They were singing Compline together one evening with tired, overstrained voices, for they had determined not to relax any of the chant until it was necessary. Mr. Morris was behind them at a chair set beyond the screen; and there were no others present in church.
The choir was perfectly dark (for they knew the office by heart) except for a glimmer from the sacristy door where a lamp burned within to light them to bed. Chris’s thoughts had fled back to that summer evening long ago when he had knelt far down in the nave and watched the serried line of the black-hooded soldiers of God, and listened to the tramp of the psalmody, and longed to be of their company. Now the gallant regiment had dwindled to two, of which he was one, and the guest-master that had received him and encouraged him, the other.
Dom Anthony was the officiant this evening, and had just sung lustily out in the dark that God was about them with His shield, that they need fear no nightly terror.
The movement flagged for a moment, for Chris was not attending; Mr. Morris’s voice began alone, A sagitta volante—and then stopped abruptly as he realised that he was singing by himself; and simultaneously came a sharp little crash from the dark altar that rose up in the gloom in front.
A sort of sobbing breath broke from Chris at the sudden noise, and he gripped his hands together.
In a moment Dom Anthony had taken up the verse.
A sagitta volante—“From the arrow that flieth by day, from the thing that walketh in darkness—” Chris recovered himself; and the office passed on.
As the two passed out together towards the door, Dom Anthony went forward up the steps; and Chris waited, and watched him stoop and pass his hands over the floor. Then he straightened himself, came down the steps and went before Chris into the sacristy.
Under the lamp he stopped, and lifted what he carried to the light. It was the little ivory crucifix that he had hung there a few weeks ago when the last cross of precious metal had disappeared with the Sub-Prior. It was cracked across the body of the figure now, and one of the arms was detached at the shoulder and swung free on the nail through the hand.