The Power and the Glory

Mr. and Mrs. Fellows are leaving Mexico, staying in a hotel and waiting for a boat. Mrs. Fellows, as usual, is ill with a headache. She chastises him for being so quiet lately. They don’t speak of what happened back at the banana station. Mr. Fellows tries to tell his wife that he won’t leave, that she should go without him, but she refuses to listen. He notes that a priest will be shot today and wonders whether it’s the alcoholic priest whom Coral befriended.

Mr. Tench is at work on the chief’s teeth. He notices a commotion outside the window, and the chief mentions that someone is being shot for treason. When Mr. Tench catches a glimpse of the prisoner, he realizes that it’s the stranger with whom he shared some brandy a while back. He’s stunned: He’d even spoken of his children with the man. He decides that he must leave, this time for good.

The mother finishes reading the story about Padre Juan’s martyrdom to her children. Juan cries out in glory to Christ as he’s shot to death; he dies with a beatific smile on his face. The mother tells the children that one of the soldiers collected the martyr’s blood on a handkerchief and cut the relic into strips to be distributed among the faithful.