

The drums beat vigorously all the time, the dance woundstrangely to the water’s edge. Kate heard afterwards thatthe procession of women with baskets on their heads, filled[Pg 373]with bread and fruits all wrapped in leaves, went down tothe shore and loaded the boats. Then dancers and all gotinto the boats and canoas, and rowed to the island.

They made a feast on the island, and learned the danceof the Welcome of Quetzalcoatl, which they would danceevery year on that day. And they learned the Song of theWelcome of Quetzalcoatl; which later on Cipriano broughtto Kate, as she sat in that dim room with the unconsciouswoman, who made small, terrible, mechanical noises.

The doctor came hastening, and the priest came aftera while. Neither could do anything. They came in theafternoon again, and Kate walked out and wandered onthe half-deserted beach, looking at the flock of boats drawingnear the island, and feeling that life was a more terribleissue even than death. One could die and have done. Butliving was never done, it could never be finished, and theresponsibility could never be shifted.

She went back again to the sick-room, and with the aidof a woman she undressed poor Carlota and put a nightdresson her. Another doctor came from the city. But thesick woman was dying. And Kate was alone with her again.

The men, where were they?

The business of living? Were they really gone aboutthe great business of living, abandoning her here to thisbusiness of dying?

It was nightfall before she heard the drums returning.And again that deep, full, almost martial singing of men,savage and remote, to the sound of the drum. Perhapsafter all life would conquer again, and men would be men,so that women could be women. Till men are men indeed,women have no hope to be women. She knew that fatallyenough.

Cipriano came to her, smelling of sun and sweat, his facedarkly glowing, his eyes flashing. He glanced at the bed,at the unconscious woman, at the medicine bottles.

“What do they say?” he asked.

“The doctors think she may come round.”

“She will die,” he said.

Then he went with her to the window.

“See!” he said. “This is what they are singing.”

It was the Song-sheet of the Welcome to Quetzalcoatl.

[Pg 374]

Welcome to Quetzalcoatl.

Even as she read, she could hear the people outside singingit, as the reed-flutes unthreaded the melody time aftertime. This strange dumb people of Mexico was openingits voice at last. It was as if a stone had been rolled offthem all, and she heard their voice for the first time, deep,wild, with a certain exultance and menace.

[Pg 375]

She could hear the curious defiance and exultance in themen’s voices. Then a woman’s voice, clear almost as astar itself, went up the road at the verse:

Strange! The people had opened hearts at last. Theyhad rolled the stone of their heaviness away, a new worldhad begun. Kate was frightened. It was dusk. She laidher hand on Cipriano’s knee, lost. And he leaned and puthis dark hand against her cheek, breathing silently.

“To-day,” he said softly, “we have done well.”

She felt for his hand. All was so dark. But oh, so deep,so deep and beyond her, the vast, soft, living heat! Sobeyond her!

She could almost feel her soul appealing to Cipriano forthis sacrament.

They sat side by side in darkness, as the night fell, andhe held his hand loosely on hers. Outside, the people werestill singing. Some were dancing round the drum. On thechurch-towers, where the bells had been, there were firesflickering, and white forms of men, the noise of a heavydrum, then again, the chant. In the yard before thechurch doors a fire was blazing, and men of Huitzilopochtlistood watching two of their men, naked save for a breech-clothand the scarlet feathers on their head, dancing theold spear-dance, whooping challenge in the firelight.

Ramón came in, in his white clothes. He pulled off hisbig hat, and stood looking down at Carlota. She no longermade noises, and her eyes were turned up horribly, showingthe whites. Ramón closed his eyes a moment, and turnedaway, saying nothing. He came to the window, whereCipriano still sat in his impenetrable but living silence,[Pg 376]that satisfied where all speech had failed, holding Kate’shand loosely. Nor did he let go her hand.

Ramón looked out, at the fires in the church towers, thefire before the church doors, the little fires on the beachby the lake; and the figures of men in white, the figuresof women in dark rebozos, with full white skirts, the twonaked dancers, the standing crowd, the occasional scarletserapes of Huitzilopochtli, the white and blue of Quetzalcoatl,the creeping away of a motor-car, the running of boys,the men clustering round the drum, to sing.

“It is life,” he said, “which is the mystery. Deathis hardly mysterious in comparison.”

There was a knocking. The doctor had come again, anda sister to nurse the dying woman. Softly the sister pacedround the room and bent over her charge.

Cipriano and Kate went away in a boat over the darklake, away from all the fires and the noise, into the deepdarkness of the lake beyond, to Jamiltepec. Kate felt shewanted to be covered with deep and living darkness, thedeeps where Cipriano could lay her.

And Cipriano, as he sat in the boat with her, felt theinward sun rise darkly in him, diffusing through him; andfelt the mysterious flower of her woman’s femaleness slowlyopening to him, as a sea-anemone opens deep under thesea, with infinite soft fleshliness. The hardness of self-willwas gone, and the soft anemone of her deeps blossomed forhim of itself, far down under the tides.

Ramón remained behind in the hotel, in the impenetrablesanctuary of his own stillness. Carlota remained unconscious.There was a consultation of doctors; to no effect.She died at dawn, before her boys could arrive from Mexico;as a canoa was putting off from the shore with a littlebreeze, and the passengers were singing the Song of Welcometo Quetzalcoatl, unexpectedly, upon the pale water.

They buried Doña Carlota in Sayula, and Kate, thougha woman, went also to the funeral. Don Ramón followedthe coffin, in his white clothes and big hat with the Quetzalcoatlsign. His boys went with him; and there weremany strangers, men, in black.

The boys looked odd young shoots, in their black suitswith short breeches and bare knees. They were bothround-faced and creamy brown in complexion, both hada touch of fairness. The elder, Pedro, was more like DonRamón; but his hair was softer, more fluffy than hisfather’s, with a hint of brown. He was sulky and awkward,and kept his head ducked. The younger boy, Cyprian, hadthe fluffy, upstanding brown hair and the startled hazeleyes of his mother.

They had come in a motor-car with their aunt, fromGuadalajara, and were returning straight to town. In herwill, the mother had named guardians in place of the father,stating that the father would consent. And her considerablefortune she had left in trust for the boys. But thefather was one of the trustees.

Ramón sat in his room in the hotel, overlooking the lake,and his two boys sat on the cane settee opposite him.

“What do you want to do, my sons?” said Ramón.“To go back with your Aunt Margarita, and return toschool in the United States?”

The boys remained a while in sulky silence.

“Yes!” said Cyprian at last, his brown hair seemingto fluff up with indignation. “That is what our motherwished us to do. So, of course, we shall do it.”

“Very well!” said Ramón quietly. “But rememberI am your father, and my door, and my arms, and my heartwill always be open to you, when you come.”

The elder boy shuffled with his feet, and muttered, withoutlooking up:

“We cannot come, papa!”

“Why not, child?”

The boy looked up at him with brown eyes as challengingas his own.

[Pg 378]

“You, papa, you call yourself The Living Quetzalcoatl?”

“Yes.”

“But, papa, our father is called Ramón Carrasco.”

“It is also true,” said Ramón, smiling.

“We,” said Pedro, rather heavily, “are not the childrenof the Living Quetzalcoatl, papa. We are Carrasco y deLara.”

“Good names both,” said Ramón.

“Never,” said the young Cyprian, his eyes flashing,“never can we love you, papa. You are our enemy. Youkilled our mother.”

“No, no!” said Ramón. “That you must not say.Your mother sought her own death.”

“Mama loved you much, much, much!” cried Cyprian,the tears rising to his eyes. “Always she loved you andprayed for you—” He began to cry.

“And I, my son?” said Ramón.

“You hated her and killed her! Oh, mama! Mama!Oh, mama! I want my mother!” he wept.

“Come to me, little one!” said Ramón softly, holdingout his hands.

“No!” cried Cyprian, stamping his foot and flashinghis eyes through his tears. “No! No!”

The elder boy hung his head and was crying too. Ramónhad the little, perplexed frown of pain on his brow. Helooked from side to side, as if for some issue. Then hegathered himself together.

“Listen, my sons,” he said. “You also will be men;it will not be long. While you are little boys, you areneither men nor women. But soon, the change will come,and you will have to be men. And then you will know thata man must be a man. When his soul tells him to do athing, he must do it. When you are men, you must listencarefully to your own souls, and be sure to be true. Betrue to your own souls; there is nothing else for a manto do.”

“Je m’en fiche de ton âme, mon perè!” said Cyprian,with one of his flashes into French. It was a language heoften spoke with his mother.

“That you may, my boy,” said Ramón. “But I maynot.”

[Pg 379]

“Papa!” put in the elder boy. “Is your soul differentfrom mama’s soul?”

“Who knows?” said Ramón. “I understand it differently.”

“Because mama always prayed for your soul.”

“And I, in my way, pray for hers, child. If her soulcomes back to me, I will take it into my heart.”

“Mama’s soul,” said Cyprian, “will go straight intoParadise.”

“Who knows, child! Perhaps the Paradise for the soulsof the dead is the hearts of the living.”

“I don’t understand what you say.”

“It is possible,” said Ramón, “that even now the onlyParadise for the soul of your mother is in my heart.”

The two boys stared at him with open eyes.

“Never will I believe that,” said Cyprian.

“Or it may be in thy heart,” said Ramón. “Hast thoua place in thy heart for the soul of thy mother?”

The young Cyprian stared with bewildered hazel eyes.

“The soul of my mother goes direct to Paradise, becauseshe is a saint,” he asserted flatly.

“Which Paradise, my son?”

“The only one. Where God is.”

“And where is that?”

There was a pause.

“In the sky,” said Cyprian, stubbornly.

“It is very far and very empty. But I believe, my son,that the hearts of living men are the very middle of thesky. And there God is; and Paradise; inside the heartsof living men and women. And there the souls of the deadcome to rest, there, at the very centre, where the bloodturns and returns; that is where the dead sleep best.”

There was a very blank pause.

“And wilt thou go on saying thou art the Living Quetzalcoatl?”said Cyprian.

“Surely! And when you are a little older, perhapsyou will come to me and say it too.”

“Never! Thou hast killed our mother, and we shallhate thee. When we are men we ought to kill thee.”

“Nay, that is bombast, child! Why wilt thou listenonly to servants and priests and people of that sort? Arethey not thy inferiors, since thou art my son, and thy[Pg 380]mother’s son? Why dost thou take the talk of servantsand inferiors into thy mouth? Hast thou no room for thespeech of brave men? Thou wilt not kill me, neither willthy brother. For I would not allow you, even if youwished it. And you do not wish it. Talk no more of thisempty lackey-talk to me, Cyprian, for I will not hear it.Art thou already a little lackey, or a priest? Come, thouart vulgar. Thou art a little vulgarian. We had betterspeak English; or thy French. Castilian is too good alanguage to turn into this currish talk.”

Ramón rose and went to the window to look out at thelake. The drums on the church were sounding for mid-day,when every man should glance at the sun, and stand silentwith a little prayer.

Ramón turned and repeated the Mid-day verse to hisboys. They listened in confused silence.

“Come!” he said. “Why are you confused? If Italked to you about your new boots, or ten pesos, youwould not be confused. But if I speak of the sun andyour own souls filled from the sun like honeycombs, yousulk. You had better go back to your school in America,to learn to be business men. You had better say to everybody:Oh, no! we have no father! Our mother died,but we never had a father. We are children of animmaculate conception, so we should make excellent businessmen.”

“I shall be a priest,” said Cyprian.

“And I a doctor,” said Pedro.

“Very good! Very good! Shall-be is far from am, andto-morrow is another day. Come to me when your hearttells you to come. You are my little boys, whatever you[Pg 381]say, and I shall stroke your hair and laugh at you. Come!Come here!”

He looked at them, and they dared not refuse to obey,his power was so much greater than theirs.

He took his eldest son in his arms and stroked his head.

“There!” he said. “Thou art my eldest son, and Iam thy father, who calls himself The Living Quetzalcoatl.When they say: ‘Is it thy father who calls himself TheLiving Quetzalcoatl?’—say to them: ‘Yes, he is myfather.’ And when they ask you what you think of sucha father, say: ‘I am young, and I do not understand himyet. But I do not judge my father without understandinghim.’ Wilt thou say that, my boy, Pedro, my son?” AndRamón stroked the boy’s hair with the gentleness andtenderness which filled the child with a sort of awe.

“Yes, papa! I will say that,” said the boy, relieved.

“It is well,” said Ramón, laying his hand on the child’shead for a moment, like a blessing.

Then he turned to the younger son.

“Come then,” he said, “and let me stroke thy upstandinghair.”

“If I love thee, I cannot love mama!” said Cyprian.

“Nay, is thy heart so narrow? Love not at all, if itmakes thee petty.”

“But I do not want to come to thee, papa.”

“Then stay away, my son, and come when thou dostwant it.”

“I do not think thou lovest me, papa.”

“Nay, when thou art an obstinate monkey, I love theenot. But when thy real manhood comes upon thee, andthou art brave and daring, rather than rash and impudent,then thou wilt be lovable. How can I love thee if thouart not lovable?”

“Mama always loved me.”

“She called thee her own. I do not call thee mineown. Thou art thyself. When thou art lovable, I canlove thee. When thou art rash and impudent, nay, Icannot. The mill will not spin when the wind does notblow.”

The boys went away. Ramón watched them as theystood in their black clothes and bare knees upon the jetty,and his heart yearned over them.

[Pg 382]

“Ah, the poor little devils!” he said to himself. Andthen:

“But I can do no more than keep my soul like a castlefor them, to be a stronghold to them when they need it—ifever they do.”

These days Kate often sat by the lake shore, in the earlylight of the morning. Between the rains, the day camevery clear, she could see every wrinkle in the great hillsopposite, and the fold, or pass, through which a river came,away at Tuliapan, was so vivid to her she felt she hadwalked it. The red birds looked as if rains had freshenedeven their poppy-buds, and in the morning frogs werewhirring.

But the world was somehow different; all different. Nojingle of bells from the church, no striking of the clock.The clock was taken away.

And instead, the drums. At dawn, the heavy drumrolling its sound on the air. Then the sound of the Dawn-Versechanted from the tower, in a strong man’s voice:

The voice, and the great drum ceased. And in the dawnthe men who had risen stood silent, with arm uplifted, inthe moment of change, the women covered their facesand bent their heads. All was changeless still for themoment of change.

Then the light drum rattled swiftly, as the first sparkleof the bright sun flashed in sheer light from the crest ofthe great hills. The day had begun. People of the worldmoved on their way.

At about nine o’clock the light drum rattled quickly,and the voice in the tower cried:

“Half way! Half way up the slope of the morning!”

There was the heavy drum at noon, the light drum againat about three o’clock, with the cry:

“Half way! Half way down the slope of afternoon.”

[Pg 383]

And at sunset again, the great drum rolling, and thevoice crying:

And again in the sunset everywhere men stood with liftedfaces and hand, and women covered their faces and stoodwith bowed heads, all was changeless still for the momentof change.

Then the lighter drums suddenly beat, and people movedon into the night.

The world was different, different. The drums seemedto leave the air soft and vulnerable, as if it were alive.Above all, no clang of metal on metal, during the momentsof change.

This was one of Ramón’s little verses.

Strange, the change that was taking place in the world.Always the air had a softer, more velvety silence, it seemedalive. And there were no hours. Dawn and noon andsunset, mid-morning, or the up-slope middle, and mid-afternoon,or the downslope middle, this was the day, withthe watches of the night. They began to call the fourwatches of the day the watch of the rabbit, the watch ofthe hawk, the watch of the turkey-buzzard and the watchof the deer. And the four quarters of the night were thewatch of the frog, the watch of the firefly, the watch ofthe fish, the watch of the squirrel.

“I shall come for you,” wrote Cipriano to her, “whenthe deer is thrusting his last foot towards the forest.”

That meant, she knew, in the last quarter of the hoursof the deer; something after five o’clock.

[Pg 384]

It was as if, from Ramón and Cipriano, from Jamiltepecand the lake region, a new world was unfolding, unrolling,as softly and subtly as twilight falling and removing theclutter of day. It was a soft, twilit newness slowly spreadingand penetrating the world, even into the cities. Now,even in the cities the blue serapes of Quetzalcoatl wereseen, and the drums were heard at the Hours, casting astrange mesh of twilight over the clash of bells and theclash of traffic. Even in the capital the big drum rolledagain, and men, even men in city clothes, would standstill with uplifted faces and arm upstretched, listening forthe noon-verse, which they knew in their hearts, and tryingnot to hear the clash of metal.

But it was a world of metal, and a world of resistance.Cipriano, strangely powerful with the soldiers, in spite ofthe hatred he aroused in other officials, was for meetingmetal with metal. For getting Montes to declare: TheReligion of Quetzalcoatl is the religion of Mexico, officialand declared.—Then backing up the declaration with thearmy.

But no! no! said Ramón. Let it spread of itself. Andwait awhile, till you can be declared the living Huitzilopochtli,and your men can have the red and black blanket,with the snake-curve. Then perhaps we can have the openwedding with Caterina, and she will be a mother amongthe gods.

All the time, Ramón tried as far as possible to avoidarousing resistance and hate. He wrote open letters tothe clergy, saying:

“Who am I, that I should be enemy of the One Church?I am catholic of catholics. I would have One Church ofall the world, with Rome for the Central City, if Romewish.

“But different peoples must have different Saviours, asthey have different speech and different colour. The finalmystery is one mystery. But the manifestations are many.

“God must come to Mexico in a blanket and in huaraches,else He is no God of the Mexicans, they cannot[Pg 385]know Him. Naked, all men are but men. But the touch,the look, the word that goes from one naked man to anotheris the mystery of living. We live by manifestations.

“And men are fragile, and fragments, and strangelygrouped in their fragmentariness. The invisible God hasdone it to us, darkened some faces and whitened others,and grouped us in groups, even as the zopilote is a bird,and the parrot of the hot lands is a bird, and the littleoriole is a bird. But the angel of the zopilotes must be azopilote, and the angel of the parrots a parrot. And toone, the dead carcase will ever smell good; to the other,the fruit.

“Priests who will come to me do not forsake eitherfaith or God. They change their manner of speech andvestments, as the peon calls with one cry to the oxen, andwith another cry to the mules. Each responds to its owncall in its own way—”

To the socialists and agitators he wrote:

“What do you want? Would you make all men asyou are? And when every peon in Mexico wears an Americansuit of clothes and shiny black shoes, and looks forlife in the newspaper and for his manhood to the government,will you be satisfied? Did the government, then,give you your manhood, that you expect it to give it tothese others?

“It is time to forget. It is time to put away the grudgeand the pity. No man was ever the better for being pitied,and every man is the worse for a grudge.

“We can do nothing with life, except live it.

“Let us seek life where it is to be found. And, havingfound it, life will solve the problems. But every time wedeny the living life, in order to solve a problem, we causeten problems to spring up where was one before. Solvingthe problems of the people, we lose the people in a poisonousforest of problems.

“Life makes, and moulds, and changes the problem. Theproblem will always be there, and will always be different.So nothing can be solved, even by life and living, for lifedissolves and resolves, solving it leaves alone.

“Therefore we turn to life; and from the clock to thesun and the stars, and from metal to membrane.

“This way we hope the problem will dissolve, since it[Pg 386]can never be solved. When men seek life first, they will notseek land nor gold. The lands will lie on the lap of thegods, where men lie. And if the old communal systemcomes back, and the village and the land are one, it willbe very good. For truly, no man can possess lands.

“But when we are deep in a bog, it is no use attemptingto gallop. We can only wade out with toil. And in ourhaste to have a child, it is no good tearing the babe fromthe womb.

“Seek life, and life will bring the change.

“Seek life itself, even pause at dawn and at sunset, andlife will come back into us and prompt us through thetransitions.

“Lay forcible hands on nothing, only be ready to resist,if forcible hands should be laid on you. For the new shootsof life are tender, and better ten deaths than that theyshould be torn or trampled down by the bullies of theworld. When it comes to fighting for the tender shoots oflife, fight as the jaguar fights for her young, as the she-bearfor her cubs.

“That which is life is vulnerable, only metal is invulnerable.Fight for the vulnerable unfolding of life. But forthat, fight never to yield.”

Cipriano, too, was always speaking to his soldiers, alwayswith the same cry:

“We are men! We are fighters!

“But what can we do?

“Shall we march to simple death?

“No! No! We must march to life.

“The gringos are here. We have let them come. Wemust let them stay, for we cannot drive them out. Withguns and swords and bayonets we can never drive themout, for they have a thousand where we have one. Andif they come in peace, let them stay in peace.

“But we have not lost Mexico yet. We have not losteach other.

“We are the blood of America. We are the blood ofMontezuma.

“What is my hand for? Is it to turn the handle ofmachine alone?

“My hand is to salute the God of Mexicans, beyondthe sky.

[Pg 387]

“My hand is to touch the hand of a brave man.

“My hand is to hold a gun.

“My hand is to make the corn grow out of the ground.

“What are my knees for?

“My knees are to hold me proud and erect.

“My knees are for marching on my way.

“My knees are the knees of a man.

“Our god is Quetzalcoatl of the blue sky, and Huitzilopochtlired at the gates, watching.

“Our gods hate a kneeling man. They shout Ho! Erect!

“Then what can we do?

“Wait!

“I am a man, naked inside my clothes as you are.

“Am I a big man? Am I a tall and powerful man, fromTlascala, for example?

“I am not. I am little. I am from the south. I amsmall—

“Yet am I not your general?

“Why?

“Why am I a general, and you only soldiers?

“I will tell you.

“I found the other strength.

“There are two strengths; the strength which is thestrength of oxen and mules and iron, of machines and guns,and of men who cannot get the second strength.

“Then there is the second strength. It is the strengthyou want. And you can get it, whether you are small orbig. It is the strength that comes from behind the sun.And you can get it; you can get it here!”—he struck hisbreast—“and here!”—he struck his belly—“and here!”—hestruck his loins. “The strength that comes from backof the sun.”

When Cipriano was roused, his eyes flashed, and it wasas if dark feathers, like pinions, were starting out ofhim, out of his shoulders and back, as if these dark pinionsclashed and flashed like a roused eagle. His men seemedto see him, as by second sight, with the demonish clashingand dashing of wings, like an old god. And they murmured,their eyes flashing:

“It is Cipriano! It is he! We are Ciprianistos, we arehis children.”

“We are men! We are men!” cried Cipriano.

[Pg 388]

“But listen. There are two kinds of men. There aremen with the second strength, and men without it.

“When the first gringos came, we lost our secondstrength. And the padres taught us: Submit! Submit!

“The gringos had got the second strength!

“How?

“Like cunning ones, they stole it on the sly. They keptvery still, like a tarantula in his hole. Then when neithersun nor moon nor stars knew he was there, Biff!—thetarantula sprang across, and bit, and left the poison andsucked the secret.

“So they got the secrets of the air and the water, andthey got the secrets out of the earth. So the metals weretheirs, and they made guns and machines and ships, andthey made trains and telegrams and radio.

“Why? Why did they make all these things? Howcould they do it?

“Because, by cunning, they had got the secret of thesecond strength, which comes from behind the sun.

“And we had to be slaves, because we had only got thefirst strength, we had lost the second strength.

“Now we are getting it back. We have found our wayagain to the secret sun behind the sun. There sat Quetzalcoatl,and at last Don Ramón found him. There sitsthe red Huitzilopochtli, and I have found him. For I havefound the second strength.

“When he comes, all you who strive shall find the secondstrength.

“And when you have it, where will you feel it?

“Not here!”—and he struck his forehead. “Not wherethe cunning gringos have it, in the head, and in their books.Not we. We are men, we are not spiders.

“We shall have it here!”—he struck his breast—“andhere!”—he struck his belly—“and here!”—he struck hisloins.

“Are we men? Can we not get the second strength?Can we not? Have we lost it forever?

“I say no! Quetzalcoatl is among us. I have found thered Huitzilopochtli. The second strength!

“When you walk or sit, when you work or lie down,when you eat or sleep, think of the second strength, thatyou must have it.

[Pg 389]

“Be very quiet. It is shy as a bird in a dark tree.

“Be very clean, clean in your bodies and your clothes.It is like a star, that will not shine in dirt.

“Be very brave, and do not drink till you are drunk,nor soil yourself with bad women, nor steal. Because adrunken man has lost his second strength, and a man loseshis strength in bad women, and a thief is a coward, and thered Huitzilopochtli hates a coward.

“Try! Try for the second strength. When we have it,the others will lose it.”

Cipriano struggled hard with his army. The curse of anyarmy is the having nothing to do. Cipriano made all hismen cook and wash for themselves, clean and paint thebarracks, make a great garden to grow vegetables, andplant trees wherever there was water. And he himself tooka passionate interest in what they did. A dirty tunic, asore foot, a badly-made huarache did not escape him. Buteven when they cooked their meals he went among them.

“Give me something to eat,” he would say. “Give mean enchilada!”

Then he praised the cooking, or said it was bad.

Like all savages, they liked doing small things. And,like most Mexicans, once they were a little sure of whatthey were doing, they loved doing it well.

Cipriano was determined to get some discipline into them.Discipline is what Mexico needs, and what the whole worldneeds. But it is the discipline from the inside that matters.The machine discipline, from the outside, breaks down.

He had the wild Indians from the north beat their drumsin the barracks-yard, and start the old dances again. Thedance, the dance which has meaning, is a deep discipline initself. The old Indians of the north still have the secretof animistic dancing. They dance to gain power; powerover the living forces or potencies of the earth. And thesedances need intense dark concentration, and immenseendurance.

Cipriano encouraged the dances more than anything. Helearned them himself, with curious passion. The shield andspear dance, the knife dance, the dance of ambush and thesurprise dance, he learned them in the savage villages ofthe north, and he danced them in the barracks-yard, bythe bonfire, at night, when the great doors were shut.

[Pg 390]

Then, naked save for a black breech-cloth, his bodysmeared with oil and red earth-powder, he would face someheavy naked Indian and with shield and spear dance thedance of the two warriors, champions in the midst of thedense ring of soldiers. And the silent, rhythmic concentrationof this duel in subtlety and rapidity kept the feetsoftly beating with the drum, the naked body suave andsubtle, circling with suave, primitive stealth, then crouchingand leaping like a panther, with the spear poised, to aclash of shields, parting again with the crowing yell ofdefiance and exultance.

In this dance, no one was more suave and sudden thanCipriano. He could swerve along the ground with bent,naked back, as invisible as a lynx, circling round hisopponent, his feet beating and his suave body subtly liltingto the drum. Then in a flash he was in the air, his spearpointing down at the collar-bone of his enemy and glidingover his shoulder, as the opponent swerved under, and thewar-yell resounded. The soldiers in the deep circle watched,fascinated, uttering the old low cries.

And as the dance went on, Cipriano felt his strengthincrease and surge inside him. When all his limbs wereglistening with sweat, and his spirit was at last satisfied,he was at once tired and surcharged with extraordinarypower. Then he would throw his scarlet and dark sarapearound him, and motion other men to fight, giving hisspear and shield to another officer or soldier, going himselfto sit down on the ground and watch, by the firelight. Andthen he felt his limbs and his whole body immense withpower, he felt the black mystery of power go out of himover all his soldiers. And he sat there imperturbable, insilence, holding all those black-eyed men in the splendourof his own, silent self. His own dark consciousness seemedto radiate through their flesh and their bones, they wereconscious, not through themselves but through him. Andas a man’s instinct is to shield his own head, so that instinctwas to shield Cipriano, for he was the most precious part ofthemselves to them. It was in him they were supreme.They got their splendour from his power and their greatestconsciousness was his consciousness diffusing them.

“I am not of myself,” he would say to them. “I amof the red Huitzilopochtli and the power from behind the[Pg 391]sun. And you are not of yourselves. Of yourselves youare nothing. You are of me, my men.”

He encouraged them to dance naked, with the breech-cloth,to rub themselves with the red earth-powder, overthe oil.

“This is the oil of the stars. Rub it well into your limbsand you will be strong as the starry sky. This is the redblood of volcanos. Rub yourselves with it, you will havethe power of the fire of the volcanoes, from the centre ofthe earth.”

He encouraged them to dance the silent, concentrateddances to the drum, to dance for hours, gathering power andstrength.

“If you know how to tread the dance, you can treaddeeper and deeper till you touch the middle of the earthwith your foot. And when you touch the middle of theearth, you will have such power in your belly and yourbreast, no man will be able to overcome you. Get thesecond strength. Get it, get it out of the earth, get it frombehind the sun. Get the second strength.”

He made long, rapid marches across the wild Mexicancountry, and through the mountains, moving light andswift. He liked to have his men camping in the open, withno tents: but the watch set, and the stars overhead. Hepursued the bandits with swift movements. He strippedhis captives and tied them up. But if it seemed a braveman, he would swear him in. If it seemed to him a knave,a treacherous cur, he stabbed him to the heart, saying:

“I am the red Huitzilopochtli, of the knife.”

Already he had got his own small, picked body of menout of the ignominious drab uniform, dressed in white withthe scarlet sash and the scarlet ankle cords, and carryingthe good, red and black sarape. And his men must be clean.On the march they would stop by some river, with the orderfor every man to strip and wash, and wash his clothing.Then the men, dark and ruddy, moved about naked, whilethe white clothing of strong white cotton dried on the earth.They moved on again, glittering with the peculiar whitenessof cotton clothes in Mexico, gun at their backs, sarape andsmall pack on their backs, wearing the heavy straw hatswith the scarlet crowns on their heads.

“They must move!” he said to his officers. “They[Pg 392]must learn again to move swiftly and untiringly, with theold power. They must not lie about. In the sleep hours, letthem sleep. In the waking, let them work, or march, ordrill, or dance.”

He divided his regiment up into little companies of ahundred each, with a centurion and a sergeant in command.Each company of a hundred must learn to act in perfectunison, freely and flexibly. “Perfect your hundred,”Cipriano insisted, “and I will perfect your thousands andyour tens of thousands.”

“Listen!” he said. “For us, no trench and cannonwarfare. My men are no cannon-fodder, nor trench-dung.Where cannon are, we move away. Our hundreds breakup, and we attack where the cannon are not. That we areswift, that we are silent, that we have no burdens, and thatthe second strength is in us: that is all. We intend to putup no battle-front, but to attack at our own moment, and ata thousand points.”

And always he reiterated:

“If you can get the power from the heart of the earth,and the power from behind the sun; if you can summonthe power of the red Huitzilopochtli into you, nobody canconquer you. Get the second strength.”

Ramón was pressing Cipriano now openly to assume theliving Huitzilopochtli.

“Come!” he said. “It is time you let General Viedmabe swallowed up in the red Huitzilopochtli. Don’t youthink?”

“If I know what it means,” said Cipriano.

They were sitting on the mats in Ramón’s room, in theheat before the rain came, towards the end of the rainyseason.

“Stand up!” said Ramón.

Cipriano stood up at once, with that soft, startling alertnessin his movement.

Ramón came quickly to him, placed one of his handsover Cipriano’s eyes, closing them. Ramón stood behindCipriano, who remained motionless in the warm dark, hisconsciousness reeling in strange concentric waves, towardsa centre where it suddenly plunges into the bottomlessdeeps, like sleep.

“Cipriano?”—the voice sounded so far off.

[Pg 393]

“Yes.”

“Is it dark?”

“It is dark.”

“Is it alive? Is the darkness alive?”

“Surely it is alive.”

“Who lives?”

“I.”

“Where?”

“I know not. In the living darkness.”

Ramón then bound Cipriano’s eyes and head with a stripof black fur. Then again, with a warm, soft pressure, hepressed one naked hand over Cipriano’s naked breast, andone between his shoulders. Cipriano stood in profounddarkness, erect and silent.

“Cipriano?”

“Yes.”

“Is it dark in your heart?”

“It is coming dark.”

Ramón felt the thud of the man’s heart slowly slackening.In Cipriano, another circle of darkness had startedslowly to revolve, from his heart. It swung in wideningrounds, like a greater sleep.

“Is it dark?”

“It is dark.”

“Who lives?”

“I.”

Ramón bound Cipriano’s arms at his sides, with a beltof fur round the breast. Then he put his one hand overthe navel, his other hand in the small of the other man’sback, pressing with slow, warm, powerful pressure.

“Cipriano?”

“Yes.”

The voice and the answer going farther and farther away.

“Is it dark?”

“No, my Lord.”

Ramón knelt and pressed his arms close round Cipriano’swaist, pressing his black head against his side. And Ciprianobegan to feel as if his mind, his head were melting awayin the darkness, like a pearl in black wine, the other circleof sleep began to swing, vast. And he was a man without ahead, moving like a dark wind over the face of the darkwaters.

[Pg 394]

“Is it perfect?”

“It is perfect.”

“Who lives?”

“Who—!”

Cipriano no longer knew.

Ramón bound him fast round the middle, then, pressinghis head against the hip, folded the arms round Cipriano’sloins, closing with his hands the secret places.

“Cipriano?”

“Yes.”

“Is it all dark?”

But Cipriano could not answer. The last circle wassweeping round, and the breath upon the waters was sinkinginto the waters, there was no more utterance. Ramónkneeled with pressed head and arms and hands, for somemoments still. Then he bound the loins, binding the wriststo the hips.

Cipriano stood rigid and motionless. Ramón clasped thetwo knees with his hands, till they were warm, and he feltthem dark and asleep like two living stones, or two eggs.Then swiftly he bound them together, and grasped theankles, as one might grasp the base of a young tree as itemerges from the earth. Crouching on the earth, he grippedthem in an intense grip, resting his head on the feet. Themoments passed, and both men were unconscious.

Then Ramón bound the ankles, lifted Cipriano suddenly,with a sleep-moving softness, laid him on the skin of a bigmountain-lion, which was spread upon the blankets, threwover him the red and black sarape of Huitzilopochtli, andlay down at his feet, holding Cipriano’s feet to his ownabdomen.

And both men passed into perfect unconsciousness,Cipriano within the womb of undisturbed creation, Ramónin the death sleep.

How long they were both dark, they never knew. Itwas twilight. Ramón was suddenly aroused by the jerkingof Cipriano’s feet. He sat up, and took the blanket offCipriano’s face.

“Is it night?” said Cipriano.

“Almost night,” said Ramón.

Silence followed, while Ramón unfastened the bonds, beginningat the feet. Before he unbound the eyes, he closed[Pg 395]the window, so the room was almost dark. Then he unfastenedthe last binding, and Cipriano sat up, looking,then suddenly covering his eyes.

“Make it quite dark!” he said.

Ramón closed the shutters, and the room was completenight. Then he returned and sat on the mats by Cipriano.Cipriano was asleep again. After a while, Ramón left him.

He did not see him again till dawn. Then Ramón foundhim going down to the lake, to swim. The two men swamtogether, while the sun rose. With the rain, the lake wascolder. They went to the house to rub oil in their limbs.

Cipriano looked at Ramón with black eyes which seemedto be looking at all space.

“I went far,” he said.

“To where there is no beyond?” said Ramón.

“Yes, there.”

And in a moment or two, Cipriano was wrapped in hisblanket again, and asleep.

He did not wake till the afternoon. Then he ate, andtook a boat, and rowed down the lake to Kate. He foundher at home. She was surprised to see him, in his whiteclothes and with his sarape of Huitzilopochtli.

“I am going to be the living Huitzilopochtli,” he said.

“Are you? When? Does it feel queer?”—Kate wasafraid of his eyes, they seemed inhuman.

“On Thursday. The day of Huitzilopochtli is to beThursday. Won’t you sit beside me, and be wife of mewhen I am a god?”

“But do you feel you are a god?” she asked, querulous.

He turned his eyes on her strangely.

“I have been,” he said. “And I have come back. ButI belong there, where I went.”

“Where?”

“Where there is no beyond, and the darkness sinks intothe water, and waking and sleeping are one thing.”

“No,” said Kate, afraid. “I never understood mysticalthings. They make me uneasy.”

“Is it mystical when I come in to you?”

“No,” said Kate. “Surely that is physical.”

“So is the other, only further. Won’t you be the brideof Huitzilopochtli?” he asked again.

“Not so soon,” said Kate.

[Pg 396]

“Not so soon!” he re-echoed.

There was a pause.

“Will you come back with me to Jamiltepec now?” heasked.

“Not now,” she said.

“Why not now?”

“Oh, I don’t know.—You treat me as if I had no lifeof my own,” she said. “But I have.”

“A life of your own? Who gave it you? Where didyou get it?”

“I don’t know. But I have got it. And I must live it.I can’t be just swallowed up.”

“Why, Malintzi?” he said, giving her a name. “Whycan’t you?”

“Be just swallowed up?” she said. “Well, I justcan’t.”

“I am the living Huitzilopochtli,” he said. “And Iam swallowed up. I thought, so could you be, Malintzi.”

“No! Not quite?” she said.

“Not quite! Not quite! Not now! Not just now!How often you say Not, to-day!—I must go back toRamón.”

“Yes. Go back to him. You only care about him,and your living Quetzalcoatl and your living Huitzilopochtli.—Iam only a woman.”

“No, Malintzi, you are more. You are more than Kate,you are Malintzi.”

“I am not! I am only Kate, and I am only a woman.I mistrust all that other stuff.”

“I am more than just a man, Malintzi.—Don’t you seethat?”

“No!” said Kate. “I don’t see it. Why should yoube more than just a man?”

“Because I am the living Huitzilopochtli. Didn’t I tellyou? You’ve got dust in your mouth to-day, Malintzi.”

He went away, leaving her rocking in anger on herterrace, in love again with her old self, and hostile to thenew thing. She was thinking of London and Paris andNew York, and all the people there.

“Oh!” she cried to herself, stifling. “For heaven’ssake let me get out of this, and back to simple humanpeople. I loathe the very sound of Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli.[Pg 397]I would die rather than be mixed up in it anymore. Horrible, really, both Ramón and Cipriano. Andthey want to put it over me, with their high-flown bunk,and their Malintzi. Malintzi! I am Kate Forrester, really.I am neither Kate Leslie nor Kate Tylor. I am sick ofthese men putting names over me. I was born KateForrester, and I shall die Kate Forrester. I want to gohome. Loathsome, really, to be called Malintzi.—I’ve hadit put over me.”

They had the Huitzilopochtli ceremony at night, in thewide yard in front of the church. The guard of Huitzilopochtli,in sarapes of black, red and yellow stripes, stripedlike tigers or wasps, stood holding torches of blazing ocote.A tall bonfire was built, but unkindled, in the centre ofthe yard.

In the towers where the bells had been, fires were blazingand the heavy drum of Huitzilopochtli went rolling its deep,sinister notes. It had been sounding all the while since thesun went down.

The crowd gathered under the trees, outside the gatesin front of the church. The church doors were closed.

There was a bang of four firework cannons explodingsimultaneously, then four rockets shot up into the sky,leaning in the four directions, and exploding in showers ofred, green, white and yellow.

The church doors opened, and Cipriano appeared, in hisbrilliant sarape of Huitzilopochtli, and with three greenparrot feathers erect on his brow. He was carrying a torch.He stooped and lit the big bonfire, then plucked out fourblazing brands, and tossed them to four of his men, whostood waiting, naked save for their black breech-cloths.The men caught the brands as they flew, and ran in thefour directions, to kindle the four bonfires that waited, onein each corner of the yard.

The guard had taken off their blankets and blouses, andwere naked to the red sash. The lighter drum began to beatfor the dance, and the dance began, the half-naked menthrowing their blazing torches whirling in the air, catchingthem as they came down, dancing all the while. Cipriano,in the centre, threw up brand after brand from the fire.

Now that he was stripped of his blanket, his body wasseen painted in horizontal bars of red and black, while fromhis mouth went a thin green line, and from his eyes a bandof yellow.

The five fires, built hollow of little towers of ocote fa*ggots,sent pure flame in a rush up to the dark sky, illuminatingthe dancing men, who sang in deep voices as they danced.

[Pg 399]

The fires rushed rapidly upwards in flame. The drumbeat without ceasing. And the men of Huitzilopochtlidanced on, like demons. Meanwhile the crowd sat in theold Indian silence, their black eyes glittering in the firelight.And gradually the fires began to die down, the white façadeof the church, that had danced also to the yellow flames,began to go bluish above, merging into the night, rose-colouredbelow, behind the dark shapes that danced to thesinking fires.

Suddenly the dance ceased, the men threw their sarapesaround them, and sat down. Little ocote fires upon thecane tripods flickered here and there, in a silence thatlasted for some minutes. Then the drum sounded, and aman began to sing, in a clear, defiant voice, the First Songof Huitzilopochtli:

The song came to an end. There was a pause. Thenall the men of Huitzilopochtli took it up again, changingthe “I” into “He.”

The big fires had all died down. Only the little flameson the tripods lit up the scene with a ruddy glow. Theguard withdrew to the outer wall of the yard, holdingbayonets erect. The big drum was going alone, slowly.

The yard was now a clear space, with the glowing redheaps of the bonfires, and the ocote flames flapping. Andnow was seen a platform erected against the white wall ofthe church.

In the silence the big doors of the church opened, andCipriano came out, in his bright sarape, holding in his handa bunch of black leaves, or feathers, and with a tuft ofscarlet feathers, black-tipped, rising from the back of hishead. He mounted the platform and stood facing thecrowd, the light of a torch on his face and on the brilliantfeathers that rose like flames from the back of his head.

After him came a strange procession: a peon in floppywhite clothes, led prisoner between two of the guards ofHuitzilopochtli: who wore their sarapes with red and blackand yellow and white and green stripes: then another peonprisoner: then another: in all, five, the fifth one tall, limping,and with a red cross painted on the breast of his whitejacket. Last of all came a woman-prisoner, likewise betweentwo guards, her hair flowing loose, over a red tunic.

They mounted the platform. The peons, prisoners, wereplaced in a row, their guards behind them. The limpingpeon was apart, with his two guards behind him: the womanagain was apart, her two guards behind her.

The big drum ceased, and a bugle rang out, a long,loud triumphant note, repeated three times. Then thekettle-drums, or the small tom-toms like kettle-drums,rattled fierce as hail.

[Pg 402]

Cipriano lifted his hand, and there was silence.

Out of the silence he began to speak, in his short, martialsentences:

The drums began to beat and the singer began to singclear and pure:

The Song of the Grey Dog.

[Pg 404]

The song ceased, and there was silence. Then Ciprianobeckoned to the men to bring forward the peon with theblack cross painted on his front and back. He limpedforward.

The guards came forward with the woman.

The guards stripped the peon Guillermo of his whiteclothes, leaving him naked, in a grey loin-cloth, with a grey-whitecross painted on his naked breast. The woman, too,had a grey-white cross painted on her body. She stoodin a short petticoat of grey wool.

Cipriano: “The grey dog, and the grey bitch shall run nomore about the world. We will bury their bodies inquick-lime, till their souls are eaten, and their bodies,and nothing is left. For lime is the thirsty bone thatswallows even a soul and is not slaked.—Bind themwith the grey cords, put ash on their heads.”

The guards quickly obeyed. The prisoners, ash-grey,gazed with black, glittering eyes, making not a sound. Aguard stood behind each of them. Cipriano gave a sign,and quick as lightning the guards had got the throats of thetwo victims in a grey cloth, and with a sharp jerk hadbroken their necks, lifting them backwards in one movement.The grey cloths they tied hard and tight round thethroats, laying the twitching bodies on the floor.

Cipriano turned to the crowd:

[Pg 405]

Then he turned once more, to the other, imprisoned peons.

An attendant came and lifted Cipriano’s sarape over hishead, leaving his body bare to the waist. The guards likewisetook off their sarapes.

Cipriano lifted up his fist, in which he held a little tuftof black feathers, or leaves.

Then he said slowly:

[Pg 406]

Cipriano turned to the four peons. He held out his fistwith the four black twigs, to the first. This first one, alittle man, peered at the leaves curiously.

“There is no green one,” he said sceptically.

“Good!” said Cipriano. “Then receive a black.”

And he handed him a black leaf.

“I knew it,” said the man, and he threw the leaf awaywith contempt and defiance.

The second man drew a black leaf. He stood gazing atit, as if fascinated, turning it round.

The third man drew a leaf whose lower half was green.

“See!” said Cipriano. “The green leaf of Malintzi!”

And he handed the last black leaf to the last man.

“Have I got to die?” said the last man.

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to die, Patrón.”

“You played with death, and it has sprung upon you.”

The eyes of the three men were blindfolded with black[Pg 407]cloths, their blouses and pantaloons were taken away.Cipriano took a bright, thin dagger.

“The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,” he said ina loud, clear voice.

And swift as lightning he stabbed the blindfolded mento the heart, with three swift, heavy stabs. Then helifted the red dagger and threw it down.

“The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,” he repeated.

The guards lifted the bleeding bodies one by one, andcarried them into the church. There remained only theone prisoner, with the green leaf.

“Put the green leaf of Malintzi between his brows; forMalintzi pardons once, and no more,” said Cipriano.

“Yes, my Lord!” replied the guard.

And they led the man away into the church.

Cipriano followed, the last of his guard after him.

In a few minutes the drums began to beat and men cameslowly streaming into the church. Women were notadmitted. All the interior was hung with red and blackbanners. At the side of the chancel was a new idol: aheavy, seated figure of Huitzilopochtli, done in black lavastone. And round him burned twelve red candles. Theidol held the bunch of black strips, or leaves in his hand.And at his feet lay the five dead bodies.

The fire on the altar was flickering high, to the darkstatue of Quetzalcoatl. On his little throne Ramón sat,wearing his blue and white colours of Quetzalcoatl. Therewas another corresponding throne next him, but it wasempty. Six of the guard of Quetzalcoatl stood by Ramón:but Huitzilopochtli’s side of the chancel was empty savefor the dead.

The hard drums of Huitzilopochtli were beating incessantlyoutside, with a noise like madness. Inside wasthe soft roll of the drum of Quetzalcoatl. And the menfrom the crowd outside thronged slowly in, between theguard of Quetzalcoatl.

A flute sounded the summons to close the doors. Thedrums of Quetzalcoatl ceased, and from the towers washeard again the wild bugle of Huitzilopochtli.

Then down the centre of the church, in silence, barefoot,came the procession of Huitzilopochtli, naked save for theblack loin-cloths and the paint, and the scarlet feathers of[Pg 408]the head-dresses. Cipriano had his face painted with awhite jaw, a thin band of green stretched from his mouth,a band of black across his nose, yellow from his eyes, andscarlet on his brow. One green feather rose from his forehead,and behind his head a beautiful head-dress of scarletfeathers. A band of red was painted round his breast,yellow round his middle. The rest was ash-grey.

After him came his guard, their faces red, black andwhite, their bodies painted as Cipriano’s, and a scarletfeather rising from the back of their head. The hard, drydrum of Huitzilopochtli beat monotonously.

As the Living Huitzilopochtli came near the altar steps,the Living Quetzalcoatl rose and came to meet him. Thetwo saluted, each covering his eyes with his left hand fora moment, then touching fingers with the right hand.

Cipriano stood before the statue of Huitzilopochtli,dipped his hand in a stone bowl, and giving the loud cryor whoop of Huitzilopochtli, lifted up his red hand. Hisguard uttered the loud cry, and quickly filed past, eachman dipping his hand and raising his wet, red fist. Thehard drums of Huitzilopochtli rattled like madness in thechurch, then fell suddenly silent.

Cipriano brought the stone bowl, and the little bunchof black leaves from Huitzilopochtli’s idol. Ramón slowly,gently, sprinkled a little blood on the fire, with the blackleaves.

[Pg 409]

He gave back the bowl and the leaves to Huitzilopochtli,who placed them by the black idol.

The naked, painted guard of Huitzilopochtli came andcarried the dead bodies of the three stabbed men, carriedthem on red biers, and laid them at the foot of the Quetzalcoatlstatue.

Ramón: “So, there is a long way to go, past the sun tothe gate of the Morning Star. And if the sun isangry he strikes swifter than a jaguar, and the whirrof the winds is like an angry eagle, and the upperwaters strike in wrath like silver-coloured snakes.Ah, three souls, make peace now with the sun andwinds and waters, and go in courage, with the breathof Quetzalcoatl around you like a cloak. Fear notand shrink not and fail not; but come to the end ofthe longest journey, and let the fountain cover yourface. So shall all at length be made new.”

When he had spoken to the dead, Ramón took incenseand threw it on the fire, so clouds of blue smoke arose.Then with a censer he swung the blue smoke over the dead.Then he unfolded three blue cloths and covered the dead.Then the guards of Quetzalcoatl lifted the biers, and theflute of Quetzalcoatl sounded.

“Salute the Morning Star!” cried Ramón, turning tothe light beyond the statue of Quetzalcoatl, and throwingup his right arm in the Quetzalcoatl prayer. Every manturned to the light and threw up his arm in the passion.And the silence of the Morning Star filled the church.

The drum of Quetzalcoatl sounded: the guards slowlymoved away with the three blue-wrapped dead.

[Pg 410]

Then came the voice of the Living Huitzilopochtli:

“Upon the dead grey dogs the face of Quetzalcoatl cannotlook. Upon the corpses of grey dogs rises no MorningStar. But the fire of corpses shall consume them.”

There was a sharp rattle of the dry drums of Huitzilopochtli.Ramón remained with his back to the church, hisarm upraised to the Morning Star. And the guard ofHuitzilopochtli lifted the strangled bodies, laid them onbiers, covered them with grey cloths, and bore them away.

The bugle of Huitzilopochtli sounded.

Cipriano: “The dead are on their way. Quetzalcoatlhelps them on the longest journey.—But the grey dogssleep within the quick-lime, in the slow corpse-fire.—Itis finished.”

Ramón dropped his arm and turned to the church. Allmen dropped their hands. The soft drums of Quetzalcoatlsounded, mingling with the hard drums of Huitzilopochtli.Then both guards began to sing together:

Huitzilopochtli’s Watch.

At the beginning of each stanza, the Guard of Huitzilopochtlistruck their left palm with their scarlet right fist,and the drums gave a great crash, a terrific splash of noise.When the song ended, the drums gradually died down, likesubsiding thunder, leaving the hearts of men re-echoing.

The bugle and the flute both sounded. The guard ofHuitzilopochtli put out the red candles, one by one, theguard of Quetzalcoatl extinguished the blue candles. Thechurch was dark, save for the small, but fierce blue-whitelight beyond the Quetzalcoatl statue, and the red smoulderingon the altar.

Ramón began slowly to speak:

The church was utterly still, all men standing with ahand pressed over their eyes.

Till there was one note of a silver gong, and the greencandles of Malintzi were being lighted in the altar place.—Ramón’svoice was heard again:

When the women were shut out of the church, Katewent home gloomy and uneasy. The executions shockedand depressed her. She knew that Ramón and Ciprianodid deliberately what they did: they believed in theirdeeds, they acted with all their conscience. And as men,probably they were right.

But they seemed nothing but men. When Ciprianosaid: Man that is man is more than a man, he seemed tobe driving the male significance to its utmost, and beyond,with a sort of demonism. It seemed to her all terriblewill, the exertion of pure, awful will.

And deep in her soul came a revulsion against this manifestationof pure will. It was fascinating also. Therewas something dark and lustrous and fascinating to her inCipriano, and in Ramón. The black, relentless power,even passion of the will in men! The strange, sombre,lustrous beauty of it! She knew herself under the spell.

At the same time, as is so often the case with any spell,it did not bind her completely. She was spell-bound, butnot utterly acquiescent. In one corner of her soul wasrevulsion and a touch of nausea.

Ramón and Cipriano no doubt were right for themselves,for their people and country. But for herself, ultimately,ultimately she belonged elsewhere. Not to this terrible,natural will which seemed to beat its wings in the veryair of the American continent. Always will, will, will,without remorse or relenting. This was America to her:all the Americas. Sheer will!

The Will of God! She began to understand that oncefearsome phrase. At the centre of all things, a dark,momentous Will sending out its terrific rays and vibrations,like some vast octopus. And at the other end of the vibration,men, created men, erect in the dark potency, answeringWill with will, like gods or demons.

It was wonderful too. But where was woman, in thisterrible interchange of will? Truly only a subservient,instrumental thing: the soft stone on which the man[Pg 414]sharpened the knife of his relentless volition: the soft lodestoneto magnetise his blade of steel and keep all itsmolecules alive in the electric flow.

Ah yes, it was wonderful. It was, as Ramón said, amanifestation, a manifestation of the Godhead. But tothe Godhead as a sheer and awful Will she could notrespond.

Joachim, letting himself be bled to death for people whowould profit nothing by his sacrifice, he was the otherextreme. The black and magnificent pride of will whichcomes out of the volcanic earth of Mexico had been unknownto him. He was one of the white, self-sacrificinggods. Hence her bitterness. And hence, naturally, thespell of beauty and lustrous satisfaction which Ciprianocould cast over her. She was in love with him, when hewas with her; in his arms, she was quite gone in his spell.She was the deep, slumbrous lodestone which set all hisbones glittering with the energy of relentless pride. Andshe herself derived a great gratification in the embrace, asense of passive, downward-sinking power, profound.

Yet she could not be purely this, this thing of sheerreciprocity. Surely, though her woman’s nature wasreciprocal to his male, surely it was more than that!Surely he and she were not two potent and reciprocalcurrents between which the Morning Star flashed like aspark out of nowhere. Surely this was not it? Surelyshe had one tiny Morning Star inside her, which washerself, her own very soul and star-self!

But he would never admit this. The tiny star of hervery self he would never see. To him she was but theanswer to his call, the sheath for his blade, the cloud tohis lightning, the earth to his rain, the fuel to his fire.

Alone, she was nothing. Only as the pure female correspondingto his pure male, did she signify.

As an isolated individual, she had little or no significance.As a woman on her own, she was repulsive, and even evil, tohim. She was not real till she was reciprocal.

To a great extent this was true, and she knew it. To agreat extent, the same was true of him, and without her togive him the power, he too would not achieve his own manhoodand meaning. With her or without her, he would bebeyond ordinary men, because the power was in him. But[Pg 415]failing her, he would never make his ultimate achievement,he would never be whole. He would be chiefly aninstrument.

He knew this too: though perhaps not well enough. Hewould strive to keep her, to have her, for his own fulfilment.He would not let her go.

But that little star of her own single self, would he everrecognize that? Nay, did he even recognize any singlestar of his own being? Did he not conceive of himselfas a power and a potency on the face of the earth, anembodied will, like a rushing dark wind? And hence,inevitably, she was but the stone of rest to his potency, hisbed of sleep, the cave and lair of his male will.

What else? To him there was nothing else. The star!Don Ramón’s Morning Star was something that sprungbetween him and her and hung shining, the strange thirdthing that was both of them and neither of them, betweenhis night and her day.

Was it true? Was she nothing, nothing, by herself?And he, alone, failing his last manhood, without her washe nothing, or next to nothing? As a fig tree whichgrows up, but never comes to flower.

Was this thing true, the same of both of them?—thatalone, they were next to nothing? Each of them, separate,next to nothing. Apart in a sort of grey, mechanicaltwilight, without a star?

And together, in strange reciprocity, flashing darkly tillthe Morning Star rose between them?

He would say to her, as Ramón had said of Carlota:“Soul! No; you have no soul of your own. You haveat best only half a soul. It takes a man and a womantogether to make a soul. The soul is the Morning Star,emerging from the two. One alone cannot have a soul.”

This Ramón said. And she knew it conveyed whatCipriano really felt. Cipriano could not see Kate as abeing by herself. And if he lived a thousand more years,he would never see her as such. He would see her onlyas reciprocal to himself. As the balance of him, and thecorrespondence on the other side of heaven.

“Let the Morning Star rise between us,” he would say.“Alone you are nothing, and I am manqué. But togetherwe are the wings of the Morning.”

[Pg 416]

Was it true? Was this the final answer to man’sassertion of individuality?

Was it true? And was it her sacred duty to sit beside himin the green dress of Malintzi, in the church, the goddessadmitting her halfness? Her halfness! Was there nostar of the single soul? Was that all an illusion?

Was the individual an illusion? Man, any man, every,man, by himself just a fragment, knowing no MorningStar? And every woman the same; by herself, starlessand fragmentary. Even in the relation to the innermostGod, still fragmentary and unblest.

Was it true, that the gate was the Morning Star, theonly entrance to the Innermost? And the Morning Starrises between the two, and between the many, but neverfrom one alone.

And was a man but a dark and arrowy will, and womanthe bow from which the arrow is shot? The bow withoutthe arrow was as nothing, and the arrow without the bowonly a short-range dart, ineffectual?

Poor Kate, it was hard to have to reflect this. It meanta submission she had never made. It meant the deathof her individual self. It meant abandoning so much, evenher own very foundations. For she had believed trulythat every man and every woman alike was founded onthe individual.

Now, must she admit that the individual was an illusionand a falsification? There was no such animal. Exceptin the mechanical world. In the world of machines, theindividual machine is effectual. The individual, like theperfect being, does not and cannot exist, in the vividworld. We are all fragments. And at the best, halves.The only whole thing is the Morning Star. Which canonly rise between two: or between many.

And men can only meet in the light of the MorningStar.

She thought again of Cipriano and the executions, andshe covered her hands over her face. Was this theknife to which she must be sheath? Was it such a starof power and relentlessness that must rise between herand him? Him naked and painted, with his soldiers,dancing and sweating and shouting among them. Herselfunseen and nowhere!

[Pg 417]

As she sat rocking in her terrible loneliness and misgiving,she heard the drums on the towers, and the sound ofrockets. She went to the gate. Over the church, inthe night sky, hung a spangling cloud of red and blue fire,the colours of Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl. The nightof Huitzilopochtli would be over. The sky was dark again,and there were all the stars, beyond, far, far beyond wherethe spangling had been.

She went indoors again, to retire. The servants hadall run out to see the rockets. Ezequiel would be in withthe men in church.

She heard footsteps on the gravel walk, and suddenlyCipriano stood in the doorway, in his white clothes. Hetook off his hat, quickly. His black eyes were sparkling,almost blazing to her, with a flashing of light such as shehad never seen. There were still smears of paint on hisface. In the blazing of his eyes he seemed to be smilingto her, but in a dazzling, childish way.

“Malintzi,” he said to her in Spanish. “Oh, come!Come and put on the green dress. I cannot be the LivingHuitzilopochtli, without a bride. I cannot be it, Malintzi!”

He stood before her, flickering and flashing and strangelyyoung, vulnerable, as young and boyish as flame. She sawthat when the fire came free in him, he would be like thisalways, flickering, flashing with a flame of virgin youth.Now, not will at all. Sensitive as a boy. And calling heronly with his boyish flame. The living, flickering, fieryWish. This was first. The Will she had seen was subsidiaryand instrumental, the Wish in armour.

She had been so used to fighting for her own soul withindividualistic men, that for a moment she felt old, anduncertain. The strange, flashing vulnerability in him, thenakedness of the living Wish, disconcerted her. She wasused to men who had themselves well in hand, and wereseeking their own ends as individuals.

“Where do you want me to come?” she said.

“To the church,” he said. “It is mine to-night. Iam Huitzilopochtli: but I cannot be it alone,” he addedwith quick, wistful, watchful smile, as if all his flesh wereflickering with delicate fire.

Kate wrapped herself in a dark tartan shawl and wentwith him. He stepped quickly, in the short, Indian way.[Pg 418]The night was very dark. Down on the beach some fireworkswere flaming, and the people were all watching.

They entered the yard of the church from the back, bythe priest’s little gate. Soldiers were already rolled up intheir blankets, sleeping under the wall. Cipriano openedthe little vestry door. Kate passed into the darkness. Hefollowed, lighting a candle.

“My soldiers know I am watching to-night in the church,”he said. “They will keep guard.”

The body of the church was quite dark, but the bluishwhite light burned above the statue of Quetzalcoatl, givingnot much light.

Cipriano lifted his candle to the black statue of Huitzilopochtli.Then he turned to Kate, his black eyes flashing.

“I am Huitzilopochtli, Malintzi,” he said in his low,Indian Spanish. “But I cannot be it without you. Staywith me, Malintzi. Say you are the bride of the LivingHuitzilopochtli.”

“Yes!” she replied, “I say it.”

Convulsive flames of joy and triumph seemed to go overhis face. He lit two candles in front of Huitzilopochtli.

“Come!” he said. “Put on the green dress.”

He took her to the vestry, where were many foldedsarapes, and the silver bowl and other implements of thechurch, and left her while she put on the dress of Malintzishe had worn when Ramón married them.

When she stepped out she found Cipriano naked and inhis paint, before the statue of Huitzilopochtli, on a rugof jaguar skins.

“I am the living Huitzilopochtli,” he murmured to herin a sort of ecstasy.

“You are Malintzi,” he said. “The bride ofHuitzilopochtli.”

The convulsion of exultance went over his face. He tookher hand in his left hand, and they stood facing the bluishlight.

“Cover your face!” he said to her.

They covered their faces in the salute.

“Now salute Quetzalcoatl.” And he flung up his arm.She held out her left hand, in the woman’s salute.

Then they turned to the statue of Huitzilopochtli.

“Salute Huitzilopochtli!” he said, bringing his right[Pg 419]fist down with a smash in the palm of his left hand. Butthis was the male salute. He taught her to press her handstogether in front of her breast, then shoot them out towardsthe idol.

Then he put a little lamp of earthenware between thefeet of Huitzilopochtli. From the right knee of the idolhe took a little black vessel of oil, making her take a littlewhite vessel from the god’s left knee.

“Now,” he said, “together we fill the lamp.”

And together they poured the oil from their little pitchers,into the saucer-shaped lamp.

“Now together we light it,” he said.

He took one of the two candles burning before the blackidol, she took the other, and with the flames dripping andleaping together, they kindled the floating wick of the lamp.It burned in a round blue bud, then rose higher.

“Blow out your candle,” he said. “It is our MorningStar.”

They blew out the two candles. It was almost dark now,with the slow light, like a snow-drop, of their united livesfloating between the feet of Huitzilopochtli, and the everlastinglight burning small and bluish beyond the statueof Quetzalcoatl.

At the foot of the altar, beside the chair of Huitzilopochtli,a third chair was placed.

“Sit in your throne of Malintzi,” he said to her.

They sat side by side, his hand holding her hand, incomplete silence, looking down the dark church. He hadplaced tufts of greenish flowers, like thin, greenish lilac,above her chair, and their perfume was like a dream, strong,overpoweringly sweet on the darkness.

Strange how naïve he was! He was not like Ramón,rather ponderous and deliberate in his ceremonials. Ciprianoin his own little deeds to-night with her, was naïve like achild. She could hardly look at that bud of light which hesaid meant their united lives, without a catch at her heart.It burned so soft and round, and he had such an implicit,childish satisfaction in its symbol. It all gave him a certainwild, childish joy. The strange convulsions like flames ofjoy and gratification went over his face!

“Ah, God!” she thought. “There are more ways thanone of becoming like a little child.”

[Pg 420]

The flaminess and the magnificence of the beginning:this was what Cipriano wanted to bring to his marriage.The reeling, powerful perfume of those invisible greenflowers, that the peons call buena de noche: good by night.

Strange—that which he brought to marriage was somethingflamey and unabashed, forever virginal. Not, as shehad always known in men, yearning and seeking his ownends. Naively bringing his flame to her flame.

As she sat in that darkened church in the intense perfumeof flowers, in the seat of Malintzi, watching the bud of herlife united with his, between the feet of the idol, and feelinghis dark hand softly holding her own, with the soft, deepIndian heat, she felt her own childhood coming back onher. The years seemed to be reeling away in great circles,falling away from her.

Leaving her sitting there like a girl in her first adolescence.The Living Huitzilopochtli! Ah, easily he was the livingHuitzilopochtli. More than anything. More than Cipriano,more than a male man, he was the living Huitzilopochtli.And she was the goddess bride, Malintzi of the green dress.

Ah, yes, it was childish. But it was actually so. Shewas perhaps fourteen years old, and he was fifteen. Andhe was the young Huitzilopochtli, and she was the brideMalintzi, the bride-girl. She had seen it. When the flamecame up in him and licked him all over, he was young andvulnerable as a boy of fifteen, and he would always be so,even when he was seventy.

And this was her bridegroom. Here at last he was not awill. When he came clothed in his own free flame,it was not will that clothed him. Let him be a general,an executioner, what he liked, in the world. The flameof their united lives was a naked bud of flame. Theirmarriage was a young, vulnerable flame.

So he sat in silence on his throne, holding her hand insilence, till the years reeled away from her in fleeing circles,and she sat, as every real woman can sit, no matter at whatage, a girl again, and for him, a virgin. He held her handin silence, till she was Malintzi, and virgin for him, andwhen they looked at one another, and their eyes met, thetwo flames rippled in oneness. She closed her eyes, andwas dark.

Then later, when she opened her eyes and saw the bud[Pg 421]of flame just above her, and the black idol invisibly crouching,she heard his strange voice, the voice of a boy hissingin naïve ecstasy, in Spanish:

“Miel! Miel de Malintzi!—Honey of Malintzi!”

And she pressed him to her breast, convulsively. Hisinnermost flame was always virginal, it was always thefirst time. And it made her again always a virgin girl.She could feel their two flames flowing together.

How else, she said to herself, is one to begin again, saveby re-finding one’s virginity? And when one finds one’svirginity, one realizes one is among the gods. He is of thegods, and so am I. Why should I judge him!

So, when she thought of him and his soldiers, tales ofswift cruelty she had heard of him: when she rememberedhis stabbing the three helpless peons, she thought: Whyshould I judge him? He is of the gods. And when hecomes to me he lays his pure, quick flame to mine, andevery time I am a young girl again, and every time he takesthe flower of my virginity, and I his. It leaves me insouciantlike a young girl. What do I care if he kills people? Hisflame is young and clean. He is Huitzilopochtli, and I amMalintzi. What do I care, what Cipriano Viedma does ordoesn’t do? Or even what Kate Leslie does or doesn’t do?

Ramón somewhat surprised Kate by marrying again, acouple of months or so after the death of Doña Carlota.The new bride was a young woman of about twenty-eight,called Teresa. There was a very quiet civil wedding, andRamón brought his new wife to Jamiltepec.

He had known her since she was a child, for she wasthe daughter of the famous hacienda of Las Yemas, sometwelve miles inland from Jamiltepec. Don Tomas, herfather, had been a staunch friend of the Carrascos.

But Don Tomas had died a year ago, leaving the large,flourishing tequila hacienda to his three children, to beadministrated by Teresa. Teresa was the youngest. Hertwo brothers had reverted to the usual wasteful, spendthrift,brutal Mexican way. Therefore Don Tomas, in orderto save the hacienda from their destructive hands, hadespecially appointed Teresa administrador, and had got thebrothers’ consent to this. After all, they were shiftlessneer-do-wells, and had never shown the slightest desire tohelp in the rather burdensome business of managing a largetequila hacienda, during their father’s life-time. Teresahad been the one. And during her father’s illness the wholecharge had devolved on her, while her brothers wastedthemselves and their substance in the squashy prostitution-livingof Mexicans of their class, away in the cities.

No sooner was the father dead, however, and Teresa incharge, than home came the two brothers, big with theirintention to be hacendados. By simple brute force theyousted their sister, gave orders over her head, jeered ather, and in crushing her united for once with each other.They were putting her back into her place as a woman—thatis to say, back into a secluded sort of prostitution, towhich, in their eyes, women belonged.

But they were bullies, and, as bullies, cowards. Andlike so many Mexicans of that class, soft and suicidaltowards themselves. They made friends with judges andgenerals. They rode about in resplendent charro dress, andhad motor-loads of rather doubtful visitors.

Against their soft, sensuous brutality Teresa could donothing, and she knew it. They were all soft and sensual,[Pg 423]or sensuous, handsome in their way, open-handed, careless,but bullies, with no fear at the middle of them.

“Make yourself desirable, and get a husband for yourself,”they said to her.

In their eyes, her greatest crime was that she did notmake herself desirable to men of their sort. That she hadnever had a man, that she was not married, made heralmost repulsive to them. What was woman for, but forloose, soft, prostitutional sex?

“Do you want to wear the trousers?” they jeered ather. “No, Señorita! Not while there are two men on theplace, you are not going to wear the trousers. No, Señorita!The trousers, the men wear them. The women keep undertheir petticoats that which they are women for.”

Teresa was used to these insults. But they made hersoul burn.

“You, do you want to be an American woman?” theysaid to her. “Go off to America, then, and bob your hairand wear breeches. Buy a ranch there, and get a husbandto take your orders. Go!”

She went to her lawyers, but they held up their hands.And she went to Ramón, whom she had known since shewas a child.

It would have meant a hopeless and ruinous law-suit,to get the brothers ejected from the hacienda. It wouldhave meant the rapid ruin of the estate. Ramón insteadasked Teresa to marry him, and he carefully arranged herdowry, so that she should always have her own provision.

“It is a country where men despise sex, and live for it,”said Ramón. “Which is just suicide.”

Ramón came with his wife, to see Kate. Teresa wasrather small, pale, with a lot of loose black hair and big,wide black eyes. Yet in her quiet bearing and her well-closedmouth there was an air of independence and authority.She had suffered great humiliation at the hands of herbrothers, there was still a certain wanness round her eyes,the remains of tears of anger and helpless indignation, andthe bitterness of insulted sex. But now she loved Ramónwith a wild, virgin loyalty. That, too, was evident. Hehad saved her sex from the insult, restored it to her in itspride and its beauty. And in return, she felt an almostfierce reverence for him.

[Pg 424]

But with Kate she was shy and rather distant: a littleafraid of the travelled, experienced, rather assertive white-skinnedwoman, the woman of the other race. She sat inKate’s salon in her simple white dress with a black gauzerebozo, her brown hands motionless in her lap, her darkneck erect, her dark, slender, well-shaped cheek averted.She seemed, Kate thought, rather like a little sempstress.

But Kate was reckoning without that strange quiescentpower of authority which Teresa also possessed, in herslight, dark body. And without the black, flashing glanceswhich rested on her from time to time, from Teresa’s eyes,full of searching fierceness and fiery misgiving. A fierysoul, in such a demure, slight, dark body. Sometimes amuted word came from her mouth, and a constrained smilemoved her lips. But her burning eyes never changed.She did not even look at Ramón.

“How much do you charge per word, Chica?” he askedher, with a sort of soft fondness.

Then her dark eyes flashed at him, and her mouth gavea little smile. It was evident she was hopelessly in lovewith him, in a sort of trance or muse of love. And shemaintained such a cold sort of blankness towards Kate.

“She despises me,” thought Kate, “because I can’t bein love as she is.”

And for one second Kate envied Teresa. The next second,she despised her. “The harem type—”

Well, it was Ramón’s nature to be a sort of Sultan. Helooked very handsome in his white clothes, very serene andpasha-like in his assurance, yet at the same time, soft,pleasant, something boyish also in his physical well-being.In his soft yet rather pasha-like way, he was mixing aco*cktail of gin and vermouth and lime. Teresa watchedhim from the corner of her eye. And at the same time,she watched Kate, the potential enemy, the woman whotalked with men on their own plane.

Kate rose to get spoons. At the same moment, hestepped back from the low table where he was squeezinga lime, so that he came into slight collision with her. AndKate noticed again, how quick and subtle was his physicalevasion of her, the soft, almost liquid, hot quickness ofsliding out of contact with her. His natural voluptuousnessavoided her as a flame leans away from a draught.

[Pg 425]

She flushed slightly. And Teresa saw the quick flushunder the fair, warm-white skin, the leap of yellow light,almost like anger, into Kate’s grey-hazel eyes. The momentof evasion of two different blood-streams.

And Teresa rose and went to Ramón’s side, bending overand looking in the tumblers, asking, with that curiousaffected childishness of dark women:

“What do you put in?”

“Look!” said Ramón. And with the same curious malechildishness of dark men, he was explaining the co*cktailto her, giving her a little gin in a spoon, to taste.

“It is an impure tequila,” she said naively.

“At eight pesos a bottle?” he laughed.

“So much! It is much!”

She looked into his eyes for a second, and saw all hisface go darker, warmer, as if his flesh were fusing softtowards her. Her small head poised the prouder. She hadgot him back.

“Harem tricks!” said Kate to herself. And she wassomewhat impatient, seeing the big, portentous Ramónenveloped in the toils of this little dark thing. She resentedbeing made so conscious of his physical presence, his full,male body inside his thin white clothes, the strong, yet softshoulders, the full, rich male thighs. It was as if she herself,also, being in the presence of this Sultan, should succumbas part of the harem.

What a curious will the little dark woman had! Whata subtle female power inside her rather skinny body! Shehad the power to make him into a big, golden full glory ofa man. Whilst she herself became almost inconspicuous,save for her big black eyes lit with a tigerish power.

Kate watched in wonder. She herself had known menwho made her feel a queen, who made her feel as if the skyrested on her bosom and her head was among the stars.She knew what it was to rise grander and grander, till shefilled the universe with her womanhood.

Now she saw the opposite taking place. This little bitof a black-eyed woman had an almost uncanny power, tomake Ramón great and gorgeous in the flesh, whilst sheherself became inconspicuous, almost invisible, save for hergreat black eyes. Like a sultan, he was, like a full goldenfruit in the sun, with a strange and magnificent presence,[Pg 426]glamour. And then, by some mysterious power in her darklittle body, the skinny Teresa held him most completely.

And this was what Ramón wanted. And it made Kateangry, angry. The big, fluid male, gleaming, was somewhatrepulsive to her. And the tense little female with her pale-darkface, wan under her great, intense, black eyes, havingall her female being tense in an effort to exalt this bigglistening man, this enraged Kate. She could not bear theglistening smile in Ramón’s dark eyes, a sort of pashasatisfaction. And she could not bear the erect, tenselittle figure of the dark woman, using her power in thisway.

This hidden, secretive power of the dark female! Katecalled it harem, and self-prostitution. But was it? Yes,surely it was the slave approach. Surely she wantednothing but sex from him, like a prostitute! The ancientmystery of the female power, which consists in glorifyingthe blood-male.

Was it right? Kate asked herself. Wasn’t it degradingfor a woman? And didn’t it make the man either soft andsensuous, or else hatefully autocratic?

Yet Kate herself had convinced herself of one thing,finally: that the clue to all living and to all moving-oninto new living lay in the vivid blood-relation between manand woman. A man and a woman in this togethernesswere the clue to all present living and future possibility.Out of this clue of togetherness between a man and awoman, the whole of the new life arose. It was the quickof the whole.

And the togetherness needed a balance. Surely it neededa balance! And did not this Teresa throw herself entirelyinto the male balance, so that all the weight was on theman’s side?

Ramón had not wanted Kate. Ramón had got what hewanted—this black little creature, who was so servile tohim and so haughty in her own power. Ramón had neverwanted Kate: except as a friend, a clever friend. As awoman, no!—He wanted this little viper of a Teresa.

Cipriano wanted Kate. The little general, the struttinglittle soldier, he wanted Kate: just for moments. He didnot really want to marry her. He wanted the moments,no more. She was to give him his moments, and then he[Pg 427]was off again, to his army, to his men. It was what hewanted.

It was what she wanted too. Her life was her own! Itwas not her métier to be fanning the blood in a man, tomake him almighty and blood-glamorous. Her life was herown!

She rose and went to her bedroom to look for a bookshe had promised Ramón. She could not bear the sight ofhim in love with Teresa any longer. The heavy, mindlesssmile on his face, the curious glisten of his eyes, and thestrange, heavy, lordly aplomb of his body affected her likea madness. She wanted to run.

This was what they were, these people! Savages, withthe impossible fluid flesh of savages, and that savage wayof dissolving into an awful black mass of desire. Emergingwith the male conceit and haughtiness swelling his bloodand making him feel endless. While his eyes glistened witha haughty blackness.

The trouble was, that the power of the world, whichshe had known until now only in the eyes of blue-eyedmen, who made queens of their women—even if they hatedthem for it in the end—was now fading in the blue eyes,and dawning in the black. In Ramón’s eyes at this momentwas a steady, alien gleam of pride, and daring, and power,which she knew was masterly. The same was in Cipriano’squick looks. The power of the world was dying in theblond men, their bravery and their supremacy was leavingthem, going into the eyes of the dark men, who were rousingat last.

Joachim, the eager, clever, fierce, sensitive genius, whocould look into her soul, and laugh into her soul, with hisblue eyes: he had died under her eyes. And her childrenwere not even his children.

If she could have fanned his blood as Teresa now fannedthe blood of Ramón, he would never have died.

But it was impossible. Every dog has his day.—Andevery race.

Teresa came tapping timidly.

“May I come?”

“Do!” said Kate, rising from her knees and leavinglittle piles of books all round the book-trunk.

It was a fairly large room, with doors opening on to the[Pg 428]patio and the sun-hard garden, smooth mango-trees risinglike elephant’s trunks out of the ground, green grass afterthe rains, chickens beneath the ragged banana leaves. Ared bird splashed in the basin of water, opening and shuttingbrown wings above his pure scarlet, vivid.

But Teresa looked at the room, not out of doors. Shesmelt the smell of cigarettes and saw the many cigarettestumps in the agate tray by the bed. She saw the litteredbooks, the scattered jewellery, the brilliant New-Mexicanrugs on the floor, the Persian curtain hung behind the bed,the handsome, coloured bedcover, the dresses of dark silkand bright velvet flung over a trunk, the folded shawls withtheir long fringe, the scattered shoes, white, grey, pale-brown,dark-brown, black, on the floor, the tall Chinesecandlesticks. The room of a woman who lived her own life,for her own self.

Teresa was repelled, uneasy, and fascinated.

“How nice this is!” she said, touching the glowing bedcover.

“A friend made it for me, in England.”

Teresa looked with wonder at everything, especially atthe tangle of jewellery on the dressing-table.

“Don’t you like those red stones!” said Kate, kneelingagain to put the books back, and looking at the brown neckbent absolvedly over the jewels. Thin shoulders, with asoft, dark skin, in a bit of a white dress! And looselyfolded masses of black hair held by tortoise-shell pins.—Aninsignificant little thing, humble, Kate thought to herself.

But she knew really that Teresa was neither insignificantnor humble. Under that soft brown skin, and in thatstooping female spine was a strange old power to call upthe blood in a man, and glorify it, and, in some way, keepit for herself.

On the sewing-table was a length of fine India muslinwhich Kate had bought in India, and did not know whatto do with. It was a sort of yellow-peach colour, beautiful,but it did not suit Kate. Teresa was fingering the gold-threadselvedge.

“It is not organdie?” she said.

“No, muslin. Hand-made muslin from India.—Whydon’t you take it. It doesn’t suit me. It would be perfectfor you.”

[Pg 429]

She rose and held the fabric against Teresa’s dark neck,pointing to the mirror. Teresa saw the warm-yellow muslinupon herself, and her eyes flashed.

“No!” she said. “I couldn’t take it.”

“Why not? It doesn’t suit me. I’ve had it lying aboutfor a year now, and was wondering whether to cut it upfor curtains. Do have it.”

Kate could be imperious, almost cruel in her giving.

“I can’t take it from you!”

“Of course you can!”

Ramón appeared in the doorway, glancing round theroom, and at the two women.

“Look!” said Teresa, rather confused. “The Señorawants to give me this India muslin.”—She turned to himshyly, with the fabric held to her throat.

“You look very well in it,” he said, his eyes restingon her.

“The Señora ought not to give it to me.”

“The Señora would not give it you unless she wishedto.”

“Then!” said Teresa to Kate. “Many thanks! Butmany thanks!”

“It is nothing,” said Kate.

“But Ramón says it suits me.”

“Yes, doesn’t it suit her!” cried Kate to him. “Itwas made in India for someone as dark as she is. It doessuit her.”

“Very pretty!” said Ramón.

He had glanced round the room, at the different attractivethings from different parts of the world, and at thecigarette ends in the agate bowl: the rather weary luxuryand disorder, and the touch of barrenness, of a womanliving her own life.

She did not know what he was thinking. But to herselfshe thought: This is the man I defended on that roof. Thisis the man who lay with a hole in his back, naked andunconscious under the lamp. He didn’t look like a Sultanthen.

Teresa must have divined something of her thought, forshe said, looking at Ramón:

“Señora! But for you Ramón would have been killed.Always I think of it.”

[Pg 430]

“Don’t think of it,” said Kate. “Something else wouldhave happened. Anyhow it wasn’t I, it was destiny.”

“Ah, but you were the destiny!” said Teresa.

“Now there is a hostess, won’t you come and stay sometime at Jamiltepec?” said Ramón.

“Oh, do! Do come!” cried Teresa.

“But do you really want me?” said Kate, incredulous.

“Yes! Yes!” cried Teresa.

“She needs a woman-friend,” said Ramón gently.

“Yes, I do!” she cried. “I have never had a true,true woman-friend: only when I was at school, and we weregirls.”

Kate doubted very much her own capacity for being atrue, true woman-friend to Teresa. She wondered what thetwo of them saw in her. As what did they see her?

“Yes, I should like to come for a few days,” she replied.

“Oh, yes!” cried Teresa. “When will you come?”

The day was agreed.

“And we will write the Song of Malintzi,” said Ramón.

“Don’t do that!” cried Kate quickly.

He looked at her, in his slow, wondering way. He couldmake her feel, at moments, as if she were a sort of childand as if he were a ghost.

Kate went to Jamiltepec, and before the two womenknew it, almost, they were making dresses for Teresa,cutting up the pineapple-coloured muslin. Poor Teresa,for a bride she had a scanty wardrobe: nothing but herrather pathetic black dresses that somehow made her lookpoor, and a few old white dresses. She had lived for herfather—who had a good library of Mexicana and was allhis life writing a history of the State of Jalisco—and forthe hacienda. And it was her proud boast that Las Yemaswas the only hacienda, within a hundred miles range, whichhad not been smashed at all during the revolutions thatfollowed the flight of Porfirio Diaz.

Teresa had a good deal of the nun in her. But that wasbecause she was deeply passionate, and deep passion tendsto hide within itself, rather than expose itself to vulgarcontact.

So Kate pinned the muslin over the brown shoulders,wondering again at the strange, uncanny softness of thedark skin, the heaviness of the black hair. Teresa’s family,[Pg 431]the Romeros, had been in Mexico since the early days ofthe Conquest.

Teresa wanted long sleeves.

“My arms are so thin!” she murmured, hiding herslender brown arms with a sort of shame. “They are notbeautiful like yours.”

Kate was a strong, full-developed woman of forty, withround, strong white arms.

“No!” she said to Teresa. “Your arms are not thin:they are exactly right for your figure, and pretty and youngand brown.”

“But make the sleeves long, to the wrist,” pleadedTeresa.

And Kate did so, realizing it became the other woman’snature better.

“The men here don’t like little thin women,” said Teresa,wistfully.

“One doesn’t care what the men like,” said Kate. “Doyou think Don Ramón wishes you were a plump partridge?”

Teresa looked at her with a smile in her dark, big brighteyes, that were so quick, and in many ways so unseeing.

“Who knows!” she said. And in her quick, mischievoussmile it was evident she would like also, sometimes, to bea plump partridge.

Kate now saw more of the hacienda life than she haddone before. When Ramón was at home, he consultedhis overseer, or administrator, every morning. But alreadyTeresa was taking this work off his hands. She would seeto the estate.

Ramón was a good deal absent, either in Mexico or inGuadalajara, or even away in Sonora. He was alreadyfamous and notorious throughout the country, his name wasa name to conjure with. But underneath the rather readyhero-worship of the Mexicans, Kate somehow felt theirlatent grudging. Perhaps they took more satisfaction inultimately destroying their heroes, than in temporarily raisingthem high. The real perfect moment was when the herowas downed.

And to Kate, sceptic as she was, it seemed much morelikely that they were sharpening the machete to stick inRamón’s heart, when he got a bit too big for them, thananything else. Though, to be sure, there was Cipriano to[Pg 432]reckon with. And Cipriano was a little devil whom theyquite rightly feared. And Cipriano, for once, was faithful.He was, to himself, Huitzilopochtli, and to this he wouldmaintain a demonish faith. He was Huitzilopochtli, Ramónwas Quetzalcoatl. To Cipriano this was a plain and livingfact. And he kept his army keen as a knife. Even thePresident would not care to run counter to Cipriano. Andthe President was a brave man too.

“One day,” he said, “we will put Quetzalcoatl in PueblaCathedral, and Huitzilopochtli in Mexico Cathedral andMalintzi in Guadalupe. The day will come, Ramón.”

“We will see that it comes,” Ramón replied.

But Ramón and Montes suffered alike from the deep,devilish animosity the country sent out in silence, againstthem. It was the same, whoever was in power: the Mexicansseemed to steam with invisible, grudging hate, the hateof demons foiled in their own souls, whose only motive isto foil everything, everybody, in the everlasting hell ofcramped frustration.

This was the dragon of Mexico, that Ramón had to fight.Montes, the President, had it to fight the same. And itshattered his health. Cipriano also had it up against him.But he succeeded best. With his drums, with his dancesround the fire, with his soldiers kept keen as knives he drewreal support from his men. He grew stronger and morebrilliant.

Ramón also, at home in his own district, felt the powerflow into him from his people. He was their chief, and byhis effort and his power he had almost overcome theirancient, fathomless resistance. Almost he had awed themback into the soft mystery of living, awed them until thetension of their resistant, malevolent wills relaxed. Athome, he would feel his strength upon him.

But away from home, and particularly in the city ofMexico, he felt himself bled, bled, bled by the subtle,hidden malevolence of the Mexicans, and the ugly negationof the greedy, mechanical foreigners, birds of prey foreveralighting in the cosmopolitan capital.

While Ramón was away, Kate stayed with Teresa. Thetwo women had this in common, that they felt it was betterto stand faithfully behind a really brave man, than to pushforward into the ranks of cheap and obtrusive women. And[Pg 433]this united them. A certain deep, ultimate faithfulness ineach woman, to her own man who needed her fidelity, keptKate and Teresa kindred to one another.

The rainy season had almost passed, though throughoutSeptember and even in October occasional heavy downpoursfell. But the wonderful Mexican autumn, like a strange,inverted spring, was upon the land. The waste placesbloomed with pink and white cosmos, the strangewild trees flowered in a ghostly way, forests of small sunflowersshone in the sun, the sky was a pure, pure blue, thefloods of sunshine lay tempered on the land, that in partwas flooded with water, from the heavy rains.

The lake was very full, strange and uneasy, and it hadwashed up a bank of the wicked water-hyacinths along allits shores. The wild-fowl were coming from the north,clouds of wild ducks like dust in the high air, sprinklingthe water like weeds. Many, many wild fowl, grebe, cranes,and white gulls of the inland seas, so that the northernmystery seemed to have blown so far south. There was asmell of water in the land, and a sense of soothing. ForKate firmly believed that part of the horror of the Mexicanpeople came from the unsoothed dryness of the land and theuntempered crudity of the flat-edged sunshine. If onlythere could be a softening of water in the air, and a hazeabove trees, the unspoken and unspeakable malevolencewould die out of the human hearts.

Kate rode out often with Teresa to see the fields. Thesugar-cane in the inner valley was vivid green, and risingtall, tall. The peons were beginning to cut it with theirsword-like machetes, filling the bullock-wagons, to haulthe cane to the factory in Sayula. On the dry hill-slopesthe spikey tequila plant—a sort of maguey—flourished inits iron wickedness. Low wild cactuses put forth rose-likeblossoms, wonderful and beautiful for such sinister plants.The beans were gathered from the bean-fields, somegourds and squashes still sprawled their uncanny weightacross the land. Red chiles hung on withering plants, redtomatoes sank to the earth. Some maize still reared itsflags, there was still young corn to eat on the cob. Thebanana crop was small, the children came in with the littlewild yellow tejocote apples, for making preserves. Teresawas making preserves, even with the late figs and peaches.[Pg 434]On the trees, the ponderous mango trees, some fruit wasagain orange-yellow and ripe, but the most still hung instrings, heavy and greenish and dropping like the testes ofbulls.

It was autumn in Mexico, with wild duck on the waters,and hunters with guns, and small wild doves in the trees.Autumn in Mexico, and the coming of the dry season, withthe sky going higher and higher, pure pale blue, the sunsetarriving with a strange flare of crystal yellow light. Withthe coffee berries turning red on the struggling bushes underthe trees, and bougainvillea in the strong light glowing witha glow of magenta colour so deep you could plunge yourarms deep in it. With a few hummingbirds in the sunshine,and the fish in the waters gone wild, and the flies, thatsteamed black in the first rains, now passing away again.

Teresa attended to everything, and Kate helped. Whetherit was a sick peon in one of the little houses, or the hostsof bees from the hives under the mangoes, or the yellow,yellow bees-wax to be made into little bowlfuls, or thepreserves, or the garden, or the calves, or the bit of butterand the little fresh cheeses made of strands of curd, or theturkeys to be overlooked: she saw to it along with Teresa.And she wondered at the steady, urgent, efficient will whichhad to be exerted all the time. Everything was kept goingby a heavy exertion of will. If once the will of the masterbroke, everything would break, and ruin would overtakethe place almost at once. No real relaxation, ever. Alwaysthe sombre, insistent will.

Ramón arrived home one evening in November, from along journey to Sonora. He had come overland from Tepic,and twice had been stopped by floods. The rains, so late,were very unusual. He was tired and remote-seeming.Kate’s heart stood still a moment as she thought: He goesso remote, as if he might go away altogether into death.

It was cloudy again, with lightning beating about on thehorizons. But all was very still. She said good-nightearly, and wandered down her own side of the terrace, tothe look-out at the end, which looked on to the lake. Everythingwas dark, save for the intermittent pallor of lightning.

And she was startled to see, in a gleam of lightning,Teresa sitting with her back to the wall of the open terrace,[Pg 435]Ramón lying with his head in her lap, while she slowlypushed her fingers through his thick black hair. They wereas silent as the night.

Kate gave a startled murmur and said:

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were here.”

“I wanted to be under the sky!” said Ramón, heavinghimself to rise.

“Oh, don’t move!” said Kate. “It was stupid of meto come here. You are tired.”

“Yes,” he said, sinking again. “I am tired. Thesepeople make me feel I have a hole in the middle of me.So I have come back to Teresa.”

“Yes!” said Kate. “One isn’t the Living Quetzalcoatlfor nothing. Of course they eat holes in you.—Really, isit worth it?—To give yourself to be eaten away by them.”

“It must be so,” he said. “The change has to bemade. And some man has to make it. I sometimeswish it wasn’t I.”

“So do I wish it. So does Teresa. One wonders if itisn’t better to be just a man,” said Kate.

But Teresa said nothing.

“One does what one must. And after all, one is alwaysjust a man,” he said. “And if one has wounds—à laguerre comme à la guerre!”

His voice came out of the darkness like a ghost.

“Ah!” sighed Kate. “It makes one wonder what aman is, that he must needs expose himself to the horrors ofall the other people.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Man is a column of blood, with a voice in it,” he said.“And when the voice is still, and he is only a columnof blood, he is better.”

She went away to her room sadly, hearing the sound ofinfinite exhaustion in his voice. As if he had a hole, awound in the middle of him. She could almost feel it, inher own bowels.

And if, with his efforts, he killed himself?—Then, shesaid, Cipriano would come apart, and it would be all finished.

Ah, why should a man have to make these efforts onbehalf of a beastly, malevolent people who weren’t worthit! Better let the world come to an end, if that was whatit wanted.

[Pg 436]

She thought of Teresa soothing him, soothing him andsaying nothing. And him like a great helpless, woundedthing! It was rather horrible, really. Herself, she wouldhave to expostulate, she would have to try to prevent him.Why should men damage themselves with this uselessstruggling and fighting, and then come home to their womento be restored!

To Kate, the fight simply wasn’t worth one wound. Letthe beastly world of man come to an end, if that was itsdestiny, as soon as possible. Without lifting a finger toprevent it.—Live one’s own precious life, that was givenbut once, and let the rest go its own hellish way.

She would have had to try to prevent Ramón from givinghimself to destruction this way. She was willing for himto be ten Living Quetzalcoatls. But not to expose himselfto the devilish malevolence of people.

Yet he would do it. Even as Joachim had done. AndTeresa, with her silence and her infinitely soft administering,she would heal him far better than Kate, with her expostulationand her opposition.

“Ah!” said Kate to herself. “I’m glad Cipriano is asoldier, and doesn’t get wounds in his soul.”

At the same time, she knew that without Ramón,Cipriano was just an instrument, and not ultimately interestingto her.

In the morning, Teresa appeared alone to breakfast. Sheseemed very calm, hiding her emotions in her odd, brown,proud little way.

“How is Ramón?” said Kate.

“He is sleeping,” said Teresa.

“Good! He seemed to me almost done up, last night.”

“Yes.”—The black eyes looked at Kate, wide with unshedtears and courage, and a beautiful deep, remote light.

“I don’t believe in a man’s sacrificing himself in thisway,” said Kate. “And I don’t.”

Teresa still looked her full in the eyes.

“Ah!” she said. “He doesn’t sacrifice himself. Hefeels he must do as he does. And if he must, I must helphim.”

“But then you are sacrificing yourself to him, and Idon’t believe in that either,” said Kate.

“Oh, no!” replied Teresa quickly, and a little flush[Pg 437]burned in her cheek, and her dark eyes flashed. “I am notsacrificing myself to Ramón. If I can give him—sleep—whenhe needs it—that is not sacrifice. It is—” She didnot finish, but her eyes flashed, and the flush burned darker.

“It is love, I know,” said Kate. “But it exhaustsyou too.”

“It is not simply love,” flashed Teresa proudly. “Imight have loved more than one man: many men arelovable. But Ramón!—My soul is with Ramón.”—Thetears rose to her eyes. “I do not want to talk about it,”she said, rising. “But you must not touch me there, andjudge me.”

She hurried out of the room, leaving Kate somewhat dismayed.Kate sighed, thinking of going home.

But in an hour Teresa appeared again, putting her cool,soft, snake-like little hand on Kate’s arm.

“I am sorry if I was rude,” she said.

“No,” said Kate. “Apparently it is I who am wrong.”

“Yes, I think you are,” said Teresa. “You think thereis only love. Love is only such a little bit.”

“And what is the rest?”

“How can I tell you if you do not know?—But do youthink Ramón is no more to me than a lover?”

“A husband!” said Kate.

“Ah!” Teresa put her head aside with an odd impatience.“Those little words! Those little words! Noreither a husband.—He is my life.”

“Surely it is better for one to live one’s own life!”

“No! It is like seed. It is no good till it is given.I know. I kept my own life for a long time. As you keepit longer, it dies. And I tried to give it to God. But Icouldn’t, quite. Then they told me, if I married Ramónand had any part in the Quetzalcoatl heresy, my soul wouldbe damned.—But something made me know it was not true.I even knew he needed my soul.—Ah, Señora—” a subtlesmile came on Teresa’s pale face—“I have lost my soulto Ramón.—What more can I say!”

“And what about his soul?”

“It comes home to me—here!” She put her hand overher womb.

Kate was silent for a time.

“And if he betrays you?” she said.

[Pg 438]

“Ah, Señora!” said Teresa. “Ramón is not just alover. He is a brave man, and he doesn’t betray his ownblood. And it is his soul that comes home to me.—And Iwould struggle to my last breath to give him sleep, whenhe came home to me with his soul, and needed it,” sheflashed. Then she added, murmuring to herself: “No,thank God! I have not got a life of my own! I have beenable to give it to a man who is more than a man, as theysay in their Quetzalcoatl language. And now it needn’tdie inside me, like a bird in a cage.—Oh, yes, Señora! Ifhe goes to Sinaloa and the west coast, my soul goes withhim and takes part in it all. It does not let him go alone.And he does not forget that he has my soul with him. Iknow it.—No, Señora! You must not criticise me or pityme.”

“Still!” said Kate. “It still seems to me it would bebetter for each one to keep her own soul, and be responsiblefor it.”

“If it were possible!” said Teresa. “But you can nomore keep your own soul inside you for yourself, without itsdying, than you can keep the seed of your womb. Untila man gives you his seed, the seed of your womb is nothing.And the man’s seed is nothing to him.—And until you giveyour soul to a man, and he takes it, your soul is nothingto you.—And when a man has taken your whole soul.—Ah,do not talk to me about betraying. A man only betraysbecause he has been given a part, and not the whole. Anda woman only betrays because only the part has been takenfrom her, and not the whole. That is all about betrayal.I know.—But when the whole is given, and taken, betrayalcan’t exist. What I am to Ramón, I am. And what heis to me, he is. I do not care what he does. If he is awayfrom me, he does as he wishes. So long as he will alwayskeep safe what I am to him.”

Kate did not like having to learn lessons from this littlewaif of a Teresa. Kate was a woman of the world, handsomeand experienced. She was accustomed to homage.Other women usually had a slight fear of her, for she waspowerful and ruthless in her own way.

Teresa also feared her a little, as a woman of the world.But as an intrinsic woman, not at all. Trenched inside herown fierce and proud little soul, Teresa looked on Kate as[Pg 439]on one of those women of the outside world, who make avery splendid show, but who are not so sure of the realsecret of womanhood, and the innermost power. All Kate’shandsome, ruthless female power was second-rate to Teresa,compared with her own quiet, deep passion of connectionwith Ramón.

Yes, Kate was accustomed to looking on other women asinferiors. But the tables were suddenly turned. Evenas, in her soul, she knew Ramón to be a greater man thanCipriano, suddenly she had to question herself, whetherTeresa was not a greater woman than she.

Teresa! A greater woman than Kate? What a blow!Surely it was impossible!

Yet there it was. Ramón had wanted to marry Teresa,not Kate. And the flame of his marriage with Teresa shesaw both in his eyes and in Teresa’s. A flame that wasnot in Kate’s eyes.

Kate’s marriage with Cipriano was curious and momentary.When Cipriano was away, Kate was her old individualself. Only when Cipriano was present, and then only sometimes,did the connection overwhelm her.

When Teresa turned and looked at her with this certainflame, touched with indignation, Kate quailed. Perhapsfor the first time in her life she quailed and felt abashed:repentant.

Kate even knew that Teresa felt a little repugnance forher: for the foreign white woman who talked as cleverlyas a man and who never gave her soul: who did not believein giving her soul. All these well-dressed, beautiful womenfrom America or England, Europe, they all kept their soulsfor themselves, in a sort of purse, as it were.

Teresa was determined that Kate should leave off treatingher, very, very indefinably, as an inferior. It was howall the foreign women treated the Mexican women. Becausethe foreign women were their own mistresses! They eventried to be condescending to Ramón.

But Ramón! He could look at them and make themfeel small, feel really nothing, in spite of all their moneyand their experience and their air of belonging to the rulingraces. The ruling races! Wait! Ramón was a challengeto all that. Let those rule who can.

“You did not sleep?” Teresa said to Kate.

[Pg 440]

“Not very well,” said Kate.

“No, you look as if you had not slept very well.—Underyour eyes.”

Kate smoothed the skin under her eyes, querulously.

“One gets that look in Mexico,” she said. “It’s notan easy country to keep your youth in.—You are lookingwell.”

“Yes, I am very well.”

Teresa had a new, soft bloom on her dark skin, somethingfrail and tender, which she did not want to have todefend against another woman.

“I think I will go home now Ramón has come,” saidKate.

“Oh, why? Do you wish to?”

“I think I’d better.”

“Then I will go with you to Sayula. In the boat, no?”

Kate put her few things together. She had slept badly.The night had been black, black, with something of horrorin it. As when the bandits had attacked Ramón. Shecould see the scar in his back, in the night. And thedrumming crash of falling water, menacing and horrible,seemed to keep up for hours.

In her soul, Kate felt Teresa’s contempt for her way ofwifehood.

“I have been married too,” Kate had said. “To avery exceptional man, whom I loved.”

“Ah, yes!” said Teresa. “And he died.”

“He wanted to die.”

“Ah, yes! He wanted to die.”

“I did my level best to prevent him from wearing himselfout.”

“Ah, yes, to prevent him.”

“What else could I have done?” flashed Kate in anger.

“If you could have given him your life, he would noteven have wanted to die.”

“I did give him my life. I loved him—oh, you willnever know.—But he didn’t want my soul. He believed Ishould keep a soul of my own.”

“Ah, yes, men are like that, when they are merely men.When a man is warm and brave—then he wants thewoman to give him her soul, and he keeps it in his womb,so he is more than a mere man, a single man. I know[Pg 441]it. I know where my soul is. It is in Ramón’s womb,the womb of a man, just as his seed is in my womb, thewomb of a woman. He is a man, and a column ofblood. I am a woman, and a valley of blood. I shallnot contradict him. How can I? My soul is inside him,and I am far from contradicting him when he is tryingwith all his might to do something that he knows about.He won’t die, and they won’t kill him. No! The streamflows into him from the heart of the world: and from me.—Itell you, because you saved his life, and therefore webelong to the same thing, you and I and he—and Cipriano.But you should not misjudge me. That other way ofwomen, where a woman keeps her own soul—ah, what is itbut weariness!”

“And the men?”

“Ah! if there are men whose souls are warm and brave,how they comfort one’s womb, Caterina!”

Kate hung her head, stubborn and angry at being putdown from her eminence.—The slave morale! she said toherself. The miserable old trick of a woman living justfor the sake of a man. Only living to send her soul withhim, inside his precious body. And to carry his preciousseed in her womb! Herself, apart from this, nothing.

Kate wanted to make her indignation thorough, but shedid not quite succeed. Somewhere, secretly and angrily,she envied Teresa her dark eyes with the flame in themand their savage assurance. She envied her her serpent-delicatefingers. And above all, she envied her, with repining,the comfort of a living man permanent in her womb.And the secret, savage indomitable pride in her own womanhood,that rose from this.

In the warm morning after the rain, the frogs werewhirring frantically. Across the lake, the mountains wereblue black, and little pieces of white, fluffy vapour wanderedlow across the trees. Clouds were along the mountain-tops,making a level sky-line of whitish softness the whole lengthof the range. On the lonely, fawn-coloured water, one sailwas blowing.

“It is like Europe—like the Tyrol to-day,” said Katewistfully.

“Do you love Europe very much?” asked Teresa.

“Yes, I think I love it.”

[Pg 442]

“And must you go back to it?”

“I think so. Soon! To my mother and my children.”

“Do they want you very much?”

“Yes!” said Kate, rather hesitant. Then she added:“Not very much, really. But I want them.”

“What for?—I mean,” Teresa added, “do you long forthem?”

“Sometimes,” said Kate, the tears coming to her eyes.

The boat rowed on in silence.

“And Cipriano?” Teresa asked timidly.

“Ah!” said Kate shortly. “He is such a stranger tome.”

Teresa was silent for some moments.

“I think a man is always a stranger to a woman,” saidTeresa. “Why should it not be so?”

“But you,” said Kate, “haven’t any children.”

“Ramón has.—And he says: ‘I cast my bread upon thewaters. It is my children too. And if they return to meafter many days, I shall be glad.’—Is it not the same foryou?”

“Not quite!” said Kate. “I am a woman, I am nota man.”

“I, if I have children,” said Teresa, “I shall try tocast my bread upon the waters, so my children come to methat way. I hope I shall. I hope I shall not try to fishthem out of life for myself, with a net. I have a verygreat fear of love. It is so personal. Let each bird flywith its own wings, and each fish swim its own course.—Morningbrings more than love. And I want to be true tothe morning.”

Kate was glad to get back to her own house, and to bemore or less alone. She felt a great change was beingworked in her, and if it worked too violently, she woulddie. It was the end of something, and the beginning ofsomething, far, far inside her: in her soul and womb. Themen, Ramón and Cipriano, caused the change, and Mexico.Because the time had come.—Nevertheless if what washappening happened too rapidly, or violently, she felt shewould die. So, from time to time she had to withdrawfrom contact, to be alone.

She would sit alone for hours on the shore, under a greenwillow tree that hung its curtains of pale-green fronds, onthe beach. The lake was much fuller and higher up theshore, softer, more mysterious. There was a smell of thepiles of water-hyacinth decaying at the water’s edges.Distance seemed farther away. The near conical hills weredotted with green bushes, like a Japanese drawing. Bullock-wagonswith solid wheels came rolling to the village, highwith sugar cane, drawn by eight oxen with ponderous headsand slowly swinging horns, while a peon walked in front,with the guiding-stick on the cross-beam of the yoke. Soslow, so massive, yet with such slight control!

She had a strange feeling, in Mexico, of the old prehistorichumanity, the dark-eyed humanity of the days,perhaps, before the glacial period. When the world wascolder, and the seas emptier, and all the land-formation wasdifferent. When the waters of the world were piled instupendous glaciers on the high places, and high, high uponthe poles. When great plains stretched away to the oceans,like Atlantis and the lost continents of Polynesia, so thatseas were only great lakes, and the soft, dark-eyed peopleof that world could walk around the globe. Then therewas a mysterious, hot-blooded, soft-footed humanity witha strange civilization of its own.

Till the glaciers melted, and drove the peoples to thehigh places, like the lofty plateaux of Mexico, separatedthem into cut-off nations.

Sometimes, in America, the shadow of that old pre-Flood[Pg 444]world was so strong, that the day of historic humanitywould melt out of Kate’s consciousness, and she would beginto approximate to the old mode of consciousness, the old,dark will, the unconcern for death, the subtle, dark consciousness,non-cerebral, but vertebrate. When the mindand the power of man was in his blood and his backbone,and there was the strange, dark inter-communication betweenman and man and man and beast, from the powerfulspine.

The Mexicans were still this. That which is aboriginal inAmerica still belongs to the way of the world before theFlood, before the mental-spiritual world came into being.In America, therefore, the mental-spiritual life of whitepeople suddenly flourishes like a great weed let loose invirgin soil. Probably it will as quickly wither. A greatdeath come. And after that, the living result will be a newgerm, a new conception of human life, that will arise fromthe fusion of the old blood-and-vertebrate consciousness withthe white man’s present mental-spiritual consciousness.The sinking of both beings, into a new being.

Kate was more Irish than anything, and the almostdeathly mysticism of the aboriginal Celtic or Iberian peoplelay at the bottom of her soul. It was a residue of memory,something that lives on from the pre-Flood world, andcannot be killed. Something older, and more everlastinglypotent, than our would-be fair-and-square world.

She knew more or less what Ramón was trying to effect:this fusion! She knew what it was that made Cipriano moresignificant to her than all her past, her husbands and herchildren. It was the leap of the old, antediluvian blood-maleinto unison with her. And for this, without herknowing, her innermost blood had been thudding all thetime.

Ireland would not and could not forget that other old,dark, sumptuous living. The Tuatha De Danaan mightbe under the western sea. But they are under the livingblood, too, never quite to be silenced. Now they have tocome forth again, to a new connection. And the scientific,fair-and-square Europe has to mate once more with the oldgiants.

But the change, Kate felt, must not come on her too soonand too suddenly, or it would rupture her and she would[Pg 445]die. The old way has its horror. The heavy-footed, àterre spirit of aboriginal Mexico could be so horrible toher, as to make her wicked. The slow, indomitable kind ofexisting and persisting, without hope or élan, which is in theaboriginal American, sometimes made her feel she would gomad. The sullen will persisting over the slow, dark centuries,counting the individual existence a trifle! A tenacityof demons, less than human. And a sudden ferocity, asudden lust of death rousing incalculable and terrible.

People who never really changed. Men who were notfaithful to life, to the living actuality. Faithful to somedark necessity out of the past. The actual present suddenlycollapsing in the souls of the men and the women, and theold, black, volcanic lava bursting up in violence, followedby a lava-rock indifference.

The hope! The hope! Would it ever be possible torevive the hope in these black souls, and achieve themarriage which is the only step to the new world of man?

But meanwhile, a strange, almost torn nausea wouldcome over Kate, and she felt she must go away, to spareherself. The strange, reptilian insistence of her veryservants. Blood is one blood. We are all of one blood-stream.Something aboriginal and tribal, and almost worsethan death to the white individual. Out of the dark eyesand the powerful spines of these people, all the time theunknown assertion: The blood is one blood. It was astrange, overbearing insistence, a claim of blood-unison.

Kate was of a proud old family. She had been broughtup with the English-Germanic idea of the intrinsic superiorityof the hereditary aristocrat. Her blood was differentfrom the common blood, another, finer fluid.

But in Mexico, none of this. Her criada Juana, theaquador who carried the water, the boatman who rowedher on the lake, all looked at her with one look in their eyes.The blood is one blood. In the blood, you and I are undifferentiated.She saw it in their eyes, she heard it in theirwords, it tinged their deference and their mockery. Andsometimes it made her feel physically sick: this overbearingblood-familiarity.

And sometimes, when she tried to hold herself up, inthe proud old assertion: My blood is my own. Noli metangere, she would see the terrible ancient hatred in their[Pg 446]eyes, the hatred which leads them to atrocities and fearfulmaimings.

They would defer to her spirit, her knowledge, her understanding.They would give her deference, and a sort ofgrudging reverence for this. She belonged to the rulingraces, the clever ones. But back again they demanded heracquiescence to the primeval assertion: The blood is oneblood. We are one blood. It was the assertion that sweptaway all individualism, and left her immersed, drowned inthe grand sea of the living blood, in immediate contactwith all these men and all these women.

To this she must submit. Or they would persist in theslow revenge.

And she could not submit, off-hand. It had to be a slow,organic process. Anything sudden or violent would destroyher.

Now she understood Ramón’s assertion: Man is a columnof blood: Woman is a valley of blood. It was the primevaloneness of mankind, the opposite of the oneness of thespirit.

But Kate had always looked upon her blood as absolutelyher own, her individual own. Her spirit she shared, inthe spirit she communed. But her blood stayed by her inindividuality.

Now she was confronted by the other great assertion:The blood is one blood.—It meant a strange, marginlessdeath of her individual self.

Now she understood why Ramón and Cipriano wore thewhite clothes and the sandals, and were naked, or half-naked,as living gods. It was the acquiescence in theprimitive assertion. It was the renewal of the old, terriblebond of the blood-unison of man, which made blood-sacrificeso potent a factor of life. The blood of the individualis given back to the great blood-being, the god,the nation, the tribe.

Now she understood the strange unison she could alwaysfeel between Ramón and his men, and Cipriano and hismen. It was the soft, quaking, deep communion of blood-oneness.Sometimes it made her feel sick. Sometimes itmade her revolt. But it was the power she could not getbeyond.

Because, admitting his blood-unison, Ramón at the same[Pg 447]time claimed a supremacy, even a godliness. He was aman, as the lowest of his peons was a man. At the sametime, rising from the same pool of blood, from the sameroots of manhood as they, and being, as they were, a manof the pulsing blood, he was still something more. Not inthe blood nor in the spirit lay his individuality and hissupremacy, his godhead. But in a star within him, aninexplicable star which rose out of the dark sea and shonebetween the flood and the great sky. The mysterious starwhich unites the vast universal blood with the universalbreath of the spirit, and shines between them both.

Not the rider on the white horse: nor the rider on thered. That which is beyond the riders and the horses, theinexplicable mystery of the star whence no horseman comesand to which no horseman can arrive. The star which isa man’s innermost clue, which rules the power of the bloodon the one hand, and the power of the spirit on the other.

For this, the only thing which is supreme above all powerin a man, and at the same time, is power; which fartranscends knowledge; the strange star between the skyand the waters of the first cosmos: this is man’s divinity.

And some men are not divine at all. They have onlyfaculties. They are slaves, or they should be slaves.

But many a man has his own spark of divinity, and hasit quenched, blown out by the winds of force or ground outof him by machines.

And when the spirit and the blood in man begin to goasunder, bringing the great death, most stars die out.

Only the man of a great star, a great divinity, can bringthe opposites together again, in a new unison.

And this was Ramón, and this was his great effort: tobring the great opposites into contact and into unison again.And this is the god-power in man. By this power you shallknow the god in man. By none other.

Ramón was a man as the least of his peons was a man,with the beating heart and the secret loins and the lipsclosed on the same secret of manhood. And he was humanas Kate was human, with the same yearning of the spirit,for pure knowledge and communion, the soul in the greatnessof its comprehending.

But only he had that starry power for bringing togetherthe two great human impulses to a point of fusion, for[Pg 448]being the bird between the vast wings of the dual-createdpower to which man has access and in which man has hisbeing. The Morning Star, between the breath of dawn andthe deeps of the dark.

Men had tried to murder him with knives. Carlota wouldhave murdered him with her spirit. Each half separatelywanted to commit the murder of him.

But he kept himself beyond. He was the living Quetzalcoatl,and the tiny sparkle of a star was rising in hisown men, in his own woman.

The star between the two wings of power: that alone wasdivinity in a man, and final manhood.

Kate had a message from Cipriano to say he was comingout to stay in the Villa Aragon. The Villa Aragon was thechief house on the lake, in small but rather beautiful groundswith tufts of palm-trees and heavy hedges of jasmine, agarden kept always green by constant watering. The housewas built rather like a little castle, absurd, yet its deep,spacious verandahs opening on to the slopes and knolls ofthe tree-clustered garden, above the lake, were pleasant.

Cipriano arrived very pleased, his black eyes shiningwith the boyish look. He wanted Kate to marry him, gothrough the Mexican civil marriage, and instal herself in theVilla Aragon. She hesitated. She knew she must go backto Europe, to England and Ireland, very soon. The necessitywas imperative. The sense of menace that Mexico put overher, and the feeling of inner nausea, was becoming too muchto bear. She felt she could not stand it, unless she wentaway to relax for a time.

This she told to Cipriano. And his face fell.

“It doesn’t matter to me very much whether I marryor not, before I go,” she said. “But I must go soon—soon.”

“How soon?”

“By January.”

His face lightened again.

“Then marry me before you go,” he said. “Nextweek.”

She agreed, with curious indifference, and he, his eyesflashing again like a boy’s, moved quickly, to make thenecessary legal preparations.

She did not care whether she married or not. In one[Pg 449]essential sense, she had married Cipriano already. He wasfirst and foremost a soldier, swift to come to her, and swiftto go. She would always be a good deal alone.

And him alone, just as a man and a soldier, she couldmarry easily enough. It was this terrible Mexico thatfrightened her with a sense of doom.

The Quetzalcoatl movement had spread in the country,but sinisterly. The Archbishop had declared against it,Ramón and Cipriano and their adherents were excommunicated.An attempt had been made to assassinate Montes.

The adherents of Quetzalcoatl in the capital had madethe Church of San Juan Bautisto, which was called theChurch of the Black Saviour, their Metropolitan House ofQuetzalcoatl. The Archbishop, a choleric man, had summonedhis fervent followers to march in procession to thisChurch of San Juan, now called the House of Quetzalcoatl,and seize it and restore it to the Catholic Church. Thegovernment, knowing it would have to fight sooner or later,arrested the Archbishop and broke up the procession aftersome bloodshed.

Then a kind of war began. The Knights of Cortes broughtout their famous hidden stores of arms, not very impressive,after all, and a clerical mob headed by a fanatical priest,surged into the Zócalo. Montes had the guns turned onthem. But it looked like the beginnings of a religious war.In the streets the white and blue sarapes of Quetzalcoatland the scarlet and black sarapes of Huitzilopochtli wereseen in bands, marching to the sound of tom-toms, andholding up the curious round banners, made of featherwork,of Quetzalcoatl, and the tall scarlet signs of Huitzilopochtli,long poles with the soft club of scarlet feathersat the top, tufted with a black point.—In the churches,the priests were still inflaming the orthodox to a holy war.In the streets, priests who had gone over to Quetzalcoatlwere haranguing the crowd.

It was a wild moment. In Zacatecas General NarcisoBeltran had declared against Montes and for the Church.But Cipriano with his Huitzilopochtli soldiers had attackedwith such swiftness and ferocity, Beltran was taken andshot, his army disappeared.

Then Montes declared the old Church illegal in Mexico,and caused a law to be passed, making the religion of[Pg 450]Quetzalcoatl the national religion of the Republic. Allchurches were closed. All priests were compelled to takean oath of allegiance to the Republic, or condemned toexile. The armies of Huitzilopochtli and the white andblue sarapes of Quetzalcoatl appeared in all the towns andvillages of the Republic. Ramón laboured ceaselessly.Cipriano appeared in unexpected flashes, in unexpectedplaces. He managed to rouse the most discontented States,Vera Cruz, Tamaulipas, Yucatan, to a sort of religiousfrenzy. Strange baptisms took place in the sea, and ascarlet and black tower of Huitzilopochtli rose along theshores.

The whole country was thrilling with a new thing, witha release of new energy. But there was a sense of violenceand crudity in it all, a touch of horror.

The Archbishop was deported, no more priests were seenin the streets. Only the white and blue and earth-colouredsarapes of Quetzalcoatl, and the scarlet and black of Huitzilopochtli,were seen among the crowds. There was agreat sense of release, almost of exuberance.

This is why Cipriano came to Kate with those black,flashing, boyish eyes. He was in strange state of triumph.Kate was frightened, and she felt curiously hollow. Eventhe queer, new, flashing triumph and the sense of a newthing on the face of the earth could not quite save her.She belonged too much to the old world of Europe, shecould not, could not make herself over so quickly. Butshe felt that if she could go back to Ireland, and let her lifeand her body pause for a time, then she could come backand take her share.

For it was not her spirit alone which was changing, itwas her body, and the constitution of her very blood.She could feel it, the terrible katabolism and metabolismin her blood, changing her even as a creature, changing herto another creature.

And if it went too fast, she would die.

So, she was legally married to Cipriano, and she wentto live with him in the Villa Aragon, for a month. Aftera month, she would sail away, alone, to Ireland. He agreedtoo.

It was strange, to be married to him. He made her goall vague and quiet, as if she sank away heavy and still,[Pg 451]away from the surface of life, and lay deep in the under-life.

The strange, heavy, positive passivity. For the firsttime in her life she felt absolutely at rest. And talk, andthought, had become trivial, superficial to her: as theripples on the surface of the lake are as nothing, to thecreatures that live away below in the unwavering deeps.

In her soul, she was still and proud. If only the bodyhad not suffered the unbearable nausea of change. Shehad sunk to a final rest, within a great, opened-out cosmos.The universe had opened out to her new and vast, and shehad sunk to the deep bed of pure rest. She had becomealmost like Teresa in sureness.

Yet the process of change within her blood was terribleto her.

Cipriano was happy, in his curious Indian way. His eyeskept that flashing, black, dilated look of a boy looking newlyon a strange, almost uncanny wonder of life. He did notlook very definitely at Kate, or even take much definitenotice of her. He did not like talking to her, in any seriousway. When she wanted to talk seriously, he flashed acautious, dark look at her, and went away.

He was aware of things that she herself was hardly consciousof. Chiefly, of the curious irritant quality of talk.And this he avoided. Curious as it may seem, he madeher aware of her own old desire for frictional, irritant sensation.She realized how all her old love had been frictional,charged with the fire of irritation and the spasms of frictionalvoluptuousness.

Cipriano, curiously, by refusing to share any of this withher, made it become external to her. Her strange seethingfeminine will and desire subsided in her and swept away,leaving her soft and powerfully potent, like the hot springsof water that gushed up so noiseless, so soft, yet so powerful,with a sort of secret potency.

She realized, almost with wonder, the death in her ofthe Aphrodite of the foam: the seething, frictional, ecstaticAphrodite. By a swift dark instinct, Cipriano drew awayfrom this in her. When, in their love, it came back onher, the seething electric female ecstasy, which knows suchspasms of delirium, he recoiled from her. It was whatshe used to call her “satisfaction.” She had loved[Pg 452]Joachim for this, that again, and again, and again hecould give her this orgiastic “satisfaction,” in spasmsthat made her cry aloud.

But Cipriano would not. By a dark and powerful instincthe drew away from her as soon as this desire roseagain in her, for the white ecstasy of frictional satisfaction,the throes of Aphrodite of the foam. She could see thatto him, it was repulsive. He just removed himself, darkand unchangeable, away from her.

And she, as she lay, would realize the worthlessness ofthis foam-effervescence, its strange externality to her. Itseemed to come upon her from without, not from within.And succeeding the first moment of disappointment, whenthis sort of “satisfaction” was denied her, came theknowledge that she did not really want it, that it was reallynauseous to her.

And he, in his dark, hot silence would bring her back tothe new, soft, heavy, hot flow, when she was like a fountaingushing noiseless and with urgent softness from the volcanicdeeps. Then she was open to him soft and hot, yet gushingwith a noiseless soft power. And there was no suchthing as conscious “satisfaction.” What happened wasdark and untellable. So different from the beak-likefriction of Aphrodite of the foam, the friction which flaresout in circles of phosphorescent ecstasy, to the last wildspasm which utters the involuntary cry, like a death-cry,the final love-cry. This she had known, and known tothe end, with Joachim. And now this too was removedfrom her. What she had with Cipriano was curiouslybeyond her knowing: so deep and hot and flowing, as itwere subterranean. She had to yield before it. Shecould not grip it into one final spasm of white ecstasy whichwas like sheer knowing.

And as it was in the love-act, so it was with him. Shecould not know him. When she tried to know him, somethingwent slack in her, and she had to leave off. She hadto let be. She had to leave him, dark and hot and potent,along with the things that are, but are not known. Thepresence. And the stranger. This he was always to her.

There was hardly anything to say to him. And therewas no personal intimacy. He kept his privacy round himlike a cloak, and left her immune within her own privacy.[Pg 453]He was a stranger to her, she to him. He accepted thefact absolutely, as if nothing else were possible. She,sometimes, felt it strange. She had so craved for intimacy,insisted on intimacy.

Now she found herself accepting him finally and foreveras the stranger in whose presence she lived. It was hisimpersonal presence which enveloped her. She lived inhis aura, and he, she knew, lived in hers, with nothingsaid, and no personal or spiritual intimacy whatever. Amindless communion of the blood.

Therefore, when he had to go away, it did not matter sovery much. His presence was something he left withher, and he took her presence along with him. And somehow,there was no need for emotions.

He had to leave early one morning, for Mexico. Thedawn came perfect and clear. The sun was not yet onthe lake, but it caught the mountains beyond Tuliapan, andthey shone magically distinct, as if some magic light werefocussed on them. The green furrows of the mountainsideswere as if in her own hand. Two white gulls, flying,suddenly got the light, and glittered. But the full, soft,noiseless dun lake was pallid, unlit.

She thought of the sea. The Pacific was not very faraway. The sea seemed to have retreated entirely out ofher consciousness. Yet she knew she needed its breathagain.

Cipriano was going down to bathe. She saw him walkout on the masonry of the square basin which was theirown tiny harbour. He threw off his wrap and stood darkin silhouette against the pale, unlit water. How dark hewas! Dark as a Malay. Curious that his body was asdark, almost, as his face. And with that strange archaicfulness of physique, with the full chest and the full, yetbeautiful buttocks of men on old Greek coins.

He dropped off the edge of masonry and waded out inthe dim, soft, uncanny water. And at that moment thelight tipped over the edge of the mountain and spilled goldupon the surface of the lake. And instantly he was redas fire. The sunshine was not red, the sun was too highfor that. It was golden with morning. But as it flushedalong the surface of the lake it caught the body of Ciprianoand he was red as fire, as a piece of pure fire.

[Pg 454]

The Sons of the Morning! The column of blood! A RedIndian. She looked at him in wonder, as he moved purered and luminous further into the lake, unconscious. As ifon fire!

The Sons of the Morning! She let her effort at knowingslip away from her once more, and remained without effort,within the communion.

It was his race, too. She had noticed before how thenatives shone pure red when morning or evening light caughtthem, rather level. As fires they stood in the water. TheRed Indian.

He went away, with his man, on horseback. And shewatched him ride over the brow of the road, sitting darkand still on his silky, roan horse. He loved a red horse.And there was a curious motionlessness about him as he rodehorseback, an old, male pride, and at the same time thehalf-ghostly, dark invisibility of the Indian, sitting closeupon the horse as if he and it belonged to one birth.

He was gone, and for a while she felt the old nostalgiafor his presence. Not for him, exactly. Not even tosee him or touch him or speak to him. Only to feel himabout.

Then quickly she recovered. She adjusted herself tothe presence he left behind with her. As soon as he hadreally gone, and the act of going was over, his presence cameback to her.

She walked a little while by the shore, beyond the breakwaterwall. She loved to be alone: a great deal alone, witha garden and the lake and the morning.

“I am like Teresa, really,” she said to herself.

Suddenly before her she saw a long, dark soft rope, lyingover a pale boulder. But her soul was softly alert, atonce. It was a snake, with a subtle pattern along its softdark back, lying there over a big stone, with its head sunkdown to earth.

It felt her presence, too, for suddenly, with incrediblesoft quickness, it contracted itself down the boulder, andshe saw it entering a little gap in the bottom of the wall.

The hole was not very big. And as it entered it quicklylooked back, poising its little, dark, wicked, pointed head,and flickering a dark tongue. Then it passed on, slowlyeasing its dark length into the hole.

[Pg 455]

When it had all gone in, Kate could see the last fold still,and the flat little head resting on the fold, like the devilwith his chin on his arms, looking out of a loop-hole. Sothe wicked sparks of the eyes looked out at her, from withinthe recess. Watching out of its own invisibility.

So she wondered over it, as it lay in its hidden places.At all the unseen things in the hidden places of the earth.And she wondered if it was disappointed at not being ableto rise higher in creation: to be able to run on four feet, andnot keep its belly on the ground.

Perhaps not! Perhaps it had its own peace. She felta certain reconciliation between herself and it.

She and Teresa visited one another along the lake. Therewas a kinship and a gentleness between them, especiallynow Kate was going away for a while.

There was a certain autumnal purity and lull on the lake.The moisture still lingered, the bushes on the wild hills weregreen in puffs. Sunlight lay in a rich gleam on the mountains,and shadows were deep and velvety. The greenalmost covered the rocks and the pinkish land. Brightgreen the sugar cane, red the ploughed earth, dark the treeswith white specks of villages here and there. And overthe wild places, a sprinkle of bushes, then stark grey rockstill coming out.

The sky was very high and pure. In the morning camethe sound of drums, and on the motionless, crystal air thecry for the pauses of the day. And always the day seemedto be pausing and unfolding again to the greater mystery.The universe seemed to have opened vast and soft anddelicate with life.

There was something curiously soothing even in the full,pale, dove-brown water of the lake. A boat was comingover, with its sail hollowed out like a shell, pearly white,and its sharp black canoe-beak slipping past the water. Itlooked like the boat of Dionysos coming with a message, andthe vine sprouting.

Kate could hardly remember now the dry rigid pallor ofthe heat, when the whole earth seemed to crepitate viciouslywith dry malevolence: like memory gone dry and sterile,hellish.

Ramón and Teresa came along the lake, and rowed intothe basin. It was a morning when the shadows on themountains were almost corn-flower blue.

“Yet you must go away?” Ramón said to her.

“For a little while. You don’t think I am Lot’s wife,do you?”

“No!” laughed Ramón. “I think you’re Cipriano’s.”

“I am really. But I want to go back for a little while.”

“Ah yes! Better go, and then come again. Tell themin your Ireland to do as we have done here.”

[Pg 457]

“But how?”

“Let them find themselves again, and their ownuniverse, and their own gods. Let them substantiate theirown mysteries. The Irish have been so wordy about theirfar-off heroes and green days of the heroic gods. Nowtell them to substantiate them, as we have tried to substantiateQuetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli.”

“I will tell them,” she said. “If there is anybody tolisten.”

“Yes!” he said.

He watched the white sail blowing nearer.

“But why do you go away?” he asked her, after asilence.

“You don’t care, do you?” she said.

There was a dead pause.

“Yes, I care,” he said.

“But why?”

Again it was some time before he answered.

“You are one of us, we need you,” he said.

“Even when I don’t do anything?—and when I get abit bored with living Quetzalcoatls—and the rest, and wishfor a simple Don Ramón?” she replied.

He laughed suddenly.

“What is a simple Don Ramón?” he said. “A simpleDon Ramón has a living Quetzalcoatl inside him. Butyou help all the same.”

“You go ahead so grandly, one would not think youneeded help: especially from a mere woman who—whoafter all is only the wife of your friend.”

They were sitting on a bench under a red-floweringpoinsettia whose huge scarlet petal-leaves spread out likesharp plumes.

“The wife of my friend!” he said. “What could yoube better?”

“Of course,” she said, more than equivocal.

He was leaning his arms on his knees, and looking outto the lake, abstract, and remote. There was a certainworn look on his face, and the vulnerability which alwayscaught at Kate’s heart. She realized again the isolationand the deadly strain his effort towards a new way of lifeput upon him. Yet he had to do it.

This again gave her a feeling of helplessness, a woman’s[Pg 458]utter helplessness with a man who goes out to the beyond.She had to stifle her resentment, and her dislike of his“abstract” efforts.

“Do you feel awfully sure of yourself?” she said.

“Sure of myself?” he re-echoed. “No! Any day Imay die and disappear from the face of the earth. I notonly know it, I feel it. So why should I be sure of myself?”

“Why should you die?” she said.

“Why should anybody ever die?—even Carlota!”

“Ah!—her hour had come!”

“Can you set one’s hour as one sets an alarm clock?”

Kate paused.

“And if you’re not sure of yourself, what are you sureof?” she challenged.

He looked at her with dark eyes which she could notunderstand.

“I am sure—sure—” his voice tailed off into vagueness,his face seemed to go grey and peaked, as a dead man’s,only his eyes watched her blackly, like a ghost’s. Againshe was confronted with the suffering ghost of the man.And she was a woman, powerless before this suffering ghostwhich was still in the flesh.

“You don’t think you are wrong, do you?” she asked,in cold distress.

“No! I am not wrong. Only maybe I can’t hold out,”he said.

“And then what?” she said, coldly.

“I shall go my way, alone.” There seemed to be nothingleft of him but the black, ghostly eyes that gazed on her.He began to speak Spanish.

“It hurts me in my soul, as if I were dying,” he said.

“But why?” she cried. “You are not ill?”

“I feel as if my soul were coming undone.”

“Then don’t let it,” she cried, in fear and repulsion.

But he only gazed with those fixed, blank eyes. A suddendeep stillness came over her; a sense of power in herself.

“You should forget for a time,” she said gently, compassionatelylaying her hand on his. What was the good oftrying to understand him or wrestle with him? She wasa woman. He was a man, and—and—and therefore notquite real. Not true to life.

He roused himself suddenly from her touch, as if he had[Pg 459]come awake, and he looked at her with keen, proud eyes.Her motherly touch had roused him like a sting.

“Yes!” he said. “It is true!”

“Of course it is!” she replied. “If you want to be so—soabstract and Quetzalcoatlian, then bury your headsometimes, like an ostrich in the sand, and forget.”

“So!” he said, smiling. “You are angry again!”

“It’s not so simple,” she said. “There is a conflict inme. And you won’t let me go away for a time.”

“We can’t even prevent you,” he said.

“Yes, but you are against my going—you don’t let mego in peace.”

“Why must you go?” he said.

“I must,” she said. “I must go back to my children,and my mother.”

“It is a necessity in you?” he said.

“Yes!”

The moment she had admitted the necessity, she realisedit was a certain duplicity in herself. It was as if she hadtwo selves: one, a new one, which belonged to Ciprianoand to Ramón, and which was her sensitive, desirous self:the other hard and finished, accomplished, belonging toher mother, her children, England, her whole past. Thisold accomplished self was curiously invulnerable and insentient,curiously hard and “free.” In it, she was anindividual and her own mistress. The other self wasvulnerable, and organically connected with Cipriano, evenwith Ramón and Teresa, and so was not “free” at all.

She was aware of a duality in herself, and she sufferedfrom it. She could not definitely commit herself, eitherto the old way of life, or to the new. She reacted fromboth. The old was a prison, and she loathed it. But inthe new way she was not her own mistress at all, and heregoistic will recoiled.

“That’s just it!” she said. “It is a necessity in me,and you want to prevent me.”

“No! No!” said Ramón. “I hope not.”

“Yes! You put a weight on me, and paralyse me, toprevent me from going,” she said.

“We must not do that,” he said. “We must leave you,and not come near you for a time, if you feel it is so.”

“Why? Why can’t you be friendly? Why can’t you[Pg 460]be with me in my going? Why can’t you want me to go,since I must go?”

He looked at her with dispassionate eyes.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “I don’t believe in yourgoing. It is a turning back: there is something renegadein it.—But we are all complicated. And if you feel youmust go back for a time, go! It isn’t terribly important.You have chosen, really. I am not afraid for you.”

It was a great relief to her to hear this: because she wasterribly afraid for herself. She could never be sure, neverbe whole in her connection with Cipriano and Ramón. Yetshe said, mocking slightly:

“Why should you be afraid for me?”

“Aren’t you sometimes afraid for yourself?” he asked.

“Never!” she said. “I’m absolutely sure about myself.”

They had been sitting in the garden of the Villa Aragon,under the poinsettia tree with the huge scarlet petal-leaves,like soft red quill feathers. The morning was becominghot. The lake had gone still, with the fallen wind. Everythingwas still. Save the long scarlet of the poinsettia.

Christmas was coming! The poinsettia reminded Kateof it.

Christmas! Holly-berries! England! Presents! Food!—Ifshe hurried, she could be in England for Christmas.It felt so safe, so familiar, so normal, the thought ofChristmas at home, in England, with her mother. Andall the exciting things she could tell to the people at home!And all the exciting gossip she could hear! In the distance,it looked very attractive.—She still had a qualm as to whatthe actual return would be like.

“One can have too much of a good thing,” she said toRamón.

“What good thing in particular?” he asked her.

“Oh—Quetzalcoatl and all that!” she said. “One canhave too much of it.”

“It may be,” he said, rising and going quietly away; soquietly, he was gone before she knew. And when sherealised he had gone like that, she flushed with anger. Butshe sat on under the poinsettia tree, in the hot, stillNovember sun, looking with anger at the hedge of jasmine,with its pure white flowers, and its sere, withered flowers,[Pg 461]and its pinkish buds among the dark leaves. Where hadshe heard something about jasmine? “And the jasmineflowers between us!”

Oh! how tired she was of all that!

Teresa came down the garden slope.

“You are still sitting here?” she exclaimed.

“Where else should I be?” Kate answered.

“I don’t know.—Ramón has gone to Sayula, to see theJefe. He wouldn’t wait for us, to come with us in theboat.”

“I suppose he was in a hurry,” said Kate.

“How fine these Noche Buenas are!” said Teresa lookingat the brilliant spread of the red poinsettias.

“They are your Christmas flower, aren’t they?” saidKate.

“Yes—the flowers of the Noche Buena—”

“How awful, Christmas with hibiscus and poinsettia!It makes me long to see mistletoe among the oranges, in afruiterer’s shop in Hampstead.”

“Why that?” laughed Teresa.

“Oh!” Kate sighed petulantly. “To get back to simplelife. To see the ’buses rolling on the mud in Piccadilly,on Christmas Eve, and the wet pavements crowded withpeople under the brilliant shops.”

“Is that life, to you?” asked Teresa.

“Yes! Without all this abstraction, and will. Life isgood enough for me if I am allowed to live and be myself.”

“It is time Cipriano should come home,” said Teresa.

But this made Kate rise from her seat, with suddenimpatience. She would not have this thing put over her!She would break free, and show them!

She went with Teresa to the village. The air seemedmysteriously alive, with a new Breath. But Kate feltout of it. The two women sat under a tree on the beachat Sayula, talking a little, and watching the full expanseof the dove-pale lake.

A black boat with a red-painted roof and a tall mast wasmoored to the low breakwater-wall, which rose about ayard high, from the shallow water. On the wall stoodloose little groups of white-clad men, looking into the blackbelly of the ship. And perched immobile in silhouetteagainst the lake, was a black-and-white cow, and a huge[Pg 462]monolithic black-and-white bull. The whole silhouettefrieze motionless, against the far water that was colouredbrown like turtle doves.

It was near, yet seemed strange and remote. Twopeons fixed a plank gangway up to the side of the boat.Then they began to shove the cow towards it. She pawedthe new broad planks tentatively, then, with that slowMexican indifference, she lumbered unwillingly on to thegangway. They edged her slowly to the end, where shelooked down into the boat. And at last, she droppedneatly into the hold.

Now the group of men broke into motion, for the hugeand spangled bull. A tall old Mexican, in fawn, skin-tighttrousers and little leather jacket, and a huge felt hatheavily embroidered with silver, gently took the ring inthe bull’s nose, gently lifted the wedge of the bull’shead, so the great soft throat was uplifted. A peonbehind put his head down, and with all his might beganshoving the mighty, living flanks of the bull. The slim-legged,high hatted old Mexican pulled evenly at the nose-ring.And with a calm and weighty poise, the bull steppedalong the crest of the wall, delicately and impassively, tothe plank gangway. There he stopped.

The peons began to re-group. The one behind, withhis red sash tied so determinedly over his white hips,ceased to shove, the slim-legged Mexican let go the ring.

Then two peons passed a rope loosely round the haunchesof the bull. The high-hatted farmer stepped on to theplanks, and took the nose-ring again, very gently. Hepulled softly. The bull lifted its head, but held back. Itstruck the planks with an unwilling foot. Then it stood,spangled with black on its whiteness, like a piece of thesky, immobile.

The farmer pulled once more at the ring. Two menwere pulling the rope, pressing in the flanks of the immoveable,passive, spangled monster. Two peons, atthe back, with their heads down and their red-sashed,flexible loins thrust out behind, shoved with all theirstrength in the soft flanks of the mighty creature.

And all was utterly noiseless and changeless; againstthe fullness of the pale lake, this silent, monumental groupof life.

[Pg 463]

Then the bull stepped slowly, imperturbably, yetagainst its will, on to the loose planks, and was edgedslowly along, to the brink of the boat. There he waited.

He stood huge and silvery, dappled like the sky, withblack snake markings down his haunches, looming massiveabove the red roof of the canoa. How would he ever duckto that roof, and drop under, into the darkness of the ship?

He lowered his head, and looked into the hold. Themen behind shoved his living flanks. He took no heed,but lowered his head and looked again. The men pushedwith all their might, in the dense Mexican silence.

Slowly, carefully, the bull crouched himself, made himselfsmall, and with a quick, massive little movement droppedhis forefeet down into the body of the boat, leaving hishuge hind-quarters heaved up behind. There was ashuffle and a little stagger down below, then the soft thudas his hind-feet leaped down. He had gone.

The planks were taken away. A peon ran to unfastenthe mooring rope from the stones of the shore. Therewas a strange thudding of soft feet within the belly of theboat. Men in the water were pushing the ship’s blackstern, to push her off. But she was heavy. Slowly,casually they pulled the stones from under her flat bottom,and flung them aside. Slowly she edged, swayed, moveda little, and was afloat.

The men climbed in. The two peons on the ship’s rimswere poling her out, pressing their poles and walkingheavily till they reached the stern, then lifting their polesand running to the high prow. She slid slowly out, on tothe lake.

Then quickly they hoisted the wide white sail. Thesail thrust up her horn and curved in a whorl to the wind.The ship was going across the waters, with her massive,sky-spangled cargo of life invisible.

All so still and soft and remote.

“And will Ramón want you to sit beside him in thechurch as the bride of Quetzalcoatl—with some strangename?” Kate asked of Teresa.

“I don’t know,” said Teresa. “Later, he says, whenthe time comes for them to have a goddess.”

“And will you mind?”

“For myself, I am afraid of it. But I understand[Pg 464]that Ramón wants it. He says it is accepting the greaterresponsibility of one’s existence. And I think that istrue. If there is God in me, and God as woman, then Imust accept this part of myself also, and put on the greendress, and be for the time the God-woman, since it is trueof me also. I think it is true. Ramón says we mustmake it manifest. When I think of my brothers, I knowwe must. So I shall think of the God that beats invisible,like the heart of all the world. So when I have to wear thegreen dress, and sit before all the people in the church, Ishall look away to the heart of all the world, and try tobe my sacred self, because it is necessary, and the rightthing to do. It is right. I would not do it if I thought itwas not right.”

“But I thought the green dress was for the Bride ofHuitzilopochtli!” said Kate.

“Ah yes!” Teresa caught herself up. “Mine is theblack dress with the white edges, and the red clouds.”

“Would you rather have the green?” Kate asked.“Have it if you would. I am going away.”

Teresa glanced up at her quickly.

“The green is for the wife of Huitzilopochtli,” she said,as if numbed.

“I can’t see that it matters,” said Kate.

Teresa looked at her with quick, dark eyes.

“Different men must have different wives,” she said.“Cipriano would never want a wife like me.”

“And different women must have different husbands,”said Kate. “Ramón would always be too abstract andoverbearing for me.”

Teresa flushed slowly, looking down at the ground.

“Ramón needs far too much submission from a woman,to please me,” Kate added. “He takes too much uponhimself.”

Teresa looked up quickly, and raised her head proudly,showing her brownish throat like a rearing, crested snake.

“How do you know that Ramón needs submission froma woman?” she said. “How do you know? He hasnot asked any submission from you.—And you are wrong.He does not ask submission from me. He wants me togive myself gently to him. And then he gives himselfback to me far more gently than I give myself to him. Because[Pg 465]a man like that is more gentle than a woman. Heis not like Cipriano. Cipriano is a soldier. But Ramónis gentle. You are mistaken in what you say.”

Kate laughed a little.

“And you are a soldier among women, fighting all thetime,” Teresa continued. “I am not such. But somewomen must be soldiers in their spirit, and they needsoldier husbands. That is why you are Malintzi, and yourdress is green. You would always fight. You wouldfight with yourself, if you were alone in the world.”

It was very still by the lake. They were waiting forRamón.

A man was stripping palm-stalks, squatting in silenceunder a tree, in his white clothes, his black head bent forward.Then he went to wet his long strips in the lake,returning with them dangling.

Then he sat down again, and deftly, silently, with thedark, childlike absorption of the people, took up his work.He was mending a chair bottom. When Kate watched him,he glanced up with a flash of black eyes, saluting her. Andshe felt a strange power surge in her limbs, from the flashof living recognition and deference in his eyes. As if hisdeference were a sort of flame of life, rich in him when hesaw her.

A roan horse speckled with white was racing prancingalong the shore, neighing frantically. His mane flowed inthe wind, his feet struck the pebbles as he ran, and again heopened his long nose and neighed anxiously. Away upthe shore he ran. What had he lost?

A peon had driven a high-wheeled wagon, drawn byfour mules, deep into the lake, till the water was above thehigh axles of the wheels, almost touching the bed of thecart. It looked like a dark square boat drawn by foursoft, dark sea-horses which slowly waved their long darkears like leaves, while the peon, in white with his big hatproudly balanced, stood erect. The mules deep in thewater stepped gently, curving to the shore.

It was winter, but like spring by the lake. White andyellow calves, new and silky, were skipping, butting uptheir rear ends, lifting their tails, trotting side by side downto the water, to sniff at it suspiciously.

In the shadow of a great tree a mother-ass was tethered,[Pg 466]and her foal lay in the shadow, a little thing black as ink,curled up, with fluffy head erect and great black ears spreadingup, like some jet-black hare full of witch-craft.

“How many days?” called Kate to the peon, who hadcome out of the straw hut.

He gave her the flash of his dark eyes, in a sort of joyof deference. And she felt her breast surge with livingpride.

“Last night, Patróna!” he smiled in answer.

“So new! So new! He doesn’t get up, can’t he?”

The peon went round, put his arm under the foal andlifted it to its feet. There it straddled on high, in amaze,upon its black legs like bent hair-pins.

“How nice it is!” cried Kate in delight, and the peonlaughed at her with a soft, grateful flame, touched withreverence.

The ink-black ass-foal did not understand standing up.It rocked on its four loose legs, and wondered. Then ithobbled a few steps, to smell at some green, growingmaize. It smelled and smelled and smelled, as if all thedark aeons were stirring awake in its nostrils.

Then it turned, and looked with its bushy-velvet facestraight at Kate, and put out a pink tongue at her. Shelaughed aloud. It stood wondering, dazed. Then it putout its tongue again. She laughed at it. It gave anawkward little skip, which surprised its own self very much.Then it ventured forward again, and all unexpectedly evento itself, exploded into another little skip.

“Already it dances!” cried Kate. “And it came intothe world only last night.”

“Yes, already it dances!” reiterated the peon.

After bethinking itself for a time, the ass-foal walkeduncertainly towards the mother. She was a well-likinggrey-and-brown she-ass, rather glossy and self-assured.The ass-foal straight found the udder, and was drinking.

Glancing up, Kate met again the peon’s eyes, with theirblack, full flame of life heavy with knowledge and with acurious re-assurance. The black foal, the mother, thedrinking, the new life, the mystery of the shadowy battlefieldof creation; and the adoration of the full-breasted,glorious woman beyond him: all this seemed in the primitiveblack eyes of the man.

[Pg 467]

“Adios!” said Kate to him, lingeringly.

“Adios, Patróna!” he replied, suddenly lifting his handhigh, in the Quetzalcoatl salute.

She walked across the beach to the jetty, feeling the lifesurging vivid and resistant within her. “It is sex,” shesaid to herself. “How wonderful sex can be, when menkeep it powerful and sacred, and it fills the world! Likesunshine through and through one!—But I’m not going tosubmit, even there. Why should one give in, to anything!”

Ramón was coming down towards the boat, the bluesymbol of Quetzalcoatl in his hat. And at that momentthe drums began to sound for mid-day, and there came themid-day call, clear and distinct, from the tower. All themen on the shore stood erect, and shot up their right handsto the sky. The women spread both palms to the light.Everything was motionless, save the moving animals.

Then Ramón went on to the boat, the men saluting himwith the Quetzalcoatl salute as he came near.

“It is wonderful, really,” said Kate, as they rowed overthe water, “how—how splendid one can feel in this country!As if one were still genuinely of the nobility.”

“Aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes, I am. But everywhere else it is denied. Onlyhere one feels the full force of one’s nobility. The nativesstill worship it.”

“At moments,” said Ramón. “Later, they will murderyou and violate you, for having worshipped you.”

“Is it inevitable?” she said flippantly.

“I think so,” he replied. “If you lived here alonein Sayula, and queened it for a time, you would get yourselfmurdered—or worse—by the people who had worshippedyou.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

“Why?” she said, obstinate.

“Unless one gets one’s nobility from the gods and turnsto the middle of the sky for one’s power, one will bemurdered at last.”

“I do get my nobility that way,” she said.

But she did not quite believe it. And she made up hermind still more definitely, to go away.

[Pg 468]

She wrote to Mexico City, and engaged a berth fromVera Cruz to Southampton: she would sail on the last dayof November. Cipriano came home on the seventeenth,and she told him what she had done. He looked at herwith his head a little on one side, with a queer boyishjudiciousness, but she could not tell at all what he felt.

“You are going already?” he said in Spanish.

And then she knew, at last, that he was offended. Whenhe was offended he never spoke English at all, but spokeSpanish just as if he were addressing another Mexican.

“Yes,” she said. “On the 30th.”

“And when do you come back?” he asked.

“Quien sabe!—Who knows!” she retorted.

He let his black eyes rest on her face for some minutes,watching her, unchanging and incomprehensible. Hewas thinking, superficially, that if he liked, he could usethe law and have her prevented from leaving the country—oreven from leaving Sayula—since she was legally marriedto him. There was the old fixity of Indian anger, glintingfixed and relentless in the depths of his eyes. And thenthe almost invisible change in his face, as the hiddenemotion sank down and the stoic indifference, the emotionlessnessof centuries, and the stoic kind of tolerance cameover him. She could almost feel the waves of successiveshadow and coldness go through his blood, his mind hardlyaware at all. And again a fear of losing his contact meltedher heart.

It was somehow, to her, beautiful, to feel shadows, andcold gleams, and a hardness like stone, then the strangeheavy inertia of the tropical mid-day, the stupor of the sun,moving upon him while he stood motionless, watching her.In the end it was that weird, sultry, tropical stupor of thehot hours, a heat-swoon of sheer indifference.

“Como quieres tu!” he said. “As you wish.”

And she knew he had already released her, in the dark,sultry stupor of his blood. He would make no furthereffort after her. This also was the doom of his race.

He took a boat and went down to Jamiltepec, to Ramón:as she knew he would.

She was alone, as usual. It occurred to her, that sheherself willed this aloneness. She could not relax and bewith these people. She could not relax and be with anybody.[Pg 469]She always had to recoil upon her own individuality,as a cat does.

Sex, sexual correspondence, did it matter so very muchto her? It might have mattered more, if she had not hadit. But she had had it—and very finally and consummately,with Cipriano. So she knew all about it. It was as ifshe had conquered another territory, another field of life.The conqueress! And now she would retire to the lairof her own individuality, with the prey.

Suddenly, she saw herself as men often saw her:the great cat, with its spasms of voluptuousness andits lifelong lustful enjoyment of its own isolated, isolatedindividuality. Voluptuously to enjoy a contact. Thenwith a lustful feline gratification, to break the contact, androam alone in a sense of power. Each time, to seize asort of power, purring upon her own isolated individuality.

She knew so many women like that. They played withlove and intimacy as a cat with a mouse. In the end, theyquickly ate up the love mouse, then trotted off with a fullbelly and a voluptuous sense of power.

Only sometimes the love-mouse refused to be digested,and there was lifelong dyspepsia. Or, like Cipriano,turned into a sort of serpent, that reared and looked ather with glittering eyes, then slid away into the void,leaving her blank, the sense of power gone out of her.

Another thing, she had observed, with a touch of horror.One after the other, her women “friends,” the powerfullove-women, at the age of forty, forty-five, fifty, they lostall their charm and allure, and turned into real grimalkins,greyish, avid, and horrifying, prowling around looking forprey that became scarcer and scarcer. As human beingsthey went to pieces. And they remained these grey-ribbedgrimalkins, dressed in elegant clothes, the grimalkinhowl even passing into their smart chatter.

Kate was a wise woman, wise enough to take a lesson.

It is all very well for a woman to cultivate her ego, herindividuality. It is all very well for her to despise love,or to love love as a cat loves a mouse, that it plays withas long as possible, before devouring it to vivify her ownindividuality and voluptuously fill the belly of her own ego.

“Woman has suffered far more from the suppression ofher ego than from sex suppression,” says a woman writer,[Pg 470]and it may well be true. But look, only look at themodern women of fifty and fifty-five, those who have cultivatedtheir ego to the top of their bent! Usually, theyare grimalkins to fill one with pity or with repulsion.

Kate knew all this. And as she sat alone in her villa,she remembered it again. She had had her fling, evenhere in Mexico. And these men would let her go again.She was no prisoner. She could carry off any spoil shehad captured.

And then what! To sit in a London drawing-room, andadd another to all the grimalkins? To let the peculiargrimalkin-grimace come on her face, the most weirdgrimalkin-twang come into her voice? Horror! Of allthe horrors, perhaps the grimalkin women, her contemporaries,were the most repellent to her. Even thehorrid old tom-cat men of the civilised roof gutters, did notfill her with such sickly dread.

“No!” she said to herself. “My ego and my individualityare not worth that ghastly price. I’d better abandonsome of my ego, and sink some of my individuality, ratherthan go like that.”

After all, when Cipriano touched her caressively, all herbody flowered. That was the greater sex, that could fillall the world with lustre, and which she dared not thinkabout, its power was so much greater than her own will.But on the other hand when she spread the wings of herown ego, and sent forth her own spirit, the world could lookvery wonderful to her, when she was alone. But after awhile, the wonder faded, and a sort of jealous emptiness setin.

“I must have both,” she said to herself. “I must notrecoil against Cipriano and Ramón, they make my bloodblossom in my body. I say they are limited. But thenone must be limited. If one tries to be unlimited, onebecomes horrible. Without Cipriano to touch me andlimit me and submerge my will, I shall become a horrible,elderly female. I ought to want to be limited. I oughtto be glad if a man will limit me with a strong will and awarm touch. Because what I call my greatness, and thevastness of the Lord behind me, lets me fall through ahollow floor of nothingness, once there is no man’s handthere, to hold me warm and limited. Ah yes! Rather[Pg 471]than become elderly and a bit grisly, I will make my submission;as far as I need, and no further.”

She called a man-servant, and set off down the lake in arow-boat. It was a very lovely November morning, theworld had not yet gone dry again. In the sharp folds ofthe steep mountain slopes to the north-east, the shadowswere pure corn-flower blue. Below was the lingeringdelicacy of green, already drying. The lake was full still,but subsided, and the water-hyacinth had drifted away.Birds flew low in the stillness. It was very full and still,in the strong, hot light. Some maize-fields showed serestubble, but the palo blanco flowers were out, and themesquite bushes were frail green, and there were wafts ofperfume from the little yellow flower-balls, like cassia.

“Why should I go away!” said Kate. “Why shouldI see the ’buses on the mud of Piccadilly, on ChristmasEve, and the crowds of people on the wet pavements, underthe big shops like great caves of light? I may as well stayhere, where my soul is less dreary. I shall have to tellRamón I am sorry for the things I said. I won’t carp atthem. After all, there is another kind of vastness here,with the sound of drums, and the cry of Quetzalcoatl.”

Already she could see the yellow and reddish, tower-likeupper story of Jamiltepec, and the rich, deep fall of magentabougainvillea, from the high wall, with the pale spraying ofplumbago flowers, and many loose creamy-coloured roses.

“Estan tocando!” said her boatman quietly, looking upat her with dark, pregnant eyes.

He had heard already the sound of the light drum, atJamiltepec. The boat rowed softly: and there came asound of a man’s voice singing in the morning.

Her boatman lifted an oar, as a signal to the house. Andas the boat rounded the curve into the basin, a man-servantin white clothes came running down to the little jetty. Inthe changeless sunshine was a scent, perhaps of datturaand of roses, and an eternal Mexican silence, which thenoise of the drum, and the voice of singing, did not disturb.

“Is Don Cipriano here?” asked Kate.

“Està!” murmured the man, with a slight motion towardsRamón’s balcony, whence the singing came. “ShallI say you have come?”

He did not lift his voice above the murmur.

[Pg 472]

“No!” said Kate. “I shall sit here in the gardena while, before I come up.”

“Then I will leave open the door,” said the man, “andyou can come up when you will.”

Kate sat on a seat under a big tree. A creeping plant,with great snake-like cords and big sulphur-and-browntrumpet flowers, hung above. She listened to the singing.It was Ramón, teaching one of the singers.

Ramón had not a very good voice. He sang quietly,as if to the inner air, with very beautiful, simple expression.But Kate could not catch the words.

“Ya?” said Ramón, when he had finished.

“Ya, Patrón!” said the man, the singer.

And he began, in his strong, pure voice that caught atthe very bowels, to sing another of the Hymns.

The man had sung this hymn over several times, haltingand forgetting, his pure, burning voice faltering out;then the low, rather husky voice of Ramón, with a subtlerintensity, coming in, as if heard from the centre of a shell;then again the sudden ripping sound of the true singer’stenor, going like a flame through the blood.

Her mozo, a man-servant, had followed her into thegarden, and sat at a distance on his heels, under a tree, withhis back to the trunk, like a crouching shadow clothed inwhite. His toes spread dark and hard, in his openhuaraches, and the black braid of his hat-string hungagainst his dark cheek. For the rest he was pure white,the white cotton tight on his thighs.

When the singing had finished above, and the drumwas silent, and even the voices speaking in low tones,were silent, her mozo looked up at Kate, with his blackhat-string dangling at his chin, his black eyes shining, anda timid sort of smile on his face.

“Està muy bien, Patróna?” he said shyly. “It isgood, isn’t it, Mistress?”

“It is very good,” she replied, with the infallible echo.[Pg 474]But there were conflicting feelings in her breast, and theman knew it.

He looked so young, when he smiled that gay, shy,excited little smile. Something of the eternal child in him.But a child that could harden in an instant into a savageman, revengeful and brutal. And a man always fully sex-alive,for the moment innocent in the fulness of sex, notin the absence. And Kate thought to herself, as she hadthought before, that there were more ways than one of “becomingagain as a little child.”

But the man had a sharp, watchful look in the corner ofhis eye: to see if she were feeling some covert hostility.He wanted her to acquiesce in the hymn, in the drum, in thewhole mood. Like a child he wanted her to acquiesce.But if she were going to be hostile, he would be quick tobe first in the hostility. Her hostile judgment would makea pure enemy of him.

Ah, all men were alike!

At that moment the man stood up, with soft suddenness,and she heard Cipriano’s voice from the balcony above:

“What is it, Lupe?”

“Està la Patróna,” answered the servant.

Kate rose to her feet and looked up. She saw the headand the naked shoulders of Cipriano above the parapet ofthe balcony.

“I will come up,” she said.

And slowly she went through the great iron gates into thepassage-way. Lupe, following, bolted the doors behindher.

On the terrace above she found Ramón and Ciprianoboth with their upper bodies naked, waiting for her insilence. She was embarrassed.

“I waited to hear the new hymn,” she said.

“And how does it seem to you?” said Ramón, inSpanish.

“I like it,” she said.

“Let us sit down,” said Ramón, still in Spanish. Heand she sat in the cane rocking-chairs: Cipriano stood bythe wall of the terrace.

She had come to make a sort of submission: to say shedidn’t want to go away. But finding them both in thethick of their Quetzalcoatl mood, with their manly breasts[Pg 475]uncovered, she was not very eager to begin. They made herfeel like an intruder. She did not pause to realise that shewas one.

“We don’t meet in your Morning Star, apparently, dowe!” she said, mocking, but with a slight quaver.

A deeper silence seemed suddenly to hold the two men.

“And I suppose a woman is really de trop, even there,when two men are together.”

But she faltered a bit in the saying. Cipriano, sheknew, was baffled and stung when she taunted him.

Ramón answered her, with the gentleness that couldcome straight out of his heart: but still in Spanish:

“Why, Cousin, what is it?”

Her lip quivered, as she suddenly said:

“I don’t really want to go away from you.”

Ramón looked swiftly at Cipriano, then said:

“I know you don’t.”

But the gentle protective tone of his voice only madeKate rebel again. She brimmed over with sudden tears,crying:

“You don’t really want me.”

“Yes, I want you!—Verdad! Verdad!” exclaimedCipriano, in his low, secret, almost muttering voice.

And even amid her tears, Kate was thinking to herself:What a fraud I am! I know all the time it is I who don’taltogether want them. I want myself to myself. But Ican fool them so that they shan’t find out.

For she heard the hot, phallic passion in Cipriano’s voice.

Then came the voice of Ramón, like a chill:

“It is you who don’t want,” he said, in English thistime. “You needn’t commit yourself to us. Listen toyour own best desire.”

“And if it tells me to go away?” she flashed, defiantthrough the end of her tears.

“Then go! Oh certainly go!”

Suddenly her tears came afresh.

“I knew you didn’t really want me,” she wept.

Then Cipriano’s voice said, with a hot, furtive softnessof persuasion:

“You are not his! He would not tell you!”

“That is very true,” said Ramón. “Don’t listen tome!”

[Pg 476]

He spoke in Spanish. And Kate glanced up sharplythrough her tears, to see him going quietly, but swiftly,away.

She wiped her face, suddenly calm. Then she lookedwith wet eyes at Cipriano. He was standing erect and alert,like a little fighting male, and his eyes glowed black anduncannily as he met her wet, limpid glance.

Yes, she was a bit afraid of him too, with his inhumanblack eyes.

“You don’t want me to go, do you?” she pleaded.

A slow, almost foolish smile came over his face, and hisbody was slightly convulsed. Then came his soft-tonguedIndian speech, as if all his mouth were soft, saying inSpanish, but with the “r” sound almost lost:

“Yo! Yo!”—his eyebrows lifted with queer mock surprise,and a little convulsion went through his body again.“Te quiero mucho! Mucho te quiero! Mucho! Mucho!I like you very much! Very much!”

It sounded so soft, so soft-tongued, of the soft, wet, hotblood, that she shivered a little.

“You won’t let me go!” she said to him.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73677 ***