“Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.”
ON a burning autumn afternoon,—in the Sixteenth Century, which had then passed its meridian by rather more than ten years,—Don Fray Tomas de San Martin, the stately prior of the great Franciscan monastery of Ciudad de los Reyes, now called Lima, was sitting alone in his private apartment. Meaner and idler men were dozing the sultry hours away; but it was not in the nature of Fray Tomas to seek repose while the duties of his calling, the interests of his Order, or the concerns of any of his numerous friends required his attention. In spite of physical languor and exhaustion, an expression of satisfaction lit up his countenance as he finished his second careful perusal of a letter he held in his hand. Then he laid the document on the table before him, pausing, however, to glance, with a slight smile, at the pompous armorial bearings inscribed on the seals with which the floss silk that bound it had been secured. The prior was not a man given to soliloquy; but if we might translate his unspoken thoughts, they would run somewhat after this fashion: "Sixteen quarterings for honest Marcio Serra de Leguisano, the tailor's son I Where, in heaven's name, have they all come from I Truly saith the Preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes, I have seen servants riding upon horses.' He might have added,—and there be none such headlong riders. Pues, every man to his taste. These little weaknesses of Marcio Serra's may well be borne with, after all. For amongst the conquistadors there is many a worse man, and not one better. Would that all, like him, broke off their sins by righteousness, and their iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Certainly, it behooves us to aid him to the utmost of our power."—And, stretching out his hand, he rang a little silver bell that lay near him on the table.
But the attendant, whose duty it was to answer it, was lying on a mat in the ante-chamber, fast asleep,—and not until the prior had more than once raised his voice and called loudly, "Antonio!" did he make his appearance.
“Send me hither Fray Fernando immediately, and then go finish thy siesta," said the prior, cutting short his apologies with contemptuous good-nature.
Fray Fernando, who was not asleep, came in a few moments; and having made the accustomed reverence, stood silently before the chair of his superior.
Fray Tomas was an able man and a good ruler. Both within the walls of his monastery and beyond them he was thoroughly respected. Yet few could have looked on the two who now stood face to face without the thought that they ought to have changed places,—that Fray Fernando ought to have commanded and Fray Tomas to have obeyed. Everything about the younger monk, from the broad white forehead to the nervous taper fingers, bespoke the refinement and sensitiveness of high breeding. Yet he did not look like a man of the schools and the cloister. Power and determination gleamed from his dark, deep-set eye, and showed themselves in every movement of his vigorous though attenuated frame. You would have said that he ought to have worn the plumed casque instead of the tonsure, and have shouted, "St. Jago for Spain!" instead of telling Ave Marias on the rosary that hung from his belt.
The prior addressed him with great urbanity. "We do justice, brother," he said, "to that singular zeal for our holy Faith which animates your breast.”
Fray Fernando bowed, but a look of pain passed over his face.
The prior blandly continued: "Therefore it is that, an opportunity being afforded to some brother of our honorable Order to undertake a work of peculiar toil and self-sacrifice for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, our thoughts turn to thee, as to one who will cheerfully, nay joyfully, embrace such a mission.”
“I am ready to go whithersoever my lord the prior shall command," said Fray Fernando.
The prior laid his hand on the letter. "This have I just received from the most noble knight and conquistador, Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano. Doubtless he is known to you by reputation?"
“My lord remembers I am a comparative stranger here.”
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 labor 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 Black 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 laborers for copper-colored 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 black 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.”
“May God and our Lady recompense thy zeal and piety!" was the prior's benign reply. He then proceeded, with equal affability and good sense, to discuss the details of the lengthened journey which it would be necessary for Fray Fernando to undertake.
The younger monk seemed not only willing, but actually eager to occupy the post assigned to him. Not during his whole novitiate (which had but recently terminated) had he appeared so cheerful, not to say so animated. It was currently reported that nothing gave Fray Fernando pleasure except self-mortifications and austerities; which he carried to a greater length than any monk who had been in the monastery since its foundation.
“I have found the very man for your Excellency’s affair," wrote the prior that evening to Don Marcio. “He is a brother of our house; exceeding pious; and so consumed with zeal for the Faith, that he desires nothing so much as martyrdom. The more difficult and painful an enterprise, the less of worldly honor or profit it is like to bring, the more attractions it hath in the eyes of our holy Fray Fernando.”
Such were the reflections of good Fray Tomas de San Martin; who was as much, and as little, able to penetrate the mystery that veils every human soul as any other shrewd man who fondly imagines that he can read the hearts of his neighbors at a glance.