The saintly spirit in him was strong, yet not strong enough to breast the indignation which now dashed against it.

For a moment it went down.
"Liar and scoundrel yourself!" he retorted, hoarsely forcing the words out of his throat.

"Spawn of a beastly breed!" Hamilton saw and felt a change pass over the spirit of the old priest's movements.

Instantly the sword leaping against his own seemed endowed with subtle cunning and malignant treachery.

Before this it had been difficult enough to meet the fine play and hold fairly even; now he was startled and confused; but he rose to the emergency with admirable will power and cleverness.
"Murderer of a poor orphan girl!" Father Beret added with a hot concentrated accent; "death is too good for you." Hamilton felt nearer his grave than ever before in all his wild experience, for somehow doom, shadowy and formless, like the atmosphere of an awful dream, enmisted those words; but he was no weakling to quit at the height of desperate conflict.