and tell his employer that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius.  How Deusdona was “squared,” and what he got for his not very valuable complicity in these transactions, does not appear.  But at last the relics were sent off in charge of Lunison, the brother of Deusdona, and the priest Hunus, as far as Pavia, while Ratleig stopped behind for a week to see if the robbery was discovered, and, presumably, to act as a blind, if any hue and cry was raised.  But, as everything remained quiet, the notary betook himself to Pavia, where he found Lunison and Hunus awaiting his arrival.  The notary’s opinion of the character of his worthy colleagues, however, may be gathered from the fact that, having persuaded them to set out in advance along the road which he told them he was about to take, he immediately adopted another route, and, travelling by way of St. Maurice and the Lake of Geneva, eventually reached Soleure.

Eginhard tells all this story with the most naive air of unconsciousness that there is anything remarkable about an abbot, and a high officer of state to boot, being an accessory, both before and after the fact, to a most gross and scandalous act of sacrilegious and burglarious robbery.  And an amusing sequel to the story proves that, where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, another high ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than himself.

On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were safely bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an audience in the Emperor’s antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle of the bloody exudation.  In the course of conversation, Eginhard happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the blessed Marcellinus.  Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard’s stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct.  Much astonished at this remark from a person who was supposed not to have seen the relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that?  Upon this, Hildoin saw that he had better make a clean breast of it, and he told the following story, which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus.  While Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard’s notary, Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers.  The relics were placed in a church; and a number of laymen and clerics, of whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over them.  One night, however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake Hunus, went to sleep; and then, according to the story which this “sharp” ecclesiastic foisted upon his patron,

it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great reason why all the people, except himself, had suddenly become somnolent; and, determining to avail himself of the opportunity thus offered (oblata occasione utendum), he rose and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the chests.  Then, having burnt through the threads of the seals with the flame of the candle,