God!" he said. "Mother of God!" and went out.

Chris went through with the strange priest, down the hall and out into
the porch again. The others were standing there, fearful and whispering,
and opened out to let the two monks pass through.

Chris had been tired and hot when he arrived, but he was conscious now
of no sensation but of an overmastering desire to see the place; he
passed straight by his horse that still stood with a servant at his
head, and turned up instinctively toward the river.

The monk called after him.

"There, there," he cried, "not so fast--we have plenty of time."

They took a wherry at the stairs and pushed out with the stream. The
waterman was a merry-looking man who spoke no word but whistled to
himself cheerfully as he laid himself to the oars, and the boat began to
move slantingly across the flowing tide. He looked at the monks now and
again; but Chris was seated, staring out with eyes that saw nothing down
the broad stream away to where the cathedral rose gigantic and graceful
on the other side. It was the first time he had been in London since a
couple of years before his profession, but the splendour and strength of
the city was nothing to him now. It only had one significance to his
mind, and that that it had been this day the scene of a martyrdom. His
mind that had so long lived in the inner world, moving among
supernatural things, was struggling desperately to adjust itself.

Once or twice his lips moved, and his hands clenched themselves under
his scapular; but he saw and heard nothing; and did not even turn his
head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from
the stem and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked
nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across
the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there
would be more to follow.

They landed at the Blackfriars stairs, paid the man, who was still
whistling as he took the money, and passed up by the little stream that
flowed into the river, striking off to the left presently, and leaving
the city behind them. They were soon out again on the long straight road
that led to Tyburn, for Chris walked desperately fast, paying little
heed to his companion except at the corners when he had to wait to know
the way; and presently Tyburn-gate began to raise its head high against
the sky.

Once the strange monk, whose name Chris had not even troubled to ask,
pl