"Help--light!" he shrieked as if demented--as though he could see the light even if there were one. He forgot his blindness--he forgot everything, he was half crazed with terror.
Then again he stood still and listened--nothing was stirring but the storm which sang unceasingly its wild lament through the ruined windows.
He wandered on again towards the chapel. At last the smell of burning was mingled with the odour of stale incense, and a wild confusion of broken choir-seats, images, and candelabra impeded his steps.
"Are you here, my brethren? Is no one here?" He shouted again and listened. He heard something--this time it was not the wind, it was a low groan from some human being.
"Who is there? answer me!" he cried, trembling.
"Who are you?" A well-known but broken voice fell upon his ear.
"Correntian!" cried Donatus, between fear and joy.
"Donatus!" answered the voice, and a strange shudder ran through him--as if he were called to the last judgment, and a voice from the clouds had read his name on the list of the damned.
"Donatus," repeated Correntian, "miserable son, why are you come so late? You have been our ruin."
"Correntian, my brother, I will tell you all; give me your hand and help me over these ruins."
"I am lying with crushed limbs under the overturned altar, I cannot help you," groaned Correntian.
"All-merciful God! How has this happened?"
"I wanted to rescue the charter of the convent from the enemy, and to hide it under the altar, but they surprised me, and in the struggle the altar was overturned upon me," groaned Correntian.
"They have fled, driven away stripped and bare, the whole party. Our herds are driven off, the convent destroyed and plundered. Your father, who had leagued himself with your mother's kindred, committed the crime."
Trembling as he went, and with infinite effort, the youth had made his way through the medley of fragments and ruins towards the spot whence the voice proceeded; a hand now arrested his lifted foot.
"Stop, you will tread upon me." He stooped down, there lay Correntian on the bare stone half buried under the enormous mass of the stone altar.
"Oh! misery and horror!" screamed the blind man. "Crushed like a worm, a great, strong man! and no one to help you, no one!"