Soon, bearing banner, cross, and relic,
monks and nuns filed in order from the grim cloister down to the harbor,
echoing back the hymn. Among her maidens, conspicuous in veil and hood,
stood the Abbess, even then engaged in holy devotion.
When the reception at harbor and hall was over, and the evening banquet
ended, the vestal maidens and their visitors, secure from unhallowed
eyes, roamed at will through each holy cloister, aisle, gallery, and
dome. Though it was a summer night, the evening fell damp and chill, the
sea breeze blowing cold, and the pure-minded girls closed around the
blazing hearth, each in turn to paint the glory of her favorite saint.
While, round the fire, legends were rehearsed by the happy group, a very
different scene was taking place in a secret underground aisle, where a
council of life and death was being held. The spot was more dark and
lone than a dungeon cell. Light and air were excluded, as it was a
burial place for those who, dying in sin, might not be laid within the
Church. It was also a place of punishment, whence if a cry pierced the
upper air, the hearer offered a prayer, thinking he heard the moaning of
spirits in torment.
Few save the Abbot knew the place, and fewer still, the devious way by
which it was approached.
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