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.