Part 31
Cipriano tied round her waist a narrow woollen sash of white wool, with white, terraced towers upon a red and black ground. And she stooped and put on his small, dark feet the huaraches of woven red strips of leather, with a black cross on the toes.
“One more little gift,” said Ramón.
He made Kate put over Cipriano’s head a blue cord bearing a little symbol of Quetzalcoatl, the snake in silver and the bird in blue turquoise. Cipriano put over her head the same symbol, but in gold, with a bird in black dull jet, and hanging on a red cord.
“There!” said Ramón. “That is the symbol of Quetzalcoatl, the Morning Star. Remember the marriage is the meeting-ground, and the meeting-ground is the star. If there be no star, no meeting-ground, no true coming together of man with the woman, into a wholeness, there is no marriage. And if there is no marriage, there is nothing but an agitation. If there is no honourable meeting of man with woman and woman with man, there is no good thing come to pass. But if the meeting come to pass, then whosoever betrays 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, between man’s night and woman’s morning, shall never be forgiven, neither here nor in the hereafter. For man is frail and woman is frail, and none can draw the line down which another shall walk. But the star that is between two people and is their meeting-ground shall not be betrayed.
“And the star that is between three people, and is their meeting-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 like himself, a fragment. For if there is no star between a man and a man, or even a man and a wife, there is nothing. But whosoever betrays the star that is between him and another man, betrays all, and all is lost to the traitor.
“Where there is no star and no abiding place, nothing is, so nothing can be lost.”
CHAP: XXI. THE OPENING OF THE CHURCH.
Kate went back to her house in Sayula, and Cipriano went back to his command in the city.
“Will you not come with me?” he said. “Shall we not make a civil marriage, and live in the same house together?”
“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 will watch it.”
Conflicting feelings played in his dark eyes. He could not 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 her rocking-chair. Inside herself she kept very still and almost thoughtless, taking no count of time. What was going to unfold must unfold of itself.
She no longer feared the nights, when she was shut alone in her darkness. But she feared the days a little. She shrank so mortally from contact.
She opened her bedroom window one morning, and looked down to the lake. The sun had come, and queer blotty shadows were on the hills beyond the water. Way down at the water’s edge a woman was pouring water from a calabash bowl over a statuesque pig, dipping rapidly and assiduously. The little group was seen in silhouette against the pale, dun lake.
But impossible to stand at her open window looking on the little lane. An old man suddenly appeared from nowhere, offering her a leaf full of tiny fish, charales, like splinters of glass, for ten centavos, and a girl was unfolding three eggs from the ragged corner of her rebozo, thrusting them imploringly forward to Kate. An old woman was shambling up with a sad story, Kate knew. She fled from her window and the importunity.
At the same instant, the sound that always made her heart stand still woke on the invisible air. It was the sound of drums, of tom-toms rapidly beaten. The same sound she had heard in the distance, in the tropical dusk of Ceylon, from the temple at sunset. The sound she had heard from the edge of the forests in the north, when the Red Indians were dancing by the fire. The sound that wakes dark, ancient echoes in the heart of every man, the thud of the primeval world.
Two drums were violently throbbing against one another. Then gradually they were slowing down, in a peculiar uneven rhythm, till at last there was only left one slow, continual, monotonous note, like a great drop of darkness falling heavily, continually, dripping in the bright morning.
The re-evoked past is frightening, and if it be re-evoked to overwhelm the present, it is fiendish. Kate felt a real terror of the sound of a tom-tom. It seemed to beat straight on her solar plexus, to make her sick.
She went to her window. Across the lane rose a tall garden-wall of adobe brick, and above that, the sun on the tops of the orange trees, deep gold. Beyond the orange garden rose three tall, handsome, shaggy palm trees, side by side on slim stems. And from the very top of the two outer palms, rose the twin tips of the church towers. She had noticed it so often; the two ironwork Greek crosses seeming to stand on the mops of the palms.
Now in an instant she saw the glitter of the symbol of Quetzalcoatl in the places where the cross had been; two circular suns, with the dark bird at the centre. The gold of the suns--or the serpents--flashed new in the light of the sun, the bird lifted its wings dark in outline within the circle.
Then again the two drums were speeding up, beating against one another with the peculiar uneven savage rhythm, which at first seems no rhythm, and then seems to contain a summons almost sinister in its power, acting on the helpless blood direct. Kate felt her hands flutter on her wrists, in fear. Almost, too, she could hear the heart of Cipriano beating; her husband in Quetzalcoatl.
“Listen, Niña! Listen, Niña!” came Juana’s frightened voice from the verandah.
Kate went to the verandah. Ezequiel had rolled up his mattress and was hitching up his pants. It was Sunday morning, when he sometimes lay on after sunrise. His thick black hair stood up, his dark face was blank with sleep, but in his quiet aloofness and his slightly bowed head Kate could see the secret satisfaction he took in the barbarous sound of the drums.
“It comes from the Church!” said Juana.
Kate caught the other woman’s black, reptilian eyes unexpectedly. Usually, she forgot that Juana was dark, and different. For days she would not realise it. Till suddenly 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 one moment, 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 any more. They have taken the bells away, and they beat the drums 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 more crosses 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, which was just turning deep, “that it is the church of Quetzalcoatl. Now it is the temple of Quetzalcoatl; our own God.”
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 two women met for a moment.
“See the Niña’s eyes of the sun!” cried Juana, laying her 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 which was the sign of Quetzalcoatl, and pushing a little card through the window.
The card said: Come to the church when you hear the one big drum; about seven o’clock.--It was signed with the sign of Quetzalcoatl.
“Very well!” said Kate. “I will come.”
It was a quarter to seven already. Outside the room was the noise of Juana sweeping the verandah. Kate put on a white dress and a yellow hat, and a long string of pale-coloured topaz that glimmered with yellow and mauve.
The earth was all damp with rain, the leaves were all fresh and 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 bringing cup and plate and sweet buns and sugar, the mother hastily limping with the coffee. Ezequiel came striding along the walk, lifting his hat. He went down to the servants’ quarters.
“Ezequiel says--!” Juana came crying. When suddenly a soft, slack thud seemed to make a hole in the air, leaving a 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 black ends was waiting by the gate. He lifted his hat, and walked 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’s edge, with their black hulls. But the beach was empty. As the great drum let fall its slow, bellowing note, the last people were running towards the church.
In front of the church was a great throng of natives, the men with their dark serapes, or their red blankets over their shoulders; the nights of rain were cold; and their hats in their hands. The high, dark Indian heads!--Women in blue rebozos were pressing among. The big drum slowly, slackly exploded its note from the church-tower. Kate had her heart in her mouth.
In the middle of the crowd, a double row of men in the scarlet serapes of Huitzilopochtli with the black diamond on the shoulders, stood with rifles, holding open a lane through the crowd.
“Pass!” said her guard to her. And Kate entered the lane of scarlet and black serapes, going slow and dazed between watchful black eyes of the men. Her guard followed her. But Juana had been turned back.
Kate looked at her feet, and stumbled. Then she looked up.
In the gateway of the yard before the church stood a brilliant figure in a serape whose zigzag whorls of scarlet, white, and black ran curving, dazzling, to the black shoulders; 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 closed door 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 the gateway.
It was no easy thing to do, to face all those dark faces and black, glittering eyes. After all, she was a gringita, and she felt it. A sacrifice? Was she a sacrifice? She hung her head, under her yellow hat, and watched the string of topaz twinkling and shaking its delicate, bog-watery colours against her white dress. Joachim had given it her. He had had it made up for her, the string, in Cornwall. So far away! In another world, in another life, in another era! Now she was condemned to go through these strange ordeals, like a victim.
The big drum overhead ceased, and suddenly the little drums broke like a shower of hail on the air, and as suddenly ceased.
In low, deep, inward voices, the guard of Quetzalcoatl began to speak, in heavy unison:
“Oye! Oye! Oye! Oye!”
The small, inset door within the heavy doors of the church opened and Don Ramón stepped through. In his white clothes, wearing the Quetzalcoatl serape, he stood at the head of his two rows of guards, until there was a silence. Then he raised his naked right arm.
“What is God, we shall never know!” he said, in a strong voice, to all the people.
The Guard of Quetzalcoatl turned to the people, thrusting up their right arm.
“What is God, you shall never know!” they repeated.
Then again, in the crowd, the words were re-echoed by the Guard of Huitzilopochtli.
After which there fell a dead silence, in which Kate was aware of a forest of black eyes glistening with white fire.
“But the Sons of God come and go. They come from beyond the Morning Star; And thither they return, from the land of men.”
It was again the solemn, powerful voice of Ramón. Kate looked at his face; it was creamy-brown in its pallor, but changeless in expression, and seemed to be sending a change over 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.
“Mary and Jesus have left you, and gone to the place of renewal. And Quetzalcoatl has come. He is here. He is your lord.”
With his words, Ramón was able to put the power of his heavy, strong will over the people. The crowd began to fuse under his influence. As he gazed back at all the black eyes, his eyes seemed to have no expression, save that they seemed to be seeing the heart of all darkness in front of him, where his unknowable God-mystery lived and moved.
“Those that follow me, must cross the mountains of the sky, And pass the houses of the stars by night. They shall find me only in the Morning Star.
But those that will not follow, must not peep. Peeping, they will lose their sight, and lingering, they will fall very lame.”
He stood a moment in silence, gazing with dark brows at the crowd. Then he dropped his arm, and turned. The big doors of the church opened, revealing a dim interior. Ramón entered the church alone. Inside the church, the drum began to beat. The guard of Quetzalcoatl slowly filed into the dim interior, the scarlet guard of Huitzilopochtli filed into the yard of the church, taking the place of the guard of Quetzalcoatl. Cipriano remained in the gateway of the churchyard. His voice rang out clear and military.
“Hear me, people. You may enter the house of Quetzalcoatl. Men must go to the right and left, and remove their shoes, and stand erect. To the new God no 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, the walls were in stripes of colour, the place seemed dark. Two files of the white-clad men of Quetzalcoatl stood in a long avenue down the centre of the church.
“This way,” said one of the men of Quetzalcoatl, in a low voice, drawing her into the centre between the motionless files of men.
She went alone and afraid over the polished black floor, covering her face with her yellow shawl. The pillars of the nave were dark green, like trees rising to a deep, blue roof. The walls were vertically striped in bars of black and white vermillion and yellow and green, with the windows between 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 up under the deep blue roof, where the stripes of the walls had 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 had been, burned a small but intense bluey-white light, and just below and in front of the light stood a huge dark figure, a strange looming block, apparently carved in wood. It was a naked man, carved archaic and rather flat, holding his right arm over his head, and on the right arm balanced a carved wooden eagle with outspread wings whose upper surface gleamed with gold, near the light, whose under surface was black shadow. Round the heavy left leg of the man-image was carved a serpent, also glimmering gold, and its golden head rested in the hand of the figure, near the thigh. The face of the figure was dark.
This great dark statue loomed stiff like a pillar, rather frightening in the white-lit blue chancel.
At the foot of the statue was a stone altar with a small fire of ocote-wood burning. And on a low throne by the altar sat Ramón.
People were beginning to file into the church. Kate heard the strange sound of the naked feet of the men on the black, polished floor, the white figures stole forward towards the altar steps, the dark faces gazing round in wonder, men crossing themselves involuntarily. Throngs of men slowly flooded in, and women came half running, to crouch on the floor and cover their faces. Kate crouched down too.
A file of the men of Quetzalcoatl came and stood along the foot of the altar steps, like a fence with a gap in the middle, facing the people. Beyond the gap was the flickering altar, and Ramón.
Ramón rose to his feet. The men of Quetzalcoatl turned to face him, and shot up their naked right arms, in the gesture of the statue, Ramón lifted his arm, so his blanket fell in towards his shoulder, revealing the naked side and the blue sash.
“All men salute Quetzalcoatl!” said a clear voice in command.
The scarlet men of Huitzilopochtli were threading among the men of the congregation, pulling the kneeling ones to their feet, causing all to thrust up their right arm, palm flat to heaven, face uplifted, body erect and tense. It was the statue receiving the eagle.
So that around the low dark shrubs of the crouching women stood a forest of erect, upthrusting men, powerful and tense with inexplicable passion. It was a forest of dark wrists and hands up-pressing, with the striped wall vibrating above, and higher, the maze of green going to the little, iron-barred windows that stood open, letting in the light and air of the roof.
“I am the living Quetzalcoatl,” came the solemn, impassive voice of Ramón.
“I am the Son of the Morning Star, and child of the deeps. No man knows my Father, and I know Him not. My Father is deep within the deeps, whence He sent me forth. He sends the eagle of silence down on wide wings To lean over my head and my neck and my breast And fill them strong with strength of wings. He sends the serpent of power up my feet and my loins So that strength wells up in me like water in hot springs. But midmost shines as the Morning Star midmost shines Between night and day, my Soul-star in one, Which is my Father whom I know not. I tell you, the day should not turn into glory, And the night should not turn deep, Save for the morning and evening stars, upon which they turn. Night turns upon me, and Day, who am the star between. Between your breast and belly is a star. If it be not there You are empty gourd-shells filled with dust and wind. When you walk, the star walks with you, between your breast and your belly. When you sleep, it softly shines. When you speak true and true, it is bright on your lips and your teeth. When you lift your hands in courage and bravery, its glow is clear in your palms. When you turn to your wives as brave men turn to their women The Morning Star and the Evening Star shine together. For man is the Morning Star. And woman is the Star of Evening. I tell you, you are not men alone. The star of the beyond is within you. But have you seen a dead man, how his star has gone out of him? So the star will go out of you, even as a woman will leave a man if his warmth never warms her. Should you say: _I have no star; I am no star._ So it will leave you, and you will hang like a gourd on the vine of life With nothing but rind: Waiting for the rats of the dark to come and gnaw your inside. Do you hear the rats of the darkness gnawing at your inside? Till you are as empty as rat-gnawed pomegranates hanging hollow on the Tree of Life? If the star shone, they dare not, they could not. If you were men with the Morning Star. If the star shone within you. No rat of the dark dared gnaw you. But I am Quetzalcoatl, of the Morning Star. I am the living Quetzalcoatl. And you are men who should be men of the Morning Star. See you be not rat-gnawed gourds. I am Quetzalcoatl of the eagle and the snake. The earth and air. Of the Morning Star. I am Lord of the Two Ways--”
The drum began to beat, the men of Quetzalcoatl suddenly took off their serapes, and Ramón did the same. They were now men naked to the waist. The eight men from the altar-steps filed up to the altar where the fire burned, and one by one kindled tall green candles, which burned with a clear light. They ranged themselves on either side the chancel, holding the lights high, so that the wooden face of the image glowed as if alive, and the eyes of silver and jet flashed most curiously.
“A man shall take the wine of his spirit and the blood of his heart, the oil of his belly and the seed of his loins, and offer them first to the Morning Star,” said Ramón, in a loud voice, turning to the people.
Four men came to him. One put a blue crown with the bird on his brow, one put a red belt round his breast, another put a yellow belt round his middle, and the last fastened a white belt round his loins. Then the first one they pressed a small glass bowl to Ramón’s brow, and in the bowl was white liquid like bright water. The next touched a bowl to the breast, and the red shook in the bowl. At the navel the man touched a bowl with yellow fluid, and at the loins a bowl with something dark. They held them all to the light.
Then one by one they poured them into a silver mixing-bowl that Ramón held between his hands.
“For save the Unknown God pours His Spirit over my head and fire into my heart, and sends his power like a fountain of oil into my belly, and His lightning like a hot spring into my loins, I am not. I am nothing. I am a dead gourd.
“And save I take the wine of my spirit and the red of my heart, the strength of my belly and the power of my loins, and mingle them all together, and kindle them to the Morning Star, I betray my body, I betray my soul, I betray my spirit and my God who is Unknown.
“Fourfold is man. But the star is one star. And one man is but one star.”
He took the silver mixing-bowl and slowly circled it between his hands, in the act of mixing.
Then he turned his back to the people, and lifted the bowl high up, between his hands, as if offering it to the image.
Then suddenly he threw the contents of the bowl into the altar fire.
There was a soft puff of explosion, a blue flame leaped high into the air, followed by a yellow flame, and then a rose-red smoke. In three successive instants the faces of the men inside the chancel were lit bluish, then gold, then dusky red. And in the same moment Ramón had turned to the people and shot up his hand.
“Salute Quetzalcoatl!” cried a voice, and men began to thrust up their arms, when another voice came moaning strangely:
“No! Ah no! Ah no!”--the voice rose in a hysterical cry.
It came from among the crouching women, who glanced round in fear, to see a woman in black, kneeling on the floor, her black scarf falling back from her lifted face, thrusting up her white hands to the Madonna, in the old gesture.
“No! No! It is not permitted!” shrieked the voice. “Lord! Lord! Lord Jesus! Holy Virgin! Prevent him! Prevent him!”