Told by the Death's Head Part 15

"Then you recognize me, do you?" he returned, laughing. "I had an idea you would deny all knowledge of our former comrades.h.i.+p."

"Are you the gaoler here?" I asked.

"The gaoler?" he repeated, laughing again. "Not by a good deal! I am the court-confessor!" He sat down on the stone seat to which I was chained, and continued: "I dare say you are curious to learn how I come to be here? Well, when the duke's dragoons attacked the haidemaken at Berdiczov, I hastily donned my chasuble and capuchin, trusting to the vestments to save my life, which they did; but I was taken prisoner and brought to the duke. I could not deny that I was a haidemak, but his grace evidently had use for a person like myself, for he said to me: "You deserve to be hanged, reverend father, but I will spare your life on condition that you accept a proposition I shall offer you: I want you to act the part of court-confessor for a season, to receive the confessions of those persons I shall send to you. I suspect my wife of infidelity, but cannot find out who is the partner of her guilt. They both confess to the court-chaplain I have no doubt, but he is an honest old saint who would let himself be torn to pieces rather than betray the secrets confided to him in the confessional. Now, you are of a different pattern; it will not matter to you if the fires of purgatory are heated a few degrees hotter for your purification. If you don't accept my conditions you will have the opportunity at once of testing the temperature of purgatory; if you accept you shall have a respite. What do you say? Will you become my court-confessor?"

"You may believe, lad, that I would have acceded to a much more difficult proposition in order to save my neck from the gallows; so I became confessor to the ducal household. When I saw you coming toward the confessional I recognized you at once, and guessed that you would have some pretty sins to get rid of. I was not surprised when you told me of your sinful dalliance with the beautiful young d.u.c.h.ess; and quite envied your good fortune. I said to myself, 'I will not betray the lad; but make him do penance for the sin,' so I ordered you to put seven dried peas in each shoe and journey on foot to the shrine of the Holy Virgin at Berdiczov. Had you been content to do as I bade you, you would not be here now; but you began to haggle with me about the peas--you urged me to let you boil them before you put them into your shoes; and, to win my indulgence, you told me of the good turn you had done the monks of Berdiczov by betraying the haidemaken into the hands of the duke's dragoons. Ha! but didn't I want to fly at your throat when I heard that! I wanted to strangle you, I was so enraged to hear that it was you who had betrayed us and frustrated our fine plans to secure the monks' treasure. However, I contented myself with giving you a sound rap on the head and straightway communicated to his grace what you had confessed. You have got for your reward the entire ducal property, for you are chained to it so securely you cannot get away from it."

The next query I put to the cursed haidemaken priest was: "What has been done with the d.u.c.h.ess?"

"You need not trouble yourself about her highness, my son; the duke is too shrewd a man of the world to make public the disgrace of his house. The beautiful Persida does not know that she has been betrayed.

The causes a.s.signed for your incarceration are forgery; the usurpation of the name of a n.o.ble knight; and for being a member of a robber band--for all of which you deserve death. That you have been condemned to suffer a hundred deaths for your dalliance with the lovely Persida, instead of only one for the transgressions a.s.signed, no one will ever know. As for the d.u.c.h.ess: one of these fine days she will, after eating a peach or a pear, get a severe colic that will result in her death. The funeral ceremonies in the Vieznovieczky palace will be most imposing--and that will be the end of her grace. It might come to pa.s.s, however, that the obsequies of his grace might precede those of the d.u.c.h.ess. It depends on which of the ducal pair gets the better of the other! But, you have only yourself to think of, my son. I am here to offer you one of two alternatives: Ask to be tried before a court which will sentence you to immediate death on the wheel--unless the duke out of compa.s.sion for a good comrade orders your head to be cut off. The other alternative is: Elect to remain in this hole, chained to the wall, battling with vermin while you live, and becoming food for them when the breath leaves your body. _Tertium non datur._"

To this I made answer that I preferred to be executed without delay, even were I to be broiled on a gridiron over a slow fire. I was quite ready to die.

"Very well, my son, then I will proceed at once to administer to you the last sacraments--"

"Go to the devil!" I cried furiously, when he approached me with the wafer he had taken from his pocket. "I won't have any more of your cursed mummery. You are no better than I am--you too are sure to go to h.e.l.l!"

"That is more than likely, my son," responded the accursed priest composedly. "The only difference between us is in the manner of our journeying thither. You will travel on foot--I on wheels. So, don't you think it would be well to let me give you a lift on the way? With the heavy pack of sins on your back you might hang on to the tail-board of my wagon!"

I could not help but laugh at the rascal, so I said: "Very well, if your blessing will help me over the road more quickly, go ahead and let's have it!--and may the devil fly away with you!"

He thrust the wafer down my throat and I had hardly got it comfortably swallowed when I fell into a deep sleep. The wafer contained a powerful narcotic.

THE WHITE DOVE.

In my death-like sleep I still saw the dungeon walls, still felt the iron fetters on neck, hands and feet. Instead of the tiny lamp flame, however, which had only dimly lighted the musty cell, a radiant light now filled it--a light that came from overhead. When, with great difficulty, I lifted my face toward the ceiling, I beheld an ethereal form bending above me; her white garments gleamed like snow under brilliant suns.h.i.+ne; her blue mantle was like the starry sky of evening. The coronet above her brow was like the crescent moon. The face was so radiant I could not look at it--my eyes were dazzled as when I gazed into the noon-day sun. The radiant vision held on her right arm an infant; the forefinger of its right hand was pressed against its lips. I believed the Holy Virgin had descended to me; but when the vision came nearer to me, kissed me, and called me by name, then I knew that it was my Madus--my poor deserted, forgotten Madus!

I was so ashamed of the fetters which bound me. If she should ask why I wore them, how could I reply? "I wear them because of the beautiful woman who caused me to forget you."

But she did not ask any questions; she smiled tenderly, and said in her gentle tones:

"My poor Baran! How unhappy you seem! Cheer up--we are come to help you--to release you. My home is now in paradise--I will tell you how I came to dwell there. On Christmas eve, I was kneeling in front of the holy image you brought to me from Berdiczov, expecting every minute the arrival of the little guest for my Bethlehem crib, when I heard a familiar step outside the cottage. It was my father. I hurriedly s.n.a.t.c.hed the blessed image from the table to hide it, for I knew the sight of it would anger him; but I was seized with such a terrible pain in my heart I had to press the image against it with both hands.

I hardly recognized my father. His face was fearfully cut, and mutilated; one eye was gone. "Your precious Baran betrayed us," he gasped, glaring at me with the remaining eye. I opened my lips to speak for you, but before I could utter a word he said again: "You are his accomplice, you miserable creature! What are you hiding in your breast?" I could not lie, so I told him it was the image of the Blessed Virgin. "A gift from the Berdiczov monks I'll warrant!" he shrieked, seizing my hair and flinging me on the floor. I heard the keen blade of his cimeter hiss through the air--then, it seemed as if the sky fell over me. The next instant I found myself in paradise, with every pain changed to bliss. I may not reveal to you the secrets of that blessed realm, my Baran. I may only tell you that our little child is with me--he was born in heaven. This is he--he is come to save his father from death."

As she spake these words the child bent toward me and took hold of the chains which bound my feet and hands. They fell asunder at his touch.

But the iron band around my neck was too wide for his tiny fingers to clasp; it was impossible for him to break it. But he did what twenty-four horses could not have done: with one pull he drew from the wall the iron ring to which the neck-band was secured by a chain.

"My blessed child!" I exclaimed, kissing the little hands. "If your strength is so great, then seize hold of my hair, and bear me with you to your home above the clouds."

The little one laid his finger against his lips as a sign that he could not, or dared not speak; but the mother answered for him:

"No, my good Baran, you cannot come to us. Before that will be possible you will have to endure many more trials in this world of shadows. You will have to abide here until you shall have performed a good deed for which some one will say to you: 'G.o.d reward you.' One single good deed, my Baran, will do more toward winning paradise than a hundred pilgrimages, or a thousand prayers."

How sinful I am, your honors, is proved by the fact that I am still alive; and as it is not likely that I shall have an opportunity to perform the deed, which will call down on me a blessing from heaven, I shall never again behold my little angel son, and his mother, my sainted Madus.

After the vision had spoken she beckoned me to follow her. The child touched the wall of the dungeon with his fingers, the stones parted, and we pa.s.sed through the opening. The radiant form of my Madus illuminated the pa.s.sage amid the rocks, the long flights of stairs we ascended. We seemed to thread our way through the catacombs. At last we emerged from the subterranean region into a dense forest. I saw how the s.h.i.+ning garments of my conductress swept over the moss, giving to it, to the flowers, the gra.s.s, the trees, the same soft radiance that emanated from her form. Gradually the distance between me and the lovely vision widened; my feet became leaden; I could hardly move my limbs. Then the radiant appearance lost its human shape, until at last it seemed to me that I was looking down a long avenue between the trees at a faint glimmering light at the further end. The cold air blew across my face, and I awoke.

I was in the forest of my dream, around me were mammoth trees between which, a long way off, I could see the glimmering light of the open.

The same beggar raiment I had worn to journey to Lemberg clothed me; my crutch, emptied of its gold, lay by my side. I made my way toward the light at the edge of the forest. I could see no signs of human habitation anywhere. How far I was from the scene of my magnificence and disgrace I cannot say. When I looked at my beggar's rags, I could easily have believed my Lemberg experience an evil dream, had not the iron band about my neck been too convincing a proof of its reality.

"Well," here observed the prince, drawing a long breath, "that is a most remarkable story!--a miraculous rescue of a transgressor through the aid of the Almighty Father!"

To this the chair added: "I am inclined to believe that the prisoner's escape from the dungeon was effected through earthly, rather than heavenly a.s.sistance. It is more likely that the haidemaken priest, bribed by the d.u.c.h.ess, conveyed the prisoner to the forest, and clad him in the rags which had been procured from the Jew Malchus."

"_I_ believe the story just as the accused told it," a.s.severated his highness. "There are a number of similar cases on record--of notorious bandits having been released from imprisonment by the hands of an unborn babe."

"And I a.s.sure your highness"--Hugo ventured to insist--"that everything happened just as I related it. From the moment of my waking in the forest, a white dove nestled on my left shoulder, and accompanied me wherever I went. If I turned to look at it, when it would coo into my ear, it would fly to my right shoulder; but it seemed to prefer sitting on my left."

"Is the white dove sitting on either of your shoulders now?" queried the chair.

"No, your honor," sadly replied the prisoner; "it is not there now. I will tell you later how I came to lose it."

The prince announced his decision as follows:

"As the prisoner's release from the dungeon was accomplished through a miracle from heaven, it would not be seemly for a human judge to oppose divine favor. This transgression, therefore, may also be erased from the register."

PART IV.

WITH THE TEMPLARS.

CHAPTER I.

IN THE HOLLOW TREE.

With a ragged mantle on my back, a crutch in my hand, an iron band about my neck, and the white dove on my shoulder, where could I have gone?--even had I wished to leave the forest.

The rags and the crutch were fitting equipment for a beggar; but what should I have replied had anyone asked me why I wore the iron band on my neck? I was disgusted with the world and its wickedness.

Overwhelmed with remorse for the sins I had committed, I resolved to become a hermit and do penance--I would remain in the forest and adopt the rigorous life of an ascetic.

After a brief search I discovered a brook that would supply me with fresh water; hard by its banks an oak tree, many centuries old, with a large cavity in the trunk, offered the shelter I should require. I collected moss and dry leaves for my bed; for nourishment there was a plent.i.tude of nuts and wild fruits, and edible fungi. Wild bees furnished me with sweets.

I bound together two dry branches in form of a cross, set it up between two large stones, and performed my daily devotions in front of it.

During the day I roamed through the forest collecting stores for the winter; I laid up a supply of dried fruit, nuts, sow-bread and honey--the last I found in the upper part of my tree-house, where a swarm of bees had taken up their quarters.

Of the raspberries which grew plentifully along the brook, I made a sort of conserve, which I packed into boxes made of the bark of pine trees. All these provisions I stored in my tree-house, which I had firmly resolved never to quit.

But one thought disquieted me. If I remained in the forest how could I perform the good deed Madus had told me was necessary in order to win paradise? If I pa.s.sed all my days in the hollow tree beside the brook, where no human being ever came near me, how was I to benefit my fellow creatures? How win the "G.o.d will reward you"--the open sesame to paradise? I pondered this over and over until at last an expedient suggested itself to me, by which I could make known my existence to my fellow-creatures and still remain in my hermitage. I looked about for two broad flat stones; these I fastened together at one side with a cord made of linden bark and hung them on the lower limb of a tree.

With a third stone for a clapper I rang my primitive bell three times daily--morn, noon and evening--surely, I said to myself, some one will hear the sound and come to see what is the meaning of it. When the people in the neighborhood learn that a devout hermit is living in the forest, they will visit him, and perhaps bestow alms on him.