“Ah, my friend,” said Father Felipe, to his relative, as the party dismounted from mule back in the great courtyard of the monastery, “you are lucky, indeed, to have had such weather for travel, else would it have been impossible. Yet what terrible insanity possesses you, what fever for running up and down the land like a flea is in your blood, that you should attempt such an expedition. Well did I know how it would be with you, when I sent you that bit of ancient writing. ‘Now the crazy man will leap upon his mule and come galloping at once to our gates,’ said I to myself. ‘And he will cry to Father Felipe to show him the way to this lost land at once.’ Is it not so, my friend?”
And Father Felipe laughed so heartily that his stout frame in its corded robe shook like a jelly. Don Ernesto, too, laughed, and leaping from his mule embraced the good priest, at least embraced as much as possible of his ample form.
“You are always the same, Felipe,” said he. “How do you manage to keep so cheerful in this isolated spot, surrounded by these great mountains, with their eternal snows? It is a great mystery.”
Father Felipe laughed again.
“Ah, my friend,” said he, “you should have my equable disposition. Besides, the food is good, the wine excellent. But, come. Let me know your friends, and then you shall be taken to the guest rooms. Everything is prepared for you. After you have rested a little from your journey you shall try my fare, and then tonight you shall tell me how it goes in the great world beyond our snows.”
Of the weeks drifting into months which the party spent here, there is no need to tell in detail. Delays of one sort or another, a belated intensity of winter, operated to keep the party from making a start. But the life of the monastery was a novelty to all the boys, even to Ferdinand, and they found much to interest them. Moreover, from Brother Gregorio, a great linguist, the boys learned the Auraucanian tongue as well as much of the Inca lore, with which he was saturated. So that, by and large, they were far from being bored. Moreover, all three practiced at speaking Spanish until they became extremely proficient in it.
Nor did they come empty-handed. For while the good monks were doing their best to equip the boys with a knowledge of Spanish and of the Indian language of the region into which they would penetrate, the three chums had something of vast interest to impart to their instructors. That was a knowledge of Radio.
It was Jack who thought of it first. One night, as he and Bob and Frank sat with Ferdinand and Brother Gregorio before a roaring fire in the wide chimney place of the guest room assigned them as sitting room, he introduced the subject. Brother Gregorio looked blank at first. Then, as Jack in his eagerness to make himself understood, launched into a description of how speech was transmitted through the air without the means of wires, the good monk crossed himself.
“Of the telegraph I have heard,” he said, “but of this other thing, not one word. Can it be right? Is this not the work of the Fiend?”
The boys were inclined to laugh, but, as if moved by the same impulse, forebore lest they wound his feelings. Ferdinand intervened. He was a devout churchman, and knew how best to disarm Brother Gregorio’s suspicions and lay at rest his fears.