II
The heap of pine-cones burning on Antonio's narrow hearth crackled pleasantly and gave out fragrant vapors. But, as the monk crouched over it chafing his nerveless hands, he could not help thinking of the blaze he had seen in the vast fireplace of a famous old English banqueting-hall at the close of a chilly, rainy day. The recollection increased his resentment against the shaggy José, who was waiting for his new master's word as meekly as a drenched sheep-dog on a moor. Antonio's pity was submerged for the moment under his disgust at having had to fight for life, half-naked, in a tropical downpour.
"Here are some dry clothes," he said sharply, opening a chest and throwing out the suit in which he had ridden to Villa Branca. And, while José was changing, he stamped upstairs to do the same.
Antonio boasted three suits in all. The oldest was the dripping raiment he was actually wearing—the clothes which José had bundled into the hollow tree. The second was the suit he had lent to his guest. The third was the masterpiece in broadcloth which a London tailor had made at the expense of Messrs. Crowberry and Castro for Antonio's memorable journey. Over and above these the monk possessed his habit.
It was a choice between the patched, rusty-black habit or the fine gentleman's broadcloth. Antonio hesitated. At last he put on the habit and returned to the kitchen.
José, awkward in his town-made clothes, stood waiting. From the extreme of bloodthirstiness he had passed to the extreme of sheepishness: and, as Antonio entered in his monkish garb, he retreated a step and went down clumsily on his knees as if he saw a priest on his way to the altar.
"Get up," said Antonio. "I am wearing my monk's habit simply because my clothes are wet. Get up. Nearer the fire. Sit down. Tell me why you were at the abbey to-night."
José got up and approached the hearth, where he seated himself on the keg which was Antonio's second-best stool. But he remained tongue-tied. The monk repeated his question.
"Your Reverence—" began José. Then his tongue was tied once more.
"Never mind 'Your Reverence' just now," said Antonio, more kindly. "Tell me a plain tale. What were you doing at the abbey? Why did you try to drown me before you gave me a chance to explain? It is a serious matter. If I'd been a weaker man, at this moment you would be a murderer."
"I did wrong, Father," said José humbly. "But God knows I thought I was doing right. I thought your Reverence had found out about the things and that he'd come to steal them."
"What things?"
"The things the Viscount of Pont' Quebrad' buried in the ground."
Antonio started violently. He paced the room. Then he hurried back to the fireside and said:
"Wait. We must understand one another. When we monks were driven out, all those things were still in the sacristy. All I know about the Viscount burying them in the ground is this. One night in Oporto a gentleman from Lisbon told me that the Viscount and the captain had pretended to bury them. He said the Viscount was a wonderful play-actor. But he told me that all Lisbon believed he had never buried them at all. He had smuggled them out of the country."
"That's what everybody thinks, Father," said José, so eagerly that his tongue was fairly loosened. "And the Viscount had to leave Portugal. But he didn't steal the things at all. Only he tried to: so he deserved to be punished all the same. Didn't he, Father?"
"He did. But I don't understand."
"It was this way, Father. The captain—may God bless him, he was a fine man till he met the Viscount—the captain, he ordered me to go home. That night I rode as far as Oliveira, five leagues from Pedrinha. There I found that my mother was dead. May God rest her soul! I felt I couldn't go home; so I sold my horse in Oliveira for sixty-seven milreis. I only got two milreis for the saddle because it belonged to the Government. Still, they owed me my pay, didn't they, Father?"
"Get on, get on," snapped Antonio. "What has all this to do with the Viscount and the things?"
"When I'd sold the horse I came back to the abbey. I wanted to see what became of the monks and whether the Viscount would beat the Abbot. It took me all day, tracking over the mountains. In the middle of the afternoon I saw the monks down at the bottom of the hill marching to Navares, with some of our men on horses. But I didn't turn back. I had a score to settle with Sergeant Carvalho, if he hadn't gone to Navares. It was all on account of Ferreira, the fat corporal. Only myself knows how—"
"You came back to the abbey over the mountains. Go on."
"I didn't dare walk in at the gates, so I waited till it was dark and climbed the wall in the wood behind what they call the guest-house. It was nearly midnight. As I got near the guest-house, I heard voices among the trees. There were two men, with a dark lantern."
"The Viscount and the captain?"
"Yes, Father. They were digging, in their shirtsleeves, only the captain was doing all the work. I thought it was strange, Father; so I crawled along softly and hid myself where I could see what they were doing. When the hole was dug they went into the trees. The Viscount trod on the brim of my hat, but he didn't see it. They came back with some flat boxes and put them in the hole. The captain went to work very hard to fill the hole up again; but the Viscount swore at him and said: 'The more dirt you chuck in now the more we shall have to shovel out to-morrow night.' So they filled it in loose and covered it up with dead leaves. Then they hid the spades in the bushes and went away."
"And you didn't?"
"I stayed, Father. I knew they had been burying what was not theirs. So I found one of the spades and unburied the boxes and carried them on my head to a sand-pit that I'd tumbled into when I climbed over the wall. I buried them there, in loose sand, where one place looked just like another."
"That was clever," said Antonio. "Go on."
"All the next day I lay hiding, with only one piece of bread to eat and water to drink. But I was glad I hadn't gone away. At night they came again, with ropes and canvas. They began talking about some mules, and the Viscount kept mentioning a name that I can't remember; only I know it wasn't Portuguese. Then they raked off the dead leaves and started digging. But, oh, Father! I wonder they didn't find me and skin me alive, because when they saw the hole was empty, I nearly burst myself to keep from laughing. They would have heard me, sure enough, if they hadn't fallen to quarreling. In the end the Viscount said the captain had stolen a march on him, and he called him a—"
"Never mind what he called him."
"At that the captain struck the Viscount in the face. I was frightened then. I thought there was going to be murder. But all of a sudden they made up the quarrel and the captain said: 'What are we going to do?' The Viscount said: 'Those thieves of monks have hidden it, and we'll find it, or some of them shall swing for it.' But the captain said: 'What if we can't find it? What about the Government?' The Viscount said: 'That's easy. When the van and the men come from Lisbon we'll bring them to this hole. We can take our Bible oath, both of us, that we buried it here ourselves, for fear of treachery among the men: and we can swear that we haven't the ghost of an idea who has taken it away. But we'll find it to-night if we search till morning; and next week it shall be in England, safe and sound.' Then they took the lantern to begin hunting: so I picked myself up and slipped off to the sand-pit."
"And they didn't follow?"
"Not at once, Father. They did not come there till day-break. But the sun the day before had dried all the sand the same color. They stuck in sticks both sides of the right place: but they didn't find it."
José ceased.
"And what happened next?"
"I don't know, Father. Some say the Marquis almost made people believe he was dumbfounded when the new soldiers from Lisbon dug in the hole. But that can't be right; because he left the hole open. I only know that people said he had never put the things in the hole at all, and he had to leave Portugal, and the captain was turned out of the army. That's all."
Antonio took two more turns up and down the room before he demanded:
"Where are the things now?"
José's face clouded; and his eyes, which had burned brightly with excitement during his recital, were suddenly dulled by trouble. A few moments later he became visibly ashamed of his suspiciousness, and he would have begun stammering a speech if Antonio, who could read the whole of his simple mind, had not said:
"Wait. I understand. You believe our Lord sent you to snatch back His own from wicked men. For nearly four years you have guarded the treasure like a faithful watch-dog, and now you hesitate to trust me. It is natural."
José stared in wonder at this mysterious monk, who knew his thoughts even better than he knew them himself.
"But listen," Antonio went on. "For nearly four years I too have guarded a secret. The night when you dug up the boxes, José, that same night was the last night the world saw me as a monk. Like you, I lay all that night under the trees. Since then the world has known me as a clerk, a wine-grower, a commercial traveler, a farmer. But to-night, as soon as you asked me for my secret, I gave it. You are the only man in the world who knows that the owner of this little farm is the monk Antonio. Still, although I've told you my secret, that does not force you to tell me yours."
José stirred uneasily.
"This is what I propose," concluded Antonio. "I will swear to you, here and now, a solemn oath that if you tell me your secret I will never reveal it until the monks return. And you, on your part, shall swear that you will not breathe a hint of my own secret to a living soul."
"The things are buried in the cloister," José blurted out. "There are graves there, under the stones, but they haven't all got monks inside. I lifted up a gravestone with no printing on it and I put the boxes in. It's on the north side, to the left, just opposite the little Moses in the bulrushes."
"I thank you, José, and I admire you," said Antonio, pressing the huge hand. "All the same, we will swear our oaths. It will make both of us easier in our minds."
A small book of the Gospels, printed in the vernacular, lay on the table. Antonio placed his hand upon it, and swore in clear words and solemn tones that he would keep the secret of the buried boxes. The oath he dictated to José was longer and more picturesque. Before framing it he elicited the names of the saints whom José's family had most delighted to honor. Eventually the young peasant swore himself to secrecy by the holy Gospels; by the true faith of a Christian; by Nossa Senhora dos Remedios de Lamego; by San Torquato of Guimarães; by San Braz; by San Pedro d' Alcantará; by the Pope's three crowns; by his mother's memory; and by his own hopes of eternal salvation. Antonio felt a qualm or two in enouncing such a formula: but did not the success of his life's work demand that José should be held back from his own impulsiveness by every chain his faith could forge?
When the oaths had been sworn, Antonio went to the door. The rain had ceased and a few stars were glinting weakly in the watery sky.
"Hadn't you better go, while it is fair?" he said to José. "Never mind about the clothes. Bring them back when your own are dry, and we will finish our talk."
But José did not hasten forth. "If you please, Father," he said awkwardly, "I'd ... I'd rather stay here."
"Stay here?"
"Yes. I'd like to be your servant, Father. And I'd like to learn to be a monk."
Antonio stopped on the brink of half-derisive, half-angry laughter. He remembered the apostle's injunction: "Strengthen the feeble-minded." This dull-witted hind had acted, after all, like a Christian hero; and Antonio suddenly said to himself: "He has the mind of a little child; but of such are the Kingdom of Heaven."
"A monk, José?" he echoed, kindly. "Not yet, I fear. Why, only to-night you tried to murder me. Even Saint Dominic, who founded his Order to fight against the enemies of our religion, would not have approved of you up there in the rain. But you say you would be my servant. How? What about your own farm?"
"They cheated me out of it, Father—the lawyers. I got only two hundred milreis. I work at a cooper's in Navares: but it is all indoors, and trade is so slack he only keeps me on out of charity. He would be glad if I didn't darken the door again. I would like to be your servant."
Antonio walked once more to the door and looked out. The sky was clearing. High in the East, encircled by creamy cloud-banks, he could see one stretch of blue, as blue as a tarn set deep in mountain snows; and in the midst of it shone a great soft star. Then he remembered that this was the feast of the Three Kings. He recalled the antiphon he had recited in the day's Office, Stella ista sicut flamma coruscat: "Like as a flame doth that Star sparkle and showeth God, the King of Kings. The Wise Men beheld it, and to the great King they offered their gifts." Ought he, Antonio, to offer as gifts to the King his dearly-prized solitude, his monastic silence, his studious privacy, in order that he might reward this simple soul and shield it from the world? He first bowed his head; then raised it to the star, craving heavenly light.
"Can I stay, Father?" persisted José, doggedly.
"You can stay," said Antonio, with his eyes still fixed on the star in the East.