"My own council," continued the Prior, "would be this. The Father Cellarer knows to a vintem how much money we can find. Let us, for the present, turn our cheek to the smiter and abandon our community life. Let each of us decide where and how he can best live till we have bettered or worsened our case in Lisbon, and let him declare to the Father Cellarer what money he will need. For the present Father Isidoro and Brother Cypriano and I will remain here with our beloved Father Abbot. He believes"--here the Prior's voice trembled--"that God will call his soul away to-morrow; and it is not for us to say 'God forbid.' But be it to-morrow, or next week, or next month, or next year, here we stay, Father Isidoro, Brother Cypriano and I, even though all the horses and men in Portugal be sent to move us. And, when we have laid our beloved Father's remains in the earth, I will join the Father Cellarer in Lisbon. We shall live in the house of the writer of this letter, the Senhor Aureliano Gonçalves de Sousa, the notary, in the Rua Augusta. Let every one of us keep in touch, one with another, at that address until our future is clearly known." The Cellarer spoke in the same sense. He was followed by the monks in turn. Every one of them, with varying degrees of conviction, repeated the Prior's saving clause about Antonio's coming words, and every one of them endorsed the Prior's counsel. Father Isidoro and seven other choir-monks added that their refuge would be in a house of their Order on Spanish soil, just across the Guadiana. It appeared that they had been discussing the matter all day, and that they had fixed upon this particular Spanish monastery because it was within two hours' ride of Portugal. Father Sebastian announced that he would take shelter at the Inglezinhos in Lisbon. These English Fathers, he said, could not be suppressed because they were secular priests and British subjects: but they had a cloister and something of community life. Other monks spoke of Vigo, of Santiago de Compostela, of Salamanca, and of a new house in Belgium where there was a strict observance. Two dreamed of Monte Cassino itself, and one surprised the Council by mentioning a Benedictine house in Protestant England, not far from legendary Glastonbury. Some of the oldest Fathers named friends, clerical and lay, in various cities of Portugal, beneath whose roofs they could die quietly if the Prior's and the Cellarer's fight in Lisbon should end in defeat. As for the lay-brethren, they decided to go in a body to Evora, where Brother Lorenzo had claims on the protection of the Archbishop.