Peter the Priest Part 17

"They know best how they got here, but how to get away from here was what they did not know. And yet they tried in every way, as you see.

Here they tried to break through the wall; with knives they pulled out two and three rows of bricks, and then grew weary of the work and gave it up. The wall is six feet through here."

"Yes, fully."

"Now then, do you know what these bricks here are for? You are to wall up the opening of this other s.p.a.ce."

"I can do that easily."

"But first swear to me as a good Lutheran, on the Holy Gospels, that you will never in this life tell one word of what you have seen and heard in this place to any living soul."

With that he drew from his pocket a small Bible, and required Master Mathias to put his hand on the Bible and repeat the oath after him.

"Now to your work."

Out of the depths of the recess there sounded forth a sorrowful song:

"De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine----"

"Who is that?" whispered Master Mathias with a shudder.

"Take your torch and look at him."

Master Mathias threw the light of the torch into the dark s.p.a.ce. Then he saw Father Peter in his monk's cowl, bound, and in an upright position.

All around him were heaped up gold and silver and jewels that held him fixed. His cowl was drawn down over his face, so that it could not be seen.

"Father Peter!" whispered Master Mathias, turning to Lord Grazian.

"The Devil is in you that you guessed it! Yes, it really is Father Peter."

"Who brought him here?"

"I did, with my crooked leg, and my crushed hand."

"So then he has not been killed."

"You heard him sing."

"And you wish me to wall him in?"

"Not wholly. Leave a hole in the wall, about the size of the head of a small cask, so that he shall not suffocate."

"And who shall bring him food when we leave this country?"

"A raven of the Prophet Elias. Anything that is in the Bible is true: if it happened once that a raven brought bread to a hungry prophet, it can happen twice. Now to your work. You have begun this work, and you must finish it. Do it good-naturedly, my faithful friend, or else I'll shoot you in the head and then this one after you."

Master Mathias was all in a cold perspiration, and went to work.

"While you are doing this, I will take a little walk in this underground paradise."

And Lord Grazian took his lantern on his maimed right arm and limped off through the dark, winding underground pa.s.sage, counting his steps as he went. When he had counted five hundred and forty steps, he found himself in front of that cavern where the great cask stood, all covered over with green. He raised the cover; under this was a thick layer of wax that he bored through with his knife. The cask contained what he had supposed at the first glance--gunpowder.

He gathered up a little of the dust and scattered it over his torch, it blazed up; the gunpowder had been kept dry through these centuries under its layer of wax. Then he unb.u.t.toned his coat, and brought out a long cotton fuse which he had wound around his waist a number of times. With his left hand and his teeth, he fastened this fuse to this match hanging at the bunghole of the cask; then he walked back, drawing the fuse after him--it was just five hundred and forty yards long. When he came to the end, he lighted the fuse, and noted by his watch how long it took to burn one yard--just one minute. How many hours are there in five hundred and forty minutes? That was too much for his head; Master Mathias would tell him.

When he returned, the wall was done, and Master Mathias was busy smoothing it off around the open s.p.a.ce. It was strange that Grazian had not thought of this--what if Father Peter so walled up had made an arrangement with Master Mathias, during Grazian's absence, and by entreaties, threats and promises, persuaded him to make known his fate; or had he thought of this? Was that the purpose of the fuse, or was it for something quite different?

"Are you through, my good friend? Tell me how many times sixty goes in five hundred and forty?"

"Six times nine make fifty-four, so nine times."

"Quite right. Six times nine makes fifty-four. The table of ones was more than I could ever get. Yes, nine times--that is quite enough. Now I too shall be ready soon. Do you go to the agent's house, make a good fire on the hearth, spread the table, and prepare our supper. I will stay here a little longer to take leave of my son."

When the major-domo had gone, Grazian went back into the church. He lifted the casks of money from the carriage and rolled them along the pa.s.sage-way to the s.p.a.ce just walled in. When they were all piled up together, he stuck his hand in the opening:

"Greetings, my beloved son-in-law, Father Peter; how do you fare on your wedding day? You have won a beautiful bride, I must acknowledge. You shall not say you led hence my only daughter with only what she had on her back. I will be a generous father and give her her inheritance from both father and mother. Was ever father-in-law so good as I?"

Then he opened one of the casks and laid it with his left hand on his wounded right arm. He smothered the pain that this caused him and shook the silver shower of dollars down into the cavern; he did the same with all the casks that contained silver money.

"This was your portion from her mother; now comes the dowry from her father."

And he brought forth the casks full of gold, and poured their costly contents over the head of his son-in-law. The heaps of money came up to the victim's shoulders, only his head was still free.

"Miserere, mei Domine----" resounded from the lips of the man buried alive in gold.

"Ha, ha," laughed Lord Grazian, "so you want a song. Shall I sing you one? How do you like this: 'Gemitus mortis,--dolores inferni--circ.u.mdederunt me. Perhaps you like this better:--'Yesterday I went to town and heard the matins read. Now the priest who read the matins has become my lover'--You don't want any more of that, then here's one: 'In paradisum ne ducant te angeli--Kyrie eleison'--ha ha ha!"

Then he seized his torch and hobbled off through the pa.s.sage, continuing to mix popular songs with litany.

That diabolical laughter was the last sound of the night in this subterranean cavern.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FEAST OF DEATH.

This Master Mathias was a very clever man--more clever than all the rest.

"I have been made the receiver of a secret, so strong that it will eat its way through the walls that hold it. It's true I have sworn on the Gospel that I will not betray it to anybody; but how can Lord Grazian believe me altogether, when he does not believe the Gospel? I am inclined to think he would have much more confidence in a dead man. And how easy it is to make a dead man out of a living one! Just a taste of meat with something good on it--one swallow of a carefully prepared drink--and then a peaceful good night. One does not need to defend himself against a dead man."

Master Mathias thought of this while he cut the meat that he found in the house, set the wine on the table and wiped off the plates. He had thought out a plan. In the house there was still one living creature, a hunting dog; he called him in, gave him some meat and bread; and the dog swallowed all. Then he gave him a bowl of wine; the dog drank this too, and nothing happened. So then neither drink nor food contained any poison that would kill instantly, and later--why he would watch carefully my Lord Grazian's hands.

He had to wait some time for him to finish putting away the gold, then suddenly the ghostly bell rang out, a sign that some one was near the door of the underground pa.s.sage. Lord Grazian staggered out of the church. The bears were not in the garden any more, their hides were hanging on the hedge; their master had had them skinned the day before, as a reward for their faithless watching.

"The ghosts have been ringing again," growled out Master Mathias, as Lord Grazian entered.

"Never mind, they have done it for the last time," said Lord Grazian, sitting down at the table. His feet were encased in large, high Polish boots, in the legs of which were all kinds of tools; out of one he brought a knife in a silver case and his two-tined fork. A real lord never puts a stranger's table-silver to his mouth. Out of the other leg he brought a gold drinking cup in tortoise-sh.e.l.l case, the "bratina"

that can be drained at one swallow.