"Señor," said the Prince, "I think you have been foolish, and not bowed to the fortune of war. I see my fellows have been writing their displeasure upon you. It would have been wiser to have shown philosophy and done your appointed tale of work."
"Señor capitan," said the Spaniard, "I am a philosopher, but not an atheist. Up till now I have worked with all the goodwill that could be expected from a slave, but when your fellows for the leña para la lumbre—I know not how you call it——"
"Breaming faggots."
"For their breaming faggots, used that which was holy, and would have had me participate in their sin, why then, señor, I refused to put my soul in jeopardy, and rebelled."
The Prince looked puzzled. "You are speaking beyond me."
"Señor," said the Spaniard, "as part of my cargo, which you took from me, were three cases of papal indulgences. They were entrusted to my care by the Bishop of Maracaibo, who knows me as a devout Catholic."
"Well?" said the Prince.
"Señor capitan," said the prisoner, "it is with these parchments, these things of indescribable holiness, that your fellows would have us bream the underplanking of the ship. Some of my compatriots are weak: they have twisted the sacred writings up into torches, and I saw them thereby bartering away their souls before my very eyes. I alone resisted. I alone have earned stripes, and this martyrdom. But you, señor capitan, you are not a rude man, like those on deck. You will not ensure your eternal damnation by permitting this sacrilege to continue?"
"At present," said the Prince, "I do not see cause for interference, being so curiously constituted as to think that I can earn Heaven without the Pope's helping."
"You are a blasphemer."