“You drunken, dirty ass!” Sard said. “Mr. Kingsborough, who was here with me, has raised the town by this. You will be taken out, scrubbed with sand and canvas, and then jailed; so hold on all with your folly and let us go.”
“Mr. Kingsborough did not escape quite so easily, honest sailor,” the Holy One replied. “We are Dagoes, as you call them, here, not Englishmen; not Gringos; we are not sentimental in our earnest. Mr. Kingsborough paid the penalty of burglary. You, Madonna, lovely Margarita Kingsborough, will tell you. You saw what happened to your brother. Tell him.”
“I heard him groan from a blow, Mr. Harker,” Margarita said. “Then, when the lights went on, I saw him lying dead on the floor; the Indians dragged him out.”
“Correct,” the Holy One said. “He is dead. And you are helpless. Your fleet can’t help you, nor your Minister, nor your Consul, nor your State, nor any other of those things you believe in. You are in the hands of power. You are elements for power to sacrifice. You, man, are bread; you, woman, are wine; and I shall sacrifice your bread and wine, your blood and honour, your life and your chastity.”
“I knew a dirty talker like you once before,” Sard said. “He was a Portuguese babu on the mother’s side; his father was the port of Goa. He fell into the slime once at low tide; but even without that you could not tell him from filth.”
“I leave you to prepare yourselves,” the Holy One said. “I go to prepare myself for communion with my god, the god of evil, who will come down here, to eat of the bread and drink of the wine.” His head went back as he spoke, and his eyes lit up (they were light-brown rolling eyes) till they were like the eyes of a beast that sees in the dark. He began to pray as he stood; his head went even further back, till they could hardly see his lips moving; then he began to chant:
“I am a body and a hand that wait
Thy power, O Evil; use and make me great
With lust and thirst for blood until I shine
Like goat for rut, like wolf for murder, thine.”