“Are you deaf?” the monk exclaimed angrily, and prod the old retainer with his foot.

The next moment the air was full of flying arms and legs and sandals and fluttering robes; and when it cleared Aldam was lying in a heap on the floor—­and Raynor Royk was working on his dagger, as placidly as though it were a common enough act with him to seize the foot of a mitred Abbot and whirl him backward to the earth.

And the look of mingled fury and pain on the monk’s face when, shaking off the assisting hands of the Prior and the Chancellor, he struggled to his feet, would have made a less hardened soldier feel a bit uneasy as to the fate of his soul.  But without so much as a glance at the furious churchman, Raynor returned the dagger to its sheath and went to work on his sword blade.

Never in all the years of his life had the stern Aldam been so crossed and flouted as within this last hour.  Speechless with rage, with clenched hands and heaving breast, he paced the dais.  And the monks in fresh terror huddled closer together, and told their beads anew and muttered prayer on prayer.  Verily, was it a gloomy day for the Cistercians of Kirkstall Abbey; and one sadly unpropitious to those lay brothers whose initiatory rites had been so rudely interrupted.

Presently the Abbot’s face grew calmer and he began to prolong gradually his steps toward the rear of the platform, where the wall stones were very large and stood out rough and bare.  There he would pause and lean against them as though for rest, his head bent slightly forward, his eyes closed—­a figure of dejection deep and heavy.  Yet it might have been noticed that he always rested at the same place, and could eyes have pierced his white robe, they would have seen his slender fingers playing with careful pressure over the wall beside him.

At length it happened—­when the soldiers had grown accustomed to his pacings and had ceased to watch him, and while Raynor Royk was busy with his sword work, his head bent low—­that Aldam halted at the wall and leaned against it in his usual way; and as he did so the huge stone he touched swung back noiselessly, he glided swiftly through the opening and the stone closed back into its place.

An excited exclamation by the Prior caused Raynor Royk to look up.  Instantly he missed the Abbot.  With a shout he sprang over and seized the Chancellor, who happened to be nearest.

“The Abbot?  The Abbot?” he demanded fiercely.

“I know not,” the monk stammered, staring about.  “I saw him last by yonder wall.”

The old soldier loosed him straightway and turned upon the Prior.

“Speak,” he thundered, “where is the Abbot?”

Father James stepped forward.  “He went through the wall,” he said.

“What! thou shaveling!  Do you take me for a superstitious fool?  Through yonder stones!  Think you I believe such nonsense?”

“That you believe or disbelieve concerns me not at all,” the Prior answered.  “Nathless, through that wall he went, for with my own eyes I saw a part of it roll back and him pass in.”