Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/86

84 swoon. His first impulse was to run away; his second was to remain, and he remained. He ceased even to shout for the wounded horseman, whose return he did not now particularly desire; and when the young lady, coming out of her faint, opened her languid eyes, the reverend father lost his senses entirely. If at this moment the stranger had appeared, the monk would have strangled him, for you have doubtless guessed by this time that the stranger in black was no other than the devil!"

To this unexpected assertion my only reply was a shake of the head. Fray Serapio, believing I agreed with him, continued:

"Fray Epigmenio yielded to temptation. He fell deeply, madly in love. For a time his vows were forgotten, but the prickings of conscience at last aroused him, and he resolved to confess his fault. He was taken before the tribunal of the Inquisition. Till the final judgment was pronounced, they were both kept in confinement, the monk in his cell, the female in a dungeon. Some weeks passed in miserable anticipation. One evening, the cell of Fray Epigmenio was the theatre of a scene, in which the intervention of the devil was as clearly seen as in the meeting in the forest. Kneeling before his crucifix, the monk was asking from God that peace which his soul had lost. All at once he was startled by a footfall in his cell. A man stood before him, who regarded him with a stern, watchful eye. This man was no other than the stranger who had appeared to the recluse a month before in the wood; his dress was the same, and he appeared still paler than on the night in which the monk had