“Help!” shrieked Varillo—­“Help!”

But the air rushing through the door and meeting with that already blowing through the window raised a perfect pyramid of flame which rose straight up and completely encircled the organ.  With a frightful cry Varillo rushed to Ambrosio’s side, and cowering down, clung to his garments.

“Oh, God!—­Oh, God!  Have mercy!—­”

“He will have mercy!” said Ambrosio, still keeping his hands on the organ-keys and drawing out strange plaintive chords of solemn harmony—­“He will have mercy—­be sure of it!  Ambrosio will ask Him to be merciful!—­Ambrosio has saved you from crime worse than death,—­Ambrosio has cleansed you by fire!  Ambrosio will help you to find God in the darkness!”

Smoke and flame encircled them,—­for one moment more their figures were seen like black specks in the wreathing columns of fire—­for one moment more the music of the organ thundered through the chapel,—­then came a terrific crash—­a roar of the victorious flames as they sprang up high to the roof of the building, and then—­then nothing but a crimson glare on the Campagna, seen for miles and miles around, and afterwards described to the world by the world’s press as the “Burning Down of a Trappist Monastery” in which no lives had been lost save those of one Fra Ambrosio, long insane, who was supposed to have kindled the destructive blaze in a fit of mania,—­and of a stranger, sick of malarial fever, whom the monks had sheltered, name unknown.

XXXVI.

The same night which saw the red glare of the burning monastery reflected from end to end of the Campagna, like the glow of some gigantic pagan funeral pyre, saw also the quiet departure of Cardinal Bonpre and his “foundling” Manuel from Rome.  Innocent of all evil, their escape was after the manner of the guilty; for the spies of the Vatican were on guard outside the Sovrani Palace, and one priest after another “relieved the watch” in the fashion of military sentries.  But like all too cunning schemers, these pious detectives overreached the goal of their intention, and bearing in mind the fact of the Cardinal’s unsuspecting simplicity, it never occurred to them to think he had been put on his guard so soon, or that he would take advantage of any secret way of flight.  But the private door of Angela’s studio through which Florian Varillo had fled, and the key of which he had thrown into the Tiber, had been forced open, and set in use again, and through this the harmless prelate, with his young companion, passed without notice or hindrance, and under the escort of Aubrey Leigh and Cyrillon Vergniaud, reached the railway station unintercepted by any message or messenger from the Papal court, and started for Paris and London.  When the train, moving slowly at first from the platform, began to rush, and finally darted swiftly out of sight, Aubrey breathed more easily.

“Thank God!” he said.  “They are safe for the present!  England is a free country!”