p, but I knew afterwards that our letters
had not reached the sea. That was why no one came to bring help. We had
converted people amongst those savages and had built a chapel. Even
those who were not converted were friendly, for we had taught them many
things. My companions all died, one by one, and I buried the last. But I
myself was never ill of the fever. Yet the people there clung around me.
I committed a great sin. They had no priest, and they did not understand
that I was not one, for I dressed like the others. If there were no more
services in the little chapel, they would think that Christianity was
dead, and they would fall back to their former condition. I took the sin
upon myself, and I said mass for them, knowing that it was no mass, and
praying that God would forgive me, and that it might not be a sacrilege.
I did not fall ill. I lived amongst them, and received their
confessions and administered all the sacraments when they were required,
for the space of a year and a half, during which I sent many appeals for
help. But in my letters I did not explain what I was doing, for I
intended to go to the bishop if I ever got home alive, and confess to
him.

"At last help came, priests and lay brothers. It pleased Heaven that
they should come at last at the very moment when I was saying mass for
the people. Of course there was no bishop amongst them, and none of them
knew that I was not a priest. I should have confessed the truth to the
eldest of them, but I had no courage, for I did not do it at once, but
put it off, and as every priest said mass every day, I said mine, too,
on the first morning after the others had come. I wished to go away at
once. But I alone knew all the people, and could preach a little in
their language, and I was much loved by them, for I had been alone with
them during eighteen months. So my new brethren would not let me go, and
after what I had done so far, I was ashamed to tell the truth about
myself. They looked up to me as a superior, because I had been so long
in the mission and had lived through what had killed so many. They
thought me very humble and praised my humility. But it was not
humility--it was shame.

"During two years more I remained with them, and two of them died, but
the rest lived, for I had learned how men should live in that country in
order to escape the fevers, and I taught them. The mission grew, and
many people were converted. Then they began to speak of sendin