ictims of your greed and cruelty,
and forestall for them on earth those torments which may await their
unbaptized souls hereafter?"

"We have preserved, and not enslaved these Indians, ancient senor," said
Amyas, proudly; "and to-morrow will see them as free as the birds over
our heads."

"Free? Then you cannot be countrymen of mine! But pardon an old man,
my son, if he has spoken too hastily in the bitterness of his own
experience. But who and whence are you? And why are you bringing into
this lonely wilderness that gold--for I know too well the shape of those
accursed packets, which would God that I had never seen!"

"What we are, reverend sir, matters little, as long as we behave to you
as the young should to the old. As for our gold, it will be a curse or
a blessing to us, I conceive, just as we use it well or ill; and so is
a man's head, or his hand, or any other thing; but that is no reason for
cutting off his limbs for fear of doing harm with them; neither is it
for throwing away those packages, which, by your leave, we shall deposit
in one of these caves. We must be your neighbors, I fear, for a day
or two; but I can promise you, that your garden shall be respected, on
condition that you do not inform any human soul of our being here."

"God forbid, senor, that I should try to increase the number of my
visitors, much less to bring hither strife and blood, of which I have
seen too much already. As you have come in peace, in peace depart. Leave
me alone with God and my penitence, and may the Lord have mercy on you!"

And he was about to withdraw, when, recollecting himself, he turned
suddenly to Amyas again--

"Pardon me, senor, if, after forty years of utter solitude, I shrink at
first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the habitual
shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of Spain.
My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. Only let me
entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share; for heathens
though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but cherish in my
soul some secret hope that He did not die in vain."

"God forbid!" said Brimblecombe. "They are no worse than we, for aught
I see, whatsoever their fathers may have been; and they have fared no
worse than we since they have been with us, nor will, I promise you."

The good fellow did not tell that he had been starving himself for the
last three days to cram the children with his own rat