III
The cell of the Abbot was a room about twenty feet square. Its furniture consisted of a small painted table, two stools, two straight-backed chairs, a portrait of Saint Benedict, a very large crucifix of ebony and ivory, an old oak desk covered with papers and a narrow bed.
To his surprise and relief the viscount found the bed empty and the Abbot throned upon one of the high-backed chairs. But his fears returned when a lay-brother set eight candles, in a bronze candelabrum, upon the painted table. By their light he saw a face which seemed to gaze on him from beyond the grave. To the old man's right and left stood the Prior and Father Isidore, supporting him. They had vested the Abbot in a cope stiff with gold embroidery, and they had placed his miter on his head and his crozier in his hand.
The captain paused in the doorway, embarrassed. Then he ducked his head and crooked his knee in awkward obeisance and blurted out, "Your Reverence, here is the Senhor Visconde."
"To what noble Visconde am I speaking?" asked the Abbot.
The civilian recovered himself and answered proudly:
"Your Excellency is speaking to the Visconde de Ponte Quebrada."
"I thought I knew all the titulars of Portugal," the Abbot returned in his small, clear tones, "but I do not know the Viscondes of Ponte Quebrada."
The Visconde was nettled, but he held his chin high and retorted:
"It is a new creation. I am the first Visconde. I am proud to say I have won the title by my own merits, and not merely because I am my father's son."
"Your Excellency has commanded in action?" the Abbot asked. "No doubt Ponte Quebrada was the scene of a battle—a victory?"
"Your most reverend Lordship is wrong," interrupted the captain. "The illustrious Visconde has served her majesty in other ways. To hire the English transports for Belle Isle and the Açores meant money. To pay the French and Belgian and English officers and men at Oporto meant more money. The English Admiral Napier, who destroyed the Miguelista fleet, required still more money. Money was hard to find: but the noble Visconde had powerful friends in London. He knows the Senhor Rothschild, that clever man who kept back from the English the news of Waterloo while he made his own fortune in the Funds. The Visconde helped to find the money."
"At what rate of interest?" asked the Abbot quietly. And when the officer only shrugged his shoulders he added, "Is the noble Visconde a born Portuguese?"
The Viscount boiled over with rage. "I have not come here to be cross-examined and insulted," he cried, "I am here to execute a decree of the Government. This monastery is suppressed."
"I am told the Government has sent a strong force of soldiers," the Abbot answered. "Why? Because the Government fears we may tear the decree to pieces. I have not questioned your Excellency out of idle curiosity. I am the father of this family; I am responsible for their little patrimony; and when I go to stand, as go I so soon must, before my Lord, I must not go as an unfaithful steward."
"The monastery is suppressed," the Viscount repeated.
"The question for me," continued the Abbot, ignoring him, "is whether I can obey this decree or not. We have always rendered unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; but we cannot render unto Cæsar the things that are God's."
"The monastery is suppressed. It belongs to the Portuguese people," piped the Viscount.
This time the Abbot did not ignore him. "Portuguese?" he echoed. "All these fathers and brethren are Portuguese. The Senhor Captain is a Portuguese. The humblest of these soldiers is a Portuguese. Apparently we are all Portuguese save your Excellency. The Portuguese people! Yes. Here it is in the decree. From this date the possessions of the religious orders are declared to be the possessions of the Portuguese people. Senhores, listen. In time of need we have never failed to share our last crust and our last coin with the Portuguese people. We are Portuguese as well as monks. When the French were in the land we cheerfully gave up all we had to drive them out. More. There are three fathers standing here who hide soldiers' scars under their habits, and there is one who carried dispatches under a hotter fire than any of your Worships have even seen."
"This is not the point," whined the Viscount.
"It is the only point there is. Your Excellency shall answer me plainly. If we bow to this decree, which of 'the Portuguese people' will enjoy our house and goods? Will they be sold to feed the poor and to clothe the hungry and to pay the just debts of the State?"
"I say the monastery is suppressed," the Viscount responded uneasily. "My duty is simply to take possession. How do I know what the Government will do with it?"
"Your Excellency knows one thing at least. He can assure the fathers and brethren that he has no secret authority, no plan, no ambition of keeping this place for himself or his friends?"
The Viscount of Ponte Quebrada clutched the back of the unoccupied chair for support. Outside his darling business of usury he had always been a weak, foolish, poor creature, easily cowed by any strong man who stood up to him; but the Abbot's words doubly terrified him. Not only did they forebode the miscarriage of his plans; they also filled him with supernatural dread. The dying man had spoken in low and even tones, as if he and his visitors were discussing some commonplace transaction: but the unearthly face, almost immobile between the cope and the miter, would have frightened the Viscount out of his wits if he had not averted his eyes from it. But while he could turn away his eyes, he could not close his ears; and the Abbot's final question probed the depths of the Viscount's scheming so unexpectedly that the schemer quailed in superstitious horror. For a moment or two the cell and the black figures and the smoky lights swung round with him.
"Also our gold monstrance," the low, even tones persisted, "our Limoges triptych, our two chalices with the great rubies, our Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, painted on wood by Gran Vasco, our five silver reliquaries, the seven-branched candlestick from Venice, our illuminated Conferences of the Solitaries of Cassian, and all our plate and vestments? We saved them from the French, burying them in the woods; and Father Leo was shot because he would not reveal the hiding-place. What about these things? Will they be respected? Will they be honorably preserved in our Portuguese cathedrals and parish churches? No doubt his Excellency does not know: but, I repeat, he can assure us that he will not lay a finger upon them for his own profit?"
Every face turned towards the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada. Fifty eyes seemed to be boring like fifty white-hot gimlets into his most secret thoughts. He pulled himself together for a final attempt at bullying bluster.
"I have been insulted enough!" he screamed. "You are suppressed. That's enough. You're suppressed, and you ought to have been suppressed long ago. You are the Queen's enemies. You've given shelter to every traitor that knocked at your door."
"This latest war, thank God, almost passed us by," said the Prior, stepping forward. "While it lasted we gave shelter to five combatants only. Two were Dom Miguel's, three were the Queen's. They were all wounded. If they came here wounded again we should once more take them in."
"My questions have not been answered," interrupted the Abbot's clear, small voice.
"And they shan't be," retorted the Viscount, who had regained his courage. "And hark you all, you are on sufferance here. Keep civil tongues in your heads and clear out quietly. We have the right to pitch you out into the road."
"I think not," the Abbot answered. "The decree speaks of to-morrow noon. We shall remain here until that hour; and perhaps longer. Meanwhile your Excellency has time to answer my questions. Our own answer turns upon his."
"I am afraid, my Lord Abbot, there is only one answer possible," said the captain. "By noon this house must be empty, save for the guard."
"And if we resist?"
The captain meditated before he replied in grave tones: "Your Reverences will not resist. Your Reverences will protest and bow, without disgrace, to superior force. And if any injustice has been done, the Queen, or the judges in Lisbon, or the ministers, or the Parliament must be moved to put it right."
"And in the meantime," said the Abbot, "what will become of this consecrated place, and of its sacred belongings? We have an inventory of every valuable thing. If we go at noon will your Excellencies sign a copy of it, to remain in our hands?"
"They are not yours," squeaked the Viscount in greedy ire as he saw the loot slipping out of his hands. "All the things are Portugal's."
"Then, as a Portuguese, I will take care, Senhor Visconde, that Portugal does not lose them," the Abbot answered.
A grunt of delight came from the soldiery thronging the cell doorway. The Abbot took advantage of it to close the interview.
"Senhores," he said, "we will exchange our final answers to-morrow morning, after High Mass, at eleven o'clock. Till then these men will be ordered, no doubt, to respect our house and the life we lead in it. The guest-house is being prepared. I wish your Excellencies good-night."
The Viscount of Ponte Quebrada framed an answer, but as he glanced at the Abbot's face the words froze on his lips and he made haste to escape from the cell, at the captain's call. The monks remained behind, and the door was shut.
"Surely we are not going to let ourselves be ordered off to the guest-house?" the Viscount began as they regained the vestibule.
"I prefer it," said the captain curtly. "Hi, Ferreira, you and Pirez and Pedro Telles will come with us. Carvalho, I leave you in charge of the monastery. Place four guards at the sacristy door and two at each outlet. Understand, no monk must be allowed to lock or unlock any door, or gate, or cupboard, or to go outside; no, not even the Prior or the Abbot himself. If they want to say their prayers in the chapel, they may: but watch them yourself and see that nothing is taken or hidden. Treat them with complete respect: but if there is any sign of trouble, send for me on the instant."
As soon as he had approved Carvalho's choice of sentries the captain strode out into the open air without another word to the Viscount. A dozen paces ahead went a lay-brother with a lantern, Ferreira and Pirez and Telles crowding behind him. A moment later the little nobleman was puffing at the captain's side. The captain quickened his pace by artful but unmistakable degrees until the nobleman could only keep up with him by a succession of little runs. Needing all his breath for this exercise, he could not talk.
The guest-house was not much more than fifty years old. An aristocratic abbot had built it for the accommodation of his too numerous visitors, whose comings and goings had excessively disturbed the peace of the cloister. It was an oblong building of granite, standing high in a clearing. From its moss-grown terrace there was a view by daylight of the monastery's whole domain, of the plain beyond, and of the Atlantic filling all the West.
There were plentiful lights in the best rooms of the guest-house, and broad pans of charcoal burning cosily on the floors. Even for their evictors the Prior and Abbot were keeping up the best traditions of monkish hospitality. Two bottles of wine—one red, one white—stood on a table, flanked by a giant loaf, a goat's-milk cheese, and a basket of black cherries. An iron pot of soup exhaled comfortable odors from a brazier near the window.
"Is this stuff all right?" sniffed the Viscount the moment they were alone.
The captain arched his brows.
"I mean," explained the other, "is it safe? One has heard of such things as poisons."
"Your Excellency is not obliged to touch it," the captain answered. He emptied half a bottle of red wine into a coarse glass and drank it at a single draught. Then he broke off a hunk of bread and fell upon his soup. The civilian followed his example. For a Viscount he ate a little unpleasantly.
"About this affair down there," began the captain brusquely as he swallowed his last crumb of cheese, "what are we going to do?"
"To begin with, we're not going to be dictated to. They're suppressed. It's not for them to make terms."
"The Abbot's questions? Does your Excellency mean to answer them?"
"Questions!" cried the Viscount in a fury; "the Abbot's questions! The Abbot's insults, you mean."
Weighing his words and maintaining his politeness with an effort the captain said:
"My orders are to go to almost any extremity rather than use force against these monks. And on the whole we have succeeded better than I hoped. If we permit the Abbot to save his face, he will evacuate the position to-morrow, and will fight only in Lisbon to regain it. At the same time I quite understand that your Excellency can hardly answer questions which sound like insults. But he can leave it all to me. It can do no harm to sign their inventory; and, with due permission, I assure the Abbot that the noble Visconde de Ponte Quebrada has not the faintest idea of dealing with the monastery for his own ends. At noon they will go."
The Viscount looked searchingly at the captain across the crumbs and rinds. The captain looked no less searchingly at the Viscount. Each saw a certain distance into the other's mind.
"Captain," said the Viscount at last, "as that ghastly old corpse of an Abbot was impudent enough to observe, I am not a born Portuguese. Give me leave to drop this flummery of 'Excellency,' and all the rest of it, so that we can talk openly for five minutes. About this inventory. Some of the things are valuable. The whole lot might be worth nearly a thousand pounds."
"I should have thought nearly eleven hundred," said the captain.
The Viscount pricked up his ears: but detecting nothing ironical or suspicious in the captain's voice or expression, he continued:
"Say a round thousand. Out of that the Government must have four hundred. What do you say to—"
He paused, studying the captain's face narrowly. Then he jerked out:
"To three hundred each?"
The captain's conscience was not clear of past pilferings from the noble purse. This the Viscount knew; for he would never have dared to depend on his face-reading powers alone. Yet in spite of the absence of witnesses, he was taking a certain risk, and he awaited the captain's answer nervously. It came without much delay:
"I draw the line somewhere," said the captain. "I don't rob churches. Besides," he added in a contemptuous outburst, "I believe in honor, even among thieves. I'm not a fool. The stuff is worth five thousand pounds if it's worth a penny."
The Viscount fidgeted about miserably, crumbling up bread. "Not five," he whined. "Say two thousand seven hundred. Or three at the outside. Now we'll suppose—"
"Senhor Visconde de Ponte Quebrada, we will suppose nothing," retorted the captain, getting up in disgust. "I don't know what you are yourself: but damn it all, I'm a Christian. Will you sign that inventory ... or shall I? And what is your answer on your honor—if you've got any—to the Abbot?"
The Viscount climbed off his chair and struck an attitude.
"You are armed to the teeth, while I am defenseless," he said grandly, "but I will not brook these insults. Have a care."
The captain laughed a scornful laugh.
"We'll see who laughs last," squeaked the Viscount, stamping up to the soldier and shaking both his fists. "We'll see who laughs in Lisbon. What about José? What about Liberal niggers? Who is it that protects traitors? Pah! You're a Jesuit in sheep's clothing; you're a Miguelista spy; you're a—"
The captain's long-pent rage brimmed over and burst forth like a tide of molten lava. He seized the Viscount's velvet collar as if it had been the scruff of a cat and rammed him down upon the nearest chair, hissing:
"Take that back or I'll kill you."
The Viscount sputtered.
"Then down on your knees," said the captain: and in five seconds he had his victim groveling on the floor. "Take those words back, and ask my pardon, here and now, on your knees, before I wring your neck."
"I ... take them back. I ... I beg your pardon," moaned the Viscount.
He was about to rise when the captain dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder and forced him down again.
"And to-morrow you sign that inventory?"
With a very foul oath the Viscount said at length, "I sign."
"Very well. As for the Abbot's questions you and he shall settle it between you. But mark. Don't try revenge. If anything goes wrong with me in Lisbon—with my promotion, with my career—I sha'n't let you off a second time, you blackguard. Even if it's some other man's intrigue, it's your dirty neck I shall come and wring. If you want to be on the safe side you'd better see to it that I'm major next week and colonel before next year is out. You son of a pig, get up!"