"Do you believe in St. Peter?"

"Of course."

"And in the Virgin Mother of God?"

"The angel Gabriel called her blessed among women."

"But do you worship her?"

"I reverence her, and worship her Divine Son."

"Do you worship her, I say?" threatening me with the stirrup-leather.

"Son, son," put in my father.

"Silence, old man!" and they hit him on the mouth.

"Do you worship her?"

"I do not."

Then they beat the soles of my feet, till my father in anguish cried,
"Oh, I cannot bear this--" but had to bear it. And so had I. But on
their burning my soles with a red-hot iron, a merciful Providence took
me out of their hands, by bringing me insensibility. How long they
pursued their barbarities after I fainted, I know not; but when I came
to myself, it was in cold and darkness, lying in the open street, where
I suppose they had cast me, thinking me dead. How long a time must have