“‘I will, Holiness.’”

* * * * *

There was again a pause.

The Pope had been speaking with the utmost tranquillity as one in a dream.  His eyes were downcast upon the paper, His whole body as motionless as an image.  Yet to the priest who listened, despatching the Latin messages, and reading aloud the replies, it seemed, although so little intelligible news had reached him, as if something very strange and great was impending.  There was the sense of a peculiar strain in the air, and although he drew no deductions from the fact that apparently the whole Catholic world was in frantic communication with Damascus, yet he remembered his meditations of the evening before as he had waited for the messenger.  It seemed as if the powers of this world were contemplating one more step—­with its nature he was not greatly concerned.

The Pope spoke again in His natural voice.

“Father,” he said, “what I am about to say now is as if I told it in confession.  You understand?—­Very well.  Now begin.”

Then again the intonation began.

“Eminence.  We shall say mass of the Holy Ghost in one hour from now.  At the end of that time, you will cause that all the Sacred College shall be in touch with yourself, and waiting for our commands.  This new decision is unlike any that have preceded it.  Surely you understand that now.  Two or three plans are in our mind, yet We are not sure yet which it is that our Lord intends.  After mass We shall communicate to you that which He shall show Us to be according to His Will.  We beg of you to say mass also, immediately, for Our intention.  Whatever must be done must be done quickly.  The matter of Cardinal Dolgorovski you may leave until later.  But we wish to hear the result of your inquiries, especially in London, before mid-day. Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus.”

“‘Amen!’” murmured the priest, reading it from the sheet.

III

The little chapel in the house below was scarcely more dignified than the other rooms.  Of ornaments, except those absolutely essential to liturgy and devotion, there were none.  In the plaster of the walls were indented in slight relief the fourteen stations of the Cross; a small stone image of the Mother of God stood in a corner, with an iron-work candlestick before it, and on the solid uncarved stone altar, raised on a stone step, stood six more iron candlesticks and an iron crucifix.  A tabernacle, also of iron, shrouded by linen curtains, stood beneath the cross; a small stone slab projecting from the wall served as a credence.  There was but one window, and this looked into the court, so that the eyes of strangers might not penetrate.