The Abbatial Crosier Part 12

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!"

"Rea.s.sure 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 G.o.d! 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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-Aer, for it was Berthoald's mother that Septimine had just saved, "I may only have r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 compa.s.sionate than Septimine and the old man, Rosen-Aer 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-Aer'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-Aer 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage of the abbey?"

Rosen-Aer 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 G.o.d!" 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-Aer 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-Aer, 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 ap.r.o.n: "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 G.o.d 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-Aer 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."