"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: