“Oh, my lord! my lord!” said the good man, as with tears streaming down his face he followed his shrieking and struggling diocesan up the stairs, “who am I?  Ask no pardon of me.  Ask pardon of God for all your sins against the poor innocent savages, when you saw your harmless sheep butchered year after year, and yet never lifted up your voice to save the flock which God had committed to you.  Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late!”

“I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and Tita too, Fray; peccavi, peccavi—­only five minutes, senors, five little minutes’ grace, while I confess to the good Fray!”—­and he grovelled on the deck.

“I will have no such mummery where I command,” said Amyas, sternly.  “I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due.”

“If you will confess,” said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting fast, “confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you.  Even at the last moment mercy is open.  Is it not, Fray Gerundio?”

“It is, senor; it is, my lord,” said Gerundio; but the bishop only clasped his hands over his head.

“Then I am undone!  All my money is stolen!  Not a farthing left to buy masses for my poor soul!  And no absolution, no viaticum, nor anything!  I die like a dog and am damned!”

“Clear away that running rigging!” said Amyas, while the dark Dominican stood perfectly collected, with something of a smile of pity at the miserable bishop.  A man accustomed to cruelty, and firm in his fanaticism, he was as ready to endure suffering as to inflict it; repeating to himself the necessary prayers, he called Fray Gerundio to witness that he died, however unworthy, a martyr, in charity with all men, and in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church; and then, as he fitted the cord to his own neck, gave Fray Gerundio various petty commissions about his sister and her children, and a little vineyard far away upon the sunny slopes of Castile; and so died, with a “Domine, in manus tuas,” like a valiant man of Spain.

Amyas stood long in solemn silence, watching the two corpses dangling above his head.  At last he drew a long breath, as if a load was taken off his heart.

Suddenly he looked round to his men, who were watching eagerly to know what he would have done next.

“Hearken to me, my masters all, and may God hearken too, and do so to me, and more also, if, as long as I have eyes to see a Spaniard, and hands to hew him down, I do any other thing than hunt down that accursed nation day and night, and avenge all the innocent blood which has been shed by them since the day in which King Ferdinand drove out the Moors!”

“Amen!” said Salvation Yeo.  “I need not to swear that oath, for I have sworn it long ago, and kept it.  Will your honor have us kill the rest of the idolaters?”

“God forbid!” said Cary.  “You would not do that, Amyas?”

“No; we will spare them.  God has shown us a great mercy this day, and we must be merciful in it.  We will land them at Cabo Velo.  But henceforth till I die no quarter to a Spaniard.”