"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."