The acid was brought and the ingots were tested at hazard, Pereira holding them up to the light of a lamp.
“They are good,” he said. “Now, Father, do your part.”
The priest Francisco stepped forward. He was very pale and seemed terrified. Leonard, watching him, wondered what had brought him into such company, for the man’s face was good and even refined.
“Dom Antonio,” said the priest in a soft girlish voice, “I protest against this. Fate has brought me among you, though not of my own will, and I have been forced to bear the sight of much evil, but I have wrought none. I have shriven the dying, I have ministered to the sick, I have comforted the oppressed, but I have taken no share of the price of blood. I am a priest of our holy Church, and if I wed these two before the sight of men, they will be husband and wife till death, and I shall have set the seal of the blessing of the Church upon an act of shame. I will not do it.”
“You will not do it, you shaveling traitor?” screamed Pereira in a voice hoarse with rage. “Do you want to follow your brother then? Look here, my friend, either you obey me and marry these two or——” and he hissed a horrible threat.
“NO, no,” said Leonard, anxious to find an escape from this abominable mockery. “Let him be. What do the cheat’s prayers matter? The lady and I can do without them.”
“I tell you, stranger, that you shall marry the girl, and this sniveller must marry you. If you don’t, I will keep both her and the gold. And as for him, he can choose. Here, slaves, bring the sjamboch.”
Francisco’s delicate face flushed pink. “I am no hero that I can suffer thus,” he said; “I will do your bidding, Dom Antonio, and may God forgive me the sin! For you, Pierre and Juanna, I am about to make you man and wife, to join you in a sacrament that is none the less holy and indissoluble because of the dreadful circumstances under which it is celebrated. I say to you, Pierre, abandon your wickedness, and love and cherish this woman, lest a curse from heaven fall upon you. I say to you, Juanna, put your trust in God, the God of the fatherless and oppressed, who will avenge your wrongs—and forgive me. Let water be brought, that I may consecrate it—water and a ring.”
“Here, take this one,” said Pereira, lifting Leonard’s signet ring from the pile of gold. “I give it back for a luck-penny.”
And he tossed the ring to the priest.