t Captain's order that
the fight should begin. And it struck me that the Priest Captain showed
his appreciation of the critical situation with which he then was
dealing, and his dread of the forces which an ill-timed word in
opposition to the will of the multitude might let loose against him, by
refraining from repeating his order when silence came again, and all the
thousands gathered there leaned forward eagerly to hearken to what Fray
Antonio would say.

And what he did say was the most moving and the most exalted deliverance
that ever came forth from mortal man. To that great multitude he
preached there shortly, but with an eloquence that I doubt not was born
directly of heavenly inspiration, a sermon so searching, so full of
God's great love and tenderness, and so full also of the majesty of His
law and of the long-suffering of His mercy and loving-kindness, that
every word of it falling from his lips seemed to burn into the depths of
all those heathen hearts. My own heart was thrilled and shaken as it
never had been stirred before, and the boy Pablo wept as he listened;
and even Young, to whom the spoken words had no meaning, grew pale, and
sweat gathered upon his forehead as his soul was moved within him by the
infinitely beseeching tenderness of Fray Antonio's voice: for most
wonderfully did his voice rise and fall in its cadenced sweetness and
entreaty, and there was a strangely vibrant quality in his tones that
matched the tenor of his words, and so held all that vast multitude
spellbound.

As he spoke on, a hush fell upon them who listened; and then through the
throng a tremor seemed to run, but less a sound of actual speech than a
subtle manifestation that in a moment a great outburst of assent would
come, and I felt within me that the work which Fray Antonio had dared
death to accomplish already was triumphantly concluded; and so waited,
breathless, to hear this heathen host proclaim its glad allegiance to
the Christian God.

But the Priest Captain also perceived how imminent was the danger that
menaced the ancient faith, and dared to take the one chance left for
saving it, and that a desperate one, by breaking in upon Fray Antonio's
discourse with a ringing order that the fight should be no longer
delayed; whereat a deep growl of dissent ran through the crowd, that was
echoed in a still deeper roar of thunder in the dark sky. In truth, the
gathering of the storm in the heavens above seemed to be wholly