By nightfall the ghastly assemblage about the Monastery doors had disappeared.  The living were lying in rows in the narrow beds, or upon the straw pallets of the Brothers, filling dormitories and Refectory alike; the dead had been laid side by side in a deep trench which had been hastily dug by order of Father Paul; and after he had read over them the burial service, earth and lime had been heaped upon the bodies, and one end of the long trench filled in.  Before morning there were a score more corpses to carry forth, and out of the thirty and odd stricken souls who lay within the walls, probably scarce ten would recover from the malady.

But no more of the sick appeared round and about the Monastery gates as they had been doing for the past three days; and when Raymond asked why this was so, Father Paul looked into his face with a keen, searching glance as he replied: 

“Verily, my son, it is because there be no more to come —­ no more who have strength to drag themselves out hither.  Tomorrow I go forth to visit the villages where the sick be dying like beasts in the shambles.  I go to shrive and confess the sick, to administer the last rites to the dying, to read the prayers of the Church over those who are being carried to the great common grave.  God alone knows whether even now the living may suffice to bury the dead.  But where the need is sorest, there must His faithful servants be found.”

Raymond looked back with a face full of resolute purpose.

“Father, take me with thee,” he said.

Father Paul looked earnestly into that fair young face, that was growing so intensely spiritual in its expression, and asked one question.

“My son, and if it should be going to thy death?”

“I will go with thee, Father Paul, be it for life or for death.”

“God bless and protect thee, my son!” said the Father.  “I verily believe that thou art one over whom the Blessed Saints and the Holy Angels keep watch and ward, and that thou wilt pass unscathed even through this time of desolation and death.”

Raymond had bent his knee to receive the Father’s blessing, and when he rose he saw that Roger was close behind him, likewise kneeling; and reading the thought in his mind, he said to the Father: 

“Wilt thou not give him thy blessing also? for I know that he too will go with us and face the peril, be it for life or death.”

Father Paul laid his hand upon the head of the second lad.

“May God’s blessing rest also upon thee, my son,” he said.  “In days past thou hast been used as an instrument of evil, and hast been forced to do the devil’s own work.  Now God, in His mercy, has given thee work to do for Him, whereby thou mayest in some sort make atonement for the past, and show by thy faith and piety that thou art no longer a bondservant unto sin.”

Then turning to both the youths as they stood before him, the Father added, in a different and less solemn tone: