But the fact was, that at the end of all those years of loving toil and care, Fray Fernando’s acquaintance with his _protégé_ was very superficial. He knew José well enough: the docile, affectionate child, who not only obeyed but anticipated his commands; the intelligent pupil, whose progress more than repaid the pains of his instructor. But there was another whom he knew not, who did not indeed speak with José’s tongue, for that was now well used to the sonorous accents of the Spaniard, but who often looked from José’s dark thoughtful eyes, and ever dwelt in the silent recesses of José’s heart. This was _Viracocha_, the Inca’s child, who cherished with passionate love the legends of his family, who still looked upon the Sun as his Father, and believed religiously in the ultimate triumph of his race. These ideas, crossed and interwoven with threads of Christian doctrine, made up a strange confused tangle of a creed, which changed its hue according as it was looked at in the light of Ynty’s beams, or in that of the tapers which burned before the crucifix. That Fray Fernando knew nothing of all this was in some measure his own fault. “Silence,” it is said, “is golden;” but this is not always true. Sometimes it is sharp steel; keen to sunder bonds and separate chief friends even like the piercings of a sword. Naturally startled by the hold the ideas of his race had taken upon the mind of his little _protégé_, Fray Fernando fell into the common mistake of thinking,—“If I do not allow him to talk of these things, he will cease to think of them, and in time forget them altogether.” It was easy to carry out his plan. Nothing is easier than to silence a sensitive child. Few words, perhaps none, are needed. A look, a gesture, a tone of voice, a hasty turning from the subject, will suffice to render the stream of confidence “a fountain sealed.” It is the unsealing, in after-years, which will be difficult, perhaps impossible. It soon came as naturally to José to bury his thoughts as it does to his race to bury their treasures in the earth. Thus it happened that Fray Fernando was very much surprised by what occurred on the afternoon of Christmas-day, 1570. After performing the service, he was sitting in his cell reading, when José came in. The lad was dressed in a full suit of Spanish costume, which his kind protector had been at the expense and trouble of procuring for him from Cuzco, being anxious, not merely to give him pleasure, but also to “Spaniardize” him, as the phrase ran, in every possible way. And indeed the doublet and hosen of fine blue cloth, with white silk stockings, set off the youth’s graceful figure to great advantage; and his handsome Indian face, and glossy black hair, had never looked so well as they did beneath the shade of the dark blue velvet montero. On entering the cell, he removed the montero, and stood before the monk with a bow almost worthy of a Spanish cavalier.