About sunset one evening, a little more than a fortnight afterwards, Fray Fernando and José were seated at their frugal meal of maize-flour bread and fruit. “O José!” the monk exclaimed suddenly, laying down his knife and looking at his companion with an air of distress, “I have quite forgotten that starving family at Chorillos. I promised to bring them food to-day. _Vae meâ culpa!_ God grant some of them are not dead by this time. I must go to them immediately.” He rose, and began hastily to empty their little store of maize into a cotton cloth. José rose also, and quietly put on his cap and mantle. “I think I had better take a little flask of sora; some one may be ill,” he said. “_You!_” exclaimed the monk, looking up from his task of tying the corners of the cloth together. “I am going myself.” “Excuse me, patre; you know of old I run like the huanucu.” Under the circumstances, this was an unanswerable argument. José was permitted to depart, well-pleased to save the patre, who had had a hard day’s work already. Very quickly did his fleet footsteps traverse the rank grass and reeds of the green fields, overhung with drooping willows, that separate Callao from Chorillos, a little hamlet nestling beneath the bold cliff of Marro Solar. He easily found the poor family of Mestizoes, for whom the food was intended, performed his errand of mercy, and set out on his homeward way. But although he made good speed, the hour was late when he returned. Still, he was rather surprised to see no light in the little latticed window of Fray Fernando’s room. “The patre must have been tired,” he thought, “or he would not have gone to rest ere my return. I am glad I saved him the walk, which, for him, would have been a very long one.” He knocked gently, and presently heard the approaching footsteps of the old mulatto woman with whom they lodged. Instead of opening the door at once, she stood and asked, with unusual caution, “Quien va?” “I—Don José.” The door opened. José entered, and passing at once into their little sitting-room, requested a light. When it was brought, he looked around him in surprise and dismay. Where was the patre’s cloak? Where was the Bible—the “Sum of Christian Doctrine”—the little box of sandal-wood, the gift of a grateful mariner, in which the patre used to keep the few papers he had? “What has happened?” he asked. “About half an hour ago, two hidalgoes came here and took the padre away with them,” said his sable hostess. “Hidalgoes!” José repeated in amazement. “Friars perhaps you mean?” “Friars, indeed! I hope I know a holy friar when I see him. I was a Catholic Christian before you were born, young sir; and I have Catholic blood in my veins, which is more than some can say who put ‘Don’ before their names. I tell your Excellency they were Spanish gentlemen, with swords and cloaks.”