"Clerk, we have had words enough!" put in the count. "The accused shall be put to the trial of the cold water—let his right hand be bound to his left foot, and let him be thrown into the tank head foremost. If he floats the judgment of God condemns him; he will then be pronounced guilty and shall to-morrow suffer punishment. If he sinks to the bottom, the judgment of God will have absolved him."
At a sign of Neroweg several of his men seized the Gallic slave, and despite the resistance that he offered and his supplications, they tied his right hand to his left foot.
"Alas," moaned the wretched man, "what a terrible law that law is, good father! What a fate is mine! If I remain at the bottom of the tank I shall drown, however innocent I may be! And if I float, I shall be sentenced and executed as a thief!"
"The judgment of the Eternal, my dear son, can never go wrong."
Already the Franks were raising the slave in their arms and were about to cast him into the tank when the clerk cried out:
"And the consecration of the water!"
And stepping towards the slave who moaned aloud, the clerk placed upon the Gaul's lips a silver cross that he carried around his neck and said:
"Kiss this cross, my dear son."
The young slave devoutly kissed the symbol of the death of the Friend of the sorrowful, while the clerk pronounced aloud the formula adopted by the Church:
"Oh, thou who art about to undergo the trial of cold water, I adjure thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, in the name of the indivisible Trinity, in the name of all the angels, archangels, principalities, powers and dominions, virtues, thrones, cherubim and seraphim, if thou art guilty, that this water may reject thee, without any sorcery preventing it from so doing; and Thou Lord Jesus Christ, give us such a sign of Thy majesty that if this man has committed the crime, he be rejected by this water to the praise and the glory of Thy holy name, and to the end that all may recognize that Thou art God. And you, water! Water created by the omnipotent Father for the needs of man, I adjure you, in the name of the indivisible Trinity which allowed the people of Israel to cross the Red Sea, dry-footed, I adjure you, water, to refuse to accept this body if he has eased his shoulders of the burden of good works. I so order you, water, confident in the virtue of God alone in whose name I demand obedience from you. Amen."