The Nine Unknown by Talbot Mundy

Cyprian was not in a quandary. He would have known what to do, but his eighty-year-old lungs were too full of a sickly-tasting gas for him to function physically. That which is born of the spirit is spirit, but the brain must wait on material processes. He was just then in Jeremy's keeping--held in the Australian's arms--being thought for by Jeremy.

And as the stars in their courses once warred against Sisera, circumstances and his reputation combined to trick Cyprian. Never would it have entered Jeremy's head that dignity, discipline, responsibility to some one higher tip were necessary ingredients of Cyprian's code. Having saved the padre's life the only other thing that Jeremy considered was "the game."