"A guard of honor," chuckled the Viscount. "I am obeying the Minister's instructions," answered the captain dryly. "Like a good boy. And at the same time you've got rid of half these prying peasants. But come, we haven't sampled the cellar. And I could eat a couple of those fat trout." The captain flung aside his uncomfortable thoughts and agreed, with an oath, to a carouse. The pair plunged into the cool corridors, to ransack the larder with small success. Meanwhile the unpitiful sun was beating on the monks' heads and on the Abbot's rude litter. The cruel ball of fire hung in a dome of so hard a blue that it might have been cut from one immense sapphire. The Atlantic chafed in its bed with a simmering sound, and blinded the eyes like molten copper. Carvalho and his troopers, who had been hanging on the monks' rear, were the first to surrender. Riding forward to the head of the train, Carvalho in person suggested that both drivers and driven should encamp amicably in a neighboring grove of eucalyptus until the fiercest heat had passed. The Prior agreed. Of all the eucalyptus groves in Portugal, the grove which the travelers entered was one of the oldest and most grandly grown. Just above it a small pine wood offered a deeper and cooler shade, and a rapid brook made the oasis complete. Almost immediately some of the soldiers began to fraternize with the monks, pressing upon them dark _broas_ baked from maize and rye, and handing round the wine-skins. The monks, in their turn, offered salt fish, which the soldiers joyfully ate quite raw. After the repast the soldiers flung themselves down full length to sleep upon the pine-needles; and although the monks produced their breviaries and tried to say the Office, ere long most of them succumbed to drowsiness. Antonio was wide awake. His share of the frail old Abbot's weight had seemed not much more than a feather to his youthful strength. He looked round. The mules and horses were browsing happily in the lush herbage. Carvalho and a corporal were spelling out some papers in low tones. The Cellarer and the Prior were equally engrossed in writing and figuring. Under the densest pine tree Father Isidore and Father Sebastian were keeping vigil over the sleeping Abbot. The young monk sauntered eastward, following up the course of the stream. He suspected that its dancing waters were those which had flowed through the monastery kitchen, and a few minutes' breasting of the pine-crowded slope proved that he was right. From the top of the knoll he could make out the dazzling white front of the chapel, framed in dark granite, and he could hear the dull boom of the great bell striking two o'clock.