A Surprising Narrative.

I OFFER this story without comment. It was told me by an old comrade of the Nicaraguan Gold Fields, known to us under the nickname of Barbachella, who called on his way to retirement in Alsace.

Besides his mine at Libertad, this good fellow owned a cattle farm on the Massaya road, outside the village. When he was there one night a peon told him that a foreign priest asked shelter. Forthwith Barbachella ran out, drove away the dogs, and brought his visitor to the hearth—it is chilly at evening on those uplands. After a rough meal the priest accepted a big china pipe and tobacco, home-grown and home-cured after an heroic recipe. Then he gave his name-Jean Lequeu.

Diggers had heard of this ecclesiastic and his mission. For some months past he had been living at Massaya, studying the tongue of the Woolwa Indians. It was said that he cherished an idea of settling amongst that people, whose frontier-a vague expression-lies but a few miles beyond Libertad. Some happy conceits this rumour had suggested among the diggers.

Barbachella, therefore, recognised his guest, and, after learning that the reports were true, he told some Indian stories to cheer him up. Few equals has my old friend at this pastime, but he saw with mortification that his awful fancies did not alarm. Higher and higher he pitched the key-in vain. Lequeu showed a lively interest, but he passed by marvels and horrors to inquire calmly about the everyday life of the Woolwas.

Barbachella said at length, 'You don't believe what I am telling you, padre?'

'So far as you speak from your own experience, sir,' answered Lequeu, distressed, 'I believe you implicitly. What you repeat from hearsay I don't discredit, but it comes on much weaker authority.'

'But you think these stories may be true? And still you mean to risk your life among such brutes!'

'Every one to his métier, sir!' the priest replied. That is mine. What you recount of these Indians is not quite new to me, for I have passed three years on the Lacandon. There, sir, I have been exposed to more terrible dangers, and I have seen sights far more strange.'

Barbachella answered sharply, for he was not used to a challenge, 'Oh, if you're going to talk of the Itzimaya, I give in, of course! But I should not have expected such histoires from a priest.'

The other coloured, but his reply was gentle. 'Personal experiences are not properly described as histoires, I think.'

'What! you've seen the Itzimaya ?'

'I have seen an Indian town that answers the legendary description.'

Barbachella took out his pipe to stare, laughed abruptly, resumed it, and blew a cloud. Let's talk of something else,' he said. Pray tell me more of your interesting anecdotes.'

'Not I, after this! Now, I understand that you, a Frenchman, a priest, declare you have seen the Itzimaya?'

'I declared that I had seen a place that resembled it—and that is true!'

'Hearken to him, mon Dieu! When?--how?-where?-what are you going to do about it?'

'I do not know, Heaven help me! For twelve months nearly I have been waiting the answer of the Propaganda to my report. I have come to do what I can among the Mosquito Indians, to distract most painful thoughts. My dear brother is still in Cosigalfa, sir, if he survive.'

'The man talks sense in a way!-I should think if the Itzimaya answers to description, ten thousand scamps would be delighted to rescue your brother in passing.'

'Ay, and to renew the horrors of the Conquest. Not even for Antoine's sake.'

'Well now, padre, I throw up. Tell us all about it.'

And the priest did so, making reservations evidently. Most of these, I fancy, regarded his brother's conduct. Motives were not quite coherent in the story as outlined, but by assuming that Antoine's character, not rare nor unamiable, was such as is suggested in the pages following, difficulties are reconciled.

Jean Lequeu was despatched from Europe as pioneer of a mission to be founded among the free heathen Indians of Lacandon-called Bravos. The Archbishop of Guatemala recommended him to the priest of a small settlement deep in the woods beyond Lake Peten. There, among the semi-civilised Indians, he might study the language, which is almost identical with that of the Bravos. A dreary, sordid, uninteresting existence the young man led for two years. The white population consisted of half a dozen families, who bred cattle in a small way, and traded with the Indians for jungle produce. They did not welcome a foreigner.

The priest to whom Lequeu was recommended could hardly read. His soul was given to fees, crops, pigs, cards, women, and, above all, drink. So gross was the public scandal of his life that the visitor expostulated within forty-eight hours. So their friendship ended abruptly, and Lequeu engaged Indians to run him up a house, in their sketchy fashion.

The attitude of natives towards the Church perplexed him sorely. They showed the zeal of fanatics in claiming its ministration at baptism, marriage, or death. But they would hold no dealing with the priest. In a few rare moments of conversation with the men-women visited the hamlet only for religious ceremonies—— Lequeu discovered that they knew absolutely nothing of Christianity, nor cared to know. At length it was borne in to him that the sentiments of the Indian towards the Church exactly resemble those of a negro towards the 'white man's fetish -a mystery he does not try to understand, but horribly fears and assiduously courts. He has also a fetish of his own, or many, in whose propitiation devilries are played on high bare peaks or in murkiest recesses of the woods. Those ceremonies the Indians so eagerly demanded at church were prefaced doubtless or followed by mysterious rites which formed the real bond on conscience.

This was a painful discovery. But when Lequeu observed the kind of priest who, even in this nineteenth century, was stationed among them, he could not feel surprise. It became his earnest endeavour to show that this sot and libertine was no representative of Christianity. He visited the Indians, undertaking journeys toilsome and not unperilous through the woods or on the river. He built a school, and offered money for attendance. His efforts came to nothing apparently. The Indians looked askance. When they saw him coming, they left the hut. If he caught them by chance, they stood respectful, answered in monosyllables, and tired him out. Sick people whom he nursed and cured made no sign of gratitude. Silent they lay under his hands, and silent they withdrew. The settlers warned Lequeu that if he persevered, quite quietly and methodically the Indians would kill him when they wearied of exhortation.

He was almost disheartened by the prospect, when the bravo Lacandones came down. This, I gather, was the disastrous irruption of 1880; Barbachella heard the story in September or October, 1882. All the white inhabitants fled, with their priest and his large family. The garrison of twenty soldiers fell back on Flores. Some of the tame Indians roamed away, as one might properly describe the movement; others prepared to defend themselves. Nobody paid attention to Lequeu. Utterly alone, he commended

himself to Heaven. To him one day, digging in his little garden, came three Indians. The hedge of cactus was still so young that they could look over it, and they stood by the roadside, mute as usual. Lequeu asked them into the house, but they gave no heed. Said one at length, 'The bravos will be here to-morrow, padre! Why don't you save yourself?'

It is needless to repeat a conversation the purport of which is understood. When the visitors learned that it was not ignorance of danger which caused the priest to stay, they took grave council among themselves. And then the spokesman invited him to seek refuge in their camp.

It was a great opportunity-providential as Lequeu hoped. There and then he marched away with them. Several thousand males had assembled, with their old people, women, and children. For the first time he had a real opportunity of influencing that sex through whom all national conversions have been effected. A hut was built for him of boughs before nightfall; Lequeu consecrated it as a church. Presently a red glow in the sky told that the Lacandones had reached the village.

They did not turn aside to assault the camp, and those within it never thought of molesting them. They communicated freely with the invader. Every day Lequeu heard news. The enemy swept over a large space, looting and burning, converging on Flores. Thither all the troops of the province had retired, with guns. The Lacandones encamped within their sight, rested a day, and leisurely set back, heavy with plunder and captives. A month elapsed between the passage and the return.

The fighting instinct ran strong in Lequeu's blood, and it was stirred by awful narratives reported with Indian composure, by scouts who followed the march. He worked upon his hosts with judgment, appealing not to abstract or chivalrous ideas, but to the selfishness and superstition of a savage peasantry. The retiring invader had destroyed all the harvest which they had not cut before it was ripe. He had burned their fruit trees and their huts, killed their friends; and now he was retiring in their sight with the plunder of church and village. Should they be called warriors who allowed him to go by triumphant? These remarks were heard without impatience, but no reply came. The Lacandones drew nearer and nearer, until scouts declared that on the morrow they would pass. In the evening came the head cacique; for Lequeu discovered that these people had their chiefs and dignities and government outside the Guatemalan law. He asked Lequeu to pray-in fact, as he meant it, to propitiate the white man's fetish in the action of next day. Lequeu was overjoyed. Those

holy ornaments of the church might be recovered. But he suddenly remembered the horrors of Indian warfare, the bloody rites which he had so much reason to suspect. He would not consent to pray unless the caciques solemnly swore that all prisoners should be delivered up to him alive. That condition roused such stubborn resistance that Lequeu saw how necessary it had been. Finding him resolute, they gave way. And then-I have not to judge whether he acted rightly-he implored victory for their arms. They sallied forth next day, fought from dawn to sunset, lost many, killed many, took much spoil, and brought three prisoners home. All the other vanquished, as they gravely swore, rejected quarter.

An old man, a youth, and a boy were the three Lacandones, all badly hurt. They recovered with that promptitude the savage displays when his ailments are of the surgical order. The camp broke up, and Lequeu set the captives to rebuild his house. Neither gratitude nor impatience did they show; their manners were quiet and passive as those of other Indians. After a few days Lequeu could make himself understood, but whatever subject he chose they listened with brow inscrutable and eyes askance. A direct question was answered in few words, but frankly, as it seemed. The veteran and the youth were unconsidered people; the lad was son to a cacique of consequence. If his father knew him to be living he would send ransom. This expectation, Lequeu thought, prevented

any effort at escape.

The boy's appearance was unlike that of his comrades, his features of higher type, his complexion fairer. He did not speak the common dialect easily. Lequeu gathered that his home lay beyond that of the others, towards the frontier of Chiapas; and that his people were richer than theirs. It was all very vague, but certain hints aroused the priest's curiosity. Learning that his prisoner had marched twenty days before joining the host of the Lacandones, he asked who lived beyond his father's kingdom. Indians. Rich Indians, or poor, like those of Peten? Rich, very rich, living in houses of stone. Had he visited them? No; the peoples were not friendly. Did hostilities occur? Not now; those rich Indians sent men every year, who robbed his father. How were they called? Their land was named Cosigalfa. They had no guns; his father had a few very old, which nobody understood, but no powder. Some other details were gradually and painfully drawn out. Lequeu could no longer disbelieve that somewhere to the north lay an Indian kingdom which was, at least, much more civilised than the clans round Peten. At his instance the cacique sent messengers to assure the lad's father of his safety. They started without alarm, apparently, on promise of reward.