Master Tetzel was a tall, full-necked Dominican who knew how to make his black robe fall in impressive folds. Later I discovered that his face was hard, cynical, and none too honest; but we saw him then only from across the market-place, whence his bull’s voice easily carried. The harangue he uttered was evidently a well-tested article, approved by its effect on many similar audiences. He began by extolling the charity of the Pope, who deigned to bestow such peculiar graces upon the German people, a folk he preferred above all the rest of Christendom. As for the object for which they were summoned to contribute their money, it was for the building of the Basilica of St. Peter, the holiest sanctuary in the world. But what, in any case, were a few miserable gulden beside the chance then and there for every one present to win eternal life for himself and for all his friends? I cannot tell all his artful threatenings and persuadings, all his utterances about the vast treasury of good deeds accumulated by Christ, the Apostles, and manifold saints but now thrown freely at the disposal of any purchaser of indulgence. I will not deny he dropped words to the effect that a formal confession was necessary before the “blessed medicine” began its perfect effect upon the living, but it was very plain that he who paid the money would not find many difficulties in the shriving. As for the dead--now doubtless in purgatory--here was a marvellous chance to deliver them! “I call on you all--great sinners, murderers, robbers, adulterers, to turn to God and receive this miraculous medicine which He in his mercy and wisdom has provided for your benefit. St. Stephen gave up his body to be stoned--his virtue is yours. St. Laurenz his to be burned, yours also. The martyrdom of St. Bartholomew is imputed to you again. And yet you--amongst whom even the most righteous is a miserable offender--will you not give one little gift of vile money to purchase eternal life?” And then while women wept, and stolid peasants shook, he thundered the virtue of his indulgences touching the dead; and through it all I could see Ilsa’s tense, white face leaning farther, farther from the balcony. “Your parents and relatives, sinners before God even if righteous before men, are in the flames of purgatory. They are crying out to you, ‘We are in bitterest torments; with a small alms you could save us, but you will not. We gave you birth, nourished you, and left you all our temporal goods; yet such is your cruelty towards us that you, so able to make us free, suffer us to lie in the fire.’” “Is the action of the indulgence swift and sure even in purgatory?” cried some voice from the front of the gaping multitude. Tetzel clapped his powerful hands together. “Yea verily! By God and all his angels! ‘The money in the strong box rings-- The ransomed soul to heaven upsprings!’