There was some lamentation among the emigrants when they saw their
retreat thus cut off, but Luis when once established on shore did not
share it; to be near Juanita was enough for him, though he rarely saw her.
He began sometimes to feel that the full confidence of the archbishop was
withdrawn from him, but he was still high in office, and he rode with
Oppas over the great island, marking it out by slow degrees into seven
divisions, that each bishop might have a diocese and a city of his own.
Soon the foundations began to be laid, and houses and churches began to be
built, for the soft volcanic rock was easily worked, though not very solid
for building. The spot for the cathedral was selected with the unerring
eye for a fine situation which the Roman Catholic Church has always shown,
and the adjoining convent claimed, as it rose, the care of Juanita. As
general superintendent of the works, it was the duty of Luis sometimes to
be in that neighborhood, until one unlucky day when the two lovers,
lingering to watch the full moon rise, were interrupted by one of the
younger bishops, a black-browed Spaniard of stealthy ways, who had before
now taken it upon himself to watch them. Nothing could be more innocent
than their dawning loves, yet how could any love be held innocent on the
part of a maiden who was the kinswoman of an archbishop and was his
destined choice for the duties of an abbess? The fact that she had never
yet taken her preliminary vows or given her consent to take them, counted
for nothing in the situation; though any experienced lady-superior could
have told the archbishop that no maiden could be wisely made an abbess
until she had given some signs of having a vocation for a religious life.
From that moment the youthful pair met no more for weeks. It seemed
always necessary for Luis to be occupied elsewhere than in the Cathedral
city; as the best architect on the island, he was sent here, there, and
everywhere; and the six other churches rose with more rapidity because the
archbishop preferred to look after his own. The once peaceful natives
found themselves a shade less happy when they were required to work all
day long as quarry-men or as builders, but it was something, had they but
known it, that they were not borne away as slaves, as happened later on
other islands to so many of their race. To Luis they were always loyal for
his cheery ways, although there seemed a change in his spirits as time
went on. But an event happened which brought a greater change still.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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