CHAPTER VIII

I

Long before dawn on the first morning of the New Year the approaches to

the Abbey were already blocked. Victoria Street, Great George Street,

Whitehall--even Millbank Street itself--were full and motionless. Broad

Sanctuary, divided by the low-walled motor-track, was itself cut into

great blocks and wedges of people by the ways which the police kept open

for the passage of important personages, and Palace Yard was kept

rigidly clear except for one island, occupied by a stand which was

itself full from top to bottom and end to end. All roofs and parapets

which commanded a view of the Abbey were also one mass of heads.

Overhead, like solemn moons, burned the white lights of the electric

globes.

It was not known at exactly what hour the tumult had steadied itself to

definite purpose, except to a few weary controllers of the temporary

turnstiles which had been erected the evening before. It had been

announced a week previously that, in consideration of the enormous

demand for seats, all persons who presented their worship-ticket at an

authorised office, and followed the directions issued by the police,

would be accounted as having fulfilled the duties of citizenship in that

respect, and it was generally made known that it was the Government’s

intention to toll the great bell of the Abbey at the beginning of the

ceremony and at the incensing of the image, during which period silence

must be as far as possible preserved by all those within hearing.

London had gone completely mad on the announcement of the Catholic plot

on the afternoon before. The secret had leaked out about fourteen

o’clock, an hour after the betrayal of the scheme to Mr. Snowford; and

practically all commercial activities had ceased on the instant. By

fifteen-and-a-half all stores were closed, the Stock Exchange, the City

offices, the West End establishments--all had as by irresistible impulse

suspended business, and from within two hours after noon until nearly

midnight, when the police had been adequately reinforced and enabled to

deal with the situation, whole mobs and armies of men, screaming

squadrons of women, troops of frantic youths, had paraded the streets,

howling, denouncing, and murdering. It was not known how many deaths had

taken place, but there was scarcely a street without the signs of

outrage. Westminster Cathedral had been sacked, every altar overthrown,

indescribable indignities performed there. An unknown priest had

scarcely been able to consume the Blessed Sacrament before he was seized

and throttled; the Archbishop with eleven priests and two bishops had

been hanged at the north end of the church, thirty-five convents had

been destroyed, St. George’s Cathedral burned to the ground; and it was

reported even, by the evening papers, that it was believed that, for the

first time since the introduction of Christianity into England, there

was not one Tabernacle left within twenty miles of the Abbey. “London,”

explained the _New People_, in huge headlines, “was cleansed at last of

dingy and fantastic nonsense.”

It was known at about fifteen-and-a-half o’clock that at least seventy

volors had left for Rome, and half-an-hour later that Berlin had

reinforced them by sixty more. At midnight, fortunately at a time when

the police had succeeded in shepherding the crowds into some kind of

order, the news was flashed on to cloud and placard alike that the grim

work was done, and that Rome had ceased to exist. The early morning

papers added a few details, pointing out, of course, the coincidence of

the fall with the close of the year, relating how, by an astonishing

chance, practically all the heads of the hierarchy throughout the world

had been assembled in the Vatican which had been the first object of

attack, and how these, in desperation, it was supposed, had refused to

leave the City when the news came by wireless telegraphy that the

punitive force was on its way. There was not a building left in Rome;

the entire place, Leonine City, Trastevere, suburbs--everything was

gone; for the volors, poised at an immense height, had parcelled out the

City beneath them with extreme care, before beginning to drop the

explosives; and five minutes after the first roar from beneath and the

first burst of smoke and flying fragments, the thing was finished. The

volors had then dispersed in every direction, pursuing the motor and

rail-tracks along which the population had attempted to escape so soon

as the news was known; and it was supposed that not less than thirty

thousand belated fugitives had been annihilated by this foresight. It

was true, remarked the _Studio_, that many treasures of incalculable

value had been destroyed, but this was a cheap price to pay for the

final and complete extermination of the Catholic pest. “There comes a

point,” it remarked, “when destruction is the only cure for a

vermin-infested house,” and it proceeded to observe that now that the

Pope with the entire College of Cardinals, all the ex-Royalties of

Europe, all the most frantic religionists from the inhabited world who

had taken up their abode in the “Holy City” were gone at a stroke, a

recrudescence of the superstition was scarcely to be feared elsewhere.

Yet care must even now be taken against any relenting. Catholics (if any

were left bold enough to attempt it) must no longer be allowed to take

any kind of part in the life of any civilised country. So far as

messages had come in from other countries, there was but one chorus of

approval at what had been done.

A few papers regretted the incident, or rather the spirit which had lain

behind it. It was not seemly, they said, that Humanitarians should have

recourse to violence; yet not one pretended that anything could be felt

but thanksgiving for the general result. Ireland, too, must be brought

into line; they must not dally any longer.

* * * * *

It was now brightening slowly towards dawn, and beyond the river through

the faint wintry haze a crimson streak or two began to burn. But all was

surprisingly quiet, for this crowd, tired out with an all-night watch,

chilled by the bitter cold, and intent on what lay before them, had no

energy left for useless effort. Only from packed square and street and

lane went up a deep, steady murmur like the sound of the sea a mile

away, broken now and again by the hoot and clang of a motor and the rush

of its passage as it tore eastwards round the circle through Broad

Sanctuary and vanished citywards. And the light broadened and the

electric globes sickened and paled, and the haze began to clear a

little, showing, not the fresh blue that had been hoped for from the

cold of the night, but a high, colourless vault of cloud, washed with

grey and faint rose-colour, as the sun came up, a ruddy copper disc,

beyond the river.

* * * * *

At nine o’clock the excitement rose a degree higher. The police between

Whitehall and the Abbey, looking from their high platforms strung along

the route, whence they kept watch and controlled the wire palisadings,

showed a certain activity, and a minute later a police-car whirled

through the square between the palings, and vanished round the Abbey

towers. The crowd murmured and shuffled and began to expect, and a cheer

was raised when a moment later four more cars appeared, bearing the

Government insignia, and disappeared in the same direction. These were

the officials, they said, going to Dean’s Yard, where the procession

would assemble.

At about a quarter to ten the crowd at the west end of Victoria Street

began to raise its voice in a song, and by the time that was over, and

the bells had burst out from the Abbey towers, a rumour had somehow made

its entrance that Felsenburgh was to be present at the ceremony. There

was no assignable reason for this, neither then nor afterwards; in fact,

the _Evening Star_ declared that it was one more instance of the

astonishing instinct of human beings _en masse_; for it was not until an

hour later that even the Government were made aware of the facts. Yet

the truth remained that at half-past ten one continuous roar went up,

drowning even the brazen clamour of the bells, reaching round to

Whitehall and the crowded pavements of Westminster Bridge, demanding

Julian Felsenburgh. Yet there had been absolutely no news of the

President of Europe for the last fortnight, beyond an entirely

unsupported report that he was somewhere in the East.

And all the while the motors poured from all directions towards the

Abbey and disappeared under the arch into Dean’s Yard, bearing those

fortunate persons whose tickets actually admitted them to the church

itself. Cheers ran and rippled along the lines as the great men were

recognised--Lord Pemberton, Oliver Brand and his wife, Mr. Caldecott,

Maxwell, Snowford, with the European delegates--even melancholy-faced

Mr. Francis himself, the Government _ceremoniarius_, received a

greeting. But by a quarter to eleven, when the pealing bells paused, the

stream had stopped, the barriers issued out to stop the roads, the wire

palisadings vanished, and the crowd for an instant, ceasing its roaring,

sighed with relief at the relaxed pressure, and surged out into the

roadways. Then once more the roaring began for Julian Felsenburgh.

The sun was now high, still a copper disc, above the Victoria Tower, but

paler than an hour ago; the whiteness of the Abbey, the heavy greys of

Parliament House, the ten thousand tints of house-roofs, heads,

streamers, placards began to disclose themselves.

A single bell tolled five minutes to the hour, and the moments slipped

by, until once more the bell stopped, and to the ears of those within

hearing of the great west doors came the first blare of the huge organ,

reinforced by trumpets. And then, as sudden and profound as the hush of

death, there fell an enormous silence.

II

As the five-minutes bell began, sounding like a continuous wind-note in

the great vaults overhead, solemn and persistent, Mabel drew a long

breath and leaned back in her seat from the rigid position in which for

the last half-hour she had been staring out at the wonderful sight. She

seemed to herself to have assimilated it at last, to be herself once

more, to have drunk her fill of the triumph and the beauty. She was as

one who looks upon a summer sea on the morning after a storm. And now

the climax was at hand.

From end to end and side to side the interior of the Abbey presented a

great broken mosaic of human faces; living slopes, walls, sections and

curves. The south transept directly opposite to her, from pavement to

rose window, was one sheet of heads; the floor was paved with them, cut

in two by the scarlet of the gangway leading from the chapel of St.

Faith--on the right, the choir beyond the open space before the

sanctuary was a mass of white figures, scarved and surpliced; the high

organ gallery, beneath which the screen had been removed, was crowded

with them, and, far down beneath, the dim nave stretched the same

endless pale living pavement to the shadow beneath the west window.

Between every group of columns behind the choir-stalls, before her, to

right, left, and behind, were platforms contrived in the masonry; and

the exquisite roof, fan-tracery and soaring capital, alone gave the eye

an escape from humanity. The whole vast space was full, it seemed, of

delicate sunlight that streamed in from the artificial light set outside

each window, and poured the ruby and the purple and the blue from the

old glass in long shafts of colour across the dusty air, and in broken

patches on the faces and dresses behind. The murmur of ten thousand

voices filled the place, supplying, it seemed, a solemn accompaniment to

that melodious note that now pulsed above it. And finally, more

significant than all, was the empty carpeted sanctuary at her feet, the

enormous altar with its flight of steps, the gorgeous curtain and the

great untenanted sedilia.

* * * * *

Mabel needed some such reassurance, for last night, until the coming of

Oliver, had passed for her as a kind of appalling waking dream. From the

first shock of what she had seen outside the church, through those hours

of waiting, with the knowledge that this was the way in which the Spirit

of Peace asserted its superiority, up to that last moment when, in her

husband’s arms, she had learned of the Fall of Rome, it had appeared to

her as if her new world had suddenly corrupted about her. It was

incredible, she told herself, that this ravening monster, dripping blood

from claws and teeth, that had arisen roaring in the night, could be the

Humanity that had become her God. She had thought revenge and cruelty

and slaughter to be the brood of Christian superstition, dead and buried

under the new-born angel of light, and now it seemed that the monsters

yet stirred and lived. All the evening she had sat, walked, lain about

her quiet house with the horror heavy about her, flinging open a window

now and again in the icy air to listen with clenched hands to the cries

and the roarings of the mob that raged in the streets beneath, the

clanks, the yells and the hoots of the motor-trains that tore up from

the country to swell the frenzy of the city--to watch the red glow of

fire, the volumes of smoke that heaved up from the burning chapels and

convents.

She had questioned, doubted, resisted her doubts, flung out frantic acts

of faith, attempted to renew the confidence that she attained in her

meditation, told herself that traditions died slowly; she had knelt,

crying out to the spirit of peace that lay, as she knew so well, at the

heart of man, though overwhelmed for the moment by evil passion. A line

or two ran in her head from one of the old Victorian poets:

You doubt If any one Could think or bid it? How could it come about?...

Who did it? Not men! Not here! Oh! not beneath the sun.... The torch

that smouldered till the cup o’er-ran The wrath of God which is the

wrath of Man!

She had even contemplated death, as she had told her husband--the taking

of her own life, in a great despair with the world. Seriously she had

thought of it; it was an escape perfectly in accord with her morality.

The useless and agonising were put out of the world by common consent;

the Euthanasia houses witnessed to it. Then why not she?... For she

could not bear it!... Then Oliver had come, she had fought her way back

to sanity and confidence; and the phantom had gone again.

How sensible and quiet he had been, she was beginning to tell herself

now, as the quiet influence of this huge throng in this glorious place

of worship possessed her once more--how reasonable in his explanation

that man was even now only convalescent and therefore liable to relapse.

She had told herself that again and again during the night, but it had

been different when he had said so. His personality had once more

prevailed; and the name of Felsenburgh had finished the work.

“If He were but here!” she sighed. But she knew He was far away.

* * * * *

It was not until a quarter to eleven that she understood that the crowds

outside were clamouring for Him too, and that knowledge reassured her

yet further. They knew, then, these wild tigers, where their redemption

lay; they understood what was their ideal, even if they had not attained

to it. Ah! if He were but here, there would be no more question: the

sullen waves would sink beneath His call of peace, the hazy clouds lift,

the rumble die to silence. But He was away--away on some strange

business. Well; He knew His work. He would surely come soon again to His

children who needed Him so terribly.

* * * * *

She had the good fortune to be alone in a crowd. Her neighbour, a

grizzled old man with his daughters beyond, was her only neighbour, and

a stranger. At her left rose up the red-covered barricade over which she

could see the sanctuary and the curtain; and her seat in the tribune,

raised some eight feet above the floor, removed her from any possibility

of conversation. She was thankful for that: she did not want to talk;

she wanted only to control her faculties in silence, to reassert her

faith, to look out over this enormous throng gathered to pay homage to

the great Spirit whom they had betrayed, to renew her own courage and

faithfulness. She wondered what the preacher would say, whether there

would be any note of penitence. Maternity was his subject--that benign

aspect of universal life--tenderness, love, quiet, receptive, protective

passion, the spirit that soothes rather than inspires, that busies

itself with peaceful tasks, that kindles the lights and fires of home,

that gives sleep, food and welcome....

The bell stopped, and in the instant before the music began she heard,

clear above the murmur within, the roar of the crowds outside, who still

demanded their God. Then, with a crash, the huge organ awoke, pierced by

the cry of the trumpets and the maddening throb of drums. There was no

delicate prelude here, no slow stirring of life rising through

labyrinths of mystery to the climax of sight--here rather was full-orbed

day, the high noon of knowledge and power, the dayspring from on high,

dawning in mid-heaven. Her heart quickened to meet it, and her reviving

confidence, still convalescent, stirred and smiled, as the tremendous

chords blared overhead, telling of triumph full-armed. God was man,

then, after all--a God who last night had faltered for an hour, but who

rose again on this morning of a new year, scattering mists, dominant

over his own passion, all-compelling and all-beloved. God was man, and

Felsenburgh his Incarnation! Yes, she must believe that! She did

believe that!

Then she saw how already the long procession was winding up beneath the

screen, and by imperceptible art the light grew yet more acutely

beautiful. They were coming, then, those ministers of a pure worship;

grave men who knew in what they believed, and who, even if they did not

at this moment thrill with feeling (for she knew that in this respect

her husband for one did not), yet believed the principles of this

worship and recognised their need of expression for the majority of

mankind--coming slowly up in fours and pairs and units, led by robed

vergers, rippling over the steps, and emerging again into the coloured

sunlight in all their bravery of Masonic apron, badge and jewel. Surely

here was reassurance enough.

* * * * *

The sanctuary now held a figure or two. Anxious-faced Mr. Francis, in

his robes of office, came gravely down the steps and stood awaiting the

procession, directing with almost imperceptible motions his satellites

who hovered about the aisles ready to point this way and that to the

advancing stream; and the western-most seats were already beginning to

fill, when on a sudden she recognised that something had happened.

Just now the roaring of the mob outside had provided a kind of underbass

to the music within, imperceptible except to sub-consciousness, but

clearly discernible in its absence; and this absence was now a fact.

At first she thought that the signal of beginning worship had hushed

them; and then, with an indescribable thrill, she remembered that in all

her knowledge only one thing had ever availed to quiet a turbulent

crowd. Yet she was not sure; it might be an illusion. Even now the mob

might be roaring still, and she only deaf to it; but again with an

ecstasy that was very near to agony she perceived that the murmur of

voices even within the building had ceased, and that some great wave of

emotion was stirring the sheets and slopes of faces before her as a wind

stirs wheat. A moment later, and she was on her feet, gripping the rail,

with her heart like an over-driven engine beating pulses of blood,

furious and insistent, through every vein; for with great rushing surge

that sounded like a sigh, heard even above the triumphant tumult

overhead, the whole enormous assemblage had risen to its feet.

Confusion seemed to break out in the orderly procession. She saw Mr.

Francis run forward quickly, gesticulating like a conductor, and at his

signal the long line swayed forward, split, recoiled, and again slid

swiftly forward, breaking as it did so into twenty streams that poured

along the seats and filled them in a moment. Men ran and pushed, aprons

flapped, hands beckoned, all without coherent words. There was a

knocking of feet, the crash of an overturned chair, and then, as if a

god had lifted his hand for quiet, the music ceased abruptly, sending a

wild echo that swooned and died in a moment; a great sigh filled its

place, and, in the coloured sunshine that lay along the immense length

of the gangway that ran open now from west to east, far down in the

distant nave, a single figure was seen advancing.

III

What Mabel saw and heard and felt from eleven o’clock to half-an-hour

after noon on that first morning of the New Year she could never

adequately remember. For the time she lost the continuous consciousness

of self, the power of reflection, for she was still weak from her

struggle; there was no longer in her the process by which events are

stored, labelled and recorded; she was no more than a being who observed

as it were in one long act, across which considerations played at

uncertain intervals. Eyes and ear seemed her sole functions,

communicating direct with a burning heart.

* * * * *

She did not even know at what point her senses told her that this was

Felsenburgh. She seemed to have known it even before he entered, and she

watched Him as in complete silence He came deliberately up the red

carpet, superbly alone, rising a step or two at the entrance of the

choir, passing on and up before her. He was in his English judicial

dress of scarlet and black, but she scarcely noticed it. For her, too,

no one else existed but, He; this vast assemblage was gone, poised and

transfigured in one vibrating atmosphere of an immense human emotion.

There was no one, anywhere, but Julian Felsenburgh. Peace and light

burned like a glory about Him.

For an instant after passing he disappeared beyond the speaker’s

tribune, and the instant after reappeared once more, coming up the

steps. He reached his place--she could see His profile beneath her and

slightly to the left, pure and keen as the blade of a knife, beneath His

white hair. He lifted one white-furred sleeve, made a single motion, and

with a surge and a rumble, the ten thousand were seated. He motioned

again and with a roar they were on their feet.

Again there was a silence. He stood now, perfectly still, His hands laid

together on the rail, and His face looking steadily before Him; it

seemed as if He who had drawn all eyes and stilled all sounds were

waiting until His domination were complete, and there was but one will,

one desire, and that beneath His hand. Then He began to speak....

* * * * *

In this again, as Mabel perceived afterwards, there was no precise or

verbal record within her of what he said; there was no conscious process

by which she received, tested, or approved what she heard. The nearest

image under which she could afterwards describe her emotions to herself,

was that when He spoke it was she who was speaking. Her own thoughts,

her predispositions, her griefs, her disappointment, her passion, her

hopes--all these interior acts of the soul known scarcely even to

herself, down even, it seemed, to the minutest whorls and eddies of

thought, were, by this man, lifted up, cleansed, kindled, satisfied and

proclaimed. For the first time in her life she became perfectly aware of

what human nature meant; for it was her own heart that passed out upon

the air, borne on that immense voice. Again, as once before for a few

moments in Paul’s House, it seemed that creation, groaning so long, had

spoken articulate words at last--had come to growth and coherent thought

and perfect speech. Yet then He had spoken to men; now it was Man

Himself speaking. It was not one man who spoke there, it was Man--Man

conscious of his origin, his destiny, and his pilgrimage between, Man

sane again after a night of madness--knowing his strength, declaring his

law, lamenting in a voice as eloquent as stringed instruments his own

failure to correspond. It was a soliloquy rather than an oration. Rome

had fallen, English and Italian streets had run with blood, smoke and

flame had gone up to heaven, because man had for an instant sunk back to

the tiger. Yet it was done, cried the great voice, and there was no

repentance; it was done, and ages hence man must still do penance and

flush scarlet with shame to remember that once he turned his back on

the risen light.

There was no appeal to the lurid, no picture of the tumbling palaces,

the running figures, the coughing explosions, the shaking of the earth

and the dying of the doomed. It was rather with those hot hearts

shouting in the English and German streets, or aloft in the winter air

of Italy, the ugly passions that warred there, as the volors rocked at

their stations, generating and fulfilling revenge, paying back plot with

plot, and violence with violence. For there, cried the voice, was man as

he had been, fallen in an instant to the cruel old ages before he had

learned what he was and why.

There was no repentance, said the voice again, but there was something

better; and as the hard, stinging tones melted, the girl’s dry eyes of

shame filled in an instant with tears. There was something better--the

knowledge of what crimes man was yet capable of, and the will to use

that knowledge. Rome was gone, and it was a lamentable shame; Rome was

gone, and the air was the sweeter for it; and then in an instant, like

the soar of a bird, He was up and away--away from the horrid gulf where

He had looked just now, from the fragments of charred bodies, and

tumbled houses and all the signs of man’s disgrace, to the pure air and

sunlight to which man must once more set his face. Yet He bore with Him

in that wonderful flight the dew of tears and the aroma of earth. He had

not spared words with which to lash and whip the naked human heart, and

He did not spare words to lift up the bleeding, shrinking thing, and

comfort it with the divine vision of love....

Historically speaking, it was about forty minutes before He turned to

the shrouded image behind the altar.

“Oh! Maternity!” he cried. “Mother of us all---”

And then, to those who heard Him, the supreme miracle took place.... For

it seemed now in an instant that it was no longer man who spoke, but One

who stood upon the stage of the superhuman. The curtain ripped back, as

one who stood by it tore, panting, at the strings; and there, it seemed,

face to face stood the Mother above the altar, huge, white and

protective, and the Child, one passionate incarnation of love, crying to

her from the tribune.

“Oh! Mother of us all, and Mother of Me!”

So He praised her to her face, that sublime principle of life, declared

her glories and her strength, her Immaculate Motherhood, her seven

swords of anguish driven through her heart by the passion and the

follies of her Son--He promised her great things, the recognition of her

countless children, the love and service of the unborn, the welcome of

those yet quickening within the womb. He named her the Wisdom of the

Most High, that sweetly orders all things, the Gate of Heaven, House of

Ivory, Comforter of the afflicted, Queen of the World; and, to the

delirious eyes of those who looked on her it seemed that the grave face

smiled to hear Him....

A great panting as of some monstrous life began to fill the air as the

mob swayed behind Him, and the torrential voice poured on. Waves of

emotion swept up and down; there were cries and sobs, the yelping of a

man beside himself at last, from somewhere among the crowded seats, the

crash of a bench, and another and another, and the gangways were full,

for He no longer held them passive to listen; He was rousing them to

some supreme act. The tide crawled nearer, and the faces stared no

longer at the Son but the Mother; the girl in the gallery tore at the

heavy railing, and sank down sobbing upon her knees. And above all the

voice pealed on--and the thin hands blanched to whiteness strained from

the wide and sumptuous sleeves as if to reach across the sanctuary

itself.

It was a new tale He was telling now, and all to her glory. He was from

the East, now they knew, come from some triumph. He had been hailed as

King, adored as Divine, as was meet and right--He, the humble superhuman

son of a Human Mother--who bore not a sword but peace, not a cross but a

crown. So it seemed He was saying; yet no man there knew whether He said

it or not--whether the voice proclaimed it, or their hearts asserted it.

He was on the steps of the sanctuary now, still with outstretched hands

and pouring words, and the mob rolled after him to the rumble of ten

thousand feet and the sighing of ten thousand hearts.... He was at the

altar; He was upon it. Again in one last cry, as the crowd broke against

the steps beneath, He hailed her Queen and Mother.

The end came in a moment, swift and inevitable. And for an instant,

before the girl in the gallery sank down, blind with tears, she saw the

tiny figure poised there at the knees of the huge image, beneath the

expectant hands, silent and transfigured in the blaze of light. The

Mother, it seemed, had found her Son at last.

For an instant she saw it, the soaring columns, the gilding and the

colours, the swaying heads, the tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved

before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead,

presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it

ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the

screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of

worship ten thousand voices hailed Him Lord and God.

BOOK III-THE VICTORY

CHAPTER I

I

The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model of

simplicity. Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, and

its floor beaten mud. A square table stood in the centre, with a chair

beside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; a

bookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes. There were three doors,

one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the third

to the little paved court. The south windows were shuttered, but through

the ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hot

Eastern day outside.

It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything

of the _cicade_ from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deep

silence.

* * * * *

The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitude

in all that time, so intent was He upon His reading. For the while, all

was put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitter

anxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility. The book He held was a

cheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued a

month before, and He was now drawing to an end.

It was a terse, well-written book, composed by an unknown hand, and some

even suspected it to be the disguised work of Felsenburgh himself. More,

however, considered that it was written at least with Felsenburgh’s

consent by one of that small body of intimates whom he had admitted to

his society--that body which under him now conducted the affairs of West

and East. From certain indications in the book it had been argued that

its actual writer was a Westerner.

The main body of the work dealt with his life, or rather with those two

or three years known to the world, from his rapid rise in American

politics and his mediation in the East down to the event of five months

ago, when in swift succession he had been hailed Messiah in Damascus,

had been formally adored in London, and finally elected by an

extraordinary majority to the Tribuniciate of the two Americas.

The Pope had read rapidly through these objective facts, for He knew

them well enough already, and was now studying with close attention the

summary of his character, or rather, as the author rather sententiously

explained, the summary of his self-manifestation to the world. He read

the description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon words

and facts; “words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man to

facts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring.” His minor

characteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, his

astonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared,

both the telescopic and the microscopic eye--he discerned world-wide

tendencies and movements on the one hand; he had a passionate capacity

for detail on the other. Various anecdotes illustrated these remarks,

and a number of terse aphorisms of his were recorded. “No man forgives,”

he said; “he only understands.” “It needs supreme faith to renounce a

transcendent God.” “A man who believes in himself is almost capable of

believing in his neighbour.” Here was a sentence that to the Pope’s mind

was significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable of

confronting the Christian spirit: and again, “To forgive a wrong is to

condone a crime,” and “The strong man is accessible to no one, but all

are accessible to him.”

There was a certain pompousness in this array of remarks, but it lay, as

the Pope saw very well, not in the speaker but in the scribe. To him who

had seen the speaker it was plain how they had been uttered--with no

pontifical solemnity, but whirled out in a fiery stream of eloquence, or

spoken with that strangely moving simplicity that had constituted his

first assault on London. It was possible to hate Felsenburgh, and to

fear him; but never to be amused at him.

But plainly the supreme pleasure of the writer was to trace the analogy

between his hero and nature. In both there was the same apparent

contradictoriness--the combination of utter tenderness and utter

ruthlessness. “The power that heals wounds also inflicts them: that

clothes the dungheap with sweet growths and grasses, breaks, too, into

fire and earthquake; that causes the partridge to die for her young,

also makes the shrike with his living larder.” So, too, with

Felsenburgh; He who had wept over the Fall of Rome, a month later had

spoken of extermination as an instrument that even now might be

judicially used in the service of humanity. Only it must be used with

deliberation, not with passion.

The utterance had aroused extraordinary interest, since it seemed so

paradoxical from one who preached peace and toleration; and argument

had broken out all over the world. But beyond enforcing the dispersal of

the Irish Catholics, and the execution of a few individuals, so far that

utterance had not been acted upon. Yet the world seemed as a whole to

have accepted it, and even now to be waiting for its fulfilment.

As the biographer pointed out, the world enclosed in physical nature

should welcome one who followed its precepts, one who was indeed the

first to introduce deliberately and confessedly into human affairs such

laws as those of the Survival of the Fittest and the immorality of

forgiveness. If there was mystery in the one, there was mystery in the

other, and both must be accepted if man was to develop.

And the secret of this, it seemed, lay in His personality. To see Him

was to believe in Him, or rather to accept Him as inevitably true. “We

do not explain nature or escape from it by sentimental regrets: the hare

cries like a child, the wounded stag weeps great tears, the robin kills

his parents; life exists only on condition of death; and these things

happen however we may weave theories that explain nothing. Life must be

accepted on those terms; we cannot be wrong if we follow nature; rather

to accept them is to find peace--our great mother only reveals her

secrets to those who take her as she is.” So, too, with Felsenburgh. “It

is not for us to discriminate: His personality is of a kind that does

not admit it. He is complete and sufficing for those who trust Him and

are willing to suffer; an hostile and hateful enigma to those who are

not. We must prepare ourselves for the logical outcome of this doctrine.

Sentimentality must not be permitted to dominate reason.”

Finally, then, the writer showed how to this Man belonged properly all

those titles hitherto lavished upon imagined Supreme Beings. It was in

preparation for Him that these types came into the realms of thought and

influenced men’s lives.

He was the _Creator_, for it was reserved for Him to bring into being

the perfect life of union to which all the world had hitherto groaned in

vain; it was in His own image and likeness that He had made man.

Yet He was the _Redeemer_ too, for that likeness had in one sense always

underlain the tumult of mistake and conflict. He had brought man out of

darkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way of

peace. He was the _Saviour_ for the same reason--the _Son of Man_, for

He alone was perfectly human; He was the _Absolute_, for He was the

content of Ideals; the _Eternal_, for He had lain always in nature’s

potentiality and secured by His being the continuity of that order; the

_Infinite_, for all finite things fell short of Him who was more than

their sum.

He was _Alpha_, then, and _Omega_, the beginning and the end, the first

and the last. He was _Dominus et Deus noster_ (as Domitian had been, the

Pope reflected). He was as simple and as complex as life itself--simple

in its essence, complex in its activities.

And last of all, the supreme proof of His mission lay in the immortal

nature of His message. There was no more to be added to what He had

brought to light--for in Him all diverging lines at last found their

origin and their end. As to whether or no He would prove to be

personally immortal was an wholly irrelevant thought; it would be indeed

fitting if through His means the vital principle should disclose its

last secret; but no more than fitting. Already His spirit was in the

world; the individual was no more separate from his fellows; death no

more than a wrinkle that came and went across the inviolable sea. For

man had learned at last that the race was all and self was nothing; the

cell had discovered the unity of the body; even, the greatest thinkers

declared, the consciousness of the individual had yielded the title of

Personality to the corporate mass of man--and the restlessness of the

unit had sunk into the peace of a common Humanity, for nothing but this

could explain the cessation of party strife and national

competition--and this, above all, had been the work of Felsenburgh.

“_Behold I am with you always_,” quoted the writer in a passionate

peroration, “_even now in the consummation of the world; and, the

Comforter is come unto you. I am the Door--the Way, the Truth and the

Life--the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. My name is Wonderful, the

Prince of Peace, the Father Everlasting. It is I who am the Desire of

all nations, the fairest among the children of men--and of my Kingdom

there shall be no end_.”

The Pope laid down the book, and leaned back, closing his eyes.

II

And as for Himself, what had He to say to all this? A Transcendent God

Who hid Himself, a Divine Saviour Who delayed to come, a Comforter heard

no longer in wind nor seen in fire!

There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an iron

box, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup--Something.

Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofs

of a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile or

two away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; and

behind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon. And far away

to the south lay Jerusalem....

It was to this tiny strip of holy land that the Pope had come--the land

where a Faith had sprouted two thousand years ago, and where, unless God

spoke in fire from heaven, it would presently be cut down as a cumberer

of the ground. It was here on this material earth that One had walked

Whom all men had thought to have been He Who would redeem Israel--in

this village that He had fetched water and made boxes and chairs, on

that long lake that His Feet had walked, on that high hill that He had

flamed in glory, on that smooth, low mountain to the north that He had

declared that the meek were blessed and should inherit the earth, that

peacemakers were the children of God, that they who hungered and

thirsted should be satisfied.

And now it was come to this. Christianity had smouldered away from

Europe like a sunset on darkening peaks; Eternal Rome was a heap of

ruins; in East and West alike a man had been set upon the throne of God,

had been acclaimed as divine. The world had leaped forward; social

science was supreme; men had learned consistency; they had learned, too,

the social lessons of Christianity apart from a Divine Teacher, or,

rather, they said, in spite of Him. There were left, perhaps, three

millions, perhaps five, at the utmost ten millions--it was impossible to

know--throughout the entire inhabited globe who still worshipped Jesus

Christ as God. And the Vicar of Christ sat in a whitewashed room in

Nazareth, dressed as simply as His master, waiting for the end.

* * * * *

He had done what He could. There had been a week five months ago when

it had been doubtful whether anything at all could be done. There were

left three Cardinals alive, Himself, Steinmann, and the Patriarch of

Jerusalem; the rest lay mangled somewhere in the ruins of Rome. There

was no precedent to follow; so the two Europeans had made their way out

to the East, and to the one town in it where quiet still reigned. With

the disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the last

remnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacit

consent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty in

Palestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, had

sufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holy

places had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots of

antiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yet

marked, and, although mass could no longer be said there, it was

understood that private oratories were not forbidden.

It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the Holy

City; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description in

public; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised world

was unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrival

the old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely under

the strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had been

elected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a few

minutes by the dying man’s bedside. The two old men had insisted. The

German had even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between

Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard

remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy,

marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was

recorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the

year, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazareth

with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged

in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.

The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty

persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these,

nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had

accepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the

world who constituted the Sacred College--two Englishmen, of whom

Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a

Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these were

entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject

only to the Holy Father Himself.

As regarded the Pope’s own life very little need be said. It resembled,

He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the

Great, without His worldly importance or pomp. Theoretically, the

Christian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairs

were administered by local authorities. It was impossible for a hundred

reasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange of

communications. An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a private

telegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another in

Damascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from that

centre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiastical

authorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to be

done. The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with

incredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards the

reorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries. Bishops were being

consecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them all

told, and of priests an unknown number. The Order of Christ Crucified

was doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundred

martyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplished

mostly at the hands of the mobs.

In other respects, also, as well as in the primary object of the Order’s

existence (namely, the affording of an opportunity to all who loved God

to dedicate themselves to Him more perfectly), the new Religious were

doing good work. The more perilous tasks--the work of communication

between prelates, missions to persons of suspected integrity--all the

business, in fact, which was carried on now at the vital risk of the

agent were entrusted solely to members of the Order. Stringent

instructions had been issued from Nazareth that no bishop was to expose

himself unnecessarily; each was to regard himself as the heart of his

diocese to be protected at all costs save that of Christian honour, and

in consequence each had surrounded himself with a group of the new

Religious--men and women--who with extraordinary and generous obedience

undertook such dangerous tasks as they were capable of performing. It

was plain enough by now that had it not been for the Order, the Church

would have been little better than paralysed under these new conditions.

Extraordinary facilities were being issued in all directions. Every

priest who belonged to the Order received universal jurisdiction subject

to the bishop, if any, of the diocese in which he might be; mass might

be said on any day of the year of the Five Wounds, or the Resurrection,

or Our Lady; and all had the privilege of the portable altar, now

permitted to be wood. Further ritual requirements were relaxed; mass

might be said with any decent vessels of any material capable of

destruction, such as glass or china; bread of any description might be

used; and no vestments were obligatory except the thin thread that now

represented the stole; lights were non-essential; none need wear the

clerical habit; and rosary, even without beads, was always permissible

instead of the Office.

In this manner priests were rendered capable of giving the sacraments

and offering the holy sacrifice at the least possible risk to

themselves; and these relaxations had already proved of enormous benefit

in the European prisons, where by this time many thousands of Catholics

were undergoing the penalty of refusing public worship.

* * * * *

The Pope’s private life was as simple as His room. He had one Syrian

priest for His chaplain, and two Syrian servants. He said His mass each

morning, Himself wearing vestments and His white habit beneath, and

heard a mass after. He then took His coffee, after changing into the

tunic and burnous of the country, and spent the morning over business.

He dined at noon, slept, and rode out, for the country by reason of its

indeterminate position was still in the simplicity of a hundred years

ago. He returned at dusk, supped, and worked again till late into the

night.

That was all. His chaplain sent what messages were necessary to

Damascus; His servants, themselves ignorant of His dignity, dealt with

the secular world so far as was required, and the utmost that seemed to

be known to His few neighbours was that there lived in the late Sheikh’s

little house on the hill an eccentric European with a telegraph office.

His servants, themselves devout Catholics, knew Him for a bishop, but no

more than that. They were told only that there was yet a Pope alive, and

with that and the sacraments were content.

To sum up, therefore--the Catholic world knew that their Pope lived

under the name of Silvester; and thirteen persons of the entire human

race knew that Franklin had been His name, and that the throne of Peter

rested for the time in Nazareth.

It was, as a Frenchman had said, just a hundred years ago. Catholicism

survived; but no more.

III

And as for His inner life, what can be said of that? He lay now back in

his wooden chair, thinking with closed eyes.

He could not have described it consistently even to Himself, for indeed

He scarcely knew it: He acted rather than indulged in reflex thought.

But the centre of His position was simple faith. The Catholic Religion,

He knew well enough, gave the only adequate explanation of the universe;

it did not unlock all mysteries, but it unlocked more than any other key

known to man; He knew, too, perfectly well, that it was the only system

of thought that satisfied man as a whole, and accounted for him in his

essential nature. Further, He saw well enough that the failure of

Christianity to unite all men one to another rested not upon its

feebleness but its strength; its lines met in eternity, not in time.

Besides, He happened to believe it.

But to this foreground there were other moods whose shifting was out of

his control. In his _exalt_ moods, which came upon Him like a breeze

from Paradise, the background was bright with hope and drama--He saw

Himself and His companions as Peter and the Apostles must have regarded

themselves, as they proclaimed through the world, in temples, slums,

market-places and private houses, the faith that was to shake and

transform the world. They had handled the Lord of Life, seen the empty

sepulchre, grasped the pierced hands of Him Who was their brother and

their God. It was radiantly true, though not a man believed it; the huge

superincumbent weight of incredulity could not disturb a fact that was

as the sun in heaven. Moreover, the very desperateness of the cause was

their inspiration. There was no temptation to lean upon the arm of

flesh, for there was none that fought for them but God. Their nakedness

was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their

weakness demanded God’s strength, and found it. Yet there was this

difference, and it was a significant one. For Peter the spiritual world

had an interpretation and a guarantee in the outward events he had

witnessed. He had handled the Risen Christ, the external corroborated

the internal. But for Silvester it was not so. For Him it was necessary

so to grasp spiritual truths in the supernatural sphere that the

external events of the Incarnation were proved by rather than proved the

certitude of His spiritual apprehension. Certainly, historically

speaking, Christianity was true--proved by its records--yet to see that

needed illumination. He apprehended the power of the Resurrection,

therefore Christ was risen.

Therefore in heavier moods it was different with him. There were

periods, lasting sometimes for days together, clouding Him when He

awoke, stifling Him as He tried to sleep, dulling the very savour of the

Sacrament and the thrill of the Precious Blood; times in which the

darkness was so intolerable that even the solid objects of faith

attenuated themselves to shadow, when half His nature was blind not only

to Christ, but to God Himself, and the reality of His own

existence--when His own awful dignity seemed as the insignia of a fool.

And was it conceivable, His earthly mind demanded, that He and His

college of twelve and His few thousands should be right, and the entire

consensus of the civilised world wrong? It was not that the world had

not heard the message of the Gospel; it had heard little else for two

thousand years, and now pronounced it false--false in its external

credentials, and false therefore in its spiritual claims. It was a lost

cause for which He suffered; He was not the last of an august line, He

was the smoking wick of a candle of folly; He was the _reductio ad

absurdam_ of a ludicrous syllogism based on impossible premises. He was

not worth killing, He and His company of the insane--they were no more

than the crowned dunces of the world’s school. Sanity sat on the solid

benches of materialism. And this heaviness waxed so dark sometimes that

He almost persuaded Himself that His faith was gone; the clamours of

mind so loud that the whisper of the heart was unheard, the desires for

earthly peace so fierce that supernatural ambitions were silenced--so

dense was the gloom, that, hoping against hope, believing against

knowledge, and loving against truth, He cried as One other had cried on

another day like this--_Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!_ ... But that, at

least, He never failed to cry.

One thing alone gave Him power to go on, so far at least as His

consciousness was concerned, and that was His meditation. He had

travelled far in the mystical life since His agonies of effort. Now He

used no deliberate descents into the spiritual world: He threw, as it

were, His hands over His head, and dropped into spacelessness.

Consciousness would draw Him up, as a cork, to the surface, but He would

do no more than repeat His action, until by that cessation of activity,

which is the supreme energy, He floated in the twilight realm of

transcendence; and there God would deal with Him--now by an articulate

sentence, now by a sword of pain, now by an air like the vivifying

breath of the sea. Sometimes after Communion He would treat Him so,

sometimes as He fell asleep, sometimes in the whirl of work. Yet His

consciousness did not seem to retain for long such experiences; five

minutes later, it might be, He would be wrestling once more with the all

but sensible phantoms of the mind and the heart.

There He lay, then, in the chair, revolving the intolerable blasphemies

that He had read. His white hair was thin upon His browned temples, His

hands were as the hands of a spirit, and His young face lined and

patched with sorrow. His bare feet protruded from beneath His stained

tunic, and His old brown burnous lay on the floor beside Him....

It was an hour before He moved, and the sun had already lost half its

fierceness, when the steps of the horses sounded in the paved court

outside. Then He sat up, slipped His feet into their shoes, and lifted

the burnous from the floor, as the door opened and the lean sun-burned

priest came through.

“The horses, Holiness,” said the man.

* * * * *

The Pope spoke not one word that afternoon, until the two came towards

sunset up the bridle-path that leads between Thabor and Nazareth. They

had taken their usual round through Cana, mounting a hillock from which

the long mirror of Gennesareth could be seen, and passing on, always

bearing to the right, under the shadow of Thabor until once more

Esdraelon spread itself beneath like a grey-green carpet, a vast circle,

twenty miles across, sprinkled sparsely with groups of huts, white walls

and roofs, with Nain visible on the other side, Carmel heaving its long

form far off on the right, and Nazareth nestling a mile or two away on

the plateau on which they had halted.

It was a sight of extraordinary peace, and seemed an extract from some

old picture-book designed centuries ago. Here was no crowd of roofs, no

pressure of hot humanity, no terrible evidences of civilisation and

manufactory and strenuous, fruitless effort. A few tired Jews had come

back to this quiet little land, as old people may return to their native

place, with no hope of renewing their youth, or refinding their ideals,

but with a kind of sentimentality that prevails so often over more

logical motives, and a few more barrack-like houses had been added here

and there to the obscure villages in sight. But it was very much as it

had been a hundred years ago.

The plain was half shadowed by Carmel, and half in dusty golden light.

Overhead the clear Eastern sky was flushed with rose, as it had flushed

for Abraham, Jacob, and the Son of David. There was no little cloud

here, as a man’s hand, over the sea, charged with both promise and

terror; no sound of chariot-wheels from earth or heaven, no vision of

heavenly horses such as a young man had seen thirty centuries ago in

this very sky. Here was the old earth and the old heaven, unchanged and

unchangeable; the patient, returning spring had starred the thin soil

with flowers of Bethlehem, and those glorious lilies to which Solomon’s

scarlet garments might not be compared. There was no whisper from the

Throne as when Gabriel had once stooped through this very air to hail

Her who was blessed among women, no breath of promise or hope beyond

that which God sends through every movement of His created robe of life.

As the two halted, and the horses looked out with steady, inquisitive

eyes at the immensity of light and air beneath them, a soft hooting cry

broke out, and a shepherd passed below along the hillside a hundred

yards away, trailing his long shadow behind him, and to the mellow

tinkle of bells his flock came after, a troop of obedient sheep and

wilful goats, cropping and following and cropping again as they went on

to the fold, called by name in that sad minor voice of him who knew

each, and led instead of driving. The soft clanking grew fainter, the

shadow of the shepherd shot once to their very feet, as he topped the

rise, and vanished again as he stepped down once more; and the call grew

fainter yet, and ceased.

* * * * *

The Pope lifted His hand to His eyes for an instant, then smoothed it

down His face.

He nodded across to a dim patch of white walls glimmering through the

violet haze of the falling twilight.

“That place, father,” He said, “what is its name?”

The Syrian priest looked across, back once more at the Pope, and across

again.

“That among the palms, Holiness?”

“Yes.”

“That is Megiddo,” he said. “Some call it Armageddon.”

CHAPTER II

I

At twenty-three o’clock that night the Syrian priest went out to watch

for the coming of the messenger from Tiberias. Nearly two hours

previously he had heard the cry of the Russian volor that plied from

Damascus to Tiberias, and Tiberias to Jerusalem, and even as it was the

messenger was a little late.

These were very primitive arrangements, but Palestine was out of the

world--a slip of useless country--and it was necessary for a man to ride

from Tiberias to Nazareth each night with papers from Cardinal Corkran

to the Pope, and to return with correspondence. It was a dangerous task,

and the members of the New Order who surrounded the Cardinal undertook

it by turns. In this manner all matters for which the Pope’s personal

attention was required, and which were too long and not too urgent,

could be dealt with at leisure by him, and an answer returned within the

twenty-four hours.

It was a brilliant moonlit night. The great golden shield was riding

high above Thabor, shedding its strange metallic light down the long

slopes and over the moor-like country that rose up from before the

house-door--casting too heavy black shadows that seemed far more

concrete and solid than the brilliant pale surfaces of the rock slabs or

even than the diamond flashes from the quartz and crystal that here and

there sparkled up the stony pathway. Compared with this clear splendour,

the yellow light from the shuttered house seemed a hot and tawdry thing;

and the priest, leaning against the door-post, his eyes alone alight in

his dark face, sank down at last with a kind of Eastern sensuousness to

bathe himself in the glory, and to spread his lean, brown hands out to

it.

This was a very simple man, in faith as well as in life. For him there

were neither the ecstasies nor the desolations of his master. It was an

immense and solemn joy to him to live here at the spot of God’s

Incarnation and in attendance upon His Vicar. As regarded the movements

of the world, he observed them as a man in a ship watches the heaving of

the waves far beneath. Of course the world was restless, he half

perceived, for, as the Latin Doctor had said, all hearts were restless

until they found their rest in God. _Quare fremuerunt gentes?...

Adversus Dominum, et adversus Christum ejus!_ As to the end--he was not

greatly concerned. It might well be that the ship would be overwhelmed,

but the moment of the catastrophe would be the end of all things

earthly. The gates of hell shall not prevail: when Rome falls, the world

falls; and when the world falls, Christ is manifest in power. For

himself, he imagined that the end was not far away. When he had named

Megiddo this afternoon it had been in his mind; to him it seemed natural

that at the consummation of all things Christ’s Vicar should dwell at

Nazareth where His King had come on earth--and that the Armageddon of

the Divine John should be within sight of the scene where Christ had

first taken His earthly sceptre and should take it again. After all, it

would not be the first battle that Megiddo had seen. Israel and Amalek

had met here; Israel and Assyria; Sesostris had ridden here and

Sennacherib. Christian and Turk had contended here, like Michael and

Satan, over the place where God’s Body had lain. As to the exact method

of that end, he had no clear views; it would be a battle of some kind,

and what field could be found more evidently designed for that than this

huge flat circular plain of Esdraelon, twenty miles across, sufficient

to hold all the armies of the earth in its embrace? To his view once

more, ignorant as he was of present statistics, the world was divided

into two large sections, Christians and heathens, and he supposed them

very much of a size. Something would happen, troops would land at

Khaifa, they would stream southwards from Tiberias, Damascus and remote

Asia, northwards from Jerusalem, Egypt and Africa; eastwards from

Europe; westwards from Asia again and the far-off Americas. And, surely,

the time could not be far away, for here was Christ’s Vicar; and, as He

Himself had said in His gospel of the Advent, _Ubicumque fuerit corpus,

illie congregabuntur et aquilae._ Of more subtle interpretations of

prophecy he had no knowledge. For him words were things, not merely

labels upon ideas. What Christ and St. Paul and St. John had said--these

things were so. He had escaped, owing chiefly to his isolation from the

world, that vast expansion of Ritschlian ideas that during the last

century had been responsible for the desertion by so many of any

intelligible creed. For others this had been the supreme struggle--the

difficulty of decision between the facts that words were not things, and

yet that the things they represented were in themselves objective. But

to this man, sitting now in the moonlight, listening to the far-off tap

of hoofs over the hill as the messenger came up from Cana, faith was as

simple as an exact science. Here Gabriel had descended on wide feathered

wings from the Throne of God set beyond the stars, the Holy Ghost had

breathed in a beam of ineffable light, the Word had become Flesh as Mary

folded her arms and bowed her head to the decree of the Eternal. And

here once more, he thought, though it was no more than a guess--yet he

thought that already the running of chariot-wheels was audible--the

tumult of the hosts of God gathering about the camp of the saints--he

thought that already beyond the bars of the dark Gabriel set to his lips

the trumpet of doom and heaven was astir. He might be wrong at this

time, as others had been wrong at other times, but neither he nor they

could be wrong for ever; there must some day be an end to the patience

of God, even though that patience sprang from the eternity of His

nature. He stood up, as down the pale moonlit path a hundred yards away

came a pale figure of one who rode, with a leather bag strapped to his

girdle.

II

It would be about three o’clock in the morning that the priest awoke in

his little mud-walled room next to that of the Holy Father’s, and heard

a footstep coming up the stairs. Last evening he had left his master as

usual beginning to open the pile of letters arrived from Cardinal

Corkran, and himself had gone straight to his bed and slept. He lay now

a moment or two, still drowsy, listening to the pad of feet, and an

instant later sat up abruptly, for a deliberate tap had sounded on the

door. Again it came; he sprang out of bed in his long night-tunic, drew

it up hastily in his girdle, went to the door and opened it.

The Pope was standing there, with a little lamp in one hand, for the

dawn had scarcely yet begun, and a paper in the other.

“I beg your pardon, Father; but there is a message I must have sent at

once to his Eminence.”

Together they went out through the Pope’s room, the priest, still

half-blind with sleep, passed up the stairs, and emerged into the clear

cold air of the upper roof. The Pope blew out His lamp, and set it on

the parapet.

“You will be cold, Father; fetch your cloak.”

“And you, Holiness?”

The other made a little gesture of denial, and went across to the tiny

temporary shed where the wireless telegraphic instrument stood.

“Fetch your cloak, Father,” He said again over His shoulder. “I will

ring up meanwhile.”

When the priest came back three minutes later, in his slippers and

cloak, carrying another cloak also for his master, the Pope was still

seated at the table. He did not even move His head as the other came up,

but once more pressed on the lever that, communicating with the

twelve-foot pole that rose through the pent-house overhead, shot out the

quivering energy through the eighty miles of glimmering air that lay

between Nazareth and Damascus.

This simple priest had scarcely even by now become accustomed to this

extraordinary device invented a century ago and perfected through all

those years to this precise exactness--that device by which with the

help of a stick, a bundle of wires, and a box of wheels, something, at

last established to be at the root of all matter, if not at the very

root of physical life, spoke across the spaces of the world to a tiny

receiver tuned by a hair’s breadth to the vibration with which it was

set in relations.

The air was surprisingly cold, considering the heat that had preceded

and would follow it, and the priest shivered a little as he stood clear

of the roof, and stared, now at the motionless figure in the chair

before him, now at the vast vault of the sky passing, even as he looked,

from a cold colourless luminosity to a tender tint of yellow, as far

away beyond Thabor and Moab the dawn began to deepen. From the village

half-a-mile away arose the crowing of a cock, thin and brazen as a

trumpet; a dog barked once and was silent again; and then, on a sudden,

a single stroke upon a bell hung in the roof recalled him in an instant,

and told him that his work was to begin.

The Pope pressed the lever again at the sound, twice, and then, after a

pause, once more--waited a moment for an answer, and then when it came,

rose and signed to the priest to take his place.

The Syrian sat down, handing the extra cloak to his master, and waited

until the other had settled Himself in a chair set in such a position at

the side of the table that the face of each was visible to the other.

Then he waited, with his brown fingers poised above the row of keys,

looking at the other’s face as He arranged himself to speak. That face,

he thought, looking out from the hood, seemed paler than ever in this

cold light of dawn; the black arched eyebrows accentuated this, and even

the steady lips, preparing to speak, seemed white and bloodless. He had

His paper in His hand, and His eyes were fixed upon this.

“Make sure it is the Cardinal,” he said abruptly.

The priest tapped off an enquiry, and, with moving lips, raid off the

printed message, as like magic it precipitated itself on to the tall

white sheet of paper that faced him.

“It is his Eminence, Holiness,” he said softly. “He is alone at the

instrument.”

“Very well. Now then; begin.”

“We have received your Eminence’s letter, and have noted the news.... It

should have been forwarded by telegraphy--why was that not done?”

The voice paused, and the priest who had snapped off the message, more

quickly than a man could write it, read aloud the answer.

“‘I did not understand that it was urgent. I thought it was but one

more assault. I had intended to communicate more so soon as I heard

more.”’

“Of course it was urgent,” came the voice again in the deliberate

intonation that was used between these two in the case of messages for

transmission. “Remember that all news of this kind is always urgent.”

“‘I will remember,’ read the priest. ‘I regret my mistake.’”

“You tell us,” went on the Pope, His eyes still downcast on the paper,

“that this measure is decided upon; you name only three authorities.

Give me, now, all the authorities you have, if you have more.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then the priest began to read off the names.

“Besides the three Cardinals whose names I sent, the Archbishops of

Thibet, Cairo, Calcutta and Sydney have all asked if the news was true,

and for directions if it is true; besides others whose names I can

communicate if I may leave the table for a moment.’”

“Do so,” said the Pope.

Again there was a pause. Then once more the names began.

“‘The Bishops of Bukarest, the Marquesas Islands and Newfoundland. The

Franciscans in Japan, the Crutched Friars in Morocco, the Archbishops of

Manitoba and Portland, and the Cardinal-Archbisbop of Pekin. I have

despatched two members of Christ Crucified to England.’”

“Tell us when the news first arrived, and how.”

“‘I was called up to the instrument yesterday evening at about twenty

o’clock. The Archbishop of Sydney was asking, through our station at

Bombay, whether the news was true. I replied I had heard nothing of it.

Within ten minutes four more inquiries had come to the same effect; and

three minutes later Cardinal Ruspoli sent the positive news from Turin.

This was accompanied by a similar message from Father Petrovski in

Moscow. Then--- ’”

“Stop. Why did not Cardinal Dolgorovski communicate it?”

“‘He did communicate it three hours later.’”

“Why not at once?”

“‘His Eminence had not heard it.’”

“Find out at what hour the news reached Moscow--not now, but within the

day.”

“‘I will.’”

“Go on, then.”

“‘Cardinal Malpas communicated it within five minutes of Cardinal

Ruspoli, and the rest of the inquiries arrived before midnight. China

reported it at twenty-three.’”

“Then when do you suppose the news was made public?”

“‘It was decided first at the secret London conference, yesterday, at

about sixteen o’clock by our time. The Plenipotentiaries appear to have

signed it at that hour. After that it was communicated to the world. It

was published here half an hour past midnight.’”

“Then Felsenburgh was in London?”

“‘I am not yet sure. Cardinal Malpas tells me that Felsenburgh gave his

provisional consent on the previous day.’”

“Very good. That is all you know, then?”

“‘I was called up an hour ago by Cardinal Ruspoli again. He tells me

that he fears a riot in Florence; it will be the first of many

revolutions, he says.’”

“Does he ask for anything?”

“‘Only for directions.’”

“Tell him that we send him the Apostolic Benediction, and will forward

directions within the course of two hours. Select twelve members of the

Order for immediate service.”

“‘I will.’”

“Communicate that message also, as soon as we have finished, to all the

Sacred College, and bid them communicate it with all discretion to all

metropolitans and bishops, that priests and people may know that We bear

them in our heart.”

“‘I will, Holiness.’”

“Tell them, finally, that We had foreseen this long ago; that We commend

them to the Eternal Father without Whose Providence no sparrow falls to

the ground. Bid them be quiet and confident; to do nothing, save confess

their faith when they are questioned. All other directions shall be

issued to their pastors immediately!”

“‘I will, Holiness.’”

* * * * *

There was again a pause.

The Pope had been speaking with the utmost tranquillity as one in a

dream. His eyes were downcast upon the paper, His whole body as

motionless as an image. Yet to the priest who listened, despatching the

Latin messages, and reading aloud the replies, it seemed, although so

little intelligible news had reached him, as if something very strange

and great was impending. There was the sense of a peculiar strain in the

air, and although he drew no deductions from the fact that apparently

the whole Catholic world was in frantic communication with Damascus, yet

he remembered his meditations of the evening before as he had waited for

the messenger. It seemed as if the powers of this world were

contemplating one more step--with its nature he was not greatly

concerned.

The Pope spoke again in His natural voice.

“Father,” he said, “what I am about to say now is as if I told it in

confession. You understand?--Very well. Now begin.”

Then again the intonation began.

“Eminence. We shall say mass of the Holy Ghost in one hour from now. At

the end of that time, you will cause that all the Sacred College shall

be in touch with yourself, and waiting for our commands. This new

decision is unlike any that have preceded it. Surely you understand

that now. Two or three plans are in our mind, yet We are not sure yet

which it is that our Lord intends. After mass We shall communicate to

you that which He shall show Us to be according to His Will. We beg of

you to say mass also, immediately, for Our intention. Whatever must be

done must be done quickly. The matter of Cardinal Dolgorovski you may

leave until later. But we wish to hear the result of your inquiries,

especially in London, before mid-day. _Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus,

Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus._”

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

III

The little chapel in the house below was scarcely more dignified than

the other rooms. Of ornaments, except those absolutely essential to

liturgy and devotion, there were none. In the plaster of the walls were

indented in slight relief the fourteen stations of the Cross; a small

stone image of the Mother of God stood in a corner, with an iron-work

candlestick before it, and on the solid uncarved stone altar, raised on

a stone step, stood six more iron candlesticks and an iron crucifix. A

tabernacle, also of iron, shrouded by linen curtains, stood beneath the

cross; a small stone slab projecting from the wall served as a credence.

There was but one window, and this looked into the court, so that the

eyes of strangers might not penetrate.

It seemed to the Syrian priest as he went about his business--laying out

the vestments in the little sacristy that opened out at one side of the

altar, preparing the cruets and stripping the covering from the

altar-cloth--that even that slight work was wearying. There seemed a

certain oppression in the air. As to how far that was the result of his

broken rest he did not know, but he feared that it was one more of those

scirocco days that threatened. That yellowish tinge of dawn had not

passed with the sun-rising; even now, as he went noiselessly on his bare

feet between the predella and the _prie-dieu_ where the silent white

figure was still motionless, he caught now and again, above the roof

across the tiny court, a glimpse of that faint sand-tinged sky that was

the promise of beat and heaviness.

He finished at last, lighted the candles, genuflected, and stood with

bowed head waiting for the Holy Father to rise from His knees. A

servant’s footstep sounded in the court, coming across to hear mass, and

simultaneously the Pope rose and went towards the sacristy, where the

red vestments of God who came by fire were laid ready for the Sacrifice.

* * * * *

Silvester’s bearing at mass was singularly unostentatious. He moved as

swiftly as any young priest, His voice was quite even and quite low, and

his pace neither rapid nor pompous. According to tradition, He occupied

half-an-hour _ab amictu ad amictum_; and even in the tiny empty chapel

He observed to keep His eyes always downcast. And yet this Syrian never

served His mass without a thrill of something resembling fear; it was

not only his knowledge of the awful dignity of this simple celebrant;

but, although he could not have expressed it so, there was an aroma of

an emotion about the vestmented figure that affected him almost

physically--an entire absence of self-consciousness, and in its place

the consciousness of some other Presence, a perfection of manner even in

the smallest details that could only arise from absolute recollection.

Even in Rome in the old days it had been one of the sights of Rome to

see Father Franklin say mass; seminary students on the eve of ordination

were sent to that sight to learn the perfect manner and method.

To-day all was as usual, but at the Communion the priest looked up

suddenly at the moment when the Host had been consumed, with a half

impression that either a sound or a gesture had invited it; and, as he

looked, his heart began to beat thick and convulsive at the base of his

throat. Yet to the outward eyes there was nothing unusual. The figure

stood there with bowed head, the chin resting on the tips of the long

fingers, the body absolutely upright, and standing with that curious

light poise as if no weight rested upon the feet. But to the inner sense

something was apparent the Syrian could not in the least formulate it to

himself; but afterwards he reflected that he had stared expecting some

visible or audible manifestation to take place. It was an impression

that might be described under the terms of either light or sound; at any

instant that delicate vivid force, that to the eyes of the soul burned

beneath the red chasuble and the white alb, might have suddenly welled

outwards under the appearance of a gush of radiant light rendering

luminous not only the clear brown flesh seen beneath the white hair, but

the very texture of the coarse, dead, stained stuffs that swathed the

rest of the body. Or it might have shown itself in the strain of a long

chord on strings or wind, as if the mystical union of the dedicated soul

with the ineffable Godhead and Humanity of Jesus Christ generated such a

sound as ceaselessly flows out with the river of life from beneath the

Throne of the Lamb. Or yet once more it might have declared itself under

the guise of a perfume--the very essence of distilled sweetness--such a

scent as that which, streaming out through the gross tabernacle of a

saint’s body, is to those who observe it as the breath of heavenly

roses....

The moments passed in that hush of purity and peace; sounds came and

went outside, the rattle of a cart far away, the sawing of the first

cicada in the coarse grass twenty yards away beyond the wall; some one

behind the priest was breathing short and thick as under the pressure of

an intolerable emotion, and yet the figure stood there still, without a

movement or sway to break the carved motionlessness of the alb-folds or

the perfect poise of the white-shod feet. When He moved at last to

uncover the Precious Blood, to lay His hands on the altar and adore, it

was as if a statue had stirred into life; to the server it was very

nearly as a shock.

Again, when the chalice was empty, that first impression reasserted

itself; the human and the external died in the embrace of the Divine and

Invisible, and once more silence lived and glowed.... And again as the

spiritual energy sank back again into its origin, Silvester stretched

out the chalice.

With knees that shook and eyes wide in expectation, the priest rose,

adored, and went to the credence.

* * * * *

It was customary after the Pope’s mass that the priest himself should

offer the Sacrifice in his presence, but to-day so soon as the vestments

had been laid one by one on the rough chest, Silvester turned to the

priest.

“Presently,” he said softly. “Go up, father, at once to the roof, and

tell the Cardinal to be ready. I shall come in five minutes.”

It was surely a scirocco-day, thought the priest, as he came up on to

the flat roof. Overhead, instead of the clear blue proper to that hour

of the morning, lay a pale yellow sky darkening even to brown at the

horizon. Thabor, before him, hung distant and sombre seen through the

impalpable atmosphere of sand, and across the plain, as he glanced

behind him, beyond the white streak of Nain nothing was visible except

the pale outline of the tops of the hills against the sky. Even at this

morning hour, too, the air was hot and breathless, broken only by the

slow-stifling lift of the south-western breeze that, blowing across

countless miles of sand beyond far-away Egypt, gathered up the heat of

the huge waterless continent and was pouring it, with scarcely a streak

of sea to soften its malignity, on this poor strip of land. Carmel, too,

as he turned again, was swathed about its base with mist, half dry and

half damp, and above showed its long bull-head running out defiantly

against the western sky. The very table as he touched it was dry and hot

to the hand, by mid-day the steel would be intolerable.

He pressed the lever, and waited; pressed it again, and waited again.

There came the answering ring, and he tapped across the eighty miles of

air that his Eminence’s presence was required at once. A minute or two

passed, and then, after another rap of the bell, a line flicked out on

the new white sheet.

“‘I am here. Is it his Holiness?’”

He felt a hand upon his shoulder, and turned to see Silvester, hooded

and in white, behind his chair.

“Tell him yes. Ask him if there is further news.”

The Pope went to the chair once more and sat down, and a minute later

the priest, with growing excitement, read out the answer.

“‘Inquiries are pouring in. Many expect your Holiness to issue a

challenge. My secretaries have been occupied since four o’clock. The

anxiety is indescribable. Some are denying that they have a Pope.

Something must be done at once.’”

“Is that all?” asked the Pope.

Again the priest read out the answer. “‘Yes and no. The news is true. It

will be inforced immediately. Unless a step is taken immediately there

will be widespread and final apostasy.’”

“Very good,” murmured the Pope, in his official voice. “Now listen

carefully, Eminence.” He was silent for a moment, his fingers joined

beneath his chin as just now at mass. Then he spoke.

“We are about to place ourselves unreservedly in the hands of God. Human

prudence must no longer restrain us. We command you then, using all

discretion that is possible, to communicate these wishes of ours to the

following persons under the strictest secrecy, and to no others

whatsoever. And for this service you are to employ messengers, taken

from the Order of Christ Crucified, two for each message, which is not

to be committed to writing in any form. The members of the Sacred

College, numbering twelve; the metropolitans and Patriarchs through the

entire world, numbering twenty-two; the Generals of the Religious

Orders: the Society of Jesus, the Friars, the Monks Ordinary, and the

Monks Contemplative four. These persons, thirty-eight in number, with

the chaplain of your Eminence, who shall act as notary, and my own who

shall assist him, and Ourself--forty-one all told--these persons are to

present themselves here at our palace of Nazareth not later than the Eve

of Pentecost. We feel Ourselves unwilling to decide the steps necessary

to be taken with reference to the new decree, except we first hear the

counsel of our advisers, and give them an opportunity of communicating

freely one with another. These words, as we have spoken them, are to be

forwarded to all those persons whom we have named; and your Eminence

will further inform them that our deliberations will not occupy more

than four days.

“As regards the questions of provisioning the council and all matters of

that kind, your Eminence will despatch to-day the chaplain of whom we

have spoken, who with my own chaplain will at once set about

preparations, and your Eminence will yourself follow, appointing Father

Marabout to act in your absence, not later than four days hence.

“Finally, to all who have asked explicit directions in the face of this

new decree, communicate this one sentence, and no more.

“_Lose not your confidence which hath a great reward. For yet a little

while, and, He that is to come will come and will not delay_.--Silvester

the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God.”

CHAPTER III

I

Oliver Brand stepped out from the Conference Hall in Westminster on the

Friday evening, so soon as the business was over and the

Plenipotentiaries had risen from the table, more concerned as to the

effect of the news upon his wife than upon the world.

He traced the beginning of the change to the day five months ago when

the President of the World had first declared the development of his

policy, and while Oliver himself had yielded to that development, and

from defending it in public had gradually convinced himself of its

necessity, Mabel, for the first time in her life, had shown herself

absolutely obstinate.

The woman to his mind seemed to him to have fallen into some kind of

insanity. Felsenburgh’s declaration had been made a week or two after

his Acclamation at Westminster, and Mabel had received the news of it at

first with absolute incredulity.

Then, when there was no longer any doubt that he had declared the

extermination of the Supernaturalists to be a possible necessity, there

had been a terrible scene between husband and wife. She had said that

she had been deceived; that the world’s hope was a monstrous mockery;

that the reign of universal peace was as far away as ever; that

Felsenburgh had betrayed his trust and broken his word. There had been

an appalling scene. He did not even now like to recall it to his

imagination. She had quieted after a while, but his arguments, delivered

with infinite patience, seemed to produce very little effect. She

settled down into silence, hardly answering him. One thing only seemed

to touch her, and that was when he spoke of the President himself. It

was becoming plain to him that she was but a woman after all at the

mercy of a strong personality, but utterly beyond the reach of logic. He

was very much disappointed. Yet he trusted to time to cure her.

The Government of England had taken swift and skilful steps to reassure

those who, like Mabel, recoiled from the inevitable logic of the new

policy. An army of speakers traversed the country, defending and

explaining; the press was engineered with extraordinary adroitness, and

it was possible to say that there was not a person among the millions of

England who had not easy access to the Government’s defence.

Briefly, shorn of rhetoric, their arguments were as follows, and there

was no doubt that, on the whole, they had the effect of quieting the

amazed revolt of the more sentimental minds.

Peace, it was pointed out, had for the first time in the world’s history

become an universal fact. There was no longer one State, however small,

whose interests were not identical with those of one of the three

divisions of the world of which it was a dependency, and that first

stage had been accomplished nearly half-a-century ago. But the second

stage--the reunion of these three divisions under a common head--an

infinitely greater achievement than the former, since the conflicting

interests were incalculably more vast--this had been consummated by a

single Person, Who, it appeared, had emerged from humanity at the very

instant when such a Character was demanded. It was surely not much to

ask that those on whom these benefits had come should assent to the will

and judgment of Him through whom they had come. This, then, was an

appeal to faith.

The second main argument was addressed to reason. Persecution, as all

enlightened persons confessed, was the method of a majority of savages

who desired to force a set of opinions upon a minority who did not

spontaneously share them. Now the peculiar malevolence of persecution in

the past lay, not in the employment of force, but in the abuse of it.

That any one kingdom should dictate religious opinions to a minority of

its members was an intolerable tyranny, for no one State possessed the

right to lay down universal laws, the contrary to which might be held by

its neighbour. This, however, disguised, was nothing else than the

Individualism of Nations, a heresy even more disastrous to the

commonwealth of the world than the Individualism of the Individual. But

with the arrival of the universal community of interests the whole

situation was changed. The single personality of the human race had

succeeded to the incoherence of divided units, and with that

consummation--which might be compared to a coming of age, an entirely

new set of rights had come into being. The human race was now a single

entity with a supreme responsibility towards itself; there were no

longer any private rights at all, such as had certainly existed, in the

period previous to this. Man now possessed dominion over every cell

which composed His Mystical Body, and where any such cell asserted

itself to the detriment of the Body, the rights of the whole were

unqualified.

And there was no religion but one that claimed the equal rights of

universal jurisdiction--and that the Catholic. The sects of the East,

while each retained characteristics of its own, had yet found in the New

Man the incarnation of their ideals, and had therefore given in their

allegiance to the authority of the whole Body of whom He was Head. But

the very essence of the Catholic Religion was treason to the very idea

of man. Christians directed their homage to a supposed supernatural

Being who was not only--so they claimed--outside of the world but

positively transcended it. Christians, then--leaving aside the mad fable

of the Incarnation, which might very well be suffered to die of its own

folly--deliberately severed themselves from that Body of which by human

generation they had been made members. They were as mortified limbs

yielding themselves to the domination of an outside force other than

that which was their only life, and by that very act imperilled the

entire Body. This madness, then, was the one crime which still deserved

the name. Murder, theft, rape, even anarchy itself, were as trifling

faults compared to this monstrous sin, for while these injured indeed

the Body they did not strike at its heart--individuals suffered, and

therefore those minor criminals deserved restraint; but the very Life

was not struck at. But in Christianity there was a poison actually

deadly. Every cell that became infected with it was infected in that

very fibre that bound it to the spring of life. This, and this alone,

was the supreme crime of High Treason against man--and nothing but

complete removal from the world could be an adequate remedy.

These, then, were the main arguments addressed to that section of the

world which still recoiled from the deliberate utterance of Felsenburgh,

and their success had been remarkable. Of course, the logic, in itself

indisputable, had been dressed in a variety of costumes gilded with

rhetoric, flushed with passion, and it had done its work in such a

manner that as summer drew on Felsenburgh had announced privately that

he proposed to introduce a bill which should carry out to its logical

conclusion the policy of which he had spoken.

Now, this too, had been accomplished.

II

Oliver let himself into his house, and went straight upstairs to Mabel’s

room. It would not do to let her hear the news from any but his own

lips. She was not there, and on inquiry he heard that she had gone out

an hour before.

He was disconcerted at this. The decree had been signed half-an-hour

earlier, and in answer to an inquiry from Lord Pemberton it had been

stated that there was no longer any reason for secrecy, and that the

decision might be communicated to the press. Oliver had hurried away

immediately in order to make sure that Mabel should hear the news from

him, and now she was out, and at any moment the placards might tell her

of what had been done.

He felt extremely uneasy, but for another hour or so was ashamed to act.

Then he went to the tube and asked another question or two, but the

servant had no idea of Mabel’s movements; it might be she had gone to

the church; sometimes she did at this hour. He sent the woman off to

see, and himself sat down again in the window-seat of his wife’s room,

staring out disconsolately at the wide array of roofs in the golden

sunset light, that seemed to his eyes to be strangely beautiful this

evening. The sky was not that pure gold which it had been every night

during this last week; there was a touch of rose in it, and this

extended across the entire vault so far as he could see from west to

east. He reflected on what he had lately read in an old book to the

effect that the abolition of smoke had certainly changed evening colours

for the worse.... There had been a couple of severe earthquakes, too, in

America--he wondered whether there was any connection.... Then his

thoughts flew back to Mabel....

It was about ten minutes before he heard her footstep on the stairs, and

as he stood up she came in.

There was something in her face that told him that she knew everything,

and his heart sickened at her pale rigidity. There was no fury

there--nothing but white, hopeless despair, and an immense

determination. Her lips showed a straight line, and her eyes, beneath

her white summer hat, seemed contracted to pinpricks. She stood there,

closing the door mechanically behind her, and made no further movement

towards him.

“Is it true?” she said.

Oliver drew one steady breath, and sat down again.

“Is what true, my dear?”

“Is it true,” she said again, “that all are to be questioned as to

whether they believe in God, and to be killed if they confess it?”

Oliver licked his dry lips.

“You put it very harshly,” he said. “The question is, whether the world

has a right---”

She made a sharp movement with her head.

“It is true then. And you signed it?”

“My dear, I beg you not to make a scene. I am tired out. And I will not

answer that until you have heard what I have to say.”

“Say it, then.”

“Sit down, then.”

She shook her head.

“Very well, then.... Well, this is the point. The world is one now, not

many. Individualism is dead. It died when Felsenburgh became President

of the World. You surely see that absolutely new conditions prevail

now--there has never been anything like it before. You know all this as

well as I do.”

Again came that jerk of impatience.

“You will please to hear me out,” he said wearily. “Well, now that this

has happened, there is a new morality; it is exactly like a child coming

to the age of reason. We are obliged, therefore, to see that this

continues--that there is no going back--no mortification--that all the

limbs are in good health. ‘If thy hand offend thee, cut it off,’ said

Jesus Christ. Well, that is what we say.... Now, for any one to say that

they believe in God--I doubt very much whether there is any one who

really does believe, or understand what it means--but for any one even

to say so is the very worst crime conceivable: it is high treason. But

there is going to be no violence; it will all be quite quiet and

merciful. Why, you have always approved of Euthanasia, as we all do.

Well, it is that that will be used; and---”

Once more she made a little movement with her hand. The rest of her was

like an image.

“Is this any use?” she asked.

Oliver stood up. He could not bear the hardness of her voice.

“Mabel, my darling---”

For an instant her lips shook; then again she looked at him with eyes of

ice.

“I don’t want that,” she said. “It is of no use. Then you did sign it?”

Oliver had a sense of miserable desperation as he looked back at her.

He would infinitely have preferred that she had stormed and wept.

“Mabel---” he cried again.

“Then you did sign it?”

“I did sign it,” he said at last.

She turned and went towards the door. He sprang after her.

“Mabel, where are you going?”

Then, for the first time in her life, she lied to her husband frankly

and fully.

“I am going to rest a little,” she said. “I shall see you presently at

supper.”

He still hesitated, but she met his eyes, pale indeed, but so honest

that he fell back.

“Very well, my dear.... Mabel, try to understand.”

* * * * *

He came down to supper half-an-hour later, primed with logic, and even

kindled with emotion. The argument seemed to him now so utterly

convincing; granted the premises that they both accepted and lived by,

the conclusion was simply inevitable.

He waited a minute or two, and at last went to the tube that

communicated with the servants’ quarters.

“Where is Mrs. Brand?” he asked.

There was an instant’s silence, and then the answer came:

“She left the house half-an-hour ago, sir. I thought you knew.”

III

That same evening Mr. Francis was very busy in his office over the

details connected with the festival of Sustenance that was to be

celebrated on the first of July. It was the first time that the

particular ceremony had taken place, and he was anxious that it should

be as successful as its predecessors. There were a few differences

between this and the others, and it was necessary that the

_ceremoniarii_ should be fully instructed.

So, with his model before him--a miniature replica of the interior of

the Abbey, with tiny dummy figures on blocks that could be shifted this

way and that, he was engaged in adding in a minute ecclesiastical hand

rubrical notes to his copy of the Order of Proceedings.

When the porter therefore rang up a little after twenty-one o’clock,

that a lady wished to see him, he answered rather brusquely down the

tube that it was impossible. But the bell rang again, and to his

impatient question, the reply came up that it was Mrs. Brand below, and

that she did not ask for more than ten minutes’ conversation. This was

quite another matter. Oliver Brand was an important personage, and his

wife therefore had significance, and Mr. Francis apologised, gave

directions that she was to come to his ante-room, and rose, sighing,

from his dummy Abbey and officials.