CHAPTER XVI.

It was already night when I heard the gate-bell of the convent forcibly rung. Soon after, the brother who officiated as porter, came into my cell and told me there was a strangely-dressed man without, who insisted on speaking with me. I went accordingly to the parlour. It was Belcampo, who, in his usual mad style, capered up to me, seized me by both arms, and drew me, with an air of great mystery, aside into a corner.

"Medardus," said he, in a low and hurried tone, "you may make what arrangements you please for your own destruction; but Folly is once more come on the wings of the west wind to the rescue of your helpless wisdom. If there is but the slightest corner or thread of your habit remaining in sight, this arm will yet draw you back from out the yawning and bottomless abyss. Oh, Medardus! remember and acknowledge once more the power of love and of friendship. Think on David and Jonathan, dearest Capuchin!"

"I have admired you as Goliah, no doubt," answered I; "but what can have brought you hither at this time, I have yet to learn."

"What brought me hither!" said Belcampo, with great fervour. "What else could have impelled me, but an unreasonable, a boundless attachment to a Capuchin, whose head I once set to rights (in more senses of these words than one) when it was in very formidable disorder; who threw about him his blood-red golden ducats, with lavish profusion; who had intercourse with abominable _revenants_; who, finally, after he had committed a few trifling murders, was about to marry the most beautiful woman in the world, with whom----"

"Stop--stop there!" cried I--"no more of this, thou cruel-hearted and reckless fool. Heavily have I already done penance for all with which thou hast now, in thy wicked humour, reproached me!"

"Ha! Brother Medardus," said Belcampo, "are the scars then so tender and sensitive of those wounds with which the powers of darkness assailed you? This proves that your recovery is not yet perfect; so, then, I shall be as mild and quiet as a child--I shall tame the wildness of my fantasy--shall no more cut caprioles either mentally or corporeally--but only inform you, that as my attachment and friendship, chiefly on account of your sublime madness, which you call wisdom, are very great, I am determined to preserve your life as long as possible, and protect you from every danger that you bring upon yourself.

"Concealed in my puppet-show theatre, I have chanced to overhear a discourse relating to you. The Pope has determined to make you the Prior of one of the most distinguished Capuchin Convents, and also to appoint you his own Father Confessor. Fly, then, quickly--fly from Rome, for dagger and poison are already prepared for you. I know one bravo who has even now got his retaining fee for sending you in all haste to the other world. In a word, you have come in the way of a certain famous Dominican, who has hitherto been the Pope's confessor. You are obnoxious to him and all his adherents; and, to conclude, to-morrow morning you must no longer be found within the walls of Rome!"

This new occurrence I was at no loss to connect in my mind with the expressions of the unknown _Abbate_. The two warnings were exactly in keeping with each other, and I stood so lost in thought, that I scarcely noticed the absurd conduct of Belcampo, who embraced me with great fervour, and then with hideous grimaces and contortions took his departure.

It might now be past midnight, when I heard the hollow rolling of a carriage over the pavement of the Court. Soon afterwards, I observed steps on the stone-stairs. There was a knocking at my door, which I opened, and beheld the Father Guardian of the Convent, who was followed by a man in disguise, masked, and carrying a torch in his hand.

"Brother Medardus," said the guardian, "we are informed that a dying man desires your spiritual assistance, and the last unction. Do then what the rule enjoins. Follow this man, who will lead you to the person who requires your attendance."

Hereupon, a cold shuddering ran through my limbs. The apprehension rose vividly within me, that they were leading me to my own death; yet I dared not refuse, but instantly rose, put on my habit, and followed the stranger, who lighted me down stairs, opened the door of the carriage, and forced me to enter it.

In the carriage there were two other men, also disguised, who placed me betwixt them. I inquired whither I was to be led, and who it was that wished for my prayers and last services? No answer. In deep silence, we drove on through several streets. For some time, I believed, by the sound of the wheels, that we were already beyond the city walls; but again, I perceived that we came through an arched gate-way, and then drove once more over paved streets.

At last, the carriage stopped, and I felt that they immediately bound up my hands; and that a thick night-cap was drawn over my face, by which I was completely blinded. At this I expressed some dissatisfaction and anxiety.

"No evil shall befall you," said a rough voice, "only you must be silent as to all that you see and hear, otherwise your death is inevitable."

They now lifted me out of the carriage. There was a rattling of keys and locks. Then a gate opened that groaned heavily, and creaked on its rusty and unoiled hinges. We entered, and they led me at first through long corridors, and at last down stairs deeper and deeper. The echoing sounds of our steps convinced me that we were in vaults, and the abominable and oppressive air proved that these vaults were destined for the reception of the dead.

At last we stood still. My hands were untied, and the cap taken from my head. I found myself in a large apartment, dimly lighted by a lamp hung from the ceiling.

There was a man in black robes, and wearing a mask, probably the same who had come for me to the Capuchin Convent. He stood next to me; and along the walls of the room, seated on two benches, I beheld many Dominican monks.

The horrible dream already narrated, which occurred to me in the prison at the _residenz_ of the Prince von Rosenthurm, came back vividly on my remembrance. I held it for certain, that I was now to meet an immediate and cruel death; yet I remained silent, and only prayed inwardly, not for rescue from the danger that awaited me, but for a religious and sanctified end.

After some moments of gloomy silence and expectation, one of the monks came to me, and said, with a hollow voice, "Medardus, we have here doomed to death a brother of your order. His sentence is this night to be carried into execution. From you he expects absolution and admonition in his last moments. Go, then, and fulfil what belongs to your office."

The mask in black robes, who stood near me, now took me by the arm, and led me from the audience-chamber through a narrow passage, into a small vaulted cell.

Here I found lying in a corner, on a straw-bed, a pale and emaciated spectre--properly speaking, a mere skeleton--half-clothed, or rather hung like a scarecrow, with rags. The mask placed the lamp which he had brought with him on a stone-table, in the middle of the vault, and retired.

I then approached nearer the wretched couch of the prisoner. My name had been announced, and with great difficulty he turned himself round towards me. I was confounded when I recognized the features of the venerable Cyrillus. A smile as of celestial beatitude came over his countenance, though I knew not wherefore he was thus rejoiced.

"So then," said he, "the abominable ministers of hell, who dwell in this building, have for once not deceived me. Through them I learned that you, dear Brother Medardus, were in Rome; and as I expressed a great wish to speak with you, they promised me to bring you here at the hour of my death. That hour is now arrived, and they have not forgotten their contract."

Hereupon, I kneeled down beside the venerable and pious old man. I conjured him, in the first place, to tell me, how it was possible that he could have been doomed by any society, calling themselves religious, either to imprisonment or death?

"No, no! dear Brother Medardus," said Cyrillus, "not till after I have confessed my manifold crimes, and, in the first place, those which I have through inadvertence committed against you; not till after you have, according to the holy institutes of our church, reconciled me with Heaven, dare I speak any farther as to my own earthly misery, and worldly cares. You already know, that I myself, as well as all the rest of our community, looked upon you as the most hardened and most unpardonable of sinners. According to our belief, you had, by a continued chain of errors, heaped up the most enormous guilt on your head, so that we expelled you from our society. Yet your chief crime was but in yielding to the impulse of one fatal moment, in which the devil cast his noose round your neck, and dragged you away from the holy sanctuary, into the distractions of this sinful world.

"Then an abominable swindler, assuming your name, your dress, and, as if he were the devil incarnate, also your corporeal figure, committed those crimes, which had almost drawn upon you the shameful death of a murderer. It has indeed been proved against you, that you have on one occasion sinned, inasmuch as you wished to break your monastic vows; but that you are unstained by those enormities which were imputed to you, there can be no doubt. Return then to our convent, Medardus, where the brethren will receive him whom they believed for ever lost, with redoubled kindness and rejoicing."

Here the old man, overcome by weakness, sank back, fainting on his couch; and resisting the excitement which his words had produced upon me, I remembered that my present duty was to attend to Cyrillus only, and the welfare of his soul, which he had intrusted to my care. Therefore I laboured as well as I could, by friction, and raising him in the bed, to recover the unhappy prisoner from his insensibility.

At last he was restored, and went regularly through his confession; he, the pious and almost blameless old man, humbling himself before me, the depraved sinner! But when I absolved the self-accusing monk, whose only fault seemed to be that he had on many subjects _doubted_, and by these doubts had been driven hither and thither, it seemed to me as if, notwithstanding my own manifold offences, a divine spirit were kindled up within me--as if I were but the unworthy instrument, the corporeal organ, by which Omnipotence spoke temporally to souls not yet released from their temporal bondage.

"Oh, Brother Medardus," said Cyrillus, lifting his eyes full of devotion to Heaven, "how have your words refreshed and strengthened me! Gladly shall I now go to meet death, which the traitors residing here have prepared for me. I fall a victim to that abominable treachery and concealed wickedness, by which the throne of the Pope is now surrounded.----"

I heard hollow sounding steps, that always came nearer and nearer. Then keys rattled in the door-lock.

Cyrillus raised himself up with a violent and fearful effort.--"Return," said he, "return, Medardus, to the happiness and security of our own convent. Leonardus is already informed as to all that has occurred; he knows in what manner I am now about to die. Conjure him to be silent as to this last event; for how soon, even without this, would death have claimed a weak and tottering old man! Farewell, my brother! Pray for the salvation of my soul! My spirit shall be with you, when, in our convent at Koenigswald, you read for me the prayers over the dead. Above all, I beseech you to be silent as to whatever you have witnessed here; for otherwise you will bring on yourself certain destruction, and involve our community in endless disputes."

On this point I made him a solemn promise. The disguised men had come into the room. They lifted up the old monk out of bed, and, as he had not strength enough to walk, dragged him through the corridor towards the vaulted hall, or audience-chamber, in which I had before been.

On a signal from the masks, I had followed the prisoner, and now found that the Dominicans had arranged themselves in a circle, within which they brought the old man, and then commanded him to kneel down upon a small heap of earth, which they had laid in the centre of the circle.

A crucifix was now placed by one of the masks in his hands, and he grasped it with great fervour. According to the duty of my office, I had also gone within the circle, and prayed aloud. Before I had ended, one of the Dominicans pulled me by the arm, and spoke to me aside. At that moment I observed a sword gleam in the hand of one of the masks; and in an instant, at a single blow, the head of Cyrillus was dissevered, and rolled down, streaming a torrent of blood, at my feet.

I could not endure the horror of this spectacle, but threw myself on the earth, in a state of half fainting and half consciousness. On my recovery, I found that I was in a small apartment fitted up like a cell. A Dominican came up to me.

"You are terrified perhaps," said he; "yet, brother, methinks you should rather rejoice to have beheld with your own eyes this perfect martyrdom. By that name, of course, it must be distinguished, if a brother of your convent undergoes the execution of his sentence; for, no doubt, you are, to a man, _all_ saints!"

"We are not saints," replied I; "but we can at least say this much--Never was an innocent man within the walls of our convent murdered--Let me now go! I have fulfilled my duty faithfully, and with self-satisfaction. The spirit of my departed brother, who is now in Heaven, will, as I trust, be near to me, if I should fall into the hands of accursed murderers!"

"I do not doubt," said the Dominican, "that your departed brother, Cyrillus, will, in such case, be able to assist you. Methinks, however, you ought not to call the judgment which has been executed against him, a murder. Cyrillus had committed enormous misdemeanours against the now reigning Vicegerent of the Almighty; and it was by his (I mean by the Pope's) express command, that your brother was condemned to death. But as he must have confessed all to you, it is needless to speak with you any farther on this subject. Rather take, before you go, a little of this cordial for your bodily refreshment; for you look quite pale, and much agitated."

With these words, accompanied by a good-humoured smile, the Dominican handed to me a crystal cup, filled with a dark red-coloured and strongly fragrant wine, which, like champagne, foamed and mantled.

I scarce knew how to interpret the obscure apprehensions which were within me. Surely this was the self-same wine which had once before been presented to me by the Baroness Euphemia von F----, which I then luckily refused to taste! I had no time for reflections, however; for the monk was attentively watching me. Involuntarily, and without thought, I put up my left hand over my face, as if blinded by the glare of the lamp; and with the other, lifting my glass, poured the wine into the wide sleeve of my habit.

The Dominican was effectually deceived.--"Much good may it do you!" said he; at the same time hastily opening the door, and making signs for my departure.