“This digging of gold,” cried the priest; “this crime we have in mind against these people, this crime against ourselves. Do you count our vows for nothing, our holy vocation, the fact that God has set us apart to guard the flocks he has confided to us? Fall on your knees, miserable boy, and beg His pardon for your impiety—here, even as I have done; down, down with you!” The old priest’s voice rose to a scream; he wound his skinny arms round his companion, and calling on the saints for help, tried to force him to the earth.
The lay brother grew suddenly pale, and, with a violent movement, shook himself free.
“You old fool!” he exclaimed. “Keep your dirty hands off me, I tell you. Leave me alone.”
“I forbid you to take another step,” cried the priest. “In the name of God I forbid you.”
“See here,” said Michael, somewhat recovering himself, “I don’t want to quarrel with you. I would rather cut off my right hand than quarrel with you. I need you; and if you only had the sense to see it, you would know that you need me. It would be a rotten business if we ruined each other.”
“Why can’t you take the gold you have, and go?” exclaimed the father. “Leave the island and content yourself that you have got a competence. It is more already than you could have gained by a lifetime of honest work.”
“I mean to stay just where I am,” returned the lay brother, “regardless of whether you like it or don’t like it; I mean to stand by all my rights, with you if I can, without you if I must. You can do me lots of harm, and skim no end of cream off my milk; though I don’t think you have much to gain by doing it, or that the niggers you are so fond of will be greatly benefited. You have every reason to stand in with me, both for your sake and theirs; and if the money cuts no figure with you, you can surely see the sense of having some say in the subsequent developments. That’s all I have time for now, though if you are more in your right mind by evening I won’t mind talking it over with you again.”
With that last word Michael passed on, with an air of assurance implying that all would come right. The old priest remained standing in the path, sullenly looking after him; and he remained long in that attitude, even after the brother’s black figure had dwindled and disappeared into the distance. He felt utterly baffled, utterly conquered; he wondered whether he had any more resistance in him; he asked himself if God had forsaken him.
What was there now left for him to do, helpless and despairing as he was, but to wait with what patience he might for the concluding tragedy? After all, his own soul was clean; except for the one day, when, in the exultation of the discovery, in the madness that had temporarily possessed him, he had soiled his hands with the accursed thing. He remembered, with self-disdain, how he had accepted the partnership held out to him; how he had been dazzled, cajoled, swept altogether off his feet by the importunity of the devil. But that was all done with now. He would have none of the blood-money; if the knell had sounded for his people, he at least would not profit by their ruin, he at least would not transmute their agony into gold. The others could do that; Michael and his white savages; the hosts that were to come. Had the young man no conscience, no compassion? Was he simply a wall of selfishness, against which one might beat in vain? Oh, the hypocrite, the months he had lived a lie! Oh, the remorseless devil and his gold! How could God endure such things? A man like that ought to be struck down by thunderbolts; people ought to kill him like a mad dog.
The thought made him tremble. If Michael were dead, who would ever know about the gold? Had it not lain there all these years, latently evil in the earth, no one dreaming of its existence? Why should it not continue to lie for ever, powerless for all mischief, or until such a time, perhaps, when men would no longer count it a thing of price; when it would be relegated to museums for the curious to stare at, side by side with the wampum of Indians, cowry-shells, and the white beards that pass for money in the Marquesas. Ah, were it not for Michael!