“Young man,” said the priest, “that poor parchment may perhaps protect you better than your steel blade. The gaze of a penitent man is more potent than the archangel’s sword. Farewell! My prisoners await me. Pray sometimes for them and me.” “Holy priest,” rejoined Ordener, with a smile, “I told you that your prisoners should be pardoned, and they shall be.” “Oh, do not speak with such assurance, my son! Do not tempt the Lord! No man can know what passes in the mind of another, and you cannot tell what the viceroy’s son may decide to do. Perhaps, alas! he will never condescend to admit a humble chaplain to his presence. Farewell, my son; may your journey be blessed, and may you sometimes remember the poor priest and pray for his unhappy prisoners.” XV. Welcome, Hugo; tell me, did you ever see so terrible a storm!--MATURIN: _Bertram_. In a room communicating with the apartments of the Governor of Throndhjem, three of his Excellency’s secretaries sat at a table loaded with parchments, papers, inkstands, and seals, a fourth chair, left vacant, showing that one of the scribes was late. They had been silently writing and thinking for some time, when one of them exclaimed: “Did you know, Wapherney, that the poor librarian, Foxtipp, is to be dismissed by the bishop, owing to the letter which you wrote recommending Dr. Anglyvius’s petition to his favorable notice?” “What nonsense are you talking, Richard?” hastily inquired the secretary to whom Richard had not spoken. “Wapherney could not have written in favor of Anglyvius, for the fellow’s petition disgusted the general when I read it to him.” “So you told me,” answered Wapherney; “but I found the word _tribuatur_[10] written on the petition in his Excellency’s own hand.” “Indeed!” exclaimed the other. “Yes, my dear fellow; and several other of his Excellency’s decisions of which you told me, were also altered in marginal notes. For instance, on the petition of the miners, the general wrote, _negetur_.” “What! I can’t understand that; the general dreaded the turbulent spirit of those miners.” “Perhaps he wanted to frighten them into submission by his severity. What makes me think so is that Chaplain Munder’s request for the pardon of twelve condemned prisoners is also refused.” The secretary whom Wapherney addressed, rose abruptly, saying, “Oh, come now, I can’t believe that; the governor is too kind, and expressed too much compassion for those prisoners to--” “Very well, Arthur,” answered Wapherney; “read it for yourself.” Arthur took the petition and saw the fatal words. “Really,” said he, “I can scarcely credit my own eyes. I must present this to the governor again. What day did his Excellency mark these papers?” “I believe it was some three days ago,” replied Wapherney. “That was,” said Richard in a low voice, “the morning before Baron Ordener’s brief appearance and mysteriously sudden disappearance.”