thrust him back, broke a jewelled staff
upon his head, while other priests tore his robe from neck to shoulder
and spat in his face.

At last the riot was quelled; the dead were borne away, and orders came
to me that I was to convey Barnabas to the State prison if he still
lived, together with some others, of whom I remember nothing. So thither
I took Barnabas, and there, with the help of the prison physician--he to
whom I had given the poisoned figs and the dead monkey to be examined--I
nursed him back to life and health.

His illness was long, for one of the blows which he had received
crippled him, and during it we talked much together. He was a very
sweet-natured man and holy, a native of Britain, whose father or
grandfather had been a Dane, and therefore there was a tie between us.
In his youth he was a soldier. Having been taken prisoner in some war,
he came to Italy, where he was ordained a priest at Rome. Afterwards he
was sent as a missionary to Egypt, where he was appointed the head of
a monastery, and in the end elected to a bishopric. But he had never
forgotten the Danish tongue, which his parents taught him as a child,
and so we were able to talk together in that language.

Now it would seem that since that night when the Caesar Nicephorus strove
to hang himself, I had obtained and studied a copy of the Christian
Scriptures--how I do not know--and therefore was able to discuss these
matters with Barnabas the bishop. Of our arguments I remember nothing,
save that I pointed out to him that whereas the tree seemed to me to be
very good, its fruits were vile beyond imagination, and I instanced the
horrible tumult when he had been wounded almost to death, not by common
men, but by the very leaders of the Christians.

He answered that these things must happen; that Christ Himself had said
He came to bring not peace but a sword, and that only through war and
struggle would the last truth be reached. The spirit was always good,
he added, but the flesh was always vile. These deeds were those of the
flesh, which passed away, but the spirit remained pure and immortal.

The end of it was that under the teaching of the holy Barnabas, saint
and martyr (for afterwards he was murdered by the followers of the false
prophet, Mahomet), I became a Christian and a new man. Now at length I
understood what grace it was that had given me courage to offer battle
to the heathen god, Odin, and to smite him down. Now I saw also w