The chapel was filled at mass with devout worshippers. A solemn scene was when the knights, garbed in coarse gray habits, and bare-footed, crept on hands and knees to the stone coffin, in which lay a waxen image of our Lord. They kissed the marble steps leading to the platform on which the coffin stood, and when I saw them gather about the holy image, my dream seemed so real that, in my excitement, I would have cried in a loud voice to the kneeling congregation:
"People! Christians! rise—rise! do not kneel in the presence of these blasphemers!" had not the white dove on my shoulder pressed her wings against my lips.
Then the rich tones of the organ filled the chapel; and the women's voices chanting the "Miserere" sounded so familiar—exactly like those I had heard in my dream, singing bacchanalian songs—that I said to myself: "That is Ashtoreth's voice—that is Delilah's, and that deep-toned contralto is Jezebel's!" Again I saw the singers emerge from the crypt and move toward the winding stair-case. Ah! it was a dream after all! There was no winding staircase. Where I had seen the open door, which gave egress to it, was a blank wall; and against it the massive marble monument of the grand master, Arminius, who was represented by a recumbent knight in full pontificals, with hands devoutly crossed on his breast.
Yes, it was only a dream!
My heart was relieved of a heavy weight. It was such a relief to feel certain that I had not taken the jeweled crown from our blessed Lady's head; and that the Queen of Sheba had not worn it while dancing in adoration of an idol.
When the services were concluded, and I approached the image of our Lady, to replenish the oil in the perpetual lamp at her feet, the doubts as to my having dreamed the scenes of the bacchanalian revelry came back in full force; some one had been tampering with the jeweled crown on the head of the sacred image—it had been turned around!
There was a pearl in front of the diadem, and a ruby in the back—both as large as a hazel-nut. Today, the ruby gleamed like a coal of fire, where always before the radiance of the pearl had vied with the pure whiteness of the waxen brow. The crown had been reversed—I had not dreamed after all!
This day was, as I have mentioned before, Good Friday—the day of universal fasting. The knights' observance of the day was so rigid that they would not even administer to a dying novice the medicines necessary to alleviate his suffering, because they were composed of manna and hydromel, both of which, containing nutriment, were considered food. Even I fasted the entire day—of a necessity, though, for there was nothing served in the refectory!
My elastic conscience would have permitted me to partake—sparingly, of course!—of food; and I regretted that I had not possessed the forethought to lay aside from the banquet of the preceding night (if it really had not been a dream) the legs of a three thousand-year-old quail!
But, had I done so, they would doubtless have vanished with the pretty flask given me by the heathen queen. When I made my duty-rounds as usual on Good Friday evening, I found my red-bearded patron waiting for me in the sacristy. He said to me: