The strumming of a _tiple_ in the distance attracted him. Following it, he found a small settlement of bamboo huts hidden away in a beautiful grove of moriche palms, through which the moonbeams filtered in silvery stringers. Little gardens lay back of the dwellings, and the usual number of goats and pigs were dozing in the heavy shadows of the scarcely stirring trees. Reserved matrons and shy _doncellas_ appeared in the doorways; and curious children, naked and chubby, hid in their mothers' scant skirts and peeped cautiously out at the newcomers. The tranquil night was sweet with delicate odors wafted from numberless plants and blossoms in the adjacent forest, and with the fragrance breathed from the roses, gardenias and dahlias with which these unpretentious dwellings were fairly embowered. A spirit of calm and peaceful contentment hovered over the spot, and the round, white moon smiled down in holy benediction upon the gentle folk who passed their simple lives in this bower of delight, free from the goad of human ambition, untrammeled by the false sense of wealth and its entailments, and unspoiled by the artificialities of civilization. One of the passengers suggested a dance, while waiting for the boat to take on its fuel. The owner of the wood, apparently the chief authority of the little settlement, immediately procured a _tom-tom_, and gave orders for the _baile_. At his direction men, women and children gathered in the moonlit clearing on the river bank and, while the musician beat a monotonous tattoo on the crude drum, circled about in the stately and dignified movements of their native dance. It was a picture that Josè would not forget. The balmy air, soft as velvet, and laden with delicious fragrance; the vast solitude, stretching in trackless wilderness to unknown reaches on either hand; the magic stillness of the tropic night; the figures of the dancers weirdly silhouetted in the gorgeous moonlight; with the low, unvaried beat of the _tom-tom_ rising dully through the warm air--all merged into a scene of exquisite beauty and delight, which made an indelible impression upon the priest's receptive mind. And when the sounds of simple happiness had again died into silence, and he lay in his hammock, listening to the spirit of the jungle sighing through the night-blown palms, as the boat glided gently through the lights and shadows of the quiet river, his soul voiced a nameless yearning, a vague, unformed longing for an approach to the life of simple content and child-like happiness of the kind and gentle folk with whom he had been privileged to make this brief sojourn. * * * * *