The sectary's rough, gray face reddened until it was nearly the color of his hair.
"'Tis false!" he growled, smiting one hand hard upon the other in anger. "You only lead the way straight to hell with your false doctrine. Have you made any converts to the Roman harlot in this tribe?"
"Nay, Monsieur, I cannot lay claim to such reward." His eyes slowly uplifted to the face of his questioner. "Jesu hath not as yet opened before my understanding the way which leadeth to their hearts. I can but work, and pray for guidance. I have only baptised one who was dying of a fever, and sprinkled with holy water an infant, unknown to its mother. It is not much, yet I bless the good Mary for the salvation of those precious souls."
"Saints of Israel! do you think that mummery saved them?"
"Surely yes, Monsieur; is it not so taught of our Order?"
I shall never forget the look upon Cairnes's face. At the moment I believed him wrestling with temptation to strike the helpless man, so irritated was he by these confident words of Romish faith. Determined to prevent discussion, I elbowed him aside, and bent down over the fastenings of the Jesuit.
"Enough of this," I said sternly, barely glancing at Cairnes. "Keep the rest of your Puritanical sermonizing for a conventicle. We have here a fellow-Christian to be rescued from the savages; this is no time to jangle over creeds."
"A fellow-Christian! I hold no fellowship with such; he is but an emissary of a false religion, a slave to the Evil One."
"Enough, I say," and I rose to my feet fronting him. "I care little which is right in doctrine, you or he. Here is a man begging aid of us in extremity. Surely the priest has suffered for the sake of Christ, regarding whom you speak so freely. So have done with dogma, and play the man a while--press here with your strength on this knife-blade until I bend back the metal and set him free."
He yielded, ungraciously enough, to my command, giving so good a turn to the steel with his vice-like fingers that in another moment the Jesuit was released from the wall. Slowly and painfully, clinging fast to my hand for aid, the man arose and stood before us, swaying wearily, his thin lips pressed tightly together as if he would stifle a cry of pain.
"Are you suffering?" I asked, greatly moved by the expression of agony imprinted on his pallid face.
"It will pass, Monsieur," he answered bravely, trying to smile at me. "'Tis strange the spirit of man is so enslaved to the flesh that one cannot wholly master a bit of physical pain. No doubt I am somewhat cramped from my long imprisonment, and, perchance, my wounds have not rightly healed."