The principal gate had not been opened since the days when Wellington and his staff had made the monastery their headquarters: but the bolt gave way at last. The gates turned upon their rusty hinges with a piercing sound which cut through the darkness like a wail. One might almost have believed that the genius of the place was crying to heaven for help. Men and horses began pressing through the gate, but Father Sebastian stood in their way. "Senhor Captain," he said, "our Prior is at your Excellency's service. But our Abbot is lying sick. He is nearly eighty years old. This path leads to our guest-house. The Prior begs that he may attend you there. It is not far. We will show your Excellency the way." The captain hesitated. Even the feeble light of the lanterns was enough to show that he did not relish his task. But before he could speak the squat, blonde man piped out: "Most decidedly and emphatically not. The sick and the aged shall have every consideration; but there are no longer people here entitled to call themselves Priors and Abbots. Senhor Captain, our duty is clear. Let us get on." "Your Reverence," said the captain to Father Sebastian. "I am sorry. But what can I do? My instructions are to support the Senhor Visconde in taking possession of the monastery. The Prior shall see the decree. I will do my best not to distress the reverend Abbot. But I cannot follow you to the guest-house." He leaped down from his horse, and led it behind Antonio and Sebastian into the avenue of camellias. The squat civilian followed, without dismounting, and about thirty troopers brought up the rear. The two monks walked with bowed heads, Sebastian praying, Antonio burning. No one spoke: but the rattle of hoofs and weapons was so loud that the Prior guessed the failure of his ambassadors almost as soon as the last soldier had crossed the sill of the gate. Before the noisy procession clattered into the paved space in front of the monastery, the eighteen choir-monks, with the Prior at their head and the lay brethren behind, were already assembled under the stone vault of the vestibule. As every one of them issued from his cell carrying a lamp or a candle they seemed to be assembled for some solemn religious function, such as a mass or requiem. Most of the monks were old men; for the long years of foreign invasions and civil wars had not been fertile in religious vocations. To more than half of them the monastery had been their only home for forty years or more. Hardly ten words had been exchanged among them as to the meaning of the Prior's summons; yet one and all of them divined their fate. Two or three of the oldest and weakest huddled against their younger and stronger brethren, with the look of hunted animals who hear the dogs beginning to nose and work at the mouths of their burrows.