And, added to all, he had José—José, the most appreciative of scholars, the most sympathetic of friends—“answering him like silver bells lightly touched.” Everything he learned was imparted almost immediately to José, and the joy it gave more than doubled by the process. José himself would have originated nothing in this line. He was content, and would have been content, to the end of his days, to eat the heavenly manna as his fathers ate their maize, simply as they got it, without the aid of the stones that bruise or the fan that winnows. He would have gone on, satisfied and happy, loving his King, living for Him, and willing at need to die for Him, but never suspecting the mode of worship he had learned at Cerro Blanco not to be altogether well pleasing and acceptable in His sight. If anything he had been taught had ever chanced to perplex him, as appearing contrary to some other thing that his heart held dear, he would have told himself, “It is a mystery of the faith,” and have rested satisfied. What Fray Fernando taught him, however, he understood thoroughly, and felt profoundly. Moreover, he was the safest confidant the monk could have chosen. No man ever knew better how to keep his mouth and his tongue, and in so doing to keep his soul from troubles. He was the guardian of many deadly secrets about his own people; and he was just as likely to betray Maricancha or Rimac to the Viceroy, as he was to compromise Fray Fernando with the Inquisition. His own life at this time was quite as busy, and probably quite as useful, as that of his patron. Most of the surviving members of the Inca family, who had been banished from Cuzco and its neighbourhood, were forced to take up their residence at Lima, where, severed from the associations dear to their hearts, and exposed to the influences of an unhealthy climate, they withered away like trees transplanted into ungenial soil.[51] Every hour that José could spare from attendance on the patre he devoted to the task of comforting and ministering to these his brethren. It is true that the common wants of the body, such as food and clothing, he seldom had to supply. Impoverished though the Incas were, they still had treasures at command in the love and reverence with which every Indian heart regarded them. “We were wrong, indeed,” said the baptized Indians, when taunted by the Spaniards with having worshipped their ancient kings—“we were wrong; for now we know they were not gods, but men. Yet, having received so much good from them, we cannot think them less than of divine race; and if you show us such men now, needs must that we pay them the same veneration.”