away in the dust of destroyed kingdoms?  For the Power of the Spirit is greater than all!  And so it shall be proved!  The Spirit shall work in ways where it has never been found before!—­it shall depart from the Churches which are unworthy of its Divine inspiration!—­it shall invest the oaths of Science!—­it shall open the doors of the locked stars!  It shall display the worlds invisible;—­the secrets of men’s hearts, and of closed graves!—­there will be terror and loss and confusion and shame to mankind,—­and this world shall keep nothing of all its treasures but the Cross of Christ!  Rome, like Babylon, shall fall!—­and the Powers of the Church shall be judged as the Powers of Darkness rather than of Light, because they have rejected the Word of their Master, and ’teach for doctrine the commandments of men!’ Disaster shall follow swift upon disaster, and the cup of trembling shall be drained again to its last dregs, as in the olden days, unless,—­unless perchance—­you will come out with me!”

With the last words a sort of galvanic shock seemed to be imparted to the rigid figure in the chair.  Springing upright suddenly, his voice rang out like a clarion, discordantly yet clearly.

“In the name of God,” he cried, “Who and what is this boy!  How came he with Cardinal Bonpre?  And you, Domenico!—­do you stand by and permit this affront to me!—­the living Head of the Church!  From a child!—­a tramp of the streets!—­who dares to speak to me!—­who dares to reproach, to prophesy—­aye, to blaspheme! and teach Me,—­”

“As One having authority,—­and not as the Scribes!” said Manuel, with one swift flashing glance, which like a shaft of lightning seemed to pierce through flesh and bone,—­for, as he met that radiant and commanding look, the jewel-like eyes of the Pope lost their lustre and became fixed and glassy,—­he put his hand to his throat with a choking gasp for breath,—­and like a dead body which had only been kept in place by some secret mechanical action, he fell back in his chair senseless, his limbs stretching themselves out with a convulsive shudder into stark immovability.

Gherardi started from his stupor, and rushed to his assistance, ringing the bell violently which summoned the valet from the antechamber,—­and Moretti, with a fierce oath, pushing Manuel aside, rushed to the chair in which the Pope’s fainting figure lay,—­all was confusion;—­and in the excitement and terror which had overwhelmed Cardinal Bonpre at the unprecedented scene, Manuel suddenly touched him on the arm.

“Follow me!” he said, “We are no longer needed here!  Come!—­let us go hence!”

Hardly knowing what he did the old man obeyed, trembling in every limb as Manuel, grasping him firmly by the hand, led him from the apartment, and on through the winding corridors of the huge building, out into the open air.  No one questioned them,—­no one interfered with their progress.  Benediction was being sung in one of the many chapels of St. Peter’s, and the solemn sound of the organ reached them, softened and mellowed by distance, as they stood on the steps of the Vatican, where the Cardinal, pausing to recover breath and equanimity, gazed at his strange foundling in alarm and bewilderment.