breviary the _Salve Domine_, and his patron
coolly took down a telescope and swept it over the blue water to
seaward. When, however, after a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and the
body of their victim gave no more signs of life, the captain laid down
the telescope as the padre closed his missal, and remarked quietly,
while glancing critically down at the suspended body,

"He did not go off so easy as I had anticipated; his bull-neck is not
broken, though the knot was perfectly well placed. However, he is stone
dead, and we will lower him down. You, my padre, will bury him!"

"_Hijo mio!_ son of mine! spare me that troublesome duty. Would you have
me drag such a carcass through the cavern and consign him to consecrated
earth, when he refused the last holy offers of salvation?"

"_Bueno_, my padre, I respect your feelings! You need not put him under
the sand; take him merely to his late dungeon, and lay him decently on
his bed."

"Thank you, my son; your orders shall be obeyed!"

Glad, apparently, to be relieved from farther exertion, though with
manifest symptoms of disgust, the priest, more infamous even than the
scoundrel he had assisted in hanging, clumsily descended the hatchway by
the way he came up, and awaited the movements of his chief. The captain
stepped to the wall, and, casting off the turns from the cleat, he
slowly lowered the body down till it rested on the pavement.

"Unbend the rope from his neck, my padre, and hitch it on to that
Manilla chair. There--all right! you may return this way and breakfast
with me."

Saying this, Captain Brand rounded up the chair, detached the silk rope,
hung the loop in its accustomed place, and then waited the reappearance
of his confederate. Not many minutes elapsed before the padre, having
performed the last rites, again ascended the stanchion, and was assisted
above the floor by his chief. Then both together got hold of a
ring-bolt in the trap, drew it up and secured the spring, placing square
bits of mahogany over the countersunk apertures, so as to prevent
accidental falls or hangings of themselves. Even while performing these
mechanical operations, the priest puffed out an account of his
proceedings below: how he had dragged the body to the dungeon; how, when
there, he had inadvertently stumbled and fallen on the top of it; and
that his lips--_maldito!_--came in contact with the open mouth of the
late Master Gibbs; but when he had recovered from the horror of