The Duke took up a book that lay by him, and read,--

"The soul that cherishes the slightest animosity, and takes this feeling

into eternity, cannot be happy, though in other respects pious and

faithful. Bitterness is completely opposed to the nature and

constitution of heaven. The blood of Christ, who on the cross, in the

midst of the most excruciating torments, exercised love instead of

bitterness, cleanses from this sin also, when it flows in our veins."

"I see nothing in this, Altezza," said Inglesant eagerly, "but what is

in accordance with the doctrines of the Church. This is that idea of

sacramental purification, that Christ's Body being assimilated to ours

purifies and sanctifies. His Body, being exalted at that supreme moment

and effort (the moment of His suffering death), to the highest purity of

temper and of sweetness by the perfect love and holiness which pervaded

His spirit, has been able ever since, in all ages, through the mystery

of the Blessed Sacrament, to convert all its worthy recipients in some

degree to the same pure and holy state. Many things which men consider

misfortunes and painful experiences are in fact but the force of this

divine influence, assimilating their hearts to His, and attempering

their bodies to the lofty purity of His own. This is the master work of

the Devil, that he should lure us into states of mind, as the book says,

of bitterness and of violence, by which this divine sweetness is

tainted, and this peace broken by suspicion, by hatred, and heat of

blood."

"The book says somewhere," said the Duke, turning over the leaves,

"that, as the penitent thief rose from the cross to Paradise, so we, if

we long after Christ with all the powers of our souls, shall, at the

hour of death, rapidly soar aloft from our mortal remains, and then all

fear of returning to earth and earthly desires will be at an end."

"It must surely," said Inglesant after a pause, speaking more to himself

than to the Duke, "be among the things most surprising to an angelic

nature that observes mankind, that, shadows ourselves, standing upon the

confines even of this shadowy land, and not knowing what, if aught,

awaits us elsewhere, hatred or revenge or unkindness should be among the

last passions that are overcome. When the veil is lifted, and we see

things as they really are, nothing will so much amaze us as the

blindness and perversity that marked our life among our fellow-men.

Surely the lofty life is hard, as it seems hard to your Grace; but the

very effort itself is gain."

Inglesant left the presence of the Duke after his first interview

impressed and softened, but troubled in his mind more than ever at the

nature of the mission on which he was sent. Now that he had seen the

Duke, and had been touched by his eager questions, and by the earnest

searching look in the worn face, his conscience smote him at the thought

of abusing his confidence, and of persuading him to adopt a course which

Inglesant's own heart warned him might not in the end be conducive

either to his own peace or to the welfare of his people, whose happiness

he sincerely sought. He found that, in the antechambers and reception

rooms of the palace, and even at the Duke's own table, the principal

subject of conversation was the expected cession of the dukedom to the

Papal See; and that emissaries from Rome had preceded him, and had

evidently received instructions announcing his arrival, and were

prepared to welcome him as an important ally. On the other hand, there

were not wanting those who openly or covertly opposed the cession, some

of whom were said to be agents of the Grand Duke of Florence, who was

heir to the Duchy of Umbria through his wife. These latter, whose

opposition was more secret than open, sought every opportunity of

winning Inglesant to their party, employing the usual arguments with

which, since his coming into Italy, he had been so familiar. Many days

passed in this manner, and Inglesant had repeated conferences with the

Duke, during which he made great progress in his favour, and was himself

won by his lofty, kindly, and trustful character.

He had resided at Umbria a little less than a month, when he received

instructions by a courier from Rome, by which he was informed that at

the approaching festival of the Ascension a determined effort was to be

made by the agents and friends of the Pope to bring the business to a

conclusion. The Duke had promised to keep this festival, which is

celebrated at Venice and in other parts of Italy with great solemnity,

with unusual magnificence; and it was hoped that while his feelings were

influenced and his religious instincts excited by the solemn and tender

thoughts and imaginations which gather round the figure of the ascending

Son of man, he might be induced to sign the deed of cession. Hitherto

the Duke had not mentioned the subject to Inglesant, having found his

conversation upon questions of the spiritual life and practice

sufficient to occupy the time; but it was not probable that this silence

would continue much longer, and on the first day in Ascension week

Inglesant was attending Vespers at one of the Churches in the town in

considerable anxiety and trouble of mind.

The sun had hardly set, and the fete in the garden was not yet begun,

when, Vespers being over, he came out upon the river-side lined with

stately houses which fronted the palace gardens towering in terraced

walks and trellises of green hedges on the opposite bank. The sun,

setting behind the wooded slopes, flooded this green hill-side with soft

and dream-like light, and bathed the carved marble facade of the palace,

rising above it with a rosy glimmer, in which the statues on its roof,

and the fretted work of its balustrades, rested against the darkening

blue of the evening sky. A reflex light, ethereal and wonderful, coming

from the sky behind him, and the marble buildings and towers on which

the sun's rays rested more fully than they did upon the palace, brooded

over the river and the bridge with its rows of angelic forms, and,

climbing the leafy slopes, as if to contrast its softer splendour with

the light above, transfigured with colour the wreaths of vapour which

rose from the river and hung about its wharves.

The people were already crowding out of the city, and forcing their way

across the bridge towards the palace, where the illuminations and the

curious waterworks, upon which the young Duke had, during his short

reign, expended much money, were to be exhibited as soon as the evening

was sufficiently dark. The people were noisy and jostling, but as usual

good-tempered and easily pleased. Few masques or masquerade dresses had

appeared as yet, but almost every one was armed with a small trumpet, a

drum, or a Samarcand cane, from which to shoot peas or comfits. At the

corner of the main street that opened on to the quay, however, some

disturbing cause was evidently at work. The crowd was perplexed by two

contending currents, the one consisting of those who were attempting to

turn into the street from the wharf, in order to learn the cause of the

confusion, the other, of those who were apparently being driven forcibly

out of the street, towards the wharves and the bridge, by pressure from

behind. Discordant cries and exclamations of anger and contempt rose

above the struggling mass. Taking advantage of the current that swept

him onward, Inglesant reached the steps of the Church of St. Felix,

which stood at the corner of the two streets, immediately opposite the

bridge and the ducal lions which flanked the approach. On reaching this

commanding situation the cause of the tumult presented itself in the

form of a small group of men, who were apparently dragging a prisoner

with them, and had at this moment reached the corner of the wharf, not

far from the steps of the Church, surrounded and urged on by a leaping,

shouting, and excited crowd. Seen from the top of the broad marble

bases that flanked the steps, the whole of the wide space, formed by the

confluence of the streets, and over which the shadows were rapidly

darkening, presented nothing but a sea of agitated and tossing heads,

while, from the windows, the bridge, and even the distant marble

terraced steps that led up to the palace, the crowd appeared curious,

and conscious that something unusual was in progress.

From the cries and aspect of the crowd, and of the men who dragged their

prisoner along, it was evident that it was the intention of the people

to throw the wretched man over the parapets of the bridge into the river

below, and that to frustrate this intention not a moment was to be lost.

The pressure of the crowd, greater from the opposite direction than from

the one in which Inglesant had come, fortunately swept the group almost

to the foot of the steps. Near to Inglesant, and clinging to the carved

bases of the half-columns that supported the facade of the Church, were

two or three priests who had come out of the interior, attracted by the

tumult. Availing himself of their support, Inglesant shouted to the

captors of the unhappy man, in the name of the Church and of the Duke,

to bring their prisoner up the steps. They probably would not have

obeyed him, though they hesitated for a moment; but the surrounding

crowd, attracted towards the Church by Inglesant's gestures, began to

press upon it from all sides, as he had indeed foreseen would be the

case, and finally, by their unconscious and involuntary motion, swept

the prisoner and his captors up the steps to the side of the priests and

of Inglesant. It was a singular scene. The rapidly advancing night had

changed the golden haze of sunset to a sombre gloom, but lights began to

appear in the houses all around, and paper lanterns showed themselves

among the crowd.

The cause of all this confusion was dragged by his persecutors up the

steps, and placed upon the last of the flight, confronting the priests.

His hair was disordered, his clothes nearly torn from his limbs, and his

face and dress streaked with blood. Past the curtain across the

entrance of the Church, which was partly drawn back by those inside, a

flash of light shot across the marble platform, and shone upon the faces

of the foremost of the crowd. This light shone full upon Inglesant, who

stood, in striking contrast to the dishevelled figure that confronted

him, dressed in a suit of black satin and silver, with a deep collar of

Point-de-Venice lace. The priests stood a little behind, apparently

desirous to learn the nature of the prisoner's offence before they

interfered; and the accusers therefore addressed themselves to

Inglesant, who, indeed, was recognized by many as a friend of the Duke,

and whom the priests especially had received instructions from Rome to

support. The confusion in the crowd meanwhile increased rather than

diminished; there seemed to be causes at work other than the slight one

of the seizure by the mob of an unpopular man. The town was very full of

strangers, and it struck Inglesant that the arrest of the man before him

was merely an excuse, and was being used by some who had an object to

gain by stirring up the people. He saw, at any rate, however this might

be, a means of engaging the priests to assist him, should their aid be

necessary in saving the man's life.

That there was a passionate attachment among the people to a separate

and independent government of their city and state, an affection towards

the family of their hereditary dukes, and a dread and jealous dislike of

the Pope's government and of the priests, he had reason to believe. It

seemed to him that the people were about to break forth into some

demonstration of this antipathy, which, if allowed to take place, and if

taken advantage of, as it would be, by the neighbouring princes, would

be most displeasing to the policy of Rome, if not entirely subversive of

it. With these thoughts in his mind, as he stood for a moment silent on

the marble platform, and saw before him, what is perhaps the most

impressive of all sights, a vast assemblage of people in a state of

violent and excited opposition, and reflected on the causes which he

imagined agitated them,--causes which in his heart he, though enlisted

on the opposite side, had difficulty in persuading himself were not

justifiable,--it came into his mind more powerfully than ever, that the

moment foretold to him by Serenus de Cressy was at last indeed come.

Surely it behoved him to look well to his steps, lest he should be found

at last absolutely and unequivocally fighting against his conscience and

his God; if, indeed, this looking well to their steps on such occasions,

and not boldly choosing their side, had not been for many years the

prevailing vice of his family, and to some extent the cause of his own

spiritual failure.

The two men who held the apparent cause of all this uproar were two

mechanics of jovial aspect, who appeared to look upon the affair more in

the light of a brutal practical joke (no worse in their eyes for its

brutality), than as a very serious matter. To Inglesant's question what

the man had done they answered that he had refused to kneel to the

Blessed Sacrament, as it was being carried through the streets to some

poor, dying soul, and upon being remonstrated with, had reviled not only

the Sacrament itself, but the Virgin, the Holy Father, and the Italians

generally, as Papistical asses, with no more sense than the Pantaleoni

of their own comedies. The men gave this evidence in an insolent

half-jesting manner, as though not sorry to utter such words safely in

the presence of the priests.

Inglesant, who kept his eyes fixed upon the prisoner, and noticed that

he was rapidly recovering from the breathless and exhausted condition

the ill-treatment he had met with had reduced him to, and was assuming a

determined and somewhat noble aspect, abstained from questioning him,

lest he should make his own case only the more desperate; but, turning

to the priests, he rapidly explained his fears to them, and urged that

the man should be immediately secured from the people, that he might be

examined by the Duke, and the result forwarded to Rome. The priests

hesitated. Apart from the difficulty, they said, of taking the man out

of the hands of his captors, such a course would be sure to exasperate

the people still further, and bring on the very evil that he was

desirous of averting. It would be better to let the mob work their will

upon the man; it would at least occupy some time, and every moment was

precious. In less than an hour the fireworks at the palace would begin,

might indeed be hastened by a special messenger; and the fete once

begun, they hoped all danger would be over. To this Inglesant answered

that the man's arrest was evidently only an excuse for riot, and had

probably already answered its purpose; that to confine the people's

attention to it would be unfavourable to the intentions of those who

were promoting a political tumult; and that the avowed cause of the

man's seizure, and of the excitement of the mob, being disrespectful

language towards the Holy Father, the tumult, if properly managed, might

be made of service to the cause of Rome rather than the reverse.

Without waiting for the effect of this somewhat obscure argument on the

priests, Inglesant directed the men who held their prisoner to bring him

into the Church. They were unwilling to do so, but the crowd below was

so confused and tumultuous, one shouting one thing and one another, that

it seemed impossible that, if they descended into it again, they would

be allowed to retain their prey, and would not rather be overwhelmed in

a common destruction with him. On the other hand, by obeying Inglesant,

they at least kept possession of their prisoner, and could therefore

scarcely fail of receiving some reward from the authorities. They

therefore consented, and by a sudden movement they entered the Church,

the doors of which were immediately closed, after some few of the

populace had managed to squeeze themselves in. A messenger was at once

despatched to the palace to hasten the fireworks, and to request that a

detachment of the Duke's guard should be sent into the Church by a back

way.

The darkness had by this time so much increased that few of the people

were aware of what had taken place, and the ignorance of the crowd as to

the cause of the tumult was so general that little disturbance took

place among those who were shut out of the Church. They remained

howling and hooting, it is true, for some time, and some went so far as

to beat against the closed doors; but a rumour being spread among the

crowd that the fireworks were immediately to begin, they grew tired of

this unproductive occupation, and flocked almost to a man out of the

square and wharves, and crowded across the bridge into the gardens.

When the guard arrived, Inglesant claimed the man as the Duke's

prisoner, to be examined before him in the morning. The curiosity of the

Duke in all religious matters being well known, this seemed very

reasonable to the officer of the guard, and the priests did not like to

dispute it after the instructions they had received with regard to

Inglesant's mission. The two artisans were propitiated by a

considerable reward, and the prisoner was then transported by

unfrequented ways to the palace, and shut up in a solitary apartment,

whilst the rest of the world delighted itself at the palace fetes.

The garden festivities passed away amid general rejoicing and applause.

The finest effect was produced at the conclusion, when the whole mass of

water at the command of the engines, being thrown into the air in thin

fan-like jets, was illuminated by various coloured lights, producing the

appearance of innumerable rainbows, through which the palace itself, the

orangeries, the gardens, and terraces, and the crowds of delighted

people, were seen illuminated and refracted in varied and ever-changing

tints. Amid these sparkling colours strange birds passed to and fro,

and angelic forms descended by unseen machinery and walked on the higher

terraces, and as it were upon the flashing rainbows themselves.

Delicious music from unseen instruments ravished the sense, and when the

scene appeared complete and nothing further was expected, an orange

grove in the centre of the whole apparently burst open, and displayed

the stage of a theatre, upon which antic characters performed a

pantomime, and one of the finest voices in Italy sang an ode in honour

of the day, of the Duke, and of the Pope.

*CHAPTER VII.*

The Duke had engaged the next morning to be present at a theatrical

representation of a religious character, somewhat of the nature of a

miracle play, to be given in the courtyard of the "Hospital of Death,"

which adjoined to the Campo Santo of the city.

Before accompanying his Highness, Inglesant had given orders to have the

man, who had been the cause of so much excitement the evening before,

brought into his apartment, that he might see whether or no his

eccentricity made him sufficiently interesting to be presented to the

Duke.

When the stranger was brought to the palace early in the morning, and

having been found to be quite harmless, was entrusted by the guard to

two servants to be brought into Inglesant's presence, he thought himself

in a new world. Hitherto his acquaintance with Italian life had been

that of a stranger and from the outside; he was now to see somewhat of

the interior life of a people among whom the glories of the Renaissance

still lingered, and to see it in one of the most wonderful of the

Renaissance works, the ducal palace of Umbria. Born in the dull

twilight of the north, and having spent most of his mature years amongst

the green mezzotints of Germany, he was now transplanted into a land of

light and colour, dazzling to a stranger so brought up. Reared in the

sternest discipline, he found himself among a people to whom life was a

fine art, and the cultivation of the present and its enjoyments the end

of existence. From room to room, as he followed his guide, who pointed

out from time to time such of the beauties of the place as he considered

most worthy of notice, the stranger saw around what certainly might have

intoxicated a less composed and determined brain.

The highest efforts of the genius of the Renaissance had been expended

upon this magnificent house. The birth of a new instinct, differing in

some respects from any instincts of art which had preceded it, produced

in this and other similar efforts original and wonderful results. The

old Greek art entered with unsurpassable intensity into sympathy with

human life; but it was of necessity original and creative, looking

always forward and not back, and lacked the pathos and depth of feeling

that accompanied that new birth of art which sought much of its

inspiration among the tombs and ruined grottoes, and most of its

sympathetic power among the old well-springs of human feeling, read in

the torn and faded memorials of past suffering and destruction. This

new instinct of art abandoned itself without reserve to the pursuit of

everything which mankind had ever beheld of the beautiful, or had felt

of the pathetic or the sad, or had dreamed of the noble or the ideal.

The genius of the Renaissance set itself to reproduce this enchanted

world of form and colour, traversed by thoughts and spiritual existences

mysterious and beautiful, and the home of beings who had found this form

and colour and these mysterious thoughts blend into a human life

delicious in its very sorrows, grotesque and incongruous in its beauty,

alluring and attractive amid all its griefs and hardships; so much so

indeed that, in the language of the old fables, the Gods themselves

could not be restrained from throwing off their divine garments, and

wandering up and down among the paths and the adventures of men. By

grotesque and humorous delineation, by fanciful representation of human

passion under strange and unexpected form, by the dumb ass speaking and

grasshoppers playing upon flutes, was this world of intelligent life

reproduced in the rooms and on the walls of the house through which the

stranger walked for the first time.

He probably thought that he saw little of it, yet the bizarre effect was

burning itself into his brain. From the overhanging chimney-pieces

antique masques and figures such as he had never seen, even in dreams,

leered out upon him from arabesque carvings of foliage, or skulked

behind trophies of war, of music, or of the arts of peace. The door and

window frames seemed bowers of fruit and flowers, and forests of carved

leaves wreathed the pilasters and walls. But this was not all; with a

perfection of design and an extraordinary power of fancy, this world of

sylvan imagery was peopled by figures and stories of exquisite grace and

sweetness, representing the most touching incidents of human life and

history. Men and women; lovers and warriors in conflicts and dances and

festivals, in sacrifices and games; children sporting among flowers;

bereavement and death, husbandry and handicraft, hunters and beasts of

chase. Again, among briony and jasmin and roses, or perched upon ears

of corn and sheaves of maize, birds of every plumage confronted--so the

grotesque genius willed--fish and sea monsters and shells and marine

wonders of every kind.

Upon the walls, relieved by panelling of wood, were paintings of

landscapes and the ruined buildings of antiquity overgrown with moss, or

of modern active life in markets and theatres, of churches and cities in

the course of erection with the architects and scaffold poles, of the

processions and marriages of princes, of the ruin of emperors and of

kings. Below and beside these were credenzas and cabinets upon which

luxury and art had lavished every costly device and material which the

world conceived or yielded. Inlaid with precious woods, and glittering

with costly jewels and marbles, they reproduced in these differing

materials all those infinite designs which the carved walls had already

wearied themselves to express. Plaques and vases from Castel Durante or

Faience,--some of a strange pale colour, others brilliant with a

grotesque combination of blue and yellow,--crowded the shelves.

Passing through this long succession of rooms, the stranger reached at

last a library, a noble apartment of great size, furnished with books in

brilliant antique binding of gold and white vellum, and otherwise

ornamented with as much richness as the rest of the palace. Upon

reading desks were open manuscripts and printed books richly

illuminated. Connected with this apartment by open arches, was an

anteroom or corridor, which again opened on a loggia, beyond the shady

arches of which lay the palace gardens, long vistas of green walks, and

reaches of blue sky, flecked and crossed by the spray of fountains. The

decorations of the anteroom and loggia were more profuse and extravagant

than any that the stranger had yet seen. There was a tradition that

this portion of the palace had been finished last, and that when the

workmen arrived at it the time for the completion of the whole was very

nearly run out. The attention of all the great artists, hitherto

engaged upon different parts of the entire palace, was concentrated upon

this unfinished portion, and all their workmen and assistants were

called to labour upon it alone. The work went on by night and day, not

ceasing even to allow of sleep. Unlimited supplies of Greek wine were

furnished to the workmen; and stimulated by excitement and the love of

art, emulating each other, and half-intoxicated by the delicious wine,

the work exceeded all previous productions. For wild boldness and

luxuriance of fancy these rooms were probably unequalled in the world.

In the anteroom facing the loggia the stranger found Inglesant

conversing with an Italian who held rather a singular post in the ducal

Court. He was standing before a cabinet of black oak, inlaid with

representations of lutes and fifes, over which were strewn roses

confined by coloured ribbons, and supporting vases of blue and yellow

majolica, thrown into strong relief by the black wood. Above this

cabinet was a painting representing some battle in which a former Duke

had won great honour; while on a grassy knoll in the foreground the

huntsmen of Ganymede were standing with their eyes turned upward towards

the bird of Zeus, who is carrying the youth away to the skies,

emblematical of the alleged apotheosis of the ducal hero. Richly

dressed in a fantastic suit of striped silk, and leaning against the

cabinet in an attitude of listless repose, Inglesant was contemplating

an object which he held in his hand, and which both he and his companion

appeared to regard with intense interest. This was an antique statuette

of a faun, holding its tail in its left hand, and turning its head and

body to look at it,--an occupation of which, if we may trust the

monuments of antiquity, this singular creature appears to have been

fond. The Italian was of a striking figure, and was dressed somewhat

more gaily than was customary with his countrymen; and the whole group

was fully in unison with the spirit of the place and with the wealth of

beauty and luxury of human life that pervaded the whole.

The man who was standing by Inglesant's side, and who had the air of a

connoisseur or virtuoso, was an Italian of some fifty years of age. His

appearance, as has been said, was striking at first sight, but on longer

acquaintance became very much more so. He was tall and had been dark,

but his hair and beard were plentifully streaked with gray. His

features were large and aquiline, and his face deeply furrowed and

lined. His appearance would have been painfully worn, almost to

ghastliness, but for a mocking and humorous expression which laughed

from his eyes, his mouth, his nostrils, and every line and feature of

his face. Whenever this expression subsided, and his countenance sank

into repose, a look of wan sadness and even terror took its place, and

the large black eyes became fixed and intense in their gaze, as though

some appalling object attracted their regard.

This man had been born of a good but poor family, and had been educated

by his relations with the expectation of his becoming an ecclesiastic,

and he had even passed some time as a novice of some religious order.

The tendency of his mind not leading him to the further pursuit of a

religious life, he left his monastery, and addressed himself to live by

his wits, among the families and households of princes. He had made

himself very useful in arranging comedies and pageantries, and he had at

one time belonged to one of those dramatic companies called "Zanni," who

went about the country reciting and acting comedies. Combined with this

talent he discovered great aptitude in the management of serious

affairs, and was more than once, while apparently engaged entirely on

theatrical performances, employed in secret State negotiations which

could not so well be entrusted to an acknowledged and conspicuous agent.

In this manner of life he might have continued; but having become

involved in one of the contests which disturbed Italy, he received a

dangerous wound in the head, and on rising from his sick bed in the

Albergo in which he had been nursed, he was merely removed to another as

a singular if not dangerous lunatic. The symptoms of his disease first

manifested themselves in a very unpleasant familiarity with the secrets

of those around him, and it was probably this feature of his complaint

which led to his detention. As he improved in health, however, he

ceased to indulge in any conversation which might give offence, but,

assuming a sedate and agreeable manner, he conversed with all who came

to him, calling them, although strangers and such as he had never before

seen, by their proper names, and talking to them pleasantly concerning

their parents, relations, the coats-of-arms of their families, and such

other harmless and agreeable matters.

What brought him prominently into notice was the strangely prophetic

spirit he manifested before, or at the moment of the occurrence of, more

than one public event. He was taken from the hospital and examined by

the Pope, and afterwards at several of the sovereign Courts of Italy.

Thus, not long before the time when Inglesant met him in the ducal

palace at Umbria, he was at Chambery assisting at the preparation of

some festivals which the young Duke of Savoy was engaged in celebrating.

One day, as he was seated at dinner with several of the Duke's servants,

he suddenly started up from his seat, exclaiming that he saw the Duke de

Nemours fall dead from his horse, killed by a pistol shot. The Duke,

who was uncle to the young monarch of Savoy, was then in France, where

he was one of the leaders of the party of the Fronde. Before many days

were passed, however, the news reached Chambery of the fatal duel

between this nobleman and the Duke of Beaufort, which occurred at the

moment the Italian had thus announced it.

These and other similar circumstances caused the man to be much talked

of and sought after among the courts of Italy, where a belief in

manifestations of the supernatural was scarcely less universal than in

the previous age, when, according to an eye-witness, "the Pope would

decide no question, would take no journey, hold no sitting of the

Consistory, without first consulting the stars; nay, very few cardinals

would transact an affair of any kind, were it but to buy a load of wood,

except after consultation duly held with some astrologer or wizard."

The credit which the man gained, and the benefits he derived from this

reputation, raised him many enemies, who did not scruple to assert that

he was simply a clever knave, who was not even his own dupe. Setting on

one side, however, the revelations of the distant and the unknown made

by him, which seemed inexplicable except by supposing him possessed of

some unusual spiritual faculty, there was in the man an amount of

knowledge of the world and of men of all classes and ranks, combined

with much learning and a humorous wit, which made his company well worth

having for his conversation alone. It was not then surprising that he

should be found at this juncture at the court of Umbria, where the

peculiar idiosyncrasies of the aged Duke, and the interest attached to

the intrigue for the session of the dukedom, had assembled a strange and

heterogeneous company, and towards which at the moment all men's eyes in

Italy were turned.

"Yes, doubtless, it is an antique," the Italian was saying, "though in

the last age many artists produced masques and figures so admirable as

to be mistaken for antiques; witness that masque which Messire Georgio

Vassari says he put in a chimney-piece of his house at Arezzo, which

every one took to be an antique. I have seen such myself. This little

fellow, however, I saw found in a vineyard near the Miserecordia--a

place which I take to have been at some time or other the scene of some

terrible event, such as a conflict or struggle or massacre; for though

now it is quiet and serene enough, with the sunlight and the rustling

leaves, and the splash of a fountain about which there is some good

carving, I think of Fra Giovanni Agnolo,--for all this, I never walk

there but I feel the presence of fatal events, and a sense of dim

figures engaged in conflict, and of faint and distant cries and groans."

As he spoke these last words his eye rested upon the strange figure of

the man so hardly rescued from death the night before, and he stopped.

His manner changed, and his eyes assumed that expression of intense

expectation of which we have spoken before. The appearance of the

stranger, and the contrast it presented to the objects around, was

indeed such as to make him almost seem an inhabitant of another world,

and one of those phantasms of past conflict of which the Italian had

just spoken. His clothes, which had originally been of the plainest

texture, and most uncourtly make, were worn and ragged, and stained with

damp and dirt. His form and features were gaunt and uncouth, and his

gesture stiff and awkward; but, with all this, there was a certain

steadiness and dignity about his manner, which threw an appearance of

nobility over this rugged and unpleasing form. Contrasted with the

dress and manner of the other men, he looked like some enthusiastic

prophet, standing in the house of mirth and luxury, and predicting ruin

and woe.

At this moment a servant entered the room, bringing a sottocoppa of

silver, upon which were two or three stiff necked glasses, called

caraffas, containing different sorts of wine, and also water, and one or

two more empty drinking-glasses, so that the visitor could please

himself as to the strength and nature of his beverage. Inglesant

offered this refreshment to the Italian, who filled himself a glass and

drank, pledging Inglesant as he did so. The latter did not drink, but

offered wine and cakes to the stranger, who refused or rather took no

heed of these offers of politeness; he remained silent, keeping his eyes

fixed upon the face of the man who, but a few hours before, had saved

him from a violent death.

"I have had some feelings of this kind myself, in certain places," said

Inglesant, in answer to the Italian's speech, "and very frequently in

all places the sense of something vanishing, which in another moment I

should have seen; it has seemed to me that, could I once see this thing,

matters would be very different with me. Whether I ever shall or not I

do not know."

"Who can say?" replied the other. "We live and move amid a crowd of

flitting objects unknown or dimly seen. The beings and powers of the

unseen world throng around us. We call ourselves lords of our own

actions and fate, but we are in reality the slaves of every atom of

matter of which the world is made and we ourselves created. Among this

phantasm of struggling forms and influences (like a man forcing his way

through a crowd of masques who mock at him and retard his steps) we

fight our way towards the light. Many of us are born with the seeds

within us of that which makes such a fight hopeless from the first--the

seeds of disease, of ignorance, of adverse circumstance, of stupidity;

for even a dullard has had once or twice in his life glimpses of the

light. So we go on. I was at Chambery once when a man came before the

Duke in the palace garden to ask an alms. He was a worker in gold, a

good artist, not unworthy of Cellini himself. His sight had failed him,

and he could no longer work for bread to give to his children. He stood

before the Prince and those who stood with him, among whom were a

Cardinal and two or three nobles, with their pages and grooms, trying

with his dim eyes to make out one from the other, which was noble and

which was groom, and to see whether his suit was rejected or allowed.

Behind him, beyond the garden shade, the dazzling glitter stretched up

to the white Alps. We are all the creatures of a day, and the puny

afflictions of any man's life are not worth a serious thought; yet this

man seemed to me so true an image of his kind, helpless and half-blind,

yet struggling to work out some good for himself, that I felt a strange

emotion of pity. They gave him alms--some more, some less. I was a

fool, yet even now I think the man was no bad emblem of the life of each

of us. We do not understand this enough. Will the time ever come when

these things will be better known?"

As the Italian spoke the stranger took his eyes off Inglesant and fixed

them on the speaker with a startled expression, as though the tone of

his discourse was unexpected to him. He scarcely waited for the other

to finish before he broke in upon the conversation, speaking slowly and

with intense earnestness, as though above all things desirous of being

understood. He spoke a strange and uncouth Italian, full of rough

northern idioms, yet the earnestness and dignity of his manner ensured

him an audience, especially with two such men as those who stood before

him.

"Standing in a new world," he said, "and speaking as I speak, to men of

another language, and of thoughts and habits distinct from mine, I see

beneath the tinsel of earthly rank and splendour, and a luxury of life

and of beauty, the very meaning of which is unknown to me, something of

a common feeling, which assures me that the voice I utter will not be

entirely strange, coming as it does from the common Father. I see around

me a land given over to idolatry and sensual crime, as if the old Pagans

were returned again to earth; and here around me I see the symbols of

the Pagan worship and of the Pagan sin, and I hear no other talk than

that which would have befitted the Pagan revels and the Pagan darkness

which overhung the world to come. Standing on the brink of a violent

death, and able to utter few words that can be understood, I call, in

these short moments which are given me, and in these few words which I

have at command--I call upon all who will listen to me, that they leave

those things which are behind, with all the filthy recollections of ages

steeped in sin, and that they press forward towards the light,--the

light of God in Jesus Christ."

He stopped, probably for want of words to clothe his thoughts, and

Inglesant replied,--

"You may be assured from the events of last night, signore, that you are

in no danger of violent death in this house, and that every means will

be taken to protect you, until you have been found guilty of some crime.

You must, however, know that no country can allow its customs and its

religion to be outraged by strangers and aliens, and you cannot be

surprised if such conduct is resented both by the governors of the

country and by the ignorant populace, though these act from different

motives. As to what you have said respecting the ornaments and symbols

of this house, and of the converse in which you have found us engaged,

it would seem that to a wise man these things might serve as an

allegory, or at least as an image and representation of human life, and

be, therefore, not without their uses."

"I desire no representation nor image of a past world of iniquity," said

the stranger, "I would I could say of a dead life, but the whole world

lieth in wickedness until this day. This is why I travel through all

lands, crying to all men that they repent and escape the most righteous

judgment of God, if haply there be yet time. These are those latter

days in which our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

predicted that iniquity 'should be increased;' wherein, instead of

serving God, all serve their own humours and affections, being rocked to

sleep with the false and deceitful lullaby of effeminate pleasures and

delights of the flesh, and know not that an horrible mischief and

overthrow is awaiting them, that the pit of Hell yawns beneath them, and

that for them is reserved the inevitable rigour of the eternal fire. Is

it a time for chambering and wantonness, for soft raiment and dainty

living, for reading of old play-books such as the one I see on the

table, for building houses of cedar, painted with vermilion, and decked

with all the loose and fantastic devices which a disordered and

debauched intellect could itself conceive, or could borrow from Pagan

tombs and haunts of devils, full of uncleanness and dead sins?"

"You speak too harshly of these things," said Inglesant. "I see nothing

in them but the instinct of humanity, differing in its outward aspect in

different ages, but alike in its meaning and audible voice. This house

is in itself a representation of the world of fancy and reality

combined, of the material life of the animal mingled with those

half-seen and fitful glimpses of the unknown life upon the verge of

which we stand. This little fellow which I hold in my hand, speaks to

me, in an indistinct and yet forcible voice, of that common

sympathy--magical and hidden though it may be--by which the whole

creation is linked together, and in which, as is taught in many an

allegory and quaint device upon these walls, the Creator of us all has a

kindly feeling for the basest and most inanimate. My imagination follows

humanity through all the paths by which it has reached the present

moment, and the more memorials I can gather of its devious footsteps the

more enlarged my view becomes of what its trials, its struggles, and its

virtues were. All things that ever delighted it were in themselves the

good blessings of God--the painter's and the player's art--action,

apparel, agility, music. Without these life would be a desert; and as

it seems to me, these things softened manners so as to allow Religion to

be heard, who otherwise would not have been listened to in a savage

world, and among a brutal people destitute of civility. As I trace

these things backward for centuries, I live far beyond my natural term,

and my mind is delighted with the pleasures of nations who were dust

ages before I was born."

"I am not concerned to dispute the vain pleasures of the children of

this world," exclaimed the stranger with more warmth than he had

hitherto shown. "Do you suppose that I myself am without the lusts and

desires of life? Have I no eyes like other men, that I cannot take a

carnal pleasure in that which is cunningly formed by the enemy to please

the eye? Am not I warmed like other men? And is not soft clothing and

dainty fare pleasing to me as to them? But I call on all men to rise

above these things, which are transitory and visionary as a dream, and

which you yourself have spoken of as magical and hidden, of which only

fitful glimpses are obtained. You are pleasing yourself with fond and

idle imaginations, the product of delicate living and unrestrained

fancies; but in this the net of the devil is about your feet, and before

you are aware you will find yourself ensnared for ever. These things

are slowly but surely poisoning your spiritual life. I call upon you to

leave these delusions, and come out into the clear atmosphere of God's

truth; to tread the life of painful self-denial, leaving that of the

powerful and great of this world, and following a despised Saviour, who

knew none of these things, and spent His time not in kings' houses

gorgeously tricked out, but knew not where to lay His head. You speak

to me of pleasures of the mind, of music, of the painter's art; do you

think that last night, when beaten, crushed, and almost breathless, in

the midst of a blood-thirsty and howling crowd, I was dimly conscious of

help, and looking up I saw you in the glare of the lanterns, in your

courtier's dress of lace and silver, calm, beneficent, powerful for

good, you did not seem to my weak human nature, and my low needs and

instincts, beautiful as an angel of light? Truly you did; yet I tell

you, speaking by a nature and in a voice that is more unerring than

mine, that, to the divine vision, of us two at that moment you were the

one to be pitied,--you were the outcast, the tortured of demons, the

bound hand and foot, whose portion is in this life, who, if this

fleeting hour is left unheeded, will be tormented in the life to come."

The Italian turned away his head to conceal a smile, and even to

Inglesant, who was much better able to understand the man's meaning,

this result of his interference to save his life appeared somewhat

ludicrous. The Italian, however, probably thinking that Inglesant would

be glad to be relieved from his strange visitor, seemed desirous of

terminating the interview.

"His Grace expects me," he said to Inglesant, "at the Casa di Morte this

morning, and it is near the time for him to be there. I will therefore

take my leave."

"Ah! the Casa di Morte; yes, he will expect me there also," said

Inglesant, with some slight appearance of reluctance. "I will follow you

anon."

He moved from the indolent attitude he had kept till this moment before

the sideboard, and exchanged with the Italian those formal gestures of

leave-taking and politeness in which his nation were precise. When the

Italian was gone Inglesant summoned a servant, and directed him to

provide the stranger with an apartment, and to see that he wanted for

nothing. He then turned to the fanatic, and requested him as a favour

not to attempt to leave the palace until he had returned from the Duke.

The stranger hesitated, but finally consented.

"I owe you my life," he said,--"a life I value not at a straw's weight,

but for which my Master may perchance have some use even yet. I am

therefore in your debt, and I will give my word to remain quiet until

you return; but this promise only extends to nightfall; should you be

prevented by any chance from returning this day, I am free from my

parole."

Inglesant bowed.

"I would," continued the man, looking upon his companion with a softened

and even compassionate regard, "I would I could say more. I hear a

secret voice, which tells me that you are even now walking in slippery

places, and that your heart is not at ease."

He stopped, and seemed to seek earnestly for some phrases or arguments

which he might suppose likely to influence a courtier placed as he

imagined Inglesant to be; but before he resumed, the latter excused

himself on the ground of his attendance on the Duke, and, promising to

see him again on his return, left the room.

Inglesant found a carriage waiting to convey him to the "Hospital of

Death," as the monastic house adjoining the public Campo Santo was

called. The religious performance had already begun. Passing through

several sombre corridors and across a courtyard, he was ushered into the

Duke's presence, who sat, surrounded by his Court and by the principal

ecclesiastics of the city, in an open balcony or loggia. As Inglesant

entered by a small door in the back of the gallery a most extraordinary

sight met his eyes. Beyond the loggia was a small yard or

burial-ground, and beyond this the Campo Santo stretching out into the

far country. The whole of the yard immediately before the spectators

was thronged by a multitude of persons, of all ages and ranks,

apparently just risen from the tomb. Many were utterly without

clothing, others were attired as kings, bishops, and even popes. Their

attitudes and conduct corresponded with the characters in which they

appeared, the ecclesiastics collecting in calm and sedate attitudes,

while many of the rest, among whom kings and great men were not wanting,

appeared in an extremity of anguish and fear. Beyond the sheltering

walls which enclosed the court the dazzling heat brooded over the Campo

Santo to the distant hills, and the funereal trees stood, black and

sombre, against the glare of the yellow sky. At the moment of

Inglesant's entrance it appeared that something had taken place of the

nature of an excommunication, and the ecclesiastics in the gallery were,

according to custom, casting candles and flaming torches, which the

crowd of nude figures below were struggling and fighting to obtain. A

wild yet solemn strain of music, that came apparently from the open

graves, ascended through the fitful and half-stifled cries.

The first sight that struck upon Inglesant's sense, as he entered the

gallery from the dark corridors, was the lurid yellow light beyond. The

second was the wild confused crowd of leaping and struggling figures, in

a strange and ghastly disarray, naked or decked as in mockery with the

torn and disordered symbols of rank and wealth, rising as from the tomb,

distracted and terror-stricken as at the last great assize. The third

was the figure of the Duke turning to him, and the eyes of the priests

and clergy fixed upon his face. The words that the fanatic had uttered

had fallen upon a mind prepared to receive them, and upon a conscience

already awakened to acknowledge their truth. A mysterious conviction

laid hold upon his imagination that the moment had arrived in which he

was bound to declare himself, and by every tie which the past had

knotted round him to influence the Duke to pursue a line of conduct from

which his conscience and his better judgment revolted. On the one hand,

a half-aroused and uncertain conscience, on the other, circumstance,

habit, interest, inclination, perplexed his thoughts. The conflict was

uneven, the result hardly doubtful. The eyes of friends and enemies, of

agents of the Holy See, of courtiers and priests, were upon him; the

inquiring glance of the aged Duke seemed to penetrate into his soul. He

advanced to the ducal chair, the solemn music that streamed up as from

the grave, wavered and faltered as if consciousness and idea were nearly

lost. Something of the old confusion overpowered his senses, the figures

that surrounded him became shadowy and unreal, and the power of decision

seemed no longer his own.

Out of the haze of confused imagery and distracting thought which

surrounded him, he heard with unspeakable amazement the Duke's words,--

"I have waited your coming, Mr. Inglesant, impatiently, for I have a

commission to entrust you with, or rather my daughter, the Grand

Duchess, has written urgently to me from Florence to request me to send

you to her without a moment's delay. Family matters relating to some in

whom she takes the greatest interest, and who are well known, she says,

to yourself, are the causes which lead to this request."

Inglesant was too bewildered to speak. He had believed himself quite

unknown to the Grand Duchess, whom he had never seen, but as he had

passed before her in the ducal receptions at Florence. Who could these

be in whom she took so great an interest, and who were known to him?

But the Duke went on, speaking with a certain melancholy in his tone.

"I have wished, Mr. Inglesant," he said, "to mark in some way the regard

I have conceived for you, and the obligation under which I conceive

myself to remain. It may be that, in the course that events are taking,

it will no longer in a few weeks be in my power to bestow favours upon

any man. I desire, therefore, to do what I have purposed before you

leave the presence. I have caused the necessary deeds to be prepared

which bestow upon you a small fief in the Apennines, consisting of some

farms and of the Villa-Castle of San Georgio, where I myself in former

days have passed many happy hours." He stopped, and in a moment or two

resumed abruptly, without finishing the sentence.

"The revenue of the fief is not large, but its possession gives the

title of Cavaliere to its owner, and its situation and the character of

its neighbourhood make it a desirable and delightful abode. The letters

of naturalization which are necessary to enable you to hold this

property have been made out, and nothing is wanting but your acceptance

of the gift. I offer it you with no conditions and no request save that,

as far as in you lies, you will be a faithful servant to the Grand

Duchess when I am gone."

The Duke paused for a moment, and then, turning slightly to his

chaplain, he said, "The reverend fathers will tell you that this affair

has not been decided upon without their knowledge, and that it has their

full approval."

These last words convinced Inglesant of the fact that had occurred.

Although the Duke had said nothing on the subject, he felt certain that

the deed of cession had been signed, and that for some reason or other

he himself was considered by the clerical party to have been

instrumental in obtaining this result, and to be deserving of reward

accordingly. He had never, as we have seen, spoken to the Duke

concerning the succession, and his position at the moment was certainly

a peculiar one. Nothing was expected of him but that he should express

his grateful thanks for the Duke's favour, and leave the presence.

Surely, at that moment, no law of heaven or earth could require him to

break through the observances of civility and usage, to enter upon a

subject upon which he was not addressed, and to refuse acts of favour

offered to him with every grace and delicacy of manner. Whatever might

be the case with other men, he certainly was not one to whom such a

course was possible. He expressed his gratitude with all the grace of

manner of which he was capable, he assured the Duke of his readiness to

start immediately for Florence, and he left the ducal presence before

many minutes had passed away.

He found before long that all his conjectures were correct. The Duke had

signed the deed of cession, and the report which was sent to Rome by the

Papal agents stated that, in the opinion of the most competent judges,

this result was due to Inglesant's influence. Before his arrival the

Duke had leaned strongly towards the secular and anti-Papal interest,

and had even encouraged heretical and Protestant emissaries. "Avoiding

with great skill all positive allusion to the subject," the report went

on to state, "Il Cavaliere Inglesant had thrown all his influence into

the Catholic and religious scale, and had by the loftiness of his

sentiment and the attraction of his manner entirely won over the

vacillating nature of the Duke." Too much satisfaction, the Cardinal of

Umbria and the heads of the Church in that city assured the Papal Court,

could not be expressed at the manner in which the agent of the Society

had fulfilled his mission.

Inglesant's departure from Umbria was so sudden that he had no

opportunity of again seeing the stranger whom he had left in the palace,

and he was afterwards at some trouble in obtaining any information

respecting him. As far as could be ascertained he waited in the palace,

according to his promise, until the evening, when, finding that

Inglesant did not return, he walked quietly forth, no man hindering him.

What his subsequent fate was is involved in some obscurity; but it would

appear that, having publicly insulted the Host in some cathedral in the

south of Italy, he was arrested by the Holy Office, and thrown into

prison, from which there is reason to believe he never emerged.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

Not very long after Inglesant had left for Umbria, his friend, Don

Agostino di Chigi, suddenly came to Rome. The Pope's health was rapidly

failing, and the excitement concerning his successor was becoming

intense. The choice was generally considered to lie between the

Cardinals Barbarini and di Chigi, though Cardinal Sacchetti was spoken

of by some, probably however merely as a substitute, should both the

other parties fail in electing their candidate.

It was the policy of the Chigi family to conduct their matters with

great caution; none of the family, with the exception of the Cardinal,

were openly in Rome; and when Don Agostino arrived he resided in one of

the deserted villas hidden among vineyards and the gardens of solitary

convents, which covered the Palatine and the Aventine in the southern

portion of Rome within the walls. He remained within or with the

Cardinal during the day, but at night he ventured out into the streets,

and visited the adherents of his family and those who were working to

secure his uncle's elevation.

One night the fathers of the Oratory gave a concert at which one of the

best voices in Rome was to sing. It happened that Don Agostino passed

the gate as the company were assembling, and as he did so the street was

blocked by the train of some great personage who arrived in a sedan of

blue velvet embroidered with silver, accompanied by several gentlemen

and servants. Among the former, Agostino recognized the Cavaliere di

Guardino, the brother of Lauretta, of whose acquaintance with Inglesant

at Florence it may be remembered he was aware, and with him another man

whose appearance seemed to recall some distant reminiscence to his mind.

He could, however, see him but imperfectly in the flickering torchlight.

Apart from his desire to remain unrecognized in Rome, Agostino had no

desire to associate with the Cavaliere, of whose character he had a very

bad opinion. To his annoyance, therefore, as the sedan entered the

courtyard, the two persons he had noticed, instead of following their

patron, turned round, and in leaving the doorway met Agostino face to

face. The Cavaliere recognized him immediately, and appeared to grasp

eagerly the opportunity to accost him. He began by complimenting him on

the near prospect of his uncle's elevation to the Papacy, professing to

consider the chances of his election very good indeed, and added that he

presumed business connected with these matters had brought him to Rome.

To this Agostino replied that, so far as he knew, his uncle had no

expectation of such an honour being at all likely to be offered him, and

that private affairs of his own, of a very delicate nature,--of a kind

indeed which a gentleman of the Cavaliere's known gallantry could well

understand,--had brought him to Rome, as indeed he might see from the

secrecy he maintained, and by his not being present at any of the

entertainments which were going forward. He then inquired in his turn

why the Cavaliere had not entered the college. The other made some

evasive answer, but it appeared to Agostino that both the Cavaliere and

his companion were not on the most familiar terms with the nobleman they

had accompanied, although it might suit their purpose to appear in his

train. Guardino indeed changed the subject hastily, and spoke of

Inglesant, praising him highly. He inquired whether the Cardinal di

Chigi was acquainted with him, and whether it was likely that either as

an attendant upon him or upon Cardinal Rinuccini, Inglesant would be

admitted into the conclave.

Don Agostino replied vaguely that Inglesant was then at Umbria, and that

he could offer no opinion as to the probability of the latter part of

his inquiry.

He thought that he could see from the expression on the other's face

that the Cavaliere thought that he was deceiving him, and that he jumped

at once to the conclusion that, as the attendant of one or other of the

Cardinals, Inglesant would be present at the conclave.

Guardino went on to speak of Inglesant's character, regretting the craze

of mind, as he called it, which his ill health had produced, and which

rendered him, as he said, unfit for business or for taking his part in

the affairs of life. He went on to speak with unconcealed contempt of

Inglesant's religious ideas and scruples, and of his association with

Molinos; intimating, however, his opinion that it would not be

impossible to overcome these scruples, could a suitable temptation be

found. These fancies once removed, he continued, Inglesant's value as a

trusted and secret agent would be greatly increased.

He seemed to be talking abstractedly, and as a perfectly disinterested

person, who was discussing an interesting topic of morals or mental

peculiarity.

Agostino could not understand his drift. He answered him that the

Jesuits did not need unscrupulous bravoes. If they did, they could be

found in every street corner by the score. He added that he imagined

that the services which Inglesant had already performed, and might

perform again, were of a special and delicate character, for which his

temperament and habit of mind, which were chiefly the result of the

Society's training, especially fitted him.

They had by this time reached the Corso, and Agostino took the

opportunity of parting with his companions, excusing himself on the

ground of his pretended assignation.

He was no sooner gone than the Cavaliere, according to the narrative

which was afterwards related by Malvolti, began to explain more clearly

than he had hitherto done what his expectations and intentions were. He

was forced to confide in Malvolti more than he otherwise would have

done, to prevent his ridding himself of Inglesant's presence by violent

means.

When the Italian first saw Inglesant, whom he had never met in England,

in the theatre in Florence, he was startled and terrified by his close

resemblance to his murdered brother; and his first thought was that his

victim had returned to earth, and, invisible to others, was permitted to

avenge himself upon his murderer by haunting and terrifying his paths.

When he discovered, however, that the Cavaliere not only saw the

appearance which had so alarmed him, but could tell him who Inglesant

was, and to a certain extent what the motives were which had brought him

to Italy, his superstitious fears gave place to more material

apprehensions and expedients. He at once resolved to assassinate

Inglesant on leaving the theatre, in the first street through which he

might pass--a purpose which he might easily have accomplished during

Inglesant's careless and unguarded wanderings round the house of

Lauretta's father that night. From this intention he was with

difficulty diverted by the reasoning of the Cavaliere, who represented

to him the rashness of such an action, protected as Inglesant was by the

most powerful of Societies, which would not fail to punish any act which

deprived it of a useful agent; the unnecessary character of the attempt,

Inglesant being at present in complete ignorance that his enemy was near

him; and above all, the folly of destroying a person who might otherwise

be made the medium of great personal profit and advantage. He explained

to Malvolti Inglesant's connection with the Chigi family, and the

position of influence he would occupy should the Cardinal be elected to

the Popedom; finally, he went so far as to hint at the possibility of an

alliance between Malvolti and his sister, should Inglesant remain

uninjured.

Malvolti had only arrived in Florence on the previous day, and the

Cavaliere met him accidentally in the theatre; but Guardino's plans with

relation to Inglesant and his sister were already so far matured, that

he had arranged for the abrupt departure of his father and Lauretta from

Florence. His object was to keep in his own hands a powerful magnet of

attraction, which would bind, as he supposed, Inglesant to his

interests; but he was by no means desirous that he should marry his

sister immediately, if at all. The election for the Papacy was of very

uncertain issue, and if the di Chigi faction failed, Inglesant's

alliance would be of little value. He had two strings to his bow.

Malvolti, between whom and the Cavaliere association in vice and even

crime had riveted many a bond of interest and dependence, was closely

connected with the Barbarini faction, as an unscrupulous and useful

tool. Should the Cardinal Barbarini be elected Pope, or should Cardinal

Sacchetti, who was in his interest, be chosen, his own connection with

Malvolti might be of great value to the Cavaliere, and the greater

service the latter could render to the Barbarini faction in the

approaching crisis the better. The weak point of his position on this

side was the character of Malvolti, and the subordinate position he

occupied among the adherents of the Barbarini. On the other hand, if

Cardinal Chigi were the future Pontiff, the prospects of any one

connected with Inglesant would be most brilliant, as the latter, from

his connection with the Jesuits, and as the favourite of the Pope's

nephew, would at once become one of the most powerful men in Italy. The

weak point on this side was that his hold on Inglesant was very slight,

and that, even supposing it to be strengthened by marriage with

Lauretta, Inglesant's character and temper were such as would probably

make him useless and impracticable in the attempt to secure the

glittering and often illicit advantages which would be within his reach.

Between this perplexing choice the only wise course appeared to be to

temporize with both parties, and to attempt, in the meantime, to secure

an influence with either. The fortunes both of the Cavaliere and of

Malvolti were at this moment pretty nearly desperate, and their means of

influencing any one very small; indeed, having wasted what had once been

considerable wealth and talent, there remained nothing to the Cavaliere

but his sister, and of that last possession he was prepared to make

unscrupulous use. It would be of small advantage to him to give his

sister's hand to Inglesant unless he could first, by her means, corrupt

and debase his conscience and that lofty standard of conduct which he

appeared, to the Cavaliere at least, unswervingly to follow; and the

Italian devil at his side suggested a means to this end as wild in

conception as the result proved it impotent and badly planned.

This Italian devil was not Malvolti, though that person was one of his

most successful followers and imitators. When the inspired writer has

described the princes and angels which rule the different nations of the

earth, he does not go on to enumerate the distinct powers of evil which,

in different countries, pursue their divers malific courses; yet it

would seem that those existences are no less real than the others. That

the character of the inhabitants of any country has much to do in

forming a distinct devil for that country no man can doubt; or that in

consequence the temptations which beset mankind in certain countries are

of a distinct and peculiar kind. This fact is sometimes of considerable

advantage to the object of the tempter's art, for if, acting upon his

knowledge of the character of any people, this merely local devil lays

snares in the path of a stranger, it is not impossible that the bait may

fail. This was very much what happened to John Inglesant. Of the sins

which were really his temptations the Cavaliere knew nothing; but he

could conceive of certain acts which he concluded Inglesant would

consider to be sins. These acts were of a gross and sensual nature; for

the Italian devil, born of the fleshly lusts of the people, was unable

to form temptations for the higher natures, and of course his pupils

were equally impotent. The result was singular. Acting upon the design

of ruining Inglesant's moral sense, of debasing the ideal of conduct at

which he aimed, and of shattering and defiling what the Cavaliere

considered the fantastic purity of his conscience, he formed a scheme

which had the effect of removing Inglesant from a place where he was

under the strongest temptation and in the greatest danger of violating

his conscience, and of placing him in circumstances of trial which,

though dangerous, he was still, from the peculiarity of his character,

much better able to resist.

A marriage connection with Inglesant would at this juncture be of little

avail; but a wild and illicit passion, which would involve him in a

course of licentious and confused action, in which the barriers of

morality and the scruples of conscience would be alike annihilated, and

the whole previous nature of the victim of lawless desire altered,

would, if any agent could produce so great a change, transform Inglesant

into the worldly-minded and unscrupulous accomplice that the Cavaliere

wished him to become. How great the fall would be he could of course in

no way estimate; but he had sufficient insight to perceive that the

shock of it would probably be sufficient (acting upon a consciousness so

refined and delicate as that of Inglesant) to render recovery, if ever

attained, very difficult and remote.

Upon this wild scheme he acted. He had removed his sister when he had

thought that Inglesant had been sufficiently ensnared to make his after

course certain and precipitate. Inglesant's character, which was so very

imperfectly known to the Cavaliere, and circumstances, such as his

confinement in the pest-house, had delayed the consummation of the plot.

But the Cavaliere conceived that the time had now arrived for its

completion. He brought his sister back to Florence, and placed her with

the Grand Duchess, in some subordinate situation which his family and

his sister's character enabled him to obtain. Having had some previous

knowledge of her, the Duchess soon became attached to Lauretta, and

obtained her confidence. From her she learnt Inglesant's story and

character, and wished to see him at the Court. While the two ladies

were planning schemes for future pleasure, the Cavaliere suddenly

appeared at Florence, and informed his sister that he had concluded,

with the approbation of his father, a marriage contract between herself

and Malvolti.

Terrified by this threatened connection with a man whose person she

loathed and whose character she detested, Lauretta flew to the Duchess,

and entreated her to send at once for Inglesant, who, they were both

aware, was at that moment with the Duke of Umbria, the Grand Duchess's

aged father. With the result we are acquainted.

*CHAPTER IX.*

On his arrival at Florence Inglesant found himself at once feted and

caressed, though the nature of his mission to Umbria, antagonistic as

his supposed influence had been to the interests of the ducal party,

might naturally have procured for him a far different reception.

Trained as he had been in courts, the caprices of princes' favour did

not seem strange to him, and were taken at their true worth.

Unsuspicious, therefore, of any special danger, relieved from the

intolerable strain which the position at Umbria had exerted upon his

conscience, delighted with the society of his recovered mistress, and

flattered by the attentions of the Duchess and of the whole Court, he

gave himself up freely to the enjoyments of the hour. Plentifully

supplied with money from his own resources, from the kindness of the

aged Duke, and from the subsidies of his patrons at Rome, he engaged

freely in the parties formed for the performance of masques and

interludes, in which the Court delighted, and became conspicuous for the

excellence of his acting and invention.

But it was not the purpose of the demon that followed on his footsteps

to give him longer repose than might lull his senses, and weaken his

powers of resisting evil. Day after day devoted to pleasure paved the

way for the final catastrophe, until the night arrived when the plot was

fully ripe. Supper was over, and the Court sat down again to play.

Inglesant remembered afterwards, though at the time it did not attract

his attention, that several gentlemen, all of them friends of Guardino,

paid him particular attention, and insisted on drinking with him,

calling for different kinds of wine, and recommending them to his

notice. The saloons were crowded and very hot, and when Inglesant left

the supper room and came into the brilliant marble hall lighted with

great lustres, where the Court was at play, he was more excited than was

his wont. The Court was gathered at different tables,--a very large one

in the centre of the hall, and other smaller ones around. The brilliant

dresses, the jewels, the beautiful women, the reflections in the

numberless mirrors, made a dazzling and mystifying impression on his

brain. The play was very high, and at the table to which Inglesant sat

down especially so. He lost heavily, and this did not tend to calm his

nerves; he doubled his stake, with all the money he had with him, and

lost again. As he rose from the table a page touched his elbow and

handed him a small note carefully sealed and delicately perfumed. It

was addressed to him by his new title, "Il Cavaliere di San Georgio,"

and scarcely knowing what he did, he opened it. It was from Lauretta.

"Cavaliere,

Will you come to me in the Duchess's lodgings before the Court rises

from play? I need your help. L."

Inglesant turned to look for the boy, who, he expected, was waiting for

him. He was not far off, and Inglesant followed him without a word.

They passed through many corridors and rooms richly furnished until they

reached the lodgings of the Grand Duchess. The night was sultry, and

through the open windows above the gardens the strange odours that are

born of darkness and of night entered the palace. In the dark arcades

the nightingales were singing, preferring gloom and mystery to the light

in which all other creatures rejoice; and in the stillness the murmur of

brooks and the splash of the fountains oppressed the ear with an

unearthly and unaccustomed sound. Around the casements festoons of

harmless and familiar flowers and leaves assumed wild and repulsive

shapes, as if transformed into malicious demons who made men their

sport. Inglesant thought involuntarily of those plants that are at

enmity with man, which are used for enchantments and for poisoning, and

whose very scent is death; such saturnine and fatal flowers seemed more

at home in the lovely Italian night than the innocent plants which

witness to lovers' vows, and upon which divines moralize and preach.

The rooms of the Duchess were full of perfume of the kind that enervates

and lulls the sense. It seemed to Inglesant as though he were treading

the intricate pathways of a dream, careless as to what befell him, yet

with a passionate longing which urged him forward, heedless of a

restraining voice which he was even then half-conscious that at other

times he should have heard. The part of the palace where he was seemed

deserted, and the page led him through more than one anteroom without

meeting any one, until they reached a curtained door, which the boy

opened, and directed Inglesant to enter. He did so, and found himself at

once in the presence of Lauretta, who was lying upon a low seat at the

open window. The room was lighted by several small lamps in different

positions, giving an ample, yet at the same time a soft and dreamy

light. Lauretta was carelessly dressed, yet, in the soft light, and in

her negligent attitude, there was something that made her beauty the

more attractive, and her manner to Inglesant was unrestrained and

clinging. Her growing affection, the urgency of her need, and the

circumstances of the hour, caused her innocently to speak and act in a

way the most fitted to promote her brother's atrocious purposes.

"Cavaliere," she said, "I have sent for you because I have no friend but

you. I have sent for you to help me against my own family--my own

brother--my father even, whom I love--whom I loved--more than all the

world beside. They are determined to marry me to a man whom I hate; to

the man whom you hate; to that Signor Malvolti, who, though they deny

it, is, I am fully persuaded, the murderer of your brother; to that

wretch whom Italy even refuses to receive; who, but for his useful

crimes, would be condemned to a death of torment. My brother tells me

that he will be here to-morrow to see me and demand my consent. He

brings an authorization from my father, and insists upon the contract

being made without delay. I would die rather than submit to such a

fate, but it is not necessary to die. I must, however, leave the Court

and escape from my brother's wardship. If I can reach some place of

safety, where I can gain time to see my father, I am certain that I

shall be able to move him. It cannot be that he will condemn me to such

a fate,--me! the pride and pleasure of his life. He must be deceived

and misled by some of these wicked intrigues and manoeuvres which ruin

the happiness and peace of men."

"I am wholly yours," said Inglesant; "whatever you desire shall be done.

Have you spoken to the Duchess?"

"The Duchess advises me to fly," replied Lauretta; "she says the Duke

will not interfere between a father and his child; especially now, when

all Italy hangs in suspense concerning the Papacy, and men are careful

whom they offend. She advises me to go to the convent of St. Catherine

of Pistoia, where I lodged not many years ago while my father was in

France. The Abbess is a cousin of my father's; she is a kind woman, and

I can persuade her to keep me for a short time at least. I wish to go

to-night. Will you take me?"

She had never looked so lovely in Inglesant's eyes as she did while she

spoke. The pleading look of her dark eyes, and the excitement of her

manner, usually so reserved and calm, added charms to her person of

which he had previously been unconscious. In that country of formal

restraint and suspicion, of hurried, furtive interviews, a zest was

given to accidental freedom of intercourse such as the more unrestricted

life of France and England knew little of. In spite of a suspicion of

treachery, which in that country was never absent, Inglesant felt his

frame aglow with devotion to this lovely creature, who thus threw

herself unreservedly into his keeping. He threw himself upon a cushion

at Lauretta's feet, and encircled her with his arms. She spoke of youth

and life and pleasure,--of youth that was passing away so rapidly; of

life that had been to her dreary and dull enough; of her

jealously-guarded Italian home, of her convent cell, of her weak and

helpless father, of her tyrannous brother; of pleasure, of which she had

dreamed as a girl, but which seemed to fly before her as she advanced;

finally of himself, whom, from the first day she had seen him in her

father's room, she had loved, whom absence had only endeared, her first

and only friend.

He spoke of love, of protection, of help and succour for the rest of

life; of happy days to come at San Georgio, when all these troubles

should have passed away, when at last he should escape from intrigue and

State policy, and they could make their home as joyous and free from

care as that house of a Cardinal, on a little hilly bank near Veletri,

whence you can see the sea, and which is called Monte Joiosa. He spoke

of an Idyllic dream which could not long have satisfied either of

them,--himself especially, but which pleased them at that moment, with

an innocent and delicate fancy which calmed and purified their excited

thoughts. Then, as the hour passed by, he rose from her embrace,

promising to provide horses, and when the palace was quiet, to meet her

at the end of one of the long avenues that crossed the park; for the

Court was not at the Pitti Palace, but at the Poggia Imperiale without

the walls of Florence.

The soft night air played upon Inglesant's forehead as he led his horses

to the end of a long avenue, and waited for the lady to join him. He

did not wait long; she came gliding past the fountains, by the long rows

of orange and cypress hedges, and across the streaks of moonlight among

the trees that closed the gardens and the park. As he lifted her into

the saddle, her glance was partly scared and partly trustful; he felt as

though he were moving in a delicious dream.

As they rode out of the park she told him that she had received a

message from the Duchess, recommending her to stop at a pavilion on the

borders of the great chase, beyond the Achaiano Palace, half-way to

Pistoia, which the Duchess used sometimes when the Duke was diverting

himself in the chase. She had sent a messenger to prepare the people

who kept the pavilion for their coming. There was something strange in

this message, Lauretta said, which was brought, not by one of the

Duchess's usual pages, but by a boy who had not been long at the palace,

and who scarcely waited to give his message, so great was his hurry. It

seemed of little moment to Inglesant who brought the message, or whether

any treachery were at work or no; he was only conscious of a delicious

sense of coming pleasure which made him reckless of all beside. Along

the first few miles of their road they passed nothing but the long lines

of elms, planted between ridges of corn, upon which the vines were

climbing in already luxuriant wreaths. Presently, however, after they

had passed the Achaiano Palace, the country changed, and they came

within the confines of the Duke's chase, thirty miles in compass,

planted with cork trees and ilex, with underwood of myrtle thickets.

Through these shades, lovely indeed by day, but weird and unhealthy by

night, they rode silently, startled every now and then by strange sounds

that issued from the forest depths. The ground was fenny and uneven,

and moist exhalations rose out of the soil and floated across the path.

"The Duchess never sleeps at the pavilion," said Lauretta at last

suddenly; "it is dangerous to sleep in the forest."

"It will be as well to stop an hour or so, however," said Inglesant,

"else we shall be at Pistoia before they open the gates."

Presently, in the brilliant moonlight, they saw the pointed roofs of the

pavilion on a little rising-ground, with the forest trees coming up

closely to the walls. The moon was now high in the heavens, and it was

as light as day. The upper windows of the pavilion were open, and

within it lights were burning. The door was opened to them before they

knocked, and the keeper of the pavilion came to meet them, accompanied

by a boy who took the horses. The man showed no surprise at their

coming, only saying some servants of the Duchess had been there a few

hours previously, and had prepared a repast in the dining-room,

forewarning him that he should expect visitors. He accompanied them

upstairs, for they saw nothing of the other inmates of the place. The

rooms were arranged with a sort of rustic luxury, and were evidently

intended for repose during the heat of the day. A plentiful and

delicate collation was spread on one of the tables, with abundance of

fruit and wine. The place looked like the magic creation of an

enchanter's wand, raised for purposes of evil from the unhealthy marsh,

and ready to sink again, when that malific purpose was fulfilled, into

the weird depths from which it rose.

The old man showed them the other rooms of the apartment and left them.

At the door he turned back and said,--

"I should not advise the lady to sleep here; the miasma from the forest

is very fatal to such as are not used to it."

Inglesant looked at him, but could not perceive that he intended his

word to have any deeper meaning than the obvious one. He said,--

"We shall stay only an hour or two; let the horses be ready to go on."

The man left them, and they sat down at the table.

The repast was served in Faience ware of a strange delicate blue, and

consisted of most of the delicacies of the season with a profusion of

wine.

"This was not ordered by the Duchess," said Lauretta.

"We are safe from poison, Mignone," said Inglesant; "to destroy you as

well as me would defeat all purposes. Not that I believe the Cavaliere

would wish me dead. He rather hopes that I may be of use to him. Let

us drink to him."

And he filled a glass for Lauretta of the Monte-pulciano, the "King of

Wines," and drank himself.

Lauretta was evidently frightened, yet she followed his example and

drank. The night air was heavy and close, not a breath of wind stirred

the lights, though every window was thrown open, and the shutters that

closed the loggia outside were drawn back. In the brilliant moonlight

every leaf of the great forest shone with an unnatural distinctness,

which, set in a perfect silence, became terrible to see. The sylvan

arcades seemed like a painted scene-piece upon a Satanic stage,

supernaturally alight to further deeds of sin, and silent and unpeopled,

lest the wrong should be interrupted or checked. To Inglesant's excited

fancy evil beings thronged its shadowy paths, present to the spiritual

sense, though concealed of set purpose from the feeble human sight. The

two found their eyes drawn with a kind of fascination to this strange

sight, and Inglesant arose and closed the shutters before the nearest

casement.

They felt more at ease when the mysterious forest was shut out. But

Lauretta was silent and troubled, and Inglesant's efforts to cheer and

enliven her were not successful. The delicious wines to which he

resorted to remove his own uneasiness and to cure his companion's

melancholy, failed of their effect. At last she refused to drink, and

rising up suddenly, she exclaimed,--

"Oh, it is terribly hot. I cannot bear it. I wish we had not come!"

She wandered from the room in which they sat, through the curtained

doorway into the next, which was furnished with couches, and sank down

on one of them. Inglesant followed her, and, as if the heat felt

stifling also to him, went out upon the open verandah, and looked upon

the forest once more.

Excited by the revels of the past few days, heated with wine, with the

night ride, and with the overpowering closeness of the air, the

temptation came upon him with a force which he had neither power nor

desire to resist. He listened, but no sound met his ear, no breath

stirred, no living being moved, no disturbance need be dreaded from any

side. From the people in the pavilion he looked for no interference,

from the object of his desires he had probably no need to anticipate any

disinclination but what might easily be soothed away. The universal

custom of the country in which he was now almost naturalized sanctioned

such acts. The hour was admirably chosen, the place perfectly adapted

in every way, as if the result not of happy chance but deeply concerted

plan.

Why then did he hesitate? Did he still partly hope that some miracle

would happen? or some equally miraculous change take place in his mind

and will to save him from himself? It is true the place and the

temptation were not of his own seeking, so far he was free from blame;

but he had not come wholly unharmed out of the fiery trial at Umbria,

and, by a careless walk since he came to Florence, he had prepared the

way for the tempter, and this night even he had disregarded the warning

voice and drifted recklessly onward. We walk of our own free will,

heated and inflamed by wine, down the flowery path which we have

ourselves decorated with garlands, and we murmur because we reach the

fatal goal.

He gazed another moment over the illumined forest, which seemed

transfigured in the moonlight and the stillness into an unreal landscape

of the dead. The poisonous mists crept over the tops of the cork trees,

and flitted across the long vistas in spectral forms, cowled and

shrouded for the grave. Beneath the gloom indistinct figures seemed to

glide,--the personation of the miasma that made the place so fatal to

human life.

He turned to enter the room, but even as he turned a sudden change came

over the scene. The deadly glamour of the moonlight faded suddenly, a

calm pale solemn light settled over the forest, the distant line of

hills shone out distinct and clear, the evil mystery of the place

departed whence it came, a fresh and cooling breeze sprang up and passed

through the rustling wood, breathing pureness and life. The dayspring

was at hand in the eastern sky.

The rustling breeze was like a whisper from heaven that reminded him of

his better self. It would seem that hell overdid it; the very stillness

for miles around, the almost concerted plan, sent flashing through his

brain the remembrance of another house, equally guarded for a like

purpose--a house at Newnham near Oxford, into which years ago he had

himself forced his way to render help in such a case as this. Here was

the same thing happening over again with the actors changed; was it

possible that such a change had been wrought in him? The long past life

of those days rushed into his mind; the sacramental Sundays, the

repeated vows, the light of heaven in the soul, the kneeling forms in

Little Gidding Chapel, the face of Mary Collet, the loveliness that

blessed the earth where she walked, her deathbed, and her dying words.

What so rarely happens happened here. The revulsion of feeling, the

rush of recollection and association, was too powerful for the flesh.

The reason and the affections rallied together, and, trained into

efficiency by past discipline, regained the mastery by a supreme effort,

even at the very moment of unsatisfied desire. But the struggle was

fierce; he was torn like the demon-haunted child in the gospel story;

but, as in that story, the demon was expelled.

He came back into the room. Lauretta lay upon a couch with rich drapery

and cushions, her face buried in her hands. The cloak and hood in which

she had ridden were removed, and the graceful outline of her figure was

rendered more alluring by the attitude in which she lay. As he entered

she raised her head from her hands, and looked at him with a strange,

apprehensive, expectant gaze. He remained for a moment silent, his face

very pale; then he said, slowly and uncertainly, like a man speaking in

a dream,--

"The fatal miasma is rising from the plain. Lauretta, this place is

safe for neither of us, we had better go on."

* * * * *

The morning was cloudy and chill. They had not ridden far before a

splash of thunder-rain fell, and the trees dripped dismally. A sense of

discomfort and disappointment took possession of Inglesant, and so far

from deriving consolation from his conquest, he seemed torn by the demon

of discontent. He was half-conscious that his companion was regretting

the evil and luxurious house they had left. The ride to Pistoia was

silent and depressed. As they passed through the streets, early as it

was, they were watched by two figures half concealed by projecting

walls. One of them was the Cavaliere, the other was tall and dark.

Whether it was the devil in the person of Malvolti, or Malvolti himself,

is not of much consequence, nor would the difference be great. In

either case the issue was the same,--the devil's plot had failed. It is

not so easy to ruin him with whom the pressure of Christ's hand yet

lingers in the palm.

When Inglesant presented himself again at the Convent grate, after a few

hours' sleepless unrest at an inn, he was refused admittance; nor did

repeated applications during that day and the next meet with a more

favourable response. He became the prey of mortification and disgust

that, having had the prize in his hand, he had of his own free will

passed it into the keeping of another. On the evening of the third day,

however, he received a note from Lauretta informing him that her brother

had consented to postpone her betrothal to Malvolti indefinitely, and

that she, on her part, had promised not to see Inglesant again until the

Papal election had been decided. She entreated her lover not to attempt

to disturb this compromise, as by so doing he would only injure her whom

he had promised to help. She promised to be true, and did not doubt but

that, having obtained the delay she sought, she should be able to gain

her father's consent to their marriage, especially if the Papal election

took the course they hoped it would.

There was something cold and formal about the wording of this note,

which, however, might be explained by its contents having been dictated

to the writer; but, unsatisfactory as it was, Inglesant was compelled to

acquiesce in the request it contained. He was angry and disappointed,

and it must be admitted that he had some cause. His mistress and his

pleasant life at the ducal Court had vanished in the morning mist and

rain, like the delusive pleasures of a dream, and the regret which a

temptation yielded to would leave behind is not always counterbalanced

by a corresponding elation when the trial is overcome. He departed for

Rome, having sent orders to Florence for his servants and baggage to

meet him on the road, and the same night on which he entered the city

Pope Innocent the Tenth expired.

*CHAPTER X.*

The portion of the Vatican Palace set apart for the election of the

Pope, and called the Conclave, consisted of five halls or large marble

rooms, two chapels, and a gallery seventy feet long. Each of these

halls was divided temporarily into small apartments, running up both

sides, with a broad alley between them, formed of wood, and covered with

green or violet cloth. One of these apartments was assigned to each

Cardinal with his attendants. The entrance to the whole of these rooms,

halls, chapels, and gallery was by a single door fastened by four locks

and as many keys. As soon as the Cardinals had entered the Conclave

this door was made fast, and the four keys were given to the four

different orders of the city,--one to the Bishop of Rome, one to the

Cardinals themselves, a third to the Roman Nobility, and the fourth to

the Officer, a great noble, who kept the door. A wicket in the door, of

which this Officer also kept the key, permitted the daily meals and

other necessaries to be handed to the Cardinals' servants, every dish

being carefully examined before it was allowed to pass in. Within the

Conclave light and air were only obtained by sky-lights or windows

opening upon interior courts, precluding communication from without.

The gloom of the interior was so great, that candles were burnt

throughout the Conclave at noon-day.