“But He is wiser than I,—and oh, how tender with His wayward child! The first word by which He brought me comfort was thine, José: ‘Every way He makes for us leads safely to the Golden City.’ Still, though comforted, I was not at peace, until at last there came another word, borne softly into the depths of my heart—a brief, simple word, but a word of His—‘Come unto Me.’—‘Unto Me.’ That is enough. That one thought fills all my soul. I care not for the way, since He—He Himself—is the end. I am satisfied. I need no more. Thou hast dealt well with Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word!” XXXIX. José’s Words. “Who hears the last shriek from the sinking bark On the mid sea, and with the storm alone; And bearing to the abyss, unseen, unknown, Its freight of human souls?—the o’ermastering wave, Who shall tell how it rushed, and none to save?” HEMANS. Without a word of lamentation, without a tear or sigh, José heard all. He fully comprehended the patre’s situation, and his own. He believed that he must soon close the eyes of his father and his friend; and that duty done, that he must linger on in his frightful prison alone, until Death, the deliverer, should come to him also. It never occurred to him that, after all, he might live to see those distant alien shores towards which his enemies were bearing him. No Child of the Sun, he told himself, could live on for dreary months and months without his Father’s smile, deprived of light and air and liberty. Fitful longings for these common but most precious boons came and went, troubling with passing storms the deep and bitter waters of anguish that filled his soul like a flood. Often would he start from dreams of the glittering ice-crowned heights of the Andes, as he used to see them from Cerro Blanco; or of the cool interior of Yupanqui’s house, with some melody of his native land, breathed by the lips of Coyllur, still sounding in his ear. Often, again, the great green leaves of the tropical forest would droop over his head; he would touch them, pluck them, feel their moist coolness, watch the sunbeams flicker amongst them, see some bright bird with radiant plumage flit through their overhanging branches, and be wakened by its song, or by the murmuring sound of running waters. Thus brought back to his misery, he would rise from his place without moan or murmur, trim the lamp, give Fray Fernando food or water, or do for him, most tenderly, any other little office that love and watchful care suggested; but, except to answer his questions, and that briefly, he scarcely ever spoke.