At first these street currents brought him back to the Mission more or less quickly. But as time hastened on they began to take him further and wider in their drift or leave him stranded momentarily or longer in some temple grounds, or on the river’s bank, until at last sundown did not find him at the Mission and after a while dusk crept in before him.
One night he sat on the edge of the cloister outside of his door. His eyes were half closed, a faint upward curl fluttered in the corners of his mouth, a fulness pouted his lower lip. He had been sitting thus for a long time when the Unknown priest came and stood looking down at him steadfastly, weighted with intuition—a gaze to be avoided.
Presently he began to talk aloud to himself.
“It has come.”
“Spontaneous?”
“Yes.”
“Fungoid?”
“No; it takes a night to produce a mushroom and only a minute to shrivel it. An instant produces this or a mountain. Ages can not alter it. I know of no name unless it be called volcanic; an upheaval, a something from the depths; made up of scoria that destroys but is itself indestructible.”
“What are you doing?” he growled.
The Breton looked up.