Part 116 (1/2)

He reported the same at headquarters, half reluctantly. For he was an honest friar though a disagreeable one.

One Julio Antonelli was accused of sacrilege; three witnesses swore they saw him come out of the church whence the candlesticks were stolen, and at the very time. Other witnesses proved an alibi for him as positively.

Neither testimony could be shaken. In this doubt Antonelli was permitted the trial by water, hot or cold. By the hot trial he must put his bare arm into boiling water, fourteen inches deep, and take out a pebble; by the cold trial his body must be let down into eight feet of water. The clergy, who thought him innocent, recommended the hot water trial, which, to those whom they favoured, was not so terrible as it sounded.

But the poor wretch had not the nerve, and chose the cold ordeal. And this gave Jerome another opportunity of steeling Clement. Antonelli took the sacrament, and then was stripped naked on the banks of the Tiber, and tied hand and foot, to prevent those struggles by which a man, throwing his arms out of the water, sinks his body.

He was then let down gently into the stream, and floated a moment, with just his hair above water. A simultaneous roar from the crowd on each bank proclaimed him guilty. But the next moment the ropes, which happened to be new, got wet, and he settled down. Another roar proclaimed his innocence. They left him at the bottom of the river the appointed time, rather more than half a minute, then drew him up, gurgling, and gasping, and screaming for mercy; and, after the appointed prayers, dismissed him, cleared of the charge.

During the experiment Clement prayed earnestly on the bank. When it was over he thanked G.o.d in a loud but slightly quavering voice.

By-and-by he asked Jerome whether the man ought not to be compensated.

”For what?”

”For the pain, the dread, the suffocation. Poor soul, he liveth, but hath tasted all the bitterness of death. Yet he had done no ill.”

”He is rewarded enough in that he is cleared of his fault.”

”But, being innocent of that fault, yet hath he drunk Death's cup, though not to the dregs; and his accusers, less innocent than he, do suffer nought.”

Jerome replied, somewhat sternly:

”It is not in this world men are really punished, brother Clement.

Unhappy they who sin yet suffer not. And happy they who suffer such ills as earth hath power to inflict; 'tis counted to them above, ay, and a hundredfold.”

Clement bowed his head submissively.

”May thy good words not fall to the ground, but take root in my heart, brother Jerome.”

But the severest trial Clement underwent at Jerome's hands was unpremeditated. It came about thus. Jerome, in an indulgent moment, went with him to Fra Colonna, and there ”The Dream of Polifilo” lay on the table just copied fairly. The poor author, in the pride of his heart, pointed out a master-stroke in it.

”For ages,” said he, ”fools have been lavis.h.i.+ng poetic praise and amorous compliment on mortal women, mere creatures of earth, smacking palpably of their origin; Sirens at the windows, where our Roman women in particular have by lifelong study learned the wily art to show their one good feature, though but an ear or an eyelash, at a jalosy, and hide all the rest; Magpies at the door, Capre n' i giardini, Angeli in Strada, Sante in chiesa, Diavoli in casa. Then come I and ransack the minstrels' lines for amorous turns, not forgetting those which Petrarch wasted on that French jilt Laura, the slyest of them all; and I lay you the whole bundle of spice at the feet of the only females worthy amorous incense; to wit, the Nine Muses.”

”By which goodly stratagem,” said Jerome, who had been turning the pages all this time, ”you, a friar of St. Dominic, have produced an obscene book.” And he dashed Polifilo on the table.

”Obscene? thou discourteous monk!” And the author ran round the table, s.n.a.t.c.hed Polifilo away, locked him up, and, trembling with mortification, said, ”My Gerard, pshaw! brother What's-his-name, had not found Polifilo obscene. Puris omnia pura.”

”Such as read your Polifilo--Heaven grant they may be few!--will find him what I find him.”

Poor Colonna gulped down this bitter pill as he might; and had he not been in his own lodgings, and a high born gentleman as well as a scholar, there might have been a vulgar quarrel. As it was, he made a great effort, and turned the conversation to a beautiful chrysolite the Cardinal Colonna had lent him; and, while Clement handled it, enlarged on its moral virtues: for he went the whole length of his age as a wors.h.i.+pper of jewels. But Jerome did not, and expostulated with him for believing that one dead stone could confer valour on its wearer, another chast.i.ty, another safety from poison, another temperance.

”The experience of ages proves they do,” said Colonna. ”As to the last virtue you have named, there sits a living proof. This Gerard--I beg your pardon, brother Thingemy--comes from the north, where men drink like fishes; yet was he ever most abstemious. And why? Carried an amethyst, the clearest and fullest coloured e'er I saw on any but n.o.ble finger. Where, in Heaven's name, is thine amethyst? Show it this unbeliever!”

”And 'twas that amethyst made the boy temperate?” asked Jerome, ironically.

”Certainly. Why, what is the derivation and meaning of amethyst? a negative, and e??? to tipple. Go to, names are but the signs of things. A stone is not called ae??st?? for two thousand years out of mere sport, and abuse of language.”

He then went through the prime jewels, ill.u.s.trating their moral properties, especially of the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, and the opal, by anecdotes out of grave historians.

”These be old wives' fables,” said Jerome, contemptuously. ”Was ever such credulity as thine?”