f mercy. I ask you to believe me, at least, that I am speaking the
truth. Now, I am placed in this dilemma. By refusing, I am exposing the town
to the danger of riots and all their consequences; and this to save the life
of a man who blasphemes  against my religion,  who has slandered and wronged
and insulted me personally (though that is comparatively a trifle), and who,
as I firmly believe,  will put that  life  to  a bad use when it is given to
him. But--it is to save a man's life."
     He paused a moment, and went on again:
     "Signor Rivarez, everything that I know of your career seems to  me bad
and mischievous; and I have long believed you to be reckless and violent and
unscrupulous.  To some extent I  hold that opinion of you still.  But during
this last fortnight you have shown me  that you are a brave man and that you
can be  faithful to your friends. You have made the soldiers love and admire
you, too; and not every man  could  have done that. I think  that  perhaps I
have misjudged you, and that there  is in you something better than what you
show outside. To that better self in you I appeal, and solemnly entreat you,
on your conscience, to tell me truthfully--in my place, what would you do?"
     A long silence followed; then the Gadfly looked up.
     "At  least, I would  decide  my  own actions for myself, and  take  the
consequences of them.  I would  not come sneaking to  other people,  in  the
cowardly Christian way, asking them to solve my problems for me!"
     The  onslaught was  so sudden,  and  its  extraordinary  vehemence  and
passion  were  in  such startling contrast to the languid  affectation of  a
moment before, that it was as though he had thrown off a mask.
     "We atheists," he  went on  fiercely, "understand  that if a  man has a
thing to  bear, he must bear it as  best he can; and if he  sinks under it--
why, so much the worse for him. But a Christian comes whining to his God, or
his saints; or, if they won't help him, to his enemies--he can always find a
back to shift his  burdens on to. Isn't there a rule to go by in your Bible,
or your Missal, or any of your canting theology books, that you must come to
me to tell you what to  do? Heavens and  earth, man! Haven't I  enough as it
is,  without your  laying your responsibilities on my shoulders? Go  back to
your Jesus; he exacted the uttermost farthing, and you'd better do the same.
After  all,  you'll  only  be killing  an  atheist--a  man who  boggles over
'shibboleth'; and that's no great crime, surely!"
     He broke off, panting for breath, and then burst out again:
     "And YOU to talk  of cruelty! Why, that p-p-pudding-headed ass couldn't
hurt me as much as you do if he tried for a year; he hasn't  got the brains.
All he can think  of is to pull a strap tight, and  when he can't get it any
tighter he's at the end of his  resources. Any fool can do that! But you----
'Sign  your  own  death  sentence, please; I'm  too tender-hearted to do  it
myself.'  Oh!  it  would  take  a  Christian  to  hit  on  that--a   gentle,
compassionate Christian, that turns pale at the sight  of a strap pulled too
tight! I might have known  when you came in, like  an  angel of  mercy--  so
shocked  at  the  colonel's 'barbarity'--that the  real  thing was  going to
begin! Why do you look at me that way?  Consent, man, of course, and go home
to  your  dinner; the thing's not worth all this fuss. Tell  your colonel he
can have me shot, or hanged, or whatever comes  handiest--roasted alive,  if
it's any amusement to him--and be done with it!"
     The Gadfly was hardly recognizable; he was beside himself with rage and
desperation,   panting  and  quivering,  his  eyes  glittering   with  green
reflections like the eyes of an angry cat.
     Montanelli had risen, and was looking down at  him silently. He did not
understand the drift  of the frenzied  reproaches, but he  understood out of
what extremity  they were uttered; and, understanding that, forgave all past
insults.
     "Hush!" he said.  "I did not want to hurt you so. Indeed, I never meant
to  shift  my burden on  to you,  who have  too  much already.  I have never
consciously done that to any living creature----"
     "It's  a  lie!"  the Gadfly cried  out  with  blazing  eyes.  "And  the
bishopric?"
     "The--bishopric?"
     "Ah! you've  forgotten that? It's so easy to forget! 'If you  wish  it,
Arthur, I  will  say I  cannot go. I  was to decide your life for you--I, at
nineteen! If it weren't so hideous, it would be funny."
     "Stop!" Montanelli put up both hands to  his head with a desperate cry.
He let them  fall again, and walked slowly away to the window. There he  sat
down  on  the  sill,  resting one arm on the bars, and pressing his forehead
against it. The Gadfly lay and watched him, trembling.
     Presently Montanelli rose and came back, with lips as pale as ashes.
     "I am very sorry,"  he said, struggling piteously  to keep up his usual
quiet manner, "but I must go home. I--am not quite well."
     He was shivering as if with ague. All the Gadfly's fury broke down.
     "Padre, can't you see----"
     Montanelli shrank away, and stood still.
     "Only not that!" he whispered at last. "My God, anything but that! If I
am going mad----"
     The Gadfly  raised  himself on one arm,  and took the shaking hands  in
his.
     "Padre, will you never understand that I am not really drowned?"
     The hands grew suddenly cold  and  stiff.  For a  moment everything was
dead with silence, and  then  Montanelli knelt down and hid his face  on the
Gadfly's breast.
     . . . . .
     When he raised his head the sun had set, and the red glow  was dying in
the  west. They had forgotten time and place, and life and  death; they  had
forgotten, even, that they were enemies.
     "Arthur," Montanelli whispered, "are you real? Have you come back to me
from the dead?"
     "From  the dead----" the Gadfly repeated, shivering. He  was lying with
his  head on Montanelli's arm, as a sick  child might  lie  in its  mother's
embrace.
     "You have come back--you have come back at last!"
     The Gadfly sighed heavily. "Yes," he said; "and you have  to  fight me,
or to kill me."
     "Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now? We have been like two children
lost in the dark, mistaking one another for phantoms. Now we have found each
other,  and  have  come  out  into the light. My poor  boy, how  changed you
are--how changed you are! You look as if all the ocean of the world's misery
had passed over your head-- you that used  to be so full of the joy of life!
Arthur, is it really  you? I have dreamed so often that you had come back to
me; and then have waked and seen the outer darkness staring in upon an empty
place. How can I know  I shall  not wake again and find it all a dream? Give
me something tangible--tell me how it all happened."
     "It happened simply  enough. I hid on a goods  vessel, as stowaway, and
got out to South America."
     "And there?"
     "There I--lived,  if you  like to call  it so,  till-- oh,  I have seen
something  else besides theological  seminaries since  you used to  teach me
philosophy! You  say you have dreamed of me--yes, and much! You say you have
dreamed of me--yes, and I of you----"
     He broke off, shuddering.
     "Once,"  he  began  again  abruptly,  "I  was  working  at  a  mine  in
Ecuador----"
     "Not as a miner?"
     "No, as  a miner's fag--odd-jobbing with the coolies.  We had a barrack
to sleep in at the pit's mouth; and one night--I  had  been ill, the same as
lately,   and  carrying  stones   in  the  blazing  sun--I  must   have  got
light-headed, for  I  saw  you come  in at the door-way. You  were holding a
crucifix like that  one  on the wall. You were praying,  and brushed past me
without  turning. I cried  out to  you to help  me--to  give  me poison or a
knife--something  to  put  an  end  to  it  all  before   I  went  mad.  And
you--ah------!"
     He  drew  one hand across  his eyes. Montanelli  was still clasping the
other.
     "I saw in your face that you had heard, but you never looked round; you
went on  with your prayers. When you had finished, and kissed  the crucifix,
you  glanced round and  whispered: 'I am  very sorry for  you, Arthur; but I
daren't show  it; He would  be angry.' And I  looked at Him, and  the wooden
image was laughing.
     "Then,  when I came to my senses, and saw the barrack and  the  coolies
with their leprosy,  I understood. I saw  that you care more to curry favour
with that  devilish God of yours than to save me  from any hell. And I  have
remembered that. I  forgot  just now when you touched me; I--have been  ill,
and I  used to love  you once. But there can be nothing between us  but war,
and war,  and war. What do you  want to hold my hand for? Can't you see that
while you believe in your Jesus we can't be anything but enemies?"
     Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.
     "Arthur,  how  can I  help believing in Him?  If I  have  kept my faith
through all these  frightful  years, how can I  ever doubt Him any more, now
that He has given you back to me? Remember, I thought I had killed you."
     "You have that still to do."
     "Arthur!"  It  was a  cry of actual  terror; but the  Gadfly  went  on,
unheeding:
     "Let us  be honest, whatever  we do,  and not  shilly-shally. You and I
stand  on two sides of a  pit, and it's hopeless trying to join hands across
it. If you have decided that you  can't, or won't, give  up that  thing"--he
glanced again  at the crucifix  on the wall--"you must consent to  what  the
colonel----"
     "Consent! My God--consent--Arthur, but I love you!"
     The Gadfly's face contracted  fearfully. "Which do you love best, me or
that thing?"
     Montanelli slowly rose.  The very soul  in him withered with dread, and
he seemed to shrivel up  bodily, and to grow feeble,  and  old,  and wilted,
like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had awaked out of his  dream, and
the outer darkness was staring in upon an empty place.
     "Arthur, have just a little mercy on me----"
     "How much had you for me when your lies drove me out to be slave to the
blacks   on   the   sugar-plantations?  You  shudder   at  that--ah,   these
tender-hearted  saints! This is the man after God's own  heart--the man that
repents of  his sin  and lives. No one  dies but his son.  You say  you love
me,--your  love  has  cost  me  dear  enough! Do you  think I can  blot  out
everything, and turn back into Arthur at a few soft words--I, that have been
dish-washer in filthy  half-caste  brothels and stable-boy to Creole farmers
that were worse brutes  than their own cattle? I, that have been zany in cap
and bells for a strolling variety show--drudge and Jack-of-all-trades to the
matadors  in  the bull-fighting ring; I, that have been slave to every black
beast who  cared to set his foot on  my neck; I, that have  been starved and
spat upon and trampled under foot; I, that have begged for mouldy scraps and
been refused because the dogs  had  the first  right? Oh, what is the use of
all this! How  can I TELL you what you have brought on me? And now--you love
me! How much do you love me? Enough to give up your God for me? Oh, what has
He  done  for you, this everlasting Jesus,  --what has  He suffered for you,
that you should love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced hands He is  so
dear to you? Look at mine! Look here, and here, and here----"
     He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.
     "Padre, this God of yours is  an impostor, His  wounds are sham wounds,
His pain is  all a  farce! It is I that have the right to your heart! Padre,
there is no torture you  have not put me to; if  you could only know what my
life has been!  And yet  I would not die! I have  endured it  all,  and have
possessed my soul in patience, because I  would come back and fight this God
of yours. I have  held this purpose as a shield against my heart, and it has
saved me from madness, and from the second death. And now, when I come back,
I find Him still in  my  place--this sham victim that was crucified for  six
hours,  forsooth, and rose again from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified
for five years, and I, too, have risen from the dead. What  are you going to
do with me? What are you going to do with me?"
     He broke down. Montanelli sat like some stone image, or like a dead man
set upright. At first, under  the fiery torrent of the Gadfly's  despair, he
had quivered a  little, with the automatic shrinking of the flesh, as  under
the lash of  a  whip;  but now he was quite still. After  a long silence  he
looked up and spoke, lifelessly, patiently:
     "Arthur,  will you explain to me  more clearly? You confuse and terrify
me so, I can't understand. What is it you demand of me?"
     The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.
     "I  demand nothing.  Who  shall compel  love? You  are  free  to choose
between us two the one who is most dear to you. If you love Him best, choose
Him."
     "I can't understand," Montanelli repeated wearily. "What is there I can
choose? I cannot undo the past."
     "You have  to choose  between us. If you  love me, take that  cross off
your neck and come away with  me. My friends  are arranging another attempt,
and with your help they could manage it easily. Then, when we  are safe over
the frontier, acknowledge  me publicly. But  if you don't love me enough for
that,--if  this  wooden idol is more to you than I,--then go to  the colonel
and tell him you consent. And  if you go, then go at once, and  spare me the
misery of seeing you. I have enough without that."
     Montanelli   looked  up,  trembling   faintly.   He  was  beginning  to
understand.
     "I  will communicate with  your  friends, of  course.  But--to go  with
you--it is impossible-- I am a priest."
     "And I accept no favours from priests. I will have no more compromises,
Padre;  I have had  enough of them, and of their consequences. You must give
up your priesthood, or you must give up me."
     "How can I give you up? Arthur, how can I give you up?"
     "Then give up Him. You have to choose between us. Would  you offer me a
share of your love--half for me, half for your fiend  of a God?  I  will not
take His leavings. If you are His, you are not mine."
     "Would you have me tear my heart in two? Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to
drive me mad?"
     The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.
     "You have to choose between us," he repeated once more.
     Montanelli drew  from  his breast  a  little  case containing a bit  of
soiled and crumpled paper.
     "Look!" he said.
     "I believed in you, as I believed in  God. God is a thing made of clay,
that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."
     The Gadfly laughed and  handed it back. "How d-d-delightfully young one
is at nineteen! To take a hammer and  smash  things seems so easy. It's that
now--only it's I  that  am under the hammer. As for you, there are plenty of
other people you can fool with lies--and they won't even find you out."
     "As you will," Montanelli said. "Perhaps in your  place I should  be as
merciless as you--God knows. I can't do what you ask, Arthur; but  I will do
what I can. I will arrange your escape, and when you are safe I will have an
accident  in   the   mountains,  or  take   the  wrong  sleeping-draught  by
mistake--whatever you like to choose. Will that content you? It is all I can
do.  It is  a  great  sin;  but  I  think He  will  forgive me.  He is  more
merciful------"
     The Gadfly flung out both hands with a sharp cry.
     "Oh,  that  is  too much! That is too much! What have  I done  that you
should think of me that way?  What right have you---- As if  I  wanted to be
revenged on you! Can't you  see that I only want to save you? Will you never
understand that I love you?"
     He caught hold of  Montanelli's hands  and  covered  them  with burning
kisses and tears.
     "Padre,  come away with us! What have you to do with this dead world of
priests and  idols? They  are  full of the  dust of  bygone  ages; they  are
rotten;  they  are pestilent  and  foul!  Come out  of this  plague-stricken
Church--come away  with us into the light! Padre, it is we that are life and
youth; it is we that are  the everlasting springtime; it is we  that are the
future!  Padre, the dawn is close upon us--will you miss  your  part in  the
sunrise? Wake up,  and let us  forget the horrible nightmares,--wake up, and
we will begin our life again! Padre,  I have  always loved you--always, even
when you killed me--will you kill me again?"
     Montanelli tore his  hands away. "Oh,  God have mercy  on me!" he cried
out. "YOU HAVE YOUR MOTHER'S EYES!"
     A strange silence, long and deep  and  sudden, fell  upon them both. In
the  gray twilight they looked at each other, and  their hearts  stood still
with fear.
     "Have  you anything  more  to say?" Montanelli whispered. "Any--hope to
give me?"
     "No. My  life is of no use to me  except  to fight  priests. I am not a
man; I am a knife. If you let me live, you sanction knives."
     Montanelli turned to the crucifix. "God! Listen to this----"
     His voice died away into the empty stillness without response. Only the
mocking devil awoke again in the Gadfly.
     "'C-c-call him louder; perchance he s-s-sleepeth'----"
     Montanelli started up  as if he had been struck. For a moment  he stood
looking straight before  him;--then he sat down  on the  edge of the pallet,
covered  his  face with both  hands, and  burst into tears. A  long  shudder
passed through the Gadfly, and the damp cold broke  out on his body. He knew
what the tears meant.
     He drew the blanket over his head that he might not hear. It was enough
that he had to die--he who was so vividly, magnificently alive. But he could
not  shut out the sound;  it rang  in his ears, it  beat  in his  brain,  it
throbbed in all his pulses. And still Montanelli sobbed and sobbed, and  the
tears dripped down between his fingers.
     He left off sobbing at last, and  dried his eyes with his handkerchief,
like a child that  has been crying. As he stood up  the handkerchief slipped
from his knee and fell to the floor.
     "There is no use in talking any more," he said. "You understand?"
     "I  understand," the Gadfly  answered, with  dull submission. "It's not
your fault. Your God is hungry, and must be fed."
     Montanelli turned towards him.  The  grave  that was to be dug  was not
more still  than they were. Silent,  they  looked into each other's eyes, as
two lovers, torn apart, might gaze across the barrier they cannot pass.
     It  was the Gadfly whose eyes  sank first. He  shrank  down, hiding his
face;  and Montanelli understood that the gesture meant "Go!" He turned, and
went out of the cell. A moment later the Gadfly started up.
     "Oh, I can't bear it! Padre, come back! Come back!"
     The door  was shut.  He  looked around him  slowly, with a  wide, still
gaze, and understood that all was over. The Galilean had conquered.
     All night long the grass waved softly in the courtyard below--the grass
that was so soon to wither,  uprooted  by the spade;  and all night long the
Gadfly lay alone in the darkness, and sobbed.

        PART III: CHAPTER VII.
     THE court-martial was held on Tuesday morning. It  was a very short and
simple affair; a mere formality, occupying barely twenty minutes. There was,
indeed, nothing to spend much  time  over; no  defence  was allowed, and the
only  witnesses  were  the  wounded spy and officer and a few soldiers.  The
sentence  was  drawn  up beforehand; Montanelli  had  sent  in  the  desired
informal  consent;  and the  judges  (Colonel Ferrari, the  local  major  of
dragoons,  and two  officers  of  the  Swiss guards) had little  to do.  The
indictment  was  read  aloud,  the  witnesses  gave their  evidence, and the
signatures  were  affixed  to  the  sentence,  which  was then read  to  the
condemned man  with befitting solemnity. He  listened in silence;  and  when
asked, according to the  usual form, whether he  had anything to say, merely
waved the question  aside with an impatient movement of  his hand. Hidden on
his breast was  the handkerchief which Montanelli had  let fall. It had been
kissed and wept  over all night,  as  though  it were a living thing. Now he
looked  wan and spiritless, and  the traces of tears  were  still  about his
eyelids; but the words: "to be shot," did  not seem to affect him much. When
they were uttered, the pupils of his eyes dilated, but that was all.
     "Take  him  back  to  his  cell,"  the  Governor  said.  when  all  the
formalities were over;  and the sergeant, who was evidently near to breaking
down, touched the motionless figure on the shoulder. The Gadfly looked round
him with a little start.
     "Ah, yes!" he said. "I forgot."
     There was something almost like pity in the Governor's face. He was not
a cruel man by nature, and was secretly a little ashamed of  the part he had
been playing during the last  month. Now that  his  main point was gained he
was willing to make every little concession in his power.
     "You needn't put the irons on  again," he said, glancing at the bruised
and swollen wrists. "And he can stay in his own cell. The condemned  cell is
wretchedly  dark and gloomy," he  added, turning to his nephew; "and  really
the thing's a mere formality."
     He coughed and  shifted his feet in evident  embarrassment; then called
back the sergeant, who was leaving the room with his prisoner.
     "Wait, sergeant; I want to speak to him."
     The Gadfly  did not  move, and the Governor's voice  seemed  to fall on
unresponsive ears.
     "If you have  any message you would like  conveyed to  your  friends or
relatives---- You have relatives, I suppose?"
     There was no answer.
     "Well, think it over and  tell me, or the  priest. I will see it is not
neglected. You had better give your messages to the priest; he shall come at
once, and stay the night with you. If there is any other wish----"
     The Gadfly looked up.
     "Tell  the  priest I  would  rather  be alone. I have no friends and no
messages."
     "But you will want to confess."
     "I am an atheist. I want nothing but to be left in peace."
     He said it in a dull, quiet  voice, without defiance or irritation; and
turned slowly away. At the door he stopped again.
     "I forgot, colonel; there is  a favour I  wanted to ask. Don't let them
tie me or bandage my eyes to-morrow, please. I will stand quite still."
     . . . . .
     At  sunrise  on  Wednesday  morning  they  brought  him  out  into  the
courtyard. His  lameness was more than usually apparent,  and he walked with
evident difficulty and pain, leaning  heavily on the sergeant's arm; but all
the weary submission had gone out of his face. The spectral terrors that had
crushed him down in the  empty silence, the visions and dreams  of the world
of shadows, were gone with the night which gave them birth; and once the sun
was  shining and his enemies were  present  to rouse the fighting  spirit in
him, he was not afraid.
     The six carabineers who had  been told off for the execution were drawn
up in line against the ivied wall; the same crannied and crumbling wall down
which  he had climbed on the night of his unlucky attempt. They could hardly
refrain from weeping as  they  stood together, each man with his carbine  in
his hand. It seemed to them a horror beyond imagination  that they should be
called out to kill the Gadfly. He and his  stinging repartees, his perpetual
laughter,  his  bright,  infectious courage, had  come into  their  dull and
dreary lives like a wandering sunbeam; and that  he should die, and at their
hands, was to them as the darkening of the clear lamps of heaven.
     Under the great fig-tree  in the  courtyard,  his grave was waiting for
him.  It had been dug in the  night by unwilling hands; and tears had fallen
on the spade. As he passed he looked down, smiling, at the black pit and the
withering grass beside it; and drew a long breath, to smell the scent of the
freshly turned earth.
     Near the tree the sergeant stopped short,  and  the Gadfly looked round
with his brightest smile.
     "Shall I stand here, sergeant?"
     The man nodded silently; there  was a lump in his throat,  and he could
not  have spoken to save his life. The Governor, his nephew, the  lieutenant
of carabineers who was to command, a doctor and a priest were already in the
courtyard, and came forward with grave faces, half abashed under the radiant
defiance of the Gadfly's laughing eyes.
     "G-good morning, gentlemen! Ah, and his reverence  is up so early, too!
How do you  do, captain?  This is  a pleasanter  occasion for  you than  our
former meeting, isn't it? I see your arm is still in a sling; that's because
I  bungled my  work. These good fellows will do theirs better--  won't  you,
lads?"
     He glanced round at the gloomy faces of the carabineers.
     "There'll be no need of slings this time, any  way.  There, there,  you
needn't  look  so  doleful over  it!  Put your heels together and  show  how
straight you can shoot. Before  long there'll be more work  cut out for  you
than you'll  know how to get  through, and  there's  nothing  like  practice
beforehand." "My  son," the  priest interrupted,  coming forward, while  the
others  drew back to leave  them alone together;  "in a few minutes you must
enter into the presence  of your  Maker. Have you  no other use but this for
these last moments that are left you for  repentance? Think, I entreat  you,
how  dreadful a  thing  it is to die without absolution,  with all your sins
upon your head. When you stand  before your Judge  it will  be  too late  to
repent. Will you approach His awful throne with a jest upon your lips?"
     "A jest, your reverence? It is your side that needs that little homily,
I think. When our turn comes we shall use field-guns instead of half a dozen
second-hand carbines, and then you'll see how much we're in jest."
     "YOU will  use field-guns! Oh, unhappy man! Have you still not realized
on what frightful brink you stand?"
     The Gadfly glanced back over his shoulder at the open grave.
     "And s-s-so  your  reverence  thinks that, when you  have put  me  down
there, you will have done  with  me? Perhaps you will lay a stone on the top
to  pre-v-vent a r-resurrection 'after three days'? No fear, your reverence!
I shan't poach on the monopoly in cheap theatricals; I shall lie as still as
a  m-mouse,  just  where  you  put  me.  And  all  the  same,  WE shall  use
field-guns."
     "Oh, merciful God," the priest cried out; "forgive this wretched man!"
     "Amen!"  murmured the lieutenant of carabineers, in a deep  bass growl,
while the colonel and his nephew crossed themselves devoutly.
     As there was  evidently no hope of  further  insistence  producing  any
effect,  the priest gave  up the fruitless attempt and moved  aside, shaking
his head and murmuring a prayer. The short and simple preparations were made
without more  delay, and the Gadfly placed himself in the required position,
only turning  his head  to  glance  up for  a  moment at the red and  yellow
splendour of the  sunrise. He had  repeated the  request that his eyes might
not be bandaged, and his defiant face had wrung from the colonel a reluctant
consent. They had both forgotten what they were inflicting on the soldiers.
     He stood  and  faced them, smiling, and  the  carbines  shook  in their
hands.
     "I am quite ready," he said.
     The lieutenant stepped forward, trembling  a little with excitement. He
had never given the word of command for an execution before.
     "Ready--present--fire!"
     The Gadfly staggered  a little and recovered his balance. One  unsteady
shot had  grazed his cheek, and a little  blood fell on to the white cravat.
Another ball had struck him above the knee. When the  smoke cleared away the
soldiers looked  and saw him smiling  still  and wiping  the blood  from his
cheek with the mutilated hand
     "A bad shot, men!" he said; and his voice cut in, clear and articulate,
upon the dazed stupor of the wretched soldiers. "Have another try."
     A general groan and shudder passed through the row of carabineers. Each
man had aimed aside, with a secret hope  that the death-shot would come from
his  neighbour's hand, not his;  and there  the  Gadfly  stood and smiled at
them;  they had  only  turned the execution  into a  butchery, and the whole
ghastly business was to  do again. They were seized with sudden terror, and,
lowering their carbines, listened  hopelessly  to  the  furious  curses  and
reproaches of the officers, staring in dull horror  at the man whom they had
killed and who somehow was not dead.
     The Governor shook his fist in their faces, savagely shouting  to  them
to stand in position, to present arms, to make haste and get the thing over.
He had become as thoroughly demoralized as they were, and dared not look  at
the  terrible figure that  stood, and  stood, and  would not fall. When  the
Gadfly spoke to  him he started and shuddered  at  the sound of  the mocking
voice.
     "You  have brought  out the awkward squad this morning, colonel! Let me
see if I can manage them better. Now, men!  Hold your tool higher there, you
to the left. Bless your heart, man, it's a carbine you've got in your  hand,
not a frying-pan! Are you all straight? Now then! Ready--present----"
     "Fire!"  the colonel interrupted, starting  forward. It was intolerable
that this man should give the command for his own death.
     There was another confused, disorganized volley, and the  line broke up
into a knot of shivering figures, staring before them with wild eyes. One of
the soldiers had not  even discharged his carbine; he had flung it away, and
crouched down, moaning under his breath: "I can't--I can't!"
     The  smoke cleared  slowly  away,  floating up into  the glimmer of the
early sunlight; and they saw that the Gadfly had  fallen; and saw, too, that
he was still not dead. For  the first moment soldiers and officials stood as
if they had been turned to stone, and watched the ghastly thing that writhed
and  struggled  on  the ground; then  both doctor and colonel rushed forward
with a cry, for he had dragged himself up on one knee  and  was still facing
the soldiers, and still laughing.
     "Another miss! Try--again, lads--see--if you can't----"
     He suddenly swayed and fell over sideways on the grass.
     "Is  he dead?" the  colonel asked under  his  breath; and  the  doctor,
kneeling down, with a hand on the bloody shirt, answered softly:
     "I think so--God be praised!"
     "God be praised!" the colonel repeated. "At last!"
     His nephew was touching him on the arm.
     "Uncle! It's the Cardinal! He's at the gate and wants to come in."
     "What? He  can't  come in--I won't have it!  What are the guards about?
Your Eminence----"
     The  gate had opened  and  shut, and  Montanelli  was  standing  in the
courtyard, looking before him with still and awful eyes.
     "Your Eminence! I must beg of you--this is not a fit sight for you! The
execution is only just over; the body is not yet----"
     "I  have come to look at him,"  Montanelli  said. Even at the moment it
struck the Governor that his voice and bearing were those of a sleep-walker.
"Oh, my God!" one  of  the soldiers cried out  suddenly;  and  the  Governor
glanced hastily back. Surely------
     The blood-stained heap on the grass had once more begun to struggle and
moan. The doctor flung himself down and lifted the head upon his knee.
     "Make haste!" he cried in desperation. "You savages, make haste! Get it
over, for God's sake! There's no bearing this!"
     Great  jets of blood  poured over his hands, and the convulsions of the
figure that  he held  in his arms shook him, too, from head to  foot. As  he
looked frantically round for help, the priest bent over his shoulder and put
a crucifix to the lips of the dying man.
     "In the name of the Father and of the Son----"
     The  Gadfly  raised  himself  against  the  doctor's  knee,  and,  with
wide-open eyes, looked straight upon the crucifix.
     Slowly, amid hushed and  frozen stillness,  he lifted the  broken right
hand and pushed away the image. There was a red smear across its face.
     "Padre--is your--God--satisfied?"
     His head fell back on the doctor's arm.
     . . . . .
     "Your Eminence!"
     As  the Cardinal  did  not  awake  from  his  stupor,  Colonel  Ferrari
repeated, louder:
     "Your Eminence!"
     Montanelli looked up.
     "He is dead."
     "Quite dead, your Eminence. Will you not come  away? This is a horrible
sight."
     "He  is dead," Montanelli repeated, and looked down  again at the face.
"I touched him; and he is dead."
     "What does he expect a man to be with half a dozen bullets in him?" the
lieutenant whispered contemptuously; and the doctor whispered back. "I think
the sight of the blood has upset him."
     The Governor put his hand firmly on Montanelli's arm.
     "Your Eminence--you  had  better not look  at him any  longer. Will you
allow the chaplain to escort you home?"
     "Yes--I will go."
     He  turned  slowly from  the  blood-stained  spot  and walked away, the
priest and sergeant following. At the gate he paused and looked back, with a
ghostlike, still surprise.
     "He is dead."
     . . . . .
     A few hours later  Marcone went up to a cottage on the hillside to tell
Martini that there was no longer any need for him to throw away his life.
     All the preparations  for a second attempt at rescue were ready, as the
plot was much more simple than the former one. It had been  arranged that on
the  following morning,  as the Corpus  Domini procession passed  along  the
fortress hill, Martini should step  forward out of the crowd, draw  a pistol
from  his breast,  and fire in  the Governor's face. In  the moment of  wild
confusion which would follow twenty  armed men were to make a sudden rush at
the gate, break into the tower, and, taking  the turnkey with them by force,
to  enter  the  prisoner's  cell  and  carry  him bodily  away,  killing  or
overpowering everyone who interfered with them.  From the gate they  were to
retire fighting, and cover the retreat of a second band of armed and mounted
smugglers, who would carry  him off into  a safe hiding-place in the  hills.
The  only person in the little group who knew nothing of the plan was Gemma;
it had been kept from her  at Martini's special desire. "She will break  her
heart over it soon enough," he had said.
     As the smuggler came in  at the garden gate  Martini  opened  the glass
door and stepped out on to the verandah to meet him.
     "Any news, Marcone? Ah!"
     The smuggler had pushed back his broad-brimmed straw hat.
     They sat down together on the verandah. Not a word was spoken on either
side. From the instant when  Martini had caught sight of  the face under the
hat-brim he had understood.
     "When was it?" he asked after a long pause;  and his  own voice, in his
ears, was as dull and wearisome as everything else.
     "This morning, at sunrise.  The sergeant told me.  He was there and saw
it."
     Martini looked down and flicked a stray thread from his coat-sleeve.
     Vanity of vanities; this also is vanity. He was to have died to-morrow.
And now  the land of his heart's  desire had vanished, like the fairyland of
golden  sunset dreams that fades away when  the darkness  comes; and he  was
driven back into  the world  of  every day  and  every night--the  world  of
Grassini  and Galli, of  ciphering  and  pamphleteering, of party  squabbles
between  comrades  and  dreary  intrigues  among Austrian  spies--of the old
revolutionary  mill-round that maketh the heart sick. And  somewhere down at
the bottom  of his consciousness there was a great empty place; a place that
nothing and no one would fill any more, now that the Gadfly was dead.
     Someone was  asking him a  question, and  he raised his head, wondering
what could be left that was worth the trouble of talking about.
     "What did you say?"
     "I was saying that of course you will break the news to her."
     Life, and all the horror of life, came back into Martini's face.
     "How can I tell her?" he cried out. "You might as well ask me to go and
stab her. Oh, how can I tell her--how can I!"
     He had clasped both  hands over his eyes; but, without seeing, he  felt
the  smuggler start beside  him,  and  looked up. Gemma was  standing in the
doorway.
     "Have you heard, Cesare?" she  said.  "It  is all over. They have  shot
him."PART III: CHAPTER VIII.
     "INTROIBO  ad altare Dei." Montanelli stood before the high altar among
his ministers and acolytes and read the Introit aloud in  steady  tones. All
the Cathedral was a blaze of light  and colour; from the holiday dresses  of
the congregation to the pillars with their flaming draperies  and wreaths of
flowers  there was no dull spot in it. Over the  open spaces of  the doorway
fell  great  scarlet  curtains, through whose  folds the  hot  June sunlight
glowed, as through the petals of red poppies in a  corn-field. The religious
orders with their candles and torches,  the companies  of  the parishes with
their  crosses and flags, lighted up the dim side-chapels; and in the aisles
the silken folds  of  the processional banners drooped, their gilded  staves
and  tassels glinting  under the  arches. The  surplices of  the  choristers
gleamed, rainbow-tinted, beneath the  coloured windows; the sunlight lay  on
the chancel floor in chequered stains of orange and purple and green. Behind
the altar hung a shimmering veil of silver tissue; and against  the veil and
the decorations and the  altar-lights the Cardinal's figure stood out in its
trailing white robes like a marble statue that had come to life.
     As  was customary on processional days, he was only  to  preside at the
Mass, not to celebrate, so at the end of the Indulgentiam he turned from the
altar  and  walked slowly to the episcopal  throne,  celebrant and ministers
bowing low as he passed.
     "I'm afraid  His  Eminence is not well," one of the canons whispered to
his neighbour; "he seems so strange."
     Montanelli bent his head  to receive the jewelled mitre. The priest who
was acting as deacon of honour put it on, looked at him for an instant, then
leaned forward and whispered softly:
     "Your Eminence, are you ill?"
     Montanelli turned slightly towards him. There was no recognition in his
eyes.
     "Pardon, Your Eminence!" the priest whispered, as he made a genuflexion
and went back to his place, reproaching  himself for  having interrupted the
Cardinal's devotions.
     The familiar ceremony went on; and  Montanelli sat erect and still, his
glittering mitre and gold-brocaded vestments flashing back the sunlight, and
the heavy  folds  of  his white festival  mantle sweeping down over  the red
carpet. The light  of a hundred candles sparkled  among the sapphires on his
breast, and shone into the deep, still eyes that had no answering gleam; and
when, at the words: "Benedicite, pater eminentissime," he  stooped to  bless
the  incense, and  the  sunbeams played  among  the diamonds, he might  have
recalled some splendid and fearful ice-spirit of the mountains, crowned with
rainbows and  robed  in  drifted snow, scattering, with  extended  hands,  a
shower of blessings or of curses.
     At  the elevation of  the Host  he descended from his  throne and knelt
before  the  altar.  There  was a  strange,  still  evenness about  all  his
movements; and as he rose and went back to his place the major  of dragoons,
who  was  sitting in  gala  uniform  behind the Governor,  whispered  to the
wounded  captain:  "The old Cardinal's breaking,  not a doubt of it. He goes
through his work like a machine."
     "So much the  better!" the captain whispered  back. "He's been  nothing
but a mill-stone round all our necks ever since that confounded amnesty."
     "He did give in, though, about the court-martial."
     "Yes, at  last;  but he  was  a precious  time  making up  his mind to.
Heavens, how  close it is! We shall all  get sun-stroke  in  the procession.
It's a pity we're not Cardinals, to have a canopy held  over  our  heads all
the way---- Sh-sh-sh! There's my uncle looking at us!"
     Colonel Ferrari had turned round to glance  severely at the two younger
officers. After the solemn event of yesterday morning he was in a devout and
serious frame of mind, and  inclined to reproach them with a want of  proper
feeling about what he regarded as "a painful necessity of state."
     The masters of  the ceremonies  began  to assemble  and place  in order
those who were to take part in the procession. Colonel Ferrari rose from his
place and moved up  to the chancel-rail,  beckoning to the other officers to
accompany him.  When  the Mass  was  finished, and the  Host had been placed
behind  the crystal  shield in the processional  sun,  the celebrant and his
ministers retired to  the sacristy to change  their vestments, and  a little
buzz  of  whispered conversation  broke out through  the  church. Montanelli
remained seated on his throne, looking straight before  him,  immovably. All
the sea of human life and motion  seemed to surge around and  below him, and
to die away into stillness about his feet. A censer  was brought to him; and
he raised his hand with the action of an automaton, and put the incense into
the vessel, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
     The clergy had  come  back from the  sacristy, and were waiting in  the
chancel for him to descend; but he remained  utterly motionless.  The deacon
of  honour,  bending  forward  to  take  off  the  mitre,  whispered  again,
hesitatingly:
     "Your Eminence!" The Cardinal looked round.
     "What did you say?"
     "Are you quite sure  the procession will  not  be too much for you? The
sun is very hot."
     "What does the sun matter?"
     Montanelli spoke  in  a  cold,  measured  voice,  and  the priest again
fancied that he must have given offence.
     "Forgive me, Your Eminence. I thought you seemed unwell."
     Montanelli rose without answering. He paused a moment on the upper step
of the throne, and asked in the same measured way:
     "What is that?"
     The long train of  his mantle swept down over the steps and lay  spread
out on the  chancel-floor, and he was pointing to a fiery stain on the white
satin.
     "It's  only  the  sunlight shining  through  a  coloured  window,  Your
Eminence."
     "The sunlight? Is it so red?"
     He descended the steps, and knelt before the altar, swinging the censer
slowly to and fro. As he handed it back, the chequered sunlight fell  on his
bared head and wide, uplifted eyes, and cast a crimson glow across the white
veil that his ministers were folding round him.
     He took from the deacon the  sacred  golden sun; and stood up, as choir
and organ burst into a peal of triumphal melody.
     "Pange, lingua, g]oriosi Corporis mysterium, Sanguinisque pretiosi Quem
in mundi pretium, Fructus ventris generosi Rex effudit gentium."
     The bearers came slowly forward, and raised the silken  canopy over his
head, while the  deacons of honour stepped to their  places at his right and
left and drew back the long folds of the mantle. As the acolytes stooped  to
lift his  robe  from the  chancel-floor,  the  lay  fraternities heading the
procession started to pace  down the  nave  in  stately  double  file,  with
lighted candles held to left and right.
     He stood above them,  by the altar, motionless under the  white canopy,
holding the  Eucharist  aloft  with steady hands, and watched them  as  they
passed. Two by two, with candles and  banners and torches, with  crosses and
images and flags, they swept  slowly down the chancel steps, along the broad
nave  between the  garlanded  pillars,  and out  under  the  lifted  scarlet
curtains  into the blazing  sunlight of the street; and  the sound of  their
chanting died into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing of new and newer
voices, as the unending stream  flowed on, and yet new footsteps echoed down
the nave.
     The  companies of  the parishes  passed,  with their white  shrouds and
veiled  faces; then  the brothers of  the  Misericordia, black  from head to
foot, their  eyes faintly gleaming through the holes  in their  masks.  Next
came the monks  in solemn row:  the mendicant friars, with their dusky cowls
and bare, brown  feet; the white-robed, grave Dominicans. Then  followed the
lay  officials  of  the  district;  dragoons and carabineers  and the  local
police-officials; the  Governor  in gala uniform,  with his brother officers
beside him. A deacon followed, holding up a great cross between two acolytes
with gleaming candles; and as the curtains were lifted high to let them pass
out at  the doorway, Montanelli caught a momentary  glimpse, from  where  he
stood under the canopy, of the sunlit blaze of carpeted street and flag-hung
walls and white-robed children scattering roses. Ah, the roses; how red they
were!
     On and  on the  procession paced in order; form  succeeding to form and
colour  to  colour.  Long  white  surplices, grave and seemly, gave place to
gorgeous vestments and  embroidered pluvials. Now  passed a tall and slender
golden cross,  borne  high  above  the  lighted  candles;  now the cathedral
canons, stately  in  their  dead white mantles. A chaplain  paced  down  the
chancel, with  the  crozier between  two flaring torches;  then the acolytes
moved forward in  step,  their censers swinging to the  rhythm of the music;
the bearers raised  the canopy higher, counting their steps: "One, two; one,
two!" and Montanelli started upon the Way of the Cross.
     Down  the chancel steps and all along  the  nave he  passed;  under the
gallery where the organ pealed and thundered; under the lifted curtains that
were so red--so fearfully  red; and out into the  glaring street,  where the
blood-red roses lay and withered, crushed into the red carpet by the passing
of  many feet. A  moment's pause at  the door, while the lay  officials came
forward to replace the canopy-bearers; then the  procession moved  on again,
and he with it,  his hands clasping the Eucharistic sun,  and the voices  of
the choristers swelling and dying around him, with the rhythmical swaying of
censers and the rolling tramp of feet.
     "Verbum caro, panem verum, Verbo carnem efficit; Sitque sanguis Christi
merum----"
     Always blood and always blood! The  carpet stretched before him  like a
red river; the roses lay like blood splashed on the  stones----  Oh, God! Is
all  Thine earth grown red, and all Thy heaven? Ah, what is it to Thee, Thou
mighty God---- Thou, whose very lips are smeared with blood!
     "Tantum  ergo  Sacramentum,  Veneremur  cernui."He  looked  through the
crystal  shield at the Eucharist. What was  that  oozing  from  the  wafer--
dripping down  between the  points of the  golden sun--down on to his  white
robe? What had he seen dripping down--dripping from a lifted hand?
     The grass in the  courtyard was trampled and  red,--all red,--there was
so much blood.  It  was trickling  down the  cheek, and  dripping  from  the
pierced right hand, and gushing in a hot red torrent  from the wounded side.
Even a lock  of  the hair was dabbled in it,--the hair that lay all wet  and
matted  on the forehead--ah, that  was the  death-sweat;  it  came  from the
horrible pain.
     The voices of the choristers rose higher, triumphantly:
     "Genitori,  genitoque, Laus et jubilatio, Salus,  honor, virtus quoque,
Sit et benedictio."
     Oh, that is more than any patience can endure! God,  Who sittest on the
brazen  heavens  enthroned, and smilest with bloody lips, looking  down upon
agony and death, is it not enough? Is it not enough, without this mockery of
praise and blessing? Body of Christ, Thou that wast broken for the salvation
of men; blood of Christ,  Thou that wast shed  for the remission of sins; is
it not enough?
     "Ah, call Him louder; perchance He sleepeth!
     Dost Thou  sleep indeed, dear love; and wilt Thou never wake  again? Is
the grave so  jealous of its victory;  and will the black pit under the tree
not loose Thee even for a little, heart's delight?
     Then  the  Thing behind the crystal shield made answer, and  the  blood
dripped down as It spoke:
     "Hast  thou chosen, and wilt repent of  thy  choice? Is thy  desire not
fulfilled? Look upon these men  that walk  in the light and are clad in silk
and in gold: for their  sake was I  laid in  the black  pit. Look  upon  the
children scattering roses, and hearken to their singing if it  be sweet: for
their sake is my  mouth filled with dust, and  the  roses  are red from  the
well-springs of my heart. See where the people kneel to drink the blood that
drips  from  thy  garment-hem:  for their sake was  it shed, to quench their
ravening thirst. For it is written: 'Greater love  hath no man than this, if
a man lay down his life for his friends.'"
     "Oh, Arthur, Arthur; there is greater love than this! If a man lay down
the life of his best beloved, is not that greater?"
     And It answered again:
     "Who is thy best beloved? In sooth, not I."
     And when he  would  have spoken the words froze on his tongue,  for the
singing  of  the  choristers  passed over  them,  as the north wind over icy
pools, and hushed them into silence:
     "Dedit  fragilibus  corporis  ferculum, Dedit  et  tristibus  sanguinis
poculum, Dicens: Accipite, quod trado vasculum Omnes ex eo bibite."
     Drink of it, Christians; drink of it, all of you!  Is it not yours? For
you the red stream stains the grass; for you the living flesh is seared  and
torn. Eat of  it, cannibals; eat  of it, all of you!  This is your feast and
your orgy; this is the day of your joy! Haste you and come to  the festival;
join the procession and march with us; women and children, young men and old
men--come to  the  sharing of  flesh! Come  to the pouring of blood-wine and
drink of it while it is red; take and eat of the Body----
     Ah, God; the fortress! Sullen and brown, with crumbling battlements and
towers  dark among the barren hills, it scowled on the  procession  sweeping
past in the  dusty  road below. The iron teeth of  the portcullis were drawn
down  over  the  mouth  of  the  gate;  and  as  a  beast  crouched  on  the
mountain-side, the fortress guarded  its prey.  Yet,  be the teeth  clenched
never so fast, they shall  be broken and riven asunder; and the grave in the
courtyard  within  shall yield up  her dead.  For  the  Christian hosts  are
marching, marching in mighty procession to their sacramental feast of blood,
as  marches an army  of  famished  rats to the gleaning;  and their cry  is:
"Give! Give!" and they say not: "It is enough."
     "Wilt thou not be satisfied? For  these men was I sacrificed; thou hast
destroyed me that  they might live;  and behold, they  march everyone on his
ways, and they shall not break their ranks.
     "This is  the army of Christians,  the  followers of  thy  God; a great
people and  a strong. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them  a flame
burneth; the land is as the  garden of Eden before them, and  behind them  a
desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them."
     "Oh, yet  come back, come back to me, beloved; for  I repent  me  of my
choice! Come back, and we will creep away together, to some dark and  silent
grave where  the devouring army shall not find us; and we will lay  us  down
there,  locked in one  another's arms,  and sleep, and sleep, and sleep. And
the  hungry  Christians shall pass  by in the merciless daylight  above  our
heads; and when they howl for blood to drink and for flesh to eat, their cry
shall be faint in  our ears; and they shall pass on their ways and  leave us
to our rest."
     And It answered yet again:
     "Where shall  I hide me? Is it not written: 'They shall run to and  fro
in  the  city; they shall  run upon the wall;  they  shall climb up upon the
houses;  they  shall enter in at the windows  like a thief?' If I build me a
tomb on the mountain-top, shall they not break it open? If I dig  me a grave
in  the river-bed,  shall they not  tear it  up?  Verily, they  are keen  as
blood-hounds to seek out their  prey;  and for them are my  wounds red, that
they may drink. Canst thou not hear them, what they sing?"
     And  they sang,  as they went in  between the  scarlet  curtains of the
Cathedral door; for the procession was over, and all the roses were strewn:
     "Ave, verum  Corpus, natum  De Maria Virgine: Vere passum, immolatum In
cruce  pro homine! Cujus  latus  perforatum Undam fluxit cum sanguinae; Esto
nobis praegustatum Mortis in examinae."
     And when they  had left off singing, he  entered at  the  doorway,  and
passed between the silent rows of monks and priests, where  they knelt, each
man in his place, with the lighted candles uplifted. And he saw their hungry
eyes fixed on the sacred Body that he bore; and he knew why they bowed their
heads as he passed.  For the dark stream  ran  down the folds of  his  white
vestments;  and on the  stones  of the Cathedral floor his footsteps left  a
deep, red stain.
     So he passed  up the nave  to  the chancel rails; and there the bearers
paused, and he went out  from under the canopy and up to the altar steps. To
left and right  the white-robed  acolytes knelt with  their censers and  the
chaplains with their torches;  and their eyes shone greedily in the  flaring
light as they watched the Body of the Victim.
     And as he  stood  before  the  altar, holding aloft  with blood-stained
hands the torn and mangled body of  his murdered  love,  the  voices of  the
guests bidden to the Eucharistic feast rang out in another peal of song:
     "Oh  salutaris  Hostia,  Quae  coeli  pandis  ostium;   Bella  praemunt
hostilia, Da robur, fer, auxilium!"
     Ah, and now they come to take the Body----  Go then, dear heart, to thy
bitter doom,  and  open the  gates of  heaven for these ravening wolves that
will  not be denied. The gates that are opened for me  are the gates of  the
nethermost hell.
     And  as  the deacon of  honour  placed the sacred vessel  on the altar,
Montanelli sank down where he had  stood, and knelt  upon the step; and from
the white altar above him the  blood flowed down  and dripped upon his head.
And the voices of the singers rang on, pealing under the  arches and echoing
along the vaulted roof:
     "Uni  trinoque Domino  Sit sempiterna gloria:  Qui vitam  sine  termino
Nobis donet in patria."
     "Sine  termino--sine termino!" Oh,  happy Jesus, Who could sink beneath
His cross! Oh, happy  Jesus, Who could  say: "It is finished!" This doom  is
never ended; it  is eternal as  the stars in their courses. This is the worm
that  dieth not  and  the fire that  is  not quenched.  "Sine  termino, sine
termino!"
     Wearily,  patiently,  he  went   through  his  part  in  the  remaining
ceremonies, fulfilling mechanically,  from old  habit, the rites that had no
longer any meaning for him. Then, after the benediction, he knelt down again
before the altar and covered  his face; and the voice  of the priest reading
aloud the list of indulgences swelled and sank like a far-off  murmur from a
world to which he belonged no more.
     The voice  broke  off,  and he stood up and stretched out  his hand for
silence. Some  of the congregation were moving  towards the doors; and  they
turned back  with a hurried rustle and murmur, as a whisper went through the
Cathedral:
     "His Eminence is going to speak."
     His  ministers,  startled and wondering, drew closer to  him and one of
them whispered hastily: "Your Eminence, do you intend to speak to the people
now?"
     Montanelli silently waved him aside. The priests  drew back, whispering
together; the  thing was  unusual,  even irregular;  but  it was  within the
Cardinal's prerogative if he chose to do it. No doubt, he had some statement
of exceptional importance  to make; some new reform from Rome to announce or
a special communication from the Holy Father.
     Montanelli looked  down from the  altar-steps upon the sea  of upturned
faces. Full  of  eager  expectancy they looked  up at him as he stood  above
them, spectral and still and white.
     "Sh-sh!  Silence!" the leaders of the procession called softly; and the
murmuring of the  congregation died  into stillness, as a  gust of wind dies
among whispering  tree-tops. All the crowd  gazed up, in breathless silence,
at the  white figure on  the  altar-steps. Slowly and steadily  he  began to
speak:
     "It is  written in the Gospel according to St. John: 'God so  loved the
world, that He gave His only  begotten Son that the world through Him  might
be saved.'
     "This is the festival of the Body and Blood of the Victim who was slain
for your  salvation;  the Lamb  of God, which  taketh  away the  sins of the
world;  the  Son  of  God, Who  died  for your transgressions.  And you  are
assembled  here in solemn festival array, to eat of  the sacrifice  that was
given for you, and to render thanks for this  great  mercy. And  I know that
this morning, when you  came to share in the  banquet, to eat of the Body of
the Victim, your hearts were filled with joy, as  you remembered the Passion
of God the Son, Who died, that you might be saved.
     "But tell me, which among you has thought of that other Passion--of the
Passion of God  the  Father, Who gave  His Son to be crucified? Which of you
has remembered the agony of God the  Father, when He bent from His throne in
the heavens above, and looked down upon Calvary?
     "I have watched you  to-day, my people,  as you walked in your ranks in
solemn procession; and I  have seen that your hearts are glad within you for
the remission  of  your sins, and that you rejoice in your  salvation. Yet I
pray you  that you consider at what  price that salvation was bought. Surely
it is very precious, and the price of it is above rubies; it is the price of
blood."
     A  faint,  long  shudder passed  through  the listening crowd.  In  the
chancel the  priests bent  forward and  whispered to  one another;  but  the
preacher went on speaking, and they held their peace.
     "Therefore it is that I speak with you this day: I AM THAT I AM. For  I
looked upon your  weakness and  your  sorrow,  and  upon the little children
about your feet; and my heart was moved to  compassion for their  sake, that
they must die. Then  I looked  into my dear son's eyes; and I  knew that the
Atonement of Blood was there. And I went my way, and left him to his doom.
     "This is the remission of  sins. He died for you, and the  darkness has
swallowed him up; he is dead, and there is  no resurrection; he is dead, and
I have no son. Oh, my boy, my boy!"
     The Cardinal's voice broke in a long, wailing cry;  and the  voices  of
the terrified people answered it like an echo. All the clergy had risen from
their places, and the deacons of honour  started forward  to lay their hands
on the preacher's arm. But  he  wrenched  it  away, and faced them suddenly,
with the eyes of an angry wild beast.
     "What is this?  Is there not blood enough? Wait your turn, jackals; you
shall all be fed!"
     They shrank away and  huddled shivering  together, their panting breath
thick and  loud, their faces  white  with the whiteness of chalk. Montanelli
turned again to the people, and they swayed and shook before him, as a field
of corn before a hurricane.
     "You have killed him! You have killed him! And I suffered it, because I
would  not  let you  die. And now, when  you come about me  with your  lying
praises and your unclean prayers, I repent me--I repent me that I  have done
this thing! It  were better that you all  should  rot in  your vices, in the
bottomless filth of damnation, and that he should live. What is the worth of
your plague-spotted souls, that such a price should be paid for them? But it
is  too late--too late! I cry aloud, but he  does not hear me; I beat at the
door of the grave, but he will not wake; I stand alone, in desert space, and
look  around me, from the blood-stained earth  where  the  heart of my heart
lies  buried, to the void and awful heaven that is left unto me, desolate. I
have given him up; oh, generation of vipers, I have given him up for you!
     "Take your salvation, since it is yours! I fling it to you as a bone is
flung to a pack of snarling curs! The price of your banquet is paid for you;
come,  then,  and gorge yourselves,  cannibals, bloodsuckers--carrion beasts
that feed on  the dead! See where  the blood  streams down from  the  altar,
foaming and hot from  my  darling's heart--the blood that  was shed for you!
Wallow and lap it and smear yourselves red with it! Snatch and fight for the
flesh and devour it--and trouble me no more! This is the body that was given
for you--look  at it, torn  and  bleeding, throbbing still with the tortured
life, quivering from the bitter death-agony; take it, Christians, and eat!"
     He had  caught up the sun with the Host and  lifted it above  his head;
and now flung it crashing  down upon the floor. At  the ring of the metal on
stone the  clergy rushed  forward  together,  and  twenty  hands  seized the
madman.
     Then,  and  only then,  the silence  of the  people broke  in  a  wild,
hysterical  scream;  and, overturning  chairs  and  benches, beating  at the
doorways, trampling one upon another, tearing down curtains and  garlands in
their haste, the surging, sobbing human flood poured out upon the street.

        EPILOGUE.

     "GEMMA, there's a man downstairs who wants  to see  you." Martini spoke
in the subdued tone which they had  both unconsciously adopted during  these
last ten days. That,  and  a  certain slow evenness  of speech and movement,
were the sole expression which either of them gave to their grief.
     Gemma, with bare arms and an apron over her  dress,  was  standing at a
table, putting up little packages of  cartridges for  distribution.  She had
stood over the work since early morning; and now,  in the glaring afternoon,
her face looked haggard with fatigue.
     "A man, Cesare? What does he want?"
     "I don't know, dear. He wouldn't tell me. He said  he must speak to you
alone."
     "Very well." She took  off her apron and pulled down the sleeves of her
dress. "I must go to him, I suppose; but very likely it's only a spy."
     "In any case, I shall be in the next room, within call. As soon  as you
get rid  of him you had better go and lie down a bit. You have been standing
too long to-day."
     "Oh, no! I would rather go on working."
     She went slowly down the stairs, Martini following in silence.  She had
grown to  look ten years older in these few days, and the gray streak across
her hair had widened into a broad  band.  She  mostly kept her  eyes lowered
now; but  when,  by chance,  she  raised them,  he shivered at the horror in
their shadows.
     In the little parlour she found  a clumsy-looking man standing with his
heels  together  in the middle  of  the  floor.  His whole  figure  and  the
half-frightened way he looked up when she came in, suggested to her  that he
must  be one of  the  Swiss  guards. He  wore a  countryman's blouse,  which
evidently did not belong to him, and kept glancing round as though afraid of
detection.
     "Can you speak German?" he asked in the heavy Zurich patois.
     "A little. I hear you want to see me."
     "You are Signora Bolla? I've brought you a letter."
     "A--letter?" She was beginning to tremble, and  rested one hand  on the
table to steady herself.
     "I'm one of the guard over there." He pointed out of  the window to the
fortress on the hill. "It's from--the man that was shot  last week. He wrote
it the night before. I promised him I'd give it into your own hand myself."
     She bent her head down. So he had written after all.
     "That's why  I've been so long bringing  it," the soldier went on.  "He
said I was not to give it to anyone but you, and I couldn't get off before--
they watched me so. I had to borrow these things to come in."
     He was fumbling in the breast of  his blouse.  The weather was hot, and
the  sheet  of  folded  paper  that he pulled out  was  not  only dirty  and
crumpled, but damp. He stood for a moment  shuffling his feet uneasily; then
put up one hand and scratched the back of his head.
     "You  won't  say  anything," he began again timidly, with a distrustful
glance at her. "It's as much as my life's worth to have come here."
     "Of course I shall not say anything. No, wait a minute----"
     As he turned to go, she stopped him, feeling for her purse; but he drew
back, offended.
     "I don't  want your money," he said roughly. "I did it for him--because
he  asked  me  to. I'd have done more than  that  for him. He'd been good to
me--God help me!"
     The little catch in his voice made her look up. He was slowly rubbing a
grimy sleeve across his eyes.
     "We had  to shoot," he went on under his breath; "my mates and I. A man
must obey orders. We bungled  it, and  had to fire again-- and he laughed at
us--he called us the awkward squad--and he'd been good to me----"
     There was silence in the  room. A moment later  he straightened himself
up, made a clumsy military salute, and went away.
     She stood still for a little while with the paper in her hand; then sat
down  by the open window to read. The letter  was closely written in pencil,
and in some  parts  hardly legible. But the first  two words stood out quite
clear upon the page; and they were in English:
     "Dear Jim."
     The writing  grew suddenly blurred  and misty.  And  she  had  lost him
again--had lost him again! At the sight  of  the familiar  childish nickname
all the  hopelessness of her bereavement  came over her afresh, and she  put
out her  hands in blind desperation, as though the weight of the earth-clods
that lay above him were pressing on her heart.
     Presently she took up the paper again and went on reading:
     "I  am  to be  shot at sunrise to-morrow. So  if I am to keep at all my
promise to tell you everything, I must keep it now. But, after all, there is
not much  need of explanations between you and me. We always understood each
other without many words, even when we were little things.
     "And  so, you see,  my dear,  you had no need to break  your heart over
that old  story  of the blow. It was a  hard hit, of course; but I have  had
plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed  to get over them,--even to
pay  back a few  of them,--and here  I  am still, like  the mackerel in  our
nursery-book  (I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking, oh!'  This is my last
kick,  though; and  then,  to-morrow morning, and--'Finita la Commedia!' You
and I will translate that: 'The variety show is over';  and will give thanks
to the gods  that they  have had, at  least, so much mercy  on us. It is not
much, but  it is  something; and for this and all other  blessings may we be
truly thankful!
     "About that  same  to-morrow morning, I  want both  you  and Martini to
understand  clearly that I am quite happy  and  satisfied, and could  ask no
better thing  of Fate. Tell that to  Martini  as a message from  me; he is a
good  fellow and a  good  comrade, and he will understand. You see,  dear, I
know  that  the  stick-in-the-mud people  are  doing  us  a  good  turn  and
themselves a bad one by  going back to secret trials and executions so soon,
and  I know that if you who are left stand  together steadily  and hit hard,
you will see great things. As for me, I shall go out into the courtyard with
as light a heart as any child starting home for the holidays. I have done my
share of the work, and this death-sentence is the proof that I have done  it
thoroughly. They kill me because they are afraid  of me; and what  more  can
any man's heart desire?
     "It desires just one thing more, though. A man who  is going to die has
a right  to a personal fancy,  and mine  is  that you should  see why I have
always been such a sulky brute to  you, and so slow to forget old scores. Of
course, though, you understand why, and I tell you only for the pleasure  of
writing the words. I loved you,  Gemma, when you were an ugly little girl in
a  gingham  frock, with a scratchy tucker  and your hair in a pig-tail  down
your back; and I love you still. Do you remember that day when I kissed your
hand, and when you so piteously begged me 'never to do that again'? It was a
scoundrelly trick to play, I know; but you must forgive that; and now I kiss
the  paper  where I have written your name. So I have kissed  you twice, and
both times without your consent.
     "That is all. Good-bye, my dear."
     There was no signature, but a verse which they had learned together  as
children was written under the letter:
     "Then am I A happy fly, If I live Or if I die."
     . . . . .
     Half an hour later Martini entered the room,  and, startled out  of the
silence  of half a life-time, threw down  the  placard  he was  carrying and
flung his arms about her.
     "Gemma! What is it, for God's sake? Don't sob like that--you that never
cry! Gemma! Gemma, my darling!"
     "Nothing, Cesare; I will tell you afterwards--I  --can't  talk about it
just now."
     She  hurriedly  slipped the tear-stained  letter into  her pocket; and,
rising, leaned out of the  window to hide  her face. Martini held his tongue
and bit his moustache. After  all these years he had betrayed himself like a
schoolboy--and she had not even noticed it!
     "The Cathedral bell is tolling," she said after a little while, looking
round with recovered self-command. "Someone must be dead."
     "That is what I came  to  show you," Martini  answered in his  everyday
voice. He picked up the placard from the floor and handed it to her. Hastily
printed  in large type was a black-bordered  announcement that: "Our  dearly
beloved Bishop, His Eminence  the  Cardinal, Monsignor Lorenzo  Montanelli,"
had died  suddenly at Ravenna,  "from  the rupture of  an  aneurism  of  the
heart."
     She  glanced  up  quickly from  the paper,  and  Martini  answered  the
unspoken suggestion in her eyes with a shrug of his shoulders.
     "What  would you  have, Madonna?  Aneurism  is as  good  a word as  any
other."