Part 32 (1/2)
Honour to whom honour is due. He deserved, and took, all credit for it.
Meanwhile he sat down at his table once more, and stared into the pitchy darkness.
Not long afterwards, the sound of bells announced that something was being done. Men looked out of their windows and saw flickering lights moving about the gloom. The flames grouped themselves into definite arrangements; a procession was being formed. As the parroco had foretold it was but spa.r.s.ely attended in the beginning; out of sixty-five priests and canons of the church, only fourteen found it convenient to attend; another dozen, however, were presently shamed into taking their places in the ranks. The same with the followers.
Their number gradually increased. For the bells did the work of arousing curiosity; they tolled plangently into the night.
Stranger pageant never trod Nepenthe. Some thoughtful person had discovered that umbrellas might be used with advantage. Umbrellas were therefore utilized by all save the priests, the choristers, torch-bearers, and those carrying the statue of the Saint who, for reasons of personal dignity or expediency, preferred the other method.
They chanted their psalms and litanies through handkerchiefs, knowing full well that their music would be none the less pleasing to the Saint for being more than usually nasal in tone. Thus, with soundless footfalls, they perambulated the streets and outskirts of the town, gathering fresh recruits as they went.
And still the ashes fell.
Viewing this cortege of awe-struck innocents braying into the blackness under their umbrellas at the heels of a silver-plated idol (not yet paid for), an intelligent G.o.d might well be proud of his workmans.h.i.+p.
So thought the parroco. He was undismayed. Come what might, he had an explanation ready. Saint Dodeka.n.u.s, if the ashes continued to fall, was only showing his displeasure; he was perfectly justified in letting his wrath be known for the better guidance of mankind. Certain of the younger priests, on the other hand, were growing nervous at the prospect of a possible failure of the procession. They began to blame His Reverence for what he had given them to understand was his own idea. For two hours they had now been in movement; they had swallowed a hatful of ashes. And yet no sign from Heaven. The sky appeared darker than ever. Many of the followers, exhausted, dropped out of the procession and returned sadly to their homes. They thought the speculation was going to turn out badly. The others deemed in not impossible that the Saint could not see them through so thick a curtain. Well, then, he might hear them. They chanted more furiously.
The sound must have reached Heaven, at last, for a miracle occurred.
The gloom decreased in density. Men looked up and beheld a sickly radiance overhead--it was the sun, ever so far away; it shone as when seen through thickly smoked gla.s.ses. Then a veil seemed to be withdrawn. The light grew clearer--the song of the penitents jubilant with hope. Sullen gleams, now, pierced the murky air. Outlines of trees and houses crept furtively into their old places. The fall of ashes had almost ceased. With a wrench, as it seemed, the final covering was drawn away. The land lay flooded in daylight.
That paean of joy and thanksgiving which ought to have greeted this divine largesse, died on the lips of the beholders when they saw the state of their island. Nepenthe was hardly recognizable. The Saint had lifted a mantle from Heaven only to reveal the desolation on earth.
Ashes everywhere. Trees, houses, the fertile fields, the mountain slopes--all were smothered under a layer of monotonous pallor. They knew what it meant. It meant ruin to their crops and vineyards. None the less, they raised a shout, a half-hearted shout, of praise. For Nepentheans are born politicians and courteous by nature. It is their heritage from the Good Duke Alfred to ”keep smiling.” A shout was expected of them under the circ.u.mstances; it costs nothing and may even do good, inasmuch as Saint Dodeka.n.u.s could remove the ashes as easily as he had sent them. Why not shout?
”A miracle, a miracle!” the cry went up. ”Long life to our patron!”
A poor tribute; but the Saint took note of it. Half an hour had barely pa.s.sed ere the sky grew cloudy. Moist drops began to fall. It was the first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife could not remember, enc.u.mbered the roofs, the fields, the roadways. It looked as if the whole island were plastered over with a coating of liquid chocolate. Now, if the shower would only continue--
Suddenly it ceased. The sky grew clear.
Saint Dodeka.n.u.s had often been accused of possessing a grain of malice.
Some went so far as to say he had the Evil Eye. It was by no means the first time in his long career that the natives had found cause to complain of a certain rancour in his temperament--of certain spiteful viperish acts to which the priests, and they alone, were able to give a benevolent interpretation. Now their wrath blazed out against the celestial Patron. ”He's not fit for his job,” said some; ”let's get a new saint! The ruffian, the son of an impure mother--up to his tricks, was he? Ah, the cut-throat, the Saracen, the old paederast: into the ditch with him!”
During a brief moment his fate hung in the balance. For it was plain that the ashes, if unwetted, might ultimately have been blown away by the wind. But what was going to happen when all this mud, baked by the sun into the hardness of brick, covered the island?
Perhaps the Saint was only putting their tempers to the test. The experiment of another shout was worth trying. One could always punish him later on.
So feeble was the noise that Saint Dodeka.n.u.s must have had uncommonly good ears. He had. And soon showed his real feelings. Rain fell once more. Instead of diminis.h.i.+ng it grew more violent, accompanied by warm blasts of wind. There was suns.h.i.+ne overhead, but the peaks were shrouded in scudding vapours, trees bent under the force of the wind; the sea, a welter of light and shade, was dappled with silvery patches under the swiftly careering clouds. Soon there came a blinding downpour. Gullies were blocked up with mud; rills carried tons of it into the sea. Then the gale died down; the sun beamed out of a bright evening sky. The miraculous shower was over.
Men walked abroad and recognized their beloved Nepenthe once more. It glowed in the tenderest hues. The events of morning and midday were like a bad dream. Everything sparkled with unaccustomed brilliance; the land was refreshed--swept clean; the sea alone remained discoloured to a dingy brown. Truly, as the Commissioner--once more a sound Protestant--remarked in later years: ”The old rotter came up to the scratch that time.” So clear and pleasant was the air that it seemed as if the wind had actually veered to the north. But no. It still blew from the other quarter--the old familiar sirocco. Which proved that the shower of ashes had not been ”carried elsewhere,” as the youthful teacher of mathematics had prognosticated. It had not been carried anywhere. It simply ceased to fall, the volcano having momentarily run out of its stock of objectionable materials.
The Clubmen therefore, calling to mind the discussion of the morning, were led to revise their opinion as to that gentleman's intelligence.
They remembered one or two things. They remembered that even when Heavenly Powers are not known to be directly interested in the event, eruptions now and then come to an end quite irrespective of the wind--a contingency which had not been foreseen in the acute young Scandinavian's computations.
”That comes,” they said, ”of studying the higher mathematics....”
For their miraculous deliverance from a shower of volcanic ashes the islanders gave all credit, as might have been expected, to their Patron Saint. And this proves how inadequately causes and effects are understood, here on earth. For the priests, the most intelligent section of the populace, knew perfectly well that but for the orders of the parroco no procession could have taken place. The Saint would have remained locked up in his musty shrine, without the faintest chance of performing a miracle of any kind. They argued, consequently, that Saint Dodeka.n.u.s got the credit for what was really the parroco's notion. And Torquemada, thinking over the day's proceedings, was driven to confess that he was indebted for the suggestion to the fertile brain of the Nicaraguan Representative; in other words that he, the parroco, was praised for what was really the Commissioner's idea. And it is evident that if Mr. Parker's lady had not died from the effects of a mosquito-sting, that gentleman would never have been in such a complex funk as to suggest a procession to the worthy priest.