"You, Mr Cooper-Nassington!" I cried. "You here, in this office, and
in this house! What on earth, then, can this Order of St Bruno be?"
An awkward pause followed. We both stood and stared at each other, and
neither of us spoke.
"Well, at all events," said the Honourable Member, at length summoning
up a faint smile to his lips, "you can see now for yourself that in this
matter of the manuscripts England is quite safe. I shall do nothing--I
shall tolerate nothing--that will hurt our mother country or her
interests. On the contrary, all of us here are fighting for her, and
will do so until our last breath. We may not have particular faith in
unscrupulous office-seekers and popularity-mongers of the type of Lord
Cyril Cuthbertson or that precious but exceedingly foolish ally of his,
the Earl of Fotheringay, but we have faith in the righteousness of
Britain's claims and her needs. Hence we are going to see that, as this
Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano really belongs to her, it is not
snapped from her by Spain, by the Jesuits, or by a lot of needy foreign
adventurers who have begged, borrowed, and stolen all manner of
concessions from the Mexican Republic, and who even to-day may have got
wind of the existence of these documents and may be moving heaven and
earth, and the diabolical powers under the earth, to get hold of them!"
"That may be so--no doubt it is so," I returned doggedly--"but there has
been too much foul play in this hidden treasure hunt, as witness that
murder in Whitehall Court, to content me or to let me take as gospel
everything you choose to tell me and to treat as wisdom everything you
like to leave untold. I must insist on my rights as an individual in
this matter before we go any further or any deeper into mutual
obligations which later all of us may find it difficult to free
ourselves from, however much we may desire to do so. To-day I am my own
master--I can stay or I can go. My decision now will rest on one
consideration alone. What is this Order of St Bruno?"
"I cannot tell you," said the Prior, and his strong face looked out at
me without one shadow of hesitancy or fear.
"Casteno," I went on, turning to the Spaniard, "you are in a different
position to Mr Cooper-Nassington. You are not an officer of this sect,
this institution, this organisation, this brotherhood. You are a plain
member, free to speak or to hold your tongue. I ask you to remember
your pledge to me--to reveal to me all that it is necessary for me to
know in this business to satisfy my own conscience, and, remembering
this, to tell me what tie binds these people together."
"I cannot," he answered, and clasped his hands.
"Why?" I demanded sternly, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Why do
you refuse? If a man is a monk--a Dominican, a Franciscan, a
Norbertine--ay, of any Order you like, even of one of the great silent,
enclosed orders like the Trappists or the Cistercians--he does not
hesitate to admit his kind and to explain under what rule he lives. Why
should you people, here in the very heart of a busy modern city like
London, not practise the same candour? Why should you cloak yourselves
in mystery, in doubt, in veiled hints, in suspicion? Your reticence is
not meaningless. You have some cause for it. What is the reason of it?
Why won't you tell me?"
"Because we are all alike bound by an oath," he muttered, and he moved
away from me as though the mere acknowledgment of that secret bond had
set up a new barrier, an unseen gulf, between us. "We cannot tell
anyone what we have in mind."
"Still there is one way out of the difficulty," put in the MP, speaking
now with marked care and deliberation, "which, fortunately, rests with
you whether it is acted upon. It is this: While it is quite true we
cannot reveal the secrets of our existence to outsiders, no such bar
rests against any communications or confidences between members
themselves. Why, therefore, Glynn, don't you apply yourself for
admission to the Order of St Bruno?"
"Impossible," I cried. "I have no wish to join the Order."
"Well," said Cooper-Nassington, "I can't pledge the Order, of course--I
have no power to--but I am almost certain that they would take you in."
"But for what purpose?" I demanded. "Don't you see we are arguing in a
circle and that we have arrived again at the point why the Order
exists?"
"I do. But that can't be helped. Will you join?"
"I don't know," I said lamely after a moment's reflection. "Answer me
one question before I decide, and answer it to me with the most solemn
truth: Do all the candidates join you in as deep ignorance as I?"
"All," cried Jose and the Prior in one breath. "That is the essence of
our union--this appalling ignorance of what we commit ourselves to."
"Then I'll risk it," I cried. "Propose me at once for initiation."
"And you will stand the tests?" demanded the Prior, now drawing back and
giving me a most searching look. "Remember, this is no child's play--we
are men with men's purposes."
"I will undergo any test," I returned recklessly, for all at once I had
seen that if I were to continue on the track of those three manuscripts
I must stand by St Bruno's whether I wanted to or not. Hence, now I
had got the chance of joining the society, I was resolved to let no
foolish scruples stand in the way but to go into the thing heart and
soul till the whole mystery of its existence stood clearly out.
The Prior and Casteno now drew together and conferred for a few minutes
in whispers. Afterwards the Spaniard approached me as the MP hurried
off, and said: "If you will go into an ante-room at the end of the
passage the Order will be called together here and their pleasure about
you instantly ascertained. If they decide to admit you your initiation
will be proceeded with at once." And thereon he conducted me to a
small, barely-furnished waiting-room and, closing the door upon me, left
me to my own reflections, which, now the critical moment had come, were,
I regret to state, none of the most pleasant.
Nor was that feeling of apprehension removed when, about twenty minutes
later, Casteno reappeared and told me that the Order had approved me and
that I was about to become a St Bruno-ite. All at once I realised that
this initiation upon which I had decided to venture with so much
foolhardy pluck might be a most serious business for me and for my
future.