has taken his form to mock me-He was burned to ashes at the stake."

"On the faith and truth of a Christian man, he stands before you here. But-but-" It was the matador's turn to tremble and falter now. When he spoke again it was in a low, imploring whisper. “Father—señor—for Heaven's sake take off your hand-sit down-let me look in your face."

He need not have so entreated. The friar's strength was failing him through the intensity of his emotion. Unconsciously he sank into the seat. "Am I losing my reason?" he murmured. | "What did you say?—Who are you?"

"I am Melchior del Salto, reprieved at the last moment, because their reverences received information that it was another hand than his which struck down Tomas Varguez that fatal night. And you you?-Nay, señor, not one word. You are Señor Don Alfonso!"

"Melchior!— Brother risen from the dead!" Springing from his seat once more, Fray Fernando stretched out his arms, and in another moment two hearts that had long been sundered were beating against each other. Then the brothers "lifted up their voices and wept," such tears as few are given to weep in this sad world.

When words were possible at all, they were broken, faltering, inconsequent.

"I know now why I loved you from the first day you came to the galley," Melchior del Salto murmured. "I used to listen for the sound of your voice, to watch for the very shadow of your cowl. But how sadly you are altered, señor my brother!"

"Throughout these long years I believed my brother had died for me-the death of fire." "And instead it was you who lost all for that brother's sake." "" "Oh no; the crime for which I suffered was my own. And you too, my brother-you have suffered-bow sorely! Sixteen years in the galleys!"

"God has not forsaken me. His goodness and mercy have followed me every step of the way. Until now at last—He has given me this great crowning joy,-to see your face again!"

Thus they talked, and might have talked until

from Spain for the church of Callao, rung out its musical summons to prayer at the vesper hour.

Fray Fernando never heard that sound; but upon Melchior del Salto it produced an almost magical effect. It transformed him instantly into the galley-slave and the matador. “Our hour is long past," he said. "This must not be. The Englishman will share the blame that is due to me alone. Moreover, another time the privilege may be withheld."

To Fray Fernando the thought of sending back his newly-found brother to the cruel slavery in which he had pined so long seemed absolutely horrible. Still the thing was inevitable. At least for the present they must part. Sorrowfully acknowledging the necessity, he accompanied the two galley-slaves to the San Cristofero, and excused them to the captain, taking upon himself the blame of their late return. "I will see you to-morrow-early," he said, as he bade Melchior del Salto a most reluctant farewell.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE MAGIC STONE.

"Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts."

PROV. xix. 6.

FRAY FERNANDO's thoughts were very busy during his five minutes' walk from the San Cristofero to his own humble lodging. He came to the determination that he would tell José everything that had happened. He had great reliance on the Indian's tact and skill in dealing with those who held the destinies of the galley-slaves in their hands. But, independently of this, his adopted son deserved his full confidence, and he should have it.

"José," he said, "I have something to tell

you."

José, at a moment's notice, buried the treasures of new knowledge he had just received from Walter Grey, and was longing to examine, in some deep place within his heart, and stood prepared to listen.

"Do you remember the tale I told you in the tampu beside the Apurimac?" asked the monk. "Patre, I remember every word."

"Shall I lose for ever your love and your

reverence, José, if I confess to you that the Don Alfonso of that tale stands before you now?"

José's countenance showed no emotion; neither horror nor amazement, not even surprise, was depicted there. It was in fact no more than for a long time he had suspected. At first the suspicion brought keen sorrow and perplexity to his loyal heart; but he had, fortunately, been able of late to persuade himself that the patre was quite justified in his resistance to Spanish cruelty and oppression. How he reconciled this belief with his respect for the Catholic faith and the authori- | ties of the Church, it is impossible to say. But indeed there were so many unreconciled contradictions in the mind of José, that this one might well pass unnoticed amongst them.

He said very quietly, "I always knew that the patre was a noble amongst his own people. And what did he, in fighting for the deliverance of the oppressed, save to show himself the friend of the Poor-like a child of the Sun?"

Then, in words few and broken by emotion, Fray Fernando told him the strange sequel of the story. But, to his amazement, José listened with cold incredulity. Was the patre quite sure that there was no mistake, no delusion—that the galleyslave was in very truth the person he represented himself to be?

Now, if the patre had told him that he had just been honoured with a visit from the Virgin Mary, José would have received the communication with the deepest reverence and the most unquestioning confidence. For it would then have been "a mystery of the Faith; and José was in the habit of divesting himself of his reason and common sense whenever he entered the temple of the supernatural. Scarcely any marvel could be proposed to him there to which he would hesitate to give implicit credence. But upon the platform of this world and its affairs, and within what he considered the legitimate domain of his reason, he was a shrewd and careful investigator of facts. He inherited the practical ability of his fathers, who were accustomed to decide hard cases, and to do justice and judgment between man and man.

The half astonished, half angry Fray Fernando found he had no alternative save to set his doubts at rest by a full and circumstantial account of his interview with the matador.

This could hardly fail to convince the most sceptical; and once convinced, José was ready to prove himself an invaluable ally.

"We will save him," he said. "Spain is far away; Spaniards will do anything for gold." Fray Fernando pondered. "But I have no gold," he objected.

"I have," José answered quietly. "Moreover, the time is favourable. The Comandante has gone to Cuzco. Only the Capitano remains. He has his price. Let me treat with him, patre. Nothing easier for him than to give out that the men are dead."

"The men?"

"Yes; the stake I mean to play for is the deliverance of both-the matador and the Englishman."

"For Heaven's sake, José, beware what you do," cried Fray Fernando in alarm. "You will peril all. The Englishman is a prisoner of the Holy Office."

"So is the other."

“ Ay; but consider the difference. Melchior was condemned to the galleys full sixteen years ago, in Spain. The matter was never known here; and by this time is well-nigh forgotten everywhere. But Walter Grey-fresh in every man's mind and memory, and under the very eyes of their reverences who pronounced his sentence.— No, no, José; unless you want to ruin us, you must leave him alone."

"Well, I can wait," replied the imperturbable José. And rising from his seat, he began to prepare their frugal supper.

But Fray Fernando could not eat. Out of the fulness of his heart he talked to José of the former days, and of Melchior del Salto; until it became absolutely necessary for him to attend to his evening devotions. When these were over, José prevailed on him to lie down, and at least endeavour to take some rest. Sleep was not possible to him; but it was good to lie motionless in the dark on his mat, to think over the past and the present, and to thank God for His great mercy.

José, when left alone, meditated for a little while on the patre's strange history, then disinterred his own treasure, and began to examine it.

The bitter disappointment that he felt at first had by no means passed away. He quite believed all that Walter Grey had told him. This, from his point of view, was both natural and reasonable. His forefathers had gone forth to propagate the worship of the Sun, as the best and purest religion they knew. And yet that worship had not wholly satisfied the more intelligent amongst them; and they had turned readily, nay, eagerly, to the Spaniards as the depositaries of a more satisfying faith, which they gladly learned from them. But José had had abundant cause to suspect that the Spaniards were not, as they professed, the chief favourites of the true, unseen God, nor their kind of worship the most acceptable that could be offered to Him. What more reasonable than to suppose that the wise and powerful English, from whom he hoped so much, would be better instructed?

But, granted that Walter's words were true, what they revealed was still ". a mystery of the Faith," and nothing more. And in far more educated minds than José's mist and mystery are closely allied. The hopes that had seemed so real, so substantial, so near, were relegated at once to the land of dreams and shadows. Hence the chill disappointment, the utter helpless sadness, that settled down upon his soul.

After a long interval of desultory brooding, that did not deserve the name of thought, he roused himself, trimmed the lamp Fray Fernando had left lighted, and sat down to read over, yet once more, that sublime psalm-the song of the King who should reign in righteousness.

the uprising of the sun-a rapid tropical sun

rise.

Would that King then, he questioned with himself, really come in His glory, take the part of his people, and avenge them upon their enemies, the cruel Spaniards? Might not this, after all, be possible? And if so, what a vengeance His would be! José was neither merciless nor bloodthirsty; he desired no wholesale massacres, no tortures. And yet, as he sat there with the breviary still open before him, a vivid panorama rose before his eyes. He saw the great square of Cuzco filled with Indians, mounted upon splendid horses, and carrying fire-breathing clubs,-all guarding a grim scaffold draped with black, where a stately Spaniard, with the features of the viceroy Toledo, was about to bow his haughty head beneath the fatal axe.

But a loud knocking at the outer door dispelled his vision into air. He hastened to unbar it, and confronted a sun-burnt mariner from the San Cristofero.

At the same moment he became aware that his lamp was useless, the day was breaking.

"One of the slaves is very ill," said the mariner. "Will the padre come and see him, for the love of God? Ask him also to bring 'sa majestad,' for the man seems to be dying."

"I will waken the patre," said José. "Tell me the name of the sick man.”

"He is called the matador."

Fray Fernando came forth from the inner room. "I have heard all," he said, looking greatly agitated. "You need not have asked the name. I knew it."

""Blessed be His holy name for ever,'" José read half aloud," and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen!' His glory whose? The great King's? No, God's the God of Israel's. And yet the great King's also, if Señor Hualter's words be true-for He is God -God and man-Sufferer, Saviour, Redeemer, King." Thus for the first time, in all its grandeur, the thought broke upon his mind. It was like

silver box, which he was taught to believe actually contained his Creator and his God! Upon this occasion, however, the thought flashed through his mind-" Was the King of whom Señor Hualter spoke really there? If so, how could He be 'gone away into heaven?'" But it soon gave place to a reflection of a more practical kind,— "The patre has had no food since yesterday forenoon. If he goes forth fasting he may take the calenture.-Patre," he said aloud, "I pray you drink at least some of this chica ere you go."

Fray Fernando shook his head. "I shall communicate with him," he said.

Nothing more was spoken until they were on their way, Fray Fernando bearing the precious viaticum, and José the little silver bell with which he failed not to warn bystanders to show fitting

reverence.

Then Fray Fernando said, "If it be possible to remove him, we must do it."

"What answer made you to his litany of proverbs?"

"None; save to give him that glimpse of the magic stone. And to tell him I knew the poor fellow was dying (which in truth I know not at all); and that if he died on shore, there would be no man the wiser, and one man the richer. But had I known these were proverbs, I might have favoured him in return with one of ours, from the

Fray Fernando sighed. "The only place for them is the hold," he said. "And that is so dark, and withal so horribly unclean, that, I have heard, many die at the oar rather than enter it."

Surely the chihuayhua flower, the emblem of pity, does not grow on your side of the Mother Sea," said José with quiet bitterness.

"But sometimes there is leave given to bring them on shore to the prison, or to some hospital," Fray Fernando resumed.

"This man shall come on shore, and neither to prison nor hospital," José answered determinately. Here we are, patre. Look, there stands the captain by the helm. I am to deal with him, you understand? But he must bring me to his cabin. I can do nothing within earshot of his men." So successfully did José deal with the captain of the San Cristofero, that in less than an hour the sick man was taken gently from the dark and horrible hole into which he had been thrown to die, placed on a rude litter, made out of a couple of spare planks covered with José's mantle, and borne carefully to the lodging of Fray Fernando. "You succeeded marvellously-how did you manage?"—the monk asked of José, so soon as he had rendered Melchior the cares his situation immediately demanded, and had seen that he was slumbering from exhaustion.

"I had, in the clasp of my yacollo, a certain magic stone, which I did but show the captain, and the sight of it bowed his heart at once."

"And what said he to you?"

passion may be cured; but folly is incurable.' And of all the follies under God's heaven the worst, as I think, is that of the white men, who will do nothing for pity and for mercy, for the fear of God and the love of man; but everything for gold and silver, or for children's toys of coloured or sparkling stones."

Fray Fernando sighed. "You have done well, José," he said. "But I fear the deliverance has come too late."

"Tell him, when he is a man, to reverence the dreams of his youth."-SCHILLER.

MELCHIOR DEL SALTO felt as if heaven had begun already for him. It was no wonder. His limbs, freed from their galling fetters, lay in luxurious rest on a couch of vicuña skin; his toil-worn, wellnigh crippled frame was stretched at ease the whole day long; and his ears, so sadly used to blasphemies and cries of pain, had only to drink in the gentle tones of Fray Fernando, or the quiet words of José. He was very happy, and deeply thankful. Still, he did not recover. He had no disease; he was only worn out" used up." It was time. Sixteen years was a good term of service at the oar, even for a strong man.

Melchior's strength had been failing for more than a year; though the lengthened swoon, that drew attention to the fact, was caused by the agitation of his interview with Fray Fernando. He afterwards told his foster-brother that deliver