heir own
strengthening, of his faithful trust in the creed which he avowed. And
it well might happen, he said, that such grace would be given him that
even within the very stronghold of the heathen faith he might win souls
to the purer faith which it was his glorious privilege to preach and
still remain unharmed; in proof of which possibility he cited the case
of the blessed St. Januarius, whom the lions refused to devour. But
whatever might be the outcome of thus yielding himself into the Priest
Captain's hands, his duty was so clear, he declared firmly, that no
evasion of it was possible. And what he purposed doing, he said,
finally, was but what countless of his brethren had done in the course
of the six centuries since the founding in Assisi of the Order to which
they and he belonged--and precisely was it what was done by the glorious
proto-martyr of Mexico, San Felipe de Jesus, who boldly carried the
Christian faith among the heathen, and so died for that faith upon the
cross in Japan.

Rayburn was far from willing to yield to this line of argument; yet he
understood it, as I did also, and perceived that it was the only logical
outcome of the only premises which Fray Antonio would recognize. Young,
on the other hand, did not in the least understand it, and Fray
Antonio's reasoning simply threw him into a rage.

"It's all d----n nonsense," he said, "for th' Padre t' talk about his
duty towards a set o' critters like th' Priest Captain's crowd. What's
th' life o' that whole outfit worth compared t' one life like his? He
might just as well sit down an' chop his own head off as go in among
those fellows; an' he knows it, too. I never heard o' th' man he's
talkin' about who didn't get eat up by th' lions--somebody in th' show
business, I s'pose--but if he thinks there'll he anything worth speakin'
of left of him two hours after he gets back into that city, he's makin'
a pretty d--n big mistake. Oh, I say, Professor, we've _got_ t' stop
this. Th' Padre's off his head, that's all there is to it; an' we've got
t' look after him till he braces up an' gets sensible again. I'll do
anything reasonable that he wants, but I'll be d----d if I'm goin' t'
stand by doin' nothin' while he cuts his own throat!"

Young was quite ready, I am sure, to resort to the radical measure of
clapping Fray Antonio into a strait-jacket; and had the opportunity
arisen for bringing their difference of opinion to a practical issue I
am confident t