, if God had
stricken him so severely by suppressing his race, if the greatest and
most faithful were thus punished, it must be that the world was
definitively condemned. Did not the end of his house mean the approaching
end of all? And in his sovereign pride as priest and as prince, he found
a cry of supreme resignation, once more raising his hands on high:
"Almighty God, Thy will be done! May all die, all fall, all return to the
night of chaos! I shall remain standing in this ruined palace, waiting to
be buried beneath its fragments. And if Thy will should summon me to bury
Thy holy religion, be without fear, I shall do nothing unworthy to
prolong its life for a few days! I will maintain it erect, like myself,
as proud, as uncompromising as in the days of all its power. I will yield
nothing, whether in discipline, or in rite, or in dogma. And when the day
shall come I will bury it with myself, carrying it whole into the grave
rather than yielding aught of it, encompassing it with my cold arms to
restore it to Thee, even as Thou didst commit it to the keeping of Thy
Church. O mighty God and sovereign Master, dispose of me, make me if such
be Thy good pleasure the pontiff of destruction, the pontiff of the death
of the world."

Pierre, who was thunderstruck, quivered with fear and admiration at the
extraordinary vision this evoked: the last of the popes interring
Catholicism. He understood that Boccanera must at times have made that
dream; he could see him in the Vatican, in St. Peter's which the
thunderbolts had riven asunder, he could see him erect and alone in the
spacious halls whence his terrified, cowardly pontifical Court had fled.
Clad in his white cassock, thus wearing white mourning for the Church, he
once more descended to the sanctuary, there to wait for heaven to fall on
the evening of Time's accomplishment and annihilate the earth. Thrice he
raised the large crucifix, overthrown by the supreme convulsions of the
soil. Then, when the final crack rent the steps apart, he caught it in
his arms and was annihilated with it beneath the falling vaults. And
nothing could be more instinct with fierce and kingly grandeur.

Voiceless, but without weakness, his lofty stature invincible and erect
in spite of all, Cardinal Boccanera made a gesture dismissing Pierre, who
yielding to his passion for truth and beauty found that he alone was
great and right, and respectfully kissed his hand.

It was in the throne-room, wi