"Lift me up so that I can see them. Father Adrian will help you."
The priest shook his head. "The effort would probably cost you your life," he said, "and it would be useless. Before you could see them the boat would be round the corner."
"So near! God grant me strength! Gomez, give me a tablespoonful of the brandy!"
Gomez moved silently to his side, and poured out the brandy. Afterwards his master closed his eyes, and there was an intense silence in the chamber—the deep, breathless silence of expectancy.
The monastery itself, a small and deserted one, tenanted only by a few half-starved monks of one of the lower orders of the Church, was wrapped in a profound gloom. There was no sound from the half-ruined chapel or the long, empty corridors. The storm had ceased, and the casements no longer rattled in the wind. To the man who lay there, nursing his fast-ebbing strength, it seemed indeed like the silence before the one last tragedy of death, looming so black and so grim before him.
It was broken at last. Away at the end of the corridor the faint sound of hurrying footsteps and subdued voices reached the ears of the three watchers. They came nearer and nearer, halting at last just outside the door. There was a knock, a quick, impetuous answer, and the visitors entered, ushered in by the priest, who had met them on the threshold.
Of the two men, one advanced hastily with outstretched hand and pitying face to the bedside; the other moved only a step or two further into the room, and stood looking intently, yet without any salutation or form of recognition, at the dying man. The former, when he reached the bed, sank on his knees and took the white hand which lay upon the coverlet between his.
"Father! My father! I would have given the world to have found you better. Tell me that it is not true what they say. You will pull round now that I have come!"
There was no answer. The dying man did not even look into the handsome young face so close to his. His eyes, bright and unnaturally large, were rivetted upon the figure at the foot of the bed. His breath came quickly, and he was shivering; an inarticulate sort of moan came from his lips.
"Father! you are agitated, and no wonder, to see him here. You had my letter preparing you; nothing that I could do would stop his coming."