“Shall we send after him?”
“No!” said Marboeuf.
“He is a friar. We must not let him starve.”
“Humph! It will not be our fault. I tell thee thou dost not yet know our lord, and too much zeal may only damage you in his goodwill.”
The gaoler retreated, and went slowly down to the dungeons. He walked along the passage moodily. At length he heard a voice breaking the silence:
Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
The man felt moved. It seemed to him as if he were near a being of another mould, and old memories of years long past were awakened in his mind—how once such a friar had found him wounded almost to death in the battlefield, and had saved the body, like the good Samaritan, and striven to save his soul. How he had vowed amendment and forgotten it, or he had not been found herding with such black sheep as Drogo and his band. And earlier thoughts, how when his mother had fallen sick of the plague, another friar had tended her dying moments, when every other earthly friend had failed her for fear of infection.
“He shall not perish if I can help it, and it may be put to my account in purgatory.”
“Father,” he cried.
“My brother,” was the reply, “what hast thou to ask?”