"Let me examine what I am to pay so dearly for."
"Most certainly," said the demon, with a smile, and a bow that would have done honour to the court of the emperor.
Pressing it with one hand to his breast, the architect with the other held up the holy bone, and exclaimed: "Avaunt, fiend! In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Virgins of Cologne, I hold thee, Satan, in defiance;" and he described the sign of the cross directly against the devil's face.
In an instant the smile and the graceful civility were gone. With a hideous grin, Satan approached the sacred miracle as though he would have strangled the possessor; and, yelling with a sound that woke half the sleepers in Cologne, he skipped round and[{240}] round the architect. Still, however, the plan was held tightly with one hand, and the relic held forward like a swordsman's rapier with the other. As the fiend turned, so turned the architect; until, bethinking himself that another prayer would help him, he called loudly on St. Ursula. The demon could keep up the fight no longer; the leader of the Eleven Thousand Virgins was too much for him.
"None but a confessor could have told you how to cheat me," he shrieked in a most terrible voice; "but I will be revenged. You have a more wonderful and perfect design than ever entered the brain of man. You want fame,—the priest wants a church and pilgrims. Listen! That cathedral shall never be finished, and your name shall be forgotten!"
As the dreadful words broke upon the architect's ear, the cloak of the Tempter stretched out into huge black wings, which flapped over the spot like two dark thunderclouds, and with such violence that the winds were raised from their slumber, and a storm rose upon the waters of the Rhine. Hurrying homewards, the relic raised at arm's length over his head, the frightened man reached the abbot's house in safety. But the ominous sentence[{241}] still rang in his ears,—"Unfinished and forgotten."
Days, months, years passed by, and the cathedral, commenced with vigour, was growing into form. The architect had long before determined that an inscription should be engraved upon a plate of brass shaped like a cross, and be fastened upon the front of the first tower that reached a good elevation. His vanity already anticipated a triumph over the Fiend whom he had defrauded. He was author of a building which the world could not equal, and, in the pride of his heart, defied all evil chances to deprive him of fame. Going to the top of the building to see where his name should be placed, he looked over the edge of the building to decide if it was lofty enough to deserve the honour of the inscription, when the workmen were aware of a black cloud which suddenly enveloped them, and burst in thunder and hail. Looking around, when the cloud had passed away, their master was gone! and one of them declared that amidst the noise of the explosion he heard a wail of agony which seemed to say, "Unfinished and forgotten."
When they descended the tower, the body of the architect lay crushed upon the pavement.[{242}] The traveller who beholds the building knows of the difficulties which beset its completion, and thousands have since then sought in vain to learn the name of "The Architect of Cologne," although of late years—though with some doubt it is stated—his name and fame appear to have been established.
The Pfaffen Thor
When Archbishop Conrad of Hochsteden, the founder of the cathedral, had been gathered to his fathers, Engelbrecht of Falkenberg reigned over Cologne in his stead; and a fearful tyrant he became.