S. Elizabeth of Hungary [antikvár]

S. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY CHAPTER ONE The assembly sat in gloomy silence. The sparse tapers flickered, even though no man raised his voice in turgid speech, nor gestured with waving hands in emphasis, nor smote with clenched fist upon the table. The wind surged around the house, rattling in the eaves and roof. Rain spattered down incessantly. The night wore on. That silence became every moment more oppressive. The heads of the forty men who were assembled there, dropped forward. Only one man, slenderly built and of an ivory pallor, rose to his feet in the candle-light—conspicuous in his purple robe, gazing out like an eagle thrusting its head out of a rocky nest at the first gleam of dawn. His eyes wandered over the black hoods of the Benedictine abbots. He could not help thinking of the glowing fruits of his native land, of the oranges, and there was no smile on his lips as he pictured them in the hands of the abbots. The oppressive silence continued. It seemed as if the sacristan's extinguisher had dropped upon the flame of the candles, and were stifling him also. He fixed his eyes on the door of the hall. He hurled his gaze against it like a sword-point at whose thrust he expected doors to open. Then he bent his head, listening. Now he became aware of how the others were doing the same—bending forward their heads, listening. Their ears, strained against the wall of night, were thirsting for a far-off murmur of sound