"Shame, nonsense," said Montoro good-humouredly. "In my boyhood, when I first came out here under the great Admiral, I and others paid loving reverence to our Saviour before one of these native crosses. And doubtless, He who sees the hearts of men accepted our prayers and praises, for the spirit with which they were offered." Cabrera's superstitious fears seemed somewhat relieved. "What sayest thou, father?" he asked. Father Olmedo paused a few moments. He was a good and merciful man, and a good priest; but his training had cramped his intellect, and he could not quite as readily as Diego grasp at true and noble thoughts. Until now he had felt almost as horrified as the worshipper himself, that Christian prayers should have been offered up at an idol's feet. But Cabrera was impatient. "Say, father, do you also think that I have placed my soul in no jeopardy?" Bartolomé de Olmedo must reply. "Thy soul in jeopardy?" he repeated hastily. "Nay, then, nay; there is here no question of thy soul, my son, seeing thou didst it but in ignorance; and for those who sin in ignorance our Lord hath said the stripes shall be few." "But still, then, there will be those few," muttered the young Spaniard, eyeing the small cross vindictively, before he turned back to Montoro with the reproachful query-- "Diego, thou couldst stop the father from kneeling to false gods, why wert thou too careful of thy breath to spare me a word of warning?" Montoro smiled at his unreasonable companion. "Well thou knowest, Juan, or at any rate can guess, that I saw neither the cross, nor thine intention to do it reverence. The trees hid it from our view." "And the waters of yon stream shall henceforth hide it from the view of all," exclaimed the discomfited disciple of Rome, as he stooped, and prepared to exert all his strength in uprooting it from its present position. But the politic priest stopped him. "Hold!" he exclaimed quickly. And then more tranquilly: "My son, we will leave the sacred symbol of our faith standing where'er we meet with it. Only, cleansing it from its past unhallowed memories, we will reconsecrate it to Him who died thereon. Our conversion of the heathen shall thus be rendered easier, by seeing that we also reverence the cross." Cabrera looked doubtful for a few moments. "Dost thou not think, father, that, whatever thou mayst do to these crosses, they will still remain to the redskins their god of rain; and that, whatever thou mayst try to teach them, and they may profess, it will be still as the god of rain they will worship them?" "So I should fear," murmured Montoro thoughtfully. But the priest said sententiously-- "My son, those questions are for the blessed saints, and the pope." CHAPTER XXIV. _KINDRED FEELING._ "He shall be hung; I have said it." And Hernan Cortes looked very much indeed at that moment as if he had said it.