But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
"There has been enough of this, Agostino," said he. "You have gone near
your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had been damned--
deserving it for your folly if for naught else."
I looked at him with surprise and reproach. "How, Fra Gervasio?" I said.
"How?" he answered. "Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales of
fights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's claws upon your
body? Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foul impostures of
this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth of the country-
side?"
"Foul impostures?" I echoed, aghast. "Fra Gervasio, your words are
sacrilege."
"Sacrilege?" he cried, and laughed bitterly. "Sacrilege? And what of
that?" And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.
Sebastian in its niche.
"You think because it did not bleed..." I began.
"It did not bleed," he cut in, "because you are not a knave. That is the
only reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue. He
was no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy
things, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black
villain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when the
end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money that he
had extorted by his simonies.
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