"Then are you guilty of deceit," said the priest. "Mix water with your wine no more, and for your deceit you shall say the litany of St. Anthony of Padua six times before the altar of Ste. Anne. But see that you wash before approaching the holy shrine, because I perceive upon you the odour of wine-casks."
Having brought his duty to an end, St Agapit drew his cloak round him and went out. While studying that day the work of a German philosopher he had been confronted by the startling theory that the brain and stomach of the human system were possibly connected by means of nerves. He desired to procure from one of the settler-soldiers a dead rabbit which he might dissect for his own enlightenment.
As he went a woman met him.
"Father," she cried, "a soldier lies at my house at the point of death, praying for a priest to confess him."
"Follow me to the church," said St Agapit.
He passed back into the little log-building, took the reserved Host and the sacred oils from an inlaid case, and wrapping these consolations of the Church in his cloak accompanied the woman.
Upon a palliasse in one of the cabins on the eastern slope a young man lay dying of pneumonia, that fell disease which the medical science of the day could only fight by sage shakings of the head and a judicious use of the cupping-glass. The commandant's own doctor stood there, a man with some knowledge of medicinal plants and skilled by long experience in the treatment of sword-cuts, helplessly watching the exodus of his patient.
"I resign him to your charge, good father," he said, bending his back to the priest. "He has passed beyond the help of science. Had I been summoned earlier"—he shrugged his shoulders—"a discreet use of the lance might well have relieved the fatal rush of blood to the brain and saved a life for the king."
"Perchance an incision in the stomach to release the foul vapours——" began St Agapit.
"Useless, my father. The disease, I do assure you, is in the blood."