look upon Cairnes's face. At the moment I
believed him wrestling with temptation to strike the helpless man, so
irritated was he by these confident words of Romish faith. Determined
to prevent discussion, I elbowed him aside, and bent down over the
fastenings of the Jesuit.

"Enough of this," I said sternly, barely glancing at Cairnes. "Keep
the rest of your Puritanical sermonizing for a conventicle. We have
here a fellow-Christian to be rescued from the savages; this is no time
to jangle over creeds."

"A fellow-Christian! I hold no fellowship with such; he is but an
emissary of a false religion, a slave to the Evil One."

"Enough, I say," and I rose to my feet fronting him. "I care little
which is right in doctrine, you or he. Here is a man begging aid of us
in extremity. Surely the priest has suffered for the sake of Christ,
regarding whom you speak so freely. So have done with dogma, and play
the man a while--press here with your strength on this knife-blade
until I bend back the metal and set him free."

He yielded, ungraciously enough, to my command, giving so good a turn
to the steel with his vice-like fingers that in another moment the
Jesuit was released from the wall. Slowly and painfully, clinging fast
to my hand for aid, the man arose and stood before us, swaying wearily,
his thin lips pressed tightly together as if he would stifle a cry of
pain.

"Are you suffering?" I asked, greatly moved by the expression of agony
imprinted on his pallid face.

"It will pass, Monsieur," he answered bravely, trying to smile at me.
"'Tis strange the spirit of man is so enslaved to the flesh that one
cannot wholly master a bit of physical pain. No doubt I am somewhat
cramped from my long imprisonment, and, perchance, my wounds have not
rightly healed."

"Are you wounded? I beg you permit me to attend to that. I possess
some small skill in the bandaging and dressing of cuts."

His eyes rested upon me with all the tenderness of a woman.

"I truly thank you, Monsieur, but it is beyond your skill to aid me,
even were you of the school of Paris. They be of a savage nature,
which God alone may beautify."

He slightly lifted his long black robe as he spoke, and may the
merciful Father forgive the oath which sprang to my lips as I gazed in
horror at the disfiguration--two fleshless limbs, one without even the
semblance of a foot, merely a blackened, charred stump rested on the
rock floor.

"Mother of God