knowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand that
you run no risk in giving me assistance. I can tell you no more."
"I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or
ashore," said the priest. "How did you come here?"
"I swam ashore before they left. I did not know they had any idea of
landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have been
no need for concealment then. But I am not lucky," he added, with a
bitter laugh.
The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea,
but remained silent.
"Do you think I am lying?"
The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
"Not to me--but to God!"
The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric
church with a slight look of scorn. But the profound isolation, the
mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of that
world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued and
overcame his rebellious spirit. He lifted his eyes to the priest.
"Nor to God," he said gravely.
"Then why withhold anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.
"I am not a Catholic--I do not believe in confession," said Hurlstone
doggedly, turning aside.
But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's shoulder.
Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again
into his seat.
"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house--a sanctuary bought by that
contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To the
first worldly shelter you sought--the peon's hut or the Alcalde's
casa--you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You would
not conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the
wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly, as Hurlstone
was about to reply. "You shall have your request. You shall stay here. I
will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know
not of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will
assist me to find it. I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory
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