"Hush!" he pleaded. "Hush, child. W-wait and I w-will pray ... that His w-will be done."
It was a strange scene: the girl writhing in her mental agony at the foot of the savage bier; the frail diminutive figure of the little shepherd, in his unsuitable draggled white robe, who had proved himself, whatever his weakness, no hireling to his Master's flock; the scared human animal, naked as his Creator made him, starting from the grasp of the hybrid agent clad in khaki shorts and bowler hat; and, behind, the straight smooth-skinned forms of the Nicobarese, leaning on spear and long bow, awaiting the miracle their Christian witch-doctor must, surely, perform upon the white woman's man, who lay so still in the dead light of torch and mocking star.
Jellybrand knelt forlornly on the earth. It has been shown that St. Francis—the "little sheep of Christ"—was small and starved of appearance with no physical beauty but his transfiguring trust....
"Our Father——" And that was all.
For coincidence or miracle, at the same moment the man on the rickety erection twitched one hand faintly and opened glazed eyes.
"For God's sake get the arrow out!" he muttered, and once more relapsed into unconsciousness.
* * * * * *
Ferlie never remembered how they got him home.
From the fact that those present ever after respected her as a superwoman, she supposed she must have taken over charge again of the reins she had relinquished, for the time being, to the padre and his God.
In her dreams she would often hear the padre's voice saying,