"At first I knew not. In an instant I saw all-mountains, rocks, river tumbling at their base, slight strong bridge of osiers-as if revealed by a lightning flash. But now I know. It was some chance words of yours, spoken then, 'Our people trusted the Inca. And they knew that every way he made for them would lead them safely to the Golden City.'"

José smiled, then murmured softly, "Yachani" (I know). He had still a habit of dropping a word or two in his native tongue when anything touched his heart. "I know" in Spanish only meant "I am aware." "I know" in Quichua meant "I feel, I am satisfied.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

EASTER-DAY.

"Christ hath sent us down the angels; And the whole earth and the skies

Are illumed by altar candles

Lit for blessed mysteries;

And a Priest's hand through creation Waveth calm and consecration. "

E. B. BROWNING,

It was Easter-day in the City of the Kings, the capital of the New World. The bells of the Christian churches rang out glad peals of triumph; banners and tapestry adorned the principal streets, which were thronged by Spaniards, Creoles, and Indians in their gayest costumes. But in the great Square the throng was thickest, and all were pouring onwards in a steady stream towards the new cathedral.

This singular building stood before them, in all the glory of its painted façade of glaring red and yellow, its lath and plaster towers, and its three wide green doors, now thrown open for every one to enter. But, once within, the bad taste that planned the exterior was forgotten, and nothing felt but admiration. Decorations of the most costly kind abounded in rich profusion; and the numerous altars literally groaned beneath the weight of silver vessels, massive enough for a monarch's ransom.

It was very early, yet the spacious building was already filling rapidly. Perhaps rather with eager sight-seers than with devout worshippers or attentive hearers. For there was much to be seen that

Places were reserved in the nave for the friars of the four great monasteries-the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Augustinians, and the Mercedarios; and by-and-by they defiled slowly in, wearing their appropriate costumes. The Franciscans looked the best satisfied and the most interested the sermon of the day was to be preached by a Franciscan monk.

Few Indians were visible; not that they would not have liked well enough to witness the pageant, but the Spaniards and Creoles, as was natural, had the best places, and indeed left little room for their dusky brethren. One Indian enjoyed, however, by special favour, an excellent seat, whence he could both see and hear everything.

With a heart full of the deepest anxiety José (who, with Fray Fernando, had come in from Callao the day before) took his place amongst the hearers of his patron's Easter-day sermon. He knew that for some days previously the monk had been continually in prayer. He had spoken little, indeed nothing whatever, about his own ittentions, or the possible issues of the day.

High Mass was first celebrated with more than the usual pomp attendant on that chief ceremonial of the Romish ritual. The solemn tones of the organ, recently brought from Spain; the sweet chants of the white-robed choristers; the gorgeous dresses of the priests, with the bright harmonies of their varied colouring; the beautiful children swinging censers; the clouds of fragrant incense; all these filled the soul of Josékeenly susceptible of such influences, in common with all his race-with exquisite pleasure. He gave himself up without reserve to the spell that stole over him. For the time-only for the time he forgot all Fray Fernando's anxious questionings, all his great searchings of heart, about the sacrifice of the Mass; and at the elevation of the Host he bowed himself to the ground with as little scruple or hesitation as any man in the vast congregation.

And very soon afterwards he enjoyed the proud triumph of seeing the patre-still in the simple dress of his order, though waited upon by gorge ously attired acolytes-ascend the stately pulpit in the sight of all.

For a few moments, heedless of the crowd be

neath, Fray Fernando lifted up his heart in silent prayer. Then in a voice, apparently not loud, but clear enough to be heard throughout the great building, he repeated the few simple words he had chosen for his text, "The Lord is risen indeed." The Lord is risen-the Son of God. Therefore all He said is true, and His claim to Divine Sonship established for ever.

The Lord is risen-the Redeemer of man. Therefore the redemption is accomplished, the debt paid to the uttermost farthing. For the prison gate is thrown open, and the Surety has gone forth in triumph.

The Lord is risen-the First-fruits of the Resurrection. Therefore all shall arise; earth and ocean shall give up their dead; not one lacking of the countless millions that are slumbering there. For "since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead."

The Lord is risen-the Head of the Church. Therefore those who are His body, who are made one with Him by a living faith, are already by faith risen with Him. Let such "seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."

These were the thoughts that, clothed in a rich drapery of imaginative, perhaps even to a modern taste fanciful illustration, Fray Fernando presented that day to thousands of wondering hearers. The manner was not strikingly unlike that of his brethren; the gift of fervid eloquence was shared by many amongst them; but the matter of the sermon was new and startling.

Yet two at least of the truths he told, Rome has preserved well and carefully amidst all her errors. Nor were the others, as he stated them, in any open contradiction to her teaching. But the utter absence of much that they were wont to hear-and, even more, the power and vital force that dwelt in what they heard-awed, impressed, amazed the intelligent amongst his audience. If the comparison be not derogatory to such high personages as the Archbishop and Chapter of Ciudad de los Reyes, it may be said that they felt as felt the witch of Endor, when at her call from the earth arose no counterfeit, no pale shadowy image, but dread reality, the very prophet of Israel, come from the world of spirits with a message of doom for those that awaked him.

But José's simple heart, meanwhile, beat high with exultation. Those truths, whatever they might be to others, to him were life and joy and peace. Christ was risen indeed for him.

The preacher also had a place in his thoughts. Now, at last, would all men see how great, how wise the patre was! And, casting a triumphant glance around, he read admiration in a thousand faces, whilst his own was saying, "Is not the patre great?"

But amongst the faces upon which his eye rested, he marked one unlike the others—that of the Dominican from Cuba. It did not speak admiration it was doubtful, dark, anxious. And José felt as if from that moment the light grew dim; and a chill mist of fear rose up and overshadowed everything around.

In his cell in the Franciscan Monastery, he had a strange dream that night. He thought that it happened to him to go with the patre on board a ship which lay at anchor in the bay. Alone, they drifted somehow out to sea together. No mariners, no rudder, no compass there. Nothing but white sails set, wild waves around, fast fading land behind. And they looked each on the other in blank dismay.

Then, suddenly, as things happen in dreams, a storm arose, the wild wind shrieked and howled, and the ship tossed helplessly. José stretched forth his hands and cried aloud, "Lord, save, or we perish!”

When-behold! a Form appeared, treading the stormy deep. And a Hand touched his ;-with the thrill of that touch José awoke, and lo! it was a dream.

But he could not forget that dream.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

JOSE'S MISTAKE.

64 Dark lowers our fate,

And terrible the storm that gathers o'er us;
But nothing, till that latest agony

Which severs thee from Nature, shall unloose
This fixed and sacred hold. In thy dark prison-house,
In the terrific face of armed law,

Yea, on the scaffold, if it needs must be,

I never will forsake thee."-JOANNA BAILLIE.

ABOUT sunset one evening, a little more than a fortnight afterwards, Fray Fernando and José were seated at their frugal meal of maize-flour bread and fruit. "O José!" the monk ex

claimed suddenly, laying down his knife and looking at his companion with an air of distress, "I have quite forgotten that starving family at Chorillos. I promised to bring them food to-day. Vae mea culpa! God grant some of them are not dead by this time. I must go to them immediately." He rose, and began hastily to empty their little store of maize into a cotton cloth.

José rose also, and quietly put on his cap and mantle. "I think I had better take a little flask of sora; some one may be ill," he said.

"You!" exclaimed the monk, looking up from his task of tying the corners of the cloth together. "I am going myself."

"Excuse me, patre; you know of old I run like the huanucu."

Under the circumstances, this was an unanswerable argument. José was permitted to depart, well-pleased to save the patre, who had had a hard day's work already.

Very quickly did his fleet footsteps traverse the rank grass and reeds of the green fields that, overhung with drooping willows, separate Callao from Chorillos, a little hamlet nestling beneath the bold cliff of Marro Solar. He easily found the poor family of Mestizoes, for whom the food was intended, performed his errand of mercy, and set out on his homeward way.

But although he made good speed, the hour was late when he returned. Still he was rather surprised to see no light in the little latticed window of Fray Fernando's room. "The patre must have been tired," he thought, "or he would not have gone to rest ere my return. I am glad I saved him the walk, which, for him, would have been a very long one."

He knocked gently, and presently heard the approaching footsteps of the old mulatto woman with whom they lodged. Instead of opening the door at once, she stood and asked, with unusual caution, "Quien va?"

"About half an hour ago, two hidalgoes came here and took the padre away with them," said his sable hostess.

Hidalgoes!" José repeated in amazement. "Friars perhaps you mean?"

Friars, indeed! I hope I know a holy friar when I see him. I was a Catholic Christian before you were born, young sir; and I have Catholic blood in my veins, which is more than some can say who put 'Don' before their names. I tell your Excellency they were Spanish gentlemen, with swords and cloaks."

"Some one ill, doubtless, on board one of the vessels," thought José, as he sat down to await the patre's return. "I wish, however, they could have waited till the morning.-Did he give you any message for me?" asked José as the woman was leaving the room.

'Yes; I was forgetting. It was not much, at all events. He just bade me say to you, 'Every way He makes for us leads safely to the Golden City.'"

A pang of vague uneasiness shot through the heart of José. He feared-he knew not what. He watched anxiously for the patre's return. But hour after hour passed away, and he came not. At last it was morning. José threw on his yacollo, and went down to the beach. Few were stirring at that early hour; and none could give him any tidings of Fray Fernando.

"He must have gone to the City," he said to himself. "At the Franciscan Monastery they will surely be able to tell me what has become of him. Perhaps he has suddenly received orders to go to some distant place." But his alarm was increasing every moment.

José had frequently visited the Franciscan Monastery, both with Fray Fernando and by himself; and he was very favourably regarded by its inmates, as an interesting specimen of the educated and Christianized Indian. Two of the brethren readily came to speak with him.

In his usual calm, unimpassioned manner, he told his story; but his hearers gazed at him and at each other in evident blank dismay. Then a rapid Latin colloquy passed between them: they were not aware that José understood the lan

"I have feared this for some time," the guage. elder whispered. "Too clever-too mystical! Ah! the spite of those Dominicans !"

“Had he worn the black cowl, instead of the gray, he might have preached with impunity all the heresies of Luther," returned the other. "Well, the Holy Office never had a better man or a truer Catholic in its dungeons."

"Still, you cannot deny that he was very imprudent. Miserere me! We are helpless as sheep against these sons of St. Dominican. If good Fray Tomas de San Martin were but here

now!"

"He could do nothing in a case of this kind. But-tace! we are forgetting our dark-faced

friend."

Let

"Better he should not suspect the truth. us tell him quietly to go his way. My son," he said, addressing José in Spanish, "we are led to believe, by what you have told us, that the holy father has been sent, by his spiritual superiors, on some mission of importance requiring haste and secrecy. Where do your kindred reside? Be advised by us, and rejoin them for the present. The Fray's absence may be lengthened, for anything we know to the contrary."

José bowed. His lips were silent; nor did his impassive Indian countenance express either the anguish or the resolution that filled his heart. But he said within himself, "God do so to me, and more also, if I go to my people and leave my father alone amongst his enemies."

From the gate of the Franciscan Monastery he went direct to that of the grim dark pile of building called the Santa Casa. Here he rang the bell, and requested an interview with one of their reverences the Lords Inquisitors.

A request heard with surprise, yet granted promptly enough. The Indian might have evidence to give, perhaps important revelations to make.

José glanced coolly around the room to which he was conducted, with its sombre furniture and black tapestry. When the inquisitor, a Domini5 can monk, made his appearance, he bowed like a Spanish hidalgo, and then with the utmost selfpossession preferred his petition. He was Fray Fernando's servant, he said. The holy father was used to his ministrations, and could not well do

without them, more especially as his health was feeble. Might he entreat, therefore, to be permitted to share his imprisonment and to wait on him?

José would gladly have stooped far lower to aid or comfort his adopted father; for love casts out not only fear, but pride.

Whatever astonishment the inquisitor might have felt at his request, he expressed none. He answered courteously that the petition should receive the earliest attention of their reverences, and that he would himself use his best interest to further it. He then asked several questions, which José answered truly, but cautiously, for he was fully alive to the danger of compromising the patre by his admissions.

"The honourable Table of the Holy Office sits to-day," said this urbane specimen of an inquisitor. "We will try what can be done for you. We hold the character of Fray Fernando in much esteem, and are desirous of showing him all the kindness and consideration in our power."

"I have been, perhaps, needlessly afraid of these inquisitors," thought José, who had probably never heard of "the iron hand within the

velvet glove." He said aloud, "When may I have the honour of waiting on your reverence, in order to be informed of the decision of the holy fathers?"

"You may call to-morrow morning, an hour after matins. Good-day, Señor José." The last words were spoken with a slight but observable hesitation. The holy father intended to be courteous, but he was really at a loss in what manner to designate a person who adopted the style and title of an Inca, yet described himself as the servant of a Franciscan monk. "Señor José" was a harmless compromise between the much-coveted and high-sounding "Don José " and plain unprefaced "José."

Next morning, José presented himself at the Santa Casa precisely at the appointed hour. Few ever entered its gloomy gates before or since so willingly. He did not even shudder as he heard them close behind him, he thought only how soon he might be permitted to see the patre.

Alas, the folly! are we ready to exclaim, with our ideas of the Holy Inquisition. But from

José's point of view it was nothing of the kind. He knew very well that the Holy Office could pretend to no authority over Indians; the Bull to which it owed its existence in the New World having expressly exempted them from its jurisdiction. Had he chosen to profess a hundred heresies, the tribunal could not legally have called him in question for one of them. He had, therefore, on his own account no apprehensions whatever, whilst for Fray Fernando his apprehensions amounted to an agony of fear. He was only too well aware that his patron was really guilty of what the inquisitors called heresy, and therefore in deadly peril. Being, Being, moreover, profoundly ignorant of the modes of proceeding adopted by the Holy Office, he could only transfer to it his own ideas of courts of justice and of criminal trials. He supposed that judgment would be given and punishment inflicted speedily and sternly. What then remained for love to do save to gain access to the captive, to console, to strengthen, to minister to him-perhaps even (who could tell?) to suggest and carry out some plan of escape? This was the one faint hope he still dared to cherish. The warders and turnkeys of the Santa Casa would surely be of Spanish blood? And might not these be bribed?

It never occurred to him that their reverences, the Lords Inquisitors, being of Spanish blood, might be bribed also. So mean a thought of the mysterious dread tribunal he would not have dared to entertain. This was his fatal mistake. When he relinquished his liberty, he relinquished, by the same act, his one real chance of rendering effectual help to Fray Fernando.

He did not enjoy the privilege of a second interview with the suave and courteous inquisitor who conversed with him the evening before. A familiar, in a kind of semi-clerical dress, waited upon him in his stead. This official informed him that his petition had been heard favourably, and then conducted him into a little chamber

resembling a monk's cell. Here he was locked in, and left alone hour after hour, to his great perplexity and annoyance. Evening brought another familiar, who supplied him with food, and of him he inquired the reason of this strange treatment; but was told in answer that the ser

vants of the Holy Office were not permitted to converse with the prisoners.

"Prisoners!" José repeated in amazement. "I am no prisoner. I have come here of my own free will."

But the familiar was not to be entrapped into the violation of a prison rule. He shook his head and left the cell, muttering, as he did so, "Then go away of your own free will."

As José had come to the Santa Casa with the intention of remaining there (though certainly not as a prisoner), he had brought with him a few necessaries for himself and some comforts for Fray Fernando. Fray Fernando. He brought writing-materials also; nor did he omit to conceal about his person a sufficient store of the gold he esteemed so necessary to his plans.

Accordingly, the next morning he gave the attendant a little note, praying him to have it transmitted to any one of their reverences the Lords Inquisitors. As the request was not unlawful in itself, and was accompanied by a present, it was not refused; but no answer came, either to that or to the numerous other notes that José sent in the same way, first supplicating, then demanding, explanation and redress.

In this manner weary days passed away, growing at length to long, slow weeks of misery. And José began to feel despair. He made frequent inquiries about Fray Fernando, and by dint of bribing the familiar who attended him, succeeded in extracting a little information-just enough to increase his uneasiness. The padre had been ill, but was better now. He had undergone two examinations, both of them since José's incarceration. No one had the least idea what his fate might be. José might be allowed to send bim a few trifling presents; but to see him was inpossible. It would be as much as the attendant's life, not to say his place, was worth.

José writhed and struggled like a wild creature caught in a net. It only mocked his misery that he was well fed and carefully attended, and the few personal requests he thought it worth while to make (as for fresh water and clean gar ments) were promptly granted. The silence which reigned around him grew insupportable. Often did he compare himself to a traveller in the desert suddenly enwrapped in the folds of a thick