been elected to the Supreme Pontificate.  It had all been done in a few minutes by the dying man’s bedside.  The two old men had insisted.  The German bad even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy, marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was recorded.  He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the year, and was the third of that title.  He had then retired to Nazareth with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.

The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed.  Of these, nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had accepted.  There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the world who constituted the Sacred College—­two Englishmen, of whom Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian.  To these were entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject only to the Holy Father Himself.

As regarded the Pope’s own life very little need be said.  It resembled, He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the Great, without His worldly importance or pomp.  Theoretically, the Christian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairs were administered by local authorities.  It was impossible for a hundred reasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange of communications.  An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a private telegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another in Damascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from that centre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiastical authorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to be done.  The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with incredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards the reorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries.  Bishops were being consecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them all told, and of priests an unknown number.  The Order of Christ Crucified was doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundred martyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplished mostly at the hands of the mobs.

In other respects, also, as well as in the primary object of the Order’s existence (namely, the affording of an opportunity to all who loved God to dedicate themselves to Him more perfectly), the new Religious were doing good work.  The more perilous tasks—­the work of communication between prelates, missions to persons of suspected integrity—­all the business, in fact, which was carried on now at the vital risk of the agent were entrusted solely