He wandered on again towards the chapel. At last the smell of burning was mingled with the odour of stale incense, and a wild confusion of broken choir-seats, images, and candelabra impeded his steps.
"Are you here, my brethren? Is no one here?" He shouted again and listened. He heard something--this time it was not the wind, it was a low groan from some human being.
"Who is there? answer me!" he cried, trembling.
"Who are you?" A well-known but broken voice fell upon his ear.
"Correntian!" cried Donatus, between fear and joy.
"Donatus!" answered the voice, and a strange shudder ran through him--as if he were called to the last judgment, and a voice from the clouds had read his name on the list of the d.a.m.ned.
"Donatus," repeated Correntian, "miserable son, why are you come so late? You have been our ruin."
"Correntian, my brother, I will tell you all; give me your hand and help me over these ruins."
"I am lying with crushed limbs under the overturned altar, I cannot help you," groaned Correntian.
"All-merciful G.o.d! How has this happened?"
"I wanted to rescue the charter of the convent from the enemy, and to hide it under the altar, but they surprised me, and in the struggle the altar was overturned upon me," groaned Correntian.
"And the brethren, where are they?"
"They have fled, driven away stripped and bare, the whole party. Our herds are driven off, the convent destroyed and plundered. Your father, who had leagued himself with your mother"s kindred, committed the crime."
Trembling as he went, and with infinite effort, the youth had made his way through the medley of fragments and ruins towards the spot whence the voice proceeded; a hand now arrested his lifted foot.
"Stop, you will tread upon me." He stooped down, there lay Correntian on the bare stone half buried under the enormous ma.s.s of the stone altar.
"Oh! misery and horror!" screamed the blind man. "Crushed like a worm, a great, strong man! and no one to help you, no one!"
"The brethren could scarcely save their own lives, the people of the neighbourhood fled from the fearful scene; for three days I have lain here, abandoned, and not a hand to give me a draught of water."
"I will fetch you some water, I will find the spring," cried Donatus, but Correntian held him back.
"No, never mind, the well is choked, and it would not serve me now. My torture is near its end, I feel--"
"Oh poor soul, and must you end so miserably?" lamented the younger man. "Crushed by the altar you so faithfully served!"
"Do not grieve for me, I die as I have lived--for the Church. It is the highest mercy that G.o.d should grant me to die such a death. There is one who is yet more to be pitied than I." Donatus staggered.
"G.o.d help me, not the Abbot?"
"Yes, unhappy boy, the Abbot, who loved you with a love which was a sin against the rules of our holy Order--he expiated his sin fearfully."
"Speak, for pity"s sake, torture me no longer," implored Donatus. "What happened to him?"
"Count Reichenberg demanded that he should give you up, for he thought you were hidden in the convent, and when he refused--was obliged to refuse--he had him bound and dragged into the court-yard and then--"
Correntian paused for breath.
"And then, what then?"
"Then they made him give his eyes for yours, as the Count had sworn."
A scream rang through the chapel, and its quivering echoes shook the broken panes; then there was a silence as if the youth"s heart had cracked in that one cry, and he had fallen lifeless.
Correntian breathed slowly and painfully; angels of death spread their dark wings and hovered round that ruined altar. Presently the stupor that had followed the first blow was broken.
"Oh! eternal Justice, where art Thou that this should happen?" sobbed Donatus. "G.o.d of grace, G.o.d of mercy! where wert Thou that such things could be done? That pure, innocent and saintly man, punished for my guilt--G.o.d of pity, how could"st Thou allow this?" And he sank down by the broken altar, and wept as though he could shed all at once all the tears that flood the world.
"Those eyes, those kind eyes, that so often looked at me with affection, that watched over me so faithfully. Oh G.o.d! give me mine again that I may weep for those far dearer ones!" But his lamentations grew less loud and violent as though he were kneeling at the Abbot"s feet, and were listening tenderly to his soothing words as of yore.
"Oh! Lamb of G.o.d, patient and long suffering victim. You, in your gentle soul, forgave me, for you were too lofty a spirit to remember evil, but I, I can not forgive myself; my father, give me once--only once, your beloved hand, that I may press a kiss of remorse upon it--only once, only once, and then will I sink into d.a.m.nation and expiate for ever that which I can never make amends for." And then again he was silent, all his strength of soul, which is needed even for suffering, was spent; he was forced to pause and draw breath for a fresh outburst.
"And the brethren," he groaned at length, "could they not protect him?"
"They were out numbered, there was a whole host of marauders," said Correntian. Donatus stood up, "Oh if I had been there I would have protected him. I would have covered him with my own body against a whole world of them."
"Aye, if you had come at the right time, then it would all have been different. Why did you not come, where were you waiting so long?"
"I followed the d.u.c.h.ess in vain for two whole days."
"And then?"
"And then I hastened home."
"And did that take nine days and nights!" cried Correntian.
"Brother! what are you saying? I left you only three days since."
"Woe upon you, son of the evil one!" screamed Correntian. "Where were you? What cheated your senses as to the time? Did you linger in the nether world that the days hastened by uncounted? Were you bewitched that you did not observe that since you left more than a week is past?"
"Merciful Heaven! a week?" said Donatus, "and she told me that I had slept but a night. Oh Beata! Beata! could you so deceive me?"
"Beata!" repeated Correntian. "Then it was a woman who stole all consciousness of time from you! And you ruined all for a woman"s sake.
This is how you kept your word to us, this is what came of your vows?
Woe, woe, all is come to pa.s.s that I foretold at your birth; you were the changeling laid by the devil in our peaceful home to work our ruin, and yet you deceived even me into recalling my own prediction and trusting you. Nay more, Hear, oh Lord! and punish me for my sin. You were the first human being I ever loved. And at the very moment when I thought to set the crown of martyrdom on your head you relapse into the base element whence you rose and drag us all down with you in your fall!"
"Correntian, hear me. Yes, it is true, I have sinned; yes I have led you all into ruin for a girl"s sake, and I will expiate it through all eternity. Not even my blindness could save me, Eusebius was right, the devil is more cunning than man, and yet I am innocent and pure!"
"Pure," shouted Correntian. "How dare you call yourself so, criminal,"
and with all the added horror of his suffering he raised the upper part of his body and stretched out his arm towards Donatus. "The curse that was upon you even in your mother"s womb, I take it up and pour it, a double curse upon your head. Only your father"s curse has weighed upon you hitherto, I add to it your mother"s curse; for your mother is the Church you have brought to shame. An outcast shall you be, perjured wretch, an outcast from the Church, an outcast from humanity--an outcast from the flock of penitents who yet may hope. The gra.s.s shall wither under your feet; the hand be palsied that offers you the sacred Host; death and pestilence shall visit him who takes pity on your hunger. Your bones shall fall to dust, and that their pestilential reek may not poison the earth that yields food for other mortals, I bid you flee away to the ends of the earth, up to the realm of death, to the ice of the glaciers, as far as your feet can bear you, where not a blade can grow that can imbibe the poison of your corpse. All that is mortal of you shall be blotted out from creation to the very last jot, and what is immortal shall suffer to all eternity such torment as has racked my very marrow for these three days--" His voice failed, the rigor of death had fallen upon him, he fell back on the stone floor.
Once more he raised himself, his clenched fists clutched at the fissures in the ground in his last agony.
"Oh, Lord G.o.d! have mercy on my sins!" he groaned, seized with sudden horror at the thought that he must depart without the last sacraments and with a curse on his lips. He felt that death had laid its icy hand on his heart; it was too late, his lips tried to stammer some words, but his jaws were clenched in a convulsion. Thus he gave up his cold and stubborn spirit, without consolation, without atonement, hoping for no mercy, for he had shown none; yet he had been true to himself and the Church, true even unto death.
But Donatus, crushed and banned, knelt by the corpse and prayed for mercy on the hapless erring soul. Would G.o.d hearken still to the prayer of the accursed? Could it reach the Throne of G.o.d? He bowed his forehead to the dust, and gave the cold stones a farewell kiss. Then he rose, and made his way back to the door where the boy was to wait.