When Fray Fernando was engaged in his spiritual ministrations, José always accompanied him as his acolyte; and from this office he reaped the great advantage of being able freely to visit all the ships in the bay. It was not long until his attention was arrested by the miserable condition of the slaves on board the galleys. Not all the wonders of the great galleons, with their tall masts and spreading sails, and their strange monstrous guns, could turn his eyes and his thoughts from those black unsightly hulks, where sat the long and serried rows of degraded wretches; brown, haggard, filthy, fettered to their places. “Are they men?” was his first question to Fray Fernando. When told they were criminals, enduring a severe but well-merited punishment, he remarked, “The king ought rather to kill them. Why does he not?” For José was himself the son of kings, whose stroke often dealt death, swift and remediless, but who never knew the fiendish delight of torturing their victims. Then Fray Fernando said, “We will bring alms to the slaves on board the galleys.” “Chachau!” José answered. “My Fathers were the Friends of the Poor.” And they did so. XXVI. The Fruits of the West. “And when you see fair hair, be pitiful.” GEORGE ELLIOT. The good galley _San Cristofero_ was doomed to lie at rest for a lengthened period in the port of Callao. She needed repairs; and since these repairs had to be accomplished by Spanish hands, and “To-morrow is the god of the Spaniard,” a great many to-morrows came and went before they were completed. And even when at length they had come to an end, the galley had still to await, for an indefinite time, the pleasure of the stately man-of-war she was destined to escort. These delays were no cause of regret to the slaves on board. They gained thereby some trifling alleviation of the miseries of their lot. The rowers who sat on the first bench, and who had the severest toil, but the greatest privileges, were often permitted to go on shore; their peculiar dress, and the iron anklet they always wore, being considered sufficient securities against the possibility of an escape. Although this welcome relief to the monotony of their life was not usually granted to the others, they also sometimes received small sums in charity, which their more fortunate comrades used to lay out for them. Moreover, there was little to be done. The rowers might sleep through the sultry hours of the tropical day, or sit idle, leaning against their oars, and gazing on the fair sights that met their eyes—the crystal waters, the green shore, the white and distant mountains.