"I will ride out and visit them, especially Fray Fernando."
"Excuse me, Señor Don Carlos, but you will do nothing of the kind; that were to court suspicion. I will bear any message you choose to send."
"And you?"
Losada smiled, though sadly. "The physician has occasion to go," he said; "he is a very useful personage, who often covers with his ample cloak the dogmatizing heretic."
Carlos recognized the official phraseology of the Holy Office. He repressed a shudder, but could not hide the look of terror that dilated his large blue eyes.
The older man, the more experienced Christian, could compassionate the youth. Losada, himself standing "face to face with death," spoke kind words of counsel and comfort to Carlos. He cautioned him strongly against losing his self-possession, and thereby running needlessly into danger. "Especially would I urge upon you, Señor Don Carlos," he said, "the duty of avoiding unnecessary risk, for already you are useful to us; and should God spare your life, you will be still more so. If I fall--"
"Do not speak of it, my beloved friend."
"It will be as God pleases," said the pastor calmly. "But I need not remind you, others stand in like peril with me. Especially Fray Cassiodoro, and Don Juan Ponce de Leon."
"The noblest heads, the likeliest to fall," Carlos murmured.
"Then must younger soldiers step forth from the ranks, and take up the standards dropped from their hands. Don Carlos Alvarez, we have high hopes of you. Your quiet words reach the heart; for you speak that which you know, and testify that which you have seen. And the good gifts of mind that God has given you enable you to speak with the greater acceptance. He may have much work for you in his harvest-field. But whether he should call you to work or to suffer, shrink not, but 'be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'"