"I mean that his fear drove him at last to kill himself," said Father
Roland in a slow, sure voice, as if carefully weighing his words before
speaking them. "I believe, now, that he terribly wronged some one, that
his conscience was his fear, and that it haunted him by bringing up
visions and voices until it drove him finally to pay his debt. And up
here conscience is _mitoo aye chikoon_--the Little Brother of God. That
is all I know. I wish Tavish had confided in me, I might have saved
him."
"Or--punished," breathed David.
"My business is not to punish. If he had come to me, asking help for
himself and mercy from his God, I could not have betrayed him."
He was putting on his coat again.
"I am going after Mukoki," he said. "There is work to be done, and we
may as well get through with it by moonlight. I don't suppose you feel
like sleep?"
David shook his head. He was calmer now, quite recovered from the first
horror of his shock, when the door closed behind Father Roland. In the
thoughts that were swiftly readjusting themselves in his mind there was
no very great sympathy for the man who had hanged himself. In place of
that sympathy the oppression of a thing that was greater than
disappointment settled upon him heavily, driving from him his own
personal dread of this night's ghastly adventure, and adding to his
suspense of the last forty-eight hours a hopelessness the poignancy of
which was almost like that of a physical pain.
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