waited
outside in the upper cloister as long as he could stand it and had then
finally descended a staircase which brought him unexpectedly to the
sacristy door, just in time to hear that he was being searched for; some
one asked him if he knew Las Casas, to which he meekly replied, "I am he."
As he could not get in at that door, he had to go round through the
church, which obliged him to traverse the choir, where all the great
people of the court in attendance on the regents were waiting and who, so
Las Casas observes, were all glad to see him, except perhaps the Bishop of
Burgos. This hour of Las Casas's triumph was complete; on his knees
before the Cardinal-regent, in the presence of the assembled Priors of
Castile and the entire court, he heard, with ill-repressed tears, the
announcement that all he had most earnestly striven and prayed for was now
to be realised and that he himself was designated to confer with the
General of the Jeronymites concerning the choice of the men who were to
execute the new laws in the Indies. The Cardinal, who unbent to few,
treated Las Casas with genial familiarity and when the latter declared
that he did not need the money his Eminence had provided for his expenses,
as he had enough of his own, he smilingly observed, "Go to, father, I am
richer than you."

Not a moment of time was wasted, and that very evening Las Casas received
his instructions and twenty ducats for the expenses of his journey to
Lupiano, whither he set out the following morning. One of the twelve
monks amongst whom the selection was to be made was in that monastery, and
the General had him called and presented him to Las Casas, who was as
pleased with his robust appearance, which promised to support the physical
hardships of colonial life, as he was with all that he heard of his
virtues and learning, though his face was as ugly a one as ever a man had;
this was Fray Bernardino de Mazanedo, the Prior of Mejorada, and he was
selected as one of the commission; Luis de Figueroa and the Prior of St.
Jeromino in Seville were finally agreed upon between Las Casas and the
General to complete the number.

No sooner had the Jeronymite monks arrived in Madrid than the agents of
the colonists, and all those who were interested in maintaining the
encomiendas and repartimientos, whose suppression meant the diminution of
their incomes, laid instant siege to them. Las Casas was abused and even
threatened in the public streets,