“Dear and revered brother,” replied Don Silverio, “I came hither with no such illusions.  If I had done, your biography of this functionary would have dispelled them.”

Nevertheless, although without hope, at two o’clock of that day he went to the audience which was granted him at the intervention of the bishop of the city, obtained by means of the vicar of Sant Anselmo.

The Prefecture was situated in a palace of sixteenth century architecture, a noble and stately place of immense size, greatly injured by telegraph and telephone wires stretching all round it, the post-office and the tax offices being situated on the ground floor, and the great central court daubed over with fresh paint and whitewash.  Some little soldiers in dingy uniforms, ill-cut and ill-fitting, stood about gates and doors.  On the first floor were the apartments occupied by his Excellency.  Don Silverio was kept waiting for some time in a vestibule of fine proportions painted by Diotisalvi, with a colossal marble group in its centre of the death of Caesar.

He looked at it wistfully.

“Ah, Guilio!” he murmured, “what use were your conquests, what use was your genius, the greatest perchance the world has ever seen?  What use?  You were struck in the throat like a felled ox, and the land you ruled lies bleeding at every pore!”

In a quarter of an hour he was ushered through other large rooms into one of great architectural beauty, where the Prefect was standing by a writing-table.

Giovacchino Gallo was a short, stout person with a large stomach, a bald head, bright restless eyes, and a high, narrow forehead; his face was florid, like the face of one to whom the pleasures of the table are not alien.  His address was courteous but distant, stiff, and a little pompous; he evidently believed in himself as a great person and only unbent to other greater persons, when he unbent so vastly that he crawled.

“What can I do for your Reverence?” he asked, as he seated himself behind the writing-table and pointed to a chair.

The words were polite but the tone was curt; it was officialism crystallised.

Don Silverio explained the purpose of his visit, and urged the prayers of his people.

“I am but the vicar of Ruscino,” he said in explanation, “but in this matter I plead for all the natives of the Valdedera.  Your Excellency is Governor of this province, in which the Edera takes its rise and has its course.  My people, and all those others who are not under my ministry, but whose desires and supplications I represent, venture to look to you for support in their greatest distress, and intercession for them against this calamity.”

The face of the Prefect grew colder and sterner, his eyes got an angry sparkle, his plump, rosy hands closed on a malachite paper-knife; he wished the knife were of steel, and the people of the Valdedera had but one head.

“Are you aware, sir,” he said impatiently, “that the matter of which you speak has had the ratification of Parliament?”