CHAPTER X
THE CLOISTER IN THE AIR
Irrespective of environment, the cloister of the Mount would have been a delight to the eye, but, upheld in mid air, with the sky so near and the sands so far below, it seemed more an inspiration of fancy than a work of hand. Dainty, delicate, its rose-colored columns of granite appeared too thin for tangible weight; the tympan's sculptured designs, fanciful as the carvings in some palace of a poet's dreams. Despite, however, this first impression of evanescence, it carried a charm against the ravages of time, and ethereal though it was, had rested like a crown on the grim head of the rock through the ages.
Once a place for quiet meditation, the cloister had, through a whirligig of change, become the favorite resort of the Governor, for déjeûner, or after-dinner dram, and, on occasions, for the transaction of much profane though necessary labor pertaining to his office and private concerns. He busied himself there now; or had been busying himself, but paused to look up from the large book before him, whose pages were inscribed with items and figures. His finger, following the mental computation, remained stationary. Fouage—tax upon fires; banvin—duties on wine; vingtain—the lord's right to his share of the produce; minage—his due from each mine or half setier of coin—consideration of these usually all-important matters seemed for the moment to have been forgotten.
He leaned back, and as he sat thus, the light and shadow playing on him, the dark, steely eyes looked the more sunken, the hard, cynical lips beneath the white mustache, the more cruel, the spare figure the more alert and ready, as if to grapple with some hidden danger.
"J'arrive en ce pays
De Basse Normandie—"
At one of the apertures looking out to the barren waste of sand stood the Lady Elise; the words of the old Norman chant she was singing in desultory fashion rang softly, oddly, in that spot, where black-clad brethren for centuries had been wont to tread. Mechanically the Governor listened, but the voice soon ceased abruptly and again, after the manner of one of orderly habits, he bent over the big book; once more the curving finger slid up and down, and parsimony, the vice of the aged, had begun to shine from his pinched features, when a footstep rang on the marble pavement.
"Your Excellency sent for me?" The commandant stood respectfully near.
The Governor closed the book with deliberation; lifted his eyes. "The prisoners that were taken last night are safely housed?"