"Then you cannot help me," he answered decisively. "You had best leave me, if you can. These people are the most independent of all the tribes. They fear naught save their own superstitions. And heretic though you be, I cannot wish you the death they plan for me."
"Yet you have not been moved by pity for me in the same case in former years," I said curiously.
He sighed.
"The truth is hard to see. I do not know. I have thought—— But I do not know."
I cut the lashings of his arms, stooped and freed his legs. Not a soul spoke. Amazement dawned in his face that was somehow more placid than I remembered having seen it.
"You see!" I said. "They gave me the knife to cut you free."
"Marvelous!" he murmured.
And he employed his first instant of freedom to reach down stiffly with his cramped arm and lift to his lips the crucifix which hung at his belt.
"How have you curbed them?" he asked—and he was yet governed by that mood of gentle humility, which was seldom of long continuance.
"I think, Father, it has been through God's mercy," I answered. "But judge for yourself."