Josè became desperate. "Rosendo, we _must_ send money to the Bishop in Cartagena. I _must_ stay here--I _must_! And I can stay only by satisfying Wenceslas! If I can send him money he will think me too valuable to remove. It is not the Church, Rosendo, but Wenceslas who is persecuting me. It is he who has placed me here. He is using the Church for his own evil ends. It is he who must be placated. But I--I can't make these poor people buy Masses! And--but here, read his letter," thrusting it into Rosendo's hand. Rosendo shook his head thoughtfully, and a cloud had gathered over his strong face when he returned the Bishop's letter to Josè. "Padre, we will be hard pressed to support the church and you, without buying Masses. There are about two hundred people here, perhaps fifty families. But they are very, very poor. Only a few can afford to pay even a _peso oro_ a month to the schoolmaster to have their children taught. They may be able to give twenty _pesos_ a month to support you and the church. But hardly more." It seemed to Josè that his soul must burst under its limitations. "Rosendo, let us take Carmen and flee!" he cried wildly. "How far would we get, Padre? Have you money?" No, Josè had nothing. He lapsed into silence-shrouded despair. The sun dropped below the wooded hills, and Cantar-las-horas had sung his weird vesper song. Dusk was thickening into night, though upon the distant _Sierras_ a mellow glow still illumined the frosted peaks. Moments crept slowly through the enveloping silence. Then the mental gloom parted, and through it arose the great soul of the black-faced man sitting beside the despairing priest. "Padre"--Rosendo spoke slowly and with deep emotion. Tears trickled down his swart cheeks--"I am no longer young. More than sixty years of hardship and heavy toil rest upon me. My parents--I have not told you this--were slaves. They worked in the mines of Guamocó, under hard masters. They lived in bamboo huts, and slept on the damp ground. At four each morning, year after year, they were driven from their hard beds and sent out to toil under the lash fourteen hours a day, washing gold from the streams. The gold went to the building of Cartagena's walls, and to her Bishop, to buy idleness and luxury for him and his fat priests. When the war came it lasted thirteen years; but we drove the Christian Spaniards into the sea! Then my father and mother went back to Guamocó; and there I was born. When I was old enough to use a _batea_ I, too, washed gold in the Tiguí, and in the little streams so numerous in that region. But they had been pretty well washed out under the Spaniards; and so my father came down here and made a little _hacienda_ on the hills across the lake from Simití. Then he and my poor mother lay down and died, worn out with their long years of toil for their cruel masters."