hing 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;