From the cloisters above came the sound of many droning voices. They seemed to intensify the stillness, rather than to disturb it.
At last he paused before the great southern entrance to the cloisters. He pulled rein, but did not dismount. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling strong enough to bow his head and to call from his lips a deep, heartbroken groan. After three days of freedom unspeakably blessed he was now to enter the gates which would shut him in away from the world of life, away from the world of men, perhaps for all his remaining existence. Three brief days! That short time had dispelled from his spirit the dull crust of insensibility, with which he had striven to clothe it. He was once more to be laid bare to the lash of inward rebellion from which he shrank in horror. A pardoned prisoner recondemned to death,—it was easily compared to the life to which he must voluntarily resign himself; that endless existence of religious slavery from whose soul-crushing monotony there was no escape, but death.
Why no escape? Francesco stood there alone in the falling darkness. None in the cloisters had been advised of his coming. He might yet—With a tightening of the lips he leaped from his horse and gave the customary signal.
After a wait of brief duration a lay-brother appeared, opened the gates and Francesco Villani entered the precincts of Monte Cassino.
Without stating the reasons of his presence, he requested to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the Prior, and the monk, after having cared for Francesco's steed, and attended to his behest, returned after a short time and bade him follow. Arrived at the Prior's apartment, his guide knocked for admission. The door swung inward and Francesco entered alone.
The Prior had just finished a special devotion in a small oratory adjoining his chamber and was now seated before a massive oaken table, on which there lay a curiously illuminated parchment, from whose azure and golden initials Francesco's eyes turned shudderingly to the form of Romuald, Prior of Monte Cassino.
His great and powerful frame was so worn with vigils and fasts that it seemed like that of a huge skeleton. He regarded the youth, whose courtly garb and manners would not have remained unremarked even in the most brilliant assembly, with an air of austerity mingled with apathy, which age and long solitude might well have engendered and, after a few brief words of welcome such as took little from Francesco's sense of forlornness, he bade the youth be seated.
Without attempt at delay or circumlocution the son of the Grand Master placed his father's letter in the Prior's hands, while he turned his face from this living Memento Mori in the garb which henceforth must be evermore his own.
Francesco seated himself upon a settle, while the Prior weighed the letter absently in his hand as one undecided whether or not to acquaint himself with its contents. At last he broke the seal and, with the aid of a torch whose flickering light drew Francesco's attention towards the open door of an oratory, Romuald slowly began to read. While thus engrossed, Francesco's gaze wandered down the dim vistas of corridors revealed beyond Romuald's chamber, which in the half-light presented an exceedingly gloomy aspect, reposing in the uncertain glimmer of stone lamps fixed in niches upon the walls. These corridors were at intervals crossed by archways, marking the termination of many flights of stairs leading by galleries to the upper chambers of the cloisters. A pulpit, supported on a pillar fixed in the wall, was revealed by the light of five or six stone lamps, which seemed to intensify rather than to dispel the gloom beyond.
During the reading of Gregorio Villani's letter a sudden change had come over the Prior's face. Francesco noted it not, engrossed as he was in scanning his surroundings, silently wondering if he would be able to strip off the gladness of earth, the joy of youth, the yearning of the flesh, to become the image of that spiritualized abnegation which the Prior represented; if his strength would support his resolve.