"Many travelers ride the Plymouth coach together," Burlingame suggested, "but not all have Maryland for their destination."
"Our Laureate here could not have put it better! If I could see an authorization in Lord Baltimore's hand, with his signature affixed, as I was instructed to demand, then I should deliver up the Journal to John Calvin himself, and there's an end on't."
Fearing the measures his friend might threaten, Ebenezer came near to imploring the priest to trust him personally, as Charles Calvert's poet laureate, if he could not trust Nicholson or Burlingame; but he checked himself upon remembering again, with no little annoyance, that his commission was not authentic, and that even if it were, he could not produce it for inspection.
A new expression came to Burlingame's face: leaning over the table toward their host he drew from his belt a leather-handled, poignardlike knife, and in the candlelight ran his thumb across its edge.
"I had thought the Governor's note were sufficient persuasion," he said, "but here is logic keen enough to sway the most adamant of Jesuits! Produce the Journal, an it please you!"
Though he had anticipated some sort of threat, Ebenezer was so shaken by this move that he could not even gasp.
Father Smith stared round-eyed at the knife and licked his lips. "I shan't be the first to perish in the service of the Society."
Even to Ebenezer this remark sounded more experimental than defiant. Burlingame smiled. " 'Twas a coward indeed that feared a clean stroke of the dirk! E'en Father FitzMaurice had a harder lot, to say naught of Catherine on her wheel or Lawrence on his griddle: what would it avail me to let you join their company? I'd be no nearer the Journal than I am."
"Then 'tis some torture you have in mind?" Father Smith murmured. "We Christians are no strangers there, either."
"Most especially the Holy Roman Church," Burlingame said cynically, "that hath authored such delights as never Saracen could devise!" Not taking his eyes from the priest, he proceeded to describe, perhaps for Ebenezer's benefit, various persuasions resorted to by the agents of the Inquisition: the strappado, the aselli, the escalera, the potro, the tablillas, the rack, the Iron Maiden, the hot brick, the Gehenna, and others. The Laureate was impressed enough by this recital, though it made him feel no easier about the business at hand. Father Smith sat stonily throughout.
"Yet these are all refinements for the connoisseur," Burlingame declared. "Who inflicts them savors his victim's pain as an end, not as a means, and I've nor taste nor time for such a game." Still thumbing the knife blade he left the table — whereat the priest gave a start despite himself — and bolted the cabin door. "I have observed among the Caribbean pirates that they may make a man eat his own two ears for sport, or fornicate his daughter with a short-sword; but when 'tis certain information that they seek, they have recourse to a simpler and wondrous quick expedient." He advanced toward the table, knife in hand. "Since thou'rt a priest, the loss should cause you no regrets; what shall unbind your tongue, sir, is the manner of the losing. 'Tis a blow to lose a treasure in one fell stroke, but how harder to be robbed of't jewel by jewel! Must I say more?"
" 'Sblood, Henry!" Ebenezer cried, jumping to his feet. "I cannot think you mean to do't!"
"Henry, is't?" the priest said thickly. "Thou'rt impostors after all!"
Burlingame frowned at Ebenezer. "I mean to do't, and you shall aid me. Hold him fast till I find rope to bind him!"
Although the priest showed no inclination to resist, Ebenezer could not bring himself to participate in the business. He stood about uncertainly.
"Now that I know you for an agent of John Coode," Father Smith declared, "I am prepared to suffer any pain. You shall not have the Journal from my hands."
When Burlingame growled and advanced another step, the priest snatched a letter-opener from under his papers and retreated to a farther wall, where, instead of assuming a posture of defense, he placed the point of his weapon against his heart. "Stand fast!" he cried, when Burlingame approached. "Another step and I will end my life!"
Burlingame halted. " 'Tis merely bluff."
"Hither, then, and give't the lie!"
"And do you believe your God excuses holy suicide?"
"I know not what He excuses," said the priest. " 'Tis the Church I serve, and I know well they can justify my act."
After a pause Burlingame shrugged, smiled, and replaced the poignard in his belt. "Pourquoi est-ce que je tuerais un homme si loyal à la cause sainte?"
The priest's expression changed from defiance to incredulousness. "What did you say?"
"J'ai dit, vous avez démontré votre fidélité, et aussi votre sagesse: je ne me confie pas à Nicholson plus que vous. Allans, le Journal!"
This tactic mystified Ebenezer no less than Father Smith. "I cannot follow your French, Henry!" he complained. But instead of translating, Burlingame turned upon him with the poignard and backed him against the wall.
"You will understand anon, fool!" Henry cried, and to the still-bewildered priest he ordered, "Fouillez cet homme pour les armes, et puts apportez le Journal!"
"What hath possessed you?" the poet demanded. Coming on the heels of all his other doubts about Burlingame, this new turn of events was particularly discomforting.
"Who are you?" asked the priest. "And what credentials can you show?"
"Parlons une langue plus douce," smiled Burlingame. "Je n'ai pas d'ordres écrits de Baltimore, et je n'en veux pas. Vous admettrez qu'il ne soil pas la source seule de l'autorité? Quant à mes lettres de créance, je les porte toujours sur ma personne." He unbuttoned his shirt and displayed the letters MC carved into the skin of his chest. "Celles-ci ne sont peu connues à Thomas Smith?"
"Monsieur Casteene!" exclaimed Father Smith. "Vous etês Monsieur Casteene?"
"Ainsi que vous etês Jesuité," Henry said, "et je peux faire plus que Baltimore ne rêve pour débarrasser ce lieu de protestants anglais. Vívent James et Louis, et apportez-moi le sacré Journal!". .
"Oui, Monsieur, tout de suite! Si j'avais connu qui vous etês — "
"Mes soupçons n'ont pas été plus petits que les vôtres, mais ils sont disparus. Cet épouvantail-ci paraît être loyal à Baltimore, mais il n'est pas catholique: s'il fait de la peine, je le tuerai. ."
"Oui, Monsieur!" said the delighted priest. "Mais oui, j'apporterai le Journal tout de suite!" He ran to unlock an iron-bound chest in one corner of the cabin.
"What in the name of Heav'n doth this mean?" cried Ebenezer, in an anguish of doubt.
"What it means," said his companion, "is that I am not this Henry you took me for, nor yet the Timothy Mitchell I am called. I am Monsieur Casteene!"
"Who?"
"Your fame hath not spread to London, sir," the priest laughed from the corner. He fetched a sheaf of manuscript from the chest and turned scornfully to the Laureate. "Monsieur Casteene is known throughout the length and breadth of the provinces as the Grand Enemy of the English. He hath been Governor of Canada, and fought both Andros and Nicholson in New York."
"Until my enemies gained favor with King Louis and undid me," the other said bitterly.