I
Towards nightfall on the feast of the Three Kings the heavens were opened. From every inch of the somber sky descended cold, straight rain until the roads were rivers and the hill-sides began to sing.
When the storm burst Antonio was in the abbey chapel, saying Vespers in his old stall. He had duly observed the great festival of the Epiphany, abstaining from servile work and hearing Mass at the village: and, as on Sundays, he was rounding off the holy day by saying his Office in the choir. But the vehemence of the storm alarmed him. He rose hastily, and made his way through the darkling cloisters and corridors.
As he neared the kitchen a roaring sound filled Antonio's startled ears. It was the torrent. Although he had rammed the sluice-gate well home only half an hour before, the stream was racing through the kitchen in a foaming flood.
"The sluice-gate has broken," said Antonio to himself. "The timbers must have rotted all of a sudden. But there's just time to get out."
Only the faintest light gleamed through the tunnel under the refectory. By lying on his chest upon the stones Antonio could just see the leaden sky. He could see, too, that the water was rising higher and higher, and that the space between the level of the water and the center of the tunnel vaulting was less than two feet.
The monk flung off his habit and jumped down into the torrent. It almost touched his arm-pits. The waters were icy cold; but this troubled him less than their headlong violence which threatened to sweep him away.
He entered the tunnel. As it was barely five feet from floor to keystone, the broad-shouldered giant had to hump his back and to work himself along in a frog-like posture. More than once stones, bowled along by the force of the flood, struck cruelly at his feet and ankles, and it was only by clutching with bleeding fingers at the sides of the vault that he could make the smallest headway. Even while he was escaping from it the water went on rising: and it was with dripping locks, and with eyes and ears full of muddy water, that he finally broke out into the free air.
The rain was pouring down so torrentially as he climbed up to the bank that he would have been as dry in the middle of the stream. As for his clothes, which he had rolled up as usual and laid behind a bush, he knew they must be wetter than his skin. Still, there was nothing for it but to scramble into them and dash for home. Antonio stooped to pick up the bundle.
It was gone.
In a flash he knew that Man as well as Nature had come to fight him. The instinct of danger made him spring back from the water and clench both fists to strike. And he had hardly a second to wait Like a beast from its lair, a black body sprang at him out of the pouring trees.
The staggering suddenness of its onslaught nearly flung Antonio to the ground. Before he knew what was happening, his assailant had dragged him to within a yard of the stream's edge and was making ready to shove him into the swirling water. But the monk got his grip just in time; and the stranger, fearful of meeting the end he had planned for Antonio, lurched back over the sodden grass.
Locked together, both men paused for breath. In one point Antonio had the advantage. He was at ease in thin cotton undergarments, while his adversary was encumbered by soaked garments of peasant stuff and cut. On the other hand, the stranger was fresh for the fray, whereas Antonio's battling against the flood in the tunnel had broken his wind. Meanwhile, to cool them for the second round, the stinging rain thrashed down impatiently upon them both.
With a tremendous rally of strength Antonio hurled the other away from him and then rushed in like lightning to get a better grip. He succeeded; and little by little he began to crush his foe down upon the sloppy ground. He had no relish for manslaughter even in self-defense; and, instead of thrusting him into the stream, he sought only to pin the stranger down with hands and knees and to make him give satisfaction for his murderous onrush. But the monk's strength began to fail him. His half-frozen feet were bleeding, his heart was thumping against his ribs, the veins on his forehead stood out like thick string, and his breath came and went in quick, thick gasps.
The stranger felt his opportunity; and, inch by inch, Antonio was dragged, pushed, shouldered, butted, elbowed, kneed back to the torrent's brim. But the ground was slippery: and both the wrestlers slithered and crashed down heavily.
They were up again in a twinkling, facing each other with intent eyes. The stranger's shoulders were bent and his hands touched his knees as he crouched for a second spring. At the sight of him a white flash of memory blazed across Antonio's mind. Those tigerish eyes, those hunched shoulders, those great, terrible hands outspread upon those clumsy knees—he had seen them all before. By this time his eyes were used to the dusk and mist, and he knew he was not deceived: for he could discern a wound on the peasant's cheek. Before the other had time to make his pounce, the monk cried out in imperious tones:
"Hold. I know you. We are friends!"
"Friends?" hissed the stranger. "Pretty friends! I don't make friends with thieves and atheists."
All the same, his taut muscles relaxed. Antonio's tone had awed him a little, and Antonio's words had puzzled him a great deal. His shoulders unbent and he did not spring.
"I am not an atheist and I am not a thief," said Antonio sternly. "But even thieves and atheists are not so bad as murderers. Why have you tried to drown me in this torrent?"
"Because you're a spy and a blasphemer and a robber."
"Tell me your name," the monk demanded. And when the other only responded by a threatening gesture he added: "Never mind. I know it already. You are called José. You live at Pedrinha das Areias."
The peasant's clenched hands dropped open at his sides, and he gave a low cry of astonishment and fright.
"You fought with Dom Pedro at the siege of Oporto," continued the monk. "It was there you lost two fingers from your left hand. Wait. I haven't finished. Nearly four years ago you were one of the troop which came to drive the monks out of this abbey. You were sent back home for quarreling with another soldier about religion. You rode back to Oliveira on your own horse. Now, I ask you again, why have you tried to murder me?"
"It's a lie that I came here to drive out monks," cried the peasant, nearly choking with anger. "I didn't know we'd been sent on such dirty work."
"Why have you tried to murder me?"
"Because ... because you're in the pay of that accursed Viscount. Murder you? Yes, God helping me, I'll do it this minute!"
"God is not helping you, and you won't do it this minute," said Antonio calmly. "Now that I've got back my wind you haven't a ghost of a chance. You lost two fingers fighting, like a brave man, at Oporto. Understand. If there's no other way, I shall have to twist either your right wrist or your left ankle to keep you quiet. So—"
His mouth was stopped by José's lightning onslaught. Once more they rocked to and fro in a terrible embrace. But Antonio had spoken the truth. His wind had come back, and there was no chance for José. Within forty seconds the monk had his man fairly down. He pinned him, face upwards, on the grass, kneeling upon his thighs and gripping his shoulders with hands like steel. And all the time the streaming rain came pouring, pouring, pouring down.
"José," began Antonio, in a voice of infinite pity and kindness, "my poor friend—"
A horrible imprecation broke from the writhing peasant. It was the more frightful to hear because it so evidently came from lips which rarely cursed or swore.
"José," the monk commanded, altering his tone, "in the name of Jesus Christ I charge you to listen. I am your friend. I am not in the pay of the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada. I was in the abbey to-night simply to pray and to worship God."
But José was staring at him with wide eyes. The hatred had died out of his face, and he struggled hard to seize some elusive memory. Suddenly he cried:
"Tell me. That night. There were young monks, two monks, at the gate. One coughed and was like death. The other ..."
He paused and looked at Antonio with eyes that yearned. The monk started. If he answered, his secret would be out. Yet how could he be silent? An inward voice bade him answer freely.
"I was the other monk," he said. "In the monastery they called me Father Antonio."
As he spoke he released his captive and stood up. José stumbled to his feet like a man dazed, and faced Antonio in the rain with bent head and fidgeting hands.
"Give me my clothes," ordered the monk.
The peasant drew forth an almost dry bundle of clothes from a hollow tree and would have helped Antonio to put them on. But the monk waved him aside and was soon inside the garments.
"Follow me," he said.
In spite of his bleeding feet he set a breakneck pace down the hill. At the boundary wall of the abbey, where the torrent foamed through the broken arch, he halted; and if the pair had not been able to leap from boulder to boulder like mountain-goats they could not have regained the open heath. The night grew blacker; and twice or thrice, where there were patches of clay, they slipped and fell. But no bones were broken; and in less than three quarters of an hour from the beginning of their fight the two men were at Antonio's door.