ce.

The priest leaned over him with a whispered word of comfort, then turned
and signed to me to leave the hut. I rose, and went towards the door.
But I had scarcely reached it when there was a hoarse cry behind me
followed by a gasping sob from the priest. I started round to see the
hermit lying on his back, his face rigid, his mouth open and idiotic,
his eyes more leaden than they had been a moment since.

"What is it?" I cried, despite myself.

"He has gone, my son," answered the old priest sorrowfully. "But he
was contrite, and he had lived a saint." And drawing from his breast a
little silver box, he proceeded to perform the last rites upon the body
from which the soul was already fled.

I came slowly back and knelt beside him, and long we remained there
in silent prayer for the repose of that blessed spirit. And whilst we
prayed the wind rose outside, and a storm grew in the bosom of the night
that had been so fair and tranquil. The lightning flashed and illumined
the interior of that hut with a vividness as of broad daylight, throwing
into livid relief the arrow-pierced St. Sebastian in the niche and the
ghastly, grinning skull upon the hermit's pulpit.

The thunder crashed and crackled, and the echoes of its artillery went
booming and rolling round the hills, whilst the rain fell in a terrific
lashing downpour. Some of it finding a weakness in the roof, trickled
and dripped and formed a puddle in the middle of the hut.

For upwards of an hour the storm raged, and all the while we remained
upon our knees beside the dead anchorite. Then the thunder receded and
gradually died away in the distance; the rain ceased; and the dawn crept
pale as a moon-stone adown the valley.

We went out to breathe the freshened air just as the first touches of
the sun quickened to an opal splendour the pallor of that daybreak.
All the earth was steaming, and the Bagnanza, suddenly swollen, went
thundering down the gorge.

At sunrise we dug a grave just below the platform with a spade which I
found in the hut. There we buried the hermit, and over the spot I made a
great cross with the largest stones that I could find. The priest would
have given him burial in the hut itself; but I suggested that perhaps
there might be some other who would be willing to take the hermit's
place, and consecrate his life to carrying on the man's pious work
of guarding that shrine and collecting alms for the poor and for the
building of the bridge