Bridle the Wind Read Online Free

forward like a bird of prey. Then, by stages, a change came over him. Several violent tremors passed through hisbody, his eyes blazed like lamps, he appeared to grow several inches taller, and a high, hissing voice came from him, utterly different from that in which he had at first addressed me:
    â€˜Do not try me too far, boy! It is your
duty
to remember when I order you. Remember, I say! Or I will have you beaten again, and much more severely. I
must
know where you have been! How can you stand there like a mule,
saying I do not know?
We shall have to try whether a rope’s end, stiffened with tar, cannot jolt the memory out of you!’
    I gazed at him struck dumb with fright, my hands clenched at my sides, my tongue locked to the roof of my mouth. There seemed something truly inhuman, infernal, about him, especially about his eyes, glimmering with that uncanny reddish glow.
    Greatly to my relief, at this juncture I heard a light tap on the door, and Father Antoine thrust his head round.
    â€˜I did not summon you, Father Antoine,’ said the Abbot angrily. But his voice lost its shrill unearthly tone and his eyes their red glare; he appeared more human.
    â€˜Ahem! No, my father – I know – but the messengers are here from the Bishop of Bayonne; I remember you said you wished to be informed at once –’
    â€˜Oh – oh. Yes. Certainly. Take the boy away, then, for the present, Father Antoine. I will interrogate him again. He is being stupidly obstinate –he refuses to exert his memory, or to tell what he remembers. If he continues to refuse, he must be severely punished.’
    â€˜Memory often returns very imperfectly at first, in such cases,’ put in Father Antoine quickly and diffidently. ‘It may well be that, in a few more days –’
    The Abbot’s eyes began to dart to and fro again, his hand to ply the ivory ruler with that unnatural speed. Fortunately at this moment I heard voices and footsteps outside; Father Vespasian’s attention was diverted, and Father Antoine made haste to pull me away.
    Holding my arm tightly he hurried me through the ruined cloister and back to the novices’ frater. I had a most urgent wish to ask him questions about the Abbot – about the frightening interview which I had just undergone – but, shaking his head, placing his finger on his lips, he handed me over to a small brown-faced, brown-haired monk who was superintending the white-robed novices as they filed upstairs to bed. For the first time it struck me that I, too, wore a plain white wool habit, cut rather short and narrow, with a dark scapular over it.
    â€˜Here is your boy, Father Domitian; he’s to talk no more now. I’ll have him again in the morning.’
    â€˜Did Father Vespasian –?’
    Father Antoine merely nodded his head up and down a great many times, significantly, saying nothing at all. The other monk received this with a glance of wide-eyed comprehension, looked atme, I thought, with pity, and then gestured me to get into line with the other boys and young men. We climbed a flight of stone stairs to an upper room, made our ablutions, said our evening prayers, and lay down upon narrow wooden cots covered with straw palliasses.
    The rest soon slept, but not I.
    My mind was churning with questions. It seemed as if that period of time away from myself – why? how had it happened? and for how long? – had proved such a rest for my body that now sleep was not necessary for me.
    I lay in the dark, listening to the others breathing, and the distant sound of surf, and surveyed what I knew of myself. I was Felix Brooke, travelling from England to Spain to rejoin my Spanish grandfather, the Conde de Cabezada, who had written me a kind and loving letter. I was aged thirteen years – or perhaps more now? My journey to Spain had been interrupted by a shipwreck. I could remember the wild howl of the wind, the fusillade of