Don Balthasar seemed ten years younger suddenly. I had never seen him so imposingly erect.
“Insensate!” he began, without any anger.
“He is going to fire!” yelled Castro’s voice somewhere in the gallery.
I saw a red dart in the shadow of the gate. The broken-nosed pirate had fired at me. The report, deadened in the vault, hardly reached my ears. Don Balthazar’s arm seemed to swing me back. Then I felt him lean heavily on my shoulder. I did not know what had happened till I heard him say:
“Pray for me, gentlemen.”
Father Antonio received him in his arms.
For a second after the shot, the most dead silence prevailed in the court. It was broken by an affrighted howl below: and Seraphina’s voice cried piercingly:
“Father!”
The priest, dropping on one knee, sustained the silvery head, with its thin features already calm in death. Don Balthasar had saved my life; and his daughter flung herself upon the body. O’Brien pressed his hands to his temples, and remained motionless.
I saw the bishop, in his stiff cope, creep up to the group with the motion of a tortoise. And, for a moment, his quavering voice pronouncing the absolution was the only sound in the house.