," when
it struck him that the chest in which the relics were contained was
quite unworthy of its contents; and, after vespers, he gave orders to
one of the sacristans to the measure of the chest in order a more
fitting shrine might be constructed. The man, having lighted a candle
and raised the pall which covered the relics, in order to carry out his
master's orders, was astonished and terrified to observe that the chest
was covered with a blood-like exudation (_loculum mirum in modum humore
sanguineo undique distillantem_), and at once sent a message to
Eginhard.

Then I and those priests who accompanied me beheld this stupendous
miracle, worthy of all admiration. For just as when it is going to
rain, pillars and slabs and marble images exude moisture, and, as
it were, sweat, so the chest which contained the most sacred relics
was found moist with the blood exuding on all sides. (Cap. ii. 16.)

Three days' fast was ordained in order that the meaning of the portent
might be ascertained. All that happened, however, was that, at the end
of that time, the "blood," which had been exuding in drops all the
while, dried up. Eginhard is careful to say that the liquid "had a
saline taste, something like that of tears, and was thin as water,
though of the colour of true blood," and he clearly thinks this
satisfactory evidence that it was blood.

The same night, another servant had a vision, in which still more
imperative orders for the removal of the relics were given; and, from
that time forth, "not a single night passed without one, two, or even
three of our companions receiving revelations in dreams that the bodies
of the saints were to be transferred from that place to another." At
last a priest, Hildfrid, saw, in a dream, a venerable white-haired man
in a priest's vestments, who bitterly reproached Eginhard for not
obeying the repeated orders of the saints; and, upon this, the journey
was commenced. Why Eginhard delayed obedience to these repeated visions
so long does not appear. He does not say so, in so many words, but the
general tenor of the narrative leads one to suppose that Mulinheim
(afterwards Seligenstadt) is the "solitary place" in which he had built
the church which awaited dedication. In that case, all the people about
him would know that he desired that the saints should go there. If a
glimmering of secular sense led him to be a little suspicious about the
real cause of the unanimit