Strenuous days followed. From the late November sunrise to the early November sunset Antonio labored harder than a navvy. The making of the new vineyard was his principal care: and by the end of the year the toughest part of the job had been soundly done. Only on a Sunday did the toiler rest from his labors. On the morning of that day he would hear Mass in the over-gilded village church; and, in the evening, when darkness fell, he would crawl along the torrent's bed into the abbey kitchen, and thence steal softly to his old stall in the chapel. There he would recite Compline from memory: and afterwards, prostrate before the empty tabernacle, he would beseech his Lord to fulfil those last and grandest words of the Abbot's prophecy: "I see Antonio standing before the high altar. I see him holding up our great chalice. I see him offering the Holy Sacrifice for us all." BOOK III MARGARIDA I Towards nightfall on the feast of the Three Kings the heavens were opened. From every inch of the somber sky descended cold, straight rain until the roads were rivers and the hill-sides began to sing. When the storm burst Antonio was in the abbey chapel, saying Vespers in his old stall. He had duly observed the great festival of the Epiphany, abstaining from servile work and hearing Mass at the village: and, as on Sundays, he was rounding off the holy day by saying his Office in the choir. But the vehemence of the storm alarmed him. He rose hastily, and made his way through the darkling cloisters and corridors. As he neared the kitchen a roaring sound filled Antonio's startled ears. It was the torrent. Although he had rammed the sluice-gate well home only half an hour before, the stream was racing through the kitchen in a foaming flood. "The sluice-gate has broken," said Antonio to himself. "The timbers must have rotted all of a sudden. But there's just time to get out." Only the faintest light gleamed through the tunnel under the refectory. By lying on his chest upon the stones Antonio could just see the leaden sky. He could see, too, that the water was rising higher and higher, and that the space between the level of the water and the center of the tunnel vaulting was less than two feet. The monk flung off his habit and jumped down into the torrent. It almost touched his arm-pits. The waters were icy cold; but this troubled him less than their headlong violence which threatened to sweep him away.