open, and to my horror I saw on its back,
between its angelically white shoulders, burnt in as if by branding
irons, the crucifix--and _upside down_!"

I shuddered. I knew. He lowered his voice and spoke in detached phrases.

"It was--oh! that I live to say it--it was the dreaded Antichrist--yes,
this Russian baby--it was predicted that he would be born in Russia--I
trembled so that my robes waved in an invisible wind. The reversed
cross--the mark of the beast--the sign by which we are to know the Human
Satan--the last opponent of Christianity. I confess that I was
discomposed at the sight of this little fiend, for it meant that the red
star, the baleful star of the north, would rise in the black heavens and
bloody war spread among the nations of the earth. It also meant that
doomsday was not far off, and, good Christian as I believe myself to be,
a shiver ran down my spine at the idea of Gabriel's trump and the
resurrection of the dead. Yes, I shan't deny it--so material are the
sons of men, I among them! And the very thought of Judgment Day and its
blasting horrors withered my heart. Still something had to be done,
prophecy or no prophecy. To fulfil the letter of the law this infernal
visitor was let loose from hell. There was one way, so I grasped--"

"Great God, Monsignor, you didn't strangle the demon?" I cried.

"No, no--something better. I rushed over to a marble wash-basin and
seized a ewer of water, and, going back to the crib, despite the frantic
remonstrances of the old sorceress, I baptized the Antichrist in the
name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Before my eyes I
saw the inverted cross vanish. Then I soundly spanked the presumptuous
youngster and, running down the staircase, I sought the prince and said
to him:--

"'Your boy is now a Roman, not a Greek Catholic. We are quits!'"

The idea of a spanked Antichrist disconsolately roaming the earth,
unwilling to return to his fiery home for fear of a scolding, his guns
of evil spiked, his virus innocuous, his mission of spiritual
destruction a failure--for what could a baptized devil's child do but
pray and repent?--all this dawned upon me, and I burst into laughter,
the worthy Monsignor discreetly participating. His bizarre recital
proved to me that, despite his Gallic first name, Monsignor Anatole
O'Bourke hailed from the County Tipperary.

VIII

THE ETERNAL DUEL

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

--D.G