The prior had too much good sense to retail idle stories: such as that the good knight’s parentage was said to be of the humblest; that on the division of the spoils of Cuzco the massive golden sun of the great temple had fallen to his share; and that, with the recklessness of a _parvenu_, he had gambled most of it away at primero in a single night, complaining pathetically, the next morning, that he had “lost a good piece of the sun.” He merely explained: “Don Marcio Serra hath received, in _encomienda_ from our lord the king, a noble estate, rich in gold and silver, as well as in the ordinary productions of the soil. It embraces a very fertile valley, called Nasca; and stretches upwards, even to the land of mist and snow, where the mighty Andes raise their giant heads. High up, in that rarely-trodden region, at the summit of a bleak mountain, called Cerro Blanco, gold was discovered a few years since. A shaft was sunk, and the mine was worked, as usual, by the forced labour of the Indians. But these unhappy people died so quickly, that at last Don Marcio, having the fear of God before his eyes, and being mindful of his soul’s salvation, began to take thought of their miserable case. Possibly he was the more disposed to compassionate them, because he hath taken to wife an Indian princess, one of the Children of the Sun, as they call them, after their vain heathenish fashion. Therefore he hath purchased a sufficient band of negro slaves, both men and women, which he hath been at great charges to transport from the coast to the heights of Cerro Blanco. And there he hath set them to work under competent Spanish overseers.” Both the churchmen accepted this substitution of black labourers for copper-coloured ones as an effort of the most sincere and enlightened philanthropy. Nor were they, perhaps, as much mistaken as might be supposed. “But,” continued Fray Tomas, “as the good knight’s piety is fully equal to his humanity, he is now desirous to extend to these benighted savages the inestimable blessings of our holy Faith. He therefore entreats me to send him some brother of our Order, who may be found willing, for the love of God and the good of souls, to banish himself to a dreary inhospitable region, where the frozen earth brings forth little more than a few blades of stunted grass; and where, from one year’s end to the other, scarce a face will greet the exile’s eyes save those of the negro slaves.” Had the picture he was limning been intended for any other eye than that of Fray Fernando, Fray Tomas might have softened its lines, and have interspersed here and there a few lighter touches. But now he did just the contrary; because he had taken the measurement of the man he was addressing. When he ceased speaking, there was a moment’s silence; then Fray Fernando said quietly, “I willingly undertake the mission.”