It was a new tale He was telling now, and all to her glory.  He was from the East, now they knew, come from some triumph.  He had been hailed as King, adored as Divine, as was meet and right—­He, the humble superhuman son of a Human Mother—­who bore not a sword but peace, not a cross but a crown.  So it seemed He was saying; yet no man there knew whether He said it or not—­whether the voice proclaimed it, or their hearts asserted it.  He was on the steps of the sanctuary now, still with outstretched hands and pouring words, and the mob rolled after him to the rumble of ten thousand feet and the sighing of ten thousand hearts....  He was at the altar; He was upon it.  Again in one last cry, as the crowd broke against the steps beneath, He hailed her Queen and Mother.

The end came in a moment, swift and inevitable.  And for an instant, before the girl in the gallery sank down, blind with tears, she saw the tiny figure poised there at the knees of the huge image, beneath the expectant hands, silent and transfigured in the blaze of light.  The Mother, it seemed, had found her Son at last.

For an instant she saw it, the soaring columns, the gilding and the colours, the swaying heads, the tossing hands.  It was a sea that heaved before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead, presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it ecstasy.  Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of worship ten thousand voices hailed Him Lord and God.

BOOK III-THE VICTORY

CHAPTER I

I

The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model of simplicity.  Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, and its floor beaten mud.  A square table stood in the centre, with a chair beside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; a bookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes.  There were three doors, one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the third to the little paved court.  The south windows were shuttered, but through the ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hot Eastern day outside.

It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything of the cicade from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deep silence.

* * * * *

The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitude in all that time, so intent was He upon His reading.  For the while, all was put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitter anxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility.  The book He held was a cheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued a month before, and He was now drawing to an end.