That question was answered the moment the travellers appeared within sight of the well-known walls. They saw a sight that lived in their memories for many a day to come.
Instead of the calm and solitude which generally reigned in this place, a great crowd was to be seen around the gate, but such a crowd as the youths had never dreamed of before. Wretched, plague-stricken people, turned from their own doors and abandoned by their kindred, had dragged themselves from all parts to the doors of the Monastery, in the hope that the pious Brothers would give them help and a corner to die in peace. And that they were not disappointed in this hope was well seen: for as Raymond and his companion appeared, they saw that one after another of these wretched beings was carried within the precincts of the Monastery by the Brothers; whilst amongst those who lay outside waiting their turn for admission, or too far gone to be moved again, a tall thin form moved fearlessly, bending over the dying sufferers and hearing their last confessions, giving priestly absolution, or soothing with strong and tender hands the last agonies of some stricken creature.
Raymond, with a strange, tense look upon his face, went straight to the Father where he stood amongst the dying and the dead, and just as he reached his side the Monk stood suddenly up and looked straight at him. His austere face did not relax, but in his eyes shone a light that looked like triumph.
"It is well, my son," he said. "I knew that thou wouldest be here anon. The soldier of the Cross is ever found at his post in such a time as this."
[CHAPTER XVIII.] WITH FATHER PAUL.
All that evening and far into the night Raymond worked with the Brothers under Father Paul, bringing in the sick, burying the dead, and tending all those for whom anything could be done to mitigate their sufferings, or bring peace either of body or mind.
By nightfall the ghastly assemblage about the Monastery doors had disappeared. The living were lying in rows in the narrow beds, or upon the straw pallets of the Brothers, filling dormitories and Refectory alike; the dead had been laid side by side in a deep trench which had been hastily dug by order of Father Paul; and after he had read over them the burial service, earth and lime had been heaped upon the bodies, and one end of the long trench filled in. Before morning there were a score more corpses to carry forth, and out of the thirty and odd stricken souls who lay within the walls, probably scarce ten would recover from the malady.
But no more of the sick appeared round and about the Monastery gates as they had been doing for the past three days; and when Raymond asked why this was so, Father Paul looked into his face with a keen, searching glance as he replied:
"Verily, my son, it is because there be no more to come -- no more who have strength to drag themselves out hither. Tomorrow I go forth to visit the villages where the sick be dying like beasts in the shambles. I go to shrive and confess the sick, to administer the last rites to the dying, to read the prayers of the Church over those who are being carried to the great common grave. God alone knows whether even now the living may suffice to bury the dead. But where the need is sorest, there must His faithful servants be found."
Raymond looked back with a face full of resolute purpose.