Thus plead the Man with his Maker. In his aroused emotions, the formal language of priestly prayer was forgotten, and the genuine, sincere thought of the heart ascended freely and welcome to God, with nature’s true eloquence. Does the Great Heart not hear such prayers? Heart to heart and soul to soul make answer! When man conquers himself and ascends in spirit to his eternal home in the heavens, asking from God direct, life and light to guide and keep him through his earthly trials, the sympathetic voice of the entire heavens echoes his prayer, and repeats to him the assurance of aid. Prayer is to the soul what the plough is to the soil. It opens it to vivifying rays. As the disturbed water sends circle after circle, wider and wider over its surface, so in the moral world, each thought or action for good or evil, spreads likewise, and awakes throughout its infinity its circle of affinities. Angels rejoice with man in his rise, and fiends exult in his fall. Be cautious, therefore, fellow-man, for thou canst not calculate the extent of thy influence in either life.
Beatriz felt her power and her responsibility, and was troubled. Silently, but with deep earnestness, she followed Olmedo in his prayer. Both rose from that forest sanctuary dearer to each other, because there was now no secret thought between them. Each felt that the salvation of the other was a solemn charge from heaven.
“How now? A foe? What means this most unwelcome visit?”
By the time Olmedo and Beatriz had begun to retrace their steps to their homes, Tolta’s hesitation had vanished, and he prepared to seize them. If his anger had been aroused by the scene between Kiana and the maiden, he was now furious with rage and jealousy at the discovery of the mutual love of Olmedo and Beatriz. Of their motives and resolves he could appreciate nothing. He saw only that they loved. Their devout prayer had astonished him, but that over, his imagination acted as a slow-match to explode his passions.
At a sign from him, his warriors stealthily encircled the two, and stepping out suddenly from their retreat, seized and bound them before they could either resist or effectually cry out. Tolta, unable to repress his satisfaction, walked up to Olmedo and hissed in his ear, “Catholic maidens are not kept solely for the dalliance of Catholic priests. You shall soon see her fonder of an Aztec priest than she has been of you, most chaste monk,” and he leered upon him with such a demoniacal meaning, as for an instant to paralyze the speech of Olmedo, who almost fancied the devil himself had bodily entrapped him.