176 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v 



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, Hurms. 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 he 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, he quickly opened the chests, which had no locks ; J and, 

 taking out portions of each of the bodies which were thus ex- 

 posed, he closed the chests and connected the burnt ends of the 

 threads with the seals again, so that they appeared not to have 

 been touched ; and, no one having seen him, he returned to his 

 place. (Cap. iii. 23.) 



Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at 

 first declared to him that these purloined relics 



1 The words are scrinia sine clave, which seems to mean 

 "having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea of 

 breaking open. 



