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.