axe blocked by too deep a blow, they rushed him; but each
time he flung them clear. They fell underfoot and he trampled dead and
dying, the way slippery with blood. And still the day brightened and the
robins sang. Then they drew back from him in awe, and he leaned
breathless upon his axe.

"Blood of my soul!" cried Baptiste the Red. "But thou art a man. Deny
thy god, and thou shalt yet live."

Stockard swore his refusal, feebly but with grace.

"Behold! A woman!" Sturges Owen had been brought before the half-breed.

Beyond a scratch on the arm, he was uninjured, but his eyes roved about
him in an ecstasy of fear. The heroic figure of the blasphemer,
bristling with wounds and arrows, leaning defiantly upon his axe,
indifferent, indomitable, superb, caught his wavering vision. And he
felt a great envy of the man who could go down serenely to the dark gates
of death. Surely Christ, and not he, Sturges Owen, had been moulded in
such manner. And why not he? He felt dimly the curse of ancestry, the
feebleness of spirit which had come down to him out of the past, and he
felt an anger at the creative force, symbolize it as he would, which had
formed him, its servant, so weakly. For even a stronger man, this anger
and the stress of circumstance were sufficient to breed apostasy, and for
Sturges Owen it was inevitable. In the fear of man's anger he would dare
the wrath of God. He had been raised up to serve the Lord only that he
might be cast down. He had been given faith without the strength of
faith; he had been given spirit without the power of spirit. It was
unjust.

"Where now is thy god?" the half-breed demanded.

"I do not know." He stood straight and rigid, like a child repeating a
catechism.

"Hast thou then a god at all?"

"I had."

"And now?"

"No."

Hay Stockard swept the blood from his eyes and laughed. The missionary
looked at him curiously, as in a dream. A feeling of infinite distance
came over him, as though of a great remove. In that which had
transpired, and which was to transpire, he had no part. He was a
spectator--at a distance, yes, at a distance. The words of Baptiste came
to him faintly:-

"Very good. See that this man go free, and that no harm befall him. Let
him depart in peace. Give him a canoe and food. Set his face toward the
Russians, that he may tell their priests of Baptiste the Red, in whose
country there is no god."

They led him to the edge of the