“Yes, but––”
“Here, this wine is too new for me. Drink it yourself, if you want.”
“Many thanks, señor, with pleasure. But a bath? I don’t understand.”
“No? Don’t you Mexicans ever bathe before you die?”
“We send for the padre.”
“Oh, that’s it! And he spiritually washes your sins away? But suppose you couldn’t get your padre?”
The Indian shuddered. “Ai, María purísima, one’s soul would go to everlasting torment!”
“There! Now you can understand why I count so much on ablution. It’s absolution.”
The native readily believed. Like others of his class, he thought all Protestants pagans, and none Catholic but a Mexican. “Must be something like John the Baptist’s day, 192verdad, señor?” he said. “On that holy day, once a year, we must all take a bath.”
“Quite right too,” Driscoll returned soberly. “A man should go through most anything for his religion.–Haven’t noticed my horse there, have you, Johnny?” The guard pricked up his ears. “Of course not,” Driscoll went on, “you’re worrying about my soul instead. Well, so am I. We Americans, you know, save our yearly baths for one big solemn final one, just before we die. And if I don’t get mine to-night, I’ll be associating with you unshrived Mexicans hereafter, and that would be pretty bad, wouldn’t it? It’s what made me think of my horse there. That horse, Johnny, is heavy on my soul. He’s most too heavy to wash away. Now, I’m not going to tell you that I actually stole him; but just the same, if a good man like you would take him, after I’m gone–why, I’d feel that he was washed off pretty well.”