A Monk of Cruta Part 1

A Monk of Cruta.

by E. Phillips Oppenheim.

CHAPTER I

"THE BLACK-ROBED PHANTOM 'DEATH'"

"Father Adrian!"

"I am here!"

"I saw the doctor talking with you aside! How long have I to live? He told you the truth! Repeat his words to me!"

The tall, gaunt young priest drew nearer to the bedside, and shook his head with a slow, pitying gesture.

"The time was short--short indeed. Yet, why should you fear? Your confession has been made! I myself have p.r.o.nounced your absolution; the holy Church has granted to you her most holy sacrament."

"Fear! Bah! I have no fear! It is a matter of calculation. Shall I see morning break?"

"You may; but you will never see the mid-day sun."

The dying man raised himself with a slow, painful movement, and pointed to the window.

"Throw up the window."

He was obeyed. A servant who had been sitting quietly in the shadows of the vast apartment, with his head buried in his hands, rose and did his master's bidding.

"What hour is it?"

"Three o'clock."

"Gomez, strain your eyes seaward. Is there no light on the horizon?"

"None! The storm has wrapped the earth in darkness. Listen!"

A torrent of rain was swept against the streaming window pane, and a gust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned away from the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could pierce that black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked around shuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candles only, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. Grim, fantastic shadows lurked in the corners, and lay across the bare floor. Even the tall figure of the priest, on his knees before a rude wooden crucifix, seemed weird and ghostly. The heavy, mildewed bed-hangings shook and trembled in the draughts which filled the room, and the candles flickered and burnt low in their sockets. Gomez watched them with a sort of anxious fascination. His master's life was burning out, minute for minute, with those candles. Twenty-five years of constant companions.h.i.+p would be ended in a few brief hours. Gomez was not disposed to trouble much at this; but he bethought himself of a snug little abode in Piccadilly, where the discomforts now surrounding them were quite unknown. Surely, to die there would be a luxury compared with this. He began to feel personally aggrieved that his master should have chosen such an out-of-the-way hole to end his days in.

Then came a rush of thought, and he was grave. He knew why! Yes! he knew why!

The dying man lay quite still, almost as though his time were already come. Once he raised himself, and the feeble light flashed across a grey, haggard face and a pair of burning eyes. But his effort was only momentary. He sank back again, and lay there with his eyes half closed, and breathing softly. He was nursing his strength.

One, two, three, four, five! The harsh clanging of a brazen clock somewhere in the building had penetrated to the chamber, followed by a deep, resonant bell. The man on the bed lifted his head.

"How goes the storm?" he asked softly.

Gomez stood up and faced the window.

"The storm dies with the night, sir," he answered. "The wind has fallen."

"When does day break?"

Gomez looked at his watch.

"In one hour, sir."

"Stay by the window, Gomez, and let your eyes watch for the dawn."

The priest frowned. "Surely the time has come when you should quit your hold on earthly things," he said quietly. "What matters the dawn!

soon you will lose yourself in an everlasting sleep, and the dawn for you will be eternity. Take this crucifix, and pray with me."

The dying man pushed it away with a gesture almost contemptuous.

"Is there no light on the sea yet, Gomez?" he asked anxiously.

Gomez leant forward till his face touched the window pane. He strained his eyes till they ached; but the darkness was impenetrable. Yet stay,--what was that? A feeble yellow light was glimmering far away in the heart of that great gulf of darkness. He held his breath, and watched it steadily. Then he turned round.

"There is a light in the far distance, sir," he said. "I cannot tell what it may be, but there is a light."

A wave of excitement pa.s.sed over the strong, wasted features of the man upon the bed. He half raised himself, and his voice was almost firm.

"Push my bed to the window," he ordered.

The two men, priest and servant, bent all their strength to the task, and inch by inch they moved the great, creaking structure. When at last they had succeeded, and paused to take breath, the light in the distance had become stronger and more apparent. Together the three men watched it grow; master and servant, with breathless eagerness, the priest with a show of displeasure in his severe face. Suddenly Gomez gave a little cry.

"The dawn!" he exclaimed, pointing to the north of the light. "Morning is breaking."

Sure enough, a grey, pallid light was stealing down upon the water.

The darkness was becoming a chaos of grey and black; of towering seas and low-lying clouds, with cold white streaks of light falling through them, and piercing the curtains of night. There was no vestige of colouring--nothing but cold grey and slate white. Yet the dawn moved on, and through it the yellow light in the distance gleamed larger and larger.

"Hold me up," ordered the man on the bed. "Prop me up with pillows!"

They did as he bade them, and for the first time his face was fully revealed in the straggling twilight. A flowing grey beard, still plentifully streaked with black, rested upon his chest; and the eyes, steadily fixed upon the window pane, were dark and undimmed. A long illness had wasted his fine features, but had detracted nothing from their strength and regularity of outline. His lips were closely set, and his expression, though painfully eager, was not otherwise displeasing. There was none of the fear of death there; nor was there anything of the pa.s.sionless resignation of the man who has bidden farewell to life, and made his peace with G.o.d and man; nor, in those moments of watching, had his face any of the physical signs of approaching death.

"Ah!"

They started at the sharp, almost triumphant exclamation which had escaped from his white lips, and followed his long, quivering finger.

Above that glimmering light was a faint, dim line of smoke, fading on the horizon.

"It is a steamer, indeed," the priest said, with some interest. "She is making for the island."

"When is the supply boat due?" Gomez asked.

"Not for a fortnight," the priest answered; "it is not she, it is a stranger."

There was no other word spoken. Soon the dawn, moving across the great waste of waters, pierced the dark background behind the steamer's light. The long trail of white, curdling foam in her track gleamed like a silver cleft in a dark gulf. The dim shape of her sails stole slowly into sight, and they could see that she was carrying a great weight of canvas. Then into the grey air, a rocket shot up like a brilliant meteor, and the sound of a gun came booming over the waters.

"Can she make the bay?" Gomez asked suddenly. "Look at the surf."