He opened his eyes; the clamour died again at the same instant…. For a moment his eyes wandered over the heads and up to the sky, to see if some vision…. Then he looked down….
Against the ladder on which he stood, a man's figure was writhing and embracing the rungs kneeling on the ground. He was strangely dressed, in some sort of a loose gown, in a tight silk night-cap, and his feet were bare. The man's head was dropped, and the priest could not see his face. He looked beyond for some explanation, and there stood, all alone, a girl in a hooded cloak, who raised her great eyes to his. As he looked down again the man's head had fallen back, and the face was staring up at him, so distorted with speechless entreaty, that even he, at first, did not recognize it….
Then he saw it to be his father, and understood enough, at least, to act as a priest for the last time.
He smiled a little, leaned his own head forward as from a cross, and spoke….
"Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…."
VI
He only awoke once again, after the strangling and the darkness had passed. He could see nothing, nor hear, except a heavy murmuring noise, not unpleasant. But there was one last Pain not into which all others had passed, keen and cold like water, and it was about his heart.
"O Christ—" he whispered, and so died.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Come Rack! Come Rope!, by Robert Hugh Benson