p shall quit this church alive."
And the sword leaps from the scabbard, and Olaf Hase deals a
blow that makes the panel of the church door, which Jens Glob
hastily closes between them, fly in fragments.
"Hold, brother! First hear what the agreement was that I made. I
have slain the bishop and his warriors and priests. They will have
no word more to say in the matter, nor will I speak again of all the
wrong that my mother has endured."
The long wicks of the altar lights glimmer red; but there is a
redder gleam upon the pavement, where the bishop lies with cloven
skull, and his dead warriors around him, in the quiet of the holy
Christmas night.
And four days afterwards the bells toll for a funeral in the
convent of Borglum. The murdered bishop and the slain warriors and
priests are displayed under a black canopy, surrounded by candelabra
decked with crape. There lies the dead man, in the black cloak wrought
with silver; the crozier in the powerless hand that was once so
mighty. The incense rises in clouds, and the monks chant the funeral
hymn. It sounds like a wail--it sounds like a sentence of wrath and
condemnation, that must be heard far over the land, carried by the
wind--sung by the wind--the wail that sometimes is silent, but never
dies; for ever again it rises in song, singing even into our own
time this legend of the Bishop of Borglum and his hard nephew. It is
heard in the dark night by the frightened husbandman, driving by in
the heavy sandy road past the convent of Borglum. It is heard by the
sleepless listener in the thickly-walled rooms at Borglum. And not
only to the ear of superstition is the sighing and the tread of
hurrying feet audible in the long echoing passages leading to the
convent door that has long been locked. The door still seems to
open, and the lights seem to flame in the brazen candlesticks; the
fragrance of incense arises; the church gleams in its ancient
splendor; and the monks sing and say the mass over the slain bishop,
who lies there in the black silver-embroidered mantle, with the
crozier in his powerless hand; and on his pale proud forehead gleams
the red wound like fire, and there burn the worldly mind and the
wicked thoughts.
Sink down into his grave--into oblivion--ye terrible shapes of the
times of old!
Hark to the raging of the angry wind, sounding above the rolling
sea! A storm approaches without, calling aloud for human lives. The
sea has not put on
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