CHAPTER VII. INTRUDERS
It was on Holy Thursday that the image usually began to bleed, and itwould continue so to do until the dawn of Easter Sunday.
Each day now, as the time drew nearer, I watched the image closely, andon the Wednesday I watched it with a dread anxiety I could not repress,for as yet there was no faintest sign. The brown streaks that markedthe course of the last bleeding continued dry. All that night I prayedintently, in a torture of doubt, yet soothed a little by the gentlemusic that was never absent now.
With the first glint of dawn I heard steps outside the hut; but I didnot stir. By sunrise there was a murmur of voices like the muttering ofa sea upon its shore. I rose and peered more closely at the saint. Hewas just wood, inanimate and insensible, and there was still no sign.Outside, I knew, a crowd of pilgrims was already gathered. They werewaiting, poor souls. But what was their waiting compared with mine?
Another hour I knelt there, still beseeching Heaven to take mercyupon me. But Heaven remained unresponsive and the wounds of the imagecontinued dry.
I rose, at last, in a sort of despair, and going to the door of the hut,I flung it wide.
The platform was filled with a great crowd of peasantry, and an overflowpoured down the sides of it and surged up the hill on the right and theleft. At sight of me, so gaunt and worn, my eyes wild with despair andfeverish from sleeplessness, a tangled growth of beard upon my hollowcheeks, they uttered as with one voice a great cry of awe. The multitudeswayed and rippled, and then with a curious sound as that of a greatwind, all went down upon their knees before me--all save the array ofcripples huddled in the foreground, brought thither, poor wretches, inthe hope of a miraculous healing.
As I was looking round upon that assembly, my eyes were caught by aflash and glitter on the road above us leading to the Cisa Pass. Alittle troop of men-at-arms was descending that way. A score of themthere would be, and from their lance-heads fluttered scarlet bannerolsbearing a white device which at that distance I could not make out.
The troop had halted, and one upon a great black horse, a man whosearmour shone like the sun itself, was pointing down with his mail-cladhand. Then they began to move again, and the brightness of their armour,the fluttering pennons on their lances, stirred me strangely in thatfleeting moment, ere I turned again to the faithful who knelt therewaiting for my words. Dolefully, with hanging head and downcast eyes, Imade the dread announcement.
"My children, there is yet no miracle."
A deathly stillness followed the words. Then came an uproar, a clamour,a wailing. One bold mountaineer thrust forward to the foremost ranks,though without rising from his knees.
"Father," he cried, "how can that be? The saint has never failed tobleed by dawn on Holy Thursday, these five years past."
"Alas!" I groaned, "I do not know. I but tell you what is. All nighthave I held vigil. But all has been vain. I will go pray again, and doyou, too, pray."
I dared not tell them of my growing suspicion and fear that the faultwas in myself; that here was a sign of Heaven's displeasure at theimpurity of the guardian of that holy place.
"But the music!" cried one of the cripples raucously. "I hear theblessed music!"
I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen. We all heard itpealing softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and agreat cry went up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry thatwhere one miracle was happening another must happen, that where theangelic choirs were singing all must be well.
And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that Ihad seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage,having turned aside from the road. At the foot of the hillock upon whichmy hut was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to seewhat unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian.
The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight fromit.
All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon thebannerols was the head of a white horse. By that device I knew them.They were of the house of Cavalcanti--a house that had, as I had heard,been in alliance and great friendship with my father. But that theircoming hither should have anything to do with me or with that friendshipI was assured was impossible. Not a single soul could know of mywhereabouts or the identity of the present hermit of Monte Orsaro.
The pair advanced, leaving the troop below to await their return, and asthey came I considered them, as did, too, the multitude.
The man was of middle height, very broad and active, with long arms, toone of which the little lady clung for help up the steep path. He had aproud, stern aquiline face that was shaven, so that the straight linesof his strong mouth and powerful length of jaw looked as if chiselledout of stone. It was only at closer quarters that I observed how thegeneral hardness of that countenance was softened by the kindliness ofhis deep brown eyes. In age I judged him to be forty, though in realityhe was nearer fifty.
The little lady at his side was the daintiest maid that I had everseen. The skin, white as a water-lily, was very gently flushed upon hercheeks; the face was delicately oval; the little mouth, the tenderestin all the world; the forehead low and broad, and the slightlyslanting eyes--when she raised the lashes that hung over them like longshadows--were of the deep blue of sapphires. Her dark brown hair wascoifed in a jewelled net of thread of gold, and on her white neck achain of emeralds sparkled sombrely. Her close-fitting robe and hermantle were of the hue of bronze, and the light shifted along the silkenfabric as she moved, so that it gleamed like metal. About her waistthere was a girdle of hammered gold, and pearls were sewn upon the backof her brown velvet gloves.
One glance of her deep blue eyes she gave me as she approached; then shelowered them instantly, and so weak--so full of worldly vanities was Istill that in that moment I took shame at the thought that she shouldsee me thus, in this rough hermit's habit, my face a tangle of unshornbeard, my hair long and unkempt. And the shame of it dyed my gauntcheeks. And then I turned pale again, for it seemed to me that out ofnowhere a voice had asked me:
"Do you still marvel that the image will not bleed?"
So sharp and clear did those words arise from the lips of Consciencethat it seemed to me as if they had been uttered aloud, and I lookedalmost in alarm to see if any other had overheard them.
The cavalier was standing before me, and his brows were knit, adeep amazement in his eyes. Thus awhile in utter silence. Then quitesuddenly, his voice a ringing challenge:
"What is your name?" he said.
"My name?" quoth I, astonished by such a question, and remarking nowthe intentness and surprise of his own glance. "It is Sebastian," Ianswered, and truthfully, for that was the name of my adoption, the nameI had taken when I entered upon my hermitage.
"Sebastian of what and where?" quoth he.
He stood before me, his back to the peasant crowd, ignoring them ascompletely as if they had no existence, supremely master of himself. Andmeanwhile, the little lady on his arm stole furtive upward glances atme.
"Sebastian of nowhere," I answered. "Sebastian the hermit, the guardianof this shrine. If you are come to..."
"What was your name in the world?" he interrupted impatiently, and allthe time his eyes were devouring my gaunt face.
"The name of a sinner," answered I. "I have stripped it off and cast itfrom me."
An expression of impatience rippled across the white face
"But the name of your father?" he insisted.
"I have none," answered I. "I have no kin or ties of any sort. I amSebastian the hermit."
His lips smacked testily. "Were you baptized Sebastian?" he inquired.
"No," I answered him. "I took the name when I became the guardian ofthis shrine."
"And when was that?"
"In September of last year, when the holy man who was here befor
e medied."
I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips.He leaned towards me. "Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?" heinquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.
But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me bysurprise. I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a memberof the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been sointimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced,moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at thesight of that crowd of pilgrims.
"Sir," I said, "I know not your intentions; but in all humility let mesay that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import. The worldhas done with me, and I with the world. So that unless you are comehither out of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with Godand molest me no further. You come at a singularly inauspicious time,when I need all my strength to forget the world and my sinful past, thatthrough me the will of Heaven may be done here."
I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of greatcompassion and sweetness whilst I spoke. I observed the pressure whichshe put on his arm. Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was thesad firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say. But henodded shortly.
"Well, well!" he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, thelittle lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which thecrowd opened out for him.
That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives ofpiety, they very plainly signified. They feared that the intrusion atsuch a time of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficultiesagainst the performance of the expected miracle.
Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted andquestioned one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage. I did nothear the peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenlythrown up, and I caught his next question:
"When did it last bleed?"
Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice--"That would bebefore this young hermit came? And to-day it will not bleed, you say?"
He flashed me a last keen glance of his eyes, which had grown narrow andseemed laden with mockery. The little lady whispered something to him,in answer to which he laughed contemptuously.
"Fool's mummery," he snapped, and drew her on, she going, it seemed tome, reluctantly.
But the crowd had heard him and the insult offered to the shrine. Adeep-throated bay rose up in menace, and some leapt to their feet as ifthey would attack him.
He checked, and wheeled at the sound. "How now?" he cried, his voice atrumpet-call, his eyes flashing terribly upon them; and as dogs crouchto heel at the angry bidding of their master, the multitude grew silentand afraid under the eyes of that single steel-clad man.
He laughed a deep-throated laugh, and strode down the hill with hislittle lady on his arm.
But when he had mounted and was riding off, the crowd, recoveringcourage from his remoteness, hurled its curses after him and shrillybranded him, "Derider!" and "Blasphemer!"
He rode contemptuously amain, however, looking back but once, and thento laugh at them.
Soon he had dipped out of sight, and of his company nothing was visiblebut the fluttering red pennons with the device of the white horse-head.Gradually these also sank and vanished, and once more I was alone withthe crowd of pilgrims.
Enjoining prayer upon them again, I turned and re-entered the hut.