tter, through the hot days
that scorched us, and the chill, wet nights, we laboured at our oars,
while infidel overseers ran up and down the boards and thrashed us with
their whips of hide. Yes," he added slowly, "they thrashed us as though
we were oxen in a yoke. You have seen the scars upon my back."

"Oh, God! to think of it," she murmured; "you, a noble Englishman,
beaten by those savage wretches like a brute? How did you bear it,
Christopher?"

"I know not, Wife. I think that had it not been for that angel in man's
form, the priest Martin--peace be to his noble soul--that angel who
thrice at least has saved my life, I should have dashed out my brains
against the thwarts, or starved myself to death, or provoked the Moors
to kill me; I, who, thinking you dead, had no hope to live for. But
Martin taught me otherwise; he preached patience and submission,
saying that I did not suffer for nothing--of his own miseries he never
spoke--and that he was sure that fearful as was my lot, all things
worked together for good to me."

"And therefore it was that you lived on, Husband? Oh! I'll build a
shrine to that saint Martin."

"Not altogether, dear. I'll tell you true; I lived for
vengeance--vengeance on Clement Maldon, the man, or the devil, who
wrought me all this ill, and, being yet young, made me old with grief
and pain," and he pointed to his scarred forehead and the hair above,
that was now grizzled with white, "and vengeance, too, upon those
worshippers of Mohammed, my masters. Yes; though Martin reproved me
when I made confession to him, I think it was for that I lived, and the
saints know," he added grimly, "afterwards at the sack, and elsewhere,
I took it on the Turks. Oh! you should have seen the last meeting of
Jeffrey and myself with the captain of that galley and his officers who
had so often beaten us. No, I am glad you did not see it, for it was
fierce and bloody; even the hard-hearted Spaniards stared."

He paused, and perhaps to change the current of his mind--for during all
his after-life, when Christopher brooded on these things he grew gloomy
for hours, and even days--Cicely said hurriedly--

"I wonder what has chanced to our enemy, the Abbot. The search has been
close, the roads are watched, and we know that he had none with him, for
all his foreign soldiers are slain or taken. I think he must be dead in
the fire, Christopher."

He shook his head.

"A devil does not die in fire. He is away somew