José, hurrying to the abbey before sunrise to report serious damage among the sea-sand vines, arrived just in time to save both the cross and his master. Having driven in a wedge, he made haste to help Antonio down and to coax him into bed. To bed the monk went; and in bed he remained for a week, consumed by fever and tortured by nightmares. He seemed to be holding the lockless, boltless door of the chapel against the two usurers and the chief of the Fazenda and the Villa Branca attorney. He, Antonio, was holding it shut by fiercely pressing knees and thighs and arms and hands, and shoulders and brow against the oak while his enemies charged at it like roaring waves at a cliff. When the monk arose from bed his magnificent health was gone. He suffered from headaches, and could no longer walk to the neighboring towns or do much manual labor. To employ his enforced leisure he advertised himself in two or three English and French papers as a private tutor wishing to receive one or two boarder-pupils for instruction in the classics, modern languages, and commercial routine; but there was no response. Happily this illness befell during one of Antonio's periods of relief from the usurers' persecution. He knew, however, that such calms always heralded storms; and therefore he determined to use what health and strength remained to him in a grand effort to break out of the usurers' power. His debt, or rather their claim, stood at about nine hundred pounds. By selling the mortgaged farm and sea-sand vineyards, and also the whole plant, stock, and good-will of the wine and liqueur business as a going concern, Antonio could pay off the nine hundred and turn his back on Neumann and Mual forever. In the event of local lenders clamoring for the liquidation of the floating debts which he had incurred on the strength of his personal credit, he would be able to satisfy them by mortgaging the abbey timber and part of the domain with a Navares mortgagee. Then, although his health was enfeebled and José was no longer young, he would set himself to the task of clearing off the last debts by branding his amber-colored wine and pushing it in England. Although so many miracles had been vouchsafed to him, both in his spiritual and in his temporal affairs, Antonio continued to employ all his energy and prudence. He maintained his old policy of doing the best he could and leaving the rest to God; but, until he had done his utmost, he would have felt it irreverent to expect a miracle. He would plan his campaign and dispose his forces and post his safeguards as if everything depended on his own arm and his own brain; and then, but only then, he would fall down in deepest humility and demand the divine help as if everything depended upon God. Accordingly he went about his new operations with so much circumspection that it was high summer before he saw his way to act decisively.