“Is this _all_?” demanded he, implacably. “Have you no murders, thefts, gross wickednesses of the flesh to own to, ere you pass to God’s assize?”
“A few throat-cuttings, holy Father, only a few,” smoothed Clement; “I do assure you the Church lays major stress on what we have acknowledged, and time now presses.”
Jerome swept his hands about in fearful anger.
“‘_Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels._’ When I absolve such as you let Satan possess my soul with yours!”
“You will not?” shrieked Michael, leaping up and waving the axe.
The Wartburg shook with the bursting of the last barrier. They heard a whooping war-shout.
“An end to this folly,” cried Ulrich, his sword leaping forth; “kill him first, then go out fighting, whether St. Michael or Beelzebub snatch us.”
Jerome never blinked. They cursed, raved, but he was silent. Now feet trampled in the court. Priest Clement grew grey with fear, but he swung an axe too.
“_Absolvo! Absolvo!_ Say but the word,” he screamed, and buffeted Jerome, who stood like a stony tower, silent, but frowning terrible.
“Kill him! Curse him!” cried Clement; “they are on us, and we are burned forever.”
But high above the groan of the hunted and the shout of the hunters sounded the Graf’s voice:--
Before the dawn the moon had gone down; the twinkling stars only made the vast night blacker. A wind was tumbling the forest boughs till they clashed and groaned like the spirits of lost souls. The fox was crouching in his covert, the sleepy redbreast in his hollow peered forth once to see if the dawn were near,--only blackness in the east, and the bird again hid his drowsy head. Yet there was life in the forest,--a living thing was moving. Here the twigs snapped; there a thorn-bush crackled. A deer was roving, or what else? Had any eyes pierced through the dark, they might have seen a form--a human form--thrusting across the thickets. Witch Martha seemed to need no eyes; if eyes she had, they were those of an owl or of an angel who saw the hidden things of the night. On her shoulders sat the two ravens, and once when she stumbled over a rotted bough the twain croaked out together, but she bade them “silence” in so sharp a voice that Zodok and Zebek kept their wisdom shut within their heads. Once Martha’s little body ceased its gliding, and she laid her head down to the ground and listened.