The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess

CHAPTER VI.
WARRIOR AND ABBESS

Refreshed by his bath and daintily dressed, Berthoald was half an hour later led by Ricarik to the apartment of the abbess. When he appeared in the hall where Meroflede awaited him, he found her alone. The abbess had doffed her black vestments to array herself in a long white robe. A light veil half hid the tresses of her thick and reddish hair. A necklace and bracelets of precious stones ornamented her neck and bare arms. The Franks, having preserved the custom, introduced before them in Gaul by the Romans, of surrounding their banquet tables with couches, the abbess, extended almost at full length upon a long and wide lounge furnished with cushions, made a sign to the young chief to sit down near her. Berthoald obeyed, increasingly taken with the unusual beauty of Meroflede. A large fire flamed in the hearth. Rich vessels of silver glistened on the table, which was covered with embroidered linen; daintily carved flagons stood near gold cups; the plates held toothsome dishes; a candelabrum, on which two little wax candles were burning, barely lighted the spacious apartment, which was thrown into semi-obscurity a few paces away from Meroflede and her guest, and into complete darkness at its further ends. The lounge stood against a wainscoted wall from which hung two portraits, one of them, coarsely painted on an oak panel in Byzantine style, representing a Frankish warrior barbarously accoutred after the fashion of the leudes of Clovis three centuries earlier. Below the painting was the inscription: "Gonthram Neroweg." Beside this picture was one of the abbess Meroflede herself, draped in her long black and white veils; in one hand she held her abbatial crosier, in the other a naked sword. The second picture was much smaller than the first; it was painted on parchment, in the style of the miniatures that sacred books were then commonly illuminated with. Berthoald's eyes fell upon the two pictures at the moment when he was about to sit down beside his hostess. At their sight a tremor ran through him, and he remained as if thunder-struck. Presently he looked from Gonthram Neroweg to Meroflede, and from the abbess back to the former. He seemed to compare the resemblance between the two, an obvious resemblance; like Neroweg, Meroflede's hair was reddish, her nose beaked, her eyes green. The young chief could not conceal his astonishment.

"You seem to contemplate with deep interest the portrait of one of my ancestors, deceased several centuries ago!"

"You are of the race of Neroweg!"

"Yes, and my family still inhabits its vast domains of Auvergne, conquered by my ancestors' swords, or bestowed upon them by royal gifts… But that is quite enough for the past. Glory to the dead, joy to the living! Sit down here near me, and let us take supper… I am an odd abbess. But by Venus, I live like the other abbots and bishops of my time, with the only difference that these mitred folks sup with young girls, while I shall spend the night with a handsome soldier… Will that be to your taste?" and raising one of the heavy silver flagons with a virile hand, she filled to the brim the gold cup that was placed near her guest. After merely moistening her own red lips in the cup, she reached it to the young chief and said resolutely:

"Let us drink your welcome to this convent!"

Berthoald held the cup for a moment between his two hands, and casting one more look at the portrait of Neroweg, he smiled caustically, fixed upon the abbess a look as bold as that which she cast at him, and replied: "Let us drink, beautiful abbess!" and emptying the cup at one draught, he added: "Let us drink to love!.. which overpowers the abbesses as it does the simple maids!"

"Aye! Let us drink to love, the god of the world, as the pagans used to say!" answered Meroflede, and filling her own cup from a little red flagon, and replenishing the cup of the young chief, who fixedly gazed at her with eyes that shot fire, she added: "I have drunk to your toast; now drink to mine!"

"Whatever it be, holy abbess, and even though this cup be filled with poison, I shall empty it to your toast, I swear by your snow-white arms! – by your beautiful eyes! – by your voluptuous lips! I drink to Venus Callipyge!"

"Well, then," said the abbess, fixing a penetrating look upon the young man, "let us drink to the Jew Mordecai!"

Berthoald had his cup at his lips, but at the name of the Jew he shivered, laid his cup down abruptly, his face grew dark and he cried in terror:

"Drink to the Jew Mordecai?"

"Come, by Venus, the patroness of lovers, do not tremble like that, my brave friend!"

"Drink to the Jew Mordecai!.. I – "

"You said to me: 'Let us drink to Love!'" replied the abbess, without losing the effect of her words upon Berthoald; "you swore by the whiteness of this arm," and she raised her sleeves, "you swore to drink my toast. Fulfill your promise!"

"Woman!" cried Berthoald with impatience and embarrassment, "what whim is that? Why do you wish me to drink to the Jew Mordecai, to a merchant of human flesh?"

"I shall satisfy your curiosity… Had not Mordecai sold you as a slave to the Seigneur Bodegesil, you would not have stolen your master's horse and armor to go in search of adventures, and palmed yourself off upon that devil of a Charles Martel – you, a Gaul of the subject race – for a noble of the Frankish race and son of a dispossessed beneficiary, and finally, Charles, one of whose best captains you have become, would not have presented you with this abbey. Consequently, you would not be here now, at my side, at this table, where we are together drinking to Love… That is the reason why, my valiant warrior, I empty this cup to the memory of that filthy Jew! And now, will you drink to the Jew Mordecai?"

While Meroflede was uttering these words, Berthoald contemplated her with increased astonishment, now mixed with fear, and could find not one word in answer.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" said the abbess laughing, "see how dumb he has become. Why grow alternately pale and red? What does it matter whether you are of Gallic or Frankish race? Does that render your eyes less blue, your hair less black, your shape less comely? Come, shame upon you, my warrior! Must I teach a soldier how cups are emptied, and how love is made?"

Berthoald felt as if in a dream. Meroflede did not seem to despise him; she did not seem to triumph at the advantage that she had gained over him by the knowledge of his secret. Frank in her cynicism, she contemplated the young chief with mild and ardent eyes. Her looks that at once troubled his mind and fired his veins; the strangeness of the adventure; the effect of the large cup that he had just drained at one draught, either a heady wine or perchance mixed with some philtre, and that began to throw his brain into disorder; – all these thoughts crowded upon Berthoald's mind. He took a sudden resolve – to vie with the abbess in audacity, and said resolutely to her: "You are of the race of Neroweg, I of that of Joel!"

"We shall drink to Joel … he has raised a breed of handsome soldiers."

"Are you acquainted with the death of the son of Gonthram Neroweg, whose portrait I see there on the wall?"

"A tradition in my family has it that he was killed in his domain of Auvergne by the chief of a troop of bandits and revolted slaves. May the devil keep his soul!"

"The chief of those bandits was named Karadeucq … he was the great grandfather of my grandfather!"

"By heaven! That is a singular coincidence! And how did the bandit kill Neroweg?"

"Your ancestor and mine fought valiantly with axes, and the count succumbed. The Gaul triumphed over the Frank!"

"Indeed … you refresh the recollections of my childhood. Did not your ancestor cut some words in the trunk of a tree with the point of a dagger after the combat?"

"Yes – 'Karadeucq, a descendant of Joel, killed Count Neroweg'!"

"A few months after her husband's death, the count's wife, Godegisele, gave birth to a son, who was the grandfather of my grandfather."

"Strange coincidence, indeed … and you, my beautiful abbess, listen to the story with great calmness!"

"What are those combats of our ancestors and of our races to me? By Venus! By her beautiful hips! I know but one race in all the world – the race of lovers! Empty your cup, my valiant warrior, and let us sup merrily. To-night there is a truce between us two… War to-morrow!"

"Shame! Remorse! Reason! Duty! – let them all be drowned in wine!.. I know not whether I am awake or dreaming on this strange night!" cried the young chief, and taking up his full cup, he rose and proceeded with an air of feverish defiance while turning towards the somber and savage portrait of the Frankish warrior: "To you, Neroweg!" Having emptied his cup, Berthoald felt seized with a vertigo and threw himself upon the lounge, saying to Meroflede: "Long live Love, abbess of the devil! Let us love each other to-night, and fight to-morrow!"

"We shall fight on the spot!" cried a hoarse and strangling voice, that seemed to proceed from the extremity of the large hall that lay in utter darkness, and, the curtains of one of the doors being thrust aside, Broute-Saule, who, without the knowledge of the abbess and driven by savage jealousy, had managed to penetrate into the apartment, rushed forward agile like a tiger. With two bounds he reached Berthoald, seized him by the hair with one hand and raised a dagger over him with the other, determined to plunge the weapon into the young chief's throat. The latter, however, although taken by surprise, quickly drew his sword, held with his iron grip the armed hand of Broute-Saule, and ran his weapon through the unfortunate lad. Deadly wounded, Broute-Saule staggered about for a few seconds and then dropped, crying: "Meroflede … my beautiful mistress … I die under your eyes!"

Still holding his bloody sword in his hand, and aware that the powerful wine was making further inroads upon his senses, Berthoald mechanically fell back upon the lounge. The dazed chief for a moment scrutinized the darkness of the apartment, apprehensive of further attempts upon his life, when he saw the abbess knock over with her fist the candelabrum which alone lighted the room, and in the midst of the total darkness that now pervaded the place he felt himself in the close embrace of the monster. Hardly any recollection remained to him of what happened during the rest of that night of drunkenness and debauchery.

CHAPTER VII.
THE MOUSE-TRAP

Dawn was about to succeed the night in which Broute-Saule was killed by Berthoald. Profoundly asleep and with his hands pinioned behind his back, the young chief lay upon the floor of Meroflede's bedchamber. Wrapped in a black cloak, her face pale and half veiled by her now loose thick red hair that almost reached the floor, the abbess proceeded to the window, holding in her hand a lighted torch of rosin. Leaning over the sill whence the horizon could be seen at a distance, the abbess waved her torch three times, while intently looking towards the east which began to be tinted with the approaching day. After a few minutes, the light of a large flame, that rose from a distance behind the retreating shades of night, responded to Meroflede's signal. Her features beamed with sinister joy. She dropped her torch into the moat that surrounded the monastery, and then proceeded to awaken Berthoald by shaking him rudely. Berthoald was with difficulty drawn from his lethargy. He sought to take his hand to his forehead, but found that he was pinioned. He raised himself painfully upon his leaden feet, and still unclear of mind he contemplated Meroflede in silence. The abbess extended her bare arms towards the horizon, that dawn was feebly lighting, and said: "Do you see yonder, far away, the narrow road that crosses the pond and prolongs itself as far as the outer works of the abbey?"

"Yes," said Berthoald, struggling against the strange torpor that still paralyzed his mind and will, without thereby wholly clouding his intellect; "yes, I see the road surrounded by water on all sides."

"Did not your companions in arms camp on that road during the night?"

"I think so," replied the young chief, seeking to collect his confused thoughts; "last evening … my companions – "

"Listen!" put in the abbess nervously and placing her hand upon the young man's shoulder. "Listen … what do you hear from the side on which the sun is about to rise?"

"I hear a great rumbling noise … that seems to draw nearer towards us. It sounds like the rush of waters."

"Your ear does not deceive you, my valiant warrior;" and leaning upon Berthoald's shoulder: "Yonder, towards the east, lies an immense lake held in by dikes and locks."

"A lake? What of it?"

"The level of its waters is eight to ten feet above those of the ponds… Do you understand what will follow?"

"No, my mind is heavy … I hardly remember … our charming night … but why am I pinioned?"

"For the purpose of checking your joy when, as will soon be the case, you will have recovered your senses… Now, let us continue our confidential chat. You will understand that the moment the dikes are broken through and the locks opened, the water will rise in these ponds to the extent that they will submerge the narrow road on which your companions encamped for the night with their horses and the carts that held their booty and slaves… Now, watch… Do you notice how the water is rising? It is now up to the very edge of the jetty… Within an hour, the jetty itself will be entirely submerged. Not one of your companions will have escaped death… If they seek to flee, a deep trench, cut at my orders over night, will stop their progress… Not one will escape death… Do you hear, my handsome prisoner?"

"All drowned!" murmured Berthoald, still under the dominion of a dull stupor; "all my companions drowned – "

"Oh, does not yet that new piece of confidential news wake you up?.. Let us pass to another thing," and the abbess proceeded with a voice of ringing triumph: "Among the female slaves, taken from Languedoc, that your band brought in its train, there was a woman … who will drown with the rest, and that woman," said Meroflede, emphasizing each word in the hope of each being a dagger in Berthoald's heart, "is – your – mother!"

Berthoald trembled violently, leaped up in his bonds, and vainly sought to snap them. He uttered a piercing cry, cast a look of despair and terror upon the immense sheet of water that, tinted with the first rays of the rising sun, now extended in every direction. The wretched man called aloud: "Oh, my mother!"

"Now," said Meroflede with savage joy, "the water has almost completely invaded the causeway. The tent-cloths that cover the carts can hardly be seen. The flood still rises, and at this very hour your mother is undergoing the agonies of death … agonies that are more horrible than death itself."

"Oh, demon!" cried the young man, writhing in his bonds. "You lie! My mother is not there!"

"Your mother's name is Rosen-Aër, she is forty years of age; she lived one time in the valley of Charolles in Burgundy."

"Woe! Woe is me!"

"Fallen into the hands of the Arabs at the time of their invasion of Burgundy, she was taken to Languedoc as a slave. After the last siege of Narbonne by Charles, your mother was captured in the vicinity of the town together with other women. When the division of the booty took place, Rosen-Aër having fallen to the lot of your band was brought as far as here… If still you should doubt, I shall give you one more token. That woman carries on her arm, like you, traced in indelible letters the two words: 'Brenn' and 'Karnak'… Are these details accurate enough?"

"Oh, my mother!" cried the unfortunate Berthoald casting upon the waters of the pond a look of most poignant pain.

"Your mother is now dead… The jetty has disappeared under the waters, and still they rise… Aye, your mother was drowned in the covered cart, where she was held confined with the other slaves."

"My heart breaks," murmured Berthoald, crushed by the weight of pain and despair: "My suffering is beyond endurance!"

"Are you so soon at the end of your strength?" cried Meroflede with a peal of infernal laughter. "Oh! no, no! You have not yet suffered enough. What! You stupid slave! You Gallic renegade! Cowardly liar, who brazenly deck yourself with the name of a noble Frank! What, did you imagine vengeance did not boil in my veins because you saw me smile last evening at the death of my ancestor, who was killed by a bandit of your race! Aye! I smiled because I thought how at daybreak I would have you witness from a distance the death agonies of your own mother! I was but preparing my vengeance."

"Monster of lewdness and ferocity!" cried Berthoald, making superhuman efforts to break his bonds. "I must punish you for your crimes!.. Yes, by Hesus, I shall throttle you with my own hands!"

The abbess realized the impotence of Berthoald's fury, shrugged her shoulders and continued: "Your ancestor, the bandit, set fire a century and a half ago to the castle of my ancestor, Count Neroweg, and killed him with an axe. I reply to the fire with the inundation, and I drown your mother! As to the fate that awaits you, it will be terrible!"

"Did my mother know that I was the chief of the Franks who took her prisoner?"

"My vengeance lacked only that!"

"But who, miserable woman, could have told you what you know about my mother?"

"The Jew Mordecai."

"How did he know her? Where did he see her?"

"At the halt that you made at the convent of St. Saturnine with Charles Martel; it was there that the Jew recognized you."

"God was merciful to me! My mother did not live to know my shame. Her death would have been doubly terrible… And now, monster, deliver me of your presence and of life. I am in a hurry to die!"

"Have patience! I have prepared for you a refined punishment, and a prolonged agony."

CHAPTER VIII.
THE MIRACLE OF ST. LOUP'S TEETH

On the morning of the fateful day when the abbess Meroflede drowned, as in a mouse-trap, the troop of Frankish warriors that had presumed to dispossess her, the goldsmith Bonaik entered his workshop at the accustomed hour. He was soon joined by his slave apprentices. After lighting the fire in the forge, the old man opened the window that looked over the fosse, to let the smoke escape. With no little astonishment Bonaik observed that the water in the moat had risen so high as to be within a foot of the window sill. "Oh, my lads," said he to the apprentices, "I fear some great calamity happened last night! For very many years the water of this moat did not reach the height of to-day, and then it happened when the dike of the upper lake broke, and caused widespread disasters. Look yonder at the other end of the moat. The water is almost up to the air-hole cut into the cavern under the building opposite us."

"And it looks as if the water were still rising, Father Bonaik."

"Alack, yes, my lad! It is still rising. Oh, the bursting of the dikes will bring on great calamities. There will be many victims!"

While Bonaik and his apprentices were looking at the rising water in the moat, the voice of Septimine was heard calling on the outside: "Father Bonaik, open the door of the workshop!" One of the apprentices ran to the door and the girl entered, supporting a woman whose long hair streamed with water; her clothes were drenched, her face livid; she was barely able to drag herself along; so weak was she that after taking a few steps in the shop she fell fainting in the arms of the old goldsmith and Septimine.

"Poor woman! She is cold as ice!" exclaimed the old man, and turning to his apprentices: "Quick, quick boys! Fetch some coal from the vault, ply the bellows and raise the fire in the forge to warm up this unfortunate woman. I thought so! This inundation must have caused much damage."

At the words of the goldsmith, two apprentices ran down into the vault behind the forge for charcoal, and the other blew upon the fire, while the old man approached Septimine, who, on her knees before the unconscious woman, wept and said: "Oh, she is going to die!"

"Reassure yourself," the old man said; "this poor woman's hands, icy cold a minute ago, are becoming warmer. But what has happened? Your clothes also are drenched. You look strangely shocked."

"Good father, at daybreak this morning, the girls who sleep in my room and I woke up and went into the courtyard. There we heard other slaves crying that the dikes had burst. The girls all ran to see the progress of the inundation. I went along without knowing why. They dispersed. I advanced to a tongue of land that is washed by the water of the pond. A large willow stands near the spot. I presently saw a half-submerged cart floating a little way off. It was being turned around by the opposite currents, and it was covered by a tent-cloth."

"Thanks be to God! The spreading tent-cloth acted like a balloon and kept the cart from sinking."

"The wind blew into this sort of a sail, driving the cart towards the shore where I stood. I then saw this unfortunate woman, holding to the tent-cloth, the rest of her body in the water."

"And what happened then, my daughter?"

"There was not a second to lose. The failing hands of the poor woman, whose strength was exhausted, were about to drop. I fastened one end of my belt to one of the branches of the willow-tree and the other to my wrist and I leaned forward towards the poor woman calling out to her: 'Courage!' She heard me, and seized my right hand convulsively. The sudden pull caused my feet to slip from the edge and I fell into the water."

"Fortunately your left wrist was tied to one of the ends of the belt that you had fastened to the tree!"

"Yes, good father. But the shock was violent. I thought my arm was wrenched from its socket. Fortunately the poor woman took hold of the edge of my dress. My first pain having passed I did my best, and with the aid of my belt that remained fastened to the tree and on which I tugged away, I succeeded in reaching the shore and pulling out this woman, on the point of drowning. Our workshop being the nearest place that I could think of, I brought her here; she could hardly support herself; but, alack!" added the girl at the sight of the still inanimate face of Rosen-Aër, for it was Berthoald's mother that Septimine had just saved, "I may only have retarded the supreme moment for a few seconds!"

"Do not lose hope," answered the old man, "her hands are growing warmer."

With the aid of the apprentices, who were no less compassionate than Septimine and the old man, Rosen-Aër was drawn sitting on a stool near the forge. Little by little she felt the salutary effect of the penetrating heat, she gradually recovered her senses, and finally awoke. Gathering her thoughts, she stretched out her arms to Septimine and said in a feeble voice: "Dear child, you saved me!"

Septimine threw herself around Rosen-Aër's neck, shedding glad tears, and answered: "We have done what we could; we are only poor slaves."

"Oh! my child, I am a slave like yourselves, brought to this country from the center of Languedoc. We spent the night on the road between the two ponds of this monastery. The oxen had been unhitched from the carts. We were caught in the inundation that began at daybreak – " But Rosen-Aër suddenly broke off and rose to her feet. Her face was at first expressive of stupor, but immediately a delirious joy seized her, and precipitating herself towards the open window, she passed her arm through the thick iron bars, crying: "My son! I see my son Amael yonder!"

For a moment both Septimine and Bonaik believed the unhappy woman had become demented, but when they approached the window the young girl joined her hands and cried out: "The Frankish Chief, he in an underground passage of the abbey?"

Rosen-Aër and Septimine saw on the other side of the moat Berthoald holding himself up with both hands by the iron bars of the air-hole of the cavern. He suddenly saw and as quickly recognized his mother, and, delirious with joy, he cried in a thrilling voice that, despite the distance, reached the workshop: "Mother!.. My dear mother!"

"Septimine," Bonaik said anxiously to the girl, "do you know that young man?"

"Oh, yes! He was as good to me as an angel from Heaven! I saw him at the convent of St. Saturnine. It is to that warrior that Charles donated this abbey."

"To him!" replied the old man, bewildered. "How, then, comes he in that cavern?"

"Master Bonaik," one of the apprentices ran by saying, "I hear outside the voice of the intendant Ricarik. He stopped under the vault to scold some one. He will be here in a minute. He is coming on his morning round, as is his habit. What is best to be done?"

"Good God!" cried the old man in terror. "He will find this woman here, and will question her. She may betray herself and acknowledge that she is the mother of that young man – undoubtedly a victim of the abbess." And the old man, running to the window, seized Rosen-Aër by the arm and said to her while he dragged her away: "In the name of your son's life, come! Come quick!"

"What threatens my son's life?"

"Follow me, or he is lost, and you also." And Bonaik, without further explanations to Rosen-Aër, pointed out to her the vault behind the forge, saying: "Hide there, do not stir," and turning to his apprentices while he put on his apron: "You, boys, hammer away as loud as you can, and sing at the top of your voices! You, Septimine, sit down and polish this vase. May God prevent that poor young man from remaining at the air-hole or from being seen by Ricarik!" Saying this the old goldsmith started to hammer upon his anvil, striking with a sonorous voice the old and well-known goldsmith's song in honor of the good Eloi:

 
"From the station of artisan
He was raised to that of bishop, —
With his duties of pastor,
Eloi purified the goldsmith.
His hammer is the authority for his word,
His furnace the constancy of zeal,
His bellows the inspirer,
His anvil, obedience!"
 

Ricarik entered the workshop. The goldsmith seemed not to notice him, and proceeded with his song while flattening with hammer blows a silver leaf into which the abbatial cross terminated. "You are a jolly set," remarked the intendant stepping to the center of the workshop; "stop your singing … you dogs … you deafen my ears!"

"I have not a drop of blood in my veins," Septimine whispered to Bonaik. "That wicked man is drawing near the window… If he were to see the Frankish chief – "

"Why have you so much fire in the forge?" the intendant proceeded to say, taking a step towards the fireplace, behind which was the cave that Rosen-Aër was concealed in. "Do you amuse yourself burning coal uselessly?"

"No, indeed! This very morning I shall melt the silver that you brought me yesterday."

"Metal is melted in crucibles, not in forges – "

"Ricarik, everyone to his trade. I have worked in the workshops of the great Eloi. I know my profession, seigneur intendant. I shall first subject my metal to the strong fire of the forge, then hammer it, and only after that will it be ready for the crucible. The cast will then be more solid."

"You never lack for an answer."

"Because I always have good ones to give. But there are several necessary things that I shall want from you for this work, the most important of any that I shall have made for the monastery, seeing the silver vase is to be two feet high, as you may judge from the cast on the table."

"What do you need, dotard?"

"I shall need a barrel that I shall fill with sand, and in the middle of which I shall place my mold… That is not all… I have often found that, despite the hoops that hold the staves of the barrel, where molds are placed inside of the sand, the barrel bursts when the molten metal is poured into the hollow. I shall need a long rope to wind tightly around the barrel. If the hoops snap, the rope will hold. I shall also need a long thin string to hold the sides of the mold."

"You shall have the barrel, the rope and string."

"These young folks and I shall be forced to spend part of the night at the work. The days are short at this season. Order a pouch of wine for us, who otherwise drink only water. The good cheer will keep up our strength during our hard night's work. On casting days, at the workshops of the great Eloi, the slaves were always treated to something extra… Eatables were not spared."

"You shall have your pouch of wine … seeing that this is a holy-day at the convent. A miracle has taken place – "

"A miracle! Tell us about it!"

"Yes… A just punishment of heaven has struck a band of adventurers upon whom Charles the accursed had the audacity of bestowing this abbey that is consecrated to the Church. They camped last night upon the jetty, expecting to attack the monastery at daybreak. But the Lord, by means of a redoubtable and astonishing prodigy opened the cataracts of heaven. The ponds swelled and the whole band of criminals was drowned!"

"Glory be to the Lord!" cried the old goldsmith, making a sign to his apprentices to imitate him. "Glory be to the Lord, who drowns impious wretches in the cataracts of his wrath!"

"Glory be to the Lord!" repeated the young slaves in chorus at the top of their voices. "Glory be to the Lord, who drowns impious wretches in the cataracts of his wrath! Amen!"

"It is a miracle that does not at all surprise me, Ricarik," added the goldsmith; "it is surely due to the teeth of St. Loup, to the holy relic that you brought me yesterday."

"That's probable … it is certain… You do not need anything else?"

"No," answered the old man, rising and looking into several boxes; "I have here for the mold enough sulphur and bitumen, there is also enough charcoal; one of my apprentices shall go with you, Ricarik, and bring the barrel, rope and cord, and do not forget the pouch of wine and the victuals, seigneur intendant!"

"You will get them later, together with your pittances at double rations."

"Ricarik, we shall not be able to leave the workshop one instant, on account of the mold. Let us have our daily pittance this morning, if you please, so that the work may not be interrupted. We shall lock the door to keep out intruders."