“Patre,” José answered, with infinite sadness in his voice, “speak no more to me. God knows you are dearer than my life—dear as my own soul. But even you cannot help me now. I sit beside you, your hand in mine; but I am alone. My ear hears your voice; but my heart hears nothing. Nothing—except the wail and dash of waters, and the voice of those who cry, as from a sinking ship. Who cry to a King—_a King!_—far away in the distant heavens. And He is silent.” Soon that happened which made José’s allusion to a sinking ship seem like an awful prophecy. The terrors of a storm at sea, always great, were multiplied sevenfold to the unhappy captives who lay in darkness and the shadow of death. Vainly did they try to guess, from the wild, discordant sounds that met their ears, mingling in tumultuous confusion, what might be the fate in store for them—what horror, of all the horrors that threatened, would be the first to lay its spectral grasp upon them, and claim them for its own. The storm raged on; the timbers strained, and the waters surged around the floating prison, which rocked and shook with their violence. The captives began to fear—and not without reason—that they would force an entrance, and drown them as they lay in the dark, clasped in each other’s arms. For now their lamp had expired, and no one brought them oil. Nor food; an omission that soon added another terror to those that oppressed them already. What if, in the general confusion, they should be forgotten and left to starve? Better let the waters find them where they lay; better sink with the sinking ship. Fray Fernando called on God. Even in this dark hour his faith did not fail. Sorely tried indeed it was, by Nature’s shrinking from a terrible death that had no glory in it, and must be faced in darkness and loneliness. Still, he could take comfort; and even give it to his companion in distress. “God is with us, José,” he murmured. “He stilleth the raging of the waves. And all His ways lead us safely to the Golden City. Fear nothing.” But for José, Fray Fernando would have died, over and over again. He held him in his arms, or, weak as he was, he would have been dashed against the wet planks bound with iron that formed the sides of their prison, by the lurchings of the tempest-tossed ship. He covered him with his own garments from the damp, death-like chill, as unlike the healthful natural cold of the outside air, as the noisome hold was unlike the breezy height of Cerro Blanco. And from time to time he fed him with the morsels of food that still remained to them, dipped in the one precious cup of water to which at last they were reduced. If, meanwhile, he himself felt hunger, thirst, cold, terror, at least he made no sign. And to the patre’s inquiries he always answered—far more cheerfully than he had spoken before the storm—that he was well, and that he needed nothing.