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served up with luscious fruit by a crafty traitor, whom one dared not

even denounce! And he recalled the conversation on his way back from

Frascati, and his Parisian scepticism with respect to those legendary

drugs, which to his mind had no place save in the fifth acts of

melodramas. Yet those abominable stories were true, those tales of

poisoned knives and flowers, of prelates and even dilatory popes being

suppressed by a drop or a grain of something administered to them in

their morning chocolate. That passionate tragical Santobono was really a

poisoner, Pierre could no longer doubt it, for a lurid light now

illumined the whole of the previous day: there were the words of ambition

and menace which had been spoken by Cardinal Sanguinetti, the eagerness

to act in presence of the probable death of the reigning pope, the

suggestion of a crime for the sake of the Church's salvation, then that

priest with his little basket of figs encountered on the road, then that

basket carried for hours so carefully, so devoutly, on the priest's

knees, that basket which now haunted Pierre like a nightmare, and whose

colour, and odour, and shape he would ever recall with a shudder. Aye,

poison, poison, there was truth in it; it existed and still circulated in

the depths of the black world, amidst all the ravenous, rival longings

for conquest and sovereignty.

And all at once the figure of Prada likewise arose in Pierre's mind. A

little while previously, when Benedetta had so violently accused the

Count, he, Pierre, had stepped forward to defend him and cry aloud what

he knew, whence the poison had come, and what hand had offered it. But a

sudden thought had made him shiver: though Prada had not devised the

crime, he had allowed it to be perpetrated. Another memory darted keen

like steel through the young priest's mind--that of the little black hen

lying lifeless beside the shed, amidst the dismal surroundings of the

_osteria_, with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak.

And here again, Tata, the parrot, lay still soft and warm at the foot of

her stand, with her beak stained by oozing blood. Why had Prada told that

lie about a battle between two fowls? All the dim intricacy of passion

and contention bewildered Pierre, he could not thread his way through it;

nor was he better able to follow the frightful combat which must have

been waged in that man's mind during the night of the ball. At the same

time he could not again picture him by his side during their nocturnal

walk towards the Boccanera mansion without shuddering, dimly divining

what a frightful decision had been taken before that mansion's door.

Moreover, whatever the obscurities, whether Prada had expected that the

Cardinal alone would be killed, or had hoped that some chance stroke of

fate might avenge him on others, the terrible fact remained--he had

known, he had been able to stay Destiny on the march, but had allowed it

to go onward and blindly accomplish its work of death.

Turning his head Pierre perceived Don Vigilio still seated on the corner

chair whence he had not stirred, and looking so pale and haggard that

perhaps he also had swallowed some of the poison. "Do you feel unwell?"

the young priest asked.

At first the secretary could not reply, for terror had gripped him at the

throat. Then in a low voice he said: "No, no, I didn't eat any. Ah,

Heaven, when I think that I so much wanted to taste them, and that merely

deference kept me back on seeing that his Eminence did not take any!" Don

Vigilio's whole body shivered at the thought that his humility alone had

saved him; and on his face and his hands there remained the icy chill of

death which had fallen so near and grazed him as it passed.

Then twice he heaved a sigh, and with a gesture of affright sought to

brush the horrid thing away while murmuring: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!"

Pierre, deeply stirred, and knowing what he thought of the train-bearer,

tried to extract some information from him: "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Do you accuse him too? Do you think they urged him on, and that it was

they at bottom?"

The word Jesuits was not even spoken, but a big black shadow passed

athwart the gay sunlight of the dining-room, and for a moment seemed to

fill it with darkness. "They! ah yes!" exclaimed Don Vigilio, "they are

everywhere; it is always they! As soon as one weeps, as soon as one dies,

they are mixed up in it. And this is intended for me too; I am quite

surprised that I haven't been carried off." Then again he raised a dull

moan of fear, hatred, and anger: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And he

refused to reply any further, but darted scared glances at the walls as

if from one or another of them he expected to see the train-bearer

emerge, with his wrinkled flabby face like that of an old maid, his

furtive mouse-like trot, and his mysterious, invading hands which had

gone expressly to bring the forgotten figs from the pantry and deposit

them on the table.

At last the two priests decided to return to the bedroom, where perhaps

they might be required; and Pierre on entering was overcome by the

heart-rending scene which the chamber now presented. Doctor Giordano,

suspecting poison, had for half an hour been trying the usual remedies,

an emetic and then magnesia. Just then, too, he had made Victorine whip

some whites of eggs in water. But the disorder was progressing with such

lightning-like rapidity that all succour was becoming futile. Undressed

and lying on his back, his bust propped up by pillows and his arms lying

outstretched over the sheets, Dario looked quite frightful in the sort of

painful intoxication which characterised that redoubtable and mysterious

disorder to which already Monsignor Gallo and others had succumbed. The

young man seemed to be stricken with a sort of dizzy stupor, his eyes

receded farther and farther into the depth of their dark sockets, whilst

his whole face became withered, aged as it were, and covered with an

earthy pallor. A moment previously he had closed his eyes, and the only

sign that he still lived was the heaving of his chest induced by painful

respiration. And leaning over his poor dying face stood Benedetta,

sharing his sufferings, and mastered by such impotent grief that she also

was unrecognisable, so white, so distracted by anguish, that it seemed as

if death were gradually taking her at the same time as it was taking him.

In the recess by the window whither Cardinal Boccanera had led Doctor

Giordano, a few words were exchanged in low tones. "He is lost, is he

not?"

The doctor made the despairing gesture of one who is vanquished: "Alas!

yes. I must warn your Eminence that in an hour all will be over."

A short interval of silence followed. "And the same malady as Gallo, is

it not?" asked the Cardinal; and as the doctor trembling and averting his

eyes did not answer he added: "At all events of an infectious fever!"

Giordano well understood what the Cardinal thus asked of him: silence,

the crime for ever hidden away for the sake of the good renown of his

mother, the Church. And there could be no loftier, no more tragical

grandeur than that of this old man of seventy, still so erect and

sovereign, who would neither suffer a slur to be cast upon his spiritual

family, nor consent to his human family being dragged into the inevitable

mire of a sensational murder trial. No, no, there must be none of that,

there must be silence, the eternal silence in which all becomes

forgotten.

At last the doctor bowed with his gentle air of discretion. "Evidently,

of an infectious fever as your Eminence so well says," he replied.

Two big tears then again appeared in Boccanera's eyes. Now that he had

screened the Deity from attack in the person of the Church, his heart as

a man again bled. He begged the doctor to make a supreme effort, to

attempt the impossible; but, pointing to the dying man with trembling

hands, Giordano shook his head. For his own father, his own mother he

could have done nothing. Death was there. So why weary, why torture a

dying man, whose sufferings he would only have increased? And then, as

the Cardinal, finding the end so near at hand, thought of his sister

Serafina, and lamented that she would not be able to kiss her nephew for

the last time if she lingered at the Vatican, the doctor offered to fetch

her in his carriage which was waiting below. It would not take him more

than twenty minutes, said he, and he would be back in time for the end,

should he then be needed.

Left to himself in the window recess the Cardinal remained there

motionless for another moment. With eyes blurred by tears, he gazed

towards heaven. And his quivering arms were suddenly raised in a gesture

of ardent entreaty. O God, since the science of man was so limited and

vain, since that doctor had gone off happy to escape the embarrassment of

his impotence, O God, why not a miracle which should proclaim the

splendour of Thy Almighty Power! A miracle, a miracle! that was what the

Cardinal asked from the depths of his believing soul, with the

insistence, the imperious entreaty of a Prince of the Earth, who deemed

that he had rendered considerable services to Heaven by dedicating his

whole life to the Church. And he asked for that miracle in order that his

race might be perpetuated, in order that its last male scion might not

thus miserably perish, but be able to marry that fondly loved cousin, who

now stood there all woe and tears. A miracle, a miracle for the sake of

those two dear children! A miracle which would endow the family with

fresh life: a miracle which would eternise the glorious name of Boccanera

by enabling an innumerable posterity of valiant ones and faithful ones to

spring from that young couple!

When the Cardinal returned to the centre of the room he seemed

transfigured. Faith had dried his eyes, his soul had become strong and

submissive, exempt from all human weakness. He had placed himself in the

hands of God, and had resolved that he himself would administer extreme

unction to Dario. With a gesture he summoned Don Vigilio and led him into

the little room which served as a chapel, and the key of which he always

carried. A cupboard had been contrived behind the altar of painted wood,

and the Cardinal went to it to take both stole and surplice. The coffer

containing the Holy Oils was likewise there, a very ancient silver coffer

bearing the Boccanera arms. And on Don Vigilio following the Cardinal

back into the bed-room they in turn pronounced the Latin words:

"_Pax huic domui_."

"_Et omnibus habitantibus in ea_."*

* "Peace unto this house and unto all who dwell in it."--Trans.

Death was coming so fast and threatening, that all the usual preparations

were perforce dispensed with. Neither the two lighted tapers, nor the

little table covered with white cloth had been provided. And, in the same

way, Don Vigilio the assistant, having failed to bring the Holy Water

basin and sprinkler, the Cardinal, as officiating priest, could merely

make the gesture of blessing the room and the dying man, whilst

pronouncing the words of the ritual: "_Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et

mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor._"*

* "Sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and purify me; wash me, and

make me whiter than snow."--Trans.

Benedetta on seeing the Cardinal appear carrying the Holy Oils, had with

a long quiver fallen on her knees at the foot of the bed, whilst,

somewhat farther away, Pierre and Victorine likewise knelt, overcome by

the dolorous grandeur of the scene. And the dilated eyes of the

Contessina, whose face was pale as snow, never quitted her Dario, whom

she no longer recognised, so earthy was his face, its skin tanned and

wrinkled like that of an old man. And it was not for their marriage which

he so much desired that their uncle, the all-powerful Prince of the

Church, was bringing the Sacrament, but for the supreme rupture, the end

of all pride, Death which finishes off the haughtiest races, and sweeps

them away, even as the wind sweeps the dust of the roads.

It was needful that there should be no delay, so the Cardinal promptly

repeated the Credo in an undertone, "_Credo in unum Deum--_"

"_Amen_," responded Don Vigilio, who, after the prayers of the ritual,

stammered the Litanies in order that Heaven might take pity on the

wretched man who was about to appear before God, if God by a prodigy did

not spare him.

Then, without taking time to wash his fingers, the Cardinal opened the

case containing the Holy Oils, and limiting himself to one anointment, as

is permissible in pressing cases, he deposited a single drop of the oil

on Dario's parched mouth which was already withered by death. And in

doing so he repeated the words of the formula, his heart all aglow with

faith as he asked that the divine mercy might efface each and every sin

that the young man had committed by either of his five senses, those five

portals by which everlasting temptation assails the soul. And the

Cardinal's fervour was also instinct with the hope that if God had

smitten the poor sufferer for his offences, perhaps He would make His

indulgence entire and even restore him to life as soon as He should have

forgiven his sins. Life, O Lord, life in order that the ancient line of

the Boccaneras might yet multiply and continue to serve Thee in battle

and at the altar until the end of time!

For a moment the Cardinal remained with quivering hands, gazing at the

mute face, the closed eyes of the dying man, and waiting for the miracle.

But no sign appeared, not the faintest glimmer brightened that haggard

countenance, nor did a sigh of relief come from the withered lips as Don

Vigilio wiped them with a little cotton wool. And the last prayer was

said, and whilst the frightful silence fell once more the Cardinal,

followed by his assistant, returned to the chapel. There they both knelt,

the Cardinal plunging into ardent prayer upon the bare tiles. With his