Here he took from about his hairy neck a heavy Italian crucifix of black wood, whereon was a figure of our Lord, wrought in white enamel, with golden nails, and a golden crown of thorns.

“Now read,” he whispered, heaving up the crucifix above me.  And as he lifted it, a bright blade, strong, narrow, and sharp, leaped out from beneath the feet of our Lord, and glittered within an inch of my throat.  An emblem of this false friar it was, the outside of whom was as that of a holy man, while within he was a murdering sword.

“Read!” he whispered again, pricking my throat with the dagger’s point.

Then I read aloud, and as I read I was half choked with my blood, and now and then was stopped; but still he cried—­

“Read, and if one word is wrong, thine absolution shall come all the swifter.”

So I read, and, may I be forgiven if I sinned in deceiving one so vile!  I uttered not what I had written, but what he had bidden me to write.

“I, Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, being now in the article of death, do attest on my hope of salvation, and do especially desire Madame Jeanne, La Pucelle, and all Frenchmen and Scots loyal to our Sovereign Lord the Dauphin, to accept my witness that Brother Thomas, of the Order of St. Francis, called Noiroufle while of the world, has been most falsely and treacherously accused by me of divers deeds of black treason, and dealing with our enemies of England, against our Lord the Dauphin, and the Maid, the Sister of the Saints, and of this I heartily repent me, as may God pardon my sins, on the faith of a sinful and dying man.  Signed, at Orleans, Norman Leslie, the younger, of Pitcullo, this eighth of May, in the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and twenty-nine.”

When I had ended, he took away his blasphemous dagger-point from my throat.

“Very clerkly read,” he spake, “and all runs smooth; methinks myself had been no poor scribe, were I but a clerk.  Hadst thou written other matter, to betray my innocence, thou couldst not remember what I said, even word for word,” he added gleefully.  “Now I might strangle thee slowly”; and he set his fingers about my throat, I being too weak to do more than clutch at his hand, with a grasp like a babe’s.  “But that leaves black finger-marks, another kind of witness than thine in my favour.  Or I might give thee the blade of this blessed crucifix; yet dagger wounds are like lips and have a voice, and blood cries from the ground, says Holy Writ.  Pardon my tardiness, my poor brother, but this demands deep thought, and holy offices must not be hurried unseemly.”  He sat now with his back to me, his hand still on my throat, so deep in thought that he heard not, as did my sharpened ears, a door shut softly, and foot-falls echoing in the house below.  If I could only cry aloud! but he would stifle me ere the cry reached my throat!