Fray Fernando saw with pleasure that his prejudices against Christianity were melting away, and that he was anxious to resume his studies. Often when they halted for the night he would eagerly take up the Breviary, and try to translate the Latin psalms and prayers it contained. He would frequently ask questions suggested by what he read; sometimes startling ones enough, betraying an acquaintance with facts, or rumours of facts, about the Old World, assuredly not learned from Fray Fernando. One day he asked: “Patre, do not the Jews also build great ships, and sail over the Mother Sea, even as far as this country?” “Truly they are wanderers over the face of the earth, according to the just judgments of God,” returned the monk; “but that they have come hither have I never heard. Who told you of them?” “No one,” answered José, who was caution itself in speaking of any rumours current amongst his own people. “But is it not true that they hate the Spaniards and the Catholic faith?” “It is,” Fray Fernando responded briefly. “They are an accursed race.” He did not know, until long years afterwards, that José was confounding the Jews with the English! During the past six months, José had found means to supplement the well-remembered lessons of his childhood, and to complete his acquaintance with the history, the customs, and the social polity of his forefathers. He failed not to improve the various circumstances of their journey into occasions for enlarging upon these topics to Fray Fernando. One day, for instance, an Indian chasqui, or messenger, shot past them like an arrow, his body bent forward, his burden on his shoulder, and his staff in his hand. “See the speed of that fellow!” cried the monk. “That’s nothing,” said José, smiling. “In the old times, the Inca supped at sundown in Cuzco upon fish taken from the Mother Sea at Lurin the same hour the day before.” Fray Fernando knew the distance between Lurin and Cuzco—more than a hundred leagues. He said, “That is too much even for _my_ faith, José.” “The Children of the Sun speak truth,” returned José, a little offended. “Our chasquis,” he continued, “were trained to the work from their earliest childhood; and each had but a short way to run until he should be relieved by another. He had plenty of rest, and plenty of good food and chica; and he was stirred to do his utmost by the hope of reward, and of praise—that was better than reward. Was not that chasqui a happy man ever after, to whom the Inca once said with his own lips, ‘Sit down, huanucu’?—The patre knows the huanucu is the swiftest of all creatures.—But this I say,” added José with a sorrowful smile, “the Spaniards will find no man to run so fast for them, even for fear of the lash.”