Under the Southern Cross

On a burning autumn afternoon, in the Sixteenth Century, which had then passed its meridian by rather more than ten years, Don Fray Tomas de San Martin, the stately prior of the great Franciscan monastery of Ciudad de los Reyes, now called Lima, was sitting alone in his private apartment... In spite of physical languor and exhaustion, an expression of satisfaction lit up his countenance as he finished his second careful perusal of a letter he held in his hand. Then he laid the document on the table before him, pausing, however, to glance, with a slight smile, at the pompous armorial bearings inscribed on the seals with which the floss silk that bound it had been secured.