"You have all heard this treason," said the Sovereign Pontiff, in the deepest of chest-tones—"a treason unknown in all the centuries of the past! What is the will of the conclave?"
"I would imprecate on the traitor's head," said a voice from one of the high-backed chairs, "the ancient doom of the Law!"
"Doom, doom!" said all in unison, holding the "oo" in a most blood-curdling way. "Pronounce doom!"
"One fate, and one alone," pronounced the Sovereign Pontiff, "can be yours. Brethren, let him forthwith be encased in the Chest of the Clanking Chains, and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, to be dashed in fragments at its stony base!"
Amidon's horror was modified by the evidences of repressed glee with which this sentence was received. Yet he felt a good deal of concern as they brought out a great chest, threw the struggling Stevens into it, slammed down the ponderous lid and locked it. Stevens kicked at the lid, but said nothing. The members leaped with joy. A great chain was brought and wrapped clankingly about the chest.
"Let me out," now yelled the Christian Martyr. "Let me out, damn you!"
"Doom, do-o-o-oom!" roared the voices; and said the Sovereign Pontiff in impressive tones, "Proceed with the execution!"
Now the chest was slung up to a hook in the ceiling, and gradually drawn back by a pulley until it was far above the heads of the men, the chains meanwhile clanking continually against the receptacle, from which came forth a stream of smothered profanity.
"Hurl him down to the traitor's death!" shouted the Sovereign Pontiff. The chest was loosed, and swung like a pendulum lengthwise of the room, down almost to the floor and up nearly to the ceiling. The profanity now turned into a yell of terror. The Martyrs slapped one another's backs and grew blue in the face with laughter. At a signal, a light box was placed where the chest would crush it (which it did with a sound like a small railway collision); the chest was stopped and the lid raised.
"Let the body receive Christian burial," said the Sovereign Pontiff. "Our vengeance ceases with death."