The Strong Arm Part 15

"Well, there it is," said Wilhelm, touching the lantern with his foot as he paced up and down the limits of the cell.

"Earthly light is but dim at best, it is the light of Heaven I search after."

"Well, I hope you may be successful in finding it. I know of no place where it is needed so much as here."

"You speak like a scoffer. I thought from what you said of G.o.d's will, that you were a religious man."

"I am a religious man, I hope, and I regret if my words seem lightly spoken.

"What action of man, think you then, is most pleasing to G.o.d?"

"That is a question which you, to judge by your garb, are more able to answer than I."

"Nay, nay, I want your opinion."

"Then in my opinion, the man most pleasing to G.o.d is he who does his duty here on earth."

"Ah! right, quite right," cried the older man, eagerly. "But there lies the core of the whole problem. What _is_ duty; that is what I have spent my life trying to learn."

"Then at a venture I should say your life has been a useless one. Duty is as plain as the lighted lantern there before us. If you are a priest, fulfil your priestly office well; comfort the sick, console the dying, bury the dead. Tell your flock not to speculate too much on duty, but to try and accomplish the work in hand."

"But I am not a priest," faltered the other, rising slowly to his feet.

"Then if you are a soldier, strike hard for your King. Kill the man immediately before you, and if, instead, he kills you, be a.s.sured that the Lord will look after your soul when it departs through the rent thus made in your body."

"There is a ring of truth in that, but it sounds worldly. How can we tell that such action is pleasing to G.o.d? May it not be better to depend entirely on the Lord, and let Him strike your blows for you?"

"Never! What does He give you arms for but to protect your own head, and what does He give you swift limbs for if not to take your body out of reach when you are threatened with being overmatched? G.o.d must despise such a man as you speak of, and rightly so. I am myself a commander of soldiers, and if I had a lieutenant who trusted all to me and refused to strike a st.u.r.dy blow on his own behalf I should tear his badge from him and have him scourged from out the ranks."

"But may we not, by misdirected efforts, thwart the will of G.o.d?"

"Oh! the depths of human vanity! Thwart the will of G.o.d? What, a puny worm like you? You amaze me, sir, with your conceit, and I lose the respect for you which at first your garb engendered in my mind. Do your work manfully, and flatter not yourself that your most strenuous efforts are able to cross the design of the Almighty. My own poor belief is that He has patience with any but a coward and a loiterer."

The elder prisoner staggered into the centre of the room and raised his hands above his head.

"Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me," he cried. "Thou who hast brought light to me in this foul dungeon which was refused to me in the radiance of Thy Cathedral. Have mercy on me, oh, Lord, the meanest of Thy servants--a craven Emperor."

"The Emperor!" gasped Wilhelm, the more amazed because he had his Majesty in mind when he spoke so bitterly of neglected duty, unconsciously blaming his sovereign rather than his own rashness for the extreme predicament in which he found himself.

Before either could again speak the door suddenly opened wide, and a deep voice solemnly enunciated the words:

"Wilhelm of Schonburg, pretended Commander of his Majesty's forces, you are summoned to appear instantly before the court of the Holy Fehm, now in session and awaiting you."

CHAPTER VI

THE HOLY FEHM

When the spokesman of the Fehmgerichte had finished his ominous summons, his attendants crowded round Wilhelm swiftly and silently as if to forestall any attempt at resistance either on his part or on the part of the Emperor. They hurried their victim immediately out of the cell and instantly barred the door on the remaining prisoner. First they crossed the low-roofed, thickly-pillared great hall, pa.s.sing through a doorway at which two armed men stood guard, masked, as were all the others. The Judgment Hall of the dread Fehmgerichte was a room of about ten times the extent of the cell Wilhelm had just left, but still hardly of a size that would justify the term large. The walls and vaulted roof were of rough stone, and on the side opposite the entrance had been cut deeply the large letters S. S. G. G. A few feet distant from this lettered wall stood a long table, and between the wall and the table sat seven men.

The Freigraf, as Wilhelm surmised him to be, occupied in the centre of this line a chair slightly more elevated than those of the three who sat on either hand. Seven staples had been driven into the interstices of the stones above the heads of the Court and from each staple hung a lighted lantern, which with those at the belts of the guard standing round, illuminated the dismal chamber fairly well. To the left of the Court was a block draped in black and beside it stood the executioner with his arms resting on the handle of his axe. In the ceiling above his head was an iron ring and from this ring depended a rope, the noose of which dangled at the shoulder of the headsman, for it was the benevolent custom of the Court to allow its victim a choice in the manner of his death. It was also a habit of the judges of this Court to sit until the sentence they had p.r.o.nounced was carried out, and thus there could be no chance of mistake or rescue. No feature of any judge was visible except the eyes through the holes pierced for the purposes of vision in the long black cloaks which completely enveloped their persons.

As Wilhelm was brought to a stand before this a.s.semblage, the Freigraf nodded his head and the guards in silence undid the thongs which pinioned together wrists and elbows, leaving the prisoner absolutely unfettered.--This done, the guard retreated backwards to the opposite wall, and Wilhelm stood alone before the seven sinister doomsmen. He expected that his examination, if the Court indulged in any such, would be begun by the Freigraf, but this was not the case. The last man to the left in the row had a small bundle of doc.u.ments on the table before him.

He rose to his feet, bowed low to his brother judges, and then with less deference to the prisoner. He spoke in a voice lacking any trace of loudness, but distinctly heard in every corner of the room because of the intense stillness. There was a sweet persuasiveness in the accents he used, and his sentences resembled those of a lady anxious not to give offence to the person addressed.

"Am I right in supposing you to be Wilhelm, lately of Schonburg, but now of Frankfort?"

"You are right."

"May I ask if you are a member of the Fehmgerichte?"

"I am not. I never heard of it until this afternoon."

"Who was then your informant regarding the order?"

"I refuse to answer."

The examiner inclined his head gracefully as if, while regretting the decision of the witness, he nevertheless bowed to it.

"Do you acknowledge his lords.h.i.+p the Archbishop of Mayence as your over lord?"

"Most a.s.suredly."

"Have you ever been guilty of an act of rebellion or insubordination against his lords.h.i.+p?"

"My over-lord, the Archbishop of Mayence, has never preferred a request to me which I have refused."

"Pardon me, I fear I have not stated my proposition with sufficient clearness, and so you may have misunderstood the question. I had in my mind a specific act, and so will enter into further detail. Is it true that in the Wahlzimmer you entered the presence of your over-lord with a drawn sword in your hand, commanding a body of armed men lately outlaws of the Empire, thus intimidating your over-lord in the just exercise of his privileges and rights as an Elector?"

"My understanding of the Feudal law," said Wilhelm, "is that the commands of an over-lord are to be obeyed only in so far as they do not run counter to orders from a still higher authority."

"Your exposition of the law is admirable, and its interpretation stands exactly as you have stated it. Are we to understand then that you were obeying the orders of some person in authority who is empowered to exercise a jurisdiction over his lords.h.i.+p the Archbishop, similar to that which the latter in his turn claims over you?"

"That is precisely what I was about to state."

"Whose wishes were you therefore carrying out?

"Those of his Majesty the Emperor."

The examiner bowed with the utmost deference when the august name was mentioned.

"I have to thank you in the name of the Court," he went on, "for your prompt and comprehensive replies, which have thus so speedily enabled us to come to a just and honourable verdict, and it gives me pleasure to inform you that the defence you have made is one that cannot be gainsaid, and, therefore, with the exception of one slight formality, there is nothing more for us to do but to set you at liberty and ask pardon for the constraint we regret having put upon you, and further to request that you take oath that neither to wife nor child, father nor mother, sister nor brother, fire nor wind, will you reveal anything that has happened to you; that you will conceal it from all that the sun s.h.i.+nes on and from all that the rain wets, and from every being between heaven and earth. And now before our doors are thus opened I have to beg that you will favour the Court with the privilege of examining the commission that his Majesty the Emperor has signed."

"You cannot expect me to carry my commission about on my person, more especially as I had no idea I should be called upon to undergo examination upon it."

"Such an expectation would certainly be doomed to disappointment, but you are doubtless able to tell us where the doc.u.ment lies, and I can a.s.sure you that, wherever it is placed, an emissary of this order will speedily fetch it, whether, it is concealed in palace or in hut. Allow me to ask you then, where this commission is?"