Our interval of uneasy silence was brought to a close by a sound of many voices stealing faintly on the breeze—so faintly that we disputed at first what it was. The sounds drew gradually nearer, and their measured rhythmic cadence would have suggested a party of peasants returning home, but that the music had more the air of a solemn litany than of revelry. Daphne, wondering what new source of surprise or terror was in store for her, clung trembling to her father. The place where we stood was elevated above the roadway, and we by and by saw winding along its course a procession of cowled and corded monks, marching two and two in solemn order, and chanting a mournful refrain. Some bore aloft flaming torches, an act that, even in the excitement of the moment, I could not help thinking to be an absurdity, seeing that the moonlight made everything as bright as day. A few of the train were boys, and their silvery trebles made sweet contrast with the deep bass of their elders.
With bowed heads and measured pace the monks advanced, seeming in their grey robes silvered by the moonlight more like ghostly figures in a dream than living beings in a real world.
Those at the head of the procession were carrying a bier upon which lay something covered with a cassock.
"A strange hour for a burial," said my uncle, "if burial it be. Or are they carrying to the town some dead body they have discovered among the mountains?"
"O papa!" cried Daphne, clutching her father's arm, and speaking in a broken voice, "can he have committed suicide?"
"Who?"
"Angelo! I remember his wild look when he left me. Oh, if it should be——"
"No, no, you are frightening yourself without reason," said her father in a reassuring tone. "It is not Angelo. Can you not see? It is one of their own order whom they are mourning. They would not make such a lament over mere secular clay, I warrant you. Stay here, and Frank and I will ascertain who it is. You do not mind being left alone for a minute or two? No harm can happen to you. We will not be long. Come, Frank." And my uncle and I descended hastily to the road.
As this is a faithful autobiography I must not shrink from recording my thoughts at this time. Full of my selfish love for Daphne, I was hoping that the dead form carried by the monks might be—George. A wicked wish, and one that I was ashamed of the minute after I had entertained it.
The monks had ceased their singing for a brief space, but as they neared us a fresh outburst of mournful harmony rose from them. It spread through the vale around, and, rolling onward, echoed and re-echoed from many a distant cliff, and, as if refused a lodgment there, mounted upward to the midnight sky: