They repaired to the chapel. There Father Sebastian heard the confessions of his two companions. Without delay he proceeded to the sacristy. Antonio followed him and began to lift from its drawer one of the less costly vestments which had never been taken away. It was green and gold, as appointed in the Ordo for that day. But Sebastian, having bidden him replace it, drew forth a black chasuble, simply embroidered with a plain white cross. Antonio felt justly rebuked. When the Abbot was dead, and the Prior and all the fathers save two, surely it was meet that the survivor's Mass should be a Mass of requiem.
From his pocket-case, Sebastian took the unconsecrated wafers which he had brought from Lisbon. He finished his vesting and preparation and they re-entered the chapel. José was kneeling devoutly on the lowest step of the sanctuary. Outside, hundreds of birds were in full boisterous song.
Father Sebastian went to the foot of the altar and began to say Mass. He uttered the words quickly and clearly, and made the genuflections without difficulty. Indeed, Antonio, as he poured water over the white and fleshless fingers at the psalm Lavabo, marveled more than ever at the miracle of his friend's sudden strength. At the commemoration of the dead, the intensity of Sebastian's recollection seemed to make the whole chapel thrill and throb, like a bed of reeds in a wind.
After he had given the most holy Body to Antonio and to José, Sebastian concluded the Mass and returned to the sacristy with a firm tread. He laid aside the sacred vestments and came back to his old stall in order to make his thanksgiving. Antonio, also in his old stall, knelt at Sebastian's side.
The ascending sun cleared the top of the hill and shone into the chapel. The diadem of the Holy Child blazed with glory. In all the trees happy birds redoubled their songs.
Half an hour passed. José, arising noisily, made Antonio open his eyes. But Father Sebastian knelt without moving against the sloping book-board. José clattered out. Still Father Sebastian did not move. Antonio waited, revering his friend's ecstasy of communion with his Lord. He waited long. But meanwhile a broad sunbeam had been working westward; and at last it poured its burning gold upon the bended head.
Antonio was stepping softly forward to screen his friend from the fierce ray when a sudden instinct bade him kneel down and look into Sebastian's face. But Sebastian's wide-open, rapturous eyes did not gaze into Antonio's; nor were they beholding any earthly thing. So beautiful was the sight that Antonio's exclamation was more a shout of joy than a cry of fear. Into his mind there rushed the words of Isaias which had been Sebastian's favorite scripture in the old days, Regem in decore suo videbunt oculi ejus: "His eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they shall behold the land which is very far off."
Antonio and José buried the body of Sebastian that night on the sunny side of the cloister, between the third and fourth pillars, just under the tile-picture of Enos, with its legend, Ambulavit cum Deo et non apparuit, quia tulit eum Deus: "He walked with God and was no more seen, for God took him."