“And since your purpose is to go forth with me tomorrow, you must now take some of that rest without which youthful frames cannot long dispense.  Since early dawn you have been travelling and working at tasks of a nature to which you are little used.  Come with me, therefore, and pass the remaining hours of the night in sleep.  I will arouse you for our office of early mass, and then we will forth together.  Till then sleep fearlessly and well.  Sleep will best fit you for what you will see and hear tomorrow.”

So saying, the Father led them into a narrow cell where a couple of pallet beds had been placed, and where some slices of brown bread and a pitcher of spring water were likewise standing.

“Our fare is plain, but it is wholesome.  Eat and drink, my sons, and sleep in peace.  Wake not nor rise until I come to you again.”

The lads were indeed tired enough, though they had scarcely known it in the strange excitement of the journey, and amid the terrible scenes of death and sickness which they had witnessed around and about the Monastery doors since their arrival there.  Now, however, that they had received the command to rest and sleep (and to gainsay the Father’s commands was a thing that would never have entered their minds), they were willing enough to obey, and had hardly laid themselves down before they fell into a deep slumber, from which neither awoke until the light of day had long been shining upon the world, and the Father stood beside them bidding them rise and follow him.

In a few minutes their simple toilet and ablutions had been performed, and they made their way along the familiar passage to the chapel, from whence a low sound of chanting began to arise.  There were not many of the Brothers present at the early service, most of them being engaged in tending the plague-stricken guests beneath their roof.  But the Father was performing the office of the mass, and when he had himself partaken of the Sacrament, he signed to the two boys, who were about to go forth with him into scenes of greater peril than any they had witnessed heretofore, to come and receive it likewise.

The service over, and some simple refreshment partaken of, the youths prepared for their day’s toil, scarce knowing what they would be like to see, but resolved to follow Father Paul wherever he went, anxious only to accomplish successfully such work as he should find for them to do.

Each had a certain burden to carry with him —­ some of the cordials that had been found to give most relief in cases of utter collapse and exhaustion, a few simple medicaments and outward applications thought to be of some use in allaying the pain of those terrible black swellings from which the sickness took its significant name, and some simply-prepared food for the sufferers, who were often like to perish from inanition even before the plague had done its worst.  For stricken persons, or those supposed to be stricken, were often turned out of their homes even by their nearest relatives, and forced to wander about homeless and starving, none taking pity upon their misery, until the poison in their blood did its fatal work, and they dropped down to die.