for the first time, a tinge of colour
creeping into his corpse-like cheeks, and a more lurid light in his
deep-set eyes.

"I know not about assuring your salvation, sire. I think it would take
very much more to do that. But there cannot be a doubt as to your
damnation if you do not do it."

The king started angrily, and frowned at the speaker.

"Your words are somewhat more curt than I am accustomed to," he
remarked.

"In such a matter it were cruel indeed to leave you in doubt. I say
again that your soul's fate hangs upon the balance. Heresy is a mortal
sin. Thousands of heretics would turn to the Church if you did but give
the word. Therefore these thousands of mortal sins are all upon your
soul. What hope for it then, if you do not amend?"

"My father and my grandfather tolerated them."

"Then, without some special extension of the grace of God, your father
and your grandfather are burning in hell."

"Insolent!" The king sprang from his seat.

"Sire, I will say what I hold to be the truth were you fifty times a
king. What care I for any man when I know that I speak for the King of
kings? See; are these the limbs of one who would shrink from testifying
to truth?" With a sudden movement he threw back the long sleeves of his
gown and shot out his white fleshless arms. The bones were all knotted
and bent and screwed into the most fantastic shapes. Even Louvois, the
hardened man of the court, and his two brother priests, shuddered at the
sight of those dreadful limbs. He raised them above his head and turned
his burning eyes upwards.

"Heaven has chosen me to testify for the faith before now," said he.
"I heard that blood was wanted to nourish the young Church of Siam, and
so to Siam I journeyed. They tore me open; they crucified me; they
wrenched and split my bones. I was left as a dead man, yet God has
breathed the breath of life back into me that I may help in this great
work of the regeneration of France."

"Your sufferings, father," said Louis, resuming his seat, "give you
every claim, both upon the Church and upon me, who am its special
champion and protector. What would you counsel, then, father, in the
case of those Huguenots who refuse to change?"

"They would change," cried Du Chayla, with a drawn smile upon his
ghastly face. "They must bend or they must break. What matter if they
be ground to powder, if we can but build up a complete Church in the
land?" His deep-set eyes glo