More than six years have passed away, producing little outward change in any of the inhabitants of Cerro Blanco whom we know by name, except in the Indian boy, who has grown a fine handsome stripling. His patron is well satisfied with his development, both mental and physical. This is fortunate, for with nothing else, either within or without himself, is poor Fray Fernando satisfied. His position at the mining-colony becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Passing disagreements with Diego Rascar have deepened and widened into a standing feud. The Spaniards and Creoles take part with Diego, while the negroes count for nothing, with the exception of Pepe, and he has his own reasons for bearing a grudge against the padre. This is particularly hard, since the padre’s real offence is that he has espoused the cause of the black men against the white. “A pity it is,” Diego sometimes says, “that this holy man never knows when to shut his eyes.” During the last six years Fray Fernando has been growing every day more incapable of shutting his eyes to wrong and oppression. The old practice of “passing by on the other side,” so safe, so easy, and so convenient, has become not only distasteful, but impossible to him. If a man chooses to act, even once, the part of the good Samaritan, he must accept the cost. He will find that he cannot, if he would, descend again to the _rôle_ of the priest and the Levite. But in proportion as Fray Fernando’s own heart became softer, it seemed to him that the hearts around him grew harder. He thought that the whites were sinking gradually to the level of the negroes, their barbarous half-caste families being even more degraded than themselves. In the blacks he saw no change worth speaking of, save a change for the worse in Pepe, who, on account of his strength, intelligence, and usefulness in managing the other slaves, was petted and pampered by Diego, and allowed to indulge his vicious propensities without a check. Often did the mournful words of the prophet ring in the ears of Fray Fernando: “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain.” And he could not take refuge in the strong confidence of faith, and add, “Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.” Fray Fernando thought his work nothing—words written on water, lines traced on sand. Or, if remembered at all, he believed it would only go to swell the vast amount of his sin, that burden already greater than he could bear.