:
"Go for him quickly, for I shall not move from this spot until he
comes." He departed without a word, and all of the people remained
motionless, staring with fright. When they recovered their equanimity,
their whole attempt was to excuse their negligence by empty excuses,
which I accepted in order to calm their minds. Inside of an hour
I found in my presence him whom I desired so much. He, seeing the
love with which I received him, and how differently my purpose was
declared from that which his fears gave him to understand, recovered
his courage in full, and immediately offered himself for baptism--a
matter which I was unwilling to defer, in order that I might leave
him with his salvation assured. Consequently, after instructing him
briefly, I baptized him, and called him Martin, as that happy lot came
to him on that saint's day. [72] He satisfied my hopes and hastened
to me every time when I afterward visited his village of Malande,
very punctually, and always with some special refreshment both for
me and for him who in my company had acted as his sponsor.

The other lavia whom I saw was in one of the Joloan islands,
called Pangutara. [73] Him I found to be already a Christian,
whom Father Alexandro Lopez, a great apostle of the Joloans, had
reduced and baptized in Samboangan, and called Santiago. This man
is naturally very well dispositioned and has no moral defects, and
he is a man of a celestial peace and serenity. He is always bubbling
with laughter, which is the effect of the security of his soul; for,
when the conscience has nothing to fear, the heart has gladness to
scatter abroad.

I must not neglect to tell one thing that I noticed in regard to the
nature of the people of this profession, from what I could gather
from the exterior of those two, which seems to me to be the reason
that takes them along the pathway so unusual and difficult in a
climate so hot, and lands so dangerous (as he who has had experience
in these islands, and who knows the wretchedness of their natives
in this region, will know). For the physiognomy of those men is that
of eunuchs, and their natural disposition and condition are so cold,
that it made me think that they must be so naturally, and that nature
kept her virtue under control in this region. But since they behave
in all other things with so blameless a life, I shall always consider
them as prodigies of the divine Providence in favor of virtue. For
no one despises virtue as