“Domine! exaudisti supplicationem meam!” murmured the ecclesiastic, “I have waited twenty years, and in my heart I have questioned Thy wisdom. Yet, fool that I was, I forgot that a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past.”
The concluding words were in Spanish, but Walter had enough Latin to understand his exclamation in that tongue. It bewildered him, yet he strove to clear the mystery that enfolded his capture.
“I pray you,” he said urgently, “listen to my recital of events as they took place yesterday. When the truth is known it shall be seen that neither Master Sainton nor I have broken the King’s ordinance, or done wrong to Count Gondomar.”
“’Tis not the King of England, so-called, nor the minister of His Most Catholic Majesty, to whom you shall render explanation. Words are useless with those of your spawn, yet shall your neck bend and your back creak ere many days have passed. Would that my sacred duty did not retain me in this accursed land! Would that I might sail in this ship to my own country! Yet I do commend you, Señor Mowbray, and that gross Philistine who lies by your side, to my brethren of the Seminary of San José at Toledo. They shall tend you in the manner that beseemeth the son of him who sent the miraculous statue of our patron to lie deep beneath the waves which protect this benighted England. Gloria in excelsis! Spain is still able, by the Holy office, to revenge insults paid to her saints. Malefico! Malefico!”
Turning to the sentry, the Jesuit uttered some order which plainly had for its purport the jealous safeguarding of his prisoners. Then, with a parting glance of utmost rancor, and some Latin words which rang like a curse, he left them.
“I’ faith,” laughed Roger, quietly, “his holiness regards us with slight favor, I fancy. The sound of your name, Walter, was unto him as a red rag to an infuriated bull.”
“I never set eyes on the madman before yester eve,” said his astonished companion.
“Gad! he swore at us in Latin, Spanish and English, and ’tis sure some of the mud will stick. An auld wife of my acquaintance, who was nurse to the Scroopes, and thus brought in touch with the Roman Church, so to speak, did not exactly know whether priest or parson were best, so she used to con her prayers in Latin and English. ‘The Lord only kens which is right,’ she used to say. I have always noticed myself that the saints in heaven cry ‘Halleluiah,’ which is Hebrew, but, as I’m a sinful man, I cannot guess how it may be with maledictions.”
The Spanish soldier growled some order, which Walter understood to mean that they must not talk. He murmured the instruction to Roger.
“They mun gag me first,” cried Sainton. “Say but the word, Walter, and I’ll draw these staples as the apothecary pulls out an offending tooth.”