Nor was Fray Fernando conscious of fear, though he felt it tremble beneath his feet as he walked. He had crossed halfway when, in an unlucky moment, he looked down on the roaring torrent beneath. A sudden dizziness seized him; his limbs first lost their power, then shook with a nervous tremor that he could not control. In vain he laid fast hold on the rope of maguey, considerately hung breast-high over the bridge, and attached to it with cords for the greater security of the traveller. He could neither advance nor retreat; nor could he withdraw his eyes from the abyss, over which he seemed suspended on a thread. The sight had a fearful fascination for him. How many perplexities would be ended by just one plunge; not so much—one little step from the spot where he stood! The voice of the waters seemed to call him. But José seized his hand, and with friendly violence drew him onwards. Dizzy, faint, and sick, he reached the tampu at last. He had been suffering all day from a severe pain in his head and neck, and now it became really agonizing. He was quite unable to partake of the roasted maize José had brought with him; and the tampu being as usual deserted, José had no means of procuring him any of the comforts he needed. He gathered, however, some of the ychu that grew near the place, and, spreading his cloak over it, made a kind of couch, upon which Fray Fernando was heartily glad to stretch his aching limbs. “Just read the psalms for me,” said the weary monk; “then I will pray, and try to sleep.” It had now become the custom for José every evening to read the psalms for the day aloud in Latin, and then, with the help of his teacher, to translate them into Spanish. By means of this simple plan, he was making fair progress in the language which he still believed to be that of the ancient Jews, and of the English. On this occasion the first psalm for the day happened to be the Seventy-first. He read it through without even a thought of its meaning, being occupied with his apprehensions about Fray Fernando. But the next—the Seventy-second—arrested his attention. Glimmerings of its purport, which flashed on him through the veil of the Latin words, deeply stirred his soul. It seemed to tell of a great King—an Inca—who should rule in righteousness, befriend the poor, redress wrongs everywhere. But just as he was eagerly proceeding to the task of translation, the patre very effectually changed the current of his thoughts by exclaiming,— “If this pain in my head continues, I shall lose my reason.”