"You too, Señor Laruja," exclaimed Doña Victorina in mild reproach, as she fanned herself. "How could the poor man invent gunpowder if, as is said, the Chinese invented it centuries ago?" "The Chinese! Are you crazy?" cried Fray Damaso. "Out with you! A Franciscan, one of my Order, Fray What-do-you-call-him Savalls, [25] invented it in the--ah the seventh century!" "A Franciscan? Well, he must have been a missionary in China, that Padre Savalls," replied the lady, who did not thus easily part from her beliefs. "Schwartz, [26] perhaps you mean, señora," said Fray Sibyla, without looking at her. "I don't know. Fray Damaso said a Franciscan and I was only repeating." "Well, Savalls or Chevas, what does it matter? The difference of a letter doesn't make him a Chinaman," replied the Franciscan in bad humor. "And in the fourteenth century, not the seventh," added the Dominican in a tone of correction, as if to mortify the pride of the other friar. "Well, neither does a century more or less make him a Dominican." "Don't get angry, your Reverence," admonished Padre Sibyla, smiling. "So much the better that he did invent it so as to save his brethren the trouble." "And did you say, Padre Sibyla, that it was in the fourteenth century?" asked Doña Victorina with great interest. "Was that before or after Christ?" Fortunately for the individual questioned, two persons entered the room. CHAPTER II Crisostomo Ibarra It was not two beautiful and well-gowned young women that attracted the attention of all, even including Fray Sibyla, nor was it his Excellency the Captain-General with his staff, that the lieutenant should start from his abstraction and take a couple of steps forward, or that Fray Damaso should look as if turned to stone; it was simply the original of the oil-painting leading by the hand a young man dressed in deep mourning. "Good evening, gentlemen! Good evening, Padre!" were the greetings of Capitan Tiago as he kissed the hands of the priests, who forgot to bestow upon him their benediction. The Dominican had taken off his glasses to stare at the newly arrived youth, while Fray Damaso was pale and unnaturally wide-eyed. "I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisostomo Ibarra, the son of my deceased friend," went on Capitan Tiago. "The young gentleman has just arrived from Europe and I went to meet him."