Bridle the Wind (27 page)

The hermit, who had indeed appeared at the point of death when we arrived, now rallied a little, and said, ‘My children, you come at a good hour for me…. Did you indeed see my brother Bertrand?'

We were able to assure him that we had, and repeated the message of fraternal forgiveness. Tears stood in the hermit's eyes as he heard it, and he exclaimed weakly, ‘But Bertrand does not know -he does not know the blackest sin of all. No, no, I do not deserve his forgiveness! Monster that I am, I have never confessed my mortal sin. But now I think that God must have sent you to listen to the story of what I did.'

Aghast, I began to say, ‘You have no need to tell
us.
It would be far better to confess it all to God –' But Juan hushed me with a finger to his lips.

Raising himself on one elbow, the dying man hurried on: ‘My brother told you, I suppose, that he and I quarrelled fatally over a young girl, and that she killed herself, rather than choose between us?'

We nodded. He cried out lamentably, ‘But that was not true! She did
not
commit the sin of self-murder! It was I who killed the poor girl – rather than lose her to my brother, I, wild, mad with rage, thrust poor Laura into the ravine.
That
is what he
has to forgive! Oh, miserable wretch, murderer, monster that I am.'

‘Well, my father,' said Juan, after a pause – he spoke in a hesitant, thoughtful, troubled tone -‘that was a very terrible thing to do; there is no doubt of that; but you have spent many years now repenting your sin, and I daresay God will understand and perhaps forgive you if you ask him very sincerely. I am sure He must have forgiven harder things than that in His time.'

‘Do you believe so, child?'

‘Yes,' said Juan more positively. ‘I suppose you were quite young when it happened, and stupid, and unreasonable –'

‘Oh, yes, yes, yes!'

‘Well, there! I do not suppose that you would commit such a crime
now,
would you? If – if the lady was to walk in at the door and – and tell you that she loved your brother best – you would not push her off a cliff now, would you?'

‘Indeed not!' gasped the poor man. ‘I would greet her like a blessed angel!'

‘There, then! Surely she is waiting to forgive you in Paradise.'

The old man burst into a racking flood of sobs, which almost seemed likely to tear him in pieces. Juan tried to soothe him, but I said, ‘No, let him weep. He is washing away all those years of remorse and guilt.' So Juan let him be.

At last the poor thing heaved a shuddering sigh, then another, gulped back his tears, and said, ‘Child, you have brought me great comfort. God
indubitably sent you here. And perhaps He did it for your welfare as well as for mine. Can I assist you in any way, while this feeble husk still holds me together?'

‘Yes, my father, you can,' said Juan. ‘Your brother Bertrand said that you would be able to give my friend and me good counsel. We are being dogged by an evil man – or an evil spirit, we do not know which – but wherever we go, he follows our track, and we are very much afraid of him.'

In as few words as possible he told Brother Laurent the story of our escape from the Abbey and Father Vespasian's pursuit of us.

Brother Laurent seemed to feel a stir of curiosity or memory at the name Vespasian.

‘What was this man's name before he entered? Was it Victor Sihigue?'

‘I do not know, my father.'

‘Strange … strange. It sounds the same. And yet…' He pondered, seeming almost to nod off into sleep. Juan waited patiently, and presently he roused again.

‘Wherever you go, he is able to follow? You have seen him, or his accomplices, at all these different places?'

‘Yes, my father. At the grotto, and at St Jean, at Hasparren and at Licq-Athérey. And then today -we did not
see
him at the fearful gorge, but they said he was there, in the cave.'

‘Singular. Most singular. No doubt he has more than human powers. But what is there about you
that is able to summon him to where you are, like the needle to the lodestone?'

‘We cannot guess,' said Juan.

‘You do not, by any chance, have some article of his in your possession?'

At those words Juan turned completely white.

‘Bon Dieu!
I had forgotten about it. The spyglass! I took his spyglass.'

He pulled it out of the saddlebag – a small brass instrument, somewhat tarnished and green with age and damp.

‘That article belonged to him?' inquired the hermit. Juan nodded, still paper-white, staring at the glass with huge, terrified eyes.

‘Ah, then that explains it all. No wonder he is able to track you down! You could cross the ocean, traverse the polar region, hide yourself underground, and still he would know where you were.'

‘What can I do, then, father? Shall I drop the thing into a crevasse?'

‘Oh, no, my child; that would solve nothing at all. No, if you took it from him, you must give it back.'

‘Give it back to him?
'

Juan's voice was nothing but a cracked, horrified whisper; and for myself I felt the hairs rise on the nape of my neck. Seek out that dreadful being, deliberately seek his company, in order to give him back the glass? Could we possibly do that?

‘Oh, yes,' said Brother Laurent, ‘you must do so; that is the only way. Then, when he has the thing again, when he has no more power over you
because of it, then you must endeavour to persuade the unlawful spirit to leave the body of the poor wretch in which it has taken refuge.'

‘But – how can
we
do
that?
'

Juan's face was appalled, his voice was no more than a thread. He said, ‘We are only young, my father, we have no powers of – of that kind. We are not holy.'

The hermit moved his head weakly in denial.

‘A needle has power in the fingers of a sempstress, a pick in the hands of a miner. Who sent you here to me in my last hour? Never fear, child, when it is needed, the power will be sent you. Now, let me be still in my last minutes, and help me with your thoughts, for I am about to take leave of this world.' And he lay back on his pillow of leaves and closed his eyes, though his lips still moved in rapid prayer.

Outside the storm continued to rage; through one tiny high-up window in the massive stone wall, the blue-white glare of lightning could be seen at intervals, followed by a crash of thunder each time, as if rocks were raining down on the roof. I thanked God in my heart for finding us this place of shelter, for saving us yet again; and apologised to Him for my cowardice and distrust.

Juan knelt on the rock floor, and when he made a slight gesture to me with his head, I managed to hoist myself onto my knees.

‘Oh, Father in heaven,' I prayed, ‘look after this poor man. No doubt he did do a very dreadful thing in pushing that girl off the cliff and spoiling
three lives; but, as You can see, he is now truly sorry for what he did, and, as Juan said, a great many years have passed and he is a different person from the wild young character who lost his temper. I think perhaps You should not blame him for the deed of a much younger man. But You do not need me to teach You Your business, I am sure!'

And, clear inside my head, despite the turbulence of the storm outside, came the laughing voice of God. ‘Let not your heart be troubled, Felix. I will take up this poor piece of human wreckage. He shall be made as new.'

Not long after, by an extra brilliant flash of lightning, we saw that the hermit's, prediction about himself was correct; he had fallen back dead on his pillow of leaves, with open mouth and staring eyes.

With gentle care Juan closed the open eyes and mouth, composed the bony hands so that they lay folded over the rosary on his chest, then said a quick prayer, kneeling by the corpse.

He had just risen to his feet, and was about to address some remark to me, when the door burst open.

A searing flash of lightning illuminated the figure who stood there. It was Father Vespasian, with a hand on either lintel, leaning forward, as if about to throw himself upon us. Words fail me to describe the horror of the dreadful mask which formed his face – so white, creased, puffed, dead – yet with its eyes fixed on us, burning like coals.

‘Now!
he cried out.
‘Now, you must tell me –
!'

The mouth in the face did not move as he spoke; the words came out, as from a hole in a mask, spoken by the actor behind. And they came in a roar, like that of the wind.

I could see that Juan, half risen, was wholly petrified by terror. He glanced round, desperate, as if trying to recollect what it was he had to do. I myself was in no better case; I crouched down, like a coney in its burrow, expecting the jaws to open and crush me.

But a strangely long silence followed, and, venturing to look up, I saw that Father Vespasian's eyes were now fixed, not on us, but on the corpse of Brother Laurent. A long, keening, babbling wail came from that open mouth: ‘Ahhhhh-h-h-h!' like the air from a pricked bladder; then suddenly he turned, vanished from the doorway, and was gone. Could we hear his shriek diminishing in the distance? Or was it merely the voice of the storm?

‘You should' – I gulped, after a while finding my voice – ‘you should have given him the spyglass.'

‘You think I could remember such a thing at such a time?' But after a moment Juan added despondently. ‘Yes, you are right. I should have done so. Now it is all to do again….'

‘Well,' I said, ‘we had better snatch some sleep while we can. I do not think he will come back here,' remembering Father Vespasian's hatred of any dead thing.

So we huddled together on the heap of mouldy cloth.

‘Gab-boon,
Felix.'

‘Gab-boon,
Juan.' And I added, remembering his rhyme, If I die before I wake, You can have the birthday cake!'

‘You are not going to die this time, Felix,' said Juan. ‘You are going to get better.' And despite the horror of all that had happened, there was something of a smile in his voice.

Exhausted though we were, we could not sleep for long. The storm abated, but then came back, even wilder and louder; daylight of a sort presently lit the hut with pale grey, but the rain did not diminish, the thunder reverberated, and lightning every now and then shattered the gloom.

‘This is no place to remain,' said Juan at length. ‘Let us bury that poor man and be on our way.'

In the rude lean-to at the side where he had stabled our ponies, we found a few tools: a pick, a spade, and a saw. We fed and saddled the ponies, then carried out the tools and began trying to dig a grave in a grassy patch beyond the track, the only spot in that rocky pass where there seemed a chance that the ground would be soft enough to dig.

My right arm was still too stiff and sore to wield the pick, so I was working with the spade, while Juan hacked away somewhat ineffectually with the pick, where there came the most vivid and blinding flash that we had yet seen, causing us both to cry
out, drop our tools, and cover our eyes. That was followed by such a shattering clap of thunder that we involuntarily clung together, still with our eyes closed, expecting imminent extinction.

‘Are we still alive, Felix?' faltered Juan doubtfully, after a moment or two.

‘I – I believe so.' Warily I opened my eyes, wondering if I had been struck blind, then shook my head with astonishment, stared, and stared again. Where the hermit's stone hut had stood, there was now nothing but a battered, blackened, smoking ruin.

‘Ave Maria!'
I whispered, crossing myself. ‘I think God has done our business for us, Juan. We have no need to bury Brother Laurent.'

Juan opened his eyes, gasped, and crossed himself likewise. Then he suddenly called out in a lamentable voice,
‘The Harlequin!
Oh, my poor pony!'

He had already led out el Demonio, with the tools on his back, and tethered him to a pine tree, but the unfortunate Harlequin had remained inside the lean-to, and was now burned to a crisp, along with the body of Brother Laurent.

‘Oh, poor, poor Harlequin!' said Juan, and burst into uncontrollable weeping. ‘Oh, why, why did he have to die? Why did God have to kill him?'

I had no answer to his question, and could only try to comfort him as best I could.

‘At least he suffered nothing, it must have been over in a second. Come, Juan, you have been brave for two of us during the last day; do not give way
now! I am surprised to see you show such grief for a mere pony. Be a man! You shall have another as soon as we find a horse fair.'

‘He was
not
a mere pony!' wept Juan. ‘He was cowardly and lazy, and I loved him.'

What could I say? I remembered how I felt when I had to leave a bad-tempered mule behind in a convent in Santander; and I let Juan have his cry out, while I transferred the contents of his
alforjas
(which, luckily, he had already brought from the shelter) into those of the Demon, rolled up the bags, and tied them to my saddle. My hand was sore, but usable, and the swelling was going down.

While doing these things I chanced to pass close to a seared, blackened hunk of stone which had previously, I recalled, been placed across the lintel of the hermit's doorway. There were Latin words carved upon it: SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS, from which I guessed that the building had once formed a tomb for some Roman; now, once more, it would be a tomb, for a troubled man and a lazy pony.

Slipping Father Vespasian's brass spyglass into the saddlebag, I wondered what would have ensued if it had been left inside the shelter when the lightning struck; would our demon have ceased to follow us? Or would he, once the glass was destroyed, have followed us forevermore? I did not speak of this to Juan; he was too distressed over the death of his dear
pottoka
.

We were glad to leave that spot and continue onward down the pass. At first Juan wished me to
ride and he to walk; but I insisted on our taking turn about.