Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 06 (1929-06).djvu/121

An Ancient Tale Is

The graybeard stirred in his sleep, finally awoke, and peered about him with troubled eyes. Beside his cot sat another graybeard—an abbot, whose head was bent intently over a manuscript of vellum texture which his robed knees supported. Next to this churchman stood a table whereon rested a silver candelabrum, the sputtering lights of which now shaded, now lit up, his smooth, bald pate. Meanwhile the cell vibrated with the momentum of some elemental force.

Queried the bedridden individual: "Brother, what is that noise?"

"Be not disturbed," smiled the abbot, looking up from the manuscript. "It is only a storm."

"A storm?" repeated the other to himself. He shook his body, then sat in his bed and glanced at the Gothic window opposite—the sole opening which the bare cell possessed. Slowly the fingers of his right hand touched the abbot's elbow, caught it in a grip. "Brother," he whispered breathlessly, "help me to rise. I wish to go to yon window and behold how matters fare in the world of men."

The abbot placed the manuscript on the table and gently disengaged his arm from the clutch. "No, no!" he protested softly, womanlike. "I can not permit that. You are too weak. Your poor body can not stand it. Many days must pass ere you rise and walk about. O my brother! You are sicker than you think."

"Ay," agreed the patient gruffly, tossing the bed-sheets aside, "but, methinks, I'm not yet dead."

With a spring, he left the bed and the ecclesiastic's encircling arms and stood on his feet. Old in years though he was, his physique was nevertheless massive, and his muscles were supple. He shook himself, kicked his legs, and laughed to hear the crack of their awakening joints; then he clenched his fists. His features bore a blood-resemblance to the man in the robes, but it could easily be seen that he was no member of any order of the church. Rather, his stalwart figure bespoke a life spent in the saddle, out in God's free fields. Turning to the abbot, who eyed him with horror, he exclaimed: "What means this, brother? Making a sick man out of me when, really, I'm stronger now than ever!"

Speechless remained the other.

Striding to the window, the man threw open the casement. Like a blast from hell the night, the wind, the lightning and the rain entered at the same time and raked the room through and through. He laughed to see his beard spread before him as if it were a fan or a live thing, and to feel the raindrops stampeding his person. Meanwhile the abbot shouted shrilly, almost foolishly, "Shut it! Shut it!" Seeing he was unheeded, he jumped up and closed the casement himself; then, catching his brother, he tried to lead him back to bed. "Lie down! Lie down!" he whimpered. "All night