With mute astonishment, the drunken men, listened to the long-drawn notes of the old church-music, which sounded like the voice of the preacher in the wilderness. With rising anger, the woman of the wood, sitting beside the copper-kettle, heard it. Grasping her knife, she stealthily approached Heribald from behind, and seizing his hair, wanted to cut off his curls,--the greatest insult that could be offered to a consecrated head. But Heribald vigorously pushed her back, and chanted on, nothing daunted, which mightily pleased the assembly, so that they gave a shout of delight. Cymbals and violins also resounded again, and now Erica, who had become tired of the monotonous chant, approached Heribald. With a look that combined both archness and pity, she seized him by the arm, and drawing him into the midst of the wild dance which was now beginning, she called out. "Singing must always be followed by dancing!" Heribald did not know what to do, while the flower-of-the-heath was all eagerness to begin. "It matters little whether Heribald dances or not, it will be only another small link in the chain of abominations," he finally thought; so he bravely stamped the ground with his sandal-clad feet, his habit flying about him. Tighter and tighter he pressed the Hunnic maiden's waist, and who knows what might still have happened, if she had not, with heightened colour and panting bosom, finally stopt herself. Giving her partner a little parting slap in the face, she ran off to the chieftains, who with serious faces were looking on at the frolics.
The shouts were dying out now; the fumes of the wine being danced off. So Ellak gave the order to burn the dead. In a moment's time, the whole troop were seated on horseback, and riding in closed ranks to the funeral-pile. The horses of the two deceased men, were then stabbed by the eldest amongst the Huns, and laid beside their late masters bodies. Calling out some monstrous conjurations, he lifted the firebrand and lighted the pile. Boëthius' "comfort of Philosophy," pinelogs, manuscripts and corpses vied with each other, which could burn the brightest, and a mighty pillar of flames and smoke, rose up to the sky.
With wrestling, warlike exercises and races, the memory of the dead was celebrated. The sun had sunk far down in the west, and so the whole body of Huns entered the monastery, there to pass the night.--
It was on the Thursday before Easter, when all this happened on the island of Reichenau. The tidings of this invasion soon reached the fishermen's huts around Radolfszell. When Moengal, the parish-priest, held the early morning-service, he still counted six of his flock, but in the afternoon, there were only three; including himself.
Gloomily he sat in the little room in which he had once hospitably entertained Ekkehard, when the pillar of smoke from the Hunnic funeral-pile rose into the air. It was dense and black enough for him to suppose the whole monastery to be in flames, and the scent of burning came over the lake.
"Hihahoi!!" cried Moengal, "jam proximus ardet Ucalegon, already it is burning at neighbour Ucalogon's! Then it is time for me also to get ready. Out with ye now, my old Cambutta!"
Cambutta, however, was no serving maid, but a huge bludgeon, a real Irish shilelah, and Moengal's favourite weapon. The chalice and ciborium, he packed up and put into his leathern game-bag. This was all he possessed of gold or silver. Then he called his hounds, his hawk and two falcons together, and giving them all the meat and fish his pantry boasted, he said: "Children, eat as much as ever you can, so that nothing is left for those cursed plagues, when they come!"
The vat in the cellar, he knocked to pieces, so that the sparkling wine streamed forth. "Not a drop of wine shall the devils drink, in Moengal's house." Only the jug which contained the vinegar, was left in its place. On the fresh, delicious butter in the wooden tun, he emptied a basket full of ashes. His fishing-tackle and other sporting-utensils he buried in the ground; then he smashed the windows, and strewed the fragments about in the room. Some he even put into the chinks of the floor, with the points turned upwards,--all in honour of the Huns! Hawk and falcons then received their liberty. "Farewell!" cried he, "and keep near, for soon you will get dead heathens to pick!"
So his house was put in order. Hanging the game-bag, as well as a Hibernian canteen, over his shoulders, with two spears in his hands, and Cambutta fastened on his back,--thus old Moengal walked out of his parsonage, which had been his home for so many years; a valiant champion of the Lord!
He had already gone on a few paces through the smoke-darkened atmosphere, when he suddenly stopped short, saying: "Wait a bit, I have forgotten something."