"That was all
there was to see."
"A priest! Some of the men say the devil. I wonder--" Hamilton
hesitated and looked at the floor.
"This Father Beret, he is too old for such a thing, isn't he?"
"I have thought of him--it was like him--but he is, as you say,
very old to be so tremendously strong and active. Why, I tell you
that men went from his hands against the walls and floor as if
shot out of a mortar. It was the strangest and most astounding
thing I ever heard of."
A little later Barlow seized a favorable opportunity and withdrew.
The conversation was not to his liking.
Hamilton sent for Father Beret and had a long talk with him, but
the old man looked so childishly inoffensive in spirit and so
collapsed physically that it seemed worse than foolishness to
accuse him of the exploit over which the entire garrison was
wondering. Farnsworth sat by during the interview. He looked the
good priest curiously and critically over from head to foot,
remembering, but not mentioning, the most unclerical punch in the
side received from that energetic right arm now lying so flabbily
across the old man's lap.
When the talk ended and Father Beret humbly took his leave,
Hamilton turned to Farnsworth and said:
"What do you think of this affair? I have cross-questioned all
the men who took part in it, and every one of them says simply
priest or devil.
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