TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Dominik

“I swear here and now, and may St. John be my witness, that I saw the bishop and two other men near Lazar’s house that night when he was killed, in the hour that the Lord provided for men and beasts for rest!” the priest Grigorius screamed with such force that it seemed he would expend all his vital force. And the crowd howled and called for the bishop’s head. And Dominik? Worthy of his pastoral staff, he held a sermon to repudiate the serious accusation: “And may those among us be damned who would summarily judge their pastor. May the Lord make their tongues wither for so readily speaking falsehoods. I expel the priest Grigorius from the church, and there shall be no return for him!” Once, as Dominik was returning to his court, he was surrounded and set upon by a group of men armed with cudgels. He defended himself bravely, but took many blows and fell. The Almighty, however, did not allow him to come to such a wretched end in his own Svač, because a groupof monks happened to come along and the aggressors ran off through the gateway. The brethren obeyed his request and carried him to the secret room under the roof of his residence, and he sent the priest Ioanus for me. The stairs leading to that attic were concealed by an architectural contrivance. I went up and found him lying on a narrow bed. The oil lamp above his head feebly dispersed the darkness, but still, when I approached, I could see he was pale, with contusions on

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