Donatus fell on his knees before the terrible monk and folding his weary, iron-bound hands as if in prayer, he exclaimed, "Now, now, I understand you."
"Donatus!" cried Correntian, as if his lifelong torpor was suddenly unpent in a lava-flood of extasy--his eye flashed, his pulses throbbed, his breast heaved--"At one word from me you would have been exempt from this fearful punishment--and I was silent. Donatus, tell me, have I been your salvation or your ruin?"
"My salvation and I thank you!" groaned Donatus, and a terrible smile of bliss passed over his drawn lips; he feebly grasped Correntian's hands; the damp walls, like an open grave, echoed back his words: "I thank you."
Correntian hastily threw his arms round the unconscious boy as he sank to the ground; for the first time in his life a human form rested on his breast, and with the first rays of morning, which fell on him through the slit in the wall, high above him, the first ray of love sparkled in the stern master's eyes and was merged in the martyr's crown that shone on the disciple's head.
BOOK III.
GRACE.
CHAPTER I.
Morning dawned slowly over the heath of Mals and the dismal tolling of the bell of Saint Valentine's proclaimed far and wide that one of the brethren lay at the point of death. It was brother Florentinus, the grey-haired watchman, who for more than half a century had lived in constant warfare with the deadly and inhospitable powers of the moor, and whose tender and protecting hand had snatched from them their storm-beaten victims. How old he was no man knew--but it must be near on a century; yet Death found it no easy task to crush the life that had defied a thousand snowstorms. He lay close to the chimney, breathing painfully, his dim eyes fixed on the dingy painting of Saint Valentine. His withered body was like a dried up mummy, his hands and feet were already stiff and cold, but his hardly-drawn breath still fanned the trembling flame. It seemed as though he were waiting for something; and yet what should he be waiting for? He had closed his account with the world.
The lonely rider was scouring across the moor from Burgeis at the maddest pace to which he could urge his horse. He too heard the knell, and without accounting to himself for the impulse, he struck his spurs into the horse that started forward with great leaps--he felt that he must reach the Hospice before the tolling ceased; before the unknown life was extinct that was in that hour wrestling with death.
The dying man listened to the beating of the hoofs and turned his eyes to the door.