back, and they are going to celebrate the miracle of Nina Masia!"
"Good heavens! Are you quite mad, Antiochus?" cried the priest, with something akin to terror as he gazed at the hill-side below the village, over which the bonfires were casting their lurid glare.
The keeper made no remark, but in contemptuous silence he rattled the dog's chain and the animal barked loudly. Whereupon hoarse shouts and yells echoed through the valley, and to the priest in his misery it seemed as though some mysterious voice were protesting against the way in which he had imposed on the simplicity of his parishioners.
"What have I done to them?" he asked himself. "I have made fools of them just as I have made a fool of myself. May God save us all!"
Suggestions for heroic action rushed into his mind. When he reached the village he would stop in the midst of his people and confess his sin; he would tear open his breast before them all and show them his wretched
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