As the monk spoke, he began to remove, with the assistance of several other brothers, the enormous iron bars and chains that reinforced the massive gate from within. About to throw open the gate, however, he heard, from a short distance without, mournful moans and canticles rising from female voices. Such was the panic that the approach of the Northmans threw the church people into, that the gate-monk, frightened out of his senses by the feminine lamentations which were slowly drawing nearer, did not venture, despite all insistence on the serfs part, to open the gate of the abbey, and refused admittance even to Savinien's welcome load. In the midst of the altercation between the monk and the serf, there appeared from behind a clump of trees, that rose at a distance from the abbey, a short procession of nuns distinguishable by their black and white robes, as well as by the long veils that covered their faces and that were intended to withdraw the saintly maids from the gaze of the profane. Four of the nuns carried on a stretcher, improvised of recently felled tree-branches, the inert body of one of their companions. The pall-bearers, together with the other eight or ten nuns who composed the funeral cortège, emitted incessant and heart-rending lamentations. Another young nun, whose veil was partly raised, preceded the body by a few steps, wringing her hands in despair, and from time to time crying out distracted:
"Lord! Lord! Have mercy upon us! Our holy abbess is killed!"
Savinien, who, from the moment admission into the abbey was refused him, had been casting increasingly anxious and uneasy looks at his load, piously dropped down on his knees the moment he saw the mortuary procession, led by the weepful nun, approach. Stepping more rapidly ahead of her suite, the latter walked up to the gate of the abbey, and, with a voice broken by sobs, cried through the wicket:
"My dear brothers, open this holy place of asylum to the poor lambs who are fleeing before ravaging wolves. Already our venerable mother in God has succumbed. We are carrying her mortal remains. Open the gate of the sacred monastery!"
"Is that you, Sister Agnes?" inquired the big gate-monk through the wicket "Are those Northman demons so near that they have invaded the convent of St. Placida?"
"Alack, my dear brother! Last night, about a score of the accursed pagans disembarked not far from our convent," answered the nun with an outburst of sobs. "Awakened by the light of the flames that shot up from the conflagration, and by the cries of terror of the serfs who occupied the outside buildings, a few of us managed to throw on our clothes and to flee in all haste with our holy abbess through a gate that opened on the field. But alack! alack! so severe was the shock upon our venerable mother, already enfeebled by disease, that after about a quarter of an hour's march she fainted in our arms,—and immediately," proceeded Sister Agnes after she had overcome a fresh fit of heart-rending sobs, "immediately our venerable mother passed from the earth to heaven!—We are bringing her body with us in order that the last rites may be performed over her remains, and that they may be buried in consecrated ground."
The gate-brother listened to the distressful tale, sobbing no less loudly than Sister Agnes and smiting his chest. When she finished he quickly opened the gate and sent one of his assistants to notify the abbot of the misfortune. The body of the deceased mother-superior entered the abbey, together with the nuns who accompanied it, and followed by Savinien's two wagons of hay. The somber face of the serf seemed to lighten up with a sinister joy, which he had no little difficulty in suppressing, when at last he found himself within, and the abbey gate closed behind him.
The fugitives who crowded the court-yard of the abbey dropped upon their knees at the passage of the nuns. The latter, led by one of the monks, marched to the parvis of the basilica, followed by the crowd who sang in chorus the prayer that for fully a century had been repeated in all the abbeys and all the castles of Gaul:
"Lord, have mercy upon us! Lord, deliver us from the Northmans! Lord, exterminate the accursed pagans!"
The funeral cortège arrived at the entrance of the basilica and was received by one of the deacons. The prelate had hastily donned his sacerdotal robes. Priests bearing the cross aloft and carrying candles stood behind the officiating prelate. They looked down-cast and pale, and trembled. They repeated the funeral psalms with precipitation and absent-mindedly. The evidence before them of the pirates' being nigh, made them shudder. The first prayers being finished, the body, still carried by the nuns upon the improvised stretcher of branches, was taken to the choir and deposited upon the flagstones, not far from the chanters' desk.