d wonderful man who rushed in and upset the
whole of you. I want no romancing; give me the facts."

Barlow's dissolute countenance became troubled.

"The facts," he said, speaking with serious deliberation, "are not
clear. It was like a clap of thunder, the way that man performed. As
you say, he did fling the whole squad all of a heap, and it was done
that quickly," he snapped his thumb and finger demonstratively with a
sharp report; "nobody could understand it."

Hamilton looked at his subaltern with a smile of unlimited contempt and
said:

"A pretty officer of His Majesty's army, you are, Lieutenant Barlow!
First a slip of a girl shows herself your superior with the sword and
wounds you, then a single man wipes up the floor of a house with you
and your guard, depriving you at the same time of both vision and
memory, so that you cannot even describe your assailant!"

"He was dressed like a priest," muttered Barlow, evidently frightened
at his commander's scathing comment. "That was all there was to see."

"A priest! Some of the men say the devil. I wonder--" Hamilton
hesitated and looked at the floor.

"This Father Beret, he is too old for such a thing, isn't he?"

"I have thought of him--it was like him--but he is, as you say, very
old to be so tremendously strong and active. Why, I tell you that men
went from his hands against the walls and floor as if shot out of a
mortar. It was the strangest and most astounding thing I ever heard of."

A little later Barlow seized a favorable opportunity and withdrew. The
conversation was not to his liking.

Hamilton sent for Father Beret and had a long talk with him, but the
old man looked so childishly inoffensive in spirit and so collapsed
physically that it seemed worse than foolishness to accuse him of the
exploit over which the entire garrison was wondering. Farnsworth sat by
during the interview. He looked the good priest curiously and
critically over from head to foot, remembering, but not mentioning, the
most unclerical punch in the side received from that energetic right
arm now lying so flabbily across the old man's lap.

When the talk ended and Father Beret humbly took his leave, Hamilton
turned to Farnsworth and said:

"What do you think of this affair? I have cross-questioned all the men
who took part in it, and every one of them says simply priest or devil.
I think old Beret is both; but plainly he couldn't hurt a chicken, you
can see that at a glance.