"Señor mio! I am not weary, and I am not grieved," said the stripling, with simplicity, as the good-natured cavalier took him by the hand, to give him comfort. "I wept for pity of the good Don Francisco and the poor Minnapotzin; for surely it is a pity if they must die!"
"Thou art a silly youth to lament for evils that have not yet happened," said Amador.
"But besides, señor," said the page, "when Don Francisco made me sad, I looked at the moon, and I thought how it was rising on my country!"
"It is now in the very noon of night, both in thy land and mine," said the neophyte, touched by the simple expression, and leading the boy where the planet could be seen without obstruction;—"it is now midnight over Fez, as well as Castile; and, perhaps, some of our friends, in both lands, are regarding this luminary, at this moment, and thinking of us."
The page sighed deeply and painfully:
"I have no friends,—no, neither in Fez nor in Spain," he said; "and, save my father, my master, and my good lord, none here. There is none of my people left, but my father; and we are alone together!"
"Say not, alone," said Amador, with still more kindness,—for as Jacinto made this confession of his destitute condition, the tears fell fast and bitterly from his eyes. "Say not, alone; for, I repeat to thee, I have come, I know not by what fascination, to love thee as well as if thou wert my own little brother; and there shall no wrong come to thee, or thy father, while I live to be thy friend."
Jacinto kissed the hand of the cavalier, and said,—
"I did not cry for sorrow, but only for thinking of my country."
"Thou shouldst think no more of Fez; for its people are infidels, and thou a Christian."