"The holy Michael gives no warning," replied the chancellor, "but brandishes his flaming sword against the doomed. That is his image, gentlemen, we perceive over the gate there."
The procession was now entering the arch of the gate, and the torches illumined a knight-like, brazen statue, that stood over it, with one foot on a dragon, and a long flaming sword in its hand. The sword was gilded, and shone bright, in the light of the flambeaux, above the duke's head. He looked up, and fancied the statue moved and bent towards him; and quickly spurring his horse, he dashed under the gloomy archway.
"Did I not know it was a brazen statue," he whispered to his drost, "I could have sworn it was alive, and had Marsk Stig for its shadow."
The mourning train proceeded slowly along St. Michael's Street to the cathedral. Every window was lighted, and the streets were filled with people of all ranks, among whom as deep a silence prevailed as if they had been inanimate forms. The train approached the great illumined cathedral, whoso immense bells, with their deep, hollow tones, drowned those of every other.
In the large area surrounding the cathedral the mourners dismounted, and the procession advanced on foot, in the order in which it had arrived. Black cloth had been laid along the path leading to the doors of the church, which stood, grand and majestic, with its two lofty spires, and its four chapels, as it had been enlarged by King Niels, and completed by Bishop Nicolaus, in the twelfth century.
The procession entered, proceeding along the principal aisle, and past the four chapels, wherein candles burned on fourteen altars. The chapel of St. Kield, the patron saint of the city, on the northern side of the cathedral, was brilliantly illuminated. In it candles were burnt night and day, under St. Kield's golden shrine, which was suspended by gilded links from the vaulted roof; and here was seen, in passing, the tomb of the murdered Svend Grathé.
The last of the train had not entered the church-porch when the first halted opposite the high altar. Here the arms of the murdered king, bearing the two lions and the two crowns, half concealed by a veil of long black crape, were lighted up with twelve wax-candles; and here stood the provost, in full canonicals, with two other prelates, an archdeacon, a chanter, and twelve minor canons, with tapers in their hands. They sang a solemn requiem over a large oaken coffin, covered with lead, on which lay the great sword of King Erik Christopherson, by the side of a silver shrine containing the holy sacrament, which was now to follow him to the grave; as his sudden and violent death had prevented his receiving it whilst alive. On the shrine was engraved the Latin inscription: "Panis adest veræ domini sponsalia vitæ."
When mass had been sung, the provost pronounced a short oration. He then raised the lid of the coffin, and placed the shrine between the folded hands of the corpse. Every one who desired to see the royal body, now received permission to advance. A few only approached so near that they could see it, and among these was the young King Erik. He bowed in silence over his father's corpse, laid his hand upon its gory breast, and said a few words which no one heard. He then stepped back, and hid his weeping face in his mantle.
No other person approaching, the prelate replaced the coffin-lid, and having again laid the sword over it, the canons raised the coffin, and bore it, at the head of the mourners, behind the high altar, where they placed it in a vaulted tomb, raised an ell above the ground; whilst a deep and solemn dirge sounded from a crypt directly underneath. The prelate then cast three spadefuls of earth on the coffin, and pronounced, with a loud voice, the usual burial-service of the Church.
He then announced to the people, that the betrayed and murdered king, five years before his sudden death, as if impelled by a wonderful presentiment, had endowed the cathedral with gifts and estates, in order that masses and vigils should be maintained until the last day for the repose of his soul.[[33]]