CHAPTER TWO

WORD FROM THE UNKNOWN

What to man is the warring of a whole world of nations when his heart and soul wage their more terrible combat within him? What to him are the destruction of Empires and the annihilation of whole kingdoms of men when his own bosom resounds with mutilated cries? So it is that a monarch in his temporal power is subject more to this internal warring and brawling than to the sufferings of millions, and the spiritual pontiff is likewise forgetful of the penitential throngs and waxes gay or melancholy as this combat ebbs or surges tumultuously within him.

This battling between the heart and soul, flesh and spirit, conscience and desire, or what not, is the primæval combat of man. It is Cosmic. And while blood-letting is purely human, this other struggle has something of God in it—hence its terribleness.

For two months such a combat had been going on in the Breton and the terribleness of it had left its traces upon him. He was but the withered semblance of his former self. Feeble and meagre, he appeared to have but little of life left in him. Only when the alluring mind—the heart’s fickle ally—would come to his relief with pleasing, enticing thoughts did he betray any energy or affect interest in the affairs about him. Then he hastened to the guardhouse on the Street of Pearls, where he stood motionless until dusk, his hollow eyes staring through the portals into Tai Lin’s park. There he waited day after day to see those that lived where she lived, as if they could bring away with them some message from her unknown to themselves, but which he could decipher as soon as they came through the gateway.

Such are the strange conceits of hidden love, and such are the stratagems them employ. A familiar odour, sight, or sound are inexhaustible quarries out of which are hewn and polished with exquisite care blocks that go to build up endless palaces and castles of revery, wherein, in due time, are crowded a thousand airy happenings. There the unsubstantial mind brings to broken hearts echoed laughter, false mirrored scenes, and a myriad of fairy fantasies woven out of the unknown.

Down by his crucifix all night, or on the overhanging bank of the river the Breton fought against his heart and its desires, against the love that had come to him unknown and had taken him suddenly body and soul into its keeping, and which even in midst of his appeals to God burned and surged in every vein. So he struggled night after night, little dreaming that the combat was drawing to a close, and was to end—fortunate or otherwise—as each must determine for himself—in a manner that showed him that the hand of God was in it and it was done under His eye.

Dusk had already merged into darkness when the Breton, as usual, entered the cloisters on this night. The faint glimmer of stars that crept through the one high-barred window was lost in the shadows that lay within. He lit a candle, and folding his arms on the table buried his head in them. It was in this manner and at this hour that the dreams of the day began to forsake him. Sometimes his body quivered, and it may have been the trembling of a sob, but it was unuttered. Sometimes he raised his head and with dry, questioning eyes gazed long and intently at the crucifix hanging with its wounded Christ beside his pallet.

Midnight or after a person listening would have heard a smothered moan and might have seen a glimmer of tears in his eyes as they again sought beseechingly the crucifix on the wall. It was then that the day-dreams had utterly vanished, and only the pain of his sin lay hold of him. It was then that he left the table and threw himself down before the Christ in whose compassion sins are forgiven and the memory of them washed away.

So, on this night when he raised his eyes to the crucifix he discovered before him two sealed envelopes. On the larger was written, “Do not open for one year.” He broke the seal of the other and drew out a letter in the handwriting of the Unknown.

As the Breton read the first few lines a look of startled wonder came into his eyes, then pain mingled with anguish. He stopped reading and for some time sat gazing emptily before him into those dim places where truth is sought.

Presently he resumed reading the Unknown’s last words, and varying emotions of amazement and fear shot across his face. He looked wonderingly over to the crucifix as if to ask: “Do you know all this?” But as he continued reading his credulity vanished, and the lines of his lips drew hard and straight. Sometimes his fist involuntarily clenched, a flush burned in his pale, sunken cheeks; sparks of a hidden fire flashed from his blue-black eyes, blazed, died out, then burned with a steadier flame. Sometimes the veins in his forehead and over his temples stood out like whipcords. His breath came in even heavy pulsations.

The letter of the Unknown was drawing to an end. The Breton rose from his chair and bent over against the candle flame, as if with brighter light to fathom out the terror and the truth of those unread pages.

The last sheet fluttered from his hand.

Standing by the table his head gradually sank forward; his eyes closed, and into his face came a stony uncertain tension. Presently, like one awakening, he pressed his hand across his eyes, as if to arouse himself more surely to the scene before him. Then mechanically he gathered up the sheets of the Unknown’s letter and put them back in the envelope—all but the last sheet, which was afterwards found on the floor under the table, and on which were written these enigmatic words:

“My son, I cannot continue this category of sin. Day now breaks and I must be on my way—a way from which there is no returning at all, forever. You will look into what I have written, then—go away.

“What will come of all this I do not know, but these people will not submit forever. Why they have done so this long I do not understand, nor do I know what is going to happen except that in the chronology of such acts comes inevitably the century end of wrong and that awful number ‘Ninety-three.’ I see already the rim of a reign of terror, I hear noises that are the clamour of vengeance, I discover signs in the heavens and it is the judgment of God.

“To-night is the end! What melancholy forebodings this may bring to you, my son, will remain forever unknown to me. But I leave you, as is my duty—that you may grapple with this double-headed dragon that now assails you. Alone you must conquer or alone succumb. In the battles of the heart and soul there can be no allies.

“I have left you in the other envelope certain secrets, which you are not to discover until you have left this place, to return no more.”

The Breton continued standing by the table, staring emptily into those shadows out of which so often come forms real and terrible.

The candle burned low and flickered.

Into the dull eyes of the Breton a faint light was creeping, a light that was not a reflection, but itself a fire such as lurks in that inflammable tinder—a man’s passions.

The candle, like the Breton’s faith, was sputtering, and presently this candle flickered and went out.

Night was ebbing away. Monotonously the watchman passed and repassed, his gong grumbling out the hours of night.

A grey ray stole in from the east; the hum of a new day grew great, and the breaking dawn with its echoes came into the silent room.

The Breton was kneeling before the crucifix that hung near his pallet. Daylight did not arouse him, nor the clamour of day. He was not praying, nor moving, nor dreaming. He was waiting, as men before him and since have waited, for the Christ to lift up his bowed head and speak to him from the pain of the crucifix. The Breton waited, and the solemn melody of chanting voices rose and fell, then—silence.

A sunbeam edged shyly through the window, lingered uncertain and—went away. Someone knocked at his door, but he did not turn from the cross, for he heard no sounds nor knew that it was midday.

Daylight grew dim, and the melancholy shadows of twilight hovered a few moments around his window, then it was again dark and the watchman’s gong measured out the hours of the night.

Once more dawn crept up from under the skirts of night and ushered in a new and memorable day for the Breton priest. He still knelt before the crucifix, but the deep lines of pain had vanished from his face; a calm, gentle serenity rested there, and when at last the sunbeam edged coyly, doubtfully, across the casement, he opened his eyes and they shone with a new, great joy.

When the sunbeam began to go he rose from the crucifix and put the envelopes into his robe. For some moments they lingered, then went away—this sunbeam and the Breton.