The woman drew herself to her full stature, and turned on him a defiant look.

“Gods or devils!” she said in a ringing tone—­“which you will!  What can an immured anchorite know of the vast mysteries of the wind-borne spirits?  Is this child to live or die?  My gods can save her; if yours can, let them take her!  She is nought to me.”

“When Elijah wrestled with the prophets of Baal, where did victory rest?” said the priest, and he too stooped down and inspected the wound.  “She is past cure,” he said, rising sadly; “it remains but to pray for her soul.”

At this critical moment an agonizing shriek rang through the forest.  The same runners who had sped to Marie Torode’s cottage and had learnt there that the wise woman had in truth passed away, had brought back with them Suzanne’s mother, who threw herself on her child’s body endeavouring to staunch the blood, and to restore animation.  Finding her efforts vain, she had listened anxiously to the words that had passed, and on hearing the priest’s sentence of doom she burst into frantic grief and supplication.  Turning to each disputant she cried—­“Save her! save her young life!  I suckled her, I reared her, I love her!—­oh, how I love her!—­do not let her die!”

“She can be saved!” curtly responded the stranger.  The priest was silent.  A murmur arose.  Austin, who had trained himself to study those among whom he laboured, saw that the feeling was rising strongly against him.  His antagonist saw it also, and pressed her victory.

“Yes!” she said scornfully, “it is a small matter for my Gods to save her, but they will not be besought while this bald-pate obtrudes his presence.  Let him leave us!”

The priest was much perplexed.  He knew the skill of these lonely women; secretly he had faith in their power of witchcraft, though attributing it to the direct agency of Satan.  He thought it not impossible that there was truth in the boast; and his heart was wrung with the mother’s grief.  On the other hand, the public defeat was a sore trial; but it was clear to him that for the present at least the analogy of Elijah’s struggle was imperfect:  he must wait, and meanwhile bear his discomfiture with meekness.  He prepared to retire.  The victor was not, however, even now satisfied.  “Take with you,” she said, “yon idol that defaces the sacred oak!”

The good fathers, following their usual practice of associating emblems of heathen with those of Christian worship, in the hope of gradually diverting the reverence to the latter without giving to the former a ruder shock than could be endured, had suspended a small cross on the oak, hoping eventually to carve the tree itself into a sacred emblem; it was to this that the woman was pointing with a sneer.

But this time she had made a blunder.  Father Austin turned to the crucifix and his strength and fire returned.  Taking it from the tree, reverently kissing it and holding it aloft, he said solemnly—­“Let my brothers and sisters come with me!  We will pray apart, where no profane words can reach us.  Perchance our prayers may be granted!” Not a few of the hearers followed him; sufficient indeed to make an imposing procession:  the triumph of the Evil One was at least dimmed.