"My God!" muttered Le Bihan, "the Black Priest is in St. Gildas!"
"D-don't you--you know the old prophecy?" stammered Fortin; "Froissart
quotes it from Jacques Sorgue:
'When the Black Priest rises from the dead,
St. Gildas folk shall shriek in bed;
When the Black Priest rises from his grave,
May the good God St. Gildas save!'"
"Aristide Le Bihan," I said angrily, "and you, Max Fortin, I've got
enough of this nonsense! Some foolish lout from Bannalec has been in
St. Gildas playing tricks to frighten old fools like you. If you have
nothing better to talk about than nursery legends I'll wait until you
come to your senses. Good-morning." And I walked out, more disturbed
than I cared to acknowledge to myself.
The day had become misty and overcast. Heavy, wet clouds hung in the
east. I heard the surf thundering against the cliffs, and the gray
gulls squealed as they tossed and turned high in the sky. The tide
was creeping across the river sands, higher, higher, and I saw the
seaweed floating on the beach, and the _lançons_ springing from the
foam, silvery thread-like flashes in the gloom. Curlew were flying up
the river in twos and threes; the timid sea swallows skimmed across the
moors toward some quiet, lonely pool, safe from the coming tempest. In
every hedge field birds were gathering, huddling together, twittering
restlessly.
When I reached the cliffs I sat down, resting my chin on my clenched
hands. Already a vast curtain of rain, sweeping across the ocean miles
away, hid the island of Groix. To the east, behind the white semaphore
on the hills, black clouds crowded up over the horizon. After a little
the thunder boomed, dull, distant, and slender skeins of lightning
unravelled across the crest of the coming storm. Under the cliff at my
feet the surf rushed foaming over the shore, and the _lançons_ jumped
and skipped and quivered until they seemed to be but the reflections of
the meshed lightning.
I turned to the east. It was raining over Groix, it was raining at
Sainte Barbe, it was raining now at the semaphore. High in the storm
whirl a few gulls pitched; a nearer cloud trailed veils of rain in its
wake; the sky was spattered with lightning; the thunder boomed.
As I rose to go, a cold raindrop fell upon the back of my hand, and
another, and yet another on my face. I gave a last glance at the sea,
where the waves were bursting into strange white shapes that seemed to
fling out menacing arms toward me. Then something moved on the cliff,
something black as the black rock it clutched--a filthy cormorant,
craning its hideous head at the sky.
Slowly I plodded homeward across the sombre moorland, where the
gorse stems glimmered with a dull metallic green, and the heather,
no longer violet and purple, hung drenched and dun-coloured among
the dreary rocks. The wet turf creaked under my heavy boots, the
black-thorn scraped and grated against knee and elbow. Over all lay
a strange light, pallid, ghastly, where the sea spray whirled across
the landscape and drove into my face until it grew numb with the cold.
In broad bands, rank after rank, billow on billow, the rain burst out
across the endless moors, and yet there was no wind to drive it at such
a pace.
Lys stood at the door as I turned into the garden, motioning me to
hasten; and then for the first time I became conscious that I was
soaked to the skin.
"How ever in the world did you come to stay out when such a storm
threatened?" she said. "Oh, you are dripping! Go quickly and change; I
have laid your warm underwear on the bed, Dick."
I kissed my wife, and went upstairs to change my dripping clothes for
something more comfortable.
When I returned to the morning room there was a driftwood fire on the
hearth, and Lys sat in the chimney corner embroidering.
"Catherine tells me that the fishing fleet from Lorient is out. Do you
think they are in danger, dear?" asked Lys, raising her blue eyes to
mine as I entered.
"There is no wind, and there will be no sea," said I, looking out of
the window. Far across the moor I could see the black cliffs looming in
the mist.
"How it rains!" murmured Lys; "come to the fire, Dick."
I threw myself on the fur rug, my hands in my pockets, my head on Lys's
knees.
"Tell me a story," I said. "I feel like a boy of ten."
Lys raised a finger to her scarlet lips. I always waited for her to do
that.
"Will you be very still, then?" she said.
"Still as death."
"Death," echoed a voice, very softly.
"Did you speak, Lys?" I asked, turning so that I could see her face.
"No; did you, Dick?"
"Who said 'death'?" I asked, startled.
"Death," echoed a voice, softly.
I sprang up and looked about. Lys rose too, her needles and embroidery
falling to the floor. She seemed about to faint, leaning heavily on me,
and I led her to the window and opened it a little way to give her air.
As I did so the chain lightning split the zenith, the thunder crashed,
and a sheet of rain swept into the room, driving with it something that
fluttered--something that flapped, and squeaked, and beat upon the rug
with soft, moist wings.
We bent over it together, Lys clinging to me, and we saw that it was a
death's-head moth drenched with rain.
The dark day passed slowly as we sat beside the fire, hand in hand,
her head against my breast, speaking of sorrow and mystery and death.
For Lys believed that there were things on earth that none might
understand, things that must be nameless forever and ever, until God
rolls up the scroll of life and all is ended. We spoke of hope and fear
and faith, and the mystery of the saints; we spoke of the beginning and
the end, of the shadow of sin, of omens, and of love. The moth still
lay on the floor, quivering its sombre wings in the warmth of the fire,
the skull and ribs clearly etched upon its neck and body.
"If it is a messenger of death to this house," I said, "why should we
fear, Lys?"
"Death should be welcome to those who love God," murmured Lys, and she
drew the cross from her breast and kissed it.
"The moth might die if I threw it out into the storm," I said after a
silence.
"Let it remain," sighed Lys.
Late that night my wife lay sleeping, and I sat beside her bed and read
in the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue. I shaded the candle, but Lys grew
restless, and finally I took the book down into the morning room, where
the ashes of the fire rustled and whitened on the hearth.
The death's-head moth lay on the rug before the fire where I had left
it. At first I thought it was dead, but, when I looked closer I saw
a lambent fire in its amber eyes. The straight white shadow it cast
across the floor wavered as the candle flickered.
The pages of the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue were damp and sticky; the
illuminated gold and blue initials left flakes of azure and gilt where
my hand brushed them.
"It is not paper at all; it is thin parchment," I said to myself;
and I held the discoloured page close to the candle flame and read,
translating laboriously:
"I, Jacques Sorgue, saw all these things. And I saw the Black Mass
celebrated in the chapel of St. Gildas-on-the-Cliff. And it was said by
the Abbé Sorgue, my kinsman: for which deadly sin the apostate priest
was seized by the most noble Marquis of Plougastel and by him condemned
to be burned with hot irons, until his seared soul quit its body and
fly to its master the devil. But when the Black Priest lay in the crypt
of Plougastel, his master Satan came at night and set him free, and
carried him across land and sea to Mahmoud, which is Soldan or Saladin.
And I, Jacques Sorgue, travelling afterward by sea, beheld with my own
eyes my kinsman, the Black Priest of St. Gildas, borne along in the
air upon a vast black wing, which was the wing of his master Satan. And
this was seen also by two men of the crew."
I turned the page. The wings of the moth on the floor began to quiver.
I read on and on, my eyes blurring under the shifting candle flame.
I read of battles and of saints, and I learned how the great Soldan
made his pact with Satan, and then I came to the Sieur de Trevec, and
read how he seized the Black Priest in the midst of Saladin's tents
and carried him away and cut off his head, first branding him on the
forehead. "And before he suffered," said the Chronicle, "he cursed the
Sieur de Trevec and his descendants, and he said he would surely return
to St. Gildas. 'For the violence you do to me, I will do violence to
you. For the evil I suffer at your hands, I will work evil on you and
your descendants. Woe to your children, Sieur de Trevec!'" There was
a whirr, a beating of strong wings, and my candle flashed up as in a
sudden breeze. A humming filled the room; the great moth darted hither
and thither, beating, buzzing, on ceiling and wall. I flung down my
book and stepped forward. Now it lay fluttering upon the window sill,
and for a moment I had it under my hand, but the thing squeaked and
I shrank back. Then suddenly it darted across the candle flame; the
light flared and went out, and at the same moment a shadow moved in
the darkness outside. I raised my eyes to the window. A masked face was
peering in at me.
Quick as thought I whipped out my revolver and fired every cartridge,
but the face advanced beyond the window, the glass melting away before
it like mist, and through the smoke of my revolver I saw something
creep swiftly into the room. Then I tried to cry out, but the thing was
at my throat, and I fell backward among the ashes of the hearth.
* * * * *
When my eyes unclosed I was lying on the hearth, my head among the cold
ashes. Slowly I got on my knees, rose painfully, and groped my way
to a chair. On the floor lay my revolver, shining in the pale light
of early morning. My mind clearing by degrees, I looked, shuddering,
at the window. The glass was unbroken. I stooped stiffly, picked up
my revolver and opened the cylinder. Every cartridge had been fired.
Mechanically I closed the cylinder and placed the revolver in my
pocket. The book, the Chronicles of Jacques Sorgue, lay on the table
beside me, and as I started to close it I glanced at the page. It was
all splashed with rain, and the lettering had run, so that the page was
merely a confused blur of gold and red and black. As I stumbled toward
the door I cast a fearful glance over my shoulder. The death's-head
moth crawled shivering on the rug.