ANOTHER--Two men were struck by the hags.
ANOTHER-- The wine, too, Father,
They've poured it all out on the mountain rocks.
ANOTHER--Old Hulga did it.
SEVERAL-- And the dwarf.
THE CROWD-- The dwarf, too.
OSWALD-- (_With a nod toward the church._)
One of the men who rode in town for help
Is with the clerk. (_The Priest starts toward the church._)
JARDIN--(_Stepping forward._) Can Jardin say a word?
One night at Acre when the camps were sick,
And smells of corpses tainted every breath,
Jardin was pacing watch. Through the darkness,
Pierced by the burial torches of the Turks,
A smoke-thin shadow passed across the plain
Between the armies, blotting one by one
The drifting death-fires of old Saladin.
Nearer it came, and Jardin heard a moan,
And walking toward it found a Turkish lad
Half eaten by hunger, in a fever trance
Low-moaning piteously: "Dates, mother, dates."
Did Jardin say, Because the Turk's a boy
I'll spare him? Did Jardin give him dates? No.
He'd made a vow never to spare no foe
Of Mary's Son, so, like a starving hound,
This Christian blade, drinking his little blood,
Licked up the crumbs that Famine's jaws had left.
Did Jardin right?
FATHER BENEDICT--Our Paternoster says:
"Thy kingdom come." How could the kingdom come
If heathens were allowed to--
JARDIN-- If the young Turk,
Instead of wobbling in a fever trance
As weak as smoke a breath could blow away,
Jardin had found astride a Christian corpse
Holding his red dirk up against the moon
For Allah's eyes and laughing at the blood,
Had Jardin spared him then--?
FATHER BENEDICT-- Then the red dirk
Had hovered over your gray hairs like a hawk
Until your day of death, and when your soul,
Fresh from the holy lustral dews, had sprung
Singing toward Mary's bosom in the sky,
That red-plumed vulture swooping through the dark
Had chased it down to Hell.
JARDIN-- Line up, men.
OSWALD-- Stay!
You know not what you do.
FATHER BENEDICT-- What does this mean?
JARDIN--It means that Jardin is a soldier still,
Still fighting as a servant of the Cross,
And never, while this arm can lift a sword,
Will this sword ever spare a scoffing imp
To invocate the devils of the air,
And pointing to the gouts of holy blood
Upon the mountain rocks, say: "Aha, see!
The Master's slave bleeds as the Master bled."
(_Pointing with his sword down the street._)
The son of Satan.
A MAN-- It's the dwarf, Father.
FATHER BENEDICT-- (_Solemnly._)
God lifts the curtain and the Play is on,
Whose last act shall unfold above the clouds
With Tempest and with Earthquake that shall shake
Hell to the very bottom. Seize him.
OSWALD--(_Excitedly._) No!
No, no! The boy has done no-- (_Coughing._)
JARDIN-- Come on, men!
Shall bloody daggers drip on our gray hairs,
And chase us through the deep? Shall they? Come on!
(_The line swings off._)
Never will Jardin patch a truce with Hell
Until her towers, stormed by angels' wings,
Shall bow like Acre to the Son of God.
OSWALD--Stop them, Father! Until I tell you!
FATHER BENEDICT--(_Overcome with rage._) This,
This is the worst I ever did hear. (_Looking about him while_
_Oswald coughs with great distress._) Men,--
(_Seeing that all the men have gone, he shouts
after them._)
Pile your wood here, men! We shall have sacrifice!
(_He goes toward the church._)
OSWALD-- (_Frantically._)
Father! Father! (_He falls upon his knees._)
FATHER BENEDICT--A burnt offering. (_Oswald rises quickly,
his face full of horror, and flees in the direction of the
Abbey, coughing violently._)
FATHER BENEDICT-- (_From the steps, calling after him bitterly._)
If Benedict, whose "joy is in the chase,"
Shall "chase the deer with hounds as hunters do,"
Perhaps this devil that goes up in smoke
Will drop somewhere upon the mountain paths
And pluck your haunches from the talbot's teeth.
Pray God he may, when Benedict turns hound.
(_He enters the church and closes the door._)
_SCENE FIVE--The same street, projected to the outskirts of
the village. On the right, is a wagon bridge built of logs.
Some slabs, left over from the building of the bridge
years ago, lie in a pile at the roadside. Farther back,
across the river the course of which is marked by a line of
sycamores, the mountain rises abrupt and green, with here
and there patches of bare rocks and trees thickening as it
extends back and up. Away to the center and left, a stretch
of bottom land with cultivated fields. One gets a nearer
view of the snow-capped peaks seen from the mountain side
in the first Scene and from the courtyard of the abbey in
the second. In the foreground at the roadside, is a large
olive tree with its dark shadow lying directly beneath it,
for over the landscape is a clear light as of a noonday sun
shining from a cloudless sky._
_Under the tree, with several willow baskets strung together_
_lying upon the ground beside him, sits the dwarf, Sigurd,_
_polishing Oswald's silver crucifix upon his knee. He holds
it out in a bit of sunshine that falls through the leaves
and, after flashing the light about, resumes rubbing it
upon his trousers._
JARDIN-- (_Left, shouting as to men far off._)
Close in, men! Close in!
(_The dwarf rises to his knees and looks in the
direction of the town. Then, hiding the
crucifix in his bosom, he comes out in the
road and looks in the opposite direction as
though trying to discover who it is they are
after. Stones strike in the road and go
clattering across the bridge. A moment later
Jardin and his men come rushing in._)
ONE OF THE MEN--(_With his hands to his mouth, shouting_
_across the river._) We've got him!
ANOTHER-- Fellows!
(_He makes for the pile of slabs. Several of the
men follow him._)
ANOTHER--We can get shavings up at Bacqueur's shop.
(_They load themselves with slabs. Jardin, who with
the dwarf is in the center of the crowd,
suddenly holds aloft the silver crucifix._)
JARDIN--You know who threw him down now, don't you, eh?
A CRY OF RAGE--Devil!
JARDIN--Don't knock him, men. This is God's work.
CRIES--Down with him! Burn him!
JARDIN-- Fetch your slabs, men.