The monk understood less and less. He really believed himself suffering from an atrocious nightmare.
By the horseman's orders, however, one of his suite had lighted a torch of ocote wood.
So soon as the flame played over the stranger's feature, and illumined his face, the monk gave a start of surprise, and clasped his hands at the same time as his countenance suddenly reassumed its serenity.
"Heaven be praised!" he said, with an accent of beatitude impossible to render. "Is it possible that it can be you, Don. Stenio de Bejar? I was so far from believing that I should have the felicity of meeting you this night, Señor Conde, that, on my faith, I did not recognise you, and felt almost frightened."
The Count, for it was really he whom the monk had so unfortunately met, did not answer for the moment, but contented himself with smiling.
Don Stenio de Bejar, who had left Saint Domingo at full speed, for the purpose of going to the hatto del Rincón, in order to convince himself of the truth of the information given him by Don Antonio de la Ronda, thus found himself, by the greatest accident, just as he was reaching his destination, and when he least expected it, face to face with Fray Arsenio Mendoza; that is to say, with the only man capable of proving to him peremptorily the truth or falsehood of the assertions of the spy, who had denounced Doña Clara to her husband.
Fray Arsenio's reputation for poltroonery had long been current among his countrymen, and hence nothing seemed more easy than to obtain from him the truth in its fullest details.
The Count believed himself almost certain, by employing intimidation, to make Fray Arsenio confess what he knew: hence, so soon as the latter had mentioned his name, Don Stenio, warned by the spy, who rode at his side, resolved to terrify the monk, and thus render it impossible for him to resist the orders he might intimate to him.
We take pleasure in believing that in acting thus, the Count had not the slightest intention of treating the monk with a violence, which in any case would be deplorable, but dishonourable on the part of a man in his position. Unfortunately, through the unforeseen and incomprehensible resistance which, contrary to all probability, the monk offered him, the Count was led away by his passion, and gave orders against his better judgment, when harshness and even cruelty could in no case be justified.
After a silence of some seconds, Don Stenio fixed a piercing glance on the monk, as if he wished to read his very soul, and then seized him brutally by the arm.