“I mistrusted that man from the first,” said Jahangir. “Why should he, a European, conspire against his fellows? No beast of prey, unless it be indeed hard pressed, eats its own kind. Howbeit, he will trouble the world no longer.”
“What means your Majesty? I was told he was active in his machinations this very day.”
“Yes,” was the cool reply. “I made use of him until my patience vanished. When you and Sainton-sahib proved him a liar, I sent orders that a cow was to be slain instantly and the black robe sewn in the skin.”
“Sewn in the skin!” repeated Walter, incredulously.
“Yes. He will be dead by the fourth watch. Hussain Beg, a traitorous villain from Lahore, whom I caused to be sealed in an ass’s skin, took a day and a night to die, but the hide of a cow dries more speedily.”
Horrified by the fate which had overtaken the arch enemy of his race, Mowbray told Fra Pietro what the Emperor had said. The Franciscan at once appealed for mercy in the Jesuit’s behalf.
“Forgive him,” he pleaded, “as Christ forgave his enemies. You can save him. Your request will be granted. God, who knoweth all hearts, can look into his and turn its stone into the water of repentance.”
It was not yet one o’clock when Walter and Roger, the latter glad of the errand which freed him from Matilda’s embarrassing attentions, rode with a numerous guard to the fort, bearing Jahangir’s reprieve for Dom Geronimo.
There had been no delay in the execution of the sentence. They found the unhappy priest already imprisoned in his terrible environment, and almost insane with the knowledge that the stiffening hide was slowly but surely squeezing him to death.