The priest stood aside.  Simpson squeezed by him on the narrow sidewalk; as he did so, Antoine drew aside the skirts of his cassock.

From the beginning Simpson had preached more of hell than of heaven; he could not help doing so, for he held eternal punishment to be more imminent than eternal joy, and thought it a finer thing to scare people into heaven than to attract them thither.  He took an inverted pleasure also in dwelling on the tortures of the damned, and had combed the minor prophets and Revelation for threatening texts to hurl at his congregation.  Such devil-worship, furthermore, gave him greater opportunity for oratory, greater immediate results also; he had used it sometimes against his better judgment, and was not so far gone that he did not sometimes tremble at the possible consequences of its use.  His encounter with the priest, however, had driven all doubts from his mind, and that evening he did what he had never done before—­he openly attacked the Roman Church.

“What has it done for you?” he shouted, and his voice rang in the rafters of the warehouse where a hundred or so Negroes had gathered to hear him.  “What has it done for you?  You cultivate your ground, and its tithes take the food from the mouths of your children.  Does the priest tell you of salvation, which is without money and without price, for all—­for all—­for all?  Does he live among you as I do?  Does he minister to your bodies?  Or your souls?”

There was a stir at the door, and the eyes of the congregation turned from the platform.

“Father Antoine!” shrieked a voice.  It was Madame Picard’s; Simpson could see her in the gloom at the far end of the hall and could see the child astride of her hip.  “Father Antoine!  He is here!”

In response to the whip of her voice there was a roar like the roar of a train in a tunnel.  It died away; the crowd eddied back upon the platform.  Father Antoine—­he was robed, and there were two acolytes with him, one with a bell and the other with a candle—­began to read in a voice as thundering as Simpson’s own.

“Excommunicado ——­”

The Latin rolled on, sonorous, menacing.  It ceased; the candle-flame snuffed out, the bell tinkled, there was the flash of a cope in the doorway, and the priest was gone.

“He has excommunicated you!” Simpson shouted, almost shrieked.  “Thank God for that, my people!”

They faced him again; ecstatic, beside himself, he flung at them incoherent words.  But the Latin, mysterious as magic, fateful as a charm, had frightened them, and they did not yield to Simpson immediately.  Perhaps they would not have yielded to him at all if it had not been for Madame Picard.