"You have seen him then?" said the excellent Senor Don Andres Santa-Maria de Arcaboba, laughing heartily at the grave earnestness with which his heretical friend inquired after the eccentric padre. "He offered you his hieroglyphics? Ah, I perceive! No man passes scot-free the crazy Cura. Ever his books in his hand, much praise with the offer, and seven times seven maledictions when you refuse his bantlings." "He _is_ crazy, then?" "_Demonios!_ were you long finding it out? Ever since the old archbishop burned his first heathenish volumes, he has done naught but----" "I beg your pardon.--Burn his books?--the old archbishop?--Pray enlighten me a little on the subject of the good father's history. "'Tis done in a moment," said Don Andres; "the only wonder is that he did not himself give you the story; that being, commonly, the prelude to his petition. The mother of Don Cristobal was an Indian _damisela_, delighting in the euphonical cognomen of Ixtlilxochitl; a name, which, I am told, belonged to some old pagan king or other, the Lord knows who--as for myself, I know nothing about it. But this set the padre mad, or, what's the same thing, it made him an historian.--'Tis a silly thing to trouble one's noddle about the concerns of our granddads: let them sleep! rest to their bones--_Asi sea!_--They made him a licenciado, and then Cura of some hacienda or other, out among the hills--I know nothing about it. He wrote a book, in which he proved that the old heathen Montezuma, the great Cacique, was a saint, and Hernan Cortes, who conquered the land, a sinner. It may be so--_Quien sabe?_ who knows? who cares? This was before the revolution--that is, before the first: (we have had five hundred since;--I never counted them.) Somehow, the viceroy Vanegas took a dislike to the book, and so did the archbishop. They set their heads together, got the good old fathers of the Brotherhood--(We have no Brotherhood now,--neither religious nor social: every man is his own brother, as the king says in the English play.--Did you ever read Calderon?) They got the old fathers to vote it dangerous,--I suppose, because they did not understand it. So they burned it, and commanded Johualicahuatzin--(that's another Indian king--so he calls himself.--His father was the Senor Marhojo, a creole, a lieutenant in the viceroy's horse, a very worthy Christian, who was hanged somewhere, for sedition. But Cristobal writes after his mother's name, as being more royal.)--What was I saying? Oh, yes!--They ordered the licentiate back to his hacienda. Then, what became of him, the lord knows; I don't.--Then came Hidalgo, the valiant priest of Dolores, with his raggamuffin patriots,--(I don't mean any reflection, being a patriot myself, though no fighter; but Hidalgo had a horrid crew about him!) Where was I? Oh, ay,--Hidalgo came to knock the city about our ears; and Cristobal, being seized with a fit of blood-thirstiness, joins me the gang.