“Four days,” answered the young man somewhat ruffled.
“Did you come here as an employee?”
“No, sir. I came on my own account in order to become acquainted with the country.”
“Man, what a rare bird you are!” exclaimed Father Dámaso, looking at him with curiosity. “To come here on your own account for such foolish ends! What a phenomenon! And when so many books have been written about this country——”
Then, striking the arm of his chair with sudden violence, he exclaimed: “The country is being lost; it is lost already. The governing power supports heretics against the ministers of God.”
“What do you mean?” again asked the lieutenant, half rising from his chair.
“What do I mean?” repeated Father Dámaso, again raising his voice, and facing the lieutenant. “I mean what I say. I mean that, when a priest turns away the corpse of a heretic from his cemetery, no one, not even the King himself, has the right to interfere, and still less to punish. And yet a general, a miserable little general——”
“Father! His Excellency is the vice-regal representative of His Majesty the King!” exclaimed the officer, rising to his feet.
“What do I care for His Excellency, or for any of your vice-regal representatives!” answered the Franciscan, rising in his turn. “In any other time than the present, he would have been thrown down stairs in the same way as the religious corporations treated the sacrilegious governor Bustamente in his time. Those were the days when there was faith!”
“I’ll tell you right here that I don’t allow any—His Excellency represents His Majesty the King!”