In 1628 Montoya seems to have met for the first time Padre Diaz Taño, who afterwards was his companion both in the retreat from Guayrá down the Paraná and in his mission to the King. No matter whether a man make his career with Indians in the wilds of Paraguay or amongst the so-called reasoning people in more sophisticated lands, if he once show himself superior to the ordinary run of men, there is something of an invidious character certain to be attributed to him by those who think that genius is the worst attribute that man can have. This, Montoya did not escape from amongst the Spaniards, but the Indians, at least, were less envious, being perhaps less educated, for they believed that the soul of one of their _caciques_,[80] known in his life as Quaratici, had entered into him. The rumour reached at last a chief called Guiravera, known to the Spaniards as the ‘Exterminator’ from his cruelty, who, hearing that the soul of his late rival had entered into Montoya, came to see him at the head of a large retinue of people of his tribe. Montoya and Maceta were at Villa Rica, and on the chief’s approach they happened to be seated in the plaza of the town. As he approached them, followed by his men, and with a threatening air, they remained seated, merely motioning him to take a seat upon a bench. This he did, after making one of his men cover the seat with a tiger-skin and stand behind on guard. What passed between them, most unluckily, Montoya has not set down. What he has told us only makes us wish for more, for it appears that after the usual salutations Guiravera refused to speak, and getting up walked about the town, silently looking at everything. But, as it ever happens, even Montoya was no exception to the general run of history-writers, who usually are occupied alone with facts which seem to them important at the time, forgetting that posterity (for whom they write) can judge of the result as well as they themselves, but thirst for details to complete the chain betwixt them and their predecessors. One thing is set down _in extenso_—not by Montoya, but by another Jesuit—that is, the sermon which Montoya preached to bring the chief into the fold. Considered as a sermon it does not seem out of the common way, and judged by its results was futile at the time, for the chief answered coldly that he would think the matter over, and then retired into the woods. But the seed thus sown in Villa Rica was to bear fruit, for in a year the chief, either tired of his ancestral gods or having pondered on the sermon, came into the fold and was baptized as Paul.