Here the old man, overcome by weakness, sank back, fainting on his couch; and resisting the excitement which his words had produced upon me, I remembered that my present duty was to attend to Cyrillus only, and the welfare of his soul, which he had intrusted to my care. Therefore I laboured as well as I could, by friction, and raising him in the bed, to recover the unhappy prisoner from his insensibility.
At last he was restored, and went regularly through his confession; he, the pious and almost blameless old man, humbling himself before me, the depraved sinner! But when I absolved the self-accusing monk, whose only fault seemed to be that he had on many subjects doubted, and by these doubts had been driven hither and thither, it seemed to me as if, notwithstanding my own manifold offences, a divine spirit were kindled up within me—as if I were but the unworthy instrument, the corporeal organ, by which Omnipotence spoke temporally to souls not yet released from their temporal bondage.
"Oh, Brother Medardus," said Cyrillus, lifting his eyes full of devotion to Heaven, "how have your words refreshed and strengthened me! Gladly shall I now go to meet death, which the traitors residing here have prepared for me. I fall a victim to that abominable treachery and concealed wickedness, by which the throne of the Pope is now surrounded.——"
I heard hollow sounding steps, that always came nearer and nearer. Then keys rattled in the door-lock.
Cyrillus raised himself up with a violent and fearful effort.—"Return," said he, "return, Medardus, to the happiness and security of our own convent. Leonardus is already informed as to all that has occurred; he knows in what manner I am now about to die. Conjure him to be silent as to this last event; for how soon, even without this, would death have claimed a weak and tottering old man! Farewell, my brother! Pray for the salvation of my soul! My spirit shall be with you, when, in our convent at Königswald, you read for me the prayers over the dead. Above all, I beseech you to be silent as to whatever you have witnessed here; for otherwise you will bring on yourself certain destruction, and involve our community in endless disputes."
On this point I made him a solemn promise. The disguised men had come into the room. They lifted up the old monk out of bed, and, as he had not strength enough to walk, dragged him through the corridor towards the vaulted hall, or audience-chamber, in which I had before been.
On a signal from the masks, I had followed the prisoner, and now found that the Dominicans had arranged themselves in a circle, within which they brought the old man, and then commanded him to kneel down upon a small heap of earth, which they had laid in the centre of the circle.
A crucifix was now placed by one of the masks in his hands, and he grasped it with great fervour. According to the duty of my office, I had also gone within the circle, and prayed aloud. Before I had ended, one of the Dominicans pulled me by the arm, and spoke to me aside. At that moment I observed a sword gleam in the hand of one of the masks; and in an instant, at a single blow, the head of Cyrillus was dissevered, and rolled down, streaming a torrent of blood, at my feet.
I could not endure the horror of this spectacle, but threw myself on the earth, in a state of half fainting and half consciousness. On my recovery, I found that I was in a small apartment fitted up like a cell. A Dominican came up to me.
"You are terrified perhaps," said he; "yet, brother, methinks you should rather rejoice to have beheld with your own eyes this perfect martyrdom. By that name, of course, it must be distinguished, if a brother of your convent undergoes the execution of his sentence; for, no doubt, you are, to a man, all saints!"