Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/79

Rh windows opened upon the wood which surrounded the convent. This was the gloomiest cell in this gloomy cloister. Fray Epigmenio had chosen it in preference to those whose windows looked out upon the garden. The sight of the flowers seemed to this rigid cenobite too much of a worldly pleasure. The heavy masses of the dark woods, constantly agitated by the wind, and surrounded by an amphitheatre of rocks in fantastic forms, was the kind of landscape which had the greatest charm for Epigmenio. I told you before that the soundest head in the world could not long resist the combined influences of solitude and prayer. The monk confessed, when too late, that strange visions passed before his eyes in those long days of contemplation and silence. Mysterious voices assailed his ears, and it was not always the concerts of angels that he heard: the murmurs of the forest were often changed into voluptuous sighs and—"

At this moment the Franciscan suddenly paused, and, turning to me, said, "Are you listening?"

"I confess," I rejoined, "that I am paying more attention to the noise of the water which is now rising about our feet."

"Fray Epigmenio," said Serapio, without attending to my remark, "fancied himself a saint, since temptations like these assailed him, and that he was struggling against the devil, like the monks in the old legends. One day, about sunset, not content to wait for the tempter in his cell, he resolved to beard him in the forest itself, which was peopled with such phantoms. He had not wandered far among the pines when he heard the sound of stifled sobbing not far from him. He stopped and listened, and then advanced in the direction from which the moaning