Part 7 (1/2)
”We have cells, and quite strong, too, in which to keep the impious criminals who dare resist our will.”
”Let one of your clerks show the way to my men, who will lock this insolent skipper in one of these cells of the abbey.”
Eidiol was unable to suppress a first impulse of astonishment and sorrow.
”My son,” said he, ”has remained on board of my vessel; allow me to see him and apprise him of what has happened to me, that he may inform my wife and daughter. They will otherwise feel uneasy at my absence.”
”Your wishes,” answered Rothbert with a cruel smile, ”shall be satisfied. I have sent to fetch the other skippers from your vessel.”
”Treason!” cried Eidiol. ”They will come confident that no harm is meant, and a prison cell awaits them!”
”You have said it,” replied the Count of Paris, and, pointing his finger at Eidiol, he ordered his officers: ”To prison with him!”
”My dear wife, my sweet daughter! How uneasy will you not feel when to-morrow you see neither my son nor myself coming back home,” murmured the old man sadly, and, without offering any resistance, he followed the officer who took him in charge and conducted him to the subterranean cells of the abbey.
CHAPTER VI.
SISTER AGNES.
Shortly after the count's departure from the abbey, the reinforcement of a hundred soldiers promised by him arrived at the place. Their captain spent the night in preparing the fortifications for the defence. Under the physical lash of their foreman, above all intimidated by the fear of the fiery furnace of h.e.l.l, the serfs and villeins transported to the platform of the walls large stones, logs of wood and heavy beams, intended to serve as projectiles against the expected a.s.sailants. They were also made to carry heavy barrels of oil and pitch, which, boiled in large caldrons, were held ready to be poured over the heads of the enemy; besides a large number of bags full of chalk dust, whose contents, dropped upon the besiegers, would serve to blind them.
During the night and part of the morning the cattle of the abbey's domain were driven within its walls. Thither also a large number of the abbey's serfs and villeins congregated, summoned by the abbot to its defence. Many more, however, took to flight, determined to join the Northmans the moment they disembarked and to glean whatever they could in the wake of the invaders' tracks.
Many ”Franks”, as the free holders of little farms were styled, who lived in the environs of St. Denis, bundled up their most valuable havings and went for shelter behind the walls of the abbey. The court-yards and galleries of the cloister became by the hour more enc.u.mbered with a frightened crowd, whose baggage was piled up high hither and thither, while cattle of every description were huddled close together in the garden and on a s.p.a.cious meadow that was enclosed within the fortifications.
Finally, the abbot himself, helped by his canons who were armed with spades and mattocks, was busily engaged in the work of hastily burying under the ground of a little sequestered court all the rich paraphernalia of the church--vases, reliquaries, chalices, monstrances, statues, crosses, candelabra, chalice-covers, and other holy utensils wrought in silver or solid gold, and enriched with costly ornaments,--all proceeding from the toil and taxes of the serfs and villeins. A small group of priests were upon their knees in the basilica, imploring, amid moans, the a.s.sistance of heaven and invoking all manner of maledictions upon the heads of the Northmans.
The larger part of the day had been spent in continual frights. The men at the lookout, who kept watch on the ramparts above the gate, saw it frequently open in order to give pa.s.sage to belated serfs and herds of cattle, or to wagons filled with the fodder needed for feeding the large number of horses and other animals that had been crowded within the walls. Two of these conveyances, loaded with hay, and each drawn by a double yoke of oxen, were conducted by a man of sinister face and barely dressed in rags. The man was well known in the abbey. So soon as he hove in sight, a monk of large paunch, who was placed at the wicket of the gate, cried:
”Blessings upon you and your load! We have so many cattle within that we have been in fear of want of provender for them. Have you any tidings of those pagan Northmans? Have their vessels been seen on the Seine? Are they near or still far away?”
”They are said to be drawing nearer. But thanks to G.o.d, the abbey is impregnable. Oh! A curse upon these Northmans!” answered the serf, whose name was Savinien. As the man spoke, a strange smile flitted over his careworn countenance; he cast a sly side-smile upon the load of hay that was heaped up high on the wagons and added: ”I have driven my oxen so fast, in order to place myself at the order of our holy abbot, that, I fear, the poor brutes are foundered.--See how heavy they breathe!”
”They will not have to blow long. They will be speedily killed to feed the large number of n.o.ble Franks who have fled hither for refuge,”
replied the monk.
As the monk spoke, he began to remove, with the a.s.sistance of several other brothers, the enormous iron bars and chains that reinforced the ma.s.sive gate from within. About to throw open the gate, however, he heard, from a short distance without, mournful moans and canticles rising from female voices. Such was the panic that the approach of the Northmans threw the church people into, that the gate-monk, frightened out of his senses by the feminine lamentations which were slowly drawing nearer, did not venture, despite all insistence on the serfs part, to open the gate of the abbey, and refused admittance even to Savinien's welcome load. In the midst of the altercation between the monk and the serf, there appeared from behind a clump of trees, that rose at a distance from the abbey, a short procession of nuns distinguishable by their black and white robes, as well as by the long veils that covered their faces and that were intended to withdraw the saintly maids from the gaze of the profane. Four of the nuns carried on a stretcher, improvised of recently felled tree-branches, the inert body of one of their companions. The pall-bearers, together with the other eight or ten nuns who composed the funeral cortege, emitted incessant and heart-rending lamentations. Another young nun, whose veil was partly raised, preceded the body by a few steps, wringing her hands in despair, and from time to time crying out distracted:
”Lord! Lord! Have mercy upon us! Our holy abbess is killed!”
Savinien, who, from the moment admission into the abbey was refused him, had been casting increasingly anxious and uneasy looks at his load, piously dropped down on his knees the moment he saw the mortuary procession, led by the weepful nun, approach. Stepping more rapidly ahead of her suite, the latter walked up to the gate of the abbey, and, with a voice broken by sobs, cried through the wicket:
”My dear brothers, open this holy place of asylum to the poor lambs who are fleeing before ravaging wolves. Already our venerable mother in G.o.d has succ.u.mbed. We are carrying her mortal remains. Open the gate of the sacred monastery!”
”Is that you, Sister Agnes?” inquired the big gate-monk through the wicket ”Are those Northman demons so near that they have invaded the convent of St. Placida?”
”Alack, my dear brother! Last night, about a score of the accursed pagans disembarked not far from our convent,” answered the nun with an outburst of sobs. ”Awakened by the light of the flames that shot up from the conflagration, and by the cries of terror of the serfs who occupied the outside buildings, a few of us managed to throw on our clothes and to flee in all haste with our holy abbess through a gate that opened on the field. But alack! alack! so severe was the shock upon our venerable mother, already enfeebled by disease, that after about a quarter of an hour's march she fainted in our arms,--and immediately,” proceeded Sister Agnes after she had overcome a fresh fit of heart-rending sobs, ”immediately our venerable mother pa.s.sed from the earth to heaven!--We are bringing her body with us in order that the last rites may be performed over her remains, and that they may be buried in consecrated ground.”
The gate-brother listened to the distressful tale, sobbing no less loudly than Sister Agnes and smiting his chest. When she finished he quickly opened the gate and sent one of his a.s.sistants to notify the abbot of the misfortune. The body of the deceased mother-superior entered the abbey, together with the nuns who accompanied it, and followed by Savinien's two wagons of hay. The somber face of the serf seemed to lighten up with a sinister joy, which he had no little difficulty in suppressing, when at last he found himself within, and the abbey gate closed behind him.