I bent my head by way of assent.
The Priest: I would have you to go to him, he said, and say—The Catholic priest you sent for out of Ireland, Father Dalby, fulfilled his pledge to you and came to your island, but died by the visitation of God on the night of his landing on your shores. Will you deliver me this message?
I did not make him an answer, and he put the question again. Still my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth and I could not speak.
The Priest: You need not fear, he said, to go to the Bishop, for he is a holy man, as I have heard, without pride of worldly place, and the poor and outcast are his constant guests.
Even yet I answered nothing, but only held down my head while my heart surged within me.
The Priest: The fame of him as a righteous servant of God had gone far into other lands, and therefore it was I, who love Protestantism not at all, and hold no dalliance with it, came to your island at his call.
He took my hand in his hands and asked me again if I would go to the Bishop to say the words which he had given me, and I, with swimming eyes that saw nothing of the dying face before me, bowed my head, and answered, I will go.
Near three hours longer he lived, and much of that time he passed in a feeble delirium. But just before the end came he awoke, and motioned to a small bag that hung about his waist. I guessed his meaning, and drawing out a crucifix I placed it in his hands.
Then he passed silently away, and Death, the black camel that had knelt at the gate of my lone house these seven years of death-in-life, had entered it at last to take another man than me.