der that my lord let him have a friar to comfort him."

"Retire, Father Vincent," said the men around the stool, with more
roughness than they would have shown to a favorite confessor of
D'Aulnay's. The Capuchin turned and walked toward the trench.

The soldier in the trench could not hear what they said, but he had time
for no further thought of Klussman. He had been watching the ponies
with the conviction that his own life hung on what he might drive them
to do. They alternately snuffed at Klussman's presence and put their
noses down to feel for springing grass. Before they could start and
wheel from the friar, the soldier had thrown his hunting-knife. It
struck the hind leg of the nearest pony and a scampering and snorting
hurricane swept down past the elm. Klussman's stool and the torch-bearer
were rolled together. Both lights were stamped out by the panic-struck
men, who thought a sally had been made from the fort. Father Vincent saw
the knife thrown, and turned back, but the man in the trench seized him
with steel muscles and dragged him into its hollow. If the good father
uttered cry against such violence, there was also noise under the elm,
and the wounded pony yet galloped and snorted toward the river. The
young soldier fastened his mouth shut with a piece of blanket, stripped
off his capote and sandals and tied him so that he could not move.
Having done all most securely and put the capote and sandals upon
himself, the soldier whispered at the friar's ear an apology which must
have amused them both,--

"Pardon my roughness, good father. Perhaps you will lend me your
clothes?"

XVI.

THE CAMP.

D'Aulnay's sentinels about the walls, understanding that all this
confusion was made by a stampede of ponies, kept the silence which had
been enjoined on them. But some stir of inquiry seemed to occur in the
bastions. Father Vincent, lying helpless in the trench, and feeling the
chill of lately opened earth through his shaven head and partly nude
body, wondered if he also had met D'Aulnay's gratitude for his recent
inquiry into D'Aulnay's fitness to receive the sacraments.

"But I will tell my lord of Charnisay the truth about his sins," thought
Father Vincent, unable to form any words with a pinioned mouth, "though
he should go the length of procuring my death."

The soldier with his buckskin covered by Father Vincent's capote stepped
out into the starlight and turned his cowled face toward the fort. He