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The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times
At sight of Joan the Hunchback, the Crusaders, first stupefied, soon broke out in loud peals of laughter, which were redoubled by the disappointment that Heracle of Polignac seemed to labor under. Still under the effects of his discomfiture, he gazed open-mouthed at Joan.
At that moment, livid, her features distorted with jealousy, Azenor was running from one Crusader to another, asking where William had gone to. But the seigneurs, half intoxicated and unconcerned at the sufferings of the love-sick woman, answered her with jests. "Let's carry the hunchback in triumph!" exclaimed several voices in the midst of deafening peals of laughter.
Joan paled with fear. Resigned beforehand to all sorts of jests and humiliations, she had not foreseen such an excess of indignity. Trembling and distracted, the poor woman dropped upon her knees and holding her child in her arms, she muttered amid sobs: "My poor child! Why did we not die with your father in the sands of the desert!" Already, despite Joan's tears, the Crusaders were seizing her, when a great uproar broke out in one of the chambers that opened into the gallery. Immediately, menacing and terrible to behold, Fergan the Quarryman threw himself into the middle of the hall armed with a cudgel and calling out loudly to Joan and Colombaik.
"Fergan!" "Father!" the woman and the child cried out together. At the sound of their voices, Fergan rushed across the group of Crusaders swinging his heavy stick and distributing such hard blows before him to the right and to the left, that the seigneurs, stunned and frightened, retreated precipitately before the serf. Beating his way through them, Fergan joined at last his wife and child, and pressed them to his heart in a passionate embrace. The domestics, thrown down, trodden under foot and half killed by Fergan, rose out of breath and explained to the seigneurs: "We were standing at the gate, playing chuck-farthing, when this madman ran up to us from the direction of the market-place. He asked us whether a hunchback and her child had been taken to the palace. 'Yes,' said we, 'and just now they are the amusement of the noble guests of our seigneur, the Duke of Aquitaine.' The madman then threw himself upon us, ran through the gate of the palace, struck us with his cane, and got here."
"He must be hanged on the spot!" the Duke of Normandy cried out. "These pillars will do for a gibbet. Fetch cords!"
"That bandit has dared to threaten us with his cudgel! He deserves the gallows!"
"Death to the criminal! Death!" cried out the Crusaders, now recovered from their first stupor, "Death to the vagabond!"
"But where is the Duke of Aquitaine? No one can be hanged here without his consent."
"He disappeared with the queen of the wenches. But his absence should not delay the execution of this wretch. When he returns he will find the vagabond hanging high and dry. William will ratify the sentence, and approve it."
"I shall give my belt for a rope."
After embracing his wife and child, Fergan took in at a glance the gravity of the situation, and observed that the seigneurs were not armed. Profiting by their first surprise, he had his wife and child climb on the banquet table and ordered them to stand with their backs against the marble edge of the basin. Thereupon, placing himself before them, his heavy cudgel in hand, he made ready for a desperate defence. But still wishing to try a last means of escape, he addressed the Crusaders, who were about to assault him: "For pity's sake, let me depart from this palace with my wife and child!"
"Listen to the bandit, praying for mercy! Quick! Let one of these pillars serve him for a gibbet. Swing a rope around his neck!"
"You may hang me!" cried out the serf in despair, "but more than one of you will have to fall under my cudgel!"
The threat rekindled the fury of the Crusaders. Already, braving the rapid swing of Fergan's cudgel, several seigneurs were rushing forward to seize the serf, when suddenly the braying of clarions was heard from afar, together with loud and nearing cries of: "To arms! The Saracens are upon us! To arms! To the ramparts!" Several men-at-arms of the Duke of Aquitaine rushed into the hall, sword in hand, and calling out: "The Saracens have profited by the night to surprise the city. They have entered near the gate of Agra by the breech that we made. They are fighting on the ramparts. To arms, seigneurs, to arms! Duke of Aquitaine, to arms!" Hardly had these men-at-arms pronounced the name of the duke in the midst of the increasing tumult caused by the announcement of this unforeseen attack, than William IX. appeared, his clothes in disorder, coming out of one of the chambers that opened into the gallery. He was pale and terror-stricken, and held in his hands a parchment, while he cried in a terrified voice: "A Jewess! A Jewess! Damnation!"
"William, arm yourself!" his companions called out to him, as they precipitately rushed out with the men-at-arms. "The Saracens are attacking the city! Let's run to the ramparts! To arms!"
"A Jewess!" repeated the Duke of Aquitaine with eyes fixed, his brow bathed in perspiration, and seeming neither to hear nor to see his companions in arms. Perceiving the legate of the Pope, William threw himself on his knees at the feet of the prelate: "Holy father, have pity upon me! I am damned! While I was chatting with the queen of the wenches, Azenor entered the chamber where we were and, holding out this parchment, said to me she was a Jewess, and that the parchment, written in Hebrew, furnished the proof. I have been a miserable sinner. Holy father, have pity upon me! I am damned! Mercy for my soul! Upon my knees I ask you for absolution!"
CHAPTER V.
THE KING OF THE VAGABONDS
At dawn, the sun rose over the plain that surrounds the city of Marhala, surprised at night by the Saracens and defended by the Crusaders. The infidels, relying more on their audacity than on their numbers, perished almost to a man in the assault. Only a small number of prisoners were taken. The approaches of the breech in the ramparts, not far from the gate of Agra, through which the Saracens sought to surprise the city, disappeared under a heap of corpses. Clouds of vultures hovered over that abundant quarry, but dared not yet let themselves down on it. Men of prey were ahead of the birds.
These men, wholly naked, red and dripping blood, and hideous to behold, went and came like geniuses of death in the midst of that field of carnage. They would seize the body of a Saracen, strip it of its clothes, roll that in a bundle, and then, kneeling over the naked corpse, they pried open its jaws, rigid in death, carefully felt about in its mouth and under its tongue; finally, with the aid of long knives, they would cut open the corpse's gullet, chest and bowels, whose intestines they then pulled out and examined. Their faces, hands and members streaming blood, these demons were under the command of a chief. He gave orders and directed their sacrilegious profanations. They called him their king. It was Corentin the Gibbet-cheater, become chief of the vagabonds. His seneschal, one-time serf of the seigniory of Plouernel, was the identical Bacon-cutter, who, with a blow of his pitchfork had thrown Garin the Serf-eater from his horse just before the latter was butchered by the villagers.
The King of the Vagabonds and his seneschal gave token of rare dexterity in their shocking trade. The two had just seized, one by the head the other by the feet, the corpse of a young Saracen. His face, his rich raiment, hacked by sabre blows, the bodies of several Crusaders stretched on either side of him – all bespoke the fierce resistance the warrior must have offered. "Oh, oh!" said the King of the Vagabonds, "that dog must have been some chieftain, it can be seen by his embroidered green caftan. Great pity that his dress is so slashed to pieces; it might have served as a mantle for Perrette."
"You still think of the Ribald?" asked the Bacon-cutter, helping Corentin to strip the Saracen of his clothes; "your Perrette is in the Paradise of the wenches, on the crupper of some canon, or in the harem of some emir."
"Seneschal, Perrette would leave Paradise, an emir or a canon if the Gibbet-cheater told her to. Come. Our corpse is now naked. Make a bundle of the clothes. They will find purchasers in the market-place of Marhala. Now that we have taken the peel from this Syrian fruit," he added, pointing to the dead body, "let's open it. It is inside that the precious almonds must be looked for, such as besans of gold and precious stones. Give me your knife. I wish to sharpen it against mine. The blade of mine has been dulled on the gullet of that old Saracen yonder with the white beard. The devil! His cartilage was as tough as that of an old goat," and while his seneschal was bundling up some clothes, the King of the Vagabonds sharpened his knife, casting upon the corpses strewn around him looks of satisfied covetousness, and remarked: "That's what it means to get up early in the morning. After their night's fight, the Crusaders have gone to sleep. When they will come to plunder the dead, we shall be at the dice!"
"Great King! It is an easy matter to rise early if one has not gone to bed. We arrived in time to gather the harvest on this field of carnage."
"Will you, vagabonds, still reproach me for having induced you to leave the fortress of the Marquis of Jaffa?" replied the king, continuing to sharpen his knife. "Think of lying in a stronghold in order to play the brigand in Palestine! It was folly!"
"And yet, many of those new seigneurs who have left themselves down in the Holy Land as dukes, marquises, counts and barons, begin everywhere, just as they used to in Gaul, to ply the trade of highwaymen on the mainroads."
"With this difference, seneschal, that there are no high roads here, and hardly anybody to rob. One must roam over ten or twelve miles of sand or rocks in order to meet a few thin troops of travelers, who, instead of kindly allowing themselves to be plundered, like the townsmen and merchants of Gaul, but too often strike back, show their teeth and use them too."
"Great King! You speak wisely. Indeed, during those two months spent with the Marquis of Jaffa, we made but two sorry finds. At one of these, by the faith of the Bacon-cutter, we were warmly curried and rudely beaten, and all for almost nothing."
"In exchange, this fine Saracen quarry awaited us this morning at the gates of Marhala. Our work done, we shall take a dip in the fountain sheltered by yonder cluster of date trees. Thanks to the bath, we, who are now red as skinned eels, shall become again white as little doves, after which, having but to take the pick of these Saracen wardrobes, and our pouches well filled, we shall make our royal entry in the best tavern of Marhala."
"Where, mayhap, you will find again your queen, tapping for the customers and sleeping with them."
"May heaven hear you, seneschal, and may the devil grant me my prayers! Now, quick to work. The sun is rising. We are naked and run the risk of being roasted by the sun before we are through. The bath first, the feast afterwards."
"That word 'roasting' reminds me that this young Saracen is plump and of good muscle. In due time, what a fine mess would not a fillet of his large loins and round calves make, seasoned with some aromatic herbs and a pinch of saffron! Do you remember, among other ragouts, the head of that old sahib of the mountain, boiled with a certain peppery sauce?"
"Seneschal, my friend, you are altogether too talkative. Instead of incessantly opening your mouth, whence flow only vain words, open that of this Saracen, and perhaps beautiful besans of gold or diamond of Bossorah may roll out."
It was a shocking spectacle, like the violation of a sepulchre. The King of the Vagabonds took the head of the corpse between his knees, while the Bacon-cutter tried to force open the rigid jaws of the dead body. Unable to do so he said to Corentin: "That dog of an infidel must have been in a rage at the moment of expiring. His teeth are clenched like a vice."
"And that embarasses you, you gosling? Insert the blade of your knife between his teeth, flat, then turn it round. That will separate the jaws sufficiently to be able to insert your fingers." And while the Bacon-cutter was conducting his abominable researches obedient to the directions of Corentin, the latter remarked with a ferocious sneer: "Oh, ye miscreant Saracens, you have the malignity of hiding in the hollow of your cheeks gold pieces and precious stones, and even of swallowing them, to the end of depriving the soldiers of Christ of those riches!"
"Nothing!" exclaimed the seneschal with disappointment and interrupting the king, "nothing in the cheeks and nothing under the tongue."
"Have you felt carefully?"
"I have felt and felt over again, everywhere. Perhaps during this night's battle, some foxy Crusader, like a man of experience, have seized the throat of this Saracen at the moment when he expired and may thus have caused him to spit out the gold he was hiding in his mouth. Provided that dog did not swallow it all down."
"The scamp was capable of doing that. Feel about in his throat. After that we shall sound the chest and bowels." So said, so done. The two monsters put the corpse through a shocking butchery. Finally their ferocious cupidity was satisfied. After a series of revolting profanations, they withdrew from the bleeding intestines of the corpse three diamonds, a ruby and five besans of gold, small thick pieces but barely the size of a denier. While the two vagabonds were finishing their ghoulish work, black clouds of thick and nauseous smoke rose from a pyre, started close by, by the other vagabonds, with green branches of turpentine tree. These fellows, instead of disemboweling the corpses, burned them, in order to look among the ashes for the gold and precious stones which the Saracens might have swallowed. These monstrosities having been gone through, the vagabonds proceeded to the neighboring spring where they washed their bloody bodies, and donned their clothes again, or decked themselves with the spoils of the Saracens. The booty was then divided – clothes, arms, turbans, shoes – and they wended their steps towards the gate of Agra. At the moment of entering the city, the King of the Vagabonds, mounting a heap of ruins, said to his men, who gathered around him: "Vagabonds, my sons and beloved subjects! We are about to enter Marhala, with booty on back and bysantins in pocket. I expect, I will it, I order it, in the name of wine, dice and wenches, that, before leaving Marhala, we shall have become again as beggarly as the vagabonds that we are! Never forget our rule: 'A true vagabond, twenty-four hours after a pillage, must have nothing left but his skin and his knife.' He who keeps a denier becomes cold to the quarry. He is expelled from my kingdom!"
"Yes, yes! Long live our King! Three cheers for wine, dice and wenches!" responded the bandits. "The devil take the vagabond, who, rich to-day, keeps for the morrow aught but his skin and his knife! Long live our great King, Corentin the Gibbet-cheater!"
And the savage troop marched towards the gate of Agra and entered the city of Marhala shouting and singing: "Glory to the brave Crusaders!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARKET-PLACE OF MARHALA
Luckily disentangled from the fury of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine by the nocturnal attack of the Saracens, Fergan the Quarryman had profited by the confusion to escape from the Emir's palace with Joan and Colombaik. While the Crusaders were hurrying to the ramparts of the gate of Agra, the serf turned his steps with wife and child, far away from the spot of the battle. Before sunrise, quiet reigned again in Marhala. Descrying one of those numerous taverns, that generally sprang up after the capture of a city, and were set up in some Saracen house by the camp-followers of the army, Fergan stepped in. To the great astonishment of Joan, he pulled out of his belt a gold piece, which he exchanged with the tavern-keeper for silver coin, to pay for his lodging. Once more alone with his family, the quarryman could give a loose to his tender feelings and relate to them how, after being separated from them by the sand-spout, he found himself half buried under the sand, and losing consciousness. In the darkness of the night he was shaken out of his lethargy by a sharp scratch on his shoulder. It was a hyena, that, pawing up the sand under which he lay, prepared to devour him, taking him for dead, but instantly fled seeing him sit up. Thus, delivered from a double danger, the serf had wandered about during dark, amidst the mournful yelpings of the wild beasts at their quarry over the corpses that they dug up. At dawn he saw, already half devoured, the remains of Neroweg VI.
After vainly searching for Joan and his child, Fergan considered them lost forever, and followed the route marked out by the human bones. At the end of several hours' marching, he came across the corpse of some seigneur, to judge by the richness of his clothes, torn to shreds by the beasts of prey. Among the tatters was an embroidered purse full of gold. He appropriated it without scruple, and was soon joined by a troop of travelers bound for Marhala. He journeyed in their company. Upon his arrival in the city, and learning that several other travelers who escaped the disaster of the sand-spout had come in ahead of him, he inquired after a deformed woman with a child. A beggar, who had accidentally seen Joan and her son enter the palace of the Emir, gave him the information, and he was enabled to arrive in time to wrest them from the danger they were just threatened with.
After a recital of his adventures, and leaving his wife and Colombaik in the tavern, Fergan went out at sunrise to purchase some clothing at the market-place, where booty was constantly sold at auction. Fearing to be met by some of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine, the serf had smeared soot mixed with grease over his face. Rendered thus unrecognizable, he entered the market-place. Instead, however, of finding the place occupied by traffickers in booty, he saw a large gang of men hastily engaged in the construction of a pyre under the overseership of several prelates. A cordon of soldiers, placed at a distance from the pyre, kept the inquisitive from drawing too near. Fergan had just elbowed himself to the front of the mob, when a deacon, clad in black, said aloud: "Are there among you any strong men who wish to earn two deniers, and help finish the pyre quickly? They shall be paid the moment the work is done."
"I shall help, if wanted," answered Fergan. Two deniers were worth earning. They would eke out his treasury.
"Come," said the priest, "you seem to be a lusty fellow. The faggots will weigh like straws on your broad shoulders." Five or six other wretches, having volunteered to join Fergan, the deacon took them to the center of the place, where, resting upon a large bundle of trunks of olive trees, palmettos and dried brushes, the pyre was being erected for the accomplishment of the miracle announced by Peter Barthelmy, the Marseilles priest and possessor of the Holy Lance. This Barthelmy derived a large revenue from his relic by exhibiting it for money to the veneration of the Crusaders. Other priests, jealous of the receipts pocketed by the Marseillan, had assiduously backbitten his lance. Fearing a decline of earnings, and wishing to furnish a proof of the virtue of his lance, and at the same time confound his detractors, he had promised a miracle. Fergan set to work with ardor to earn his two deniers. He soon perceived that a narrow path crossed the heap of kindling-wood, which, about thirty feet long and raised four or five feet on either side, sloped down towards the path that cut it in two. Thus, towards the middle and for a space about two yards wide, the pyre offered hardly any food to the fire. After a half hour's work, Fergan said to the deacon: "We shall make the heap even, and fill up the gap that crosses it, so that the pyre may burn everywhere."
"Not at all!" the deacon hastened to say. "Your work is done on this side. We must now set up the stake and adjust the spit."
Fergan, as well as his companions, curious to know the purpose of the stake and spit, followed the priest. A wagon hitched to mules, had just dumped several beams upon the place. One of these, about fifteen feet high, and furnished in some places with iron rings and chains, had at about its center a sort of support for the feet. Fergan's helpers followed the instructions of the deacon, and set up the stake at one of the corners of the pyre where the kindling wood was well heaped. Other workingmen placed not far away two iron X's, intended to support an iron bar about eight feet long and tapering into sharp points.
"Oh! oh! What a terrible looking spit!" said Fergan to the priest, placing the iron bar on the two X's with no little labor. "Are they going to roast an ox?" Instead of answering the serf, the deacon listened in the direction of one of the streets that ran into the place, and, hastily fumbling in his pockets, said to Fergan and the other men, while handing to each the promised wages: "Your work is done. You may now go. The procession is approaching."
Fergan and his assistants withdrew to the mob which the file of soldiers was holding back from the pyre. Church songs were heard, at first from a distance, but drawing ever nearer, and soon the religious procession issued into the market-place. Monks marched at the head, after them clergymen carrying crosses and banners, and then, in the midst of a group of high dignitaries of the Church, whose mitres and gold embroidered copes sparkled in the sun of the Orient, came the Marseilles priest, Peter Barthelmy, bare-footed and robed in a white shirt. He held up triumphantly in his hands the holy and miraculous lance. This contriver of miracles, of a countenance at once sanctimonious, artful and sly, preceded other prelates carrying banners. Azenor the Pale came next, clad in a long black robe, her hands bound behind and supported by two monks. She had been convicted of the abominable crime of being a Jewess. She was convicted of this enormity, not alone by the revelation that, in a paroxysm of jealousy, she had made to William IX., but also by the testimony of the parchment that she had handed to him in order to dispel his doubts. In that parchment, written in the Hebrew language and dating several years back, the father of Azenor urged his daughter to die faithful to the law of Israel. A few steps behind the victim, William IX., the Duke of Aquitaine, his hair in disorder and covered with ashes, dragged himself on his naked knees in abject penitence. Clad in a rough sack, his feet bare and dusty like his knees, and holding a crucifix in his two hands, the penitent cried out ever and anon in a lamenting voice, while smiting his chest with his fist: "Mea culpa, mea culpa! Lord God, have mercy upon my soul! I have committed the sin of the flesh with an unclean Jewess, I am damned without your grace! Oh, Lord, mea culpa! mea culpa!" On foot and in splendid raiment, the legate of the Pope and the archbishop of Tyre, marched on either side of the Duke of Aquitaine, repeating from time to time in a voice loud enough to be heard by the penitent:
"My child in Christ, trust in the mercy of the Lord! Render yourself worthy of His clemency by your repentance!"
"Remain faithful to your vow of chastity, you who were given to debauchery!"
"Remain faithful to your vow of poverty, you who were given to prodigality and magnificence!"
"Remain faithful to your vow of humility, you who were proud and arrogant!"
"But that will not suffice! You must surrender to the Church your earthly riches – lands, domains, castles, slaves – to the end that the priests may implore the Eternal for the remission of your transgressions and your numerous sins!"
Behind these followed a few Saracens who had been captured at the late night surprise of Marhala. They were led, pinioned, by soldiers. The King of the Vagabonds, his seneschal the Bacon-cutter and several of the men of their band had been joined to this escort by order of Bohemond, Prince of Taranto, and chief of the army, who himself closed the procession, accompanied by a large number of crusading seigneurs, casque on head and lance in hand.
This funeral train marched around the market-place, surrounded by an ever-swelling crowd, and ranked itself before the pyre, where the stake and the spit were in readiness.
"The miracle of the lance!" cried the crowd, impatient to see Barthelmy cross a flaming pyre in his shirt and without burning – "the miracle of the lance!"
"Woe is me!" muttered William IX., redoubling the blows with which he was lacerating his breast. "Woe is me! I am so great a sinner that perhaps the Eternal will not deign to manifest His omnipotence by a prodigy before me!"
"Be comforted, my son!" answered the papal legate. "The Eternal will manifest Himself in order to confirm your faith, seeing that you have been touched by grace, and humble yourself before His Church."
"Yesterday, father, I was an unclean criminal, an infamous evildoer, a miserable blind man. To-day my eyes are open to the truth. I see the everlasting flames that await me. Have pity upon me!"
"Give up all your goods to the Church, remain poor as Job, the Church will then intercede for your salvation," replied the legate, issuing his orders to his deacon to set fire to the pyre.
Immediately, walking almost without danger over the length of the path that crossed the paling, hidden by the height of the flames kindled at the four sides of the pyre, Peter Barthelmy seemed in the eyes of the credulous multitude actually to traverse the lake of fire. The serf saw, across a thick cloud of smoke that helped to increase the illusion, Peter Barthelmy, looking as if he was wading through flames up to the hip, run rapidly across the full length of the pyre, from which he emerged again brandishing his lance. The crowd, blind and fanatic, clapped their hands and shouted: "A miracle! A miracle!" Shocked at the impudence of the friar, who so shamelessly imposed upon the credulity of those poor people, Fergan decided to administer to him a stinging lesson. Affecting to yield to religious enthusiasm, he cried out: "Peter Barthelmy is a saint, a great saint! Whoever can secure the smallest bit of his clothing, or of his blessed body, even if but one hair, will be delivered of all ills!" The mob received Fergan's suggestion with fanatic approval. The file of soldiers, that held the multitude far enough back from the pyre, was broken through, and the most maniacal of these fanatics rushed upon Peter Barthelmy at the moment when, leaving the pyre a few steps behind him, he was brandishing his lance. An incredible scene ensued thereupon, related by Baudry, archbishop of Dole, an eye-witness of the occurrence, as follows in his "History of the Capture of Jerusalem:"
"When Peter Barthelmy emerged from the pyre with his holy lance, the crowd rushed upon him and trampled him under foot, each wishing to touch him and carry off a piece of his shirt. He received several wounds in the legs. Bits of flesh were cut from his body. His ribs were knocked in. His spine was fractured. He would, in our opinion, have died on the spot, had not Raymond, seigneur of Pelet, an illustrious cavalier, quickly gathered a platoon of soldiers, thrown himself with them into the midst of the mob, and, at the risk of his own life, saved poor Peter Barthelmy."
After this rude lesson given the cheat, Fergan approached the group of soldiers that were transporting the contriver of miracles in a dying state to a neighboring house. "The accursed brutes! The savages!" murmured the Marseilles priest, gasping for breath: "Have you ever seen such bedeviled rascals! The idea of wishing to turn me into relics!"
"It is but a condign punishment for the besotted state of mind that, with infamous calculation, you plunge these wretched people in," said Fergan leaning over Barthelmy. The Marseillan turned around with a sudden start, but the serf had disappeared in the crowd, and passed to the other side of the pyre, now fully ablaze. At one of its corners was Azenor, chained to the stake. Her feet rested on the tablet which the flames began to lick. A few steps from the victim, on his knees among the priests and joining them in their mortuary songs, crouched the Duke of Aquitaine, from time to time crying amid sobs: "Lord! Cleanse me of my sins! May my repentance and the just punishment of this unclean Jewess earn grace for me!"
"Ah, William!" cried out the condemned woman with a voice still strong and penetrating, "I feel the heat of the flames. They are about to reduce my body to ashes. These flames are less consuming than those of jealousy. Yesterday, driven to extremity, I made certain of my vengeance. A few instants of suffering will rid me of life, and your credulous stupidity avenges me. Look at yourself now, brilliant Duke of Aquitaine, the sport of priests, your implacable enemies, and the dupe of those who laugh at your imbecile fears! If there is a hell we shall meet there."
"Silence, you infamous and unclean beast!" cried out the legate of the Pope, "the flames that envelop you are as nothing to the everlasting fires where you are to burn through all eternity. A curse upon your execrable race, that crucified the Saviour of the world!"
"A curse upon the Jews! Death to the Jews! Glory to God in heaven and to his priests on earth!" shouted the spectators.
Suddenly, heart-rending screams rose above the din. Azenor the Pale, writhed with pain under her iron fetters as the flames, reaching her limbs, set her robe and long hair on fire. Presently the stake at which she was chained caught fire under her feet, swayed in the air for an instant, tumbled over into the furnace, and disappeared there with the victim in the midst of a wild flare of flames. The Duke of Aquitaine then embraced the knees of the papal legate and appealed to him imploringly: "Oh, my father in Christ, I vow to relinquish all my goods to our holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church! I vow to follow the Crusade barefooted in a sack! I vow to bury myself in the depths of a cloister upon my return to Gaul! I vow to die in the austerities of penance, to the end that I may obtain from God the remission of my sins and evil ways!"
