The words were drowned in a wild cry, as the boy struggled so fiercely that it was plain even the old man's frenzied strength would not suffice to detain him long. Father Paul and the monk who was assisting him with John could not move without allowing the bleeding to recommence. But Raymond was standing by disengaged, and the keen eyes of the Father fixed themselves upon his face. He had heard a brief sketch of the rescue of Roger as the boy had been undressed and laid in the bed, and now he said, in accents of quiet command,
"Take the crucifix that hangs at my girdle, and lay it upon his brow. Bid him lie down once again -- adjure him in the name of the Holy Jesus. It is not earthly force that will prevail here. We may save him but by the Name that is above every name. Go!"
Again over Raymond's senses there stole that sense of mystic unreality, or to speak more truly, the sense of the reality of the unseen over the seen things about and around us that men call mysticism, but which may be something widely different; and with it came that quickening of the faculties that he had experienced before as he had knelt in the sorcerer's unhallowed hall, the same sense of fearlessness and power. He took the crucifix without a word, and went straight to the frenzied boy, struggling wildly against the detaining clasp of his father's arms.
"Let him go," he said briefly; and there was that in the tone that caused the astonished old man to loose his hold, and stand gazing in awe and amaze at the youthful face, kindling with its strange look of resolve and authoritative power.
It seemed as though the possessed boy felt the power himself; for though his open eyes took in no answering impression from the scenes around him, his arms fell suddenly to his side. The struggles ceased, he made no attempt to move; whilst Raymond laid the crucifix against his brow, and said in a low voice:
"In the Name of the Holy Son of God, in the Name of the Blessed Jesus, I forbid you to go. Awake from that unhallowed sleep! Call upon the Name of all names. He will hear you -- He will save you."
His eyes were fixed upon the trembling boy; his face was shining with the light of his own implicit faith; his strong will braced itself to the fulfilment of the task set him to do. Confident that what the Father bid him accomplish, that he could and must fulfil, Raymond did indeed resemble some pictured saint on painted window, engaged in conflict with the Evil One; and when with a sudden start and cry the boy woke suddenly to the sense of passing things, perhaps it was small wonder that he sank at Raymond's feet, clasping him round the knees and sobbing wildly his broken and incoherent words:
"O blessed Saint George -- blessed and glorious victor! thou hast come to me a second time to strengthen and to save. Ah, leave me not! To thee I give myself; help, O help me to escape out of this snare, which is more cruel than that of death itself! I will serve thee ever, blessed saint. I will be thine in life and death! Only fight my battle with the devil and his host, and take me for thine own for ever and ever."
Raymond kindly lifted him up, and laid him upon the bed again.
"I am no saint," he said, a little shamefacedly; "I am but a youth like thyself. Thou must not pray to me. But I will help thee all I may, and perchance some day, when this yoke be broken from off thy neck, we will ride forth into the world together, and do some service there for those who are yet oppressed and in darkness."