The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

"I am in your power – what do you want of me?" interrupted Cornelia.

"The salvation of your soul."

"My soul belongs to God. I have lived and I shall die in my faith, and in execration for the Catholic church."

"This is but another evidence of the impiousness of the Lebrenn family, a family of reprobates, of accursed people, to whom this poor creature was soon to be joined by even closer bonds than those that already join her to them!"

"What! You know – ?"

"A Rochelois prisoner informed me that you were the betrothed of Antonicq, the son of him who was my brother."

"Monk, I shall not invoke to you the bonds of family – you have reddened your hands with your brother's blood. I shall not invoke your pity – you are pitiless. But, seeing that no heretics have been burnt for quite a while, I hope you will consent to cause me to be condemned to the pyre for a hardened heretic. I abhor the Pope, his Church and his priests! I abhor them as I do Kings. I execrate all monks, and the whole tonsured fraternity."

Cornelia calculated upon exasperating the Cordelier to fury, and thus to wrest from him the order to be taken to immediate execution – her only refuge from the threats of the Duke of Anjou. But the unfortunate girl deceived herself. Fra Hervé listened to her impassively, and resumed:

"You are cunning. You aspire to martyrdom because death will protect you from the outrage that you fear. I am not your dupe. There will be no pyre for you!"

"Woe is me!" murmured the young girl, seeing her last hope dashed. "Woe is me! I am lost!"

"You are saved – if you will!" Fra Hervé proceeded to say.

"What do I hear?" cried Cornelia perceiving a new glimmer of hope. "What must I do? Speak!"

"Publicly abjure your heresy! Renounce Satan and your father! Humbly implore our holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to receive you into her bosom at her mercy and discretion. The soilure, now upon you, being washed off, you shall take the eternal vows and shall bury in the shadow of the cloister the criminal life you have led in the past. Choose: either immediate abjuration, or – to the soldiers. These pious Catholics will slake their amorousness upon you."

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Cornelia, seized with terror, and her head reeling. "Am I awake? Am I dreaming? Can a man, a priest, outrage a woman's modesty to such an extent? A curse upon you, wretch!"

"What audacity! 'Outrage' a 'woman'!" put in Fra Hervé with a wild and diabolical guffaw. "Is there such a thing as a heretic being a 'woman'? No! A heretic is a female, like the she-wolf in the jungle. Is there such a thing as outrage with a she-wolf?"

"Mercy!" stammered Cornelia in despair. "Have mercy upon me!"

"No mercy!" answered Fra Hervé sententiously. "You shall enter a cloister, or – you shall be given over to the lust of the soldiers. It shall be so! And now, keep your eyes upon this hour-glass," added the monk, pointing to the instrument for marking time that stood near the dead man's skull. "Should you, when the water is run down, not have decided instantly to abjure and to depart this very night to a convent, you shall be delivered to the Catholic soldiers!"

And the monk, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, remained silent as he looked with fixed eyes at the running of the water from the upper into the lower bulb of the clepsydra, while fondling his heavy chaplet with the hand that remained free.

"What am I to do?" the Protestant girl asked herself. "What am I to do in this extremity? Almighty God, have mercy upon me!"

"One-half of the water has run down!" observed Fra Hervé in his sepulchral voice. "Decide! There is still time!"

At the lugubrious announcement Cornelia's mind began to wander; still, one lucid thought rose clear above the growing vertigo that obsessed the young girl's thoughts – the thought of putting an end to her life. Her bewildered eyes sought to penetrate here and there the dark recesses of the cell, which the dim light of the lamp threw heavily into the shade. They sought mechanically for some article that she might use as a weapon with which to inflict death upon herself. Suddenly Cornelia's eyes bulged out in amazement. She held her breath and remained petrified, thinking herself the sport of a vision. Fra Hervé, because of his eyes being fixed upon the hour-glass and his back turned to the trap door that masked the stone stairs leading to the aqueduct, could not take in what was happening. But Cornelia saw the trap door rise noiselessly, inexplicably; presently, in the measure that it rose, the two hands and then the two arms that raised it heaved in sight; simultaneously there appeared the top of an iron casque, and an instant later the face under the casque – and Cornelia recognized Antonicq – her betrothed, Antonicq Lebrenn!

"The water will run out before you have time to say an Ave," warned the Cordelier in a hollow voice, without removing his eyes from the clepsydra, and he added: "Heretic! Heretic! Make haste! Abjure your idolatry! If not you shall be thrown to the soldiers, you shall be given to the good Catholics of the whole army!"

The imminence of the danger and the prospect of safety restored the young girl's presence of mind. The instant her eyes discovered her betrothed she became silent, motionless, watchful. The last threats of the monk reached Antonicq's ears at the moment when he had completely raised the trap door, and wrung from him despite himself an exclamation of fury. Fra Hervé turned sharply around and bounded from his seat in bewilderment at the sight of the young man leaping into the room from underground. Cornelia, in full control of herself, and remembering that the monk's cell was separated from the hall of the officers of the guard by a short corridor of only about twenty paces, ran back to the door that opened on the corridor intending to close it, and bolt it from within. Fra Hervé divined the young girl's purpose, and, meaning to prevent it, precipitated himself upon her. That instant Antonicq reached his betrothed, disengaged her from the clutches of the monk, seized him by the shoulders and flung him back violently. Free once more, Cornelia quickly carried out her purpose. She closed the door gently, and bolted and barred it from within, thus shielding herself and Antonicq behind a barrier that the officers of the Duke of Anjou would consume considerable time before they could succeed in breaking down. At the very moment that Cornelia closed the door Fra Hervé sounded the alarm in a sufficiently penetrating voice to be heard in the hall of the guards:

"Help! Treason! To arms! Help! The Huguenots!"

But instantly the Cordelier's voice expired upon his lips. A vigorous hand seized him by the throat, the blade of a dagger shone in the air and twice plunged into the fratricide's breast. He fell over backward, bathed in his own blood, straightened himself for an instant, foamed at the mouth, and breathed his last; – and a muffled voice cried "Twenty-five– the bill is paid. Now I can die in peace. My sister and her daughter are avenged! The ransom of the crime is paid in full."

The Franc-Taupin had emerged from under ground after Antonicq, and preceded Captain Mirant, who rushed to his daughter's embrace while the Franc-Taupin stabbed the fratricidal monk to death.

"Let us flee!" said Cornelia to her father and her betrothed, after responding to their demonstrations of tenderness. "The monk's cries reached the hall of the guards at the head of the corridor. I hear them coming. Do you hear those steps? The sound of those approaching voices?"

"We have nothing to fear. Your presence of mind, my dear girl, has insured our safe retreat. They will find it no easy task to enter the cell. The door is thick, the bolt solid," remarked the Franc-Taupin, examining and fastening more tightly the bolt with imperturbable calmness. "Cornelia, Antonicq, and you, Captain Mirant, descend to the aqueduct quickly, and wait for me just this side of the mine that I planted in the underground passage, and near which Master Barbot and the sailors are waiting for our signal."

Turning to Serpentin, the apprentice, who also came in after Captain Mirant the Franc-Taupin said:

"Come here, my gay fellow – bring me the little machine and implements. We shall serve up a peppery broth to the royalists."

Cornelia, her father and Antonicq hastened to descend the stairs of the underground passage that the trap door masked. Hardly had they disappeared, leaving the Franc-Taupin and the apprentice behind in Fra Hervé's cell, when they heard violent knocks given at the door, and a confused noise of voices calling out:

"Fra Hervé! Fra Hervé!"

The Marquis of Montbar was heard saying: "A minute ago he cried: 'Help! Treason!' He now makes no answer. The witch may have strangled the reverend Father!"

And the voices outside continued to cry tumultuously: "Fra Hervé! Fra Hervé! We can not get in! The door is bolted from within. The devil take it! Open to us, Fra Hervé! We come to help you!"

"Quick! Bring levers and an axe – or, better yet, let us break in the door!" the voice of the Marquis of Montbar was again heard to say. "Run for a company of my soldiers! We shall wait here. Hurry up!"

"Oh! Oh!" observed the Franc-Taupin, after silently listening to the observations from the other side of the door, to which he had glued his ears. "The royalists are inviting themselves in large numbers to the banquet that I am preparing for them! And why not? When there is broth for five guests, there is enough for ten, if the housekeeper is economical. Just wait, my friends! My broth is cooking! It is so toothsome that a single spoonful will do the work for twenty or thirty persons."

"Master Josephin, here are the implements and the little machine," said Serpentin in a low voice, as he drew out of a bag that he brought suspended from his shoulders and handed over to the Franc-Taupin a heavy iron box about one foot long and six inches high and wide. The box, filled full with powder, was pierced in the center by a narrow slit through which a sulphured fuse was inserted. The Franc-Taupin took in his hands the redoubtable petard, examined the structure of the door minutely, and after a moment's reflection inserted the iron box with no little difficulty under the lower hinge. The Franc-Taupin then rose, and patting the apprentice upon the cheek said to him in a low voice:

"Tell me, my lad, why do I place the little machine so tightly between the floor and the hinge?"

Serpentin reflected for a moment, scratched his ear, and then reeled off his answer after the fashion of a boy who recites his lesson:

"Master, you place the little machine in that way in order that, when it blows up, it may tear up the door along with the hinge; the torn up hinge will tear up the masonry in which it is fastened; the torn up masonry will tear up a part of the wall; and the torn up wall will bring down the ceiling. As a result of all this the debris will roll down upon the St. Bartholomew lambkins, whose flesh will have been scratched by the flying fragments of the little machine which will have been hurled in all directions, and will have whistled and ricocheted like artillery balls."

"Wise – wise answer, my lad," observed the Franc-Taupin pinching the apprentice's ear with a satisfied look. "Continue to profit by my lessons in this manner, and you will become an accomplished miner, and you then will be able to contribute handsomely towards the scattering into fragments of a goodly number of papists and royalists. Now, off with you, hurry down the stone steps, and wait for me at the bottom."

Serpentin obeyed. The Franc-Taupin knelt down at the threshold of the door, took from his belt a horn of powder and spilt along the floor a sufficient quantity to quite cover up the fuse. Thereupon, retreating on his knees, he laid down a long train of powder. The train skirted Fra Hervé's corpse and ended at the opening of the trap door, down which he descended. Josephin stopped on the stair so that only his head appeared above the level of the flooring. Listening in the direction of the door, behind which he could hear a confused noise of voices, he said to himself: "The Catholic vermin is swarming behind the door, but I still have time to cut my twenty-fifth notch."

He took the little stick which he habitually carried hung on a string from a buttonhole of his jacket, pulled out his dagger, and cutting into the wood, the aged soldier said:

"Hena, my sister's daughter, was plunged twenty-five times into the flames by the priests of the Church of Rome. I have just put to death my twenty-fifth Roman Catholic and Apostolic priest!"

As he murmured these words to himself, Josephin contemplated the corpse of Fra Hervé, stretched out upon his back in a pool of blood, with stiffened arms, clenched fists and half bent knees. The light from the lamp shed its pale luster upon the monk's face upon which the agony of death was still stamped. The jaws were close set; foam oozed out at the lips; the corpse's glassy and fixed eyes still seemed to preserve their threatening aspect from the depth of their cavities.

"Oh!" exclaimed the Franc-Taupin with a terrible sigh, "How many times, alas! how very many times, seated at the hearth of my poor sister, when the unfortunate being who lies there dead and still foaming at his mouth with rage was a little boy, how often I took him and his younger brother Odelin upon my knees! caressed their little blonde heads! kissed their plump cheeks! Joining in their infantine amusements, I entertained them, I gladdened them with my Franc-Taupin songs! In those days Hervé equalled his brother in the gentleness of his character and the kindness of his heart. The two were the joy, the pride, the hope of my sister and of Christian! But one day a monk, a demon, Fra Girard, took possession of the mind of unhappy Hervé, dominated it, led it astray, corrupted it, and debased it forever! Oh! priests of Rome! priests of Rome! A curse upon you! Alas! out of the sweet boy, whom I loved so dearly, you made a bloodthirsty fanatic, a wrathful madman, a fratricide – and it became my duty to smite him with my dagger – him – him – my own sister's child!"

The Franc-Taupin was drawn from his revery by the ringing sound of blows struck with maces and the butts of arquebuses against the door from without, and splintering its woodwork, while, rising above the tumult, the voice of the Marquis of Montbar was heard crying: "To work! Strike hard! Harder still! Break in the door!"

"Well! The hour has come for the St. Bartholomew lambkins to dance in the air!" said the Franc-Taupin. Without hurrying, without losing his calmness, he pulled from his pocket a tinder box, a wick and a flint and steel. Striking upon the flint with the iron, he hummed between his teeth the old song that the memories of Odelin's and Hervé's infancy had recalled to his mind:

"A Franc-Taupin had an ash-tree bow,
All eaten with worms, and all knotted its cord;
His arrow was made out of paper, and plumed,
And tipped at the end with a capon's spur.