air was an aged priest, wasted and rather
sallow, like the saints that Rivera painted. His eyes were sunken in
their hollow sockets, over which his heavy eyebrows were almost always
contracted, thus accentuating their brilliant gleam. Padre Sibyla,
with his arms crossed under the venerable scapulary of St. Dominic,
gazed at him feelingly, then bowed his head and waited in silence.

"Ah," sighed the old man, "they advise an operation, an operation,
Hernando, at my age! This country, O this terrible country! Take
warning from my ease, Hernando!"

Fray Sibyla raised his eyes slowly and fixed them on the sick man's
face. "What has your Reverence decided to do?" he asked.

"To die! Ah, what else can I do? I am suffering too much, but--I
have made many suffer, I am paying my debt! And how are you? What
has brought you here?"

"I've come to talk about the business which you committed to my care."

"Ah! What about it?"

"Pish!" answered the young man disgustedly, as he seated himself
and turned away his face with a contemptuous expression, "They've
been telling us fairy tales. Young Ibarra is a youth of discernment;
he doesn't seem to be a fool, but I believe that he is a good lad."

"You believe so?"

"Hostilities began last night."

"Already? How?"

Fray Sibyla then recounted briefly what had taken place between Padre
Damaso and Ibarra. "Besides," he said in conclusion, "the young man
is going to marry Capitan Tiago's daughter, who was educated in the
college of our Sisterhood. He's rich, and won't care to make enemies
and to run the risk of ruining his fortune and his happiness."

The sick man nodded in agreement. "Yes, I think as you do. With a wife
like that and such a father-in-law, we'll own him body and soul. If
not, so much the better for him to declare himself an enemy of ours."

Fray Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.

"For the good of our holy Order, I mean, of course," he added,
breathing heavily. "I prefer open attacks to the silly praises and
flatteries of friends, which are really paid for."

"Does your Reverence think--"

The old man regarded him sadly. "Keep it clearly before you," he
answered, gasping for breath. "Our power will last as long as it
is believed in. If they attack us, the government will say, 'They
attack them because they see in them an obstacle to their liberty,
so then let us preserve them.'"

"But if it should listen to them? Sometimes the government--"

"It will