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RIDERS OF THE SILENCES

CHAPTER I

THE THUNDERBOLT

It seemed that Father Anthony gathered all the warmth of the short
northern summer and kept it for winter use, for his good nature was an
actual physical force. From his ruddy face beamed such an ardent
kindliness that people literally reached out towards him as they might
extend their hands toward a comfortable fire.

All the labors of his work as an Inspector of Jesuit institutions
across the length and breadth of Canada could not lessen the flame of
the good father's enthusiasm; his smile was as indefatigable as his
critical eyes. The one looked sharply into every corner of a room and
every nook and hidden cranny of thoughts and deeds; the other veiled
the criticism and soothed the wounds of vanity.

On this day, however, the sharp eyes grew a little less keen and
somewhat wider, while that smile was fixed rather by habit than
inclination. In fact, his expression might be called a frozen
kindliness as he looked across the table to Father Victor.

It required a most indomitable geniality, indeed, to outface the rigid
piety of Jean Paul Victor. His missionary work had carried him far
north, where the cold burns men thin. The eternal frost of the Arctics
lay on his hair, and his starved eyes looked out from hollows shadowed
with blue. He might have posed for a painting of one of those damned
souls whom Dante placed in the frozen circle of the "Inferno."

It was his own spirit which tortured him--the zeal which drove him
north and north and north over untracked regions, drove him until his
body failed, drove him even now, though his body was crippled.

A mighty yearning, and a still mightier self-contempt whipped him on,
and the school over which he was master groaned and suffered under his
regime, and the disciples caught his spirit and went out like warriors
in the name of God to spread the faith.

He despised them as he despised himself, for he said continually in his
heart: "How great is the purpose and how little is our labor!"

Some such thought as that curled his thin lip as he stared across at
Father Anthony like a wolf that has not eaten for a fortnight. The
good father sustained the gaze, but he shivered a little and sighed.
There was awe, and pity, and even a touch of horror in his eyes.

He said gently: "Are there none among all your lads, dear Father
Victor, whom you find something more than imperfect machines?"

The man of