Ten times already had he renewed his efforts, with the desperation produced by despair, without seeing them crowned with success; the perspiration poured down his face; his chest panted; he was in a state to produce pity even in his most obstinate enemy.
"I shall never succeed in mounting it," he muttered sadly; "and if I remain here, I am a lost man, for within an hour I shall be infallibly devoured by some tiger in search of its supper."
This final reflection, which was incontestably true, restored a fresh ardour to the monk, who resolved to make a new and supreme attempt But this time he wished to take all his precautions; consequently, he began collecting the dead wood round him and piling it at the foot of the tree, so as to form a scaffolding high enough for him to reach, without any great difficulty, a branch sufficiently low for him, while careful to remain awake, to hope to spend the night without fear of being devoured—an alternative for which the worthy monk did not feel the slightest inclination.
Soon, thanks to the vivacity of his movements, Fray Antonio had a considerable heap of wood piled up around him. A smile of satisfaction lit up his wide face, and he breathed again, while wiping away the perspiration that poured down his face.
"This time," he muttered, calculating with a glance the space he had to cover, "if I do not succeed, I shall be preciously clumsy."
In the meanwhile the last gleams of twilight, so useful to the monk, had entirely disappeared; the absence of the stars, which had not yet shown themselves, left a profound obscurity in the sky, which was even more obscure under the covert; all was beginning to be blotted out, only allowing here and there a few clumps of trees to be distinguished, as they designed their gloomy masses in the night, or a few patches of water, the result of the last storm, which studded the forest with paler spots. The evening breeze had risen, and could be heard soughing through the foliage with a sad and melancholy plaintiveness.
The dangerous denizens of the forest had quitted their lurking places, and crushed the dead wood, as they eagerly came on, amid a deafening current of catlike howls. The monk had not an instant to lose, if he did not wish to be attacked on all sides at once by the wild beasts, whom a lengthened fast rendered more terrible still.
After taking a searching glance around him in order to assure himself that no pressing danger threatened him, the monk devotedly crossed himself, fervently recommended himself to Heaven with a sincerity he had probably never evinced before, and then, suddenly making up his mind, began resolutely climbing up the pile of wood. After several unsuccessful attempts, he at last reached the top of this fictitious mount.
He then stopped for a minute to draw breath; indeed, thanks to his ingenious ideas, Fray Antonio was now nearly ten feet from the ground. It is true that any animal could easily have overthrown this obstacle; but for all that, this beginning of success revived the monk's courage, the more so because, on raising his eyes he saw a few paces above him, the blessed branch toward which he had so long extended his arms in vain.
"Come!" he said, hopefully.