“_But still_—they make good and just laws in the council at Seville, beyond the Mother Sea. I know that,” said the Indian bitterly. “But I know, too, how those laws are kept down in yonder valleys. Cain the murderer said to God, ‘I am not my brother’s keeper.’ But the Spaniard says to God and man, ‘I _am_ my brother’s keeper;’ and then he slays him by the sword, by famine, by torture. It would be more merciful to kill us all at once, and make the land a desert, as he has done elsewhere.” “Oh, José, you have need to repent, and to ask God to forgive your wicked words.” “It is not your God I worship now,” retorted José in desperation. “Then what has brought you here? Better have remained amongst your own people than come back to insult and defy me.” “But why do you say that to me?” asked José, with apparent simplicity. “You bought me.” “In an evil hour. Would I had never seen your face! Leave me, and return to your people.” And Fray Fernando turned to go. But José placed himself before him in the path. “Hear me, patre,” he cried—“only hear me; then do with me what you will.” “Were you the José of six months ago, there is nothing I would not hear from your lips; but an evil spirit has entered into you.” “Am I worse in your eyes than Pepe or Zillo? Yet even them you would not condemn unheard.” “Speak, then, if you will; but in words fit for a Christian man to listen to.” “Patre, I went down to the valley by the road my fathers made; and I saw the water-courses they fashioned, which lead so far up into the mountains no man knoweth where they end. In the great _puquios_[16] I could almost stand upright. I examined them well. They are all carefully and cunningly made, and lined with great stones deftly hewn and fashioned. They divide themselves into many little _puquios_—so many, that every corner of the thirsty land is watered by the streams of the snowy Antis, and brings forth maize, fruit, and flowers for the joy of man. Such things my fathers made. But the Spaniards destroy the roads, and break up the water-courses, taking the hewn stones to build houses for themselves.” “Not in Nasca,” Fray Fernando interposed. “Don Marcio has strictly forbidden the practice.” José had gained his point—he was listening. “I know it,” he answered. “Don Marcio is not like others—he fears God. But they do it, all through the country; so that, where we tended gardens, our children will wander through thirsty deserts—if, indeed, there are any of us left alive. Yet the Spaniards behold these roads and water-courses with wonder and admiration. They say there be none like them in their country; all their power and all their skill could not have fashioned them.” “Yet the destruction of roads and aqueducts, though greatly to be deplored, scarcely warrants such fierce anger.”