During the hottest of the argument, they were joined by the Capuchin, who being astonished to see them thus virulently engaged at the door, and to hear the painter bellowing within the chamber, conjured them, in the name of God, to tell him the cause of that confusion which had kept the whole house in continual alarm during the best part of the night, and seemed to be the immediate work of the devil and his angels. When the governor gave him to understand that Pallet was visited with an evil spirit, he muttered a prayer of St. Antonio de Padua, and undertook to cure the painter, provided he could be secured so as that he might, without danger to himself, burn part of a certain relic under his nose, which he assured them was equal to the miraculous power of Eleazar's ring. They expressed great curiosity to know what this treasure was; and the priest was prevailed upon to tell them in confidence, that it was a collection of the parings of the nails belonging to those two madmen, whom Jesus purged of the legion of devils that afterwards entered the swine. So saying, he pulled from one of his pockets a small box, containing about an ounce of the parings of a horse's hoof; at sight of which the governor could not help smiling, on account of the grossness of the imposition. The doctor asked, with a supercilious smile, whether those maniacs whom Jesus cured were of the sorrel complexion, or dapple-gray; for, from the texture of these parings, he could prove that the original owners were of the quadruped order, and even distinguish that their feet had been fortified with shoes of iron. The mendicant, who bore an inveterate grudge against this son of Esculapius ever since he had made so free with the Catholic religion, replied, with great bitterness, that he was a wretch with whom no Christian ought to communicate; that the vengeance of Heaven would one day overtake him, on account of his profanity; and that his heart was shod with a metal much harder than iron, which nothing but hell fire would be able to melt.