lf's eyes, that shone like flames of
the pit with evil and cruel thoughts.

So I lay, with that yellow light on me; and strength came strangely to
me, and I prayed that, since die I must, I might at least gladden him
with no sign of fear. When he found that he could not daunton me, he
laughed again.

"Our chick of Pitcullo has picked up a spirit in the wars," he said; and
turning his back on me, he leaned his face on his hand, and so sat
thinking.

The birds of May sang in the garden; there was a faint shining of silver
and green, from the apple-boughs and buds without, in the little chamber;
and the hooded back of the cordelier was before me on my bed, like the
shape of Death beside the Sick Man, in a picture. Now I did not even
pray, I waited.

Doubtless he knew that no cruel thing which the devil could devise was
more cruel than this suspense.

Then he turned about and faced me, grinning like a dog.

"These are good words," said he, "in that foolish old book they read to
the faithful in the churches, 'Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.' Ay,
it is even too sweet a morsel for us poor Christian men, such as the
lowly Brother Thomas of the Order of St. Francis. Nevertheless, I am
minded to put my teeth in it"; and he bared his yellow dog's fangs at me,
smiling like a hungry hound. "My sick brother," he went on, "both as one
that has some science of leech-craft and as thy ghostly counsellor, it is
my duty to warn thee that thou art now very near thine end. Nay, let me
feel thy pulse"; and seizing my left wrist, he grasped it lightly in his
iron fingers. "Now, ere I administer to thee thy due, as a Christian
man, let me hear thy parting confession. But, alas! as the blessed Maid
too truly warned thee, thou must not open thy poor lips in speech. There
is death in a word! Write, then, write the story of thy sinful life,
that I may give thee absolution."

So saying, he opened the shutter, and carefully set the paper and inkhorn
before me, putting the pen in my fingers.

"Now, write what I shall tell thee"; and here he so pressed and wrung my
wrist that his fingers entered into my living flesh with a fiery pang. I
writhed, but I did not cry.

"Write--"

"I, Norman Leslie of Pitcullo--" and, to escape that agony, I wrote as he
bade me.

"--being now in the article of death--"

And I wrote.

"--do attest on my hope of salvation--" And I wrote.

"--and do especially desire Madame Jeanne, La Pucelle,