After the last gospel the Abbot advanced and stood leaning on his crozier. The Viscount went very red; the captain nearly white. But the bolt did not fall. In solemn tones the venerable man simply repeated the words of Jeremias:
"Hereditas nostra versa est ad alienos; domus nostrae ad extraneos."*
* "Our inheritance is turned to aliens; our houses to strangers."
After a long pause he stretched out a fatherly hand and pleaded in the words of Saint Peter:
"Et ipsi tamquam lapides vivi superaedificamini, domus spiritualis, sacerdotium sanctum, offerre spirituales hostias acceptabiles Deo per Jesum Christum."*
* "Be ye also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."
That was all. But it was too much for the Viscount and the captain. The captain's Latin was restricted to a confused recollection of an assertion of Julius Cæsar's to the effect that all Gaul is divided into three parts, while the Viscount, who fully believed that nil meant "never," knew the single phrase Nil desperandum. Accordingly, as the Abbot retired to make his thanksgiving, they laid their puzzled heads together, wondering what secret words of command he had spoken to his followers.
It was five minutes to eleven.
"You saw that chalice?" whispered the Viscount. "There's another like it, only bigger. The rubies are from India. They're Burmese. They came through Goa from the hoard of some Indian king or other. I know their whole history."
He was developing a humbugging tale about the difficulty of marketing large rubies for their full value when a gong-like sound, rich and deep, stopped him short. It was the great bell of the abbey which had been ungeared during the Abbot's illness. Ten more strokes slowly followed.