ited His vengeance."

"You refer to the Dutch President who went down with the ship when it
sank."

"I do; but the tale of that man's crime is long; to-morrow night I
will walk with you, and narrate the whole. Peace be with you, my son,
and good-night."

The weather continued fine, and the _Batavia_ hove-to in the evening
with the intention of anchoring the next morning in the roadstead of
St Helena. Philip, when he went on deck to keep the middle watch,
found the old priest at the gangway waiting for him. In the ship all
was quiet; the men slumbered between the guns, and Philip, with his
new acquaintance, went aft, and seating themselves on a hencoop, the
priest commenced as follows:--

"You are not, perhaps, aware that the Portuguese, although anxious to
secure for themselves a country discovered by their enterprise and
courage, and the possession of which, I fear, has cost them many
crimes, have still never lost sight of one point dear to all good
Catholics--that of spreading wide the true faith, and planting the
banner of Christ in the regions of idolatry. Some of our countrymen
having been wrecked on the coast, we were made acquainted with the
islands of Japan; and seven years afterwards, our holy and blessed St
Francis, now with God, landed on the Island of Ximo, where he remained
for two years and five months, during which he preached our religion
and made many converts. He afterwards embarked for China, his original
destination, but was not permitted to arrive there; he died on his
passage, and thus closed his pure and holy life. After his death,
notwithstanding the many obstacles thrown in our way by the priests of
idolatry, and the persecutions with which they occasionally visited
the members of our faith, the converts to our holy religion increased
greatly in the Japanese islands. The religion spread fast, and many
thousands worshipped the true God.

"After a time, the Dutch formed a settlement at Japan, and when they
found that the Japanese Christians around the factories would deal
only with the Portuguese, in whom they had confidence, they became our
enemies; and the man of whom we have spoken, and who at that period
was the head of the Dutch Factory, determined, in his lust for gold,
to make the Christian religion a source of suspicion to the emperor
of the country, and thus to ruin the Portuguese and their adherents.
Such, my son, was the conduct of one who professed to have embraced
the reformed