“What do you wish?” said Jerome, opening his eyes.
“Oh, holy hermit, beloved of God,” prayed Clement, catching at the anchorite’s sheepskin, “absolve us, for we are nigh to death. We are sinful men, so hark to our confession.”
“I am no priest,” he shot back, nigh in wrath; “you who call yourself priest hear these men’s confessions, and confess yourself to God. I am no intercessor for you.”
“Not so,” cried My Lord Baron, beginning to beat his breast; “you would not have us lost forever!”
“I am sinful like yourself. Refrain from sacrilege.”
“Give attention, greybeard,” admonished Michael, laying his battle-axe significantly beside him; “you have the ear of St. Peter and of St. Gabriel, and have it better than most bishops too. Bid them make us a smooth road to heaven, or it is the worse for you--by Our Lady of Lichtenfels--”
“Blaspheme not the Mother of God,” thundered Jerome, as immovable as granite, “nor think by carnal threatenings to stir me.”
“Confess first,” advised Clement, sagely; “then we have but to wring ‘_absolvo_’ out from his teeth, and we can sell our lives dear, fighting like the Christians that we are.”
A rending crash without gave weight to his counsels.
“The postern yields,” groaned Ulrich; “let us confess.”
So all four beat their breasts, repeating their _mea culpas_; then the Baron spoke first:--
“Hearken to my confession. I have sinned against God, His Mother, and the Holy Angels, inasmuch as I melted into a drinking-cup the golden crucifix which I took from the body of the Abbot of Nördhausen after that I had slain him.”
And Michael the Breaker spoke: “Hear me. I also have sinned, inasmuch as last Ash Wednesday in my forgetfulness I ate the leg of a fowl at a farm-house we were pillaging.”
And Franz of the Ram’s Pate spoke: “Hear me. I also have sinned, inasmuch as I hunted a buck on the day of the last Communion, despising the holy sacrament.”
And Priest Clement spoke: “Hear me. I also have sinned, inasmuch as forgetful of my sanctity as clerk, I did kiss the daughter of mine host of the ‘Crown and Bells’ the last Sunday that I was in Eisenach.”
“And now,” commanded Ulrich, roundly, “speak it out, the word ‘_absolvo_.’”
What strange thing played on Jerome’s stern face? Was it the smile of the avenging angel or of the demon who sees his sinking prey? Louder the crash and wrack without. The Graf was almost in the Wartburg. Jerome’s eyes seemed burning into all the four.