25.  That conversion was much bruited throughout the whole province, and to his example many infidels bowed their necks; however, many difficulties yet remained.  The missionaries resolved to conquer them, for which they exposed themselves to evident dangers.  The superior either did not recognize them as dangers or despised them.  He was resting one night in a location called Ambagan, not far from Tandag.  An Indian, without other motive than his barbarous inclination, conceived the thought of killing him, and obtained two companions, who aided him with their weapons in his depraved purpose.  He climbed into the house boldly, leaving his two companions ready on the ladder.  When he tried to enter the apartment where the minister was sleeping, a venerable old man stopped him, who asked him in his native language:  “Where art thou going, profligate?  I am guarding the sleeper, who is my son.”  The Indian, carried away by his headlong wrath, persisted in entering the forbidden apartment.  Thereupon, the venerable old man raised aloft a golden staff, which he supported in his hand, with which he threatened the Indian, who conceived so great a horror of it that in his confusion he was unable to find the ladder by which to descend, although he sought it in various ways.  He remained there, miserable and afflicted, all that night, without knowing what was passing, until, the morning having come and the minister having come out of his room, he placed himself before the latter very contritely, and told him what had happened, urging him to make it known.  His associates confirmed what referred to them—­namely, that becoming tired of waiting at the foot of the ladder, they had retired thence at daybreak, in order not to be discovered, abandoning their associate to his fortune.  The father agreed, as did the more judicious, that he whom the Indian was declaring by his signs was the great father St. Augustine, who miraculously defended his son with the pastoral staff.

26.  The infidels came to hold these religious in great veneration when so noteworthy incidents were made known throughout the province, and the gospel obtained great advantages.  The errors in which the idolatrous priests were trying to maintain the infidels were dissipated.  The priests, seeing their interests waning by the recent conversions, conspired against the fathers’ lives several times; but they escaped those dangers by a special and divine providence.  Several reductions were formed in the province, and in the adjacent island of Siargao.  The Jesuit fathers could not take care of all their enterprises in that island.  The reduction of Butuan was not assured, with the visits made at long intervals.  Those visits, being transient, allowed no place for instruction, nor did those people preserve much of their teaching.  The bishop of Zebu communicating that fact to the superior government, it was agreed that the discalced Augustinians should take charge of that administration,